Devanāgarī

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Devanāgarī (IPA: [ˌdeɪvəˈnɑːɡəɹiː]; Sanskrit: देवनागरी, devanāgarī, IPA: [ˌd̪eːʋəˈnɑːɡəɾiː] ^[?]) is  an abugida writing system used to write, either along with other scripts, or  exclusively, several North Indian languages, including Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Sindhi, Bihari, Bhili, Marwari, Konkani, Bhojpuri, Nepali, Nepal Bhasa from Nepal and  sometimes Kashmiri and  Romani. it  is written and  read from left to right.

Devanāgarī abugida
Type:	Abugida
Languages:	Several North Indian languages, including Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Sindhi, Bihari, Bhili, Konkani, Bhojpuri, Nepali, Nepal Bhasa from Nepal and  sometimes Kashmiri and  Romani
Time period:	~1200 CE to the present
Parent writing systems:	Proto-Sinaitic  Phoenician   Aramaic    Brāhmī     Gupta script      Siddham       Devanāgarī abugida
ISO 15924 code:	Deva
Rigveda manuscript in Devanāgarī (early 19th century)
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an  English-​based pronunciation key.

The transliteration used in this article follows the popular IAST conventions.

Contents 1 Origins 1.1 Etymology 2 Principles 3 Symbols of Devanāgarī 3.1 Vowels 3.2 Consonants 3.2.1 Ligatures 3.3 Diacritics 3.3.1 Accent marks 3.4 Numerals 4 Transliteration 4.1 IAST 4.2 Harvard-Kyoto 4.3 ITRANS 5 Encodings 5.1 ISCII 5.2 Devanāgarī in Unicode 6 Devanāgarī Keyboard Layouts 6.1 Devanāgarī and  Devanāgarī-QWERTY keyboard layouts for Mac OS X 6.2 INSCRIPT 6.3 Typewriter 6.4 Phonetic 7 See also 8 Software 9 External links 9.1 Electronic resources

[edit] Origins

Devanāgarī emerged around CE 1200 out of the Siddham script, gradually replacing the earlier, closely related Sharada script (which remained in parallel use in Kashmir). Both are  immediate descendants of the Gupta script, ultimately deriving from the Brāhmī script attested from the 3rd century BCE; Nāgarī appeared in approx. the 8th century as an  eastern variant of the Gupta script, contemporary to Sharada, its western variant. The descendants of Brahmi form the Brahmic family, including the alphabets employed for many other South and  South-East Asian languages.

[edit] Etymology

History of the Alphabet
Middle Bronze Age 19–15th c. BC Canaanite-Phoenician 14th c. BC Paleo-Hebrew 10th c. BC Aramaic 9th c. BC Brāhmī & Indic 6th c. BC Tibetan 7th c. Khmer/Javanese 9th c. Hebrew 3rd c. BC Syriac 2nd c. BC Nabatean 2nd c. BC Arabic 4th c. Avestan 4th to 6th c. Greek 9th c. BC Etruscan 8th c. BC Latin 7th c. BC Runes 2nd c. Ogham 4th c. Gothic 4th c. Armenian 405 Glagolitic 862 Cyrillic 10th c. Samaritan 6th c. BC Iberian 6th c. BC Epigraphic South Arabian 9th c. BC Ge'ez 5–6th c. BC
Meroitic 3rd c. BC
Complete genealogy

Sanskrit nāgarī is  the feminine of nāgara "urban(e)", an  adjectival vrddhi derivative from nagara "city"; the feminine form is  used because of its original application to qualify the feminine noun lipi "script" ("urban(e) script", i.e. the script of the cultured). There were several varieties in use, one of which was distinguished by affixing deva "deity" to form a tatpurusha compound meaning the "urban(e) [script] of the deities (= gods)", i.e. "divine urban(e) [script]". However, the widespread use of "Devanāgarī" is  a relatively recent phenomenon; well into the twentieth century, and  even today, simply "Nāgari" was also in use for this same script. The rapid spread of the usage of "Devanāgarī" seems also to be connected with the almost exclusive use of this script in colonial times to publish works in Sanskrit, even though traditionally nearly all indigenous scripts have  actually been employed for this language. This has led to the establishment of such a close connection between the script and  Sanskrit that it  is, erroneously, widely regarded as "the Sanskrit script" today.

