Talk:Devanagari/Archive 1

Aramaic?

666 Everything about "aramaic" in the langage tree is highly disputable.

not really i dont think its "disputable". it is most likely correct. kharoshti writing style of india is descended from aramaic. devanagari is most probably the same as well.

Initial talk

Article does not say if this script is writen left-to-right or right-to-left. I am assuming this is because of cultural bias on the part of the writer and it is left-to-right, only implied. But it would be nice if someone knowledgeable edited the entry and deleted this comment (or left a changelog in its stead).

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I grew up speaking Hindi, but oftentimes a native speaker cannot explain the subtleties of a language and its pronunciation as well as a scholar can. To that end, can someone confirm whether the following explanation of the ण sound (as the "t" in "hunter") is accurate? ण (ṇ) / ɳə /; American Eng: hunter

As far as I know, there's nothing in English that can approximate the ण sound; the best way that I could transliterate it (since I don't know IPA) is "rdna." This is weak, at best, but I'm not quite sure how else to write it.

--vedantm

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Added alternative spellings for keyword searches.

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I removed "Devnagiri" because I've never seen it being used and it's wrong anyway. -- Soam Vasani

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I moved the entry to the more common spelling which is more in accord with lossless transcription (disregarding vowel length) -- HJH

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It would be nice to have some elaboration on the [ITRANS notation]? transliteration scheme. Some information is at [1] -- HJH

The official site is [2] and many examples can be found at [3]. -- Soam Vasani

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Added Unicode representations of the letters, formatted everything into tables hopefully preserving the meaningful columns/rows for the consonants. I don't speak or read Hindi; for letters where I wasn't 100% certain, they are without Unicode representations. A native speaker should fix that. -- Nate Silva

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What's the difference between halant and virama? -phma

According to Unicode, they are the same. - Nate Silva

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Why was this renamed to Devanagari script from the simple title Devanagari? --Brion 01:25 Jan 28, 2003 (UTC)

It seemed like a good idea for consistency's sake. In most cases a script and a language share a name, e.g. Gujarati language and Gujarati script. Of course in this case there is no ambiguity, so move it back if you like - I don't have my heart set on it or anything. User:Mkweise 01:50 Jan 28, 2003 (UTC)

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." ;) Where there is no ambiguity, the clearest and simplest name is generally preferred. Just plain Devanagari will be perfectly consistent with katakana, hiragana, kanji, hangul etc. --Brion

Alright then, what is the preferred way of dealing with existing links pointing to e.g. Devangari_alphabet? #Redirect or find and change all the links? The article Alphabet blindly links to Xyz alphabet, which in many cases is not strictly correct. Sanskrit terms generally seem to require lots of #redirects, as there are so many possible ways to transliterate (e.g. Devanagari vs. Devangari.) Mkweise 04:08 Jan 28, 2003 (UTC)

I've fixed the 'Devangari alphabet' redirect to work. The only thing that presently uses it (other than the mention here and a mention in Wikipedia:Editing bug reports) is Alphabet, which as you say could use some general cleaning up. However, until that's done that link does get here, so there's no rush. (Some people like to get rid of all uses of redirects in links from other pages in the wiki; I don't think it's a very pressing issue, as long as one ensures they all work properly.) --Brion 05:01 Jan 28, 2003 (UTC)

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I moved the external link for fonts to the "External Links" section, where such things belong, but User:Mkweise moved it back. I don't think this is correct, as the "External Links" section is there for a reason. I would like to move the link to its rightful place.- Kricxjo 09:30 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

You had separated the link from the instructions requiring it; that's why I'd moved it back. But if it really bothers you *that* much there, I'll just move the instructions to a new article at How to get Wikipedia pages containing Devanagari characters to display correctly in your browser. Mkweise 19:54 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

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The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems (ed. Florian Coulmas, 1996) says about Devanagari (p. 125) that it has 48 letters, 13 vowels and 35 consonants. Where does the difference to the WP article come from? --Hirzel 13:01 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

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>> 'u' as in put / 'oo' as in soot << These vowels are identical in English.

Would "'oo' as in root" not be a better illustration of the second vowel? -- EiA

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"devanagaarii" was written as "devanaagari" in the devanagari script title, I have corrected it. I have added also an external link to the unicode chart.

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In the "etymology" section, deva was translated as "divine, deity". However, in classical Sanskrit (as opposed to Vedic) deva is in general use as a noun; the corresponding adjective would be daiva. Hence "divine" was deleted.

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Any reason why this sentence is in the past tense?

"In Sanskrit, words were written together without spaces, so that the top bar is unbroken, although there were some exceptions to this rule."

Sanskrit is still very much alive.

Also, wouldn't it be appropriate to mention the rules of sandhi? This seems to imply that the reason behind the 'unbroken top bar' is aesthetic or something.

What's meant seems to be that in early history of Devanagari, no spaces were used, but once the concept of words being separate came via English, it became more common to use spaces in Sanskrit (or something like that). I think sandhi is mentioned, but I'll check.--Siva 00:40, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

The rules for this are clearly defined in Panini, which predates any contact with the English language by more than 2000 years, and they still apply today. Whether or not these rules are observed in Hindi is another issue. My main objection is that the original statement refers to Sanskrit in the past tense.

Reverting unexplained, AFAICS unnecessary move to Devanagari_alphabet

Devanagari is technically not an alphabet - so if you see a need to disambiguate Devanagari, the proper place to move this article would be Devanagari_script. If you do see such a need, please discuss it here before moving things about. Mkweise 00:59, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It is too an alphabet:

• http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=devanagari&x=15&y=15
• List of alphabets
• List of writing systems
• Alphabet

The reason I felt it necessary to move it there was because that is where I expected it to be:

• Latin alphabet
• Greek alphabet
• Cyrillic alphabet
• Arabic alphabet
• Hebrew alphabet
• Kannada alphabet
• Malayalam alphabet
• Tamil alphabet
• ...
• Devanagari alphabet

etc. And it's not really a question of disambiguation, it's a question of clarity. It's clear in an instant that this is or isn't the article in question if you use the full name "Devanagari alphabet" Nohat 02:07, 2004 Mar 10 (UTC)

Scroll up a bit, and you'll see how I was educated by Brion when I made a very similar arguement 14 months ago.

Devanagari consonants have an inherent vowel, so it's technically an abugida rather than an alphabet (phonemic script). Some sources, such as omniglot, use the term alphasyllabary instead of abugida. Mkweise 03:54, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

fatter tables

I am trying to make a table which organised the devanagari phonetically, while still retaining the dictionary order. however, this is my first time making a table, and i don't think it looks so good. what do you think?

Devanagari constants

	Unvoiced	Voiced	Nasal
Velar Palatal Retroflex Dental Labial	unaspirated aspirated क KA k k ख KHA kh kh च ChA c tʃ छ CHhA ch tʃh ट TTA ṭ ʈ ठ TTHA ṭh ʈh त TA t t̪ थ THA th t̪h प PA p p फ PHA ph ph	unaspirated aspirated ग GA g g घ GHA gh gɦ ज JA j dʒ झ JHA jh dʒɦ ड DDA ḍ ɖ / ɽ ढ DDHA ḍh ɖɦ / ɽɦ द DA d d̪ ध DHA dh d̪ɦ ब BA b b भ BHA bh bɦ	ङ NGA ṅ ŋ ञ NYA ñ ɲ ण NNA ṇ ɳ न NA n n̪ म MA m m

I'm having trouble getting the Velar/Palatal/Retroflex/Dental/Labial column to align with the other columns properly. grr...

fatter table, attempt two

so i read a bit about tables, and learned about COLSPAN. how about this table?

consonants

	unvoiced		voiced
	unaspirated	aspirated	unaspirated	aspirated	nasal
velar	क KA k	ख KHA kh	ग GA g	घ GHA gɦ	ङ NGA ŋ
palatal	च CA tʃ	छ CHA tʃh	ज JA dʒ	झ JHA dʒɦ	ञ NYA ɲ
retroflex	ट TTA ʈ	ठ TTHA ʈh	ड DDA ɖ / ɽ	ढ DDHA ɖɦ / ɽɦ	ण NNA ɳ
dental	त TA t̪	थ THA t̪h	द DA d̪	ध DHA d̪ɦ	न NA n̪
bilabial	प PA p	फ PHA ph	ब BA b	भ BHA bɦ	म MA m

Pictures needed

I wonder if it might be more useful to include pictures of the glyphs, rather than depending on the user having the proper Unicode fonts installed? Presumably the people most in need of the information would be the ones least likely to have the right fonts installed. -Mark

I reckon overall you're probably correct, even accounting for text-only browsers. I can't imagine anyone's particularly keen on the actual work of re-doing it in PNG/GIF, thought. Meanwhile I'll look into whether the Devangari font I'm using is IP-encumbered; providing a link to download a copylefted font would be the neatest solution of all, don't you think? Mkweise 02:09 Jan 28, 2003 (UTC)

It should be simple enough to take screen snapshots and upload them to replace the current tables. --Brion

I suggest we keep the tables as they are, but add a PNG image showing a sample of text at the top of the article, just to give an idea -- maybe part of a screenshot of http://hi.wikipedia.org/ -- Tarquin 12:10, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

conjuncts

does anyone think it's a good idea to make a comprehensive list of conjuncts in Devanagari? It would be pretty long, and a couple of them probably have more than one form. But it still might be useful, right? -lethe ^talk

Yes! It should be on its own page linked to here. If it's really long it could have a couple of pages if there's a neat way to divide them.

Due to the fact that many older OSes, fonts, and rendering systems (Uniscribe, Pango, Worldscript) have shoddy support for Devanagari, it would be very nice to provide a table with both Unicode and images - at least for the conjuncts themselves. — Hippietrail 23:56, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It could be done via a .gif image file as here http://nagari.southindia.ru/fonts —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gasuns (talk • contribs) 16:32, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

speaking of conjuncts...

have you noticed that in the text in the screenshot, conjuncts don't work? And the short i is on the wrong side of its consonant? Whoseever computer it was that took that screenshot ain't displaying devanagari correctly. Maybe I make one myself and upload? -lethe ^talk 23:36, Aug 24, 2004

we could maybe get an image af a slightly more significant sample? a mantra? An image of a handwritten sample, even, maybe? dab 22:17, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Which conjuncts? The short i does seem to be displaying on the correct side of the consonant (the left side), so I'm wondering what it is that I'm missing. Ambarish | Talk 16:01, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Check out the screenshot that used to be there (removed). The reason it looks OK now, is because I replaced the old screenshot months ago, after I made the comment above. -lethe ^talk

Thanks, although I feel a little stupid! I assumed that since User:Dbachmann responded on 1 Nov, your post must have been recent. Ambarish | Talk 04:29, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, that's partly my fault, I didn't timestamp my signature. oops. I have retro-added a timestamp to my complaint. -lethe ^talk 07:48, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

Devanagari/Tamil text support?

