Visarga

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Visarga (

Visarga is an allophone of /r/ and /s/ in pausa (at the end of an utterance). Since /-s/ is a common inflectional suffix (of nominative singular, second person singular, etc.), visarga appears frequently in Sanskrit texts. In the traditional order of Sanskrit sounds, visarga and anusvāra appear between vowels and stop consonants.

The precise pronunciation of visarga in Vedic texts may vary between Śākhās. Some pronounce a slight echo of the preceding vowel after the aspiration: aḥ will be pronounced [ɐhᵄ], and iḥ will be pronounced [ihⁱ]. Visarga is not to be confused with colon.

Types

The visarga is commonly found in writing, resembling the punctuation mark of colon or as two tiny circles one above the other. This form is retained by most Indian scripts.

According to Sanskrit phonologists, the visarga has two optional

Other Brahmic scripts

Burmese

In the

Motoori Norinaga invented a mark for visarga which he used in a book about Indian orthography.

Javanese

In the Javanese script, the visarga (known as the wignyan (ꦮꦶꦒ꧀ꦚꦤ꧀)) is represented by a two curls to the right of a syllable as ꦃ: the first curl is short and circular, and the second curl is long. It adds a /-h/ after a vowel.

Kannada

In the Kannada script, the visarga (which is called visarga) is represented with two small circles to the right of a letter ಃ. It adds an aḥ sound to the end of the letter.

This script also has separate symbols for ardhavisarga absent in most other scripts, jihvamuliya, ೱ, and upadhmaniya, ೲ.

Khmer

In the

Lao

In the

In the Odia script, the visarga is represented with a vertical infinity sign to the right of a letter as ଃ. It indicates the post-vocalic voiceless glottal fricative aḥ [h] sound after the letter.

Tamil

In the Tamil script, similar to visarga (which is called āyutha eḻuttu (ஆயுத எழுத்து), āytam (ஆய்தம்), muppaal pulli, thaninilai, aghenam), is represented with three small circles to the right of a letter as ஃ. Its used to transcribe an archaic /q/ or /h/ sound that has either become silent, or pronounced as /x/, /(a)k-/ or /-ka/ in careful speech. Like Sanskrit, it cannot add on to any letter and add aspiration to them. It should be always placed between a single short vowel(அ, இ, உ, எ, ஒ) and a hard consonant (க், ச், ட், த், ப், ற்) for example அஃது (aqthu), எஃகு (eqgu).

Telugu

In the Telugu script, the visarga (which is called visarga) is represented with two small circles to the right of a letter ః. It brings an "ah" sound to the end of the letter.

Thai

In the Thai script, the visarga (known as the visanchani (วิสรรชนีย์) or nom nang thangkhu (นมนางทั้งคู่)) is represented with two small curled circles to the right of a letter as ◌ะ. It represents a glottal stop that follows the affected vowel.

References