Interpreted by popular etymology to refer to a "City of the Gods", the name in certain Yogic traditions^{[citation needed]} was taken to refer to the body of the individual. The philosophy behind this is  that when one meditates on the specific sounds of the Devanāgarī alphabet, the written forms appear spontaneously in the mind.

[edit] Principles

The Devanāgarī writing system can be called an  abugida, as each consonant has an  inherent vowel (a), that can be changed with the different vowel signs. Devanāgarī is  written from left to right. In Sanskrit, words were written together without spaces, so that the top bar is  unbroken, although there were some exceptions to this rule. The break of the top line primarily marks breath groups. In modern languages, word breaks are  used.

Devanāgarī has 12 svara (pure sounds, or  vowels) and  34 vyañjana (ornamented sounds, consonants). an  akṣara is  formed by the combination of zero or  one vyañjana and  one or  more svara, and  represents a phonetic unit of the śabda (utterance). The akṣara is  written by applying standard diacritical modifiers to the vyañjana corresponding to the svara. an  akṣara is  usually more  basic and  predictable than the syllable in English. For example, the English 'cat' (considered to have  just one syllable in English) is  written as two akṣaras, the 'ka' and  the 'ta'.

The svara and  vyañjana are  ordered and  grouped logically for studying or  reciting. Thus the pure sounds, 'a', 'i', 'u' and  their lengthened versions ('ā', 'ī', 'ū') are  followed by the combined ('e', 'ai', 'o', 'au'), nasal ('ṃ') and  aspirated ('ḥ') forms. The vyañjana themselves are  grouped into 6 groups (rows) of 5 (columns). The first five rows progress as velar, palatal, retroflex, dental and  labial, corresponding to utilizing or  touching the tongue to progressively outer parts of the mouth when making the sound. Additional vyañjana are  technically sonorants, sibilants, or  widely used conjunct forms. For each row or  group, the columns logically progress to softer sounds, paired with aspirated forms, ending in the nasal form for that group.

Most consonants can be joined to one or  two other consonants so that the inherent vowel is  suppressed. The resulting conjunct form is  called a ligature. Many ligatures appear simply as two individual consonants joined together, and  so are  a form of ligature. Some ligatures are  more elaborately formed and  not as easily recognized as containing the individual consonants.

When reading Sanskrit written in Devanāgarī, the pronunciation is  completely unambiguous. Similarly, any word in Sanskrit is  considered to be written only in one manner (discounting modern typesetting variations in depicting conjunct forms). However, for modern languages, certain conventions have  been made (e.g. truncating the vowel form of the last consonant while speaking, even as it  continues to be written in full form). There are  also some modern conventions for writing English words in Devanāgarī.

Certain Sanskrit texts and  mantras are  typically written with additional diacritical marks above and  below the akṣara to denote pitch and  tempo, to ensure completely accurate reproduction of the sound.

[edit] Symbols of Devanāgarī

All the vowels in Devanāgarī are  attached to the top or  bottom of the consonant or  to an  <aa> vowel sign attached to the right of the consonant, with the exception of the <i> vowel sign, which is  attached on the left. In the Devanāgarī vowel table below, the "Letter" column contains the symbol used when a vowel occurs without a consonant, the "Vowel sign with <p>" column contains the symbol used when a vowel is  attached to a consonant, shown with the <p> letter as an  example, the "Unicode name" column contains the name given in the Unicode specification for the vowel, and  the "IPA" column contains the International Phonetic Alphabet character(s) corresponding to the Hindi pronunciation of the Devanāgarī character.