I've been looking around for a way to be able to view Devanagari and Tamil texts under UNICODE, but apparently Windows 98 doesn't support them. I found a modified version on Internet Explorer which supposedly works, but IE is a horrible browser, and I'd prefer a method of viewing them which would work across browsers (for what it's worth, I'm in Opera). Does anyone have any ideas for what I might do? Thanks. - Vague | Rant 06:39, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)

Ligatures

Hi, I'm the Vijayl who created all those ligatures. Hindi/Devanagari is not my native language. The original article said: च् + छ = च्छ and suggested adding all ligatures.

I added all possible combinations.

I'm sure that the set of ligatures will be a subset of what is currently there. I hope I've helped more than done harm. விஜய் லக்ஷ்மிநாராயணன் 15:01, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

I do not think this list is very helpful -- the "ligatures" section should explain the concept, and draw attention to particular cases, such as the r- and -r ligatures, the j~n and ktv cases, etc. Maybe we can have a list article giving all ligatures, but they should be in a table or something. dab (ᛏ) 17:25, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I concur. For the most part they are no-brainers: drop the inherent -a stem. See what I did at Wikitravel's Hindi-Urdu phrasebook for examples of how I treated ligatures. And than there are those superfluous Sanskrit ligatures no longer used. Anyone who has seen Snell's chart in TYS: Hindi or the TYS Sanskrit book especially will realize such exhaustive charts are best left to pedantic reference. For our purposes, listing the general rules/concepts/peculiarities would be quite sufficient. Khirad^talk 09:41, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Ligatures vs. Conjuncts

This is my first edit/discussion here on wikipedia so if I'm messing up, please let me know. Anyways...here goes...I am wondering why the term ligature is being used? I believe that ligatures combine two letters without changing their meaning. Whereas the conjunct is to symbolize that the vowel has been suppressed. I don't think they are the same thing. So unless somebody has a good reason I will be changing all the ligatures to conjunct.

A ligature is a graphical representation of a consonant conjunct, which is a phonological element. Ligatures can refer to a graphical representation of consonant + vowel sign and to consonant + consonant. There is nothing inherent about the semantics of letters in the definition of a ligature in Indic writing systems. In Latin alphabets, perhaps (as in older ligatures created from 'ct', 'sh', 'ss', etc). Sarayuparin 01:16, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I also agree with dab above, that just having a very lengthy list of conjuncts isn't probably that useful. I will get something together that perhaps illustrates it better. Okay I want to sign this, but when I click the button that I would guess puts in the signature it does nothing. So this is Rothrock at May 1, 2005, 1:07 EST

• As explained in Wikipedia's article on ligatures, ligatures have nothing to do with pronounciation or meaning. They only deal with typography. So the use of this word in this context is accurate. BernardM 13:11, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
• Bernard – that is my point. Compare the entry about the Danish Æ – it is not a ligature because it is its own letter. It isn't just a combination of A and E. Or the part about the double vee " Hence VV developed into W, but the modern Latin letter W is not a true ligature, as it represents a different sound from VV/UU." The same is true of conjuncts. They are pronounced different and represent different sounds. So they require a different word to describe what they are. Additiionally in all my experience with different Hindi textbooks, learning guides, instructors, etc. I've never encountered anybody who called them "ligatures" – they have always been called "conjuncts." -rothrock
  • rothrock, you can sign by typing ~~~~ -- makes all of this much easier to read. Yes, this is a peculiarity of Devanagari being an abugida. However, as far as I know, "ligature" and "conjunct" are used synonymously, for the combined form of two or more aksharas, with no intervening vowel. The composition of aksharas with intervening vowels is straightforward, you just place them next to one another, and we don't need to discuss this in detail. Also, we should present the few unusual ligatures as images, since most browsers won't render them properly. Also, when discussing various variants of ligatures, we need images, since we don't know which variant will appear on the reader's screen if we just use unicode encoding. For these reasons, I am removing the lengthy list of ligatures for now. dab (ᛏ) 15:09, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

article content (too computer/Unicode oriented)

this article is too computer-oriented as it is. It should primarily be about the (handwritten) script and its 800 year history. Unicode and keyboard issues should be secondary. Or create specialized Devanagari keyboard layout, Devanagari digital encoding, Devanagari computer fonts or similar. dab (ᛏ) 13:44, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

It appears to me that the article has relatively little content on computer issues: just a couple of figures and a few links, neither of which encroaches on unusually disproportionate representation of a related subtopic in an article--nor is there enough material here for a separate article. Or are we referring to different edits of the article? -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 14:55, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

I was referring to the writeup on Windows XP that was reverted earlier, and the list of ligatures (left to the reader's browser to render) posted even earlier. It's quite ok in its present shape, but if people want to add significant portions of IT stuff, I suggest specialized articles. dab (ᛏ) 15:15, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

I think it has (as I can see now) computer-related information in inappropriate places. (But I don't think it's too much, I simply would move all computer-related things out of the first sections.) In my opinion, talking about the writing system as it has been used "on paper" shouldn't be intermixed with its Unicode implementation. Just tell about the writing system (without mentioning the Unicode names of characters, or even the word "Unicode"), and then tell about the computer-related issues, referring back to the sections with the main content. For example, now "Unicode" appears in the content of section Devanāgarī#Symbols of Devanagari, and it shouldn't. What do you think of this?--Imz 00:24, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Bhujimol

What's the relationship between Bhujimol and Devanāgarī--is it derived from, or perhaps a "sister" of Devanāgarī? It's not clear at the Bhujimol article. Thanks --Dpr 05:35, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, its definately Brahmic, that's for sure. It resembles Sharda a little, and therefore could be called a sister to Devanāgarī; though I am not familiar with this writing system and am not able to ascertain its exact relation. Khirad^talk 09:20, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Article title should use usual English spelling

I believe it is Wikipedia policy to use the usual spelling of the language of the wiki for article titles. AHD, Collins, Encarta, and M-W all list only "devanagari". "Devanāgarī" with diacritics is a transliteration of Sanskrit rather than the usual English word.

A similar change was recently made at Yoruba language. Agreement was also reached at Taíno though it has not yet been moved to the usual English spelling. — Hippietrail 15:40, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree, the form without diacritics is the usual spelling (indeed this form is almost universal). I checked the history and the reason for given for the change was "title lacks diacritics", but it did not state why diacritics were thought necessary. The person who made the change, although well meaning, was also not a native speaker of English. I propose to change the title back ot "Devanagari". If no-one objects within the next few days, I'll do this. - Martin.Budden 13:05, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I object :D. Firstly, although Wikipedia does have a blanket policy for using the common English names this in my opinion is not suitable for Indic scripts. Pretty much all other academic sources (including encyclopedias) use transliterations where appropriate. "Devanagari" isn't a term widly used outside of Indic research and it isn't a word that the normal English speaker will know anything about.

I think Wikipedia needs to develop a policy on the transliterations used for Indic text. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 19:45, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I think using transliterations sparingly within the article for words which have normal English spellings, and copiously for words which have no normal English spelling is fine. But I think the current Wikipedia policy for the names of articles is sound. — Hippietrail 02:21, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Sukh, could you explain why you think "Devanāgarī" is more suitable than "Devanagari" for the article title? "Devanagari" is the common English name. The use of diacritics is appropriate in a context where pronounciation is important (for example, a "Learning Hindi" book), but I don't think it is appropriate for the article title. Encyclopaedia Britanica uses "Devanagari". A web search returns returns almost exclusively "Devanagari" (including hits on university web pages). The Wikipedia article on transliteration says: "Transliterations in the narrow sense are used in situations where the original script is not available to write down a word in that script, while still high precision is required." and "Transliteration in the broader sense is a necessary process when using words or concepts expressed in a language with a script other than one's own." I just don't see a case for retaining the diacritics.Martin.Budden 19:58, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Wow, I, the champion of diacritics actually agree with dropping them in this particular case. However; I would limit this to the article title. You also see these arguments raging in the eastern asian pages where I am out of my depth. But I would agree, and have been saying the same thing as you ਸਰਦਾਰ ਸੁਖ ਜੀ, that there needs to be a policy on indic transliterations. If only to end the rampant use of "Bollyliteration" and decide whether, or how to use Itrans and IAST. Khirad^talk 11:01, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

"ਸਰਦਾਰ ਸੁਖ ਜੀ" :D

If the title of this article is to be changed, so should Gurmukhi. Now, in regards to Indic transliterations - we really should follow some sort of convention. We can use ISO 15919:2001 [4] but I'm concerned about the transliteration of Bindis/Tippis as m with a dot above/below - seems a bit strange to me. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 14:19, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Also, the Britannica 2005 DVD that I've got uses Devanāgarī and Nāgarī ONLY. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 14:22, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, there seems to be a WikiWar going on about the whole subject of diacritics, see: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English). My personal view is that in general diacritics should be retained, but when transliterating from a non-latin alphabet there is little gain in "adding" them (especially since over time English tends to drop the diacritics ("general", "Mexico", "cooperate" etc). Anyway I'll refrain from moving this page until there is some kind of conclusion on the naming conventions page, but it doesn't look like there is going to be any consensus any time soon. Martin.Budden 19:54, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

another table

manner of articulation →	unvoiced		voiced		nasal
place of articulation ↓	unaspirated	aspirated	unaspirated	aspirated
velar	क	ख	ग	घ	ङ
palatal	च	छ	ज	झ	ञ
retroflex	ट	ठ	ड	ढ	ण
dental	त	थ	द	ध	न
labial	प	फ	ब	भ	म

lethe ^talk 17:56, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

See also: [5] deeptrivia (talk) 06:23, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

pronunciation/transcription of the name (long final i? which language?)

Now, the final i in the transcription (in the first line of the article) is short:

Devanāgarī (देवनागरी —, pronounced [d̪e:vən̪ɑɡəɾi] ...)

