Anusvara
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Anusvara |
Anusvara (
Sanskrit
In
The exact nature of the sound has been subject to debate. The material in the various
The environments in which the anusvara could arise, however, were well defined. In the earliest
Later still,
Devanagari script
In the
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, अङ्ग aṅga, or with an anusvara, अंग aṃga. A variant of the anusvara, the
Hindi
In
The precise phonetic value of the phoneme, whether it is represented by anusvāra or candrabindu, 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 nasalized allophonically, 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 the anusvāra only 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" from bāṃṭ- [bãʈ], "to divide"; siṃcāī [sɪ̃tʃai], "irrigation" from sīṃc- [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" and haṃs- [hə̃s], "to laugh").[note 1]
Marathi
In
Nepali
In Nepali, chandrabindu and anusvara have the same pronunciation similarly to Hindi. Therefore, there is a great deal of variation regarding which occurs in any given position. Many words containing anusvara thus have alternative spellings with chandrabindu instead of anusvara and vice versa.
Other Indic script languages
Anusvara is used in other languages using
Bengali
In the
Burmese
In the Burmese script, the anusvara (အောက်မြစ် auk myit (့) IPA: [aʊʔ mjɪʔ]) is represented as a dot underneath a nasalised final to indicate a creaky tone (with a shortened vowel). Burmese also uses a dot above to indicate the /-ɴ/ nasalized ending (called "Myanmar Sign Anusvara" in Unicode), called သေးသေးတင် thay thay tin (IPA: [θé ðé tɪ̀ɰ̃]) (ံ)
Sinhala
In the Sinhala 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 called binduva in Sinhala, which means "dot". The anusvara represents /ŋ/ at the end of a syllable. It is used in fact, in the name of the Sinhala language සිංහල [ˈsiŋɦələ]. It has merged in pronunciation with the letter ඞ ṅa in Sinhala.
Telugu
The Telugu script has full-zero (sunna) ం , half-zero (arasunna) and visarga to convey various shades of nasal sounds. Anusvara is represented as a circle shape after a letter:[10] క - ka and కం - kam.
Thai
The equivalent of the anusvara in the
Anunasika
Anunasika (anunāsika) is a form of vowel 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 Parisian French. 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 a subdot because of its IAST representation.
In Devanagari and related orthographies, it is represented by the chandrabindu diacritic (example: माँ).
In Burmese, the anunasika, called သေးသေးတင် (IPA: [θé ðé tɪ̀ɰ̃]) 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
Unicode encodes anusvara and anusvara-like characters for a variety of scripts:
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See also
Notes
- ^ Ohala (1983, p. 90) lists five more such words: dhaṃs- "to sink", phaṃs- "to be stuck", haṃslī "a necklace", haṃsiyā "a sickle" and haṃsī "laughter".
References
- ^ a b c Allen 1953, p. 40.
- ^ Whitney, cited in Emeneau 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 from Ohala (1983, pp. 87–90)
- ^ See an example in Pandey, 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.
- ISBN 81-206-0313-3.
- ^ A, Srinidhi; A, Sridatta (2016-10-20). "L2/16-285: Proposal to encode the Telugu Sign Combining Anusvara Above" (PDF). Unicode.
Bibliography
- 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. ISSN 1345-8663.
- JSTOR 410341.
- Ohala, Manjari (1983), Aspects of Hindi Phonology, Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 0-89581-670-9
- Varma, Siddheshwar (1961) [1927]. Critical studies in the phonetic observations of Indian grammarians. James G. Forlong Fund. Delhi: Munshi Ram Manohar Lal.