Editing Devanagari transliteration

{{Short description|Transliteration from Devanāgarī to the Latin alphabet}}
{{more citations needed|date=February 2011}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2022}}
{{Use Indian English|date=May 2016}}

{{Contains special characters|Indic}}
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[[Devanagari]] is an [[Indic script]] used for many [[Indo-Aryan languages]] of [[North India]] and [[Nepal]], including [[Hindi]], [[Marathi language|Marathi]] and [[Nepali language|Nepali]], which was the script used to write [[Classical Sanskrit]]. There are several somewhat similar methods of [[transliteration]] from Devanagari to the [[Latin alphabet|Roman script]] (a process sometimes called [[romanization|romanisation]]), including the influential and lossless [[IAST]] notation.<ref name="ref17yebif">{{Citation | title=Transliteration into Roman and Devanāgarī of the languages of the Indian group | author=Daya Nand Sharma | year=1972 | publisher=Survey of India, 1972 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HWJJAAAAYAAJ | quote=''... With the passage of time, there has emerged a practically uniform system of transliteration of Devanagari and allied alphabets. Nevertheless, no single system of Romanization has yet developed ...''}}<!--outdated source--></ref> Romanised Devanagari is also called '''Romanagari'''.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=MHAISKAR |first=RAHUL |title=Romanagari an Alternative for Modern Media Writings |date=2015 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26264736 |journal=Bulletin of the Deccan College Research Institute |volume=75 |pages=195–202 |jstor=26264736 |issn=0045-9801}}</ref>

==IAST==

The [[International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration]] (IAST) is a subset of the [[ISO 15919]] standard, used for the transliteration of [[Sanskrit]], [[Prakrit]] and [[Pāḷi]] into Roman script with diacritics. [[IAST]] is a widely used standard. It uses [[diacritic]]s to disambiguate phonetically similar but not identical Sanskrit glyphs. For example, dental and retroflex consonants are disambiguated with an underdot: dental द=d and retroflex ड=ḍ.  An important feature of IAST is that it is losslessly reversible,{{citation needed|date=October 2017|reason=not mentioning e.g. devanagari ligature variant info not contained in IAST}} i.e., IAST transliteration may be converted back to correct Devanāgarī or to other South Asian scripts without ambiguity.  Many Unicode fonts fully support IAST display and printing.

==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>

==Alternative transliteration methods==

===Schemes with diacritics===

====National Library at Kolkata romanisation====
{{main|National Library at Kolkata romanisation}}
The [[National Library at Kolkata romanisation]], intended for the romanisation of all [[Brahmic family|Indic scripts]], is an extension of [[IAST]]. It differs from IAST in the use of the symbols ē and ō for {{lang|hi|ए}} and {{lang|hi|ओ}} (e and o are used for the short vowels present in many Indian languages), the use of 'ḷ' for the consonant (in [[Kannada]]) {{lang|kn|ಳ}}, and the absence of symbols for {{lang|hi|ॠ}}, {{lang|hi|ऌ}} and {{lang|hi|ॡ}}.

====ISO 15919====
{{main|ISO 15919}}
A standard [[transliteration]] convention not just for Devanagari,<ref>[http://transliteration.eki.ee/pdf/Hindi-Marathi-Nepali.pdf Devanagari comparison: ISO, ALA-LC, Hunterian] in 2005 by Thomas T. Pedersen at Eesti Keele Instituut [http://transliteration.eki.ee/ Transliteration of Non-Roman Scripts]</ref> but for all South-Asian languages was codified in the ISO 15919 standard of 2001, providing the basis for modern digital libraries that conform to International Organization for Standardization (ISO) norms. ISO 15919 defines the common Unicode basis for Roman transliteration of South-Asian texts in a wide variety of languages/scripts.