I wonder whether it is correct; the sign is at least for the long i. And, actually, to speak about the correctness of the pronunciation transcription one should indicate the language! Should we explicitly refer to Sanskrit pronunciation? I'd suggest the following version of the first line, modified according to these remarks:

Devanāgarī (देवनागरी —, pronounced in Sanskrit [d̪eːvən̪ɑɡəɾiː] ...)

what does a specialist think about this?--Imz 02:32, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

it would seem you are right. dab (ᛏ) 08:17, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Transcription

How would one write meśta (Hibiscus sabdariffa) in Hindi? — Gulliver ✉ 04:29, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

If that's an accurate IAST transliteration, then: मेश्त. If the final 'a' is long, then it's मेश्ता. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 20:47, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Transliteration

If we're going to use a transliteration in the title, should it not be 'Dēvanāgarī' with a long e? Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 14:53, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

The transliteration scheme should be fixed to make a decision on this question. At least at the current moment, IAST conventions are used throughout the article, and they prescribe plain e.

But, as to my opinion, a transliteration scheme where ē is used for a long e suits better an encyclopedia, which is for everyone (and not for indology specialists; they have the convention because it is more convenient for them and spares extra signs). On the other hand, it would imply a mismatch in transliteration with a huge number of other places.--Imz 18:18, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree we should use a unified scheme. Other Indic scripts (and indeed Devanagari) has a short E 'ऎ' and short O 'ऒ' and so if we're using a loss-less transliteration, this distinction needs to be preserved. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 20:45, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

(Yes, I agree.) Also the point I had in mind writing the first comment that I didn't explicate: uniformly using the macron diacritic for marking every long vowel is much better for understandibility by novice readers ("novice" in Indic languages/scripts).

So, if there were a vote as to which transliteration scheme to adopt as the standard in Wikipedia, I would support the one with ē and ō.

And, the extra macrons on ēs and ōs is not a big deal for specialists who are used to read without them: simply ignore them when reading.

Actually, to be honest about your argument: one could adopt a transliteration scheme where the short counterparts of e and o are marked in a special way (by a breve, obviously: ĕ, ŏ). And, I would really always put the breves on these two, independently of the usage of macrons for long e and o— in order to avoid confusion. --Imz 02:10, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I think this is a bad idea. We should stick to the standard transliteration, and not 'arbitrarily' modify it as we see fit. Just as latin characters represent different sounds in e.g. English, French, Dutch, so it is only normal that the characters of transliterated Hindi may have a different soundvalue that one might expect at first. What standard sound value do Latin characters stand for anyway? There is no such (language independant) convention. (The IPA hasn't got anything to do with this.)

IPA is wrong

The IPA pronunciation information indicated that the "d" in Devanagari is the same as English "d", i.e. /d/. This is wrong - the "d" in Devanagari is closer to /ð/ than /d/. --Grammatical error 18:39, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree, English d is alveolar whereas devanagari d is dental (at least for Hindi it is).

The article says that द is pronounced / d̪ə /, which is a dental d. This is correct. -lethe ^{talk +} 03:56, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

No, I meant at the start of the article where the pronunciation of the word Devanagari was indicated. i've changed it now anyway. --Grammatical error 07:38, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

images

This article used to have an image of an example of Devanagari writing. First it was a screenshot, then later it was some old scroll or something. What happened to those? I think they're especially important as some people will come to this page without Indic script enabled computers -lethe ^{talk +} 04:02, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I see that it was removed on Feb 21 by anonymous user 216.130.100.210 (talk · contribs) with no edit summary. It was that user's only contribution. I guess I'll restore. -lethe ^{talk +} 04:09, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

give each letter an article

So the Latin alphabet, Cyrillic alphabet, Arabic alphabet, Hebrew alphabet, Greek alphabet, all have devoted articles for each letter. Hiragana and Katakana do too, though they share the articles. I think Devanagari feels left out. -lethe ^{talk +} 05:57, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Hebrew and Arabic also share articles (together with Phoenician and Syriac). If you have enough information on each Devanagari letter by all means do it, but make sure you don't just create 40 empty stubs with no information beyond what is already here, and leave them lying around for the next year. dab (ᛏ) 11:22, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Hindi-centric attitude on ळ?

The article says:

Another consonant is ळ is not used in Hindi.

This is the Devanagari article, not the Hindi article. Why is this consonant not in the consonant table? Why is its pronunciation not defined? --DavidConrad 05:24, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

because so far nobody bothered adding it? I think it is the intervocalic variant of ड in Vedic orthography. dab (ᛏ) 11:32, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Pronounciation Info

The pronounciation table is not accurate in some instances ("v" is a glottal approximant?) and it would be nice to link each sound to its appropriate page where there should be a recording of the sound, for example Voiced labiodental fricative. I would change it myself, but I don't know what sounds they are actually supposed to make, and the sounds given might not necessarily match up to the sounds they make (I'm not sure, but is the "kh" actually a plosive, like "cat" or is it more a velar fricative?). Could someone more familiar with the language try to fix it up?

---Then if the "v" is a labiodental approximant as indicated by the symbol choice, why not make a new column for it, I will do it myself if someone will confirm that it is, in fact a voiced labiodental approximant as opposed to a voiced labiodental fricative. Also, would anyone oppose moving the "nasal" column to the "sonorants" table from the "plosive" table? Would that switch more accurately reflect the actual consonant?

Nasals are not plosives. --Siva 22:51, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Relevant Link

http://bhashaindia.com/Downloadsv2/Category.aspx?ID=1 this is relevant link for the subject given .Please do restore back the same at apropriate place. Mahitgar 16:42, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Superfluous Sentence

I removed this sentence: "Languages written with Devanāgarī require no case distinction" from the Principles section; it was the last sentence in the paragraph discussing breaks in the upper line and breath groups. It was out of place, bringing up a morphological point in the midst of a discussion of interaction between phonology and orthography, and in any case, it seems to be false. I'm an amateur linguist, and I do know that Hindi, among other New Indo-Aryan languages, has at least three case distinctions, and Sanskrit has eight. Doonhamer 15:11, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I haven't read that sentence in context, but perhaps it was about case as in uppercase (ABC) and lowercase (abc)? Wikipeditor 04:18, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I need help.

Does Hindi use ळ?There is lots of speculation going on at belgaum:Talk.Plz give ur suggestion at Belgaum talk page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Belgaum#.22.E0.A4.B3.22_in_Hindi.3F (Look for the subtopic "ळ in Hindi?" mahawiki 15:56, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

No, Hindi does not use ळ. It is, however, part of the Marathi phonetic repertoire. Sarayuparin 22:07, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Seeking help and contribution

Dear Wikipedians,

We apreciate your valuable contribution in article named Wikipedia:Indic transliteration scheme on english WIkipedia.

We at Marathi Language wikipedia do not have enough expertise to update IPA related info in our article, specialy we have been unable to import/update IPA templates and do not know how to use IPA symbols.Please click here-this link- to provide help to update "IPA transliteration for Indic Languages" article for Marathi wikipedia

We seek and request for help in updating above mentioned article and would like to know relevant resources and refferences in respect of Devanagari and IPA .

Thanks and Regards

Mahitgar 16:08, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

New Wiktionary logos

See meta:Image:Wiktprintable.svg for the new logo design. Note that the श's left half does not have a horizontal line. Is that ok? If not, please suggest a change at meta:Talk:Wiktionary/logo. Thank you! 04:14, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Vowel table

The diacritic marks for इ and ई were wrong. I've changed them to िप and पी respectively.--Osprey39 08:53, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

• Please fix your web browser. The correct spelling is पि. See the box at the top of the article about Indic scripts rendering. BernardM 11:21, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

• Turns out you're right. Sorry about that. --Osprey39 08:17, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

To all the contributors involved in this Project

Thank you very much for your considerable effort and endeavour in this Wiki-entry. This is truly beautiful and inspiring work. :-D B9 hummingbird hovering 01:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Saccidānanda vigraha

I would like some learned advise on whether I should create an article entitled "saccidananda" or "sat-cit-ananda" or any other such vrddhi derivation, evolution or involution... ... i have asked Ekajati for assistance related to this item as well...as well as the German Wikikins to help with a translation of http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diskussion:Sat-Chit-Ananda so the wheel is not re-created. Wheels within wheels in the spirit of Ophanim!

Thanking you in anticipation; namaste in agape and walking my talk in beauty

B9 hummingbird hovering [B9_hummingbird_hovering] 16:22, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Please be advised that an article Satchitananda already exists. You are welcome to improve it. Variations in spelling ought to redirect to the same article. Variations in topic, for example a person or place with the Proper name Saccidananda, should be in a separate article. Sincerely, --BostonMA ^talk 17:31, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

BostonMA: ThanX for your prompt throughput...with sincerity... MUSING: sincerity is truly rare but oft-proffered...i trust ur sincerity is not lipservice and signed with integrity. NB: saccidananda, sat-cit-ananda & sat_cit_ananda did not redirect to "satchitananda". Would you please be able to learn me how to make this so?

In+love+ing

B9_hummingbird_hovering [B9_hummingbird_hovering] 18:00, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

IPA vowels

"House" and "put" uses /aʊ/ and /ʊ/ respectively, not /au/ and /u/. I was going to change them, except I find that they are specified as close back rounded vowels, rather than the Near-close near-back vowel of /ʊ/. I don't know Sanskrit - which is it? If the IPA transcription is correct, then the English examples are wrong. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 04:37, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

The IPA and description for इ also conflict with each other. The transcription is given as /i/, but "i as in bit" would be /ɪ/. I don't know which is more accurate. 74.100.92.251 08:01, 4 March 2007 (UTC) ajrw

Normalization of use of IAST tag

The category for articles containing IAST just disappeared because apparently people did not think it was of value. [6] I am wondering if this is a good time to review principles for use of the IAST tag. I have been trying to develop some consensus around use of IAST [[7]]. I will raise the subject again on the talk page for the IAST article. Buddhipriya 19:11, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

pha?

