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==Symbols==
==Symbols==
{{IPA notice}}
{{IPA notice}}
Devanagari, like nearly all Brahmi scripts, is ordered based on [[phonetics|phonetic]] principles, considering both [[manner of articulation|manner]] and [[place of articulation]], as per ''Sanskrit'' and its ''grammatical tradition'' (cf. [[Vyakarana]]). Indeed, Devanagari as used for [[Sanskrit]] serves as the prototype for its application, with minor variations or additions, to other languages<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Salomon|2003|p=75}}</ref>. The below two tables are based on {{Harvcoltxt|Wikner|1996|pp=13, 14, 73}}.
Devanagari, like nearly all Brahmi scripts, is ordered based on [[phonetics|phonetic]] principles, considering both [[manner of articulation|manner]] and [[place of articulation]], as per ''Sanskrit'' and its ''grammatical tradition'' (cf. [[Vyakarana]]). Indeed, Devanagari as used for [[Sanskrit]] serves as the prototype for its application, with minor variations or additions, to other languages<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Salomon|2003|p=75}}</ref>. The below two tables are based on {{Harvcoltxt|Wikner|1996|pp=13, 14, 73}}. This arrangement is usually referred to as the ''varṇamālā'' "[[garland]] of letters"<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Salomon|2003|p=71}}</ref>.
===Vowels===
===Vowels===
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{|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center; font-size:120%; height:400px; width:60%"

Revision as of 21:39, 5 February 2008

Template:IndicTextRight Devanāgarī (देवनागरी) is an abugida script. It is the main script used to write the Hindi, Marathi, and Nepali languages. Since the 19th century, it has become the most common script used to represent Sanskrit. Other languages using Devanagari (although not always as their only or principal script) include Sindhi, Bihari, Bhili, Marwari, Konkani, Bhojpuri, Pahari (Garhwali and Kumaoni), Santhali, Newari, Tharu, and Kashmiri. It is written and read from left to right.

Devanāgarī abugida
Rigveda manuscript in Devanāgarī (early 19th century)
Script type
Time period
~1200 CE to the present
DirectionLeft-to-right Edit this on Wikidata
RegionIndia and Nepal
LanguagesSeveral Indo-Aryan languages, including Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Nepali, Bihari, Bhili, Konkani, Bhojpuri, Newari and sometimes Sindhi and Kashmiri
Related scripts
Parent systems
Child systems
Gujarati
Sister systems
Eastern Nagari
ISO 15924
ISO 15924Deva (315), ​Devanagari (Nagari)
Unicode
Unicode alias
Devanagari
 This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.
Brahmic scripts
The Brahmi script and its descendants
Northern Brahmic
Southern Brahmic

Origins

Devanāgarī emerged around CE 1200 out of the Siddham script, gradually replacing the earlier, closely related Sharada script (which remained in parallel use in Kashmir). Both are immediate descendants of the Gupta script, ultimately deriving from the Brāhmī script attested from the 3rd century BCE; Nāgarī appeared in approx. the 8th century as an eastern variant of the Gupta script, contemporary to Sharada, its western variant. The descendants of Brahmi form the Brahmic family, including the alphabets employed for many other South and South-East Asian languages.

Sanskrit nāgarī is the feminine of nāgara "urban(e)", an adjectival vrddhi derivative from nagara "city"; the feminine form is used because of its original application to qualify the feminine noun lipi "script" ("urban(e) script", i.e. the script of the cultured). There were several varieties in use, one of which was distinguished by affixing deva "deity" to form a tatpurusha compound meaning the "urban(e) [script] of the deities (= gods)", i.e. "divine urban(e) [script]".

The widespread use of the name Devanāgarī is relatively recent; well into the twentieth century, and even today, simply Nāgarī was also in use for this same script. The rapid spread of the usage of Devanāgarī seems also to be connected with the almost exclusive use of this script in colonial times to publish works in Sanskrit, even though traditionally nearly all indigenous scripts had been employed for this language. This has led to the establishment of such a close connection between the script and Sanskrit that it is, erroneously, widely regarded as "the Sanskrit script" today.

Principles

As a Brahmic abugida, the fundamental principle of the Devanagari writing system is that each base consonantal character carries within it an inherent vowel a [ə]. That is, an unmarked consonant sign is assumed to represent that consonant plus the inherent vowel[1]; e.g. क ka, कन kana, कनय kanaya, etc. Flowing from this core feature are a number of other features.