ISO 15919 transliterations are platform-independent texts so that they can be used identically on all modern operating systems and software packages, as long as they comply with ISO norms. This is a prerequisite for all modern platforms so that ISO 15919 has become the new standard for digital libraries and archives for transliterating all South Asian texts.{{Original research inline|date=February 2011}}

ISO 15919<ref>[http://homepage.ntlworld.com/stone-catend/trind.htm Transliteration of Indic scripts: how to use ISO 15919] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160414223033/http://homepage.ntlworld.com/stone-catend/trind.htm |date=14 April 2016 }} ntlworld.com.</ref> uses [[diacritic]]s to map the much larger set of [[Brāhmī script|Brahmi]]c graphemes to the Latin script. The Devanagari-specific portion is nearly identical to the academic standard, [[IAST]]: "International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration", and to [[ALA-LC]], the United States Library of Congress standard.<ref>[https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/hindi.pdf Hindi romanization LC] as pdf by Library of Congress standard, loc.gov.</ref>

Another standard, [[United Nations romanization systems for geographical names|United Nations Romanization Systems for Geographical Names]] (UNRSGN), was developed by the United Nations Group of Experts<ref name="Geoname">{{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> on Geographical Names (UNGEGN)<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.eki.ee/wgrs/|title=UNGEGN Working Group on Romanization Systems|website= United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names UNGEGN, www.eki.ee .Eesti Keele Instituut. |access-date=2017-02-14}}</ref> and covers many Brahmic scripts. There are some differences<ref name="diff">{{Cite web|url=http://www.eki.ee/wgrs/rom1_hi.htm|title=Differences between ISO 15919 and UNRSGN|date=March 2016|website=Working group on Romanization systems. United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names UNGEGN. www.eki.ee/wgrs/ .Eesti Keele Instituut |access-date=13 February 2017}}</ref> between ISO 15919 and UNRSGN.

===ASCII schemes===

====Harvard-Kyoto====
{{main|Harvard-Kyoto}}

Compared to [[IAST]], [[Harvard-Kyoto]] looks much simpler.
It does not contain any of the [[diacritic]] marks that IAST contains.
Instead of diacritics, Harvard-Kyoto uses [[capital letters]].
The use of capital letters makes typing in Harvard-Kyoto much easier than in IAST but produces words with capital letters inside them.

==== ITRANS scheme ====
{{main|ITRANS}}
{{citation needed span|[[ITRANS]] is an extension of [[Harvard-Kyoto]]. The ITRANS transliteration scheme was developed for the [[ITRANS]] software package, a pre-processor for [[Indic scripts]]. The user inputs in Roman letters and the ITRANS preprocessor converts the Roman letters into Devanāgarī (or other Indic scripts). The latest version of [[ITRANS]] is version 5.30 released in July 2001.|date=September 2022}}

==== Velthuis ====
{{main|Velthuis}}

The disadvantage of the above [[ASCII]] schemes is case-sensitivity, implying that transliterated names may not be capitalised. This difficulty is avoided with the system developed in 1996 by Frans Velthuis for [[TeX]], loosely based on IAST, in which case is irrelevant.

==== WX ====
{{main|WX_notation}}

WX notation is a transliteration scheme for representing Indian languages in ASCII. This scheme originated at IIT Kanpur for computational processing of Indian languages, and is widely used among the natural language processing (NLP) community in India. The notation (though unidentified) is used, for example, in a textbook on NLP from IIT Kanpur.[1] The salient features of this transliteration scheme are: Every consonant and every vowel has a single mapping into Roman. Hence it is a prefix code,[2] advantageous from a computation point of view. Typically the small case letters are used for un-aspirated consonants and short vowels while the capital case letters are used for aspirated consonants and long vowels. While the retroflexed voiceless and voiced consonants are mapped to 't, T, d and D', the dentals are mapped to 'w, W, x and X'. Hence the name of the scheme "WX", referring to the idiosyncratic mapping. Ubuntu Linux provides a keyboard support for WX notation.

