Learning Devanagari ligatures · Ligatures in Learning Devanagari
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Ligatures in Learning Devanagari
Ligatures in Learning Devanagari
One of the things which appears daunting to most beginners are the over 100 conjunct characters. These happen when two or more consonants are joined together (with no vowel between). Upon seeing all these, the new learner might gasp, thinking that they will have to memorize each one as if they were Chinese ideograms. The good news is that most of these are quite simple and merely involve dropping the inherent 'a' stem. e.g.:
त् + म = त्म
न् + द = न्द
स् + क = स्क
However there are a few special constructions. For many of these, you may also use the previous method though. e.g.
त् + त = त्त
ष् + ट = ष्ट
क् + ल = क्ल
क् + ष = क्ष (is fairly rare and occurs only in Sanskrit loan words)
Most often odd forms arise, in consonants without a stem. e.g.
द् + भ = द्भ
ह् + ल = ह्ल
ट् + ठ = ट्ठ
Do not worry to much about conjuncts though, you may always suppress the inherent 'a' with a halant.
Another thing which causes problems for new learners is the use of र, which is treated as a vowel as in Hindi it is a "semi-vowel." There are three forms for conjuncting र, and one for ऋ:
1. After a consonant with a stem add a slash from the lower half of the stem (top-down, right-left). e.g.:
प् + र = प्र
क् + र = क्र
ग् + र = ग्र
note: श+ र = श्र and त् + र = त्र.
2. After a vowel and before a consonant र is written as a small hook (a good mnemonic trick is to picture a stylized lower case r). This conjunct cannot occur alone, nor begin a word. Therefore, an example shall be given within the context of words:
गर्म hot
सिर्फ़ only
कर्म karma (In Sanskrit, the last inherent vowel is not written long as it is in Hindi)
If followed by ā, ī, e, o, or ai the "hook" is moved one letter to the right, e.g. the name Marco would be written: मॉर्को.
3. In most letters without stems, the र is joined to the consonant by placing a circumflex-like diacritic below the letter, e.g.:
द् + र = द्र
ट् + र + ट्र
ड् + र = ड्र
4. ऋ when preceded by a consonant is written as a small hook resembling the Polish ogonek attached to the stem. Only occurs in Sanskrit loan words, most notably the word Sanskrit" itself: संस्कृत.
Finally, र has two special forms when followed by u, and ū respectively:
रु ru
रू rū
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Learning Devanagari Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.