All Topics  
Anusvara

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Anusvara
 
 
  Topics Anusvara Topic Home

Anusvara (Dev: ???????? ) is the diacritic used to mark a type of nasalization
Nasalization

In phonetics, nasalization is the production of a sound while the soft palate is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth....
 used in a number of Indic languages. Depending on the location of the anusvara in the word, and on the language within which it is used, its exact pronunciation can vary greatly.

he Devanagari script, anusvara is represented with a dot
Dot

Dot or DOT may refer to:In typography:* Full stop, also called period * Interpunct, between words, or used as Multiplication#Notation_and_terminology; also called middle dot or centered dot ...
 above the letter (??). In IAST
IAST

The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration is a popular transliteration scheme that allows a lossless romanization of Brahmic family....
, it is written below the character .






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Anusvara'
Start a new discussion about 'Anusvara'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Anusvara (Dev: ???????? ) is the diacritic used to mark a type of nasalization
Nasalization

In phonetics, nasalization is the production of a sound while the soft palate is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth....
 used in a number of Indic languages. Depending on the location of the anusvara in the word, and on the language within which it is used, its exact pronunciation can vary greatly.

Devanagari script

In the Devanagari script, anusvara is represented with a dot
Dot

Dot or DOT may refer to:In typography:* Full stop, also called period * Interpunct, between words, or used as Multiplication#Notation_and_terminology; also called middle dot or centered dot ...
 above the letter (??). In IAST
IAST

The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration is a popular transliteration scheme that allows a lossless romanization of Brahmic family....
, it is written below the character . Some transcriptions render notation of phonetic variants used in some Vedic shakha
Shakha

A shakha , is a Hindu theological school that specializes in learning certain Vedas texts, or else the traditional texts followed by such a school....
s with variant transcription .

Sanskrit

In Sanskrit
Sanskrit

Sanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India....
, nasalization of a preceding vowel is an allophone
Allophone

In phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds that belong to the same phoneme. A phoneme is an abstract unit of speech sound that can distinguish words: That is, changing a phoneme in a word can produce another word....
 of /m/n/ before a following consonant (either word-internally or across a word boundary); /m/ is only realized as [m] before vowels or in pausa
Pausa

Pausa in linguistics refers to the end of an utterance. Some sound laws specifically operate in pausa only, i.e. certain phonemes are pronounced differently at the end of a word, when no other word follows....
. In the Devanagari
Devanagari

, or 'Nagari', is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal. It is written from left to right, lacks distinct letter cases, and is recognizable by a distinctive horizontal line running along the tops of the letters that links them together....
 script, this nasalization is expressed by the anusvara diacritic dot
Dot (diacritic)

When used as a diacritic mark, the term dot is usually reserved for the Interpunct , or to the glyphs 'combining dot above' and 'combining dot below' which may be combined with some Letter s of the extended Latin alphabets in use in Central European languages and Vietnamese language....
 above the preceding letter, called bindu ("dot"). The nasalization can be realized either as a nasal stop homorganic (i.e. sharing the same place of articulation) to the following consonant (e.g. [] before retroflex sounds, [?] before velar sounds, etc.), or as [m] when word-final.

Hindi

In Hindi
Hindi

Standard Hindi, also known as High Hindi, Nagari Hindi or Literary Hindi is a Standard language register of Hindi. It is one of the 22 official languages of India, and is used, along with English language, for administration of the central government....
, it is pronounced as a nasal stop homorganic to the following consonant, or as nasalization of the preceding vowel when no consonant follows. It has merged in pronunciation with the chandrabindu
Chandrabindu

Chandrabindu is a diacritic sign having the form of a dot inside the lower half of a circle. It is used in the Devanagari , Bengali script , Gujarati script , Oriya script and Telugu script scripts....
 diacritic in Hindi, the two used in complementary distribution
Complementary distribution

Complementary distribution in linguistics is the relationship between two different elements, where one element is found in a particular environment and the other element is found in the opposite environment....
 depending on the character over which they are placed.

Other Indic script languages

Anusvara is used in other languages using Indic scripts as well, usually to represent suprasegmental phones (such as phonation
Phonation

Phonation has slightly different meanings depending on the subfield of phonetics. Among some phoneticians, phonation is the process by which the vocal folds produce certain sounds through quasi-periodic vibration....
 type or nasalization), or for other nasal sounds.

Bengali

In the Bengali script
Bengali script

The Bengali script is a variant of the Eastern Nagari script also used for Assamese language and Bishnupriya Manipuri language, and also for Maithili ....
, the anusvara diacritic (???????? onushshar in Bengali) is written as a circle above a slanted line (?), and represents the voiced velar nasal /?/. It is used in the name of the Bengali language ????? [ba?la]. It has merged in pronunciation with the letter ? ungô in Bengali. Although the anusvara is a consonant in Bengali phonology
Bengali phonology

Bengali phonology is the study of the inventory and phonology of the consonants, vowels, and prosody of the Bengali language....
, it is nevertheless treated in the written system as a diacritic, in that it is always directly adjacent to the preceding consonant, even when spacing consonants apart in titles or banners (e.g. ???-??-??-? bang-la-de-sh, not ??-?-??-??-? ba-ng-la-de-sh for ???????? Bangladesh
Bangladesh

, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a country in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south....
), it is never pronounced with the inherent vowel "ô", and it cannot take a vowel sign (instead, the consonant ? ungô is used pre-vocalically).

Burmese

In the Burmese script, the anusvara is represented as a dot underneath a nasalised final to indicate a creaky tone (with a shortened vowel).

Sinhala

In the Sinhala script, the anusvara is not a diacritic but an independent grapheme. It has circular shape and resembles a Latin or a <0>, which is why it is called binduva in Sinhala, which means ´ zero´. The anusvara represents the voiced velar nasal /?/ at the end of a syllable. It is used in the name of the Sinhala language ?????. It has merged in pronunciation with the letter ? ?a in Sinhala.

Anunaasika


Anunaasika (anunasika) is a form of vowel nasalization, often represented by an anusvara. It is a form of open mouthed nasalization akin to the nasalization of vowels followed by "n" or "m" in Parisian French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
. When "n" or "m" follow a vowel, the "n" or "m" becomes silent and causes the preceding vowel to become nasal
Nasal vowel

A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the Soft palate so that air escapes both through nose as well as the mouth. The term stands in opposition to the term "oral vowel" refers to an ordinary vowel without this nasalisation....
 (i.e. pronounced with the soft palate extended downward so as to allow part or all of the air to leave through the nostrils). Anunaasika is sometimes called a subdot because of its IAST representation.

In Sanskrit
Sanskrit

Sanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India....
 and related orthographies it is represented as an anusvara, a dot on top of the breve
Breve

A breve is a diacritical mark ?, shaped like the bottom half of a circle. It looks similar to caron , but the caron has a sharp tip, whilst the breve is rounded....
 above the letter (example: ?? ). When transliterated using IAST, it is represented by a consonant (usually "m") with a dot below (examples: ) even though only the preceding vowel may be voiced.

In Burmese
Burmese language

The Burmese language is the official language of Burma. Although the government officially recognizes the language as Myanmar in English, most continue to refer to the language as Burmese....
, the anunaasika creates a nasalised final, when attached as a dot above a letter. The anunaasika primarily occurs in loan words.

See also

  • Chandrabindu
    Chandrabindu

    Chandrabindu is a diacritic sign having the form of a dot inside the lower half of a circle. It is used in the Devanagari , Bengali script , Gujarati script , Oriya script and Telugu script scripts....