==== SLP1 ====
{{main|SLP1}}

SLP1 (Sanskrit Library Phonetic) is a case-sensitive scheme initially used by [http://sanskritlibrary.org Sanskrit Library]<ref>{{cite web | url = http://sanskritlibrary.org/tomcat/sl/ScriptTable | title = The Sanskrit Library » Tools » Indic Script Comparison Table | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140808070533/http://sanskritlibrary.org/tomcat/sl/ScriptTable | archive-date = 2014-08-08}}</ref> which was developed by Peter Scharf and (the late) Malcolm Hyman, who first described it in appendix B of their book Linguistic Issues in Encoding Sanskrit.<ref>{{cite book | last1 = Scharf | first1 = Peter M. | last2 = Hyman | first2 = Malcolm D. | title = Linguistic Issues in Encoding Sanskrit | date = 2011 | url = http://www.sanskritlibrary.org/Sanskrit/pub/lies_sl.pdf}}</ref>
The advantage of SLP1 over other encodings is that a single ASCII character is used for each Devanagari letter, a peculiarity that eases reverse transliteration.<ref>[http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/monier/help.html Morphology Help<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

==== Hinglish ====
{{main|Hinglish}}

Hinglish refers to the non-standardised Romanised Hindi used online, and especially on social media. In India, Romanised Hindi is the dominant form of expression online. In an analysis of [[YouTube]] comments, Palakodety et al., identified that 52% of comments were in Romanised Hindi, 46% in English, and 1% in [[Devanagari]] Hindi.<ref name="Palakodety">{{Citation |last1=Palakodety |first1=Shriphani |title=Low Resource Machine Translation |date=2021 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-5625-5_5 |work=Low Resource Social Media Text Mining |pages=7–9 |place=Singapore |publisher=Springer Singapore |isbn=978-981-16-5624-8 |access-date=2022-09-24 |last2=KhudaBukhsh |first2=Ashiqur R. |last3=Jayachandran |first3=Guha|doi=10.1007/978-981-16-5625-5_5 |s2cid=244313560 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

==== Others ====
Other less popular ASCII schemes include [[WX_notation]], Vedatype and the 7-bit ISO 15919. WX notation is a transliteration scheme for representing Indian languages in ASCII. It originated at IIT Kanpur for computational processing of Indian languages and is widely used among the natural language processing (NLP) community in India. This scheme is described in [http://ltrc.iiit.ac.in/downloads/nlpbook/nlp-panini.pdf NLP Panini] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131126005517/http://ltrc.iiit.ac.in/downloads/nlpbook/nlp-panini.pdf |date=26 November 2013 }} (Appendix B). It is similar to, but not as versatile as, SLP1, as far as the coverage of Vedic Sanskrit is concerned. Comparison of WX with other schemes is found in [https://web.archive.org/web/20141222030835/http://yquem.inria.fr/~huet/PUBLIC/Brown.pdf Huet (2009), App A.]. Vedatype is another scheme used for encoding Vedic texts at [[Maharishi University of Management]]. An online transcoding utility across all these schemes is provided at the [https://web.archive.org/web/20121112060730/http://sanskritlibrary.org/tomcat/sl/TranscodeText Sanskrit Library]. [[ISO 15919]] includes a so-called "limited character set" option to replace the diacritics by prefixes, so that it is ASCII-compatible. A pictorial explanation is [https://web.archive.org/web/20140222204023/http://homepage.ntlworld.com/stone-catend/tri7-cnv.gif here] from [https://web.archive.org/web/20120819120416/http://homepage.ntlworld.com/stone-catend/trioprc.htm Anthony Stone].