फ (ph) /pʰə/; English: pit

I dont think this is correct. pit is not spelt as phit. Maybe the linguists can check--Deepak D'Souza (talk • contribs) 11:15, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

it's the closest we have in English, I suppose /pit/ really closer to [pʰit] than [pit], but it's subphonematic and as such not very helpful. The linguists say, remove these "English:" similes altogether, they are flawed, giving the IPA is fully sufficient. dab (&#55304;&#56435;) 11:24, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

You are right . In English ph is cumpolsorily turned to f. Any other European Language from whih we can take a similar sound? It would be more helpful. --Deepak D'Souza (talk • contribs) 12:08, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

no, my point is that there may really be a [pʰ]:[p] contrast in /pit/ vs. /spit/, but it is subphonematic. Of course we can take examples from other languages, German /p/ is clearly [pʰ], for example, but what is the point of this? It is really enough to give the IPA. This is Wikipedia, the interested reader can click on the link and learn about the sound in question in a dedicated article. dab (&#55304;&#56435;) 12:27, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, German /p/ is not [pʰ] after s, either. Wikipeditor 01:18, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Sound of य़

If य़ is the sound of s as in english "Measure", it should really be a voiced palatal fricative. I have changed it therefore. Kartheeque

:[

In my opinion this article is in need of a sort of rewrite. It is just way too Sanskrit and Hindi oriented, and if anything it's more of a phonology article than script. Also, there are no direct references... one would think that to be important, right? Anyway, I am currently studying Indo-Aryan, and once I've done that to an adequate level I hope to be doing the rewriting on this article I consider necessary. Tuncrypt 03:33, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I'll be working on the vowel chart in here for now. It is difficult to be exact, as the sources I have don't explicitly write down the IPA symbols for each language. Tuncrypt 13:34, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Added the vowel table. The consonants will be modified someday as well. Tuncrypt 00:49, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay, working on consonants... Tuncrypt 17:38, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Done consonants, woot. Tuncrypt 20:04, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation variations

I think pronunciation variations of क्ष and ज्ञ shouldn't appear in this article, but only in respective articles about Hindi, Marathi, etc. This article should be as general as possible and shouldn't talk much about differences between languages. Just imagine how the article about Latin alphabet would look if it worked this way! BernardM 23:11, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The conjunct table follows the same logic as the vowel tables, with a select few representative languages showing the different pronunciations of the characters. Unlike the latin-script languages, there aren't a huge variations in pronunciation of consonants, so just Sanskrit (Old IA), Hindi (Central IA), and Marathi (Southern IA) can be comprehensively representative. The table shows three things: the status of L, the change in pronunciation of kSha from old to modern (which the consonant table already shows), and most importantly, the innovations of the j~na (even Gujarati has its own way: ɡɲə). Tuncrypt 22:16, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

This article's tables are currently about Hindi, Western Hindi (what's that?), Sanskrit, Marathi and Bhojpuri. Not present in tables but refered to in text are also Sindhi and Rajasthani. I think that's confusing for the readers. This article should deal with what Devanagari is supposed to be, and specific articles about all these languages should explain the variations. One sentence warning about the fact that differences in pronunciation could exist between languages is sufficient in my opinion. BernardM 09:59, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

english "th" sound?

What is the devanagari letter for the English sound "th" as in the, there, that or thing, theatre, ether? I believe it's called a dental fricative (voiced or unvoiced). MrHumperdink 04:26, 27 June 2007 (UTC) These sounds don't exist in languages that use Devanagari so there's no letter that fit them, but when really needed people usually use थ for the unvoiced one and द for the voiced one. BernardM 07:58, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

english "f" and "v" sounds?

similar to the previous question, how would one transliterate the english "f" and "v" sounds? 24.203.110.218 02:03, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

"fa" is the फ with a dot under the left side, and "va" is व nightpotato

the top bar?

"In Sanskrit, words were written together without spaces, so that the top bar is unbroken..."

Some information on the origins the the top bar here would be insightful. I have searched about and can't find any reference to its history or development. Ancesteral scripts don't have the bar and while Sharada shows some semblance of a line within characters they are still separate. Does anyone have any information on this?

A "how to" referral

Could someone direct me to information on how to use the Devanagari and Sanskrit fonts that are used on this page? A character map or "look up" table would be helpful. thank you. Ayuved 22:20, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Devanagari request

• Can someone kindly add Devanagari for the name of Pandit Pran Nath, at the Pandit Pran Nath article? Badagnani (talk) 06:17, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

• Can someone kindly add Devanagari at Karonda? Badagnani (talk) 07:12, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Handwriting

There is no information in the article on how each character is formed by hand. What is the order by which each stroke in each syllabe is made? How is a young Indian taught to write Devanagari (supposing they already know how to read)? AugustinMa (talk) 11:08, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

that's true Tuncrypt (talk) 21:53, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

size

hey kwami can the letters be bigger? i dunno lol, they look cooler that way. Tuncrypt (talk) 23:09, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, sorry. I thought they looked ridiculously large on my browser. Revert if you like.

We need to work out something for displaying nagari and its transcription properly on Firefox. I've asked at the Indic template pages, but haven't gotten a response. The Unicode template doesn't force a consistent font, so it looks terrible. I tagged the transcriptions with the IPA template, but that isn't right. I could customize it through my CSS page, but casual readers can't do that. Also, the nagari diacritics get decomposed. They look great in the edit window, but in the article they expand and overlay the English text. I can get them to work in a table, but not in in-line text. Any ideas? kwami (talk) 23:24, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

i don't know anything about that sort of stuff :( Tuncrypt (talk) 04:14, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Common and uncommon letters

1. Which letters of Devanagari script are used by all the languages that use the script?

2. Which letters of Devanagari script are used by only some of the languages that use the script? We need a tble here.

3. Which letters of Devanagari script have different renderings/shapes/styles in the languages that use the script? We need a tble here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Colourplay (talk • contribs) 22:59, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Devanagari-qwerty-layout-option.jpg

Image:Devanagari-qwerty-layout-option.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 13:02, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Devanagari-qwerty-layout.jpg

Image:Devanagari-qwerty-layout.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 13:03, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Requested Move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was move based on cited sources and naming conventions. JPG-GR (talk) 01:06, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm requesting that this article be moved to Devanagari, without diacritics. It seems this was discussed earlier, and put on hold awaiting a larger consensus on diacritics within wikipedia. I think some sort of working consensus has been reached: use diacritics when they are used by English convention, and do not use them when they are not. (See WP:ENGLISH) In this case, I think the evidence (below) shows that the English convention is to go without the diacritics.

This sort of move is certainly precedented. See, for instance Yoruba (not Yorùbá), Urdu (not Urdū), Pinyin (not Pīnyīn), and so forth.Erudy (talk) 23:05, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

References Works

• Encarta (Dictionary) and (Encyclopedia)
• Britannica
• Webster's Note: this entry says "devanagari, from the Sanskrit devanāgarī", which proves that it is not lazyness or technical imcompetence by the editors of Websters that is responsible for the disappearance of the macrons, but rather an editorial decision that macrons are Sanskrit and their removal is proper English.
• Library of Congress Once again, note the Library's ability and willingness to use macrons in their bibliographic entries.

Google Anaylsis

Google Scholar:

• Devanagari -Devanāgarī :3,620
• -Devanagari Devanāgarī: 29

Google:

• Devanagari -Devanāgarī -site:wikipedia.org 538,000
• -Devanagari Devanāgarī -site:wikipedia.org 71,700

Google News:

• Devanagari -Devanāgarī 14
• -Devanagari Devanāgarī 0

• Oppose Diacritics are accurate, valid and are not causing any damage to this name. Húsönd 15:50, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
  • All the evidence posted so far indicates that diacritics are inaccurate in this case. Given demonstrated convention, it is likely that our title would be "surprising" to most who encounter it and therefore damaged as an immediately recognizable header. Would you care to post evidence in favor of your claims, or just state them?Erudy (talk) 01:40, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
• Definitely support. Tuncrypt (talk) 05:54, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
• Weak oppose The more you see diacritics in use, the better your memory for the proper form will be. — kwami (talk) 06:19, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Actually, the proper form appears to be without diacritics. At least, if you find dictionaries such as Webster's to be any sort of authority on English spelling.Erudy (talk) 01:40, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Also, there's the fact that these Indic macrons are purely academic. Nobody ever writes with them, no government promulgates them. Which is unlike, let's say, Polish or Vietnamese. Tuncrypt (talk) 16:39, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
• Support - in English text, the diacritics are improper. (See http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Devan%C4%81gar%C4%AB vs http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Devanagari — an aggregate of several source dictionaries, and hence my English dictionary of choice.) — the Sidhekin (talk) 12:23, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
• Support We should do what English usually does. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:01, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

"these Indic macrons are purely academic" — Isn't Wikipedia supposed to be academic? — kwami (talk) 17:36, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

But to use macrons in the common name of an article? Of course they'd be used in transliterations and such in the body. Tuncrypt (talk) 19:21, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I think whichever we choose for the body should be used for the title. — kwami (talk) 19:36, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Using them in transliterations should be fine. Using them in an English word, whatever its origin, is improper. — the Sidhekin (talk) 19:49, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Font

Now that we've got a bunch of people here, does anyone know how to render Indic fonts in FireFox? For me, they render in center-aligned tables, but not in other tables or in regular text. — kwami (talk) 20:05, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

You mean "देवनागरी" doesn't render for you? It works just fine here — Firefox 2.0.0.11 on Slackware Linux. What version/OS are you using? Time to upgrade?  :) — the Sidhekin (talk) 20:16, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. Well, it does now, in the edit window, but not on the preview window — There, I see rendered and non-rendered simultaneously. I'm using FF 2.0.0.12 on Windows XP, last update in December. But it's been a problem for some time. — kwami (talk) 22:28, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

That happened with me on my old computer with Windows 98, but my new computer with Windows Vista displays Devanagari correctly. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 11:51, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, upgrading to the latest Firefox won't help, since that is 2.0.0.12. Nor dare I suggest you upgrade to Slackware Linux, lest I start a flame war. It sounds like a Windows-specific Firefox bug, and skimming, I can't see it in the list of known issues. Report it? — the Sidhekin (talk) 22:40, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Looks like several bugs have been reported. Linux is supposed to have the same problem if san-serif fonts are chosen as default. — kwami (talk) 19:33, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Odd. I have now selected Sans-Serif as the overall default font, as well as for both Western and Devanagari (sic!), and everything looks just fine. That's just the way of bugs, I suppose. (I'll stick with my serifs though; I kinda like them.) — the Sidhekin (talk) 19:58, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it's a Wikipedia bug. It's only a problem on English Wikipedia. I've never noticed it outside Wikipedia, and it's not a problem on Hindi, French, etc. Wikipedia. — kwami (talk) 20:16, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh? Perhaps it's a skin thing? I'm using the default MonoBook (and no CSS of my own). If you're using something else, could you try the MonoBook skin? — the Sidhekin (talk) 20:22, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I figured it out! If you justify paragraphs under your prefs, it screws up rendering. — kwami (talk) 20:53, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