[edit] Vowels

The vowels of the Devanāgarī script with their word-initial Devanāgarī symbol, diacritical mark with the consonant प् (/p/), pronunciation (of the vowel alone and  of /p/+vowel) in International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), equivalent in International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) and  Indian languages transliteration (ITRANS) and  (approximate) equivalents in Standard English are  listed below:

Independent Vowel	Diacritical mark with “प्”	Pronunciation	Pronunciation with /p/	IAST equiv.	ITRANS equiv.	English equivalent
अ	प	/ə/ or  /ä/	/pə/ or  /pä/	a	a	short schwa: as the a in above or  ago
आ	पा	/äː/	/päː/	ā	A	long open central unrounded vowel: as the a in father
इ	पि	/i/	/pi/	i	i	short close front unrounded vowel: as i in bit
ई	पी	/iː/	/piː/	ī	I	long close front unrounded vowel: as i in machine
उ	पु	/u/	/pu/	u	u	short close back rounded vowel: as u in put
ऊ	पू	/uː/	/puː/	ū	U	long close back rounded vowel: as oo in school
ए	पे	/eː/	/peː/	e	e	long close-mid front unrounded vowel: as a in game (not a diphthong), or  é in café
ऐ	पै	/əi/ or /ai/	/pəi/ or /pai/	ai	ai	a long diphthong: approx. as ei in height
ऋ	पृ	/r̩/	/pr̩/	ṛ	R	short syllabic vowel-like alveolar trill : approx. as butter
ॠ	पॄ	/r̩ː/	/pr̩ː/	ṝ	RR	long syllabic vowel-like alveolar trill: a longer version of /r̩/
ऌ	पॢ	/l̩/	/pl̩/	ḷ	LR	short syllabic vowel-like alveolar lateral approximant: approx. as handle
ॡ	पॣ	/l̩ː/	/pl̩ː/	ḹ	LRR	long syllabic vowel-like alveolar lateral approximant: a longer version of /l̩/
ओ	पो	/οː/	/poː/	o	o	long close-mid back rounded vowel: as o in tone (not a diphthong)
औ	पौ	/əu/ or /au/	/pəu/ or /pau/	au	au	a long diphthong: approx. as ou in house

Additional points:

• The vowel /äː/ in Sanskrit is  more central and  less back than the closest English equivalent, /ɑː/. The schwa (/ə/) is  always short in Sanskrit.
• All vowels in Hindi, short or  long, can be nasalized. All vowels can have  acute, grave or  circumflex pitch accent (in Vedic Sanskrit).
• In Hindi, ऋ is  pronounced as /ri/. The following three vowels ऌ /r̩ː/, ऌ /l̩/ and  ॡ /l̩ː/ in the table above do not occur in Hindi at all.
• Note that the ancient Sanskrit grammarians have  classified the vowel system as velars, retroflexes, palatals and  plosives rather than as back, central and  mid vowels. Hence ए and  ओ are  classified respectively as palato-velar (a+i) labio-velar (a+u) vowels respectively. But the grammarians have  classified them as diphthongs and  in prosody, each is  given two mātrās. This does not necessarily mean that they are  proper diphthongs, but neither excludes the possibility that they could have  been proper diphthongs at a very ancient stage. These vowels are pronounced as long /eː/ and  /oː/ respectively by most learned Sanskrit Brahmins and  priests of today. Other than the "four" diphthongs, Sanskrit usually disallows any other diphthongs—vowels in succession, if occur, are  converted to semivowels according to predetermined rules.
• In Sanskrit and  in some other dialects of Hindi (as well as in a few words in Standard Hindi), the vowel ऐ is  pronounced as a diphthong /əi/ or  /ai/ rather than /e:/. Similarly, the vowel औ is  pronounced in some words as the diphthong /əu/ or  /au/ rather than /ɔ:/. Other than these, Hindi does not have  true diphthongs—two vowels might occur sequentially but then they are  pronounced as two syllables (a glide might come in between while speaking). Otherwise in Standard Hindi, ऐ (ai) is  long near-open front unrounded vowel: /æ/ as a in cat; औ (au) is  long open-mid back rounded vowel: /ɔː/ as au in caught.
• The short open-mid front unrounded vowel (/ɛ/: as e in get), does not have  any symbol or  diacritic in Devanāgarī script. In several Hindi dialects, the vowel is  expressed as an  allophonic variant of schwa when it  occurs before sounds like ha; eg., रहना is  pronounced as /rɛhnä:/ instead of as /rəhənä:/. s not traditionally represented in Devanāgarī, but a new symbol has been invented for it  in order to account for the pronunciation of English loanwords: ऍ (chandra): eg. पॅ).
• The short open-mid back rounded vowel (/ɔ/) is  not traditionally represented in Devanāgarī, but a new symbol has been invented for it  in order to account for the pronunciation of English loanwords: ऑ, eg. पॉ.
• Unicode transliteration scheme differs for some characters from IAST scheme. The differences are: ā→aa, ī→ii, ū→uu, ṛ→rr, ḹ→ll.

