(Redirected from Devanagari script)
'' (देवनागरी, ) is an
abugida script used to write several
Indian languages, including
Sanskrit,
Hindi,
Marathi,
Sindhi,
Bihari,
Bhili,
Marwari,
Konkani,
Bhojpuri, languages from Nepal like
Nepali,
Nepal Bhasa, Tharu and sometimes
Kashmiri and
Romani. It is written and read from left to right.
The transliteration used in this article follows the scholarly
IAST and popular
ITRANS conventions.
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.
Etymology
Sanskrit '' is the feminine of '' "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]". However, the widespread use of "Devanāgarī" is a relatively recent phenomenon; well into the twentieth century, and even today, simply was also in use for this same script. The rapid spread of the usage of 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 have actually 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.
Interpreted by
popular etymology to refer to a "City of the Gods", the name in certain
Yogic traditions was taken to refer to the body of the individual. The philosophy behind this is that when one
meditates on the specific
sounds of the Devanāgarī alphabet, the written forms appear spontaneously in the mind.
Principles
The Devanāgarī
writing system can be called an
abugida, as each consonant has an inherent vowel (''a''), that can be changed with the different vowel signs. Devanāgarī is written from left to right. A top line linking characters is thought represent the line of the page with characters historically being written under the line. In Sanskrit, words were originally written together without spaces, so that the top line was unbroken, although there were some exceptions to this rule. The break of the top line primarily marks
breath groups. In modern languages, word breaks are used.
Devanāgarī has 12 ''svara'' (pure sounds, or
vowels) and 34 '' (ornamented sounds,
consonants). An ''
'' is formed by the combination of one ( or none )''vyañjana'' and one or more ''svara'', and represents a phonetic unit of the ''
śabda'' (utterance). The '' is written by applying standard diacritical modifiers to the ''vyañjana'' corresponding to the ''svara''. An '' is usually more basic and predictable than the
syllable in English. For example, the English 'cat' (considered to have just one syllable in English) is written as two '', the 'ka' and the 'ta'.
The ''svara'' and '' are ordered and grouped logically for studying or reciting. Thus the pure sounds, 'a', 'i', 'u' and their lengthened versions ('ā', 'ī', 'ū') are followed by the combined ('e', 'ai', 'o', 'au'), nasal ('') and aspirated ('') forms. The ''vyañjana'' themselves are grouped into 6 groups (rows) of 5 (columns). The first five rows progress as velar, palatal, retroflex, dental and labial, corresponding to utilizing or touching the tongue to progressively outer parts of the mouth when making the sound. Additional '' are technically sonorants, sibilants, or widely used conjunct forms. For each row or group, the columns logically progress to softer sounds, paired with aspirated forms, ending in the nasal form for that group.
Most consonants can be joined to one or two other consonants so that the inherent vowel is suppressed. The resulting conjunct form is called a
ligature. Many ligatures appear simply as two individual consonants joined together, and so are a form of ligature. Some ligatures are more elaborately formed and not as easily recognized as containing the individual consonants.
When reading Sanskrit written in Devanāgarī, the pronunciation is completely unambiguous. Similarly, any word in Sanskrit is considered to be written only in one manner (discounting modern typesetting variations in depicting conjunct forms). However, for modern languages, certain conventions have been made (e.g. truncating the vowel form of the last consonant while speaking, even as it continues to be written in full form). There are also some modern conventions for writing English words in Devanāgarī.
Certain Sanskrit texts and ''mantras'' are typically written with additional diacritical marks above and below the '' to denote pitch and tempo, to ensure completely accurate reproduction of the sound.
Symbols of Devanāgarī
All the vowels in Devanāgarī are attached to the top or bottom of the consonant or to an <aa> vowel sign attached to the right of the consonant, with the exception of the <i> vowel sign, which is attached on the left. In the Devanāgarī vowel table below, the "Letter" column contains the symbol used when a vowel occurs without a consonant, the "Vowel sign with <p>" column contains the symbol used when a vowel is attached to a consonant, shown with the <p> letter as an example, the "Unicode name" column contains the name given in the
Unicode specification for the vowel, and the "IPA" column contains the
International Phonetic Alphabet character(s) corresponding to pronunciations of the Devanāgarī character.
