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Nagari may refer to:

Writing systems[edit]

• Nāgarī script, a script used in India during the first millennium
• Devanagari, a script used since the late first millennium and currently in widespread use for the languages of northern India
• Nandinagari, a script used in southern India from the late first millennium until the 19th century
• Sylheti Nagari, a script used in the Sylhet area of Bangladesh and nearby parts of India

Places[edit]

• Nagari, Andhra Pradesh, a town in India
• Nagari, Rajasthan, a village in India

Other uses[edit]

• Nagari (settlement), an administrative unit in parts of Sumatra, Indonesia
• Bolwell Nagari, a sports car produced in Australia by Bolwell
• Nagari, a clan of the Gujjar / Gurjar ethnic group

See also[edit]

• Nigari, Japanese term for the magnesium chloride used in tofu-making

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Devanagari (pronounced [ˌdeːvəˈnɑːɡəriː]; देवनागरी, Devanāgarī), also called Nagari (Nāgarī, the name of its parent writing system), is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal. It is written from left to right, lacks distinct letter cases, and is recognizable by a distinctive horizontal line running along the tops of the letters that links them together. Devanāgarī is the main script used to write Hindi, Marathi, and Nepali. Since the 19th century, it has been the most commonly used script for Sanskrit. Devanāgarī is also employed for Gujari, Bhili, Bhojpuri, Konkani, Magahi, Maithili, Marwari, Newari, Pahari (Garhwali and Kumaoni), Santhali, Tharu, and sometimes Sindhi, Punjabi, and Kashmiri. It was formerly used to write Gujarati.

Origins

Devanāgarī is part of the Brahmic family of scripts of Nepal, India, Tibet, and South-East Asia. It is a descendant of the Gupta script, along with Siddham and Sharada. Eastern variants of Gupta called Nāgarī are first attested from the 8th century; from c. 1200 these gradually replaced Siddham, which survived as a vehicle for Tantric Buddhism in East Asia, and Sharada, which remained in parallel use in Kashmir.

Sanskritnāgarī is the feminine of nāgara 'urban(e)', a vrddhi adjectival form of nagaram, called establishment. It is feminine from its original phrasing with lipi ('script') as nāgarī lipi 'urban(e) script', that is, the script of the cultured establishment. There are several varieties of Nāgarī in use, one of which was distinguished by affixing Deva 'god' or 'deity' to form a tatpurusha compound meaning the 'urban(e) [script] of the gods', or 'divine urban(e) [script]'.

The use of the name Devanāgarī is relatively recent, and the older term Nāgarī is still common. The rapid spread of the term Devanāgarī may be related to the almost exclusive use of this script to publish sacred Sanskrit texts in colonial times. This has led to such a close connection between Devanāgarī and Sanskrit that Devanāgarī is now widely thought to be the Sanskrit script; however, before the colonial period there was no standard script for Sanskrit, which was written in whichever script was familiar to the local populace.

Principles

As a Brahmic abugida, the fundamental principle of Devanāgarī is that each letter represents a consonant, which carries an inherent vowel a [ə].^[1] For example, the letter क is read ka, the two letters कन are kana, the three कनय are kanaya, etc. Other vowels, or the absence of vowels, require modification of these consonants or their own letters:

• Consonant clusters are written with ligatures(saṃyuktākṣara 'conjuncts'). For example, the three letters कनय kanaya may be joined to form क्नय knaya, कन्य kanya, or क्न्य knya.
• Vowels other than the inherent a are written with diacritics (termed matras). For example, using क ka, the following forms can be derived: के ke, कु ku, की kī, का kā, etc.
• For vowels as an independent syllable (in writing, unattached to a consonant), either at the beginning of a word or after another vowel, there are full-letter forms. For example, while the vowel ū is written with the diacritic ू in कू kū, it has its own letter ऊ in ऊक ūka and कऊ kaū.
• A final consonant is marked with the diacritic ्, called the virāma in Sanskrit, halanta in Hindi, and a 'killer stroke'^{[citation needed]} in English. This cancels the inherent vowel, so that from क्नय knaya is derived क्नय् knay. The halanta will often be used for consonant clusters when typesetting ligatures is not feasible.^{[citation needed]}

Such a letter or ligature, with its diacritics, is called an akṣara 'syllable'. For example, कनय kanaya is written with what are counted as three akshara, whereas क्न्य knya and कु ku are each written with one.