[edit] Consonants

The table below shows the traditional listing of the Sanskrit consonants with the (nearest) equivalents in English/Spanish/Italian. The parentheses give the corresponding transliteration (of the consonant alone) in IAST scheme—the most popular one. Each consonant shown below is  by default followed by the neutral vowel schwa (/ə/), and  is given in the table in this form.

Plosives
	Unaspirated Voiceless	Aspirated Voiceless	Unaspirated Voiced	Aspirated Voiced	Nasal
Velar	क (k) /kə/; English: skip	ख (kh) /kʰə/; English: cat	ग (g) /gə/; English: game	घ (gh) /gʱə/; English: egg head	ङ (ṅ) /ŋə/; English: ring
Palatal	च (c) /cə/; ≈English: chat	छ (ch) /cʰə/; Aspirated /c/	ज (j) /ɟə/; ≈English: jam	झ (jh) /ɟʱə/; Aspirated /ɟ/	ञ (ñ) /ɲə/; ≈English: finch
Retroflex	ट (ṭ) /ʈə/; American Eng: hurting	ठ (ṭh) /ʈʰə/; Aspirated /ʈ/	ड (ḍ) /ɖə/; American Eng: murder	ढ (ḍh) /ɖʱə/; Aspirated /ɖ/	ण (ṇ) /ɳə/; No English equivalent
Apico-Dental	त (t) /t̪ə/; Spanish: tomate	थ (th) /t̪ʰə/; Aspirated /t̪/	द (d) /d̪ə/; Spanish: donde	ध (dh) /d̪ʱə/; Aspirated /d̪/	न (n) /nə/; Spanish: tonto
Labial	प (p) /pə/; English: spin	फ (ph) /pʰə/; English: pit	ब (b) /bə/; English: bone	भ (bh) /bʱə/; English: abhor	म (m) /mə/; English: mine

Non-Plosives/Sonorants
	Palatal	Retroflex	Dental/ Alveolar	(Labio)velar/ Glottal
Approximant	य (y) /jə/; English: you	र (r) /ɾə/; Spanish: martes	ल (l) /lə/; British English: love	व (v) /ʋə/; ≈Italian: vuoto
Sibilant/ Fricative	श (ś) /ʃə/; English: ship	ष (ṣ) /ʂə/; Retroflex form of /ʃ/	स (s) /sə/; English: same	ह (h) /ɦə/; ≈English home

At the end of the traditional table of alphabets, four consonantal clusters are  also added: क्ष /kʃə/ (kṣ) (in Hindi), त्र /t̪ɾə/ (tr), ज्ञ /gjə/ (jñ) (in Hindi; pronounced as /ɟɲə/ + nasalization in Sanskrit), and  श्र /ɕcə/ (śc). Other than these, sounds borrowed from the other languages like Persian and  Arabic are  written with a dot (bindu or  nukta) beneath the nearest approximate letter. They are  not included in the traditional listing. Many native Hindi speakers, especially those who come from rural backgrounds and  do not speak proper Khariboli or  Urdu, confuse these sounds (except /ɽ/ and  /ɽʱ/) and  pronounce them as the nearest equivalents in Sanskritized Hindi (listed in column 5). These are:

