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Devangar

Rigveda manuscript in Devanagari (early 19th century)
Type abugida
Languages Several Indian languages and Nepali Languages,
including Sanskrit, Hindi, Awadhi, Marathi, Pahari
(Garhwali and Kumaoni), Nepali, Bhili, Konkani,
Bhojpuri, Magahi, Kurukh, Nepal Bhasa, and
Sindhi. Sometimes used to write or transliterate
Sherpa, Kashmiri and Punjabi. Formerly used to
write Gujarati.
Time
period
c. 11th century present
Parent
systems
Brhm
Gupta
Ngar
Devangar

Child
systems
Gujarati
Mo
Ranjana
Canadian Aboriginal syllabics
[1]
Sister
systems
Sharada
ISO 15924 Deva, 315
Direction Left-to-right
Unicode
alias
Devanagari
Unicode
range
U+0900U+097F
(http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0900.pdf)
Devanagari,
U+A8E0U+A8FF
(http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/UA8E0.pdf)
Devanagari Extended,
U+1CD0U+1CFF
(http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1CD0.pdf)
Vedic Extensions
Devanagari
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Devanagari (/devnri/; Hindustani: [d enari]; devangar a compound of
"deva" [ ] and "ngar" []), also called Nagari (Ngar, , the name of its parent writing
system), is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal. It is written from left to right, does not have distinct
letter cases, and is recognisable (along with most other North Indic scripts, with few exceptions like
Gujarati and Oriya) by a horizontal line that runs along the top of full letters. Since the 19th century, it
has been the most commonly used script for Sanskrit. Devanagari is used to write Standard Hindi,
Marathi, Nepali along with Awadhi, Bodo, Bhojpuri, Gujari, Pahari, (Garhwali and Kumaoni),
Konkani, Magahi, Maithili, Marwari, Bhili, Newar, Santhali, Tharu, and sometimes Sindhi, Dogri,
Sherpa, Kashmiri and Punjabi. It was formerly used to write Gujarati. Because it is the standardised
script for the Hindi language, Devanagari is one of the most used and adopted writing systems in the
world.
Contents
1 Origins
2 Principle
3 Letters
3.1 Vowels
3.2 Consonants
3.2.1 Schwa syncope in Hindi consonants
3.2.2 Allophony of 'v' and 'w' in Hindi
3.3 Conjuncts
3.3.1 Biconsonantal conjuncts
3.4 Accent marks
3.5 Punctuation
3.6 Old forms
3.7 Numerals
4 Transliteration
4.1 Hunterian system
4.2 ISO 15919
4.3 IAST
4.4 Harvard-Kyoto
4.5 ITRANS
4.6 ALA-LC Romanisation
5 Encodings
5.1 ISCII
5.2 Devanagari in Unicode
6 Devanagari keyboard layouts
6.1 InScript layout
6.2 Typewriter
6.3 Phonetic
7 See also
8 References
9 External links
Origins
Devanagari is part of the Brahmic family of scripts of India, Nepal, Tibet, and South-East Asia.
[2]
It is
a descendant of the Gupta script, along with Siddham and Sharada.
[2]
Eastern variants of Gupta called
ngar are first attested from the 7th century CE; from c. 1200 CE these gradually replaced Siddham,
which survived as a vehicle for Tantric Buddhism in East Asia, and Sharada, which remained in parallel
use in Kashmir. An early version of Devanagari is visible in the Kutila inscription of Bareilly dated to
Vikram Samvat 1049 (i.e. 992 CE), which demonstrates the emergence of the horizontal bar to group
letters belonging to a word.
[3]
Sanskrit ngar is the feminine of ngara "relating or belonging to a town or city". It is feminine from
its original phrasing with lipi ("script") as ngar lipi "script relating to a city", that is, probably from its
having originated in some city.
[4]
The use of the name devangar is relatively recent, and the older term ngar is still common.
[2]
The rapid spread of the term devangar may be related to the
12/2/13 Devanagari - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Devanagari used in Melbourne
Australia to communicate in an
advertisement
Devanagari used in Public Transport
Tickets at Mumbai
Devanagari text from Vayu Puran
Devanagari in Dictionary
The use of the name devangar is relatively recent, and the older term ngar is still common.
[2]
The rapid spread of the term devangar may be related to the
almost exclusive use of this script to publish Sanskrit texts in print since the 1870s.
[2]
Principle
As a Brahmic abugida, the fundamental principle of Devanagari is that each letter represents a consonant, which carries an
inherent schwa vowel. This is usually written in Latin as a, though it is represented as [] in the International Phonetic
Alphabet.
[5]
The letter is read ka, the two letters are kana, the three are kanaya, etc. Other vowels, or the
absence of vowels, require modification of these consonants or their own letters:
A final consonant is marked with the diacritic , called the virma in Sanskrit, halant in Hindi, and occasionally a
"killer stroke" in English. This cancels the inherent vowel, so that from 4 knaya is derived 4 knay. The halant
is often used for consonant clusters when typesetting conjunct ligatures is not feasible.
Consonant clusters are written with ligatures (sayuktkara "conjuncts"). For example, the three consonants , ,
and , (k , n, y), when written consecutively without virma form , as shown above. Alternatively, they may be
joined as clusters to form 4 knaya, 7 kanya, or 47 knya. This system was originally created for use with the
Middle Indic languages, which have a very limited number of clusters (the only clusters allowed are geminate
consonants and clusters involving homorganic nasal stops). When applied to Sanskrit, however, it added a great deal
of complexity to the script, due to the large variety of clusters in this language (up to five consonants, e.g. rtsny). Much
of this complexity is required at least on occasion in the modern Indo-Aryan languages, due to the large number of
clusters allowed and especially due to borrowings from Sanskrit.
Vowels other than the inherent a are written with diacritics (termed matras). For example, using ka, the following
forms can be derived: ke,