The table in Devanāgarī#Conjuncts

• The table in Devanāgarī#Conjuncts does not include the consonant cluster ख्ख (khkha), which occurs in Rigveda book 7 hymn 103 verse 3 line 3 in the word [akhkhalīkŗtya] = "having made a croak" (gerund); the unusual consonant sequence arose as onomatopoeia for some Indian species of frog croaking. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 11:47, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

fix the infobox

{{Infobox Writing system |name=Devanāgarī <br /> देवनागरी |sample=Rigveda MS2097.jpg |caption=[[Rigveda]] manuscript in Devanāgarī (early 19th century) |type=[[Abugida]] |languages=Several [[Indo-Aryan languages]], including [[Sanskrit]], [[Hindi]], [[Marathi language|Marathi]], [[Nepali language|Nepali]], [[Bihari languages|Bihari]], [[Bhili language|Bhili]], [[Konkani language|Konkani]], [[Bhojpuri language|Bhojpuri]], [[Newari]] and sometimes [[Sindhi language|Sindhi]] and [[Kashmiri language|Kashmiri]] |time=c. [[1200]]–present |region=India and Nepal |fam1=[[Proto-Canaanite alphabet]] ^[a] |fam2=[[Phoenician alphabet]] ^[a] |fam3=[[Aramaic alphabet]] ^[a] |footnotes=[a] The Semitic origin of the Brahmic scripts is not universally agreed upon. |fam4=[[Brāhmī script|Brāhmī]] |fam5=[[Gupta script|Gupta]] |fam6=[[Nāgarī script|Nāgarī]] |sisters=[[Eastern Nāgarī script|Eastern Nāgarī]] |children=[[Gujarāti script|Gujarati]]<br />[[Moḍī script|Moḍī]]<br />[[Ranjana script|Ranjana]]<br />[[Canadian Aboriginal syllabics]] |unicode = [http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0900.pdf U+0900–U+097F] |iso15924=Deva }}

How do I remove the देवनागरी that appears in the last line of the Parents Systems table? (refer to the table on the right) Can that be fixed? I tried and nothing works -_- Kotakkasut (talk) 17:30, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

You need to remove it from the 'name' parameter. kwami (talk) 18:21, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I removed the देवनागरी from the 'name' parameter, but can you or anyone help me with another problem? Where should I put the देवनागरी in the infobox? sorry for asking lots of questions -_- Kotakkasut (talk) 15:23, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

"Modern languages" claim

I removed the following from the article: "However, it has become common in several modern languages to write all such vowels with the letter अ a and the appropriate diacritic: अूक ūka, कअू kaū. (Some computer does not support this representation.)" None of the languages I know do this. If someone has a citation, feel free to reinsert it. shreevatsa (talk) 16:18, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

'Cerebral' = Retroflex?

The article uses the term "cerebral" in a link pointing to the article concerning "retroflex". Is the term "cerebral" an established term in this field of study, or is it a mistake? Whichever, the established term "retroflex" should be substituted in its place, partly for consistency, as standard phonetics terms are used elsewhere in that section, but also for ease of comprehension. If "cerebral" is an established alternative term this should be explained if this is thought worthwhile, and other similar indic-specific terms should be given.

In the meantime, I am replacing "cerebral" with "retroflex". Please amplify the article if this is thought worthwhile.82.70.25.170 (talk) 09:10, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I've only encountered 'cerebral' in the context of Indic (or perhaps Indian) languages. I'm not sure if it's obsolete, or specific to Indology, or both. Either way, I'd recommend wholesale replacement with 'retroflex', as less jargony. kwami (talk) 09:15, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

It's definitely obsolete; I'm not sure if it's specific to Indology or not. At any rate, I agree with replacing it with retroflex. +Angr 17:17, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

'Cerebral' translates the traditional Sanskrit term 'mūrdhanya' which Coulson (Teach Yourself Sanskrit, p9, note 1) says means 'made in the head' (from the Latin cerebrum 'brain'). Retroflex is the more usual phonetic term, cerebral being confined to Sanskritists of a certain age.mahaabaala (talk) 11:09, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

sudo is for the devanagari extended and vedic exensions

Would anyone know what the Ubuntu sudo is for the devanagari extended and vedic exensions? I would really appreciate if u could let me know on my chat page as I can't find it on the net.
B9 hummingbird hovering ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:10, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure what you are asking, would you care to rephrase/elaborate your question? (sudo is a command that lets you run other commands as root/superuser.) kess (talk) 13:14, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Devanagari adopted as IPA

I've deleted this line:

All these alphabets follow a very logical phonetic order - so logical that the International Phonetic Association (IPA) adopted it (with modifications) for the International Phonetic Alphabet.

I could find no support for this claim. Wikipedia's IPA itself doesn't support this. IPA is based on the Latin alphabet.

99.231.225.219 (talk) 02:55, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

IPA transcription of "Devanagari" in the lead

A pronunciation is given, but it is not indicated which language the pronunciation is in. The language transcribed should be English, based on standard wikipedia practice (i.e. "devanagari" as conventionally pronounced by an English speaker when speaking in English, without necessarily knowing any Indic languages), but as far as I can see, it's actually modern standard Hindi. Also, if native language pronunciations must be given at all, I think the Sanskrit pronunciation should be given precedence, since it's originally a Sanskrit word and was used for Sanskrit first. I assume the other languages using Devanagari also have different pronunciations for the word, so it seems unfair to only give the Hindi one.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 14:03, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Devanagari descended from Tamili?

Something is wrong with the infobox table. Devanagari is descended from Brahmi, not Tamili as Tamili is a predecessor for South Indian scripts. Correct me if I'm wrong. kotakkasut 18:05, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

you are right. Both Tamil and Devanāgarī derive from Brahmī. mahaabaala (talk) 16:51, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Wow, amazing no-one's corrected that after 4 months. Fixed. — kwami (talk) 17:45, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Untitled

If you can read this script, you may add yourself to Category:User Deva by using Template:User iso15924.

IPA for vowels

I find the vowels table in particular to be extremely unhelpful; isn't the point of it to connect devanagari characters with a phonetic value? If so, then why (1) aren't the values provided in IPA, and (2), why is accuracy sacrificed for formal aesthetics? (i.e. in the last note it mentions that the value provided for 'long l' is completely inaccurate and is not even a phoneme of sanskrit, but was put there because it maintains 'consistency' in the chart. Since when did Wikipedia care more about 'consistency' than accuracy? Besides, the same note that tells the reader that this value is inaccurate fails to mention what the REAL value is.) ›»rho (talk) 05:28, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Agree. Would like to see the IPA values for the vowels. ॡ is a theoretical possibility - hence there is a sign for it. No one really knows how this or for that matter यँ रँ लँ वँ (theoretical sandhi possibilities not much used in practice) are supposed to be pronounced. Probably the entry should reflect the level of uncertainty that exists. Note also that ऋ is pronounced different ways in different parts of India. So some work to do! mahaabaala (talk) 11:35, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Totally disagree. You didn't understand it at all. In those two "Romanized" columns, Devanagari vowel letters are romanized as IAST, instead of real sounds. This is an article explaining Devanagari the script, the writing system; the pronunciations of these vowel letters do vary between different spoken languages. You just can not provide an exact vowel value — you'd like to have them in Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Nepali or what? And ॡ does exist in a full Devanagari letter list, which is a tradition of Indian phonetist for thousands of years. This doesn't have anything to do with your "consistency". 梁海 (talk) 19:45, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Missing Vowels

Devanāgarī as used for Hindi has two extra vowels: ॅ and ॉ. These are in the Unicode table but not discussed in the section on vowels. I'm uncertain how to represent them in transliteration so could someone who knows include them to make the description complete. Thanks mahaabaala (talk) 11:28, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:NCIN, that mentions ISO 15919 should be used as transliteration, for example हॅग hâg; note that ISO 15959 uses ē, ṁ and r̥ for instance. There are many characters not mentioned in the text itself. The Unicode 5.2 additions have been added to the character tables, please enjoy. kess (talk) 21:17, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi Kess. Thanks for replying. The situation is this still that some characters which are used for writing Hindi are not included in this page on Devanāgarī script - either in Devanāgarī or in transliteration in any scheme. I don't quite understand why. mahaabaala (talk) 16:50, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually Devanagri is extended with so many letters for several languages (have a look at this: http://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0900.pdf — Well, it's still not a full document) that we can't list them all but only provide a list of basic and standard letters. After all, Devanagari is not a writing system solely for Hindi. 梁海 (talk) 20:23, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

I thought tamilians didnt write devnagri!

Quote: Sanskrit nāgarī is the feminine of nāgara "urban(e)", a vrddhi adjectival form of nagara "Nagaram in Tamil" called city.

What is this sentence doing in devnanagri script article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.95.27.96 (talk) 20:53, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

It's explaining the etymology behind the name "Devanagari". 梁海 (talk) 20:26, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

consonant+क्ष is NOT biconsonantal!

the क्ष should be removed from the biconsonantal conjuncts table as it IS a biconsonantal conjunct itself and any attachment to it is a TRIconsonantal conjunct. I will remove it myself if there are no comments on this soon. GSMR (talk) 16:31, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree. And I think it's also good to remove ज्ञ from this table. क्ष and ज्ञ are two consonant clusters too special. 梁海 (talk) 20:29, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, I've removed these two rows. And is there anyone feeling this table is useless? I mean, we need a platform-independent way to show how (traditionally) consonant clusters are written in Devanagri, such as a picture in this page: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/devanagari.htm And we can't put IPA in this table, since the pronunciation varies. 梁海 (talk) 20:54, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

अ as the base for vowels

Which languages/traditions use अ as a zero consonant as the basis for all initial vowels, making nagari a true abugida? — kwami (talk) 12:49, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but I didn't catch your point. Could you please explain your idea again? 梁海 (talk) 20:34, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Er, all Indian languages (certainly those that use Devanagari: Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi)? If I understand your question correctly that's the answer, but clarifying it would help. Shreevatsa (talk) 05:17, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Variant letters

Shouldn't we make mention of the "Calcutta variant" (or Eastern/Northern/whatever) of the Devanagari letters? (For those who don't know what I'm talking about: see this image from here.) What would be a good source to cite for these? Shreevatsa (talk) 05:17, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

I understand what you are talking about. But, unfortunately, even I've discussed this topic with several friends, none of them are able to find any clear referance about this — we have only experience. 梁海 (talk) 17:16, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Macrons

Are we sure that the last i in the word Devanagari is long? If so can someone please explain why? Tibetologist (talk) 17:38, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, the word is spelled देवनागरी in Devanagari, which indicates a long i in the last syllable (otherwise it would be देवनागरि). —Angr 18:13, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

It has a long ī because it is feminine in gender. It's from nagar - town or city. nāgarī means 'of the town' (the initial vowel is changed to vṛddhi when adding the ī suffix. This is not the best explanation but best I could do from my sources. mahaabaala (talk) 11:25, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Final "i" is long at least 90% of the time in Nepali. Not sure if this is true in Hindi etc. and there are discrepancies in the way essentially identical words are written in the two languages. I am probably using "Hindi" in a broad way to include Awadhi, Bhojpuri, etc. etc. LADave (talk) 18:42, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

use for Hindi colonial?

