Anusvara(Sanskrit:अनुस्वार,IAST:anusvāra), also known asBindu(Hindi:बिंदु), is a symbol used in manyIndic scriptsto mark a type ofnasal sound,typically transliterated⟨ṃ⟩or⟨ṁ⟩in standards likeISO 15919andIAST.Depending on its location in the word and the language for which it is used, its exact pronunciation can vary. In the context of ancientSanskrit,anusvarais the name of the particular nasal sound itself, regardless of written representation.
| ं | |
|---|---|
Anusvara |
Sanskrit
editInVedic Sanskrit,the anusvāra (lit. "after-sound" or "subordinate sound" )[1]was anallophonic(derived) nasal sound.
The exact nature of the sound has been subject to debate. The material in the variousancient phonetic treatisespoints towards different phonetic interpretations, and these discrepancies have historically been attributed to either differences in the description of the same pronunciation[2]or to dialectal or diachronic variation.[3][4]In a 2013 reappraisal of the evidence, Cardona concludes that these reflect real dialectal differences.[5]
The environments in which the anusvara could arise, however, were well defined. In the earliestVedic Sanskrit,it was an allophone of /m/ at amorphemeboundary, or of /n/ within morphemes, when it was preceded by a vowel and followed by africative(/ś/, /ṣ/, /s/, /h/).[1]In later Sanskrit its use expanded to other contexts, first before /r/ under certain conditions, then, inClassical Sanskrit,before/v/and/y/.[1]
Later still,Pāṇinigave anusvara as an alternative pronunciation as word-finalsandhi,and later treatises also prescribed it at morpheme junctions and within morphemes.[6]In the later written language, the diacritic used to represent anusvara was optionally used to indicate anasal stophaving the sameplace of articulationas a followingplosive,written in some evolved scripts (e.g. in Bengali-Assamese) as an additional sandhi letter (no longer as a diacritic) for Vedic transcriptions of Sanskrit, to distinguish it with the anusvara diacritic used to transcribe other phonemes.
Devanagari script
editIn theDevanagari script,anusvara is represented with adot(bindu) above the letter (e.g.मं). In theInternational Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration(IAST), the corresponding symbol is ṃ (mwith anunderdot). Some transcriptions render notation of phonetic variants used in some Vedicshakhaswith variant transcription (ṁ).
In writing Sanskrit, the anusvara is often used as an alternative representation of the nasal stop with the same place of articulation as the following plosive. For example,[əŋɡə]'limb (of the body)' may be written with either a conjunct, अङ्गaṅga,or with an anusvara, अंगaṃga.A variant of the anusvara, theanunāsikaor 'chandrabindu', was used more explicitly for nasalized vowels, as in अँशaṃśafor[ə̃ɕə]'portion'.[7]
Hindi
editInStandard Hindi,theanusvārais traditionally defined as representing a nasal consonanthomorganicto a followingplosive,in contrast to thecandrabindu(anunāsika), which indicatesvowel nasalization.In practice, however, the two are often used interchangeably.
The precise phonetic value of the phoneme, whether it is represented byanusvāraorcandrabindu,is dependent on the phonological environment.[8]
Word-finally it is realized as nasalization of the preceding vowel:kuāṃ[kʊ̃ãː],"a well". It results in vowel nasalization also medially between a short vowel and a non-obstruent(kuṃvar[kʊ̃ʋər]"a youth",gaṃṛāsā[ɡə̃ɽaːsaː]"a long-handled axe" ) and, in native words, between a long vowel and a voiceless plosive (dāṃt[dãːt]"tooth",sāṃp[sãːp]"a snake",pūṃch[pũːtʃʰ]"tail" ).
It is pronounced as a homorganic nasal, with the preceding vowel becoming nasalizedallophonically,in the following cases: between a long vowel and a voiced plosive (tāṃbā[taːmbaː]"copper",cāṃdī[tʃaːndiː]"silver" ), between a long vowel and a voiceless plosive in loanwords (dāṃt[daːnt]"repressed",baiṃk[bæːŋk]"a bank",khazāṃcī[kʰəzaːɲtʃiː]"cashier" ), and between a short vowel and an obstruent (saṃbhāl-[səmbʱaːl]"to support",saṃdūk[sənduːk]"a chest" ).
The last rule has two sets of exceptions where theanusvāraonly results in nasalization of the preceding short vowel. Words from the first set are morphologically derived from words with a long nasalized vowel (baṃṭ-[bə̃ʈ],"to be divided" frombāṃṭ-[bãʈ],"to divide";siṃcāī[sɪ̃tʃai],"irrigation" fromsīṃc-[sĩːtʃ],"to irrigate" ). In such cases, the vowel is sometimes denasalized ([bəʈ],[sɪtʃai]instead of[bə̃ʈ-],[sɪ̃tʃai]). The second set is composed of a few words like(pahuṃc-[pahʊ̃tʃ],"to arrive" andhaṃs-[hə̃s],"to laugh" ).[note 1]
Marathi
editInMarathithe anusvara is pronounced as anasalthat ishomorganicto the following consonant (with the sameplace of articulation). For example, it is pronounced as thedental nasalन् beforedental consonants,as thebilabial nasalम् beforebilabial consonants,etc[citation needed] . Unlike in other Indic languages, in Marathi the same dot designating anusvara is also used to mark a retension of the inherent vowel (it is inconsistently placed over a consonant after which the short central vowel is to be pronounced and not elided).
Nepali
editInNepali,candrabindu indicates vowel nasalization. Therefore, there is a great deal of variation regarding which occurs in any given position. Many words containing anusvara thus have alternative spellings withchandrabinduinstead of anusvara and vice versa. Anusvara is used when there isn't space forchandrabindu.Anusvara can represent nasal vowel, homoorganic nasal or somethimes both.