ku, | k, k, etc.
For vowels as an independent syllable (in writing, unattached to a preceding consonant), either at the beginning of a
word or (in Hindi) after another vowel, there are full-letter forms. For example, while the vowel is written with the
diacritic in

k, it has its own letter in ka and (in Hindi but not Sanskrit) ka.
Such a letter or ligature, with its diacritics, is called an akara "syllable". For example, kanaya is written with what are
counted as three akshara, whereas 47 knya and

ku are each written with one.


As far as handwriting is concerned, letters are usually written without the distinctive horizontal bar, which is added only once
the word is completed.
[6]
Letters
The letter order of Devanagari, like nearly all Brahmic scripts, is based on phonetic principles that consider both the manner
and place of articulation of the consonants and vowels they represent. This arrangement is usually referred to as the
varaml "garland of letters".
[7]
The format of Devanagari for Sanskrit serves as the prototype for its application, with
minor variations or additions, to other languages.
[8]
Vowels
The vowels and their arrangement are:
[9]
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Independent
form
Romanised
As
diacritic
with
Independent
form
Romanised
As
diacritic
with
kahya
(Guttural)

a


tlavya
(Palatal)

i


ohya
(Labial)

u

mrhanya
(Retroflex)

dantya
(Dental)


kahatlavya
(Palato-
Guttural)

e

ai

kahohya
(Labio-
Guttural)

o

au

Arranged with the vowels are two consonantal diacritics, the final nasal anusvra and the final fricative visarga (called a and a).
[10]
notes
of the anusvra in Sanskrit that "there is some controversy as to whether it represents a homorganic nasal stop [...], a nasalised vowel, a nasalised semivowel,
or all these according to context". The visarga represents post-vocalic voiceless glottal fricative [h], in Sanskrit an allophone of s, or less commonly r, usually in
word-final position. Some traditions of recitation append an echo of the vowel after the breath:
[11]
[ihi]. Masica (1991:146) considers the visarga along with
letters a and a for the "largely predictable" velar and palatal nasals to be examples of "phonetic overkill in the system".
Another diacritic is the candrabindu/anunsika .
[12]
describes it as a "more emphatic form" of the anusvra, "sometimes [...] used to mark a true [vowel]
nasalization". In a New Indo-Aryan language such as Hindi the distinction is formal: the candrabindu indicates vowel nasalisation
[13]
while the anusvr indicates
a homorganic nasal preceding another consonant:
[14]
e.g. [

si] "laughter", [] "the Ganges". When an akshara has a vowel diacritic above the
top line, that leaves no room for the candra ("moon") stroke candrabindu, which is dispensed with in favour of the lone dot:
[15]

