Virama

Virama(Sanskrit:विराम/हलन्त,romanized:virāma/halanta्) is aSanskritphonological concept to suppress theinherent vowelthat otherwise occurs with every consonant letter, commonly used as a generic term for a codepoint in Unicode, representing either

1. halanta,hasantaor explicitvirāma,adiacriticin manyBrahmic scripts,including theDevanagariandBengaliscripts, or
2. saṃyuktākṣara(Sanskrit:संयुक्ताक्षर) or implicit virama, a conjunct consonant or ligature.

्
Virama

Unicode schemes of scripts writingMainland Southeast Asia languages,such as that ofBurmese scriptand ofTibetan script,generally do not group the two functions together.

Names

The name isSanskritfor "cessation, termination, end". As aSanskritword, it is used in place of several language-specific terms, such as:

Name in English books	Language	In native language	Form	Notes
halant	Hindi	हलन्त,halant	्
halanta	Punjabi	ਹਲੰਤ,halanta	੍
	Marathi	हलन्त,halanta	्
	Nepali	हलन्त,halanta	्
	Odia	ହଳନ୍ତ,hôḷôntô	୍
	Gujarati	હાલાંત,hālānta	્
hosonto	Bengali	হসন্ত,hôsôntô	্
	Assamese	হসন্ত,hoxonto/হছন্ত,hosonto	্
	Sylheti	ꠢꠡꠘ꠆ꠔꠧ,hośonto	◌ ꠆
pollu	Telugu	పొల్లు,pollu	్
pulli	Tamil	புள்ளி,puḷḷi	்
chandrakkala	Malayalam	ചന്ദ്രക്കല,candrakkala/വിരാമം,viraamam	്	Unlike other virama diacritics, it is pronounced[ɯ]word-finally.
ardhakshara chihne	Kannada	ಅರ್ಧಾಕ್ಷರ ಚಿಹ್ನೆ,ardhakshara chihne/ಸುರುಳಿ,suruli	್
hal kirima	Sinhalese	හල් කිරිම,hal kirīma	්
a that	Burmese	အသတ်,a.sat,IPA:[ʔa̰θaʔ]	်	lit. "nonexistence"
viream	Khmer	វិរាម,vīrāma	៑
toandokheat		ទណ្ឌឃាត,toandokheat	៍
karan, thanthakhat	Thai	การันต์,kārạnt/ทัณฑฆาต,thanthakhat	◌์	Thanthakhatis the name of the diacritic, whilekaranrefers to the character that was marked. These two terms are often used interchangeably. It is used to mark as silent vowels or consonants that were originally pronounced, but have become silenced in Thai pronunciation (mostly from Sanskrit andOld Khmer). This diacritic is sometimes used in loanwords from European languages to mark final consonants in consonant clusters (e.g. want as วอนท์).
pinthu		พินทุ,pinthu	◌ฺ	Pinthuis akin to Sanskritbindu,and means "point" or "dot". It is used to mark a syllable as closed, and it is only used in Thai script when writing Pali or Sanskrit.
nikkhahit		นฤคหิต / นิคหิต	◌ํ	Nikkhahitrepresents what was originallyanusvārain Sanskrit. Likepinthu,it is also only used when writing Pali or Sanskrit in Thai script. It marks a syllable as nasalized, realized in Thai as a nasal closed consonant following the vowel.
rahaam	Northern Thai (Lanna)	ᩁᩉ᩶ᩣ᩠ᨾ,rahaam	◌᩺
	Tai Khün		◌᩼
	Tai Lue		◌᩼
pangkon	Javanese	ꦥꦁꦏꦺꦴꦤ꧀,pangkon	◌꧀
adeg-adeg	Balinese	ᬳᬤᭂᬕᬤᭂᬕ᭄,adeg-adeg	◌᭄
sukun	Dhivehi	[ސުކުން]Error: {{Langx}}: invalid parameter: |trans= (help),sukun	ް◌	Derives from Arabic "sukun"
Srog med	Tibetan	Srog med	྄	Only used when transcribing Sanskrit

Usage

InDevanagariand many otherIndic scripts,a virama is used to cancel theinherent vowelof a consonant letter and represent a consonant without a vowel, a "dead" consonant. For example, in Devanagari,

1. कis a consonant letter,ka,
2. ् is a virāma; therefore,
3. क्(ka+ virāma) represents a dead consonantk.

If thiskक्is further followed by another consonant letter, for example, ṣa ष, the result might look likeक्ष,which representskṣaaska+ (visible) virāma +ṣa.In this case, two elementskक् andṣaष are simply placed one by one, side by side. Alternatively,kṣacan be also written as aligatureक्ष,which is actually the preferred form. Generally, when a dead consonant letter C₁and another consonant letter C₂are conjoined, the result may be:

1. A fully conjoined ligature of C₁+C₂;
2. Half-conjoined—
   • C₁-conjoining: a modified form (half form) of C₁attached to the original form (full form) of C₂
   • C₂-conjoining: a modified form of C₂attached to the full form of C₁;or
3. Non-ligated: full forms of C₁and C₂with a visible virama.

If the result is fully or half-conjoined, the (conceptual) virama which made C₁dead becomes invisible, logically existing only in acharacter encodingscheme such asISCIIorUnicode.If the result is not ligated, a virama is visible, attached to C₁,actually written.

Basically, those differences are only glyph variants, and the three forms aresemanticallyidentical. 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 C₁+ virāma + C₂may thus work as an invisible control character to ligate C₁and C₂in Unicode. For example,

• kaक + virāma + ṣa ष =kṣaक्ष

is a fully conjoined ligature. It is also possible that the virāma does not ligate C₁and C₂,leaving the full forms of C₁and C₂as they are:

• kaक+ virama +ṣaष=kṣaक्ष

is an example of such a non-ligated form.

The sequences ङ्क ङ्ख ङ्ग ङ्घ[ṅkaṅkhaṅɡaṅɡha],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).

End of word

Theinherent vowelis not always pronounced, in particular at the end of a word (schwa deletion). No virāma is used for vowel suppression in such cases. Instead, the orthography is based on Sanskrit where all inherent vowels are pronounced, and leaves to the reader of modern languages to delete the schwa when appropriate.

See also

• Sukun,a similar diacritic in Arabic script
• Zero consonant

External links

• Blog: Sorting it all Out