Extra sounds

Symbol	IPA Pronunciation and  name	IAST equiv.	English (etc.) equiv.	Confused with:
क़	/qə/ voiceless uvular plosive	q	Arabic: Qur'an	/k/
ख़	/xə/ voiceless velar fricative	k͟h	German: doch	/kʰ/
ग़	/ɣə/ voiced velar fricative	ġ	Persian: Mughal	/g/
ज़	/zə/ voiced alveolar fricative	z	English: zoo	/ɟ/ or /dʒ/
फ़	/fə/ voiceless labiodental fricative	f	English: fun	/pʰ/
ड़	/ɽə/ unaspirated retroflex flap	ṛ	<none>
ढ़	/ɽʱə/ aspirated retroflex flap	ṛh	<none>

Additional points:

• The "r" of Sanskrit is  as in Standard American English. In modern Sanskrit pronunciation, the vowel "ṛ" is  sometimes realised as /ri/ or  /ru/, although many people (especially if their native language retains the original Sanskrit sounds, as is  the case in Malayalam) do make the /r/ sound. In Hindi, /r/ is  pronounced as in Spanish perro. Also note that both ऋ and  ड़ use "ṛ" in IAST transliteration.
• There is  no retroflex flap in Sanskrit. In modern Hindi and  other Indo-Aryan languages, they have  sprung up as the allophonic flap variants of Sanskrit's simple voiced retroflex plosives. The /ɳ/ (ṇ or  ण) in Sanskrit is  not a flap but a simple nasal stop, although it  is pronounced by modern pundits while chanting as a nasal variant of the voiced retroflex flap. Hindi has two proper retroflex flaps.
• Aspiration is  actually a puff of breath that may follow a plosive consonant. English speakers could try pronouncing the words "kite", "take", "chip" and  "pat" with a greater-than-usual puff of breath after the first consonant. The corresponding unaspirated plosives must be pronounced with no significant puff of breath at all.
• For practicing the voiced aspirates, one could try: "drag him", "said him", "enrage him", "grab him". The voiced aspirated plosives (also called murmur stops) are  extremely important and  frequent in Sanskrit. Sanskrit (and its daughters) is  the only language that has faithfully preserved these original Proto-Indo-European stops.
• The dental consonants in Sanskrit are  as in Spanish or  French. They can be pronounced by pronouncing /t/ and  /d/ (of English) by pressing the tip of the tongue against the back of the teeth rather than against the back of the alveolar ridge as done by English speakers. The normal "t" and  "d" in IAST transliteration are  the dental stops; and  they occur much, much more  frequently than the retroflex stops.
• The retroflex consonants are  the most difficult to pronounce. They are  pronounced by curling the tongue such that its tip touches the roof of the mouth, like how Americans pronounce "r". The retroflex flaps are  pronounced in a similar way, by bringing the tongue's tip to the roof of the mouth and  giving it  a sharp flap downwards. However, bringing the tip of the tongue a bit above the normal alveolar ridge would also work fine. The normal alveolar plosives of English /t/ and  /d/ do not exist as such in Sanskrit/Hindi.
• The palatal plosives of Sanskrit/Hindi do not have  a sharp frictional sound following them, as what happened in English chips and  jam. These are  more of pure plosives than affricates.
• Sanskrit/Hindi has no /v/. Its nearest equivalent is  /ʋ/, which is  very close to /v/, but does not a friction or  buzzing sound associated with it. But in consonant clusters, this may allophonically change to /w/.
• The palatal sibilant of Sanskrit (IAST: ś) is  very close to like the English sh in ship (although the Sanskrit phoneme is  the voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative /ɕ/) while the English phoneme is  the voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ with lip rounding). Today, speakers of Sanskrit vary the palatal fricative from /ɕ/ to /ʃ/. In Hindi, it  is always pronounced as in ship.
• The retroflex sibilant /ʂ/ is  pronounced like /ʃ/, but with the tongue curled upwards towards the roof of the mouth. In Mādhyandini branch of Yajurveda, this phoneme is  allowed to be pronounced at certain places as / kʰ/. In Hindi, this is  pronounced as the English sh in ship.
• The Sanskrit /ɦ/ is  a voiced allophone of the normal h. In Hindi, it  is pronounced as in home.

Another consonant is  ळ which is  not used in Hindi. it  is retroflex, and  used in Vedic Sanskrit, Marathi, Gujarati, and  Marwari.