  • Consonant clusters lacking intervening vowels are represented by physically joined and condensed ligatures or "conjuncts" (saṃyuktākṣara); e.g. कनय kanaya → क्नय knaya, कन्य kanya, क्न्य knya.
  • For postconsonantal vowels other than inherent a, the consonant symbol is applied with diacritics; e.g. क ka → के ke, कु ku, की kī, का kā.
    • For non-postconsonantal vowels (initial and post-vocalic positions), there are full-formed characters. Thus ū is ू in कू kū but ऊ in ऊक ūka and कऊ kaū.
  • The diacritic ્, called the virāma or halanta, indicates cancellation of the inherent vowel; e.g. क्नय knaya → क्नय् knay.

Thus the basic unit is the graphic symbol or akṣara, with phonetic structures V or (C)(C)(C)(C)C(V). Finally, Devanagari is written from left to right, lacks distinct cases, and possesses a horizontal line running above the characters, linking them together.

Symbols

This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Devanagari, like nearly all Brahmi scripts, is ordered based on phonetic principles, considering both manner and place of articulation, as per Sanskrit and its grammatical tradition (cf. Vyakarana). Indeed, Devanagari as used for Sanskrit serves as the prototype for its application, with minor variations or additions, to other languages[2]. The below two tables are based on Wikner (1996:13, 14, 73). This arrangement is usually referred to as the varṇamālā "garland of letters"[3].

Vowels

Independent form Romanized As diacritic with प Independent form Romanized As diacritic with प
kaṇṭhya
(Guttural) 		अ a प आ ā पा
tālavya
(Palatal) 		इ i पि ई ī पी
oṣṭhya
(Labial) 		उ u पु ऊ ū पू
mūrdhanya
(Cerebral) 		ऋ

ṛ

पृ ॠ

ṝ

पॄ
dantya
(Dental) 		ऌ

ḷ

पॢ ॡ

ḹ

पॣ
kaṇṭhatālavya
(Palato-Guttural) 		ए ē पे ऐ ai पै
kaṇṭhoṣṭhya
(Labio-Guttural) 		ओ ō पो औ au पौ

ँ. Salomon (2003:76–77) notes it as a "more emphatic form" of the anusvāra, "sometimes [...] used to mark a true [vowel] nasalization". In a New Indo-Aryan language such as Hindi the distinction is clear and formal: the candrabindu represents vowel nasalization[5] while the anusvār shorthands as the homorganic nasal consonant[6]; e.g. हँसी [ɦə̃si] "laughter, गंगा [gəŋgɑ] "Ganges". However, when a syllable has a vowel sign above the top line that leaves no room for the candrabindu's candra ("moon") portion, then it is dispensed with in favour of the lone dot[7]; e.g. हूँ [ɦũ] "am", but हैं [ɦɛ̃] "are". Finally, some writers and typesetters dispense with the "moon" altogether, using the dot alone all of the time[8].

  • The avagraha ऽ (usually transliterated with an apostrophe) is a punctuational sign indicating the elision or coalescence of a vowel in Sanskrit as a result of sandhi; e.g. एकोऽयम ekoyam (< ekas + ayam) "this one". An original long vowel lost by coalescence is sometimes indicated by a double avagraha; e.g. सदाऽऽत्मा sadātmā (< sadā + ātmā) "always, the self".[9] In Hindi, Snell (2000:77) states that its "main function is to show that a vowel is sustained in a cry or a shout"; e.g. आईऽऽऽ! āīīī!.

Consonants

sparśa
(Plosive) 		anunāsika
(Nasal) 		antaḥstha
(Semivowel) 		ūṣman
(Fricative)
Voicing → aghoṣa ghoṣa aghoṣa ghoṣa
Aspiration → alpaprāṇa mahāprāṇa alpaprāṇa mahāprāṇa alpaprāṇa mahāprāṇa
kaṇṭhya
(Guttural) 		क ka ख kha ग ga घ gha ङ

ṅa

ह

ha

tālavya
(Palatal) 		च ca छ cha ज ja झ jha ञ ña य ya श śa
mūrdhanya
(Cerebral) 		ट

ṭa

ठ

ṭha

ड

ḍa

ढ

ḍha

ण

ṇa

र ra ष

ṣa

dantya
(Dental) 		त ta थ tha द da ध dha न na ल la स sa
oṣṭhya
(Labial) 		प pa फ pha ब ba भ bha म ma व va

At the end of the traditional table of alphabets, two clustered characters are also added, which are shown in the table below. Also shown above them is another character, used in Vedic Sanskrit, Marathi, and Rajasthani.

Transliteration Pronunciation (IPA)
IAST ITRANS Sanskrit Hindi Marathi
ळ ḷa||

La||colspan="2"| ||/ɭə/

क्ष kṣa||

kSha||/kʂə/||colspan="2"|/kʃə/

ज्ञ jña||

jña||/dʒɲə/||/ɡjə/||/dnjə/

No new shapes were formulated beyond that of the Sanskritic set. Internal developments and foreign borrowings (i.e. Persian) were dealt with by the use of diacritics on existing characters, the most prolific diacritic being the underlying nukta or bindu ("dot"). The accommodation was that of a dot beneath the letter representing the nearest approximate sound. These are not included in the traditional listing.

