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This article contains Indic text. The Brahmic family is a family of syllabaries (writing systems used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of Central Asia and East Asia, Without rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes or other symbols instead of Indic characters; or irregular vowel positioning and a lack of conjuncts. Mojibake is the happenstance of incorrect unreadable characters (garbage characters shown when Computer software fails to render a text correctly according to its associated |
There are several methods of transliteration from Devanāgarī into Roman scripts. Transliteration is the practice of Transcribing a Word or text written in one Writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice The most widely used transliteration methods are IAST (for print) and ITRANS (for e-text). The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST) is a popular Transliteration scheme that allows a lossless Romanization of Indic The " I ndian languages TRANS literation" ( ITRANS) is an ASCII Transliteration scheme for Indic scripts, particularly but However, there are other transliteration options.
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Major transliteration methods
The following are the major transliteration methods for Devanāgarī:
IAST
The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) is the most popular academic standard for the romanization of Sanskrit. Transliteration is the practice of Transcribing a Word or text written in one Writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST) is a popular Transliteration scheme that allows a lossless Romanization of Indic The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST) is a popular Transliteration scheme that allows a lossless Romanization of Indic 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. In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's
The National Library at Kolkata romanization, intended for the romanization of all Indic scripts, is an extension of IAST. The National Library at Kolkata Romanization is the most widely used Transliteration scheme in dictionaries and grammars of Indic languages The Brahmic family is a family of syllabaries (writing systems used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of Central Asia and East Asia, The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST) is a popular Transliteration scheme that allows a lossless Romanization of Indic
ISO 15919
A standard transliteration convention not just for Devanagari, but for all South-Asian languages was codified in the ISO 15919 standard of 2001, providing the basis for modern digital libraries that conform to International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) norms. ISO 15919 Transliteration of Devanagari and related Indic scripts into Latin characters is an international standard for the Transliteration of Indic scripts to the Transliteration is the practice of Transcribing a Word or text written in one Writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice ISO 15919 defines the common Unicode basis for Roman transliteration of South-Asian texts in a wide variety of languages/scripts.
ISO 15919 transliterations are platform-independent texts, so that they can be used identically on all modern operating systems and software packages, as long as they comply with ISO norms. This is a prerequisite for all modern platforms, so that ISO 15919 has become the new standard for digital libraries and archives for transliterating all South Asian texts.
The German/Indian manuscript digitization initiative e-ternals. com has published a Virtual Keyboard for generating ISO 15919 transliteration visually and at high speed, generating all characters (including composite ones) at a single mouse-click. This package is called Vamana and can be obtained from its developer, Gunthard Mueller (gm@e-ternals. com). Vamana is available for Linux, Mac OS X, Windows and Solaris. Vamana also comes with the Kala font family for ISO 15919, compatible with all modern operating systems. The technical basis of Vamana is similar to the one adopted by the Greek government for encoding the Greek alphabet in Unicode in ISO 10646. Vamana therefore has a parallel cousin called Nanos, a Virtual Keyboard for generating ISO 10646 compliant Modern and Ancient Greek text (for details see http://www.e-ternals.com/nanos).
ISO 15919 uses diacritics to map the much larger set of Brahmic graphemes to the Latin script. A diacritic ( also called a diacritic or diacritical mark, point, or sign, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation See also Transliteration of Indic scripts: how to use ISO 15919. The Devanagari-specific portion is nearly identical to the academic standard, IAST: "International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration", and to the United States Library of Congress standard, ALA-LC: [1]
ASCII schemes
Harvard-Kyoto
Compared to IAST, Harvard-Kyoto looks much simpler. The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST) is a popular Transliteration scheme that allows a lossless Romanization of Indic ALA-LC is a set of standards for Romanization, or the representation of text in other Writing systems using the Latin alphabet. The Harvard-Kyoto Convention is a system for transliterating in ASCII the Sanskrit language and other languages that use the Devanāgarī The " I ndian languages TRANS literation" ( ITRANS) is an ASCII Transliteration scheme for Indic scripts, particularly but The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST) is a popular Transliteration scheme that allows a lossless Romanization of Indic The Harvard-Kyoto Convention is a system for transliterating in ASCII the Sanskrit language and other languages that use the Devanāgarī It does not contain all the diacritic marks that IAST contains. A diacritic ( also called a diacritic or diacritical mark, point, or sign, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation 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. Capital letters or majuscules pronunciation /məˈdʒʌskyuls ˈmædʒəˌskyuls/ in the Roman alphabet A, B, C, D,
ITRANS scheme
ITRANS is an extension of Harvard-Kyoto. The " I ndian languages TRANS literation" ( ITRANS) is an ASCII Transliteration scheme for Indic scripts, particularly but The " I ndian languages TRANS literation" ( ITRANS) is an ASCII Transliteration scheme for Indic scripts, particularly but The Harvard-Kyoto Convention is a system for transliterating in ASCII the Sanskrit language and other languages that use the Devanāgarī Many webpages are written in ITRANS. Many forums are also written in ITRANS.
