ISO 15919
Encyclopedia
ISO 15919 Transliteration of Devanagari
and related Indic scripts
into Latin characters is an international standard for the transliteration
of Indic scripts to the Latin alphabet
formed in 2001. It uses diacritic
s to map the much larger set of Brahmic consonant
s and vowel
s to the Latin script.
of many Indic scripts, which was agreed upon in 2001 by a network of the national standards institutes of 157 countries. However, the Hunterian transliteration
system is the "national system of romanization in India
" and a United Nations expert group noted about ISO 15919 that "there is no evidence of the use of the system either in India or in international cartographic products."
Another standard, United Nations Romanization Systems for Geographical Names (UNRSGN), was developed by the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN) and covers many Indic scripts.
ALA-LC was approved by the Library of Congress and the American Library Association and is a US standard. IAST
is not a standard as no formally approved document exists for it but a convention developed in Europe for the transliteration
of Sanskrit rather than that of Indic scripts.
As a notable difference, both international standards, ISO 15919 and UNRSGN transliterate anusvara
as , while ALA-LC and IAST
use for it. However, ISO 15919 provides guidance towards disambiguating between various anusvara situations (such as labial versus dental nasalizations), which is described in the table below.
transliteration.
Devanagari
Devanagari |deva]]" and "nāgarī" ), also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal...
and related Indic scripts
Brahmic family of scripts
The Brahmic or Indic scripts are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout South Asia , Southeast Asia, and parts of Central and East Asia, and are descended from the Brāhmī script of the ancient Indian subcontinent...
into Latin characters is an international standard for the transliteration
Transliteration
Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...
of Indic scripts to the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
formed in 2001. It uses diacritic
Diacritic
A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός . Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute and grave are often called accents...
s to map the much larger set of Brahmic consonant
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
s and vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s to the Latin script.
ISO 15919 and other systems
ISO 15919 is an international standard on the romanizationRomanization
In linguistics, romanization or latinization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Roman script, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system . Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written...
of many Indic scripts, which was agreed upon in 2001 by a network of the national standards institutes of 157 countries. However, the Hunterian transliteration
Hunterian transliteration
The Hunterian transliteration system is the "national system of romanization in India" and the one officially adopted by the Government of India. Hunterian transliteration was sometimes also called the Jonesian transliteration system because it derived closely from a previous transliteration method...
system is the "national system of romanization in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
" and a United Nations expert group noted about ISO 15919 that "there is no evidence of the use of the system either in India or in international cartographic products."
Another standard, United Nations Romanization Systems for Geographical Names (UNRSGN), was developed by the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN) and covers many Indic scripts.
ALA-LC was approved by the Library of Congress and the American Library Association and is a US standard. IAST
IAST
The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration is a transliteration scheme that allows a lossless romanization of Indic scripts as employed by the Sanskrit language.-Popularity:...
is not a standard as no formally approved document exists for it but a convention developed in Europe for the transliteration
Transliteration
Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...
of Sanskrit rather than that of Indic scripts.
As a notable difference, both international standards, ISO 15919 and UNRSGN transliterate anusvara
Anusvara
Anusvara is the diacritic used to mark a type of nasalization used in a number of Indic languages. Depending on the location of the anusvara in the word and the language within which it is used, its exact pronunciation can vary greatly....
as , while ALA-LC and IAST
IAST
The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration is a transliteration scheme that allows a lossless romanization of Indic scripts as employed by the Sanskrit language.-Popularity:...
use for it. However, ISO 15919 provides guidance towards disambiguating between various anusvara situations (such as labial versus dental nasalizations), which is described in the table below.
Comparison with UNRSGN and IAST
The table below shows the differences between ISO 15919, UNRSGN and IAST for DevanagariDevanagari
Devanagari |deva]]" and "nāgarī" ), also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal...
transliteration.
| Devanagari | ISO 15919 | UNRSGN | IAST | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| e | To distinguish between long and short 'e' in Dravidian languages Dravidian languages The Dravidian language family includes approximately 85 genetically related languages, spoken by about 217 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and... , 'e' now represents (short). Note that the use of is considered optional in ISO 15919, and using for (long) is acceptable for languages that do not distinguish long and short e. |
|||
| o | To distinguish between long and short 'o' in Dravidian languages, 'o' now represents (short). Note that the use of is considered optional in ISO 15919, and using for (long) is acceptable for languages that do not distinguish long and short o. | |||
| ṛ | In ISO 15919, is used to represent . | |||
| ṝ | For consistency with | |||
| l̤ | In ISO 15919, is used to represent . | |||
| For consistency with | ||||
| ṁ, n, ñ, ṇ, m | is used to specifically represent Gurmukhi Tippi . In ISO 15919, n before k, kh, g, gh, ṅ; ñ before c, ch, j, jh, ñ; ṇ before ṭ, ṭh, ḍ, ḍh, ṇ; n before t, th, d, dh, n; m before p, ph, b, bh, m. Vowel nasalization is transliterated as a tilde above the transliterated vowel (over the second vowel in the case of a digraph such as aĩ, aũ). | |||
See also
- List of ISO transliterations
- Hunterian transliterationHunterian transliterationThe Hunterian transliteration system is the "national system of romanization in India" and the one officially adopted by the Government of India. Hunterian transliteration was sometimes also called the Jonesian transliteration system because it derived closely from a previous transliteration method...
- National Library at Kolkata romanizationNational Library at Kolkata romanizationThe National Library at Kolkata romanization is the most widely used transliteration scheme in dictionaries and grammars of Indic languages. This transliteration scheme is also known as Library of Congress and is nearly identical to one of the possible ISO 15919 variants.The tables below mostly use...
- International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST)
External links
- ISO 15919:2001
- Transliteration of Indic scripts: how to use ISO 15919
- Transliteration of Hindi, Marathi & Nepali
- iso15919.py - An implementation of the Devanāgarī part of ISO 15919 in Python
- Indian Languages Transliteration - Basic Transliteration for users and programmers.
- Any indic language to another indic language Transliteration - SILPA project
- Devanāgarī to ISO 15919 (IAST) converter Online tool for converting Devanagari to IAST