International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration
 |
This article contains Indic text. Without rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes or other symbols instead of Indic characters; or irregular vowel positioning and a lack of conjuncts. |
The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) is a popular transliteration scheme that allows a lossless transliteration of Indic scripts.
IAST is the most popular transliteration scheme for romanization of Sanskrit and Pali. It is often used in printed publications, especially for books dealing with ancient Sanskrit and Pali topics related to Indian religions. With the wider availability of Unicode fonts, it is also increasingly used for electronic texts.
IAST is based on a standard established by the Congress of Orientalists at Athens in 1912. It allows a lossless transliteration of Devanāgarī (and other Indic scripts, such as Sharada script), and as such represents not only the phonemes of Sanskrit, but allows essentially phonetic transcription (e.g. Visarga ḥ is an allophone of word-final r and s).
The National Library at Kolkata romanization, intended for the romanization of all Indic scripts, is an extension of IAST.
IAST sign inventory and conventions
The sign inventory of IAST (both small and capital letters) shown with Devanāgarī
equivalents and phonetic values in IPA, is as follows (valid for
Sanskrit; for Hindi, some minor phonological changes have
occurred):
| अ [ə] a A |
आ [ɑː] ā Ā |
इ [i] i I |
ई [iː] ī Ī |
उ [u] u U |
ऊ [uː] ū Ū |
ऋ [ɹ̩] ṛ Ṛ |
ॠ [ɹ̩ː] ṝ Ṝ |
ऌ [l̩] ḷ Ḷ |
ॡ [l̩ː] ḹ Ḹ |
vowels |
| ए [eː] e E |
ऐ [aːi] ai Ai |
ओ [oː] o O |
औ [aːu] au Au |
diphthongs |
| अं [ⁿ] ṃ Ṃ |
anusvara |
| अः [h] ḥ Ḥ |
visarga |
| velars | palatals | retroflexes | dentals | labials | |
| क [k] k K |
च [c] c C |
ट [ʈ] ṭ Ṭ |
त [t̪] t T |
प [p] p P |
unvoiced stops |
| ख [kʰ] kh Kh |
छ [cʰ] ch Ch |
ठ [ʈʰ] ṭh Ṭh |
थ [t̪ʰ] th Th |
फ [pʰ] ph Ph |
aspirated unvoiced stops |
| ग [g] g G |
ज [ɟ] j J |
ड [ɖ] ḍ Ḍ |
द [d̪] d D |
ब [b] b B |
voiced stops |
| घ [gʰ] gh Gh |
झ [ɟʰ] jh Jh |
ढ [ɖʰ] ḍh Ḍh |
ध [d̪ʰ] dh Dh |
भ [bʰ] bh Bh |
aspirated voiced stops |
| ङ [ŋ] ṅ Ṅ |
ञ [ɲ] ñ Ñ |
ण [ɳ] ṇ Ṇ |
न [n] n N |
म [m] m M |
nasal |
| य [j] y Y |
र [r] r R |
ल [l] l L |
व [v] v V |
semi-vowels | |
| श [ɕ] ś Ś |
ष [ʂ] ṣ Ṣ |
स [s] s S |
sibilants | ||
| ह [ɦ] h H |
voiced fricative |
Note: Unlike
Comparison with ISO 15919
For the most part, IAST is a subset of ISO 15919. The following five exceptions are due to the ISO standard accommodating an extended repertoire symbols to allow transliteration of Devanāgarī and other Indic scripts as used for languages other than Sanskrit.
| Devanāgarī | IAST | ISO 15919 | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| ए/ े | e | ē | ISO e represents ऎ/ ॆ. |
| ओ/ो | o | ō | ISO o represents ऒ/ॊ. |
| ं | ṃ | ṁ | ISO ṃ represents Gurmukhi Tippi ੰ. |
| ऋ/ ृ | ṛ | r̥ | ISO ṛ represents ड़ /ɽ/. |
| ॠ/ ॄ | ṝ | r̥̄ | for consistency with r̥. |
See also
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