[edit] Ligatures

Consonant clusters of two or  more phonemes are  realized by combining the aksharas into ligatures. Typically, the preceding akshara loses its vertical stroke and  is put in direct contact with the succeeding one. In cases of aksharas that do not have  vertical strokes in their independent form, the following aksharas are  usually placed underneath the preceding one. In some cases, the ligatures take forms not readily recognizable as composed of the individual aksharas (e.g. <jñ>). Consonant clusters involving <r> are  treated as a special case: preceding <r-> is  realized as a right-facing hook above the following akshara, and  following <-r> appears as a slanted stroke attached to the vertical stroke of the preceding akshara. Similarly for a cluster /XYZa/, both X and  Y would be "halved". There are  many variants for this consonant cluster writing in Devanāgarī script. The most common system is  shown below for the traditional table. Here the second vowel is  taken to be /n/, followed by the schwa.

ka-group	क्न /knə/	ख्न /kʰnə/	ग्न /gnə/	घ्न /gʱnə/	ङ्न /ŋnə/
cha-group	च्न /cnə/	छ्न /cʰnə/	ज्न /ɟnə/	झ्न /ɟʱnə/	ञ्न /ɲnə/
Ta-group	ट्न /ʈnə/	ठ्न /ʈʰnə/	ड्न /ɖnə/	ढ्न /ɖʱnə/	ण्न /ɳnə/
ta-group	त्न /t̪nə/	थ्न /t̪ʰnə/	द्न /d̪nə/	ध्न /d̪ʱnə/	न्न /nnə/
pa-group	प्न /pnə/	फ्न /pʰnə/	ब्न /bnə/	भ्न /bʱnə/	म्न /mnə/
ya-group	य्न /ynə/	र्न /rnə/	ल्न /lnə/	व्न /ʋnə/
va-group	श्न /ɕnə/	ष्न /ʂnə/	स्न /snə/	ह्न /ɦnə/

[edit] Diacritics

• अं (called anusvāra), pronounced as /ⁿ/ (IAST: ṃ) is  used for nasalizing the vowel in the syllable, the word-final allophone of /m/ and  /n/. The diacritic ँ (called chandrabindu/anunāsika) is  used in certain shakhas instead of the anusvāra in certain phonetic contexts.

• अः (called visarga), pronounced as /əh/ (IAST: ḥ) is  the word-final allophone of /s/ and  /r/.

• If a lonely consonant needs to be written without any following vowel, it  is given a halanta/virāma diacritic below (प्).

• avagraha ऽ is  used in western editions to mark elision of a word-initial /a/ in sandhi.

[edit] Accent marks

Main article: Vedic accent

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

[edit] Numerals

See also: Indian numerals, Brahmi numerals, and Hindu-Arabic numeral system

Devanāgarī numerals

०	१	२	३	४	५	६	७	८	९
0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

[edit] Transliteration

Main article: Devanagari transliteration

There are  several methods of transliteration from Devanāgarī into Roman scripts. The most widely used transliteration method is  IAST. However, there are  other transliteration options.

The following are  the major transliteration methods for Devanāgarī:

[edit] IAST

The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) is  the academic standard for the romanization of Sanskrit. IAST is  the de-facto standard used in printed publications, like books and  magazines, and  with the wider availability of Unicode fonts, it  is also increasingly used for electronic texts. it  is based on a standard established by the Congress of Orientalists at Athens in 1912.

The National Library at Kolkata romanization, intended for the romanization of all Indic scripts, is  an extension of IAST.

[edit] Harvard-Kyoto

Compared to IAST, Harvard-Kyoto looks much simpler. it  does not contain all the diacritic marks that IAST contains. This makes typing in Harvard-Kyoto much easier than IAST. However, Harvard-Kyoto may look simpler, but IAST is  more pleasing to eyes. Harvard-Kyoto uses capital letters that can be difficult to read in the middle of words.

