_naagaree-128
A Scheme for Transliteration from ĐevaNāgarī to Latin
I. Conventions / Terminology
Previously I used to call this - xNāgarī.
The words ĐevaNāgarī and Nāgarī are synonyms. I used the words 'scheme' and 'key' synonymously.
Where a capital letter is expected/required, I used a 'Low Line' followed by corresponding lower-case letter. 'Low Line' character is '_' ; it is also called as 'underscore'. More on this later.
Using this key - _naagaree-128, we may write, Hinđī as '_hindee' and ĐevaNāgarī as '_devanaagaree'. But we won't always use x-literated words, as this text is not meant to (and can't) be transliterated to Nāgarī.
Occasionally, we have written indic-words (which are as per Saras-Nāgarī) transliterated using _naagaree-128 in parenthesis along with the original Nāgarī word. For Example Marāthī (_maraaThee; मराठी).
The Nāgarī alphabet is called Varṇamālā (_varNNamaalaa; वर्णमाला). Akṣhar (AkShar; अक्षर) means letter/s, Generally, Mātrā (maatraa; मात्रा) means vowel mark/s. You may want to refresh your knowledge of Varṇamālā.
II. Introduction
You may think that 'ĐevaNāgarī' is better than '_devanaagaree'; yes it certainly looks better. Now think of typing; you will type '_devanaagaree' much faster than 'ĐevaNāgarī'. Then there are file-systems and cheap mobile phone that do not support accented Latin/Roman characters like ṇ, ā, ī. In future the use of _naagaree-128 will be limited! So if you are want to use correctly transliterated words in file-systems, cheap mobile phones etc. then only continue reading.
This scheme is lossless; i.e. the Nāgarī text transliterated to Roman-Latin text using this scheme can be exactly transliterated back to Nāgarī.
Most encodings (including ASCII, Unicode, ISCII) support at least basic Latin alphabet and punctuation marks.
Till recently (2010!), Nāgarī text was encoded in various hacked-encodings only. Even now invitation cards, sales brochures etc. are composed in hack-encodings because of easy availability of non-standard stylish fonts. But now useful and long-lasting (standing) Nāgarī text is generally encoded in Unicode, while basic Latin text is encoded either in ASCII, ANSI or Unicode. Using such schemes we are be able to write Indian languages (like Hinđī, Marāthī, ...) in basic ASCII.
This scheme can be used for -
| # | writing Indian languages in English alphabet for those who are not comfortable with Indian scripts (like Nāgarī). |
| # | representing Indian languages in small (handheld) devices that are incapable of displaying Unicode encoded Indic text, like old/cheap mobile phones! |
| # | entering Nāgarī text using English (Roman-Latin) alphabets. But the use of such schemes for entering ĐevaNāgarī text is rather limited as efficient keyboard overlays/drivers (like iNāgarī) for popular computer systems are available now-a-days. |
| # | to convey the proper pronunciation of Indic words written in Latin-Roman alphabet. |
At present this scheme is only for regular Nāgarī alphabet used to write Hinđī, Marāthī etc. This scheme may be extended in future to include those characters which are sometimes used in Sanskṛiŧ only.
I designed this scheme (in 2006-7) such that -
| # | the Nāgarī words transliterated to Latin using this scheme resemble commonly (naïvely) transliterated words (by public) as closely as possible. |
| # | the ĐevaNāgarī words transliterated to Latin using this scheme can be used as filenames. |
But the utmost importance was given to 'losslessness', 'simplicity' and 'clarity'.
_naagaree-128 is partially similar to an old scheme called 'Harvard-Kyoto'! Other schemes for writing Indian languages using Latin alphabet are IAST (International Alphabet of Sanskṛiŧ Transliteration) and ITRANS (based on 'Harvard-Kyoto'). Google and others also have their transliteration services/schemes. We have been using _naagaree-128 and are largely satisfied, so you may try it. No warranties though.
III. Case-Sensitive
Please remember that this key is case-sensitive.
No Capitalization Is Allowed.
There are two reasons -
| # | there are fewer alphabets in Latin than Nāgarī, so we have to use uppercase (capital) letters and lowercase letters for different Nāgarī Letters! For example 'd' is used for 'द' while 'D' is used for 'ड'. |
| # | Nāgarī has no concept of capitalization. |
IV. Emphasize!
This section is not a core part of _naagaree-128, you may skip it by clicking following link.
>> The _naagaree-128 Scheme >>
If you want to emphasize a word, prefix it with a 'Low Line' character ('_', which is also called 'Underscore'!).
For Example: _varNNamaalaa
This convention (of starting a word with '_') will also prevent automatic capitalization, which lot of word processors do without even asking the user!
Generally, the word Rām ('राम') gets written as 'Rama' in English text. According to _naagaree-128 writing 'Rama' is incorrect, we may write either '_raam' or '_raama'.
For ALL CAPS, you can use leading as well as trailing underscore! Instead of RĀMĀYAṆA (all caps) you can write _raamaayaNNa_.