ITRANS is not only used as transliteration. It is also a pre-processor for typing in Indic scripts. The Brahmic family is a family of syllabaries (writing systems used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of Central Asia and East Asia, The user inputs in roman letters and the ITRANS preprocessor displays the roman letters into Devanāgarī (or other Indic languages). The latest version of ITRANS is version 5. The " I ndian languages TRANS literation" ( ITRANS) is an ASCII Transliteration scheme for Indic scripts, particularly but 30 released in July, 2001.
Transliteration Comparison
The following is a comparison of the major transliteration methods used for Devanāgarī.
Vowels
| Devanāgarī | IAST | Harvard-Kyoto | ITRANS |
|---|---|---|---|
| अ | a | a | a |
| आ | ā | A | A/aa |
| इ | i | i | i |
| ई | ī | I | I/ii |
| उ | u | u | u |
| ऊ | ū | U | U/uu |
| ए | e | e | e |
| ऐ | ai | ai | ai |
| ओ | o | o | o |
| औ | au | au | au |
| ऋ | ṛ | R | RRi/R^i |
| ॠ | ṝ | RR | RRI/R^I |
| ऌ | ḷ | lR | LLi/L^i |
| ॡ | ḹ | lRR | LLI/L^I |
| अं | ṃ | M | M/. The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST) is a popular Transliteration scheme that allows a lossless Romanization of Indic The Harvard-Kyoto Convention is a system for transliterating in ASCII the Sanskrit language and other languages that use the Devanāgarī The " I ndian languages TRANS literation" ( ITRANS) is an ASCII Transliteration scheme for Indic scripts, particularly but n/. m |
| अः | ḥ | H | H |
Consonants
The Devanāgarī consonant letters include an implicit 'a' sound. In all of the transliteration systems, that 'a' sound must be represented explicitly.
| Devanāgarī | IAST | Harvard-Kyoto | ITRANS |
|---|---|---|---|
| क | ka | ka | ka |
| ख | kha | kha | kha |
| ग | ga | ga | ga |
| घ | gha | gha | gha |
| ङ | ṅa | Ga | ~Na |
| च | ca | ca | cha |
| छ | cha | cha | Cha |
| ज | ja | ja | ja |
| झ | jha | jha | jha |
| ञ | ña | Ja | ~na |
| ट | ṭa | Ta | Ta |
| ठ | ṭha | Tha | Tha |
| ड | ḍa | Da | Da |
| ढ | ḍha | Dha | Dha |
| ण | ṇa | Na | Na |
| त | ta | ta | ta |
| थ | tha | tha | tha |
| द | da | da | da |
| ध | dha | dha | dha |
| न | na | na | na |
| प | pa | pa | pa |
| फ | pha | pha | pha |
| ब | ba | ba | ba |
| भ | bha | bha | bha |
| म | ma | ma | ma |
| य | ya | ya | ya |
| र | ra | ra | ra |
| ल | la | la | la |
| व | va | va | va/wa |
| श | śa | za | sha |
| ष | ṣa | Sa | Sha |
| स | sa | sa | sa |
| ह | ha | ha | ha |
Consonant Clusters
In the transliteration systems, there is no special representation for a consonant cluster. The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST) is a popular Transliteration scheme that allows a lossless Romanization of Indic The Harvard-Kyoto Convention is a system for transliterating in ASCII the Sanskrit language and other languages that use the Devanāgarī The " I ndian languages TRANS literation" ( ITRANS) is an ASCII Transliteration scheme for Indic scripts, particularly but
| Devanāgarī | IAST | Harvard-Kyoto | ITRANS |
|---|---|---|---|
| क्ष | kṣa | kSa | kSa/kSha/xa |
| त्र | tra | tra | tra |
| ज्ञ | jña | jJa | GYa/j~na |
| श्र | śra | zra | shra |
Other Consonants
| Devanāgarī | ITRANS |
|---|---|
| क़ | qa |
| ख़ | Kha |
| ग़ | Ga |
| ज़ | za |
| फ़ | fa |