==Transliteration comparison==
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The following is a comparison<ref name="multiconverter">[http://tdil-dc.in/san/transliteration/table.html Mapping table with 7 methods] of Harvard-Kyoto, ITRANS, Velthuis, SLP, WX-system and IAST, Devanagari used by [http://tdil-dc.in/san/transliteration/index_dit.html ILTP-DC for Sanskrit]. [http://tdil-dc.in/san/transliteration/index_dit.html Sanskrit transliteration tool. Convert from one scheme to another]. Maintained by the 'Indian language technology proliferation and deployment centre' (ILTP-DC) of the government of India. Works with 7 systems: Harvard-Kyoto, ITRANS, Velthuis, SLP, WX-system and IAST, Devanagari.</ref> of the major transliteration<ref name="vvconverter">[http://www.virtualvinodh.com/wp/character-matrix/ Chart: difference between IAST and ISO]. [http://www.virtualvinodh.com/wp/projects/ Aksharamukha transliteration (converter) tool]. Akshara Mukha is an Asian script (two way) converter, freeware. It supports 5 major Latin transliteration conventions such as IAST, ISO, Harvard-Kyoto, ITRANS & Velthuis. It can inter-convert, for example from Velthuis to ISO. It also converts between 20 different South Asian & East Asian scripts.  You can access the project from [http://www.virtualvinodh.com/wp/aksharamukha/ here]. While using the tool, 'source' can be set to for example: ITRANS or Harvard-Kyoto, and 'target' can be set to a particular script like Devanagari-Hindi. (When you are using a north Indian script, tick the box: Remove 'a'). It can work in reverse too, for example from Hindi to Latin by ISO transliteration.</ref> methods used for Devanāgarī.

===Vowels===
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{| class="wikitable"
|- class="Unicode"
![[Devanāgarī]]!![[IAST]]!![[ISO 15919]]
!Monier-Williams72!![[Harvard-Kyoto]]!![[ITRANS]]!![[Velthuis]]!![[SLP1]]!![[WX notation|WX]]!![[Hunterian transliteration|Hunterian]]
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|अ}} ||a||a
|a||a||a||a||a||a||a
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|आ}} ||ā||ā
|ā||A||A/aa||aa||A||A||a
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|इ}} ||i||i
|i||i||i||i||i||i||i
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ई}} ||ī||ī
|ī||I||I/ii||ii||I||I||i
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|उ}} ||u||u
|u||u||u||u||u||u||u
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ऊ}} |||ū||ū
|ū||U||U/uu||uu||U||U||u
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ए}} ||e||ē
|e||e||e||e||e||e||e
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ऐ}} ||ai||ai
|ai||ai||ai||ai||E||E||ai
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ओ}} ||o||ō
|o||o||o||o||o||o||o
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|औ}} ||au||au
|au||au||au||au||O||O||au
|- class="Unicode"
|||||
| |||
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ऋ}} ||ṛ||r̥
|ṛi||R
|RRi/R^i||.r||f||q||ri
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ॠ}} ||ṝ||r̥̄
|ṛī||RR
|RRI/R^I||.rr||F||Q||ri
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ऌ}} ||ḷ||l̥
|lṛi
|lR||LLi/L^i||.l||x||L
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ॡ}} ||ḹ||l̥̄
|lṛī
|lRR||LLI/L^I||.ll||X||LY
|- class="Unicode"
|||||
| |||
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|अं}} ||ṁ||ṁ
|ṉ/ṃ
|M||M/.n/.m||.m||M||M||n, m
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|अः}} ||ḥ||ḥ
|ḥ||h
|H||H||.h||H||H
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|अँ}} ||m̐
|m̐
| || || .N|| || ~||az
|- class="Unicode"
|||||
| |||
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ऽ}} ||'||’
| ||'||.a||.a||'||Z
|}

===Consonants===
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The [[Devanāgarī]] standalone consonant letters are followed by an implicit [[Schwa deletion in Indo-Aryan languages|''shwa'']] (/Ə/). In all of the transliteration systems, that /Ə/ must be represented explicitly using an 'a' or any equivalent of ''shwa''.