[edit] ITRANS

ITRANS [1] is  a lossless transliteration scheme of Devanāgarī into ASCII that is  widely used on Usenet. it  is an  extension of the Harvard-Kyoto scheme. In ITRANS, the word Devanāgarī is  written as "devanaagarii". ITRANS is  associated with an  application of the same name that enables typesetting in Indic scripts. The user inputs in roman letters and  the ITRANS pre-processor displays the roman letters into Devanāgarī (or other Indic languages). The latest version of ITRANS is  version 5.30 released in July, 2001.

[edit] Encodings

[edit] ISCII

ISCII is  a fixed-length 8-bit encoding. The lower 128 codepoints are  plain ASCII, the upper 128 codepoints are  ISCII-specific.

It has been designed for representing not only Devanāgarī, but also various other Indic scripts as well as a Latin-based script with diacritic marks used for transliteration of the Indic scripts.

ISCII has largely been obsoleted by Unicode, which has however attempted to preserve the ISCII layout for its Indic language blocks.

See

• ISCII – IS13194:1991 [2]

[edit] Devanāgarī in Unicode

The Unicode range for Devanāgarī is  U+0900 .. U+097F. Grey blocks indicate characters that are  undefined.

Devanagari Unicode.org chart (PDF)

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

A

B

C

D

E

F

U+090x

ँ

ं

ः

ऄ

अ

आ

इ

ई

उ

ऊ

ऋ

ऌ

ऍ

ऎ

ए

U+091x

ऐ

ऑ

ऒ

ओ

औ

क

ख

ग

घ

ङ

च

छ

ज

झ

ञ

ट

U+092x

ठ

ड

ढ

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[edit] Devanāgarī Keyboard Layouts

[ and  Devanāgarī-QWERTY keyboard layouts for Mac OS X">edit] Devanāgarī and  Devanāgarī-QWERTY keyboard layouts for Mac OS X

The Mac OS X operating system supports convenient editing for the Devanāgarī script by insertion of appropriate Unicode characters with two different keyboard layouts available for use. To input Devanāgarī text, one goes to System Preferences → International → Input Menu and  enables the keyboard layout that is  to be used. One then views the keyboard layout at the Indian Language Kit Manual at Apple Docs.

for example, the Devanāgarī-qwerty layout is:

[edit] INSCRIPT

[edit] Typewriter

[edit] Phonetic

See home page

[edit] See also

• Wikipedia:Enabling complex text support for Indic scripts

[edit] Software

• Apple Type Services for Unicode Imaging - Macintosh
• Graphite - open source (SIL)
• HindiWriter - The Phonetic Hindi Writer with AutoWord lookup and  Spellcheck for MS Word and  OpenOffice.org for Windows.
• Pango - open source (GNOME)
• Uniscribe - Windows
• WorldScript - Macintosh, replaced by the Apple Type Services for Unicode Imaging, mentioned above
• Baraha - Devanāgarī Input using English Keyboard

[edit] External links

• Resources for typing in the Nepali language in Devanāgarī
• The official Devanāgarī Document (pdf) from Govt. Of India.
• On history of Indian writing

[edit] Electronic resources

• Chhahari Syllabic Unicode Editor
• Request for a free hindi Fonts and  Devanāgarī Tools CD from the Government of India
• Devanāgarī Tools: Wiki Sandbox, Devanagari Mail, Yahoo/Google Search & Devanāgarī Transliteration
• Devanāgarī : all about using Devanāgarī on computers
• IndiX, Indian language support for Linux, a site by the Indian National Centre for Software Technology
• writeKA English-to-Hindi Online Transliterator
• Unicode Chart for Devanāgarī
• Resources for viewing and  editing Devanāgarī
• Unicode support for Web browsers
• Creating and  Viewing Documents in Devanāgarī
• Hindi/Devanāgarī Script Tutor
• Romanized to Unicode Devanāgarī transliterator
• Devanāgarī Script Translation Translation for Devanagari Script
• Devanāgarī mailing list and  discussion group
• Discussion Group and  email List Devanāgarī.
• A compilation of Tools and  Techniques for Hindi Computing
• HiTrans - Roman-Nagari transliteration scheme and  conversion tool
• हिन्दी कलम(Hindi Kalam)Online Phonetic Transliteration based Devanagari Editor with Spell Check and  Auto Suggestion facility.