Devanagari Explained

Devanāgari
Also Known As:Indic languages: देवनागरी
Sample:Devanagari letters.svg
Caption:Devanāgarī script (vowels top three rows, consonants below)
Type:Abugida
Languages:Apabhramsha, Angika, Awadhi, Bajjika, Bhili, Bhojpuri, Boro, Braj, Chhattisgarhi, Dogri, Garhwali, Haryanvi, Hindi, Kashmiri, Khandeshi, Konkani, Kumaoni, Magahi, Maithili, Marathi, Marwari, Mundari, Nagpuri, Newari, Nepali, Pāli, Pahari, Prakrit, Rajasthani, Sanskrit, Santali, Saraiki, Sherpa, Sindhi, Surjapuri, and many more.
Time:12th century CE to present[1] [2]
Region:India and Nepal (Official)
Fiji (Co-official)
Fam1:Egyptian hieroglyphs[3]
Fam2:Proto-Sinaitic
Fam3:Phoenician
Fam4:Aramaic
Fam5:Brāhmī
Fam6:Gupta
Fam7:Siddhaṃ[4] [5]
Fam8:Nāgarī
Sisters:Nandināgarī
Kaithi
Gujarātī
Moḍī
Unicode:U+0900–U+097F Devanagari,
U+A8E0–U+A8FF Devanagari Extended,
U+11B00–11B5F Devanagari Extended-A,
U+1CD0–U+1CFF Vedic Extensions
Iso15924:Deva

Devanagari (; Sanskrit: देवनागरी,, in Sanskrit pronounced as /deːʋɐˈnaːɡɐriː/) is an Indic script used in the northern Indian subcontinent. Also simply called Nāgari,[6] it is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ancient Brāhmi script. It is one of the official scripts of the Republic of India and Nepal. It was developed and in regular use by the 8th century CE[6] and achieved its modern form by 1200 CE. The Devanāgari script, composed of 48 primary characters, including 14 vowels and 34 consonants,[7] is the fourth most widely adopted writing system in the world,[8] being used for over 120 languages.

The orthography of this script reflects the pronunciation of the language. Unlike the Latin alphabet, the script has no concept of letter case.[9] It is written from left to right, has a strong preference for symmetrical rounded shapes within squared outlines, and is recognisable by a horizontal line, known as a Hindi: शिरोरेखा, that runs along the top of full letters. In a cursory look, the Devanāgarī script appears different from other Indic scripts, such as Bengali-Assamese or Gurmukhi, but a closer examination reveals they are very similar except for angles and structural emphasis.[10]

Among the languages using it as a primary or secondary script are Marathi, Pāḷi, Sanskrit, Hindi,[11] Boro, Nepali, Sherpa, Prakrit, Apabhramsha, Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Braj Bhasha,[12] Chhattisgarhi, Haryanvi, Magahi, Nagpuri, Rajasthani, Khandeshi, Bhili, Dogri, Kashmiri, Maithili, Konkani, Sindhi, Nepal Bhasa, Mundari, Angika, Bajjika and Santali. The Devanāgarī script is closely related to the Nandināgarī script commonly found in numerous ancient manuscripts of South India,[13] [14] and it is distantly related to a number of southeast Asian scripts.

Etymology

is formed by the addition of the word (Sanskrit: [[wikt:देव|देव]]) to the word (Sanskrit: [[wikt:नागरी|नागरी]]). is an adjective derived from (Sanskrit: [[wikt:नगर|नगर]]), a Sanskrit word meaning "town" or "city," and literally means "urban" or "urbane". The word (implicitly modifying, "script") was used on its own to refer to a North Indian script, or perhaps a number of such scripts, as Al-Biruni attests in the 11th century; the form is attested later, at least by the 18th century.[15] The name of the Nandināgarī script is also formed by adding a prefix to the generic script name . The precise origin and significance of the prefix remains unclear.

History

Devanāgarī is part of the Brahmic family of scripts of India, Nepal, Tibet, and Southeast Asia.[16] [17] It is a descendant of the 3rd century BCE Brāhmī script, which evolved into the Nagari script which in turn gave birth to Devanāgarī and Nandināgarī. Devanāgarī has been widely adopted across India and Nepal to write Sanskrit, Marathi, Hindi, Central Indo-Aryan languages, Konkani, Boro, and various Nepalese languages.