Other Indic script languages
editAnusvara is used in other languages usingIndic scriptsas well, usually to represent suprasegmental phones (such asphonationtype or nasalization) or other nasal sounds.
Bengali
edit
In theBengali script,the anusvara diacritic (Bengali:অনুস্বার,romanized:anuswār) is written as a circle above a slanted line (ং), and represents /ঙ্/. It is used in the name of the Bengali languageবাংলা[baŋla].It has merged in pronunciation with the letterঙungain Bengali. Although the anusvara is a consonant inBengali phonology,it is nevertheless treated in the written system as a diacritic in that it is always directly adjacent to the preceding consonant, even when consonants are spaced apart in titles or banners:বাং-লা-দে-শbaṅ-la-de-ś,notবা-ং-লা-দে-শba-ṅ-la-de-śforবাংলাদেশBangladesh.It is never pronounced with the inherent vowel 'ô', and it cannot take a vowel sign (instead, the consonantঙuṅôis used pre-vocalically).
Burmese
editIn theBurmese script,the anusvara (အောက်မြစ်auk myit(့)IPA:[aʊʔmjɪʔ]) is represented as a dot underneath a nasalised final to indicate acreaky tone(with a shortened vowel). Burmese also uses a dot above to indicate the/-ɴ/nasalized ending (called "Myanmar Sign Anusvara" in Unicode), calledသေးသေးတင်thay thay tin(IPA:[θéðétɪ̀ɰ̃]) (ံ)
Sinhala
editIn theSinhala script,the anusvara is not a nonspacing combining mark but a spacing combining mark. It has circular shape and follows its base letter ( ං).[9]It is calledbinduvainSinhala,which means "dot". The anusvara represents/ŋ/at the end of a syllable. It is used in fact, in the name of theSinhala languageසිංහල[ˈsiŋɦələ].It has merged in pronunciation with the letter ඞ ṅa in Sinhala.
Telugu
editTheTelugu scripthas full-zero (sunna) ం, half-zero (arasunna) andvisargato convey various shades of nasal sounds. Anusvara is represented as a circle shape after a letter:[10]క - ka and కం - kam.
Thai
editThe equivalent of the anusvara in theThai Alpha betis thenikkhahit(◌ํ), which is used when rendering Sanskrit andPalitexts. It is written as an open circle above the consonant (for exampleอํ) and its pronunciation depends on the following sound: if it is a consonant then the nikkhahit is pronounced as a homorganic nasal, and if it is at the end of a word it is pronounced as theVoiced velar nasal/ŋ/.[citation needed]
Anunasika
editAnunasika(anunāsika) is a form ofvowel nasalization,often represented by an anusvara. It is a form of open-mouthed nasalization, akin to the nasalization of vowels followed by "n" or "m" in ParisianFrench.When "n" or "m" follow a vowel, the "n" or "m" becomes silent and causes the preceding vowel to become nasal (pronounced with the soft palate extended downward so as to allow part or all of the air to leave through the nostrils). Anunasika is sometimes called asubdotbecause of itsIASTrepresentation.
InDevanagariand related orthographies, it is represented by thechandrabindudiacritic (example:माँ).
InBurmese,the anunasika, calledသေးသေးတင်(IPA:[θéðétɪ̀ɰ̃]) and represented as⟨ံ⟩,creates the/-ɰ̃/nasalized ending when it is attached as a dot above a letter. The anunasika represents the -m final in Pali.
Unicode
editUnicodeencodes anusvara and anusvara-like characters for a variety of scripts:
|
|
See also
editNotes
edit- ^Ohala (1983,p. 90) lists five more such words:dhaṃs-"to sink",phaṃs-"to be stuck",haṃslī"a necklace",haṃsiyā"a sickle" andhaṃsī"laughter".
References
edit- ^abcAllen 1953,p. 40.
- ^Whitney,cited inEmeneau 1946,p. 91
- ^Varma 1961,pp. 148–55.
- ^Emeneau 1946,p. 91.
- ^Cardona 2013.
- ^Allen 1953,p. 41.
- ^William Bright, "The Devanagari Script", in Daniels & Bright,The World's Writing Systems,OUP, 1996.
- ^The following rules are fromOhala (1983,pp. 87–90)
- ^See an example inPandey, Anshuman (April 25, 2017)."Proposal to encode a nasal character in Vedic Extensions"(PDF).Unicode.L2/17-117R.Archived(PDF)from the original on Oct 8, 2022.
- ^Chenchiah, P.; Rao, Raja Bhujanga (1988).A History of Telugu Literature.Asian Educational Services. p. 18.ISBN81-206-0313-3.
- ^A, Srinidhi; A, Sridatta (2016-10-20)."L2/16-285: Proposal to encode the Telugu Sign Combining Anusvara Above"(PDF).Unicode.
Bibliography
edit- Allen, W.S. (1953),Phonetics in ancient India,OUP
- Cardona, George (2013)."Developments of nasals in early Indo-Aryan: anunāsika and anusvāra".Tokyo University Linguistic Papers.33:3–81.ISSN1345-8663.
- Emeneau, M. B.(1946). "The Nasal Phonemes of Sanskrit".Language.22(2): 86–93.doi:10.2307/410341.JSTOR410341.
- Ohala, Manjari (1983),Aspects of Hindi Phonology,Motilal Banarsidass,ISBN0-89581-670-9
- Varma, Siddheshwar (1961) [1927].Critical studies in the phonetic observations of Indian grammarians.James G. Forlong Fund. Delhi: Munshi Ram Manohar Lal.