ITRANS IPA
क़ qa /qə/
ख़ Ka /xə/
ग़ Ga /ɢə/
ज़ za /zə/
फ़ fa /fə/
य़ Ya /ʒə/
ड़ .Da /ɽə/
ढ़ .Dha /ɽʱə/

The implosives of Sindhi are accommodated with underlining.

Implosive
Voiced
Velar ग /ɠə/
Palatal ज /ʄə/
Alveolar ड /ɗə/
Labial ब /ɓə/

Ligatures

File:JanaSanskritSans ddhrya.png
The ddhrya-ligature (द्ध्र्य) of JanaSanskritSans.
You will only be able to see the ligatures if your system has a Unicode font installed that includes the required ligature glyphs (e.g. one of the TDIL fonts, see "external links" below).

Clusters of two or more consonants are written by combining the aksharas into ligatures. There is a great deal of variation of these ligatures in manuscripts, but a few patterns dominate:

  1. The 22 aksharas with a vertical stroke drop the stroke and join directly to the following akshara, which retains its full form. Ś has an irregular combining form. The combining form of t joins with the vertical stroke of the following akshara in many cases, such as tva; this is almost always the case for tta. (See the first table below).
  2. Consonant clusters involving r are treated as a special case: preceding r- is realized as a right-facing hook above the following akshara, and a following -r appears as a slanted stroke attached to the vertical stroke of the preceding akshara, which retains its full form.
  3. In cases of aksharas that do not have vertical strokes in their independent form, the following akshara minus its horizontal stroke may be placed underneath. (See the image below.) However, in many modern typefaces, only d, k, and h behave this way. (See the first table below.) [Except for kt, most fonts don't support sub-ligatures for the akshara with right hooks, k, ch, and ph, as they're rare, and instead shorten their hooks and join them directly to a following akshara.]
  4. The retroflex stops and velar nasal, ṭ, ṭh, ḍ, ḍh, and ṅ, do not form ligatures, except with a following r, which takes the form of a check rather than a single stroke.
  5. In some cases, the ligatures take forms not readily recognizable as composed of the individual aksharas.
  6. When the second consonant is n, it may retain its full form as other akshara do, but usually it drops to combine at the bottom of the preceding akshara, which retains its full form. (See the second table below.)
Examples of ligature forms
1. Vertical stroke ग्ल gla न्त nta स्क ska श्व śva त्त tta
2. Diacritic r र्न rna न्र nra र्त rta त्र tra र्र rra
3. Combines
below 		द्ग dga द्घ dgha द्द dda द्ध ddha द्न dna
द्ब dba द्भ dbha द्म dma द्य dya द्व dva
क्त kta ह्ण hṇa ह्म hma ह्य hya ह्र hra
4. Two-stroke r ट्र ṭra ठ्र ṭhra ड्र ḍra ढ्र ḍhra ङ्र ṅra
5. Other क्ष kṣa क्ष्म kṣma ज्ञ jña न्त्व ntva न्त्र्य ntrya

All consonants which do not take a vowel are so affected. That is, in the cluster ntva, both the n and the t take combining half forms, and in kṣma, the kṣ ligature takes a combining form, as in row 5. of the table above.

6. Ligatures with n as second element
ka-group क्न kna ख्न khna ग्न gna घ्न ghna
ta-group त्न tna थ्न thna द्न dna ध्न dhna न्न nna
pa-group प्न pna फ्न phna ब्न bna भ्न bhna म्न mna
ya-group — र्न rna ल्न lna व्न vna
va-group श्न śna ष्न ṣna स्न sna ह्न hna

List of "compound consonants" from Monier-Williams' 1846 Elementary Grammar

Accent marks

Main article: Vedic accent

The pitch accent of Vedic Sanskrit is written with various symbols depending on shakha. In the Rigveda, anudatta is written with a bar below the line (॒), svarita with a stroke above the line (॑) while udatta is unmarked.

Numerals

See also: Indian numerals, Brahmi numerals, and Hindu-Arabic numeral system
Devanāgarī numerals
० १ २ ३ ४ ५ ६ ७ ८ ९
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Transliteration

Main article: Devanagari transliteration

There are several methods of transliteration from Devanāgarī into Roman scripts. The most widely used transliteration method is IAST. However, there are other transliteration options.

The following are the major transliteration methods for Devanāgarī:

ISO 15919

Main article: ISO 15919

A standard transliteration convention was codified in the ISO 15919 standard of 2001. It uses diacritics to map the much larger set of Brahmic graphemes to the Latin script. See also Transliteration of Indic scripts: how to use ISO 15919. The Devanagari-specific portion is nearly identical to the academic standard for Sanskrit, IAST.