Some of the earliest epigraphic evidence attesting to the developing Sanskrit Nāgarī script in ancient India is from the 1st to 4th century CE inscriptions discovered in Gujarat.[18] Variants of script called, recognisably close to Devanāgarī, are first attested from the 1st century CE Rudradaman inscriptions in Sanskrit, while the modern standardised form of Devanāgarī was in use by about 1000 CE.[19] [20] Medieval inscriptions suggest widespread diffusion of Nāgarī-related scripts, with biscripts presenting local script along with the adoption of Nāgarī scripts. For example, the mid 8th-century Pattadakal pillar in Karnataka has text in both Siddha Matrika script, and an early Telugu-Kannada script; while, the Kangra Jawalamukhi inscription in Himachal Pradesh is written in both Sharada and Devanāgarī scripts.[21]

The Nāgarī script was in regular use by the 7th century CE, and it was fully developed by about the end of first millennium.[6] [19] The use of Sanskrit in Nāgarī script in medieval India is attested by numerous pillar and cave-temple inscriptions, including the 11th-century Udayagiri inscriptions in Madhya Pradesh,[22] and an inscribed brick found in Uttar Pradesh, dated to be from 1217 CE, which is now held at the British Museum.[23] The script's prototypes and related versions have been discovered with ancient relics outside India, in places such as Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Indonesia. In East Asia, the script (considered as the closest precursor to Nāgarī) was in use by Buddhists.[24] Nāgarī has been the Latin: [[primus inter pares]] of the Indic scripts.[25] It has long been used traditionally by religiously educated people in South Asia to record and transmit information, existing throughout the land in parallel with a wide variety of local scripts (such as Moḍī, Kaithi, and Mahajani) used for administration, commerce, and other daily uses.

Sharada remained in parallel use in Kashmir. An early version of Devanāgarī is visible in the Kutila inscription of Bareilly dated to VS 1049 (992 CE), which demonstrates the emergence of the horizontal bar to group letters belonging to a word. One of the oldest surviving Sanskrit texts from the early post-Maurya period consists of 1,413 Nāgarī pages of a commentary by Patanjali, with a composition date of about 150 BCE, the surviving copy transcribed about 14th century CE.[26]

East Asia

In the 7th century, under the rule of Songtsen Gampo of the Tibetan Empire, Thonmi Sambhota was sent to Nepal to open marriage negotiations with a Nepali princess and to find a writing system suitable for the Tibetan language. He then invented the Tibetan script based on the Nāgarī used in Kashmir. He added 6 new characters for sounds that did not exist in Sanskrit.[27]

Other scripts closely related to Nāgarī (such as Siddhaṃ) were introduced throughout East and Southeast Asia from the 7th to the 10th centuries CE: notably in Indonesia, Vietnam, and Japan.[28] [29]

Most of the Southeast Asian scripts have roots in Dravidian scripts, but a few found in south-central regions of Java and isolated parts of southeast Asia resemble Devanāgarī or its prototypes. The Kawi script in particular is similar to the Devanāgarī in many respects, though the morphology of the script has local changes. The earliest inscriptions in the Devanāgarī-like scripts are from around the 10th century CE, with many more between the 11th and 14th centuries.[30] [31]

Some of the old-Devanāgarī inscriptions are found in Hindu temples of Java, such as the Prambanan temple.[32] The Ligor and the Kalasan inscriptions of central Java, dated to the 8th century, are also in the Nāgarī script of north India. According to the epigraphist and Asian Studies scholar Lawrence Briggs, these may be related to the 9th century copper plate inscription of Devapaladeva (Bengal) which is also in early Devanāgarī script.[33] The term kawi in Kawi script is a loan word from (poetry). According to anthropologists and Asian studies scholars John Norman Miksic and Goh Geok Yian, the 8th century version of early Nāgarī or Devanāgarī script was adopted in Java, Bali, and Khmer around the 8th–9th centuries, as evidenced by the many contemporaneous inscriptions of this period.[34]

Letters

The letter order of Devanāgarī, like nearly all Brāhmic 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 ("garland of letters"). The format of Devanāgarī for Sanskrit serves as the prototype for its application, with minor variations or additions, to other languages.

Vowels

The vowels and their arrangement are:

Independent formIASTISOIPAAs diacritic with Indic languages: प (Barakhadi)Independent formIASTISOIPAAs diacritic with Indic languages: प (Barakhadi)

(Guttural)		Indic languages: अpronounced as /link/Indic languages: पIndic languages: आpronounced as /link/Indic languages: पा

(Palatal)		Indic languages: इpronounced as /link/Indic languages: पि<--When you input [p] [i], you should see [i] [p] as the correct result.If not, that means your computer does not support Indic script. Please do not swap.-->Indic languages: ईpronounced as /link/Indic languages: पी

(Labial)		Indic languages: उpronounced as /link/Indic languages: पु 6Indic languages: ऊpronounced as /link/Indic languages: पू 6

(Retroflex)		Indic languages: ऋpronounced as /link/Indic languages: पृIndic languages: ॠ 4pronounced as /link/Indic languages: पॄ

(Dental)		Indic languages: ऌ 4pronounced as /link/Indic languages: पॢIndic languages: ॡ 4, 5pronounced as /link/Indic languages: पॣ

(Palatoguttural)		Indic languages: एpronounced as /link/Indic languages: पेIndic languages: ऐpronounced as /[ɑj]/Indic languages: पै

