User:Robbiemuffin/Devanagari vowels

Vowels

The vowels and their arrangement are:

	Independent form	Romanized	As diacritic with प	Pronunciation		Independent form	Romanized	As diacritic with प	Pronunciation
kaṇṭhya (Guttural)	अ	a	प	[ɐ]		आ	ā	पा	[ɑː] [nb 1]
tālavya (Palatal)	इ	i	पि	[i]		ई	ī	पी	[iː] [nb 1]
oṣṭhya (Labial)	उ	u	पु	[u]		ऊ	ū	पू	[uː] [nb 1]
mūrḍhanya (Retroflex)	ऋ	ṛ	पृ	[ɹ̩] [nb 2]		ॠ	ṝ	पॄ	[ɹ̩ː] [nb 2] [nb 1]
dantya (Dental)	ऌ	ḷ	पॢ	[l̩] [nb 2]		ॡ	ḹ	पॣ	[l̩ː] [nb 2] [nb 1]
kaṇṭhatālavya (Palato-Guttural)	ए	e	पे	[eː] [nb 1]		ऐ	ai	पै	[aːi] [nb 3] [nb 1]
kaṇṭhoṣṭhya (Labio-Guttural)	ओ	o	पो	[oː] [nb 1]		औ	au	पौ	[aːu] [nb 3] [nb 1]

• Arranged with the vowels are two consonantal diacritics, the final nasal anusvāra ं ṃ and the final fricative visarga ः ḥ (called अं aṃ and अः aḥ). Masica (1991:146) notes of the anusvāra in Sankrit that "there is some controversy as to whether it represents a homorganic nasal consonant [...], a nasalized vowel, a nasalized semivowel, or all these according to context". The visarga represents post-vocalic voiceless glottal fricative [h], in Sanskrit an allophone of s, or less commonly r, usually in word-final position. Some traditions of recitation append an echo of the vowel after the breath: इः [ihi]. Masica (1991:146) considers the visarga along with letters ङ ṅa and ञ ña for the "largely predictable" velar and palatal nasals to be examples of "phonetic overkill in the system".
• Another diacritic is the candrabindu/anunāsika ँ. Salomon (2003:76–77) describes it as a "more emphatic form" of the anusvāra, "sometimes [...] used to mark a true [vowel] nasalization". In a New Indo-Aryan language such as Hindi the distinction is formal: the candrabindu indicates vowel nasalization while the anusvār indicates a homorganic nasal preceding another consonant: e.g. हँसी [ɦə̃si] "laughter", गंगा [ɡəŋɡɑ] "the Ganges". When an akshara has a vowel diacritic above the top line, that leaves no room for the candra ("moon") stroke candrabindu, which is dispensed with in favour of the lone dot: हूँ [ɦũ] "am", but हैं [ɦɛ̃] "are". Some writers and typesetters dispense with the "moon" stroke altogether, using only the dot in all situations.
• The avagraha ऽ (usually transliterated with an apostrophe) is a Sanskrit punctuation mark for the elision of a vowel in sandhi: एकोऽयम् ekoyam (< ekas + ayam) "this one". An original long vowel lost to coalescence is sometimes marked with a double avagraha: सदाऽऽत्मा sadātmā (< sadā + ātmā) "always, the self". In Hindi, Snell (2000:77) states that its "main function is to show that a vowel is sustained in a cry or a shout": आईऽऽऽ! āīīī!. In Magahi, which has "quite a number of verbal forms [that] end in that inherent vowel" Verma (2003:501), the avagraha is used to mark the non-elision of word-final inherent a, which otherwise is a modern orthographic convention: बइठऽ baiṭha "sit" versus *बइठ baiṭh
• The syllabic consonants ṝ, ḷ, and ḹ are specific to Sanskrit and not included in the varṇamālā of other languages. The sound represented by ṛ has also been lost in the modern languages, and its pronunciation now ranges from [ɾɪ] (Hindi) to [ɾu] (Marathi).
• ḹ is not an actual phoneme of Sanskrit, but rather a graphic convention included among the vowels in order to maintain the symmetry of short–long pairs of letters.
• There are non-regular formations of रु ru and रू rū.

notes

1. ^ Length (phonetics)

2. ^ Syllabic consonant

3. ^ diphthong