IAST

The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) is the academic standard for the romanization of Sanskrit. IAST is the de-facto standard used in printed publications, like books and magazines, and with the wider availability of Unicode fonts, it is also increasingly used for electronic texts. It is based on a standard established by the Congress of Orientalists at Athens in 1912.

The National Library at Kolkata romanization, intended for the romanization of all Indic scripts, is an extension of IAST.

Harvard-Kyoto

Compared to IAST, Harvard-Kyoto looks much simpler. It does not contain all the diacritic marks that IAST contains. This makes typing in Harvard-Kyoto much easier than IAST. Harvard-Kyoto uses capital letters that can be difficult to read in the middle of words.

ITRANS

ITRANS is a lossless transliteration scheme of Devanāgarī into ASCII that is widely used on Usenet. It is an extension of the Harvard-Kyoto scheme. In ITRANS, the word Devanāgarī is written as "devanaagarii". ITRANS is associated with an application of the same name that enables typesetting in Indic scripts. The user inputs in Roman letters and the ITRANS pre-processor displays the Roman letters into Devanāgarī (or other Indic languages). The latest version of ITRANS is version 5.30 released in July, 2001.

ALA-LC Romanization

ALA-LC romanization is a transliteration scheme approved by the Library of Congress and the American Library Association, and widely used in North American libraries. Transliteration tables are based on languages, so there is a table for Hindi, one for Sanskrit and Prakrit, etc.

Encodings

ISCII

ISCII is a fixed-length 8-bit encoding. The lower 128 codepoints are plain ASCII, the upper 128 codepoints are ISCII-specific.

It has been designed for representing not only Devanāgarī, but also various other Indic scripts as well as a Latin-based script with diacritic marks used for transliteration of the Indic scripts.

ISCII has largely been superseded by Unicode, which has however attempted to preserve the ISCII layout for its Indic language blocks.

Devanāgarī in Unicode

The Unicode range for Devanāgarī is U+0900 .. U+097F. Grey blocks indicate characters that are undefined.

Devanagari[1]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
U+090x ऀ ँ ं ः ऄ अ आ इ ई उ ऊ ऋ ऌ ऍ ऎ ए
U+091x ऐ ऑ ऒ ओ औ क ख ग घ ङ च छ ज झ ञ ट
U+092x ठ ड ढ ण त थ द ध न ऩ प फ ब भ म य
U+093x र ऱ ल ळ ऴ व श ष स ह ऺ ऻ ़ ऽ ा ि
U+094x ी ु ू ृ ॄ ॅ ॆ े ै ॉ ॊ ो ौ ् ॎ ॏ
U+095x ॐ ॑ ॒ ॓ ॔ ॕ ॖ ॗ क़ ख़ ग़ ज़ ड़ ढ़ फ़ य़
U+096x ॠ ॡ ॢ ॣ । ॥ ० १ २ ३ ४ ५ ६ ७ ८ ९
U+097x ॰ ॱ ॲ ॳ ॴ ॵ ॶ ॷ ॸ ॹ ॺ ॻ ॼ ॽ ॾ ॿ
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 15.1

Devanāgarī Keyboard Layouts

Devanāgarī and Devanāgarī-QWERTY keyboard layouts for Mac OS X

The Mac OS X operating system supports convenient editing for the Devanāgarī script by insertion of appropriate Unicode characters with two different keyboard layouts available for use. To input Devanāgarī text, one goes to System Preferences → International → Input Menu and enables the keyboard layout that is to be used. One then views the keyboard layout at the Indian Language Kit Manual at Apple Docs.

for example, the Devanāgarī-qwerty layout is:
File:Devanagari-qwerty-layout.jpg File:Devanagari-qwerty-layout-option.jpg

INSCRIPT / KDE Linux

INSCRIPT Keyboard Layout (Windows, Solaris, Java)
INSCRIPT Keyboard Layout (Windows, Solaris, Java)

This is the India keyboard layout for Linux (variant 'deva')

Typewriter

Standard typewriter keyboard layout used in India
Standard typewriter keyboard layout used in India

Phonetic

Bolnagri phonetic keyboard layout for Linux

See Bolnagri Home Page

See also

Software

References

  1. ^ Salomon (2003:70)
  2. ^ Salomon (2003:75)
  3. ^ Salomon (2003:71)
  4. ^ Wikner (1996:6)
  5. ^ Snell (2000:44–45)
  6. ^ Snell (2000:64)
  7. ^ Snell (2000:45)
  8. ^ Snell (2000:46)
  9. ^ Salomon (2003:77)

Bibliography

External links

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Devanagari

Electronic typesetting

Fonts

Documentation

Tools and applications

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