(Labioguttural)		Indic languages: ओpronounced as /link/Indic languages: पोIndic languages: औpronounced as /[ɑw]/Indic languages: पौ
Indic languages: अं / Indic languages: [[ं]] 1,2pronounced as /link/Indic languages: पंIndic languages: अः / Indic languages: [[ः]] 1pronounced as /link/Indic languages: पः
Indic languages: ॲ&nbsp;/&nbsp;ऍ 7pronounced as /link/Indic languages: पॅIndic languages: ऑ 7pronounced as /link/Indic languages: पॉ
  1. Arranged with the vowels are two consonantal diacritics, the final nasal Indic languages: [[ं]]|size=140% and the final fricative Indic languages: [[ः]]|size=140% (called Indic languages: [[अं]]|size=140% and Indic languages: [[अः]]|size=140%). notes of the 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 represents post-vocalic voiceless glottal fricative pronounced as /[h]/, in Sanskrit an allophone of, or less commonly, usually in word-final position. Some traditions of recitation append an echo of the vowel after the breath: Indic languages: इः|size=140% pronounced as /[ihi]/. considers the along with letters Indic languages: ङ|size=140% and Indic languages: ञ|size=140% for the "largely predictable" velar and palatal nasals to be examples of "phonetic overkill in the system".
  2. Another diacritic is the / Indic languages: [[ँ]]|size=140% Indic languages: [[अँ]]|size=140%. describes it as a "more emphatic form" of the, "sometimes used to mark a true [vowel] nasalization". In a new Indo-Aryan language such as Hindi the distinction is formal: the indicates vowel nasalisation while the indicates a homorganic nasal preceding another consonant: e.g., Hindi: हँसी pronounced as /[ɦə̃si]/ "laughter", Hindi: गंगा pronounced as /[ɡəŋɡɑ]/ "the Ganges". When an has a vowel diacritic above the top line, that leaves no room for the ("moon") stroke, which is dispensed with in favour of the lone dot: Hindi: हूँ|size=140% pronounced as /[ɦũ]/ "am", but Hindi: हैं|size=140% pronounced as /[ɦɛ̃]/ "are". Some writers and typesetters dispense with the "moon" stroke altogether, using only the dot in all situations.
  3. The (Indic languages: [[ऽ]]|size=140% Indic languages: [[अऽ]]|size=140%) (usually transliterated with an apostrophe) is a Sanskrit punctuation mark for the elision of a vowel in sandhi: Sanskrit: एकोऽयम् (← Sanskrit: एकस् + Sanskrit: अयम्) ("this one"). An original long vowel lost to coalescence is sometimes marked with a double : Sanskrit: सदाऽऽत्मा (← Sanskrit: सदा + Sanskrit: आत्मा) "always, the self". In Hindi, states that its "main function is to show that a vowel is sustained in a cry or a shout": Hindi: आईऽऽऽ! . In Madhyadeshi languages like Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Maithili, etc. which have "quite a number of verbal forms that end in that inherent vowel", the is used to mark the non-elision of word-final inherent, which otherwise is a modern orthographic convention: Indic languages: बइठऽ "sit" versus Indic languages: बइठ
  4. The syllabic consonants Indic languages: ॠ|size=140%, Indic languages: ऌ|size=140%, and Indic languages: ॡ|size=140% are specific to Sanskrit and not included in the of other languages. The sound represented by has also been largely lost in the modern languages, and its pronunciation now ranges from pronounced as /[ɾɪ]/ (Hindi) to pronounced as /[ɾu]/ (Marathi).
  5. 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.
  6. There are non-regular formations of Indic languages: रु|size=140%, Indic languages: रू|size=140%, and Indic languages: हृ|size=140% .
  7. There are two more vowels in Marathi, Marathi: ॲ|size=140% and Marathi: ऑ|size=140%, that respectively represent [{{IPA|æ}}], similar to the RP English pronunciation of (a) in act, and [{{IPA|ɒ}}], similar to the RP pronunciation of (o) in cot. These vowels are sometimes used in Hindi too, as in ("dollar").[35] IAST transliteration is not defined. In ISO 15919, the transliteration is and, respectively.
  8. Kashmiri Devanagari uses letters like Indic languages: ॳ|size=140%, Indic languages: ॴ|size=140%, Indic languages: ॶ|size=140%, Indic languages: ॷ|size=140%, Indic languages: ऎ|size=140%, Indic languages: ऒ|size=140%, Indic languages: औ|size=140%, Indic languages: ॵ to represent its vowels (see Kashmiri language#Devanagari).

