Get more details about ITRANS at Avinash' ITRANS page.
Given below is a description of the transliteration scheme, the specifics of the ASCII-Devnagari mapping and an example file.
Avinash Chopde, Feb 1995
<[email protected]>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the transliteration scheme used by ITRANS
version 4.00 (and
higher). If you encounter any text that uses
this scheme, that text
can be printed in the devanagari script using
the ITRANS package.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Vowels:
-------
a aa or A
i ii or I u
uu or U
R^i R^I
L^i L^I
e ai
o au
aM aH
Consonants:
-----------
k kh
g gh N^
ch chh
j jh JN
T Th
D Dh N
t th
d dh n
p ph
b bh m
y r
l v
sh shh
s h
L x (or ksh)
GY shr
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
Specials/Accents:
-----------------
Anusvara:
.n, M (dot on top of previous askhar *--see note at end)
Avagraha:
.a (S like symbol basically to replace a after o)
Ardhachandra: .c
(for vowel sound as in cat or talk)
Chandra-Bindu: .N
(chandra-bindu on top of previous akshar)
Halant:
.h (to get half-form of the consonant - no vowel - virama)
Ra ligature: .r
(top curve as in ii to get r sound, half r)
(.r put after the intended consonant, e.g u{dhva}.r)
Visarga:
H (visarga - looks like a colon character)
Om:
OM, AUM (Om symbol)
-----------------
Consonants have been shown without any
vowel, add suffix "a" to produce
a normal consonant, example, "jaya" or
"jay" for (JA)-(YA), etc.
Watch out for ambiguous input: use _ to
break lexical scans, example:
use "ga_ii" instead of "gaii" when you
need (GA)-(VOWEL ii), because "gaii"
will be parsed as (GA with dependent VOWEL
ai)-(VOWEL i)!
But in most cases the _ is not needed...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Each devanagari letter is constructed as C +
C + C + .. + V
(one or more consonants, followed by a vowel).
If the vowel is omitted at the end of a word,
the "a" vowel will be
assumed (use halant - .h to get the short form
of the consonant - which
is a consonant without any vowel, ex: k.h).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Punctuation available:
, ; :
/ ? ! (
)
Note that hyphen (-) is not available --- use
\- in the indian text to get
a hyphen. Also, use \. to get period (.), for
Danda, use | or a period.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Example text:
% From: [email protected] (C. S. Sudarshana Bhat)
siine me.n jalan aa.Nkho.n
me.n tuufaan saa kyuu.N hai
is shahar me.n har shaKs pareshaan
saa kyuu.N hai
dil hai to dha.Dakane kaa bahaanaa
koI Dhuu.nDhe
patthar kii tarah behis\-o\-bejaan
saa kyuu.N hai
tanahaaI kii ye kaun sii ma.nzil
hai rafiiqo.n
taa\-hadd\-e\-nazar ek bayaabaan
saa kyuu.N hai
kyaa koI naI baat nazar aatii
hai ham me.n
aaInaa hame.n dekh ke hairaan
saa kyuu.N hai