IAST Sign Inventory and Conventions
The sign inventory of IAST (both small and capital letters) shown with Devanāgarī equivalents and phonetic values in IPA, is as follows (valid for Sanskrit; for Hindi and other modern languages that use Devanagari script, some phonological changes have occurred):
| Category | Devanāgarī | Transcription | Lower case | Upper case |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| vowels | अ | a | A | |
| आ | ā | Ā | ||
| इ | i | I | ||
| ई | ī | Ī | ||
| उ | u | U | ||
| ऊ | ū | Ū | ||
| ऋ | ṛ | Ṛ | ||
| ॠ | ṝ | Ṝ | ||
| ऌ | ḷ | Ḷ | ||
| ॡ | ḹ | Ḹ | ||
| diphthongs | ए | e | E | |
| ऐ | ai | Ai | ||
| ओ | o | O | ||
| औ | au | Au | ||
| anusvara | अं | ṃ | Ṃ | |
| visarga | अः | ḥ | Ḥ |
| velars | palatals | retroflexes | dentals | labials | |
| क k K |
च c C |
ट ṭ Ṭ |
त t T |
प p P |
tenuis plosives |
| ख kh Kh |
छ ch Ch |
ठ ṭh Ṭh |
थ th Th |
फ ph Ph |
aspirated plosives |
| ग g G |
ज j J |
ड ḍ Ḍ |
द d D |
ब b B |
voiced plosives |
| घ gh Gh |
झ jh Jh |
ढ ḍh Ḍh |
ध dh Dh |
भ bh Bh |
breathy-voiced plosives |
| ङ ṅ Ṅ |
ञ ñ Ñ |
ण ṇ Ṇ |
न n N |
म m M |
nasal stops |
| य y Y |
र r R |
ल l L |
व v V |
semi-vowels | |
| श ś Ś |
ष ṣ Ṣ |
स s S |
sibilants | ||
| ह h H |
voiced fricative |
Unlike ASCII-only romanizations such as ITRANS or Harvard-Kyoto, the diacritics used for IAST allow capitalization of proper names. The capital variants of letters never occurring word-initially (Ṇ Ṅ Ñ Ṝ) are only useful in Pāṇini contexts, where the convention is to typeset the IT sounds as capital letters.
Read more about this topic: International Alphabet Of Sanskrit Transliteration
Famous quotes containing the words sign and/or conventions:
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“Art, it seems to me, should simplify. That, indeed, is very nearly the whole of the higher artistic process; finding what conventions of form and what detail one can do without and yet preserve the spirit of the whole—so that all that one has suppressed and cut away is there to the reader’s consciousness as much as if it were in type on the page.”
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