Consonants

The table below shows the consonant letters (in combination with inherent vowel) and their arrangement. To the right of the Devanāgarī letter it shows the Latin script transliteration using International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, and the phonetic value (IPA) in Hindi.[36] [37]

Phonetics →
(Occlusive)
(Nasal)
(Approximant)		/
(Fricative)
Voicing →
Aspiration →

(Velar)		Indic languages: क
pronounced as /link/		Indic languages: ख
pronounced as /link/		Indic languages: ग
pronounced as /link/		Indic languages: घ
pronounced as /link/		Indic languages: ङ
pronounced as /link/		Indic languages: ह
pronounced as /link/

(Palatal)		Indic languages: च
pronounced as /link/		Indic languages: छ
pronounced as /[tʃʰ]/		Indic languages: ज
pronounced as /link/		Indic languages: झ
pronounced as /[dʒʱ]/		Indic languages: ञ
pronounced as /link/		Indic languages: य
pronounced as /link/		Indic languages: श
pronounced as /link/

(Retroflex)		Indic languages: ट
pronounced as /link/		Indic languages: ठ
pronounced as /[ʈʰ]/		Indic languages: ड
pronounced as /link/		Indic languages: ढ
pronounced as /[ɖʱ]/		Indic languages: ण
pronounced as /link/		Indic languages: र
pronounced as /link/		Indic languages: ष
pronounced as /link/

(Dental)		Indic languages: त
pronounced as /link/		Indic languages: थ
pronounced as /[t̪ʰ]/		Indic languages: द
pronounced as /link/		Indic languages: ध
pronounced as /[d̪ʱ]/		Indic languages: न
pronounced as /link/		Indic languages: ल
pronounced as /link/		Indic languages: स
pronounced as /link/

(Labial)		Indic languages: प
pronounced as /link/		Indic languages: फ
pronounced as /[pʰ]/		Indic languages: ब
pronounced as /link/		Indic languages: भ
pronounced as /[bʱ]/		Indic languages: म
pronounced as /link/		Indic languages: व
pronounced as /link/

For a list of all 297 (33×9) possible Sanskrit consonant-short vowel syllables see .

Vowel diacritics

Table: Consonants with vowel diacritics. Vowels in their independent form on the top and in their corresponding dependent form (vowel sign) combined with the consonant '' on the bottom. '' is without any added vowel sign, where the vowel '' is inherent.

aāêôiīuūeēaioōaur̥r̥̄l̥l̥̄ṁḥ
अआॲऑइईउऊऎएऐऒओऔऋॠऌॡअंअः
kakākêkôkikīkukūkekēkaikokōkaukr̥kr̥̄kl̥kl̥̄kaṁkaḥk
ककाकॅकॉकिकीकुकूकॆकेकैकॊकोकौकृकॄकॢकॣकंकःक्

A vowel combines with a consonant in their diacritic form. For example, the vowel Indic languages: आ|size=140% combines with the consonant Indic languages: क्|size=140% to form the syllabic letter Indic languages: का|size=140%, with halant (cancel sign) removed and added vowel sign which is indicated by diacritics. The vowel Indic languages: अ|size=140% combines with the consonant Indic languages: क्|size=140% to form Indic languages: क|size=140% with halant removed. But the diacritic series of Indic languages: क|size=140%, Indic languages: ख|size=140%, Indic languages: ग|size=140%, Indic languages: घ|size=140% (respectively) is without any added vowel sign, as the vowel Indic languages: अ|size=140% is inherent.

The combinations of all consonants and vowels, each in alphabetical order, are laid out in the (Marathi: {{linktext|बाराखडी) or (Hindi: {{linktext|बारहखड़ी) table. In the following table, the transliteration of each combination will appear on mouseover:

Barakhadi table
aāiīuūeaioauaṁaḥ
k-
kh-
g-
gh-
ṅ-
c-
ch-
j-
jh-
ñ-
ṭ-
ṭh-
ḍ-
ḍh-
ṇ-
t-
th-
d-
dh-
n-
p-
ph-
b-
bh-
m-
y-
r-
l-
v-
ś-
ṣ-
s-
h-

Old forms

The following letter variants are also in use, particularly in older texts and in specific regions:[39]

Conjunct consonants

See main article: Devanagari conjuncts.

As mentioned, successive consonants lacking a vowel in between them may physically join as a conjunct consonant or ligature. When Devanāgarī is used for writing languages other than Sanskrit, conjuncts are used mostly with Sanskrit words and loan words. Native words typically use the basic consonant and native speakers know to suppress the vowel when it is conventional to do so. For example, the native Hindi word is written Hindi: करना .[40] 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:

Accent marks

The pitch accent of Vedic Sanskrit is written with various symbols depending on shakha. In the Rigveda, is written with a bar below the line (Sanskrit: ◌॒|size=140%), with a stroke above the line (Sanskrit: ◌॑|size=140%) while is unmarked.