Was Nagari used alongside Persian for Hindustani prior to the British? Or was it introduced by the British to create a Hindu language in opposition to Urdu for Muslims? If the latter, which languages were written in Nagari at the time of the British arrival? — kwami (talk) 21:03, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

The British probably didn't advocate devanagari for Hindi. They went to unbelievable contortions trying to romanize, instead of simply learning 'nagari' which takes all of a few hours and after that you're left wondering what all the fuss was about! LADave (talk) 18:47, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Language code for 'nagari?

I want to mark stuff written in Devanagari as such, without committing it to any particular language. For example I'm planning a disambiguation page for Vijayanagar/Bijayanagar, which is a place name in Hindi, Nepali and probably other Indics. I would simply like to show how the word is written in 'nagari at the top of the article without getting into specific languages until specific instances require it. I suppose it's almost like noting that something is written in Chinese, where the written language is the same across multiple "dialects" that really amount to different languages (often not mutually intelligible).

So is there a language code for 'nagari? Maybe it should be "dv" or "dn"? And how do you go about adding a new language code anyhow? LADave (talk) 18:55, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Er, excuse me, is there any intended special meaning when you write "'nagari" instead of "Devanagari"?

Devanagari is neither a language nor a language group, it's a script. Devanagari is a script, just like Latin/Roman alphabet is a script. So I'm afraid there isn't a language code for Devanagari.

In the case of Chinese, it's somewhat different. Although our so-called "dialects" are often not mutually intelligible, but all educated speakers of these "dialects" are able to share a common written language, i.e., written Chinese. Therefore we can tag a word written in Chinese character as "Chinese". And sometimes, if a "dialect" has its own special written form of a word, we list it also, and tag it as, say, Cantonese. 梁海 (talk) 09:00, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

The meaning of Nagari

I read the following text:

"nágari" (नगर) literally "to talk", or — dialect

You are absolutely wrong! "nagara" (no nagari) means "town"! Thank you for attention. Moreno Morani. Milano (Italy) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.40.157.239 (talk) 18:52, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Above comment moved from Help talk:Using talk pages. Johnuniq (talk) 05:42, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

This claim has been removed. Imc (talk) 19:30, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Cleanup / duplicate links

I have just gone through and removed LOTS of duplicative links, but have been careful to not remove single links. The article is still very "linky" but may now be of a condition to allow removing the cleanup box.

Additionally, SOMEONE has put in a lot of references, and I think the references tag could go away. Rick Boatright (talk) 16:33, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Schwa syncope

I see now that I was making a rather bold move to delete an entire section as a newcomer. I think however that in principle, that section does not really fit in this article, at least not in its present state. these are my reasons:

1. The topic does actually concern a number of modern languages and their ortography rather than the script itself. Compare with the article on the latin script: only script-related things are considered, even in the language-specific sections. To read about, for example, situations in english where written characters are not pronounced, that is anothor topic and in this case a few specialised articles as well. my point is that the schwa deletion is not inherent in the writing system, but rather a phonological development in some of the languages that use the script.

One could also imagine what a mess the article on the latin script would be in if all characters that are written but not pronounced in various languages would be considered (initial /h/ in spanish, the entire french ortography, the french loanwords in various other languages...)

2. The phenomenon is actually taking place in languages that does not use devanagari.

3. The section is an ouright copy from the more elaborate article on the schwa deletion phenomenon, but the text copied only concerns Hindu from what i can understand. This is a bit uneven as from what i can see in the quotes it is not uniform over the different languages, but i may have interpreted them wrong. Also, the section is not very helpful since no clear rule is formulated, if you are interested, it is better to read the main article or some source for the language you are interested in.

As a compromise i shortened the section radically to include the most crucial information and pointing to the main article, but I must confess that I still do not see what it is doing there at all. If you still think I'm wrong in doing this, please revert. I will not enter a war over this, but I feel it deserves an open discussion. Amilah (talk) 18:41, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

While I'm at it - can somebody defend the section "allophony of v and w in hindi"? Otherwise i suggest that it should be moved into a completely new article on hindi ortography together with the schwa synkope. Amilah (talk) 21:05, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

These are off the mark because Devanagari is considered to be a phonetic alphabet. Unless you are deleting all discussion of pronunciation (which also I'd oppose), we have to retain Schwa Syncope here. It is quite typical for a synopsis to be presented in one article and for a main article to expand on a topic on Wikipedia. I recommend you stick around, contribute more and learn more. Also, the language is Hindi not Hindu. Nagari is quite unlike Latin, so the comparison is a terrible one. By and large there is a HUGE insistence in Nagari on a correlation of sound and letter. There are some limited departures which are quite worthy of mention. You're right that Latin is used very inconsistently between languages. This is not a problem with Nagari and this article shouldn't seek to solve Latin's problems. --Hunnjazal (talk) 04:16, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Excuse me for the Hindu typo. I use a qwerty keyboard so i and u are located next to each other.

You have a point, but you didn't adress my third consideration nor the compromise i suggested. My point here is that if the phenomenon is to be presented, it shouldn't take up so much space as it does now and it should not be so focused on one language only. (btw I read through the discussion(s) regarding the syncope and the epenthesis on your wall and it seems to me that the languages in india are actually going through a process that will result in a mess like that for the latin script, unless a spelling reform is made.) Amilah (talk) 01:09, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by spelling reform. Don't be guided by the epenthesis discussion - Basawala had some really (by which I means at ridiculous variance with reality) wrong notions on Hindi which led him to make all sorts of strange assertions. Mostly these were based on him extrapolating wildly from Bengali (which does not use Devnagri). There is really very little evolution in Devnagri usage now. There is a conventional reason for spellings actually. To take an example: लपट is lapat but लपटें is lapten (schwa deletion). If the halant usage is followed, it would be लप्टें which changes the appearance of the initial section. When people read at speed they recognize shapes more than reading the actual word itself. लपट and लपटें are two senses of the same root word, so it helps to keep appearance intact. AFAIK this is true for pretty much most Nagri-using languages except Sanskrit and Nepali (though may have been true for "colloquial" Sanskrit, who's to know - and even in Nepali this shows up). Yes, we can genericize the section for other Indo-Aryan too. Propose verbage here so we agree before we put it in. Note that both Nagri and schwa deletion are indigenous to IA. This also shows in Persian-origin words: आदम is aadam but आदमी is aadmi (though in Persian it is aadami with the schwa retained - Modern IA varies from all surrounding language families in this schwa deletion things). You cannot treat this article like Latin because the consonant section has assertions on schwa. I'd be fine to delete all the schwas from there and put in a line underneath that says "in some cases a schwa is added in pronunciation." I suspect many editors on Wikipedia are not of IA speaking backgrounds and come to this from a Sanskrit orientation, so it might not sit well with them. In any case, let's get consensus here. --Hunnjazal (talk) 16:11, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the elaborate answer. I had set my mind to let go of this question, but now it became interesting.

I could tell that the discussion on the epenthesis was really confused, but it still says something important: the schwa's inserted and deleted do not follow the same patterns in the various IA languages. Even more interesting was the discussion between you and Screevatsa about when the schwa deletion in Hindi could have begun - did you come to any conclusions? As to your speculations on the other IE branches - it is a phonological development that is extremely common: syllables that are short and unstressed have a high tendency to undergo phonetic change. That explains the similarity in latin that you suggested: sometime in the pre-classical history of latin, the accent fell on the first syllable and because of that many words were changed in their endings. Poetry is by the way a very good source for determining sound changes that is not realised in the written language.

The discussion with Shreevatsa was speculative and OR, so it couldn't go beyond a discussion really. I haven't seen any quotable sources on the development of schwa deletion, have you? Remember that our context here isn't IA, it is only those IA languages that use Devanagri, e.g. Gujarati and Bengali are excluded. It is also dissimilar to Latin because Nagri is supposedly phonetic, which means you should think of this article more as a combo of Latin script and IPA (inexact analogy, but it applies).

I became curious around this whole thing however and looked around a little and found that most IA languages still preserve a phonemic inventory that by and large follow the outline of devanagari, which is not surprising, but some changes actually break or threat to break the system, as from what i could read in the article on Konkani_Phonology#Palatalised_consonants_and_unpalatalised_consonant_plus_y_clusters. Also, the article on Bhojpuri_language states an partial allophony of /b/ and /w/ in that language. On Sindhi_language there is an interesting list of phonemical peculiarities that actually end up with them having a sign for [f] that is different from the sign used for the same sound in Nepal_Bhasa.

Nepali also has that allophony. I think this is a notable feature of Eastern IA. On varying conventions, sure, that happens. I don't think that Northern IA is keeping the old phonemic inventory though. It has imported or developed many new sounds and dropped a few also.

My drift in all this is still: at some point in history the speakers of the IA languages began processes of conditioned (and unconditioned?) vowel synkope. At the same time the writers of the same languages chose not to include this newness in the written language out of convention. My example with the latin script was just a way to illustrate that you could easily get out of scope by going into detail on the spelling conventions of various languages in the article on the script itself and latin would be the worst case scenario in that. Better to make a short remark with a link to another article. By the way, you still haven't commented on my attempt at precisely that. Amilah (talk) 01:28, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't agree unless we break this article up for multiple languages or remove phonetic associations from the letters. I think both would be opposed. We would also be dropping mention of language specific letters, which is bad. I don't think there is a scope creep problem at all. All this stuff has been quite static for over a year. Where is your concern coming from? It's clearly not analogous to Latin so I don't see that your proposal applies here.