As far as handwriting is concerned, letters are usually written without the distinctive horizontal bar, which is only added once the word is finished being written.^{[2][citation needed]}

Letters

The letter order of Devanāgarī, like nearly all Brahmi scripts, is based on phonetic principles which consider both the manner and place of articulation of the consonants and vowels they represent. This arrangement is usually referred to as the varṇamālā 'garland of letters'.^[3] The format of Devanāgarī for Sanskrit serves as the prototype for its application, with minor variations or additions, to other languages.^[4]

Vowels

The vowels and their arrangement are:^[5]

• Arranged with the vowels are two consonantal diacritics, the final nasalanusvāraंṃ and the final fricativevisargaःḥ (called अंaṃ and अःaḥ).Masica (1991:146) notes of the anusvāra in Sankrit that 'there is some controversy as to whether it represents a homorganic nasal consonant [..], a nasalized vowel, a nasalized 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:^[6]इः[ihi]. Masica (1991:146) considers the visarga along with letters ङṅa and ञña for the 'largely predictable' velar and palatal nasals to be examples of 'phonetic overkill in the system'.
• Another diacritic is the candrabindu/anunāsikaँ. Salomon (2003:76-77) describes 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 formal: the candrabindu indicates vowel nasalization^[7] while the anusvār indicates a homorganic nasal preceding another consonant:^[8] e.g. हँसी[ɦə̃si] 'laughter', गंगा[ɡəŋɡɑ] '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:^[9]हूँ[ɦũ] 'am', but हैं[ɦɛ̃] 'are'. Some writers and typesetters dispense with the 'moon' stroke altogether, using only the dot in all situations.^[10]
• The avagrahaऽ (usually transliterated with an apostrophe) is a Sanskrit punctuation mark for the elision of a vowel in sandhi: एकोऽयम्ekoyam (< ekas + ayam) 'this one'. An original long vowel lost to coalescence is sometimes marked with a double avagraha:सदाऽऽत्माsadātmā (< sadā + ātmā) 'always, the self'.^[11] In Hindi, Snell (2000:77) states that its 'main function is to show that a vowel is sustained in a cry or a shout': आईऽऽऽ!āīīī!. In Magahi, which has 'quite a number of verbal forms [that] end in that inherent vowel' Verma (2003:501), the avagraha is used to mark the non-elision of word-final inherent a, which otherwise is a modern orthographic convention: बइठऽbaiṭha 'sit' versus *बइठbaiṭh
• The syllabic consonants ṝ, ḷ, and ḹ are specific to Sanskrit and not included in the varṇamālā of other languages. The sound represented by ṛ has been lost as well, and its pronunciation now ranges from [ɾɪ] (Hindi) to [ɾu] (Marathi).
• ḹ is not an actual phoneme of Sanskrit, but rather a graphic convention included among the vowels in order to maintain the symmetry of short–long pairs of letters.^[4]
• There are non-regular formations of रुru and रूrū.

Consonants

The consonants and their arrangement are:^[12]

• Rounding this out where applicable is ळḷa/ɺ̡/, which represented the intervocalic lateral flapallophone of the voiced retroflex stop in Vedic Sanskrit, and which is a phoneme in languages such as Marathi and Rajasthani.
• 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 either ignored in writing, or dealt through means such as diacritics and ligatures (ignored in recitation).
  • The most prolific diacritic has been the subscriptnuqtā़. Hindi uses it for the Persian sounds क़qa/q/, ख़xa/x/, ग़ġa/ɣ/, ज़za/z/, and फ़fa/f/, and for the allophonic developments ड़ṛa/ɽ/ and ढ़ṛha/ɽʱ/. (Although ऴḷha/ɺ̡ʱ/ could also exist but there is no use of it in Hindi.)
  • Sindhi's implosives are accommodated with underlining॒ : ग॒[ɠə], ज॒[ʄə], ड॒[ɗə], ब॒[ɓə].
  • Aspiratedsonorants may be represented as conjuncts/ligatures with हha: म्हmha, न्हnha, ण्हṇha, व्हvha, ल्हlha, ळ्हḷha, र्हrha.
  • Masica (1991:147) notes Marwari as using a special symbol for ḍa[ɗə] (while ड = [ɽə]).

Conjuncts

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).

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 standardized 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 (ख, घ, ण etc.). As first or middle fragments/members of a cluster, they lose that stroke. e.g. त + व = त्व, ण + ढ = ण्ढ, स + थ = स्थ. शś(a) appears as a different, simple ribbon-shaped fragment preceding वva, नna, चca, लla, and रra, causing these second members to be shifted down and reduced in size. Thus श्वśva, श्नśna, श्चścaश्लśla, and श्रśra.

• रr(a) as a first member takes the form of a curved upward dash above the final character or its ā-diacritic. e.g. र्वrva, र्वाrvā, र्स्पrspa, र्स्पाrspā. As a final member with ट ठ ड ढ ङ छ it is two lines below the character, pointed downwards and apart. Thus ट्र ठ्र ड्र ढ्र ङ्र छ्र. Elsewhere as a final member it is a diagonal stroke extending leftwards and down. e.g. क्र ग्र भ्र. तta is shifted up to make त्रtra.

• As first members, remaining characters lacking vertical strokes such as दd(a) and हh(a) may have their second member, reduced in size and lacking its horizontal stroke, placed underneath. कk(a), छch(a), and फph(a) shorten their right hooks and join them directly to the following member.

• The conjuncts for kṣ and gñ are not clearly derived from the letters making up their components. The conjunct for kṣ is क्ष (क् + ष)and for jñ it is ज्ञ (ज् + ञ).

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 (1991:161-162). Scroll your cursor over the conjuncts to reveal their romanizations (in IAST) and IPA pronunciations.