Punctuation

The end of a sentence or half-verse may be marked with the "Indic languages: ।|size=140%" symbol (called a, meaning "bar", or called a, meaning "full stop/pause"). The end of a full verse may be marked with a double-, a "Indic languages: ॥|size=140%" symbol. A comma (called an , meaning "short stop/pause") is used to denote a natural pause in speech. Punctuation marks of Western origin, such as the colon, semicolon, exclamation mark, dash, and question mark have been in use in Devanāgarī script since at least the 1900s, matching their use in European languages.[42]

Numerals

See also: Brāhmī numerals and Hindu–Arabic numeral system.

+ Devanāgarī digits
Indic languages: [[०]]|size=140% Indic languages: [[१]]|size=140% Indic languages: [[२]]|size=140% Indic languages: [[३]]|size=140% Indic languages: [[४]]|size=140%Indic languages: [[५]]|size=140% Indic languages: [[६]]|size=140% Indic languages: [[७]]|size=140% Indic languages: [[८]]|size=140% Indic languages: [[९]]|size=140%

Fonts

A variety of Unicode fonts are in use for Devanāgarī. These include Akshar,[43] Annapurna,[44] Arial,[45] CDAC-Gist Surekh,[46] CDAC-Gist Yogesh,[47] Chandas,[48] Gargi,[49] Gurumaa,[50] Jaipur,[51] Jana,[52] Kalimati,[53] Kanjirowa,[54] Lohit Devanagari, Mangal,[55] Kokila,[56],Preeti,[57] Raghu,[58] Sanskrit2003,[59] Santipur OT,[60] Siddhanta, and Thyaka.[61]

The form of Devanāgarī fonts vary with function. According to Harvard College for Sanskrit studies:[60]

The Google Fonts project has a number of Unicode fonts for Devanāgarī in a variety of typefaces in serif, sans-serif, display and handwriting categories.

Transliteration

See main article: Devanagari transliteration.

There are several methods of Romanisation or transliteration from Devanāgarī to the Roman script.[62]

Hunterian system

See main article: Hunterian transliteration.

The Hunterian system is the national system of romanisation in India, officially adopted by the Government of India.

ISO 15919

See 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 Brāhmic graphemes to the Latin script. The Devanāgarī-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, magazines, and electronic texts with Unicode fonts. It is based on a standard established by the Congress of Orientalists at Athens in 1912. The ISO 15919 standard of 2001 codified the transliteration convention to include an expanded standard for sister scripts of Devanāgarī.[63]

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. It was designed to simplify the task of putting large amount of Sanskrit textual material into machine readable form, and the inventors stated that it reduces the effort needed in transliteration of Sanskrit texts on the keyboard. 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 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 translates the Roman letters into Devanāgarī (or other Indic languages). The latest version of ITRANS is version 5.30 released in July 2001. It is similar to Velthuis system and was created by Avinash Chopde to help print various Indic scripts with personal computers.[64]

Velthuis

See main article: Velthuis.

The disadvantage of the above ASCII schemes is case-sensitivity, implying that transliterated names may not be capitalised. This difficulty is avoided with the system developed in 1996 by Frans Velthuis for TeX, loosely based on IAST, in which case is irrelevant.

ALA-LC Romanisation

ALA-LC[65] 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,[66] one for Sanskrit and Prakrit,[67] etc.

WX

See main article: WX notation. WX is a Roman transliteration scheme for Indian languages, widely used among the natural language processing community in India. It originated at IIT Kanpur for computational processing of Indian languages. The salient features of this transliteration scheme are as follows.

Encodings

ISCII

ISCII is an 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.

Unicode

See main article: Devanagari (Unicode block), Devanagari Extended (Unicode block), Devanagari Extended-A (Unicode block) and Vedic Extensions (Unicode block).

The Unicode Standard defines four blocks for Devanāgarī: Devanagari (U+0900–U+097F), Devanagari Extended (U+A8E0–U+A8FF), Devanagari Extended-A (U+11B00–11B5F), and Vedic Extensions (U+1CD0–U+1CFF).

Devanāgari keyboard layouts

InScript layout

InScript is the standard keyboard layout for Devanāgarī as standardized by the Government of India. It is inbuilt in all modern major operating systems. Microsoft Windows supports the InScript layout, which can be used to input unicode Devanāgarī characters. InScript is also available in some touchscreen mobile phones.

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 the Latin alphabet and the IME automatically converts it into Devanāgarī. Some popular phonetic typing tools are Akruti, Baraha IME and Google IME.

The Mac OS X operating system includes two different keyboard layouts for Devanāgarī: one resembles the INSCRIPT/KDE Linux, while the other is a phonetic layout called "Devanāgarī QWERTY".

Any one of the Unicode fonts input systems is fine for the Indic language Wikipedia and other wikiprojects, including Hindi, Bhojpuri, Marathi, and Nepali Wikipedia. While some people use InScript, the majority uses either Google phonetic transliteration or the input facility Universal Language Selector provided on Wikipedia. On Indic language wikiprojects, the phonetic facility provided initially was java-based, and was later supported by Narayam extension for phonetic input facility. Currently Indic language Wiki projects are supported by Universal Language Selector (ULS), that offers both phonetic keyboard (Aksharantaran, Marathi: Indic languages: अक्षरांतरण, Hindi: Hindi: लिप्यंतरण, बोलनागरी) and InScript keyboard (Marathi: Marathi: मराठी लिपी).