{| class="wikitable"
|- class="Unicode"
![[Devanāgarī]]!![[IAST]]!![[ISO 15919]]
!Monier-Williams72!![[Harvard-Kyoto]]!![[ITRANS]]!![[Velthuis]]!![[SLP1]]||[[WX notation|WX]]||[[Hunterian transliteration|Hunterian]]
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|क}} ||ka||ka
|ka||ka||ka||ka||ka||ka||k
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ख}} ||kha||kha
|kha||kha||kha||kha||Ka||Ka||kh
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ग}} ||ga||ga
|ga||ga||ga||ga||ga||ga||g
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|घ}} ||gha||gha
|gha||gha||gha||gha||Ga||Ga||gh
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ङ}} ||ṅa||ṅa
|n·a||Ga||~Na||"na||Na||fa||n
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|च}} ||ca||ca
|ća||ca||cha||ca||ca||ca||ch
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|छ}} ||cha||cha
|ćha||cha||Cha||chha||Ca||Ca||chh
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ज}} ||ja||ja
|ja||ja||ja||ja||ja||ja||j
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|झ}} ||jha||jha
|jha||jha||jha||jha||Ja||Ja||jh
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ञ}} ||ña||ña
|ṅa||Ja||~na||~na||Ya||Fa||n
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ट}} ||ṭa||ṭa
|ṭa||Ta||Ta||.ta||wa||ta||t
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ठ}} ||ṭha||ṭha
|ṭha||Tha||Tha||.tha||Wa||Ta||th
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ड}} ||ḍa||ḍa
|ḍa||Da||Da||.da||qa||da||d
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ढ}} ||ḍha||ḍha
|ḍha||Dha||Dha||.dha||Qa||Da||dh
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ण}} ||ṇa||ṇa
|ṇa||Na||Na||.na||Ra||Na||n
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|त}} ||ta||ta
|ta||ta||ta||ta||ta||wa||t
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|थ}} ||tha||tha
|tha||tha||tha||tha||Ta||Wa||th
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|द}} ||da||da
|da||da||da||da||da||xa||d
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ध}} ||dha||dha
|dha||dha||dha||dha||Da||Xa||dh
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|न}} ||na||na
|na||na||na||na||na||na||n
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|प}} ||pa||pa
|pa||pa||pa||pa||pa||pa||p
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|फ}} ||pha||pha
|pha||pha||pha||pha||Pa||Pa||ph
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ब}} ||ba||ba
|ba||ba||ba||ba||ba||ba||b
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|भ}} ||bha||bha
|bha||bha||bha||bha||Ba||Ba||bh
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|म}} ||ma||ma
|ma||ma||ma||ma||ma||ma||m
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|य}} ||ya||ya
|ya||ya||ya||ya||ya||ya||y
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|र}} ||ra||ra
|ra||ra||ra||ra||ra||ra||r
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ल}} ||la||la
|la||la||la||la||la||la||l
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|व}} ||va||va
|va||va||va/wa||va||va||va||v, w
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|श}} ||śa||śa
|ṡa||za||sha||"sa||Sa||Sa||sh
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ष}} ||ṣa||ṣa
|sha||Sa||Sha||.sa||za||Ra||sh
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|स}} ||sa||sa
|sa||sa||sa||sa||sa||sa||s
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ह}} ||ha||ha
|ha||ha||ha||ha||ha||ha||h
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ळ}} ||ḻa||ḷa|| ||La||La||.la||La||lY||
|}

===Irregular consonant clusters===
<!---
NOTE:
Before editing this page for unicode errors please check your OS configuration for complex character support. You can check it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:INDIC and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Multilingual_support_(Indic)
--->
{| class="wikitable"
|- class="Unicode"
![[Devanāgarī]]!![[ISO 15919]]!![[Harvard-Kyoto]]!![[ITRANS]]!![[Velthuis]]!![[SLP1]]||[[WX notation|WX]]!![[Hunterian transliteration|Hunterian]]
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|क्ष}}||kṣa|| kSa||kSa/kSha/xa||k.sa||kza||kRa||ksh
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|त्र}}||tra||tra||tra||tra||tra||wra||tr
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ज्ञ}}||jña|| jJa||GYa/j~na||j~na||jYa||jFa||gy, jñ
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|श्र}}||śra||zra||shra||"sra||Sra||Sra||shr
|}

