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Virama |
Virama (Sanskrit:विराम/हलन्त,romanized: virāma/halanta ्,IPA:[ʋiraːmɐ,ɦɐlɐn̪t̪ɐ]) is aSanskrit phonological concept to suppress theinherent vowel that otherwise occurs with every consonant letter, commonly used as a generic term for a codepoint in Unicode, representing either
Unicode schemes of scripts writingMainland Southeast Asia languages, such as that ofBurmese script and ofTibetan script, generally do not group the two functions together.
The name isSanskrit for "cessation, termination, end". As aSanskrit word, it is used in place of several language-specific terms, such as:
| Name in English books | Language | In native language | Form | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| halant | Hindi | हलन्त,halant | ् | |
| halanta | Punjabi | ਹਲੰਤ,halanta | ੍ | |
| Marathi | हलंत,halanta | ् | ||
| Nepali | हलन्त,halanta | ् | ||
| Odia | ହଳନ୍ତ,haḷanta | ୍ | ||
| Gujarati | હાલાંત,hālānta | ્ | ||
| hosonto | Bengali | হসন্ত,hôsôntô | ্ | |
| Assamese | হসন্ত,hoxonto /হছন্ত,hosonto | ্ | ||
| Sylheti | ꠢꠡꠘ꠆ꠔꠧ,hośonto | ◌ ꠆ | ||
| pollu | Telugu | పొల్లు,pollu | ్ | |
| pulli | Tamil | புள்ளி,puḷḷi | ் | |
| chandrakkala | Malayalam | ചന്ദ്രക്കല,candrakkala /വിരാമം,viraamam | ് | Unlike other virama diacritics, it is pronounced[ɯ] word-finally. |
| ardhakshara chihne | Kannada | ಅರ್ಧಾಕ್ಷರ ಚಿಹ್ನೆ,ardhakshara chihne /ಸುರುಳಿ,suruli | ್ | |
| hal kirima | Sinhalese | හල් කිරිම,hal kirīma | ් | |
| a that | Burmese | အသတ်,a.sat,IPA:[ʔa̰θaʔ] | ် | lit. "nonexistence" |
| viream | Khmer | វិរាម,vīrāma | ៑ | |
| toandokheat | ទណ្ឌឃាត,toandokheat | ៍ | ||
| karan, thanthakhat | Thai | การันต์,kārạnt[1][2] /ทัณฑฆาต,thanthakhat[3][4] | ◌์ | Thanthakhat is the name of the diacritic, whilekaran refers to the character that was marked. These two terms are often used interchangeably. It is used to mark as silent vowels or consonants that were originally pronounced, but have become silenced in Thai pronunciation (mostly from Sanskrit andOld Khmer). This diacritic is sometimes used in loanwords from European languages to mark final consonants in consonant clusters (e.g. want as วอนท์). |
| pinthu | พินทุ,pinthu | ◌ฺ | Pinthu is akin to Sanskritbindu, and means "point" or "dot". It is used to mark a syllable as closed, and it is only used in Thai script when writing Pali or Sanskrit. | |
| nikkhahit | นฤคหิต / นิคหิต | ◌ํ | Nikkhahit represents what was originallyanusvāra in Sanskrit. Likepinthu, it is also only used when writing Pali or Sanskrit in Thai script. It marks a syllable as nasalized, realized in Thai as a nasal closed consonant following the vowel. | |
| rahaam | Northern Thai (Lanna) | ᩁᩉ᩶ᩣ᩠ᨾ,rahaam[5] | ◌᩺ | |
| Tai Khün | ◌᩼ | |||
| Tai Lue | ◌᩼ | |||
| wirama | Kawi | 𑼮𑼶𑼬𑼴𑼪,wirāma | ◌𑽁 | |
| pangkon | Javanese | ꦥꦁꦏꦺꦴꦤ꧀,pangkon | ◌꧀ | |
| adeg-adeg | Balinese | ᬳᬤᭂᬕ᭄ᬳᬤᭂᬕ᭄,adəg-adəg | ◌᭄ | |
| pangolat | Mandailing | ᯇᯝᯬᯞᯖ᯲,pangolat | ◌᯲ | |
| Pakpak | ||||
| Toba | ||||
| penengen | Karo | ᯇᯧᯉᯧᯝᯧᯉ᯳,pənəngən | ◌᯳ | |
| panongonan | Simalungun | ᯈᯉᯬᯝᯬᯉᯉ᯳,panongonan | ||
| pamaeh | Sundanese | ᮕᮙᮆᮂ,pamaeh | ◌᮪ | |
| bunuhan | Rejang | ꤷꥈꤵꥈꥁꥐ,bunuhan | ꥓ | |
| sukun | Dhivehi | ސުކުން,sukun | ް◌ | Derives from Arabic "sukun" |
| Srog med | Tibetan | Srog med | ྄ | Only used when transcribing Sanskrit |
InDevanagari and many otherIndic scripts, a virama is used to cancel theinherent vowel of a consonant letter and represent a consonant without a vowel, a "dead" consonant. For example, in Devanagari,
If thiskक् is further followed by another consonant letter, for example, ṣa ष, the result might look likeक्ष, which representskṣa aska + (visible) virāma +ṣa. In this case, two elementsk क् andṣa ष are simply placed one by one, side by side. Alternatively,kṣa can be also written as aligatureक्ष, which is actually the preferred form.Generally, when a dead consonant letter C1 and another consonant letter C2 are conjoined, the result may be:
If the result is fully or half-conjoined, the (conceptual) virama which made C1 dead becomes invisible, logically existing only in acharacter encoding scheme such asISCII orUnicode. If the result is not ligated, a virama is visible, attached to C1, actually written.
Basically, those differences are only glyph variants, and the three forms aresemantically identical. Although there may be a preferred form for a given consonant cluster in each language and some scripts do not have some kind of ligatures or half forms at all, it is generally acceptable to use a nonligature form instead of a ligature form even when the latter is preferred if the font does not have a glyph for the ligature. In some other cases, whether to use a ligature or not is just a matter of taste.
The virāma in the sequence C1 + virāma + C2 may thus work as an invisible control character to ligate C1 and C2 in Unicode. For example,
is a fully conjoined ligature. It is also possible that the virāma does not ligate C1 and C2, leaving the full forms of C1 and C2 as they are:
is an example of such a non-ligated form.
The sequences ङ्क ङ्ख ङ्ग ङ्घ[ṅkaṅkhaṅɡaṅɡha], in common Sanskrit orthography, should be written as conjuncts (the virāma and the top cross line of the second letter disappear, and what is left of the second letter is written under the ङ and joined to it).
Theinherent vowel is not always pronounced, in particular at the end of a word (schwa deletion). No virāma is used for vowel suppression in such cases. Instead, the orthography is based on Sanskrit where all inherent vowels are pronounced, and leaves to the reader of modern languages to delete the schwa when appropriate.[7]
| In Latin, Cyrillic and Greek |
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| InEarly Cyrillic |
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| InIndic | |
| In other scripts | |
| Marks used as diacritics |
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| Non-diacritic uses | |
| InUnicode |
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