The Ubuntu Linux operating system supports several keyboard layouts for Devanāgarī, including Harvard-Kyoto, WX notation, Bolanagari and phonetic. The 'remington' typing method in Ubuntu IBUS is similar to the Krutidev typing method, popular in Rajasthan. The 'itrans' method is useful for those who know English (and the English keyboard) well but are not familiar with typing in Devanāgarī.

References

General sources

Census and catalogues of manuscripts in Devanāgarī

Thousands of manuscripts of ancient and medieval era Sanskrit texts in Devanāgarī have been discovered since the 19th century. Major catalogues and census include:

External links

Notes and References

  1. Book: Taylor, Isaac . History of the Alphabet: Aryan Alphabets, Part 2 . Kegan Paul, Trench & Co . 1883 . 978-0-7661-5847-4 . 324, 333 .  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 .
  2. Book: Salomon, Richard . Indian epigraphy: a guide to the study of inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan languages . 1998 . Oxford University Press . 978-0-19-509984-3 . South Asia research . Oxford . 39–41.
  3. Himelfarb, Elizabeth J. "First Alphabet Found in Egypt", Archaeology 53, Issue 1 (January/February 2000): 21.
  4. Book: Daniels, P.T. . Language in South Asia . January 2008 . Cambridge University Press . 9780521786539 . B. Kachru . Cambridge . 285–308 . Writing systems of major and minor languages . 10.1017/CBO9780511619069.017 . Y. Kachru . S. Sridhar.
  5. Book: Masica, Colin . The Indo-Aryan languages . 1993 . 143.
  6. Book: Kuiper, Kathleen . 2010 . The Culture of India . New York . The Rosen Publishing Group . 978-1615301492 . 83.
  7. Web site: Devanagari – an overview ScienceDirect Topics . 2023-08-02 . www.sciencedirect.com.
  8. Web site: Templin . David . Devanagari script . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20150401062015/https://www.omniglot.com/language/articles/devanagari.htm . 1 April 2015 . 5 April 2015 . omniglot.com.
  9. Book: Nakanishi, Akira . Writing systems of the World . 978-0804816540 . 48.
  10. Encyclopedia: Salomon . Richard . Writing systems of the Indo-Aryan languages . Cardona . George . Jain . Danesh . The Indo-Aryan Languages . 26 July 2007 . Routledge . 978-1-135-79710-2 . 72 . Each Brāhmī-derived script has a characteristic stylistic format or ductus, which tends to exaggerate their apparent differences and mask their underlying similarities. For example, Nagari has a strong preference for symmetrical shapes, especially squared outlines and right angles... . 1 July 2023 .
  11. Web site: Hindi . https://web.archive.org/web/20120528075558/https://www.omniglot.com/writing/hindi.htm . 28 May 2012 . Omniglot Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages.
  12. Book: Snell, Rupert . The Hindi classical tradition : a Braj Bhāṣā reader . 1991 . School of Oriental and African studies . 0-7286-0175-3 . London . 24794163.
  13. Book: George . Cardona . Danesh . Jain . 2003 . The Indo-Aryan Languages . Routledge . 978-0415772945 . 75.
  14. Book: Grünendahl, Reinhold . 2001 . South Indian Scripts in Sanskrit Manuscripts and Prints . Otto Harrassowitz Verlag . 978-3447045049 . xxii, 201–210.
  15. Maurer . Walter H. . 1976 . On the Name Devanāgarī . live . Journal of the American Oriental Society . 96 . 1 . 101–104 . 10.2307/599893 . 0003-0279 . 599893 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210522070843/https://www.jstor.org/stable/599893 . 22 May 2021 . 22 May 2021.
  16. Book: George . Cardona . Danesh . Jain . 2003 . The Indo-Aryan Languages . Routledge . 978-0415772945 . 68–69.
  17. Book: Fischer, Steven Roger . A History of Writing . 2004 . 15 November 2015 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200307151643/https://books.google.com/books?id=Ywo0M9OpbXoC . live . Reaktion Books . 978-1-86189-167-9 . (p. 110) " 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). Beginning around AD 600, Gupta inspired the important Nagari, Sarada, Tibetan and Pāḷi scripts. Nagari, of India's northwest, first appeared around AD 633. Once fully developed in the eleventh century, Nagari had become Devanagari, or "heavenly Nagari", since it was now the main vehicle, out of several, for Sanskrit literature." . 7 March 2020.
  18. Book: [{{Google books|0bkMAAAAIAAJ|Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency|plainurl=yes}} Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency ]. Rudradaman's inscription from 1st through 4th century CE found in Gujarat, India . Stanford University Archives . 30–45, particularly Devanāgarī inscription on Jayadaman's coins (pp. 33–34).
  19. Book: Salomon, Richard . 2014 . Indian Epigraphy . Oxford University Press . 978-0195356663 . 40–42.
  20. Book: Sagar, Krishna Chandra . 1993 . Foreign Influence on Ancient India . South Asia Books . 978-8172110284 . 137.
  21. Book: Salomon, Richard . 2014 . Indian Epigraphy . Oxford University Press . 978-0195356663 . 71.
  22. Michael . Willis . 2001 . Inscriptions from Udayagiri: locating domains of devotion, patronage and power in the eleventh century . South Asian Studies . 17 . 1 . 41–53. 10.1080/02666030.2001.9628591 . 161258027 .
  23. Web site: Brick with Sanskrit inscription in Nāgarī script, 1217 CE, found in Uttar Pradesh, India (British Museum) . https://web.archive.org/web/20151019091410/https://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/asia/b/brick_with_sanskrit_inscriptio.aspx . 19 October 2015.
  24. Book: Ardika, Wayan . 2009 . Form, Macht, Differenz: Motive und Felder ethnologischen Forschens . Elfriede . Hermann . et al. . Universitätsverlag Göttingen . 978-3940344809 . de . 251–252. "Nagari script and Sanskrit language in the inscription at Blangjong suggests that Indian culture was already influencing Bali (Indonesia) by the 10th century CE.".
  25. Book: George . Cardona . Danesh . Jain . 2003 . The Indo-Aryan Languages . Routledge . 978-0415772945 . 75–77.
  26. Encyclopedia: Witzel . Michael . Michael Witzel . 17. Brahmanical Reactions to Foreign Influences and to Social and Religious Change . 2006 . Between the Empires: Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE . Olivelle . Patrick . Patrick Olivelle . Oxford University Press . 978-0195305326 . 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195305326.003.0017 . 477–480 with footnote 60.

    Original manuscript, dates in Saka Samvat, and uncertainties associated with it:
  27. Book: Rockhill, William Woodville . [{{Google books|avFDAQAAMAAJ|Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution|page=671|plainurl=yes}} Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution ]. United States National Museum . 671.
  28. Book: Quinter, David . 2015 . From Outcasts to Emperors: Shingon Ritsu and the Mañjuśrī Cult in Medieval Japan . Brill . 978-9004293397 . 63–65 with discussion on Uṣṇīṣa Vijaya Dhāraṇī Sūtra.
  29. Book: Salomon, Richard . 2014 . Indian Epigraphy . Oxford University Press . 978-0195356663 . 157–160.
  30. Book: Teselkin, Avenir S. . Old Javanese (Kawi) . Cornell University Press . 1972 . 9–14 . 28 October 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200126234553/https://books.google.com/books?id=xJ1kAAAAMAAJ . 26 January 2020 . live.
  31. Book: de Casparis . J. G. . Indonesian Palaeography: A History of Writing in Indonesia from the Beginnings to c. AD 1500 . BRILL Academic . 1975 . 90-04-04172-9 . 35–43 . 28 October 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200313164916/https://books.google.com/books?id=cLUfAAAAIAAJ . 13 March 2020 . live.
  32. Book: Zurbuchen, Mary S. . Introduction to Old Javanese Language and Literature: A Kawi Prose Anthology . Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan . 1976 . 978-0-89148-053-2 . xi–xii . 28 October 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200227150848/https://books.google.com/books?id=y4kOAAAAYAAJ . 27 February 2020 . live.
  33. Briggs . Lawrence Palmer . 1950 . The Origin of the Sailendra Dynasty: Present Status of the Question . Journal of the American Oriental Society . JSTOR . 70 . 2 . 79–81 . 10.2307/595536 . 0003-0279 . 595536.
  34. Book: Miksic . John Norman . Yian . Goh Geok . Ancient Southeast Asia . Taylor & Francis . 2016 . 978-1-317-27904-4 . 177–179, 314–322 . John N. Miksic . 28 October 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200306072439/https://books.google.com/books?id=zjklDwAAQBAJ . 6 March 2020 . live.
  35. Web site: Hindi Translation of "dollar" . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20190512040722/https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english-hindi/dollar . 12 May 2019 . 2019-05-12 . Collins English-Hindi Dictionary . en.
  36. Book: Sandahl, Stella . A Hindi reference grammar . Peeters . 2000 . 978-9042908802 . 1–4 . 26 April 2017 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170427114134/https://books.google.com/books?id=Hm0aAQAAIAAJ . 27 April 2017 . live.
  37. Book: Bhatia, Tej K. . A History of the Hindi Grammatical Tradition . BRILL Academic . 1987 . 90-04-07924-6 . 51–63, 77–94 . 15 November 2015 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160610230915/https://books.google.com/books?id=jJOXzRXsSK0C . 10 June 2016 . live.
  38. Book: Pandey . Dipti . Mondal . Tapabrata . Agrawal . S. S. . Bangalore . Srinivas . 2013 International Conference Oriental COCOSDA held jointly with 2013 Conference on Asian Spoken Language Research and Evaluation (O-COCOSDA/CASLRE) . Development and suitability of Indian languages speech database for building watson based ASR system . 2013 . 3 . 10.1109/ICSDA.2013.6709861 . 978-1-4799-2378-6 . 26461938 . Only in Hindi 10 Phonemes व /v/ क़ /q/ ञ /ɲ/ य /j/ ष /ʂ/ ख़ /x/ ग़ /ɣ/ ज़ /z/ झ़ /ʒ/ फ़ /f/.
  39. Book: Bahri, Harder . Hindi-Angrezi Shabdkosh . 2004 . xiii.
  40. Encyclopedia: Saloman . Richard . 2007 . Typological Observations on the Indic Scripts . https://web.archive.org/web/20181104170021/https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/9640 . 4 November 2018 . The Indic Scripts: Paleographic and Linguistic Perspectives . D.K. Printworld Ltd. . New Delhi . 978-812460406-9 . 33.