Vowels
| Characters | Transliteration | Pronunciation (IPA) |
|---|
| Independent | Dependent | Dependent
with प | IAST | ITRANS | Sanskrit | Western
Hindi[1] | Bhojpuri[1] | Marathi[1] |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| अ | | प | a | a | colspan="2" | a | |
| आ | ा | पा | ā | A | colspan="3" | a |
| इ | ि | पि | i | i | | colspan="2" | rowspan="2"|i |
| ई | ी | पी | ī | I | |
| उ | ु | पु | u | u | | colspan="2" | rowspan="2"|u |
| ऊ | ू | पू | ū | U | |
| ए | े | पे | e | e | colspan="2" | e, | e |
| ओ | ो | पो | o | o | colspan="2" | o, | o |
| ऐ | ै | पै | ai | ai | | æː | | əi |
| औ | ौ | पौ | au | au | | colspan="2" | əu |
| ऋ | ृ | पृ | | R | | colspan="2" | |
| ॠ | ॄ | पॄ | | RR | | |
| ऌ | ॢ | पॢ | | LR | |
| ॡ | ॣ | पॣ | | LRR | |
| ऍ | ॅ | पॅ | | æ |
| ऑ | ॉ | पॉ | |
★ Displayed are the pronunciations of each character in
Sanskrit and three representative New Indo-Aryan languages:
Western Hindi,
Bhojpuri, and
Marathi.
★ The short
open-mid front unrounded vowel (: as ''e'' in g'e't), does not have any symbol or diacritic in some usages of Devanāgarī script. In several Hindi dialects, the vowel is expressed as an allophonic variant of
schwa when it occurs before sounds like ''ha''; eg., is pronounced as instead of as .
★ The short open-mid back rounded vowel () is not traditionally represented in Devanāgarī, but a new symbol has been invented for it in order to account for the pronunciation of English loanwords: , eg. पॉ.
Consonants
The table below shows the traditional Sanskrit matrix of the core consonantal characters, along with IAST and IPA. While this sound set has remained the same for the most part, changes or alternate pronunciations are included in fields where applicable, with the Sanskrit pronunciations on top. All consonant characters are inherently followed by the neutral vowel
schwa.
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 | | | | |
| क्ष | | | | |
| ज्ञ | | | | | |
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. Note that both ऋ and ड़ use in
IAST.
| ITRANS | IPA |
|---|
| क़ | qa | |
| ख़ | Ka | |
| ग़ | Ga | |
| ज़ | za | |
| फ़ | fa | |
| य़ | Ya | |
| ड़ | .Da | |
| ढ़ | .Dha | |
The implosives of
Sindhi are accommodated with underlining.
Ligatures
Consonant clusters of two or more phonemes are realized by combining the aksharas into
ligatures. Typically, the preceding akshara loses its vertical stroke and is put in direct contact with the succeeding one. In cases of aksharas that do not have vertical strokes in their independent form, the following aksharas are usually placed underneath the preceding one. In some cases, the ligatures take forms not readily recognizable as composed of the individual aksharas (e.g. <jñ>). Consonant clusters involving <r> are treated as a special case: preceding <r-> is realized as a right-facing hook above the following akshara, and following <-r> appears as a slanted stroke attached to the vertical stroke of the preceding akshara. Similarly for a cluster /XYZa/, both X and Y would be "halved". There are many variants for this consonant cluster writing in Devanāgarī script. The most common system is shown below for the traditional table. Here the second vowel is taken to be '', followed by '' .