There is another thing here. Remember that schwa syncope is unconscious for most speakers and it wouldn't even strike them to add halants. You can see the reverse in South Indian pronunciations in terminal situations, where in religious readings you will see schwa insertion despite a halant (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaGleromH4Y). In fact, if we were reforming Nagri usage for Hindi, one could argue that a good approach would be to just get rid of halants altogether and have only whole letters which are schwa-free with a new matra sign indicating schwa. Suggesting that IA speakers began dropping schwas historically is speculative/OR. It could be that they always were and that religious pronunciation was stilted to produce metric evenness. We just don't know. Even today, while singing, IA speakers are indiscriminate with schwas. They don't sing it like they speak it. They will say "Aadmi" while speaking but when they sing "Aadami jo kehta hai", they pronounce it like Persian/Arabic would want them to, with schwa included. दर्शन is darshan but when they sing it they will often say "darashana" which has an extra schwa in after 'r' it by Sanskrit rules. It is entirely possible that schwa inclusion was the innovation in poetry and natural language had schwa deletion all along. Is there any evidence to the contrary? --Hunnjazal (talk) 09:07, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Phonological change is (mostly) unconscious, that is part of the phenomenon. Differences between spelling and pronunciation is the most obvious way to notice that the change has actually happened. Your assumption that the deletion was "always there" is quite extraordinary, as it goes against the entire 200 year old tradition of IE historical linguistics. Especially interesting is your statement that the ancient authors inserted morphologically irrelevant phonemes just to make the meter fit. That is quite contrary to the entire art of poetry: to make and arrange sentences so that they fit a given pattern. Examples to asscertain older pronunciation can be taken from loandwords in other languages, most interestingly the Mitanni texts, written in a cuneiform syllabary, which has added extra signs just to include final /a/). If you can provide a source for your assumption I think far many more than I will be interested.

That being said, I will also provide a source and citation for the the relative recentness of the schwa synkope: Benjamin W. Fortson in his Indo-European Language and Culture:

"The Modern Indo-Aryan languages have continued some of the developments described above for Middle Indic. Diphthongs were often monophthongized and short vowels deleted; final stops and even whole final syllables were often lost. [...] Sindhi is unusually conservative in retaining final short vowels, but has innovated strikingly in developing a series of implosive stops.

In my eyes you are actually strengthening my case by pointing out the reversed situation in south indian contexts. The changes in pronunciation in different languages is not reflected in spelling. So a rather elaborate section that concentrates almost exclusively and so detailed on Hindi isn't really justified. And if we are to take up every inconsistency with the same amount of detail we would end up with an article on a different subject, and that is what I proposed from the very beginning. Amilah (talk) 14:14, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Please exercise caution:

• I have never assumed that schwa deletion was always there, so please do not attribute that stance to me. All I've said is that we don't know whether the phenomenon that occurred was deletion or insertion. Your poetry point is incorrect, clearly, because we see schwa and even long-vowel insertion with Hindi and other IA poetry ("Raamaa, Raamaa, ghazab hui gawa"). With Hindi religious verses, the (non-universal but strong) tendency is to insist on a vowel after every consonant. It makes शान्ति into shaanati and कीन्ही into keenahi. You also see this in formal speeches and news broadcasts where speech is slowed for emphasis (kriyaa becomes k(a)riyaa with a faint schwa inserted). This is the exact opposite of the schwa deletion rule and illustrates why it is a dangerous thing to take song and generalize for normal speech.
• You have only one sourced statement here, which describes evolution from Middle Indic to Modern IA, and is quite non-specific to schwas. It relates to i and u as well.
• Completely unclear how your case is strengthened. South Indians do not use Nagari except for Sanskrit and this is incorrect Sanskrit pronunciation - all that is illustrated here is drift based on personal moorings, i.e. unconsciousness of phonemic drift.
• Hindi is by far the most major language written in Devanagari and the only one for which I am aware of a formalized schwa deletion rule. It is completely justified to put it here. This is also extremely stable content that has witnessed no drift in >1 year, so your concern about creep is unjustified. There is "no ending-up anywhere" except here. The entire article focuses on the phoneticity of Nagari, so we can't get away from talking about these things without a major scrub that will leave a lot of people unhappy. Anyhow, the article is pretty stable so you seem to be solving a non-problem.

best --Hunnjazal (talk) 18:31, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry if you felt that I was putting words in your mouth, that was not my intention. But since you clearly say that we don't know if the phenomenon discussed is deletion or insertion (the name itself should take away the doubt) I provide you another and more specific source, namely one that is used for the section we are dicussing: A Diachronic Approach for Schwa Deletion in Indo Aryan Languages by Monojit CHOUDHURY, Anupam BASU and Sudeshna SARKAR.

In old IAL none of the schwas are deleted. The

modern IAL use the script and spelling conventions similar to Sanskrit. Due to a higher evolutionary pressure on the spoken forms of the languages than on the written forms, schwas are deleted in the pronunciation, but are still present in the graphemic forms. The deletion is a slow diachronic phenomenon, where in order to communicate faster, initially the speakers unintentionally deleted the schwas.

Etymologically, those vowels were certainly pronounced once upon a time. I also wonder if you can explain why the ligatures are not employed for these consonant clusters? If there is such a strong tendency between spoken sound and written character, why this inconsistency?

I'm not a native english speaker - could you please explaine the sentence "all that is illustrated here is drift based on personal moorings, i.e. unconsciousness of phonemic drift."? I'm sorry, but I cannot understand what it means.

May I ask you if you are familiar with the concept Orthographic_depth?

Amilah (talk) 04:55, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

That reference is from a computer science paper (the contributors are all computer scientists, not linguists). It's a good paper for describing modern-day schwa deletion but not a valid ref for linguistic origins. To their credit, the authors clearly state that they are proposing a hypothesis in the sentence prior to the ones you used: "We propose the following diachronic explanation for schwa deletion in IAL ..." AFAIK it is really hard to infer ancient diction except via comparative linguistics. Also, remember that by the time Devnagari came into existence (~800 AD if we're generous), Sanskrit had already ceased to be spoken as a natural language. Schwa deletion in IA *appears* to be related less to convenience and more to preferred syllable structure. Every language has this. Spoken Sanskrit would have had it too and it may have involved the equivalent of schwa syncope. How would we ever know? Certainly the script would give us no hints if meter required a formal representation that differed from the spoken representation. Actually the sentence you sought clarification on relates to the same topic. In many South Indian languages "xCə" is a preferred syllable structure, which is why speakers veer towards saying that even if the script contains a halant that is explicitly telling them not to. But they aren't setting the standard for Sanskrit because they are not the native population for that language. Hindi speakers are setting the standard for Hindi diction, however. You see why the two are not equivalent? I am familiar with orthographic depth. --Hunnjazal (talk) 07:08, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Coding clusters

I can't find information on how to code Devanagari clusters in Unicode. Is there a special 'cluster character' (similar ot the 'coeng' of Khmer script)? Or is it done automatically when two consonants are written next to each other? V85 (talk) 03:21, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Changing "candrabindu" to "chandrabindu"

The proper phonetic method of writing the word above is "Chandrabindu". This is amply demonstrated by the fact that the Wikipedia page of Candrabindu actually redirects to Chandrabindu. I propose that this be changed appropriately as the pronunciation suggested by the form "candrabindu" is wrong phonetically. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.172.202.178 (talk) 17:07, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Separate letter articles

Should we start separate articles for the various letters of Devanagari - when I type in, say, अ, it simply takes me to Devanagari#Vowels. All the separate letters of all of the other major alphabets in the world get their own articles - e.g. پ‎. If you want, we don't have to do articles only for the Devanagari letters, but "compound" articles for the letter equivalents in all Brahmic scripts - so, instead of an article on अ alone, we could have an article about Hindi अ, Gujarati અ, Telugu అ, etc in a single article, in the same way as the article Aleph, covering the development of that letter in all of the Middle-eastern alphabets. I see some letters have already been begun, such as क. BigSteve (talk) 13:01, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Origin of the script

There is a discrepancy about when the script originated. In the information box on the right side of the page, it gives a date of 1200 CE for its origin, but in the body of the text the date given is 992 CE. It should be the same for both. My guess is the 992 CE is likely correct, because the oldest Hindi text is the Prithviraj Raso and that dates to the 1100's, so Devanagari must have been a full fledged written script before then. --BallerY2K (talk) 07:24, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm going to go ahead and change it because I've found an Encyclopedia Britannica article by the linguist George Cardona that says this: "In use from the 7th century ce and occurring in its mature form from the 11th century onward, Devanāgarī is characterized by long, horizontal strokes at the tops of the letters, usually joined in modern usage to form a continuous horizontal line through the script when written." --BallerY2K (talk) 10:34, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

There is not precise date that can be given because it originated in a gradual evolution of the script. — kwami (talk) 12:04, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

word division

When did the space come to be used as a word divider? I assume it's a Western influence, but was it before or after independence? — kwami (talk) 07:12, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Conjuncts

I propose the creation of a separate page for Devanagari conjuncts. If required, I could add the tables for the three-letter conjuncts. ManishEarth^Talk 10:14, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Why a a separate page? It doesn't seem deserving of an entire article. What more does this page need? (And does it really need that huge table of combinatorially generated conjuncts, most of which do not occur in any language at all?) Shreevatsa (talk) 12:31, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, almost all of these conjuncts are used in Sanskrit. ManishEarth^{Talk • Stalk} 14:47, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to query the Unicode string that claims to render the conjunct/ligature in the image. "ddhrya" in a text editor or browser using Arial Unicode MS gives a different shaped ligature. I'm not a Hindi linguist, but the text may be "ddhra" instead of "ddhrya" = "da+dha+ra+ya" द ् ध ् र ् य. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Akstrachan (talk • contribs) 17:08, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

It clearly says that it is JanaSanskritSans, why don't you try using this. Every different typeface cannot have the same ligature. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ujjwol (talk • contribs) 04:59, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

The link to the font URL is not accessible any more, most likely replacement: http://ildc.in/Sanskrit/sdownload.html [[[User:Abrax5]] (Talk)]

The middle joining of the ddhrya ligature is incorrect, who can fix it? [[[User:Abrax5]] (Talk)] —Preceding undated comment added 13:06, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

New image shared as CC-by-sa

Devanagari script explained.

Enjoy ! To put at the relevant place. Yug (talk) 12:05, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Grammatical Error in "Principle" Section

The following sentence needs revision.

For example, the three consonants क्, न्, and य्, (k , n, y), when written consecutively without virāma form कनय, as shown above.

Private use Unicode code points

There is at least one private use code point in this article: () U+F269. It is in between a pair of IPA slashes in the Consonants section. I don't know what it should say so I can't fix it myself! Danielklein (talk) 13:34, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Underlining

The main consonant table has links to separate articles for each of the letters, which has the unfortunate effect of underlining the character; I imagine this is quite confusing for people who don't know the writing system (in that you need to know that the underline is not part of the character). I'm not sure what the best resolution is; maybe just delete the links? --Dylan Thurston (talk) 22:44, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

This is governed by a user preference. I have it turned off, and I don't know what the default is. I see no way to fix it in wikicode. We may just have to live with it. Elizium23 (talk) 00:22, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

You are right. I have just removed the links; they don't add much value in that location. Shreevatsa (talk) 15:26, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Indus script roots is not majority or minority accepted yet

Halo @132.188.112.77: The Richard Salomon's review states, "Admittedly, we have not a shred of concrete evidence for this. (...) Admittedly, it hardly seems likely, after all the years of waiting, searching, and the dashing of false hopes, that some major archaeological discovery will reveal a whole new picture of the origins of writing in the Indian heartland, or reveal a sustainable (rather than purely hypothetical) connection with the Indus script. Nevertheless, it would be unwise to rule out surprises in the future, and we should leave the door open, as does Falk (p.340), to discoveries that could revive theories of an early development of Brahmi."

