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'Anusvara' (Dev: अनुस्वार '') is the diacritic used to mark a type of nasalization used in a number of Indic languages. Depending on the location of the anusvara in the word, and on the language within which it is used, its exact pronunciation can vary greatly.

Contents

Devanagari script

Burmese

Sinhala

See also

Devanagari script

In the Devanagari script, anusvara is represented with a dot above the letter (मं). In IAST, it is written below the character (). Some transcriptions render notation of phonetic variants used in some Vedic shakhas with variant transcription ().
===Sanskrit===
In Sanskrit, nasalization of a preceding vowel is an allophone of nasal consonants in pausa. In the Devanagari script, this nasalization is expressed by the anusvara diacritic dot above the preceding letter, called 'bindu' ("dot"). The nasalization can be realized either as a nasal stop homorganic (i.e. sharing the same place of articulation) to the following consonant (e.g. [ɳ] before retroflex sounds, [ŋ] before velar sounds, etc.), or as [m] when word-final.
===Hindi===
In Hindi, it is pronounced as a nasal stop homorganic to the following consonant, or as nasalization of the preceding vowel when no consonant follows. It has merged in pronunciation with the chandrabindu diacritic in Hindi, the two used in complementary distribution depending on the character over which they are placed.
==Other Indic script languages==
Anusvara is used in other languages using Indic scripts as well, usually to represent suprasegmental phones (such as phonation type or nasalization), or for other nasal sounds.
===Bengali===
In the Bengali script, the anusvara diacritic (''onushshar'' in Bengali) is written as a circle above a slanted line, and represents the voiced velar nasal /ŋ/. It is used in the name of the Bengali language বাংলা [baŋla]. It has merged in pronunciation with the letter ঙ ''ṅa'' in Bengali.

Burmese

In the Burmