% commonerrors.txt last updated on 1/5/98 Here is something we should expand as `common mistakes and establish correct ways' to type sanskrit. There are two types of errors. One is due to transliteration and other due to wrong usage of Sanskrit terms or sandhiis. We will use ITRANS as the transliteration scheme for explanation. Those rules will be that of encoding and pronunciation. One has to pay attention to some details, as one would do to write Devanagari characters. Editting the text later to make it aa-kaar or ii-kaar is time consuming, more so when the one who is typing makes mistakes. ---------------------- Transliteration ----------------------------------- Here is the scheme inserted for reference *************************************** ITRANS 5.1 Encoding for Devanagari (Hindi/Marathi/Sanskrit) This section describes the ITRANS encoding, for Devanagari. This is the basic encoding used for all Indic language scripts. ITRANS 5.1 is completely compatible with the older ITRANS 4.04 release, so any documents encoded in ITRANS 4.04 will work correctly with ITRANS 5.1. Vowels (dependent and independent): ------- a aa / A i ii / I u uu / U R^i R^I L^i L^I e ai o au aM aH Consonants: ----------- k kh g gh ~N ch Ch j jh ~n T Th D Dh N t th d dh n p ph b bh m y r l v / w sh Sh s h L x / kSh GY / j~n / dny shr R (for marathi half-RA) L / ld (marathi LLA) Specials/Accents: ----------------- Anusvara: .n / M (dot on top of previous consonant/vowel) Avagraha: .a (`S' like symbol basically to replace a after o) Ardhachandra: .c (for vowel sound as in english words `cat' or `talk') Chandra-Bindu: .N (chandra-bindu on top of previous letter) Halant: .h (to get half-form of the consonant - no vowel - virama) Visarga: H (visarga - looks like a colon character) Om: OM, AUM (Om symbol) A few new codes are now also accepted: w (== v), kSh (== ksh), ~N (== JN), ~n (== N^), dny (== GY), ^r (== .r == hindi-half-ra). Consonants with a nukta (dot) under them (mainly for Urdu devanagari): ----------------------------------------- k with a dot: q kh with a dot: K g with a dot: G j with a dot: z p with a dot: f D with a dot: .D Dh with a dot: .Dh ***************************** Transliteration specific corrections of common errors: Use aa or A instead of a for aa-kaar uu or U instead of u or oo for uu-kaar ii or I instead of i or ee for ii-kaar e instead of E or ay (Telugu influence) aM instead of am (word ending anusvaar) More on this later in the end aH instead of .h (visarga) .h is used for half letter like m.h, t.h aa_ii or aa{}ii to have two vowels together as in Hindi bhaa{}ii for brother (_ may not work in some instances) ka instead of kha (Tamil and Kannada influence), ka and kha are different ga instead of gha (Tamil and Kannada influence), ga and gha are different cha instead of ca (Indology or other transliteration influence) chha instead of cha ta instead of tha (Tamil and Kannada influence), ta and tha are different da instead of dha (Tamil and Kannada influence), da and dha are different da instead of dha (Tamil and Kannada influence), da and dha are different va instead of ba (Bengali influence) va and ba are distinctly different. shha instead of sha or sa, sha-shha-sa are three distinct. ksh instead of kshh GYa (hindi influence) instead of jjna or jJNa or dnya (Marathi influence) Ta-Tha-Da-Dha-Na instead of ta-tha-da-dha-na Watch for aaa, hh, nD, Nd combination. ----------------------- Sanskrit rules: ----------------------------------- To form conjunts with nasals, use N^k, N^kh, N^g, N^gh or ~Nk, ~Nkh, ~Ng, ~Ngh JNch, JNchh, JNj, JNjh or ~nch, ~nchh, ~nj, ~njh NT, NTh, ND, NDh nt, nth, nd, ndh mp, mph, mb, mbh All the N^, JN, N, n, m can be replaced by .n(overdot), or the pa, pha, ba, bha series m with M, to keep the printout and pronunciation correct. The overdot with M or .n is accepted way but is technically incorrect, mostly from pronunciation standpoint. To use M or .n for anusvaara If an anusvaara (overdot) is used within the words (word internal!) instead of above mentioned nasals, we suggest that you use .n instead of