| ड़ | . The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST) is a popular Transliteration scheme that allows a lossless Romanization of Indic The Harvard-Kyoto Convention is a system for transliterating in ASCII the Sanskrit language and other languages that use the Devanāgarī The " I ndian languages TRANS literation" ( ITRANS) is an ASCII Transliteration scheme for Indic scripts, particularly but The " I ndian languages TRANS literation" ( ITRANS) is an ASCII Transliteration scheme for Indic scripts, particularly but Da/Ra |
| ढ़ | . Dha/Rha |
Note: both ड़ and ऋ use the diacritic "ṛ" in IAST
Details
Pronunciation of the final "a"
Devanāgarī consonants include an 'inherent a' sound that must be explicitly represented with an 'a' character in the transliteration. The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST) is a popular Transliteration scheme that allows a lossless Romanization of Indic Many words and names transliterated from Devanāgarī end with "a", to indicate the pronunciation in the original Sanskrit. Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical This final 'inherent a' is often no longer pronounced in some Sanskrit-derived Indian languages, including Hindi. Hindi ( Devanāgarī: hi [[wiktहिन्दी हिन्दी]] or hi [[wiktहिंदी हिंदी]] IAST:, IPA:) is This results in an alternative 'modern' transliteration that omits it. Transliteration is the practice of Transcribing a Word or text written in one Writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice
- Sanskrit: Mahābhārata, Rāmāyaņa, Śiva
- Hindi: Mahābhārat, Rāmāyaņ, Śiv
Some words keep the final a, generally because they would be difficult to say without it:
e. g; Krishna, vajra, Maurya
Some Indian languages, like Kannada, continue to use the original pronunciation today. Kannada (kn [[wiktಕನ್ನಡ ಕನ್ನಡ]] Kannaḍa) is one of the major Dravidian languages of India, spoken predominantly in the state Some, like Marathi, have an intermediate pronunciation. Marathi (mr मराठी Marāṭhī) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of what is considered western India.
Retroflex consonants
Most Indian languages make a distinction between the retroflex and dental forms of the dental consonants. In formal transliteration schemes, the standard Roman letters are used to indicate the dental form, and the retroflex form is indicated by special marks, or the use of other letters. E. g. , in IAST transliteration, the retroflex forms are ṇ, ṭ, ḍ and ṣ. The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration ( IAST) is a popular Transliteration scheme that allows a lossless Romanization of Indic
In most informal transliterations the distinction between retroflex and dental consonants is not indicated.
Aspirated consonants
Where the letter "h" appears after a plosive consonant in Devanāgarī transliteration, it always indicates aspiration, thus "ph" is pronounced as the p in "pit" (with a small puff of air released as it is said) never as the ph in "photo". A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. Description Voiceless consonants are produced with the Vocal cords open and voiced consonants are produced when the vocal folds are fractionally closed On the other hand "p" is pronounced as the p in "spit" with no release of air. Similarly "th" is an aspirated "t", neither the th of "this" or the th of "thin".
The aspiration is generally indicated in both formal and informal transliteration systems.