  41. Web site: The Unicode Standard, chapter 9, South Asian Scripts I . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20190803120834/https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode6.0.0/ch09.pdf . 3 August 2019 . Feb 12, 2012 . The Unicode Standard, v. 6.0 . Unicode, Inc.
  42. Encyclopedia: Michael . Shapiro . 2014 . The Devanagari Writing System . A Primer of Modern Standard Hindi . Motilal Banarsidass . 978-8120805088 . 26.
  43. https://salrc.uchicago.edu/resources/fonts/available/hindi/akshar.shtml Akshar Unicode
  44. https://software.sil.org/annapurna/ Annapurna SIL Unicode
  45. https://salrc.uchicago.edu/resources/fonts/available/hindi/arialunicode.shtml Arial Unicode
  46. https://salrc.uchicago.edu/resources/fonts/available/hindi/surekh.shtml CDAC-GIST Surekh Unicode
  47. https://salrc.uchicago.edu/resources/fonts/available/hindi/yogesh.shtml CDAC-GIST Yogesh
  48. https://hindimeguide.blogspot.com/keyword=k21214&pageid=icb.page104271 Sanskrit Devanagari Fonts
  49. https://salrc.uchicago.edu/resources/fonts/available/hindi/gargi.shtml Gargi
  50. https://kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=16645 Gurumaa Unicode – a sans font
  51. https://salrc.uchicago.edu/resources/fonts/available/hindi/jaipur.shtml Jaipur
  52. https://salrc.uchicago.edu/resources/fonts/available/hindi/janahindi.shtml Jana
  53. https://salrc.uchicago.edu/resources/fonts/available/hindi/kalimati.shtml Kalimati
  54. https://salrc.uchicago.edu/resources/fonts/available/hindi/kanjirowa.shtml Kanjirowa
  55. https://salrc.uchicago.edu/resources/fonts/available/hindi/mangal.shtml Mangal
  56. Web site: alib-ms . Kokila font family – Typography . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20201003042113/https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/font-list/kokila . 3 October 2020 . 2020-09-19 . Microsoft Learn . en-us.
  57. Web site: Preeti Font . shikshasanjal.
  58. https://salrc.uchicago.edu/resources/fonts/available/hindi/raghindi.shtml Raghu
  59. https://salrc.uchicago.edu/resources/fonts/available/hindi/sanskrit2003.shtml Sanskrit Ashram
  60. https://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k21214&pageid=icb.page104271 Sanskrit Devanagari Fonts
  61. https://salrc.uchicago.edu/resources/fonts/available/hindi/thyakarabison.shtml Thyaka
  62. Book: Sharma, Daya Nand . Transliteration into Roman and Devanagari of the languages of the Indian group . 1972 . 15 November 2015 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160603120418/https://books.google.com/books?id=HWJJAAAAYAAJ . live . 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 . 3 June 2016.
  63. Web site: Devanagari IAST conventions . https://web.archive.org/web/20151114045204/https://scriptsource.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=script_detail_sort&key=Deva . 14 November 2015 . Script Source . 2009 . SIL International . United States.
  64. Web site: Transliteration of Devanāgarī . https://web.archive.org/web/20070606204758/https://indology.info/email/members/wujastyk/ . 6 June 2007 . D. . Wujastyk . 1996.
  65. Web site: LOC.gov . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20201106232607/https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html . 6 November 2020 . 2011-06-13 . LOC.gov.
  66. Web site: 0001.eps . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20170217052605/https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/hindi.pdf . 17 February 2017 . 2011-06-13 . Library of Congress.
  67. Web site: LOC.gov . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20180413080838/https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/sanskrit.pdf . 13 April 2018 . 2011-06-13 . Library of Congress.

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