M for all the letters except p, ph, b, bh, m. With remaining letters, y, r, l, v, sh, shh, s, h, L, x, GY use .n. So it will be sa.nskR^ita sa.nvaada sa.nlagna sa.nsaara a.nsha sa.nrakshaka sa.nyama et ceteraa. It is wrong to ma-kaar for anusvaara in these words. These .n have different pronunciation than simple M as saMsaara and is more like with ardhacha.ndrabi.nduu. This is not critical since the output with M and .n is same. The note is added more for clarification/information. There is a very easy fix for such anusvaar in Unix editting, with it M[kgcjTDtdyrlvshLG] change to .n[[kgcjTDtdyrlvshLG] This affects each letter in square bracket which is encoded with M. In sed s/M\([kgcjTDtd]\)/\.n\1/ s/M\([yrlvshLG]\)/\.n\1/ will be useful. M[pbm] stay the same! As an observation T, Th, D, Dh, N are always prefixed by shh, so dveshhTi ! It is never (special cases?) shht or shhd or shhn or shT shD shN (except perhaps in Hindi) Please use .n followed by y, r, l, v, s, h instead of M for internal anusvaar. This to avoid `ma' pronunciation with these letters. A word ending anusvaar with M followed by vowel becomes makaar (word)M and a,aa,i,ii,u,uu,e,ai,o,au as a start of the following word become, respectively, ma, maa, mii, mu, muu, me, mai, mo, mau . As an example, kiM aasiita becomes kimaasiita, ashvatthaM enaM becomes ashvatthamenaM . The word ending k should be k.h as vaak.h and not vaak m should be m.h as suresham.h and not suresham n should be n.h as raajan.h and not raajan t should be t.h as dhyaayet.h and not dhyaayet and similar for ga, cha, Ta, et cetera. The newer ITRANS version 5.0 onwards accomodates word ending consonents and automatically adds hala.nta (.h) to them. Rules for visarga (H) ending word, Most of the visarga-s become sh, sa, or shha depending on the first letter of the following word. H shhaT.h becomes shhshhaT.h kaH chit.h becomes kashchit.h vaaN^mayaH tvaM becomes vaaN^mayastvaM Rules for avagraha The vowel ending words when joined with a or aa-kaar words an avagraha .a is put for a-kaar, two avagraha-s .a.a are used for aa-kaar The first vowel may or may not change during this joining. praNata asmi praNato.asmi navama adhyaayaH navamo.adhyaayaH loke asmin.h loke.asmin.h tathaa aatmani tathaa.a.atmani Other sandhii tat.h dhaama taddhaama Use sattva instead of satva tattva instead of tatva ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This can be programmed to identify typing errors, automatically, if such extraction can be programmed. We should standardize these rules as much as possible. Of course, we cannot add all the grammar rules of Panini, but this file can assist us. Please provide your additions or corrections! More notes on anusvaar and Nasals: Nasals are more appropriate (correct?) to use in Sanskrit. They at times produce clumsy display of characters in which case anusvaar is a better symbol and widely accepted by printers all over. Three ways of giving anusvaar .n M .m in ITRANS 5.1 are for users' convenience and for conveying proper pronunciations with corresponding nasals. There is also a vedic anusvaar which is ardhacha.ndrabi.nduu with viraama or hala.nta underneath and is pronounced as `un' sound in bounce, pronounce, sound without `u' but `a' vowel in it. Please see svaramanj.itx/.ps for more details. For ordinary use, {\m+} can be used to indicate vedic anusvaar. Vedic anusvaar is more suitable with nasal sound for y, r, l, v, sh, shh, s. Use M for word ending anusvaar and when the nasal which it replaces is m (e.g. for p, ph, b, bh, m as in saMpadaa, saMbhaashhaN) If you want to be more perfect you can deviate from word ending M by replacing it with .n when the following words do not follow with p, ph, b, bh, m letters---> this is may be little confusing but we will deal with it later as you practice it. Use .n for rest of the letters including y, r, l, v, sh, s, shh, h, L, kSh, GY or j~n. If you have to use .m use it for replacing M. Sentence ending anusvaar (m sound) is commonly replaced by m.h which follows da.nDa | for line or sentence ending. % End of common_errors.txt