History of Sanskrit Transliteration
Early Sanskrit texts were originally transmitted by memorization and repetition. Post-Harappan India had no system for writing Indic languages until the creation (in the 4th-3rd centuries BCE) of the Kharoshti and Brahmi scripts. The Kharoṣṭhī script, also known as the Gāndhārī script, is an ancient Abugida (an alphasyllabary based on consonants with graphical variations to express These writing systems, though adequate for Middle Indic languages, were not well-adapted to writing Sanskrit. The Middle Indo-Aryan ( Middle Indic) languages are the early medieval dialects of the Indo-Aryan languages, the descendants of the Old Indo-Aryan dialects such as However, later descendants of Brahmi were modified so that they could record Sanskrit in exacting phonetic detail. The earliest physical text in Sanskrit is a rock inscription by the Western Kshatrapa ruler Rudradaman, written c. The Western Satraps, or Western Kshatrapas ( 35 - 405) were Saka rulers of the western and central part of India ( Saurashtra 150 CE in Junagadh, Gujarat. See Junagarh for disambiguation Junagadh is a city and a Municipal corporation, the headquarters of Junagadh district Gujarat (ગુજરાત Gujǎrāt, pronounced) is a state in western India. Due to the remarkable proliferation of different varieties of Brahmi in the Middle Ages, there is today no single script used for writing Sanskrit; rather, Sanskrit scholars can write the language in a form of whatever script is used to write their local language. However, since the late Middle Ages, there has been a tendency to use Devanagari for writing Sanskrit texts for a widespread readership.
Western scholars in the 19th century adopted Devanagari for printed editions of Sanskrit texts. The 19th century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1801 and ended on December 31, 1900, according to the Gregorian calendar The editio princeps of the Rigveda by Max Müller was in Devanagari, a typographical tour de force at the time. In Classical scholarship, editio princeps is a Term of art. It means roughly the first printed edition of a work that previously had existed only in The Rigveda ( Sanskrit sa ऋग्वेद ṛgveda, a compound of ṛc "praise verse" and veda "knowledge" For the Danish Colonel Max Müller see Second War of Schleswig. Müller's London typesetters competed with their Petersburg peers working on Böhtlingk's and Roth's dictionary in cutting all the required ligature types. Otto von Böhtlingk ( May 30 1815 - April 1 1904) was a German Indologist and Sanskrit scholar, born in
From its beginnings, Western Sanskrit philology also felt the need for a romanized spelling of the language. Franz Bopp in 1816 used a romanization scheme, alongside Devanagari, differring from IAST in expressing vowel length by a circumflex (â, î, û), and aspiration by a spiritus asper (e. Franz Bopp ( September 14, 1791 – October 23, 1867) was a German linguist known for extensive comparative work on Year 1816 ( MDCCCXVI) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Leap year The spiritus asper ( Latin for "rough breathing" δασὺ πνεῦμα dasỳ pneûma or daseîa) is a diacritical mark used in g. bʽ for IAST bh). The sibilants IAST ṣ and ś he expressed with spiritus asper and lenis, respectively (sʽ, sʼ). Monier-Williams in his 1899 dictionary used ṡ and sh for IAST ś and ṣ, respectively. Sir Monier Monier-Williams (1819&ndash1899 studied documented and taught Asian languages in England, and compiled one of the most widely-used Sanskrit
From the late 19th century, Western interest in typesetting Devanagari decreased. Theodor Aufrecht published his 1877 edition of the Rigveda in romanized Sanskrit, and Arthur Macdonell's 1910 Vedic grammar (and 1916 Vedic grammar for students) likewise do without Devanagari (while his introductory Sanskrit grammar for students retains Devanagari alongside romanized Sanskrit). Simon Theodor Aufrecht ( January 7, 1822 &ndash April 3, 1907) was a German Indologist. Contemporary Western editions of Sanskrit texts appear mostly in IAST.
See also
- The National Library at Kolkata romanization, and ISO 15919 are extensions of IAST to transcribe all Indic scripts
- ISCII is an 8-bit encoding for Indic scripts
- ITRANS - Most famous transliteration scheme used in Phonetic Hindi typing tools
External links
- Romanized Latin to Sanskrit - Converts Harvard-Kyoto transliterations into Unicode Devanagari
- HiTrans - Extended ITRANS scheme and real-time Unicode conversion tool
- Quillpad - Intuitive real-time Transliteration for Indian languages
- Google Indic Transliteration - real-time Latin-to-Indic character transliteration
- Girgit Online Indic to Indic Transliteration of Webpages বংলা (Bengali), हिन्दी (Devanagari), ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada), മലയാളം (Malayalam), ଓଡ଼ିଆ (Oriya), ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ (Punjabi), தமிழ் (Tamil), తెలుగు (Telugu), ગુજરાતી (Gujarati), English
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