[] "am", but [

] "are".
Some writers and typesetters dispense with the "moon" stroke altogether, using only the dot in all situations.
[16]
The avagraha (usually transliterated with an apostrophe) is a Sanskrit punctuation mark for the elision of a vowel in sandhi: ekoyam ( ekas +
ayam) "this one". An original long vowel lost to coalescence is sometimes marked with a double avagraha: c sadtm ( sad + tm) "always,
the self".
[17]
In Hindi, Snell (2000:77) states that its "main function is to show that a vowel is sustained in a cry or a shout": ! !. In Madhyadeshi
Languages like Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Maithili, etc. which have "quite a number of verbal forms [that] end in that inherent vowel",
[18]
the avagraha is used to mark
the non-elision of word-final inherent a, which otherwise is a modern orthographic convention: baiha "sit" versus * baih
The syllabic consonants , , and are specific to Sanskrit and not included in the varaml of other languages. The sound represented by has also been lost
in the modern languages, and its pronunciation now ranges from [] (Hindi) to [u] (Marathi).
is not an actual phoneme of Sanskrit, but rather a graphic convention included among the vowels in order to maintain the symmetry of shortlong pairs of
letters.
[8]
There are non-regular formations of ru and F r.
Consonants
The table below shows the consonant letters (incombination with inherent vowel a) and their arrangement. To the right of the Devanagari letter it shows the scientific
transcription (IAST), the phonetic value (IPA) and the corresponding Urdu letter.
[19]
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spara
(Plosive)
anunsika
(Nasal)
antastha
(Approximant)
ma/saghashr
(Fricative)
Voicing aghoa ghoa aghoa ghoa
Aspiration alpapra mahpra alpapra mahpra alpapra mahpra
kahya
(Guttural)

ka
/k/


kha
/k/


ga
//


gha
//


a
//


ha
//

tlavya
(Palatal)

ca
/c, t


cha
/c, t


ja
/, d


jha
/, d


a
//


ya
/j/


a
/, /

mrdhanya
(Retroflex)

a
//


ha
//


a
//


ha
//


a
//


ra
/r/


a
//
dantya
(Dental)

ta
/t/


tha
/t/


da
/d /


dha
/d /


na
/n/


la
/l/


sa
/s/

ohya
(Labial)

pa
/p/


pha
/p/


ba
/b/


bha
/b/


ma
/m/


va
/w, /

Rounding this out where applicable is a , the intervocalic lateral flap allophone of the voiced retroflex stop in Vedic Sanskrit, which is a phoneme in
languages such as Marathi, Konkani, and Rajasthani.
[20]
Beyond the Sanskritic set, new shapes have rarely been formulated. Masica (1991:146) offers the following, "In any case, according to some, all possible
sounds had already been described and provided for in this system, as Sanskrit was the original and perfect language. Hence it was difficult to provide for or
even to conceive other sounds, unknown to the phoneticians of Sanskrit". Where foreign borrowings and internal developments did inevitably accrue and arise in
New Indo-Aryan languages, they have been ignored in writing, or dealt through means such as diacritics and ligatures (ignored in recitation).
The most prolific diacritic has been the subscript dot (nuqt) . Hindi uses it for the Persian, Arabic and/or English sounds qa /q/, a /x/, a //,
za /z/, T or zha //, and fa /f/, and for the allophonic developments a // and ha //. (Although ha // could also exist but there is no
use of it in Hindi.)
Sindhi's implosives are accommodated with a line attached below: [], [], [], [].
Aspirated sonorants may be represented as conjuncts/ligatures with ha: + mha, 7 nha, ha, vha, ~ lha, = ha, rha.
Masica (1991:147) notes Marwari as using a special symbol for a [] (while represents []).
When writing Urdu, with vowel marking is used for the Perso-Arabic consonant ayin, which is silent in Urdu.
[21]
For a list of the 297 (339) possible Sanskrit consonant-(short) vowel phonemes, see ryabhaa numeration.
Schwa syncope in Hindi consonants
Main article: Schwa deletion in Indo-Aryan languages
Although the Devanagari script is used as a standard to write modern Hindi, the schwa ('') implicit in each consonant of the script is "obligatorily deleted" at the end of
words and in certain other contexts, unlike in Sanskrit.
[22]
This phenomenon has been termed the "schwa syncope rule" or the "schwa deletion rule" of Hindi.
[22][23]
One formalisation of this rule has been summarised as -> | VC_CV. In other words, when a schwa-succeeded consonant is followed by a vowel-succeeded
consonant, the schwa inherent in the first consonant is deleted.
[23][24]
However, this formalisation is inexact and incomplete (it sometimes deletes a schwa when it
should not and, at other times, it fails to delete it when it should) and can cause errors. Schwa deletion is computationally important because it is essential to building
text-to-speech software for Hindi.
[24][25]
As a result of schwa syncope, the Hindi pronunciation of many words differs from that expected from a literal Sanskrit-style rendering of Devanagari. For instance,
is Rm (not Rma), is Racn (not Racan), is Vd (not Vda) and | is Namkn (not Namakn).
[24][25]
The name of the script itself is pronounced
devngr (not devangar).
[26]
Correct schwa deletion is also critical because, in some cases, the same Devanagari letter sequence is pronounced two different ways in Hindi depending on context,
and failure to delete the appropriate schwas can change the sense of the word.
[27]
For instance, the letter sequence '' is pronounced differently in (har.kat,
meaning movement or activity) and (sarak.n, meaning to slide). Similarly, the sequence in (the heart started beating) and in
| (beats of the heart) is identical prior to the nasalisation in the second usage. Yet, it is pronounced dhaak.n in the first and dha.kan in the
second.
[27]
While native speakers correctly pronounce the sequences differently in different contexts, non-native speakers and voice-synthesis software can make them
"sound very unnatural", making it "extremely difficult for the listener" to grasp the intended meaning.
[27]
Allophony of 'v' and 'w' in Hindi
[v] (the voiced labiodental fricative) and [w] (the voiced labio-velar approximant) are both allophones of the single letter '' in Hindi Devanagari. More specifically,
they are conditional allophones, i.e. rules apply on whether '' is pronounced as [v] or [w] depending on context. Native Hindi speakers pronounce '' as [v] in vrat
('d', fast) and [w] in pakvn ('', food dish), perceiving them as a single phoneme and without being aware of the allophone distinctions they are
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The ddhrya-ligature () of
JanaSanskritSans.
[29]
systematically making.
[28]
However, this specific allophony can become obvious when speakers switch languages. Non-native speakers of Hindi might pronounce '' in
'd' as [w], i.e. as wrat instead of the more correct vrat. This results in a minor intelligibility problem because wrat can easily be confused for aurat,
[citation needed]
which means woman, instead of the intended fast (abstaining from food), in Hindi.
[28]
Conjuncts
You will be able to see the ligatures only if your system has a Unicode font installed that includes the required
ligature glyphs (such as one of the TDIL
[30]
fonts, see "external links" below).
As mentioned, successive consonants lacking a vowel in between them may physically join together as a conjunct or ligature.
The government of these clusters ranges from widely to narrowly applicable rules, with special exceptions within. While
standardised for the most part, there are certain variations in clustering, of which the Unicode used on this page is just one
scheme. The following are a number of rules:
24 out of the 36 consonants contain a vertical right stroke (, , etc.). As first or middle fragments/members of a
cluster, they lose that stroke. e.g. + = c, + = , + = 1. In Unicode, these consonants without
their vertical stems are called half forms.
[31]
(a) appears as a different, simple ribbon-shaped fragment preceding
va, na, ca, la, and ra, causing these second members to be shifted down and reduced in size. Thus
va, na, ca la, and ra.
r(a) as a first member takes the form of a curved upward dash above the final character or its -diacritic. e.g. rva, rv, 1 rspa, 1 rsp. As a final
member with it is two lines below the character, pointed downwards and apart. Thus ] ] Q. Elsewhere as a final member it is a
diagonal stroke extending leftwards and down. e.g. H 0 H. ta is shifted up to make tra.
As first members, remaining characters lacking vertical strokes such as d(a) and h(a) may have their second member, reduced in size and lacking its
horizontal stroke, placed underneath. k(a), ch(a), and ph(a) shorten their right hooks and join them directly to the following member.
The conjuncts for k and j are not clearly derived from the letters making up their components. The conjunct for k is H ( + )and for j it is 7 ( + ).
In addition, the conjunct for dya, q, is not clearly derived either from and .
The table below shows all the 1296 viable symbols for the biconsonantal clusters formed by collating the 36 fundamental symbols of Sanskrit as listed in Masica
(1991:161162). Scroll your cursor over the conjuncts to reveal their romanizations (in ISO 15919
[32]
) and IPA transcriptions.
Biconsonantal conjuncts
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4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 H 4 4 4 H 4 4 4 4H 47
E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E U E E E E E E E EH E7
0 H 7
U H 7
q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q ] q q q q q q q qH q7
H 7
U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U Q U U U U U U U UH U7
7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 H 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7H 77
H 7
9 H 7
H 7
H 7
q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q ] q q q q q q q qH q7
H 7
H 7
c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c cH c7
0 H 7
q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q @ q q q q { q g q q q q q q q qH q7
H H 7
7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 = 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7H 77
9 H 7
9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9H 97
H 7
H H 7
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + H + + + + + + + +H +7
V H 7
H 7
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ H ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~H ~7
d H 7
H 7
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 9 * * * * * * * *H *7
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 P 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1H 17
[ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [H [7
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = q = = = = = = = =H =7
Accent marks
Main article: Vedic accent
The pitch accent of Vedic Sanskrit is written with various symbols depending on shakha. In the Rigveda, anudtta is written with a bar below the line (), svarita with
a stroke above the line () while udtta is unmarked.
Punctuation
The end of a sentence or half-verse may be marked with a dot known as a pra virm or a vertical line danda: . The end of a full verse may be marked with two
vertical lines: . A comma, or alpa virm, is used to denote a natural pause in speech. Nowadays though, with expansion of English speakers in India, the full stop is
also sometimes used.
Old forms
The following letter variants are also in use, particularly in older texts.
[33]
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Letter variants
Standard form Variant form
Numerals
See also: Indian numerals, Brahmi numerals, and Hindu-Arabic numeral system
Devanagari digits

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Transliteration
Main article: Devanagari transliteration
There are several methods of Romanisation or transliteration from Devanagari to the Roman script.
[34]
Hunterian system
Main article: Hunterian transliteration
The Hunterian system is the "national system of romanisation in India" and the one officially adopted by the Government of India.
[35][36][37]
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.
[38]
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 romanisation 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 romanisation, intended for the romanisation 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
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ITRANS is a lossless transliteration scheme of Devanagari into ASCII that is widely used on Usenet. It is an extension of the Harvard-Kyoto scheme. In ITRANS, the
word devangar is written "devanaagarii" or "devanAgarI". 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 Devanagari (or other Indic languages). The latest version of ITRANS is
version 5.30 released in July, 2001.
ALA-LC Romanisation
ALA-LC
[39]
romanisation 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,
[40]
one for Sanskrit and Prakrit,
[41]
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 Devanagari 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.
Devanagari in Unicode
Main articles: Devanagari (Unicode block), Devanagari Extended, and Vedic Extensions
The Unicode Standard defines three blocks for Devanagari : Devanagari (U+0900U+097F), Devanagari Extended (U+1CD0U+1CFF), and Vedic Extensions
(U+A8E0U+A8FF). Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points.
Devanagari
[1]
Unicode.org chart (http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0900.pdf) (PDF)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
U+090x
U
U+091x