Biconsonantal conjuncts

New Indo-Aryan languages may use the above forms for their Sanskrit loanwords (or otherwise).

Accent marks

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

Punctuation

The end of a sentence or half-verse may be marked with a vertical line known as a pūrṇa virām or a danda: ।. The end of a full verse may be marked with a two vertical lines: ॥. A comma, or alpa virām, is used to denote a natural pause in speech.

Numerals

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

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 Devanāgarī-specific portion is nearly identical to the academic standard for Sanskrit, IAST.

Free Marathi Fonts

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 ranges for Devanāgarī are available in the three blocks U+0900 . U+097F, U+1CD0 . U+1CFF and U+A8E0 . U+A8FF. Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points.

Devanāgarī Keyboard Layouts

Microsoft Windows supports the INSCRIPT layout (using the Mangal font), which can be used to input unicode Devanāgarī characters.

INSCRIPT layout

A Devanāgarī INSCRIPT bilingual keyboard. See Devanagari Keyboards, below.

Typewriter

Computer keyboard with the Hindi typewriter layout is available as product. See Devanagari Keyboards, below.

Phonetic

See Bolnagri Home Page

Alphabetic (देवनागरी)

The aA Hindi keyboard (अ आ हिन्दी कुंजीपटल) is based on the Devanāgarī alphabet set more fully detailed here: http://hi.wikipedia.org/wiki/अ_आ_कुंजीपटल for image - (click here)

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. The layout is the same as for INSCRIPT/KDE Linux.

See also

Software

• Itranslator. Free program to convert Itrans to Devanagari. Uses 16-bit Unicode-compatible fonts. Works only on Windows 2000 / XP / Server 2003.
• To write Devanagari or Gujarati Script Devised by Dayashankar Joshi
• Nepali Font Converter/Deconverter 0.3- Java Based Nepali Font Converter/Deconveter. Supports Preeti, Kantipur & Jaga - FontConverter0.3 is the software based on java language and is used to convert non-unicode to the Unicode .This software is basically focused on Devanagari non-unicode fonts (only for nepali language). It works well on Preeti, Kantipur and Jaga HImali.
• Indic script IME s (keyboard layouts) and other Indic-language software by Microsoft - Windows.
• Apple Type Services for Unicode Imaging - Macintosh
• 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
• Lipikaar - The indic script typing tool with support for Devanāgarī through a Windows desktop executable or Firefox Extension.
• Devawriter - Comprehensive Devanagari input for Windows and Macintosh.

References

1. ^Salomon (2003:70)
2. ^http://archives.conlang.info/sae/shaunvhon/fialphonfhoen.html
3. ^Salomon (2003:71)
4. ^ ^abSalomon (2003:75)
5. ^Wikner (1996:13, 14)
6. ^Wikner (1996:6)
7. ^Snell (2000:44-45)
8. ^Snell (2000:64)
9. ^Snell (2000:45)
10. ^Snell (2000:46)
11. ^Salomon (2003:77)
12. ^Wikner (1996:73)

Bibliography

• Masica, Colin (1991), The Indo-Aryan Languages, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521299442, http://books.google.com/books?id=J3RSHWePhXwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=indo-aryan+languages.
• Snell, Rupert (2000), Teach Yourself Beginner's Hindi Script, Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN 9780071419840.
• Salomon, Richard (2003), 'Writing Systems of the Indo-Aryan Languages', in Cardona, George; Jain, Dhanesh, The Indo-Aryan Languages, Routledge, pp. 67–103, ISBN 9780415772945.
• Verma, Sheela (2003), 'Magahi', in Cardona, George; Jain, Dhanesh, The Indo-Aryan Languages, Routledge, pp. 498–514, ISBN 9780415772945.
• Wikner, Charles (1996), A Practical Sanskrit Introductory, http://sanskritdocuments.org/learning_tutorial_wikner/index.html.

External links

• Romanized Nepali Unicode Keyboard developed by OOPSLite Technologies
• Microsoft BhashaIndia - Indic Language Computing resources
• Omniglot.com - Devanāgarī Alphabets including classical/northern variant forms of अ (a) and related letters, झ (jh), ण (ṇ)
• Devanagari/Sanskrit alphabet with Unicode values and an extensive list of conjuncts
• IS13194:1991 [1]

Devanagari / Hindi Keyboard

• TVS Devanagari Hindi keyboard with details of keyboard layout, installation instructions for Windows/Linux, shops and online purchase
• TVS Devanagari Hindi keyboard, company website
• Intex Technologies Swadeshi bilingual Hindi keyboard, keyboard layout is Hindi Typewriter

Electronic typesetting

Fonts

• Unicode Compliant Open Type Fonts including ligature glyphs (TDIL Data Centre)
• Chandas, Unicode font with all attested ligatures, Vedic signs, and northern/southern variants, with links to other fonts
• Mangal font (article in Sandbox)
• Nepali Devanagari fonts free download

Documentation

Tools and applications

• IndiX, Indian language support for Linux, a site by the Indian National Centre for Software Technology
• EnTrans - Entrans is an online, collaborative translation tool
• Online Latin to Devanāgarī transliteration tool