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Devanagari transliteration
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==Hunterian system== {{main|Hunterian transliteration}} The [[Hunterian transliteration|Hunterian system]] is the "national system of romanisation in India" and the one officially adopted by the [[Government of India]].<ref name="ref04xufam">{{Citation | title=Technical reference manual for the standardization of geographical names | author=United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs | year=2007 | publisher=United Nations Publications, 2007 | isbn=978-92-1-161500-5 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mh8u32ANQxAC | quote=''... ISO 15919 ... There is no evidence of the use of the system either in India or in international cartographic products ... The Hunterian system is the actually used national system of romanization in India ...''}}</ref><ref name="ref48luvep">{{Citation | title=United Nations Regional Cartographic Conference for Asia and the Far East, Volume 2 | author=United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs | year=1955 | publisher=United Nations, 1955 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QKsvAAAAYAAJ | quote=''... In India the Hunterian system is used, whereby every sound in the local language is uniformly represented by a certain letter in the Roman alphabet ...''}}</ref><ref name="ref65puqac">{{Citation | title=Indian scientific & technical publications, exhibition 1960: a bibliography | author=National Library (India) | year=1960 | publisher=Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, Government of India, 1960 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8VYEAQAAIAAJ | quote=''... The Hunterian system of transliteration, which has international acceptance, has been used ...''}}</ref> The Hunterian system was developed in the nineteenth century by [[William Wilson Hunter]], then Surveyor General of India.<ref name="ref26vazop">{{Citation | title=Life of Sir William Wilson Hunter, K.C.S.I., M.A., LL.D., a vice-president of the Royal Asiatic society, etc | author=Francis Henry Skrine | year=1901 | author-link=Francis Henry Skrine | publisher=Longmans, Green, and co., 1901 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a1O21Ciyid0C | quote=''... phonetic or 'Sir Roger Dowler method' ... The Secretary of State and the great majority of his counselors gave an unqualified support to the Hunterian system ...''}}</ref> When it was proposed, it immediately met with opposition from supporters of the earlier practiced non-systematic and often distorting "Sir Roger Dowler method" (an early corruption of [[Siraj ud-Daulah]]) of phonetic transcription, which climaxed in a dramatic showdown in an India Council meeting on 28 May 1872 where the new Hunterian method carried the day. The Hunterian method was inherently simpler and extensible to several Indic scripts because it systematised [[grapheme]] transliteration, and it came to prevail and gain government and academic acceptance.<ref name="ref26vazop"/> Opponents of the grapheme transliteration model continued to mount unsuccessful attempts at reversing government policy until the turn of the century, with one critic calling appealing to "the Indian Government to give up the whole attempt at scientific (i.e. Hunterian) transliteration, and decide once and for all in favour of a return to the old phonetic spelling."<ref name="ref31xuvad">{{Citation | title=The Fortnightly, Volume 68 | year=1897 | publisher=Chapman and Hall, 1897 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NwoeAQAAIAAJ | quote=''... the Indian Government to give up the whole attempt at scientific (i.e. Hunterian) transliteration, and decide once and for all in favour of a return to the old phonetic spelling ...''}}</ref> Over time, the Hunterian method extended in reach to cover several Indic scripts, including [[Burmese script|Burmese]] and [[Tibetan script|Tibetan]].<ref name="ref49pihug">{{Citation | title=Modernization of Burmese | author=Mînn Latt Yêkháun | year=1966 | publisher=Oriental Institute in Academia, Publishing House of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, 1966 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Iy5kAAAAMAAJ | quote=''... There does exist a system df transcribing Burmese words in roman letters, one that is called the 'Government', or the 'Hunterian' method ...''}}</ref><ref name="ref82hecix">{{Citation | title=Mapping and compilation | author=Kunwar Krishan Rampal | year=1993 | publisher=Concept Publishing Company, 1993 | isbn=978-81-7022-414-3 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aurHGtGvKGIC | quote=''... The Hunterian system has rules for transliteration into English the names form Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, Burmese, Chinese and Tibetan origin. These rules are described in Chapter VI, Survey of India, Handbook of Topographical Mapping ...''}}</ref> Provisions for [[schwa deletion in Indo-Aryan languages]] were also made where applicable, e.g. the Hindi {{lang|hi|कानपुर}} is transliterated as ''kānpur'' (and not ''kānapura'') but the Sanskrit {{lang|sa|क्रम}} is transliterated as ''krama'' (and not ''kram''). The system has undergone some evolution over time. For instance, long vowels were marked with an [[Acute accent|accent]] [[diacritic]] in the original version, but this was later replaced in the 1954 Government of India update with a [[Macron (diacritic)|macron]].<ref name="rotcsa">{{Citation | title=The Romanization of Toponyms in the Countries of South Asia | access-date=2011-02-27 | url=http://www.eki.ee/wgrs/wgr06_5.htm | quote=''... In the late 19th century sources, the system marks long vowels with an acute accent, and renders the letters k and q both as k. However, when the system was again published in 1954, alterations had been made. Long vowels were now marked with a macron4 and the q-k distinction was maintained ...''}}</ref> Thus, {{lang|hi|जान}} (''life'') was previously romanised as ''ján'' but began to be romanised as ''jān''. The Hunterian system has faced criticism over the years for not producing phonetically accurate results and being "unashamedly geared towards an English-language receiver audience."<ref name="rotcsa"/> Specifically, the lack of differentiation between [[retroflex consonant|retroflex]] and [[dental consonant|dental]] consonants (e.g. {{lang|hi|द}} and {{lang|hi|ड}} are both represented by ''d'') has come in for repeated criticism and inspired several proposed modifications of Hunterian, including using a diacritic below retroflexes (e.g. making {{lang|hi|द}}=''d'' and {{lang|hi|ड}}=''ḍ'', which is more readable but requires diacritic printing) or capitalising them (e.g. making {{lang|hi|द}}=''d'' and {{lang|hi|ड}}=''D'', which requires no diacritic printing but is less readable because it mixes small and capital letters in words).<ref name="ref06revip">{{Citation | title=Indian surveyor, Volumes 33-34 | author=Institution of Surveyors (India) | year=1991 | publisher=Institution of Surveyors., 1991 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2_BVAAAAMAAJ | quote=''... Suggested by . Mr. GS Oberoi, Director, Survey of India, in lieu of the existing table 'Hunterian System of Transliteration' which does not distinguish between {{lang|hi|द}} and {{lang|hi|ड}}, {{lang|hi|र}} and {{lang|hi|ड़}}, {{lang|hi|त}} and {{lang|hi|ट}} ...''}}</ref>
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