U+092x

U+093x
U U
U+094x
U U
U+095x
U U U
U+096x

U+097x
U U U U U U U
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 6.3
Devanagari Extended
[1]
Unicode.org chart (http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/UA8E0.pdf) (PDF)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
U+A8Ex
U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U U
U+A8Fx
U U U U U U U U U U U U
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 6.3
Vedic Extensions
[1]
Unicode.org chart (http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1CD0.pdf) (PDF)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
U+1CDx

U+1CEx

U+1CFx

Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 6.3
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Devanagari keyboard layouts
InScript is the standard keyboard layout for Devanagari. It is inbuilt in all modern major operating systems. Microsoft Windows supports the InScript layout (using the
Mangal font), which can be used to input unicode Devanagari characters. InScript is also available in some touchscreen mobile phones.
InScript layout
A Devanagari INSCRIPT bilingual keyboard.
Typewriter
This layout was used on manual typewriters when computers were not available or were uncommon. For backward compatibility some typing tools like Indic IME still
provide this layout.
Phonetic
Such tools work on phonetic transliteration. The user writes in roman and the IME automatically converts it into Devanagari. Some popular phonetic typing tools are
BarahaIME and Google IME.
Bolnagri phonetic keyboard layout for Linux/GNOME
The Mac OS X operating system includes two different keyboard layouts for Devanagari: one is much like INSCRIPT/KDE Linux, the other is a phonetic layout called
"Devanagari QWERTY".
12/2/13 Devanagari - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0900.pdf 10/11
See also
Devanagari transliteration
Devanagari Braille
ISCII
Nagari Pracharini Sabha
Schwa deletion in Indo-Aryan languages
Clip font
References
1. ^ Andrew Dalby (2004:139) Dictionary of Languages
2. ^
a

b

c

d
Steven Roger Fischer (2004), A history of writing (http://books.google.com/books?id=Ywo0M9OpbXoC), Reaktion Books, ISBN 978-1-86189-167-9, "... an
early branch of this, as of the fourth century CE, was the Gupta script, Brahmi's first main daughter ... the Gupta alphabet became the ancestor of most Indic scripts
(usually through later Devanagari) ... Nagari, of India's north-west, first appeared around 633 CE ... in the eleventh century, Nagari had become Devanagari, or
'heavenly Nagari', since it was now the main vehicle, out of several, for Sanskrit literature ..."
3. ^ Isaac Taylor (2003), History of the Alphabet: Aryan Alphabets, Part 2 (http://books.google.com/books?id=kLlBuOybNMQC), Kessinger Publishing, ISBN 978-0-7661-
5847-4, "... In the Kutila this develops into a short horizontal bar, which, in the Devanagari, becomes a continuous horizontal line ... three cardinal inscriptions of this
epoch, namely, the Kutila or Bareli inscription of 992, the Chalukya or Kistna inscription of 945, and a Kawi inscription of 919 ... the Kutila inscription is of great
importance in Indian epigraphy, not only from its precise date, but from its offering a definite early form of the standard Indian alphabet, the Devanagari ..."
4. ^ Monier Williams Online Dictionary
5. ^ Salomon (2003:70)
6. ^ "Archives.conlang.info" (http://archives.conlang.info/sae/shaunvhon/fialphonfhoen.html). Archives.conlang.info. 2004-12-07. Retrieved 2011-06-13.
7. ^ Salomon (2003:71)
8. ^
a