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).
| 'ka-group' | क्न
| ख्न
| ग्न
| घ्न
| ङ्न
|
| 'cha-group' | च्न
| छ्न
| ज्न
| झ्न
| ञ्न
|
| 'Ta-group' | ट्न
| ठ्न
| ड्न
| ढ्न
| ण्न
|
| 'ta-group' | त्न
| थ्न
| द्न
| ध्न
| न्न
|
| 'pa-group' | प्न
| फ्न
| ब्न
| भ्न
| म्न
|
| 'ya-group' | य्न
| र्न
| ल्न
| व्न
| |
| 'va-group' | श्न
| ष्न
| स्न
| ह्न
| |
List of "compound consonants" from Monier-Williams' 1846 ''Elementary Grammar''
Diacritics
★ अं (called ''
anusvāra''), pronounced as (
IAST: ) is used for nasalizing the vowel in the syllable, the word-final allophone of /m/ and /n/. The diacritic (called ''
chandrabindu''/''
anunāsika'') is used in certain shakhas instead of the ''anusvāra'' in certain phonetic contexts.
★ अः (called ''
visarga''), pronounced as (
IAST: ) is the word-final allophone of and .
★ If a lonely consonant needs to be written without any following vowel, it is given a ''halanta/
virāma'' diacritic below (प्).
★
avagraha ऽ is used in western editions to mark elision of a word-initial in
sandhi.
Accent marks
Main articles: 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
'Devanāgarī numerals'| ० | १ | २ | ३ | ४ | ५ | ६ | ७ | ८ | ९ |
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
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 articles: 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.
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:| | |
INSCRIPT / KDE Linux
INSCRIPT Keyboard Layout (Windows, Solaris, Java)
This is the India keyboard layout for Linux (variant 'deva')
Typewriter
Standard typewriter keyboard layout used in India
Phonetic
Bolnagri phonetic keyboard layout for Linux
See
home page
See also
★
ISCII
Software
★
Apple Type Services for Unicode Imaging - Macintosh
★
Graphite - open source (
SIL)
★
HindiWriter - The Phonetic Hindi Writer with AutoWord lookup and Spellcheck for MS Word and OpenOffice.org for Windows.
★
Pango - open source (
GNOME)
★
Uniscribe - Windows
★
WorldScript - Macintosh, replaced by the Apple Type Services for Unicode Imaging, mentioned above
★
Baraha - Devanāgarī Input using English Keyboard
References
1.
2.
3.
Bibliography
★ .
★ .
★ .
★ .
★ .
External links
★
Naagarii_PrachaariiNii Sabhaa (नागरीप्रचारिणी सभा)
★
omniglot.com entry
★
ancientscripts.com entry
★ IS13194:1991
[1]
★
traditional keyboard layout in Nepali language
★
Romanized keyboard layout in Nepali language
Electronic typesetting
Fonts
★
Unicode Compliant Open Type Fonts including ligature glyphs (TDIL Data Centre)
Documentation
★
The official Devanāgarī Document (pdf) from Govt. Of India.
★
Resources for typing in the Nepali language in Devanāgarī
★
Unicode Chart for Devanāgarī
★
Resources for viewing and editing Devanāgarī
★
Unicode support for Web browsers
★
Creating and Viewing Documents in Devanāgarī
★
Hindi/Devanāgarī Script Tutor
★
A compilation of Tools and Techniques for Hindi Computing
Tools and applications
★
Chhahari Syllabic Unicode Editor
★
Devanāgarī Tools: Wiki Sandbox, Devanagari Mail, Yahoo/Google Search & Devanāgarī Transliteration
★
IndiX, Indian language support for Linux, a site by the Indian
National Centre for Software Technology
★
writeKA English-to-Hindi Online Transliterator
★
Romanized to Unicode Devanāgarī transliterator
★
HiTrans - Roman-Nagari transliteration scheme and conversion tool
★
Hindi Kalam Online Phonetic Transliteration based Devanagari Editor with Spell Check and Auto Suggestion facility.
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