Editing Virama (section)

== Usage ==
In [[Devanagari]] and many other [[Brahmic family of scripts|Indic scripts]], a virama is used to cancel the [[inherent vowel]] of a consonant letter and represent a consonant without a vowel, a "dead" consonant. For example, in Devanagari,
#{{lang|sa|क}} is a consonant letter, ''ka'',
#् is a virāma; therefore,
#{{lang|sa|क्}} (''ka'' + virāma) represents a dead consonant ''k''.
If this ''k'' {{lang|sa|क्}} is further followed by another consonant letter, for example, ṣa ष, the result might look like {{lang|sa|क्‌ष}}, which represents ''kṣa'' as ''ka'' + (visible) virāma + ''ṣa''. In this case, two elements ''k'' क् and ''ṣa'' ष are simply placed one by one, side by side. Alternatively, ''kṣa'' can be also written as a [[Typographic ligature|ligature]] {{lang|sa|क्ष}}, which is actually the preferred form.
Generally, when a dead consonant letter C<sub>1</sub> and another consonant letter C<sub>2</sub> are conjoined, the result may be:
#A fully conjoined ligature of C<sub>1</sub>+C<sub>2</sub>;
#Half-conjoined—
#*C<sub>1</sub>-conjoining: a modified form (half form) of C<sub>1</sub> attached to the original form (full form) of C<sub>2</sub>
#*C<sub>2</sub>-conjoining: a modified form of C<sub>2</sub> attached to the full form of C<sub>1</sub>; or
#Non-ligated: full forms of C<sub>1</sub> and C<sub>2</sub> with a visible virama.<ref>{{cite web|last=Constable|first=Peter|title=Clarification of the Use of Zero Width Joiner in Indic Scripts|url=https://www.unicode.org/review/pr-37.pdf|publisher=Unicode, Inc|year=2004| access-date=2009-11-19}}</ref>

If the result is fully or half-conjoined, the (conceptual) virama which made C<sub>1</sub> dead becomes invisible, logically existing only in a [[character encoding]] scheme such as [[Indian Script Code for Information Interchange|ISCII]] or [[Unicode]]. If the result is not ligated, a virama is visible, attached to C<sub>1</sub>, actually written.

Basically, those differences are only glyph variants, and the three forms are [[semantics|semantically]] identical. Although there may be a preferred form for a given consonant cluster in each language and some scripts do not have some kind of ligatures or half forms at all, it is generally acceptable to use a nonligature form instead of a ligature form even when the latter is preferred if the font does not have a glyph for the ligature. In some other cases, whether to use a ligature or not is just a matter of taste.

The virāma in the sequence C<sub>1</sub> + virāma + C<sub>2</sub> may thus work as an invisible control character to ligate C<sub>1</sub> and C<sub>2</sub> in Unicode. For example,
*''ka'' क + virāma + ṣa ष = ''kṣa'' {{lang|sa|क्ष}}
is a fully conjoined ligature. It is also possible that the virāma does not ligate C<sub>1</sub> and C<sub>2</sub>, leaving the full forms of C<sub>1</sub> and C<sub>2</sub> as they are:
*''ka'' {{lang|sa|क}} + virama + ''ṣa'' {{lang|sa|ष}} = ''kṣa'' {{lang|sa|क्‌ष}}
is an example of such a non-ligated form.

The sequences ङ्क ङ्ख ङ्ग ङ्घ {{IPA|[ṅka ṅkha ṅɡa ṅɡha]}}, in common Sanskrit orthography, should be written as conjuncts (the virāma and the top cross line of the second letter disappear, and what is left of the second letter is written under the ङ and joined to it).