b
Salomon (2003:75)
9. ^ Wikner (1996:13, 14)
10. ^ Masica (1991:146)
11. ^ Wikner (1996:6)
12. ^ Salomon (2003:7677)
13. ^ Snell (2000:4445)
14. ^ Snell (2000:64)
15. ^ Snell (2000:45)
16. ^ Snell (2000:46)
17. ^ Salomon (2003:77)
18. ^ Verma (2003:501)
19. ^ Wikner (1996:73)
20. ^ Masica (1991:97)
21. ^ Ahmad, Rizwan. 2006. "Voices people write: Examining Urdu in devanagari" (http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/NWAV/Abstracts/Papr172.pdf)
22. ^
a

b
Larry M. Hyman, Victoria Fromkin, Charles N. Li (1988 (Volume 1988, Part 2)), Language, speech, and mind (http://books.google.com/books?
id=R6IOAAAAQAAJ), Taylor & Francis, ISBN 0-415-00311-3, "... The implicit /a/ is not read when the symbol appears in word-final position or in certain other
contexts where it is obligatorily deleted via the so-called schwa-deletion rule which plays a crucial role in Hindi word phonology ..."
23. ^
a

b
Tej K. Bhatia (1987), A history of the Hindi grammatical tradition: Hindi-Hindustani grammar, grammarians, history and problems
(http://books.google.com/books?id=jJOXzRXsSK0C), BRILL, ISBN 90-04-07924-6, "... Hindi literature fails as a reliable indicator of the actual pronunciation because
it is written in the Devanagari script ... the schwa syncope rule which operates in Hindi ..."
24. ^
a

b

c
Monojit Choudhury, Anupam Basu and Sudeshna Sarkar (July 2004), "A Diachronic Approach for Schwa Deletion in Indo Aryan Languages"
(http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W/W04/W04-0103.pdf), Proceedings of the Workshop of the ACL Special Interest Group on Computational Phonology (SIGPHON)
(Association for Computations Linguistics), "... schwa deletion is an important issue for grapheme-to-phoneme conversion of IAL, which in turn is required for a good
Text-to-Speech synthesiser ..."
25. ^
a

b
Naim R. Tyson, Ila Nagar (2009 (12:1525)), "Prosodic rules for schwa-deletion in Hindi text-to-speech synthesis"
(http://www.springerlink.com/content/131xm66677g74418/fulltext.pdf), International Journal of Speech Technology, "... Without the appropriate deletion of schwas,
any speech output would sound unnatural. Since the orthographical representation of Devanagari gives little indication of deletion sites, modern TTS systems for Hindi
implemented schwa deletion rules based on the segmental context where schwa appears ..."
26. ^ Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy, The rgs of North Indian music: their structure and evolution (http://books.google.com/books?id=hGLRqLscf78C), Popular Prakashan, 1995,
ISBN 978-81-7154-395-3, "... The Devnagri (Devanagari) script is syllabic and all consonants carry the inherent vowel a unless otherwise indicated. The principal
difference between modern Hindi and the classical Sanskrit forms is the omission in Hindi ..."
27. ^
a

b

c
Monojit Choudhury and Anupam Basu (July 2004), "A Rule Based Schwa Deletion Algorithm for Hindi"
(http://www.mla.iitkgp.ernet.in/papers/schwadeletionhindi.pdf), Proceedings of the International Conference On Knowledge-Based Computer Systems, "... Without any
schwa deletion, not only the two words will sound very unnatural, but it will also be extremely difficult for the listener to distinguish between the two, the only difference
being nasalisation of the e at the end of the former. However, a native speaker would pronounce the former as dha.D-kan-eM and the later as dha.Dak-ne, which are
clearly distinguishable ..."
28. ^
a