In other words, the link of Brahmi script to Indus script is an open question. The old theory is that Brahmi script developed out of a Semitic prototype in pre-Mauryan India, a theory that has been accepted by most scholars in the west, but is challenged by South Asian scholars who offer an indigenous theory such as the Indus script. Either way, we don't know enough to trace Devanagari's roots beyond Brahmi script (which both Western and South Asian scholars agree to). Let us leave the infobox script root table the way it is. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 15:45, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

ळं

Is ळं a Sanskrit letter? 173.89.236.187 (talk) 20:32, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but very rare now or in medieval manuscripts. It is pronounced like a -la-, but more guttural. Its use, from what I recall, was more preserved/developed in south Indian scripts quite similar to Devanagari like Nandinagari, and less similar Tigalari. Given its rarity, it may not be appropriate to over-emphasize ळं in this article (it is mentioned in a table/chart). Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 02:07, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Letter names

Would it be possible for someone to add the names of each Devanagari letter to the article? Thanks. --Joseph Yanchar (User page/Talk page) 06:18, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Devanagiri map for various Indic scripts

@Futuremind123: Please explain why we should include Urdu script map for Devanagiri script, in this English language wikipedia article? If you wish to include Urdu, why not dozens of other Indic scripts? Wouldn't adding dozens of Indic script make this article and the table too complicated to be useful? I notice that while you are adding Devanagiri to Urdu map in this article, you have not added Urdu to Devanagiri map in the Urdu wiki article. Would you propose we copy the reverse table there? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 17:31, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

@Abecedare: what are your thoughts on including Urdu and other Indic scripts in the consonant section of this article? I had deleted the Urdu script, but will go with your guidance and consensus. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 17:45, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

AFAIK, Devanagari and Urdu script have no close familial relationship (Aramaic alphabet may be the closest common ancestor, which is several generations removed), and the only reason I can think of for comparing the two would be that Hindustani is written in both. But that is a better fit for the Hindustani article where it is already included, and IMO here the Romanisation (IAST), and IPA should suffice. Abecedare (talk) 18:07, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

@Abecedare: Indeed. I will, in good faith, give @Futuremind123 some time to respond. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 18:48, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: Hello this is Futuremind123. With regards to me reinstating the Urdu letters. Firstly, the letters were already in the table before Ms Welch deleted them. Perhaps you should ask the original author why they put them there?

As you might know both Devanagari and the Urdu alphabet are used for essentially the same spoken language in everyday terms. I am assuming this was the reason they were put there in the first place. The reason I reinstated them was because I was trying to learn the Devanagari script having already learnt the Urdu script and knowing both Hindi/Urdu: As mentioned both these spoken languages are very similar so if you know one script and the spoken language you can easily learn the other. I am assuming that this is another reason the original author included the Urdu alphabet. In addition this article was one of the very few places on the entire internet that these scripts were cross referenced in a convenient table.

With regards to why the Urdu script is on the devanagari page and not vice versa, again I assume this is because Devanagari and Urdu are considered "scheduled" scripts in India whereas only the Urdu script is considered "official" in Pakistan. Either way having both scripts in the table is useful for Indians and Pakistanis. (Futuremind123 (talk) 05:38, 30 August 2015 (UTC))

@Ms Sarah Welch: Can you please re-instate the urdu letter in the table as per my comments above. I am not the original author but having them there was extremely useful Futuremind123 (talk) 10:47, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

@Futuremind: No, and please don't try to impose your personal liking on wikipedia. You need to answer the wikipedia content policies and concerns of admin @Abecedare and I above. Saying, I must ask the original author is not a proper response, as this section implicitly does so. You may find what you are looking for in the Hindustani language article. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 11:52, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: This is not my personal liking. You are vandalising two very similar languages because you simply do not have the cultural experience (i.e. experience of Indic cultures) to understand that the languages are similar. I will also point out that the Devanagari script is mapped onto Urdu letters in the Urdu Wikipedia article. Where do I complain about your vandalism and attitude problem? - unsigned comment by Futuremind123

As @Abecedare explained above, "Devanagari and Urdu script have no close familial relationship". Your "extremely useful" POV is irrelevant to this article, and wikipedia is not the right place for sharing your "experiences of Indic cultures". Try WP:WWIN. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 02:31, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch:I want to know why the original editor put them there? It wasn't me and that editor would have had good reasons before you decided to vandalise the page! Also why havn't you edited the Urdu wiki page which has mapped devanagari onto it, again probably with good reasons which your biased mind won't comprehend! You are just a Westerner imposing your limited worldview on the rest of us!Also your ignorance is breathtaking: IF YOU DO SOME RESEARCH ON WIKIPEDIA YOU WILL FIND THAT BOTH DEVANAGARI AND URDU SCRIPTS' PARENT SCRIPTS ARE PROTOSINAITIC IN OTHER WORDS THEIR IS A FAMILIAL RELATIONSHIP SINCE BOTH ARE DERIVED FROM THE SAME PARENTAL SYSTEMS!!!!Futuremind123 (talk) 15:31, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Your comments are neither persuasive nor helping. You need to respect wikipedia's policies. There are dozens of Indic scripts. Neither including them all here, nor just your one favorite POV script is appropriate. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 15:57, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

@Ms Sarah Welch: I wonder if you can even read Devanagari or Urdu? I strongly suspect you can't which is why you don't understand my "POV"! --signing on behalf of User:Futuremind123, 15 October 2015

Whether they can read them or not is irrelevant. If you have a non-neutral POV based on being able to read them both, that is your problem, but please still keep the discussion civil. This article is about a Brahmi script, and comparisons with other Brahmi scripts make sense, but comparisons with unrelated* writing systems do not, even if they are both used to write the same Hindustani language (though both can be mentioned in that article, I suppose). (* yes, they are distantly related just as most of the world's writing systems are distantly related except possibly Chinese and some other stuff, but they are far from being in the same family of scripts: in fact, they aren't even the same type of script, one being an abugida and one an abjad) LjL (talk) 15:30, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

I am surprised this discussion is still going on, when Abecedare has given a perfectly reasoned opinion several months ago. @Futuremind123: comments like the above don't do you any credit. It is time to move on. - Kautilya3 (talk) 22:34, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

I can read Devanagari - I agree with Abecedare and Kautilya3. Aryamanarora^{talk, contribs} 20:48, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Vowels

The IPA value(s) of the letters should be included alongside their Romanizations. ZFT (talk) 23:13, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Agreed, but don't they differ among languages? Peter238 (talk) 22:53, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Phonology is covered with IPA values at, e.g. Hindustani language Elizium23 (talk) 00:49, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Infobox century

@Uanfala: Richard Salomon states on page 39, "It [Saiddhamatrka] continued to be used into the tenth century, undergoing a gradual transformation into Devanagari during the latter part of this period [Section is titled: ...ca. 7th-10th century AD]." The pages 40-41 further discuss the development. The 2nd-3rd line of page 41 reconfirms what you note. How about we phrase the infobox text: Early signs: 1st century;[1] Modern form: 10th-century.[2][3]? I suggest we remove the "or" as it is confusing, and because Salomon and other sources state the script just evolved over time. If you have time, please feel free to add some clarifying summary from Salomon in the main article as well. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 18:13, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Agreed! The infobox text you propose makes much better sense. As for the main article, I feel a bit too out of my depth to properly contribute to the topic. And I think the article text already provides enough information as it is. Uanfala (talk) 18:38, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Shiksha in see also section

@Imaginatorium: Per WP:ALSO guideline, the Shiksha article is a reasonable link in the See also section, since it is related to this article (see this particular section, for example with its magic square and "ka kha ga..." part, which is also in this article). If you read the Shiksha article, it is pretty obvious. I will add it back, but will wait a bit so you can explain any legitimate concerns you might have. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 13:29, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

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CE/BCE, AD/BC style

@Nyttend: There was a BC/AD and BCE/CE era mixing problem in this article, indeed. But why replace what was mostly CE/BCE to all AD/BC? It makes more sense to change the few AD/BC to CE/BCE. Using "Christian era" language in this Devanagiri article, which is unrelated to Christianity, seems strange. I have no strong preference on this, assuming you or someone can offer persuasive reasons. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 18:50, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Indeed, if there is a choice to be made, BCE/CE is better. It is certainly more neutral. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:39, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, AD/BC are based on purported calculations of the birth of Jesus (for whom historical evidence is actually almost nonexistent). And CE/BCE are based on what? Something entirely different? How does changing the name of something change its reference? Imaginatorium (talk) 02:24, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

@Imaginatorium: Indeed, history is more muddled than we would like. Whether it should be BC/AD or BCE/CE, has been much debated in wikipedia. No need to repeat it. But Nyttend has a good point, and per WP:ERA, this article should consistently use one or the other. Our challenge, in part, is that new editors add content without knowledge of wiki's finer rules, and editing entropy returns articles to mixed systems. @Kautilya3: is there a hat template such as Template:Use dmy dates that we can use for ERA? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 12:03, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Requested move

Should Devanagari be moved to Devanagari script ? Provide your views before I go forward with move request.31.215.192.185 (talk) 15:31, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

May be you can start by explaining why you want to move this? Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 15:38, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

"Killer stroke": clarify template

The explanation seems to be that a final consonant has a tiny stroke added to the bottom right corner. The problem is that even though there is a representation of this tiny stroke (्), in the middle of a sentence in the Roman alphabet it is almost invisible, appearing as a faint smudge on the screen. The nonexpert reader (such as myself) cannot be expected to see quite what is going on. Perhaps it would be better to show the modification on a whole character: "क changes to च+the stroke". Sorry, I have no idea how to replicate this. Imaginatorium (talk) 16:13, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Sure, the effect of the stroke is that क changes to क् while च changes to च् and so on. Does that help? (To replicate this easily without a Devanagari input method, you can use the "character picker" at https://r12a.github.io/pickers/devanagari/ to click on the letters you want, and then copy the output — the viraama/halant/“killer stroke” is in the long vertical box at the left.) Based on these examples, what do you suggest adding to the article? Shreevatsa (talk) 17:32, 29 April 2017 (UTC)