===Other consonants===
<!---
NOTE:
Before editing this page for unicode errors please check your OS configuration for complex character support. You can check it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:INDIC and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Multilingual_support_(Indic)
--->
{| class="wikitable"
|- class="Unicode"
![[Devanāgarī]]!![[ISO 15919]]!![[ITRANS]]||[[WX notation|WX]]||[[Hunterian transliteration|Hunterian]]
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|क़}}||qa||qa||kZa||q
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ख़}}||k͟ha||Ka||KZa||kh
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ग़}}||ġa||Ga||gZa||gh
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ज़}}||za||za||jZa||z
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|फ़}}||fa||fa||PZa||f
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ड़}}||ṛa||.Da/Ra||dZa||r
|- class="Unicode"
||{{lang|und-Deva|ढ़}}||ṛha||.Dha/Rha||DZa||rh
|}

=== Comparison of IAST with ISO 15919===
<!---
NOTE:
Before editing this page for unicode errors please check your OS configuration for complex character support. You can check it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:INDIC and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Multilingual_support_(Indic)
--->
The table below shows just the differences between ISO 15919 and IAST for [[Devanagari]] transliteration.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
!Devanagari
!ISO 15919
!IAST 
!Comment
|-
||{{lang|hi|ए / े}}
||{{transliteration|inc|ISO|ē}}
||{{IAST|e}}
||To distinguish between long and short 'e' in [[Dravidian languages]], 'e' now represents {{lang|hi|ऎ / ॆ}} (short). Note that the use of {{transliteration|inc|ISO|ē}} is considered optional in ISO 15919, and using {{transliteration|inc|ISO|e}} for {{lang|hi|ए}} (long) is acceptable for languages that do not distinguish long and short e.
|-
||{{lang|hi|ओ / ो}}
||{{transliteration|inc|ISO|ō}}
||{{IAST|o}}
||To distinguish between long and short 'o' in Dravidian languages, 'o' now represents {{lang|hi|ऒ / ॊ}} (short). Note that the use of {{transliteration|inc|ISO|ō}} is considered optional in ISO 15919, and using {{transliteration|inc|ISO|o}} for {{lang|hi|ओ}} (long) is acceptable for languages that do not distinguish long and short o.
|-
||{{lang|hi|ऋ / ृ}}
||{{transliteration|inc|ISO|r̥}}
||{{IAST|ṛ}}
||In ISO 15919, ṛ is used to represent {{lang|hi|ड़}}.
|-
||{{lang|hi|ॠ / ॄ}}
||{{transliteration|inc|ISO|r̥̄}}
||{{IAST|ṝ}}
||For consistency with r̥
|-
||{{lang|hi|ऌ / ॢ}}
||{{transliteration|inc|ISO|l̥}}
||{{IAST|ḷ}}
||In ISO 15919, ḷ is used to represent {{lang|hi|ळ}}.
|-
||{{lang|hi|ॡ / ॣ}}
||{{transliteration|inc|ISO|l̥̄}}
||{{IAST|ḹ}}
||For consistency with l̥
|-
|rowspan="2"|{{lang|sa|&#9676;&#x902;}}
||{{transliteration|inc|ISO|ṁ}}
|rowspan="2"|{{IAST|ṁ}}
|rowspan="2"|ISO 15919 has two options about anusvāra. (1) In the simplified nasalisation option, an anusvāra is always transliterated as ''ṁ''.  (2) In the strict nasalization option, anusvāra before a class consonant is transliterated as the class nasal—''ṅ'' 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.<!-- NOTE: http://transliteration.eki.ee/pdf/Hindi-Marathi-Nepali.pdf has an obvious typo, stating “n” before k, etc. http://transliteration.eki.ee/pdf/Malayalam.pdf from the same site correctly says “ṅ” before k, etc. --> ''ṃ'' is sometimes used to specifically represent [[Gurmukhi alphabet|Gurmukhi]] Tippi {{lang|pa| ੰ}}.
|-
||{{transliteration|inc|ISO|ṅ ñ ṇ n m}}
|-
||◌ँ
||{{transliteration|inc|ISO|m̐}}
||{{IAST|m̐}}
||Vowel nasalisation is transliterated as a tilde above the transliterated vowel (over the second vowel in the case of a digraph such as aĩ, aũ), except in Sanskrit.
|-
||ळ
||ḻ
||ḷ
||Used in Vedic Sanskrit only and not found in the Classical variant
|}

==Details==

===Treatment of inherent schwa ===
Devanāgarī consonants include an "inherent a" sound, called the [[schwa]], that must be explicitly represented with an "a" character in the transliteration. Many words and names transliterated from Devanāgarī end with "a", to indicate the pronunciation in the original [[Sanskrit]]. This [[Schwa deletion in Indo-Aryan languages|schwa is obligatorily deleted]] in several modern [[Indo-Aryan languages]], like [[Hindi]], [[Punjabi language|Punjabi]], [[Marathi language|Marathi]] and others. This results in differing transliterations for Sanskrit and schwa-deleting languages that retain or eliminate the schwa as appropriate:
*Sanskrit: Mahābhārata, Rāmāyaṇa, Śiva, Sāmaveda
*Hindi: Mahābhārat, Rāmāyaṇ, Śiv, Sāmved

Some words may keep the final a, generally because they would be difficult to say without it:
* Krishna, Vajra, Maurya

Because of this, some words ending in consonant clusters are altered in various modern Indic languages as such:
Mantra=mantar. Shabda=shabad. Sushumna=sushumana.

===Retroflex consonants===
Most [[Languages of India|Indian languages]] make a distinction between the retroflex and dental forms of the dental consonants. In formal transliteration schemes, the standard Roman letters are used to indicate the dental form, and the retroflex form is indicated by special marks, or the use of other letters. E.g., in [[IAST]] transliteration, the retroflex forms are ṇ, ṭ, ḍ and ṣ.

In most informal transcriptions the distinction between retroflex and dental consonants is not indicated. However, many capitalise retroflex consonants on QWERTY keyboard in informal messaging. That generally obviates the need for transliteration.

===Aspirated consonants===
Where the letter "h" appears after a [[plosive consonant]] in Devanāgarī transliteration, it always indicates [[aspiration (phonetics)|aspiration]]. Thus "ph" is pronounced as the ''p'' in "pit" (with a small puff of air released as it is said), never as the ''ph'' in "photo" ([[International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA]] /f/). (On the other hand, "p" is pronounced as the ''p'' in "spit" with no release of air.) Similarly "th" is an aspirated "t", neither the ''th'' of "this" (voiced, IPA /ð/) nor the ''th'' of "thin" (unvoiced, IPA /θ/).

The aspiration is generally indicated in both formal and informal transliteration systems.

==Computer use as a drive for romanisation==
As English is widely used as a professional and higher-education language in India, availability of Devanagari keyboards is dwarfed by English keyboards. Similarly, software and user interfaces released and promoted in India are in English, as is much of the computer education available there. Due to low awareness of Devanagari keyboard layouts, many Indian users type Hindi in the Roman script.

Before Devanagari was added to [[Unicode]], many workarounds were used to display Devanagari on the Internet, and many sites and services have continued using them despite widespread availability of Unicode fonts supporting Devanagari. Although there are several transliteration conventions on transliterating Hindi to Roman, most of these are reliant on diacritics. As most Indians are familiar with the Roman script through the English language (which traditionally does not use diacritics), these transliteration systems are much less widely known. Most such "Romanagari" is transliterated arbitrarily to imitate English spelling, and thus results in numerous inconsistencies.

It is also detrimental to search engines, which do not classify Hindi text in the Roman script as Hindi. The same text may also not be classified as English.

Regardless of the physical keyboard's layout, it is possible to [[Help:Multilingual support (Indic)|install Unicode-based Hindi keyboard layouts]] on most modern operating systems. There are many online services available that transliterate text written in Roman to Devanagari accurately, using Hindi dictionaries for reference, such as [[Google transliteration]] or Microsoft Indic Language Input Tool. This solution is similar to [[input method]] editors, which are traditionally used to input text in languages that use complex characters, most notably those that use logographies.

==History of Sanskrit transliteration==
Early Sanskrit texts were originally transmitted by memorisation and repetition. Post-Harappan India had no system for writing Indic languages until the creation (in the 4th-3rd centuries BCE) of the [[Kharoshti]] and [[Brāhmī script|Brahmi]] scripts. These writing systems, though adequate for [[Middle Indic languages]], were not well-adapted to writing Sanskrit.  However, later descendants of Brahmi were modified so that they could record Sanskrit in exacting phonetic detail.  The earliest physical text in Sanskrit is a rock inscription by the [[Western Kshatrapas|Western Kshatrapa]] ruler [[Rudradaman]], written c. 150 CE in [[Junagadh]], [[Gujarat]]. Due to the remarkable proliferation of different varieties of Brahmi in the Middle Ages, there is today no single script used for writing Sanskrit; rather, Sanskrit scholars can write the language in a form of whatever script is used to write their local language. However, since the late Middle Ages, there has been a tendency to use [[Devanagari]] for writing Sanskrit texts for a widespread readership.

Western scholars in the 19th century adopted Devanagari for printed editions of Sanskrit texts. The ''[[editio princeps]]'' of the [[Rigveda]] by [[Max Müller]] was in Devanagari. Müller's London typesetters competed with their Petersburg peers working on [[Otto Böhtlingk|Böhtlingk]]'s and Roth's dictionary in cutting all the required ligature types.

From its beginnings, Western Sanskrit philology also felt the need for a romanised spelling of the language.{{citation needed|date=August 2015}} [[Franz Bopp]] in 1816 used a romanisation scheme, alongside Devanagari, differing from IAST in expressing vowel length by a circumflex (â, î, û), and aspiration by a ''[[spiritus asper]]'' (e.g. bʽ for IAST bh). The sibilants IAST ṣ and ś he expressed with spiritus asper and lenis, respectively (sʽ, sʼ). [[Monier-Williams]] in his 1899 dictionary used ć, ṡ and sh for IAST c, ś and ṣ, respectively.

From the late 19th century, Western interest in typesetting Devanagari decreased.{{citation needed|date=August 2015}} [[Theodor Aufrecht]] published his 1877 edition of the Rigveda in romanised Sanskrit, and [[Arthur Macdonell]]'s 1910 ''Vedic grammar'' (and 1916 ''Vedic grammar for students'') likewise do without Devanagari (while his introductory ''Sanskrit grammar for students'' retains Devanagari alongside romanised Sanskrit). Contemporary Western editions of Sanskrit texts appear mostly in IAST.

==See also==
*The [[National Library at Kolkata romanisation]] and [[ISO 15919]] are extensions of [[IAST]] to transcribe all [[Brahmic family|Indic scripts]]
*[[ISCII]], an 8-bit encoding for Indic scripts
*[[ITRANS]], a transliteration scheme used in Phonetic Devanagari typing tools
*[[Velthuis]], a transliteration scheme in ASCII
*[[Hunterian transliteration|Hunterian system]], the government-approved standard for transliterating Standard Hindi in India
*[[Hinglish]]
*[[Roman Urdu]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{Wikibooks|Devanagari}}
{{wikivoyage|Learning Devanagari}}

*[http://www.google.com/transliterate/ Google transliteration tool]

{{Devanagari abugida}}
{{Hindi topics}}
{{Sanskrit language topics}}
{{Marathi language topics}}
{{list of writing systems}}

[[Category:Sanskrit transliteration]]
[[Category:Romanization of Brahmic]]
[[Category:Devanagari]]