b
Janet Pierrehumbert, Rami Nair, Volume Editor: Bernard Laks, Implications of Hindi Prosodic Structure (Current Trends in Phonology: Models and Methods)
(http://books.google.com/books?id=_jqjQwAACAAJ), European Studies Research Institute, University of Salford Press, 1996, ISBN 978-1-901471-02-1, "... showed
extremely regular patterns. As is not uncommon in a study of subphonemic detail, the objective data patterned much more cleanly than intuitive judgments ... [w] occurs
when // is in onglide position ... [v] occurs otherwise ..."
29. ^ "TDIL.mit.gov.in" (http://tdil.mit.gov.in/download/janasanskrit.htm). TDIL.mit.gov.in. Retrieved 2011-06-13.
30. ^ "TDIL.mit.gov.in" (http://tdil.mit.gov.in/download/openfonts.htm). TDIL.mit.gov.in. Retrieved 2011-06-13.
31. ^ "The Unicode Standard, chapter 9, South Asian Scripts I" (http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode6.0.0/ch09.pdf). The Unicode Standard, v. 6.0. Unicode, Inc.
Retrieved Feb. 12, 2012.
32. ^ The romanization shown is identical to IAST, except that (which is not used in Sanskrit) has the ISO romanization , which in IAST is the dental vowel l.
33. ^ (Bahri 2004, p. (xiii))
34. ^ Daya Nand Sharma, Transliteration into Roman and Devanagari of the languages of the Indian group (http://books.google.com/books?id=HWJJAAAAYAAJ), Survey
of India, 1972, "... With the passage of time there has emerged a practically uniform system of transliteration of Devanagari and allied alphabets. Nevertheless, no single
system of Romanisation has yet developed ..."
12/2/13 Devanagari - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0900.pdf 11/11
35. ^ United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Technical reference manual for the
standardisation of geographical names (http://books.google.com/books?id=mh8u32ANQxAC), United Nations Publications, 2007, ISBN 978-92-1-161500-5, "... ISO
15919 ... There is no evidence of the use of the system either in India or in international cartographic products ... The Hunterian system is the actually used national
system of romanisation in India ..."
36. ^ United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations Regional Cartographic Conference for Asia and the Far East, Volume 2
(http://books.google.com/books?id=QKsvAAAAYAAJ), United Nations, 1955, "... In India the Hunterian system is used, whereby every sound in the local language is
uniformly represented by a certain letter in the Roman alphabet ..."
37. ^ National Library (India), Indian scientific & technical publications, exhibition 1960: a bibliography (http://books.google.com/books?id=8VYEAQAAIAAJ), Council of
Scientific & Industrial Research, Government of India, 1960, "... The Hunterian system of transliteration, which has international acceptance, has been used ..."
38. ^ "Homepage.ntlword.com" (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/stone-catend/trind.htm). Homepage.ntlworld.com. Retrieved 2011-06-13.
39. ^ "LOC.gov" (http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html). LOC.gov. Retrieved 2011-06-13.
40. ^ "0001.eps" (http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/hindi.pdf) (PDF). Retrieved 2011-06-13.
41. ^ "LOC.gov" (http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/sanskrit.pdf) (PDF). Retrieved 2011-06-13.
Masica, Colin (1991), The Indo-Aryan Languages (http://books.google.com/books?id=J3RSHWePhXwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=indo-aryan+languages),
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-29944-2.
Snell, Rupert (2000), Teach Yourself Beginner's Hindi Script, Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN 978-0-07-141984-0.
Salomon, Richard (2003), "Writing Systems of the Indo-Aryan Languages", in Cardona, George; Jain, Dhanesh, The Indo-Aryan Languages, Routledge,
pp. 67103, ISBN 978-0-415-77294-5.
Verma, Sheela (2003), "Magahi", in Cardona, George; Jain, Dhanesh, The Indo-Aryan Languages, Routledge, pp. 498514, ISBN 978-0-415-77294-5.
Wikner, Charles (1996), A Practical Sanskrit Introductory (http://sanskritdocuments.org/learning_tutorial_wikner/index.html).
External links
Unicode Chart for Devanagari (http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0900.pdf)
Hindi/Devanagari Script Tutor (http://www.avashy.com/hindiscripttutor.htm)
For a list of Devanagari input tools and fonts, please see Help:Multilingual support (Indic).
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Devanagari&oldid=583742866"
Categories: Articles with wanted PUA characters Brahmic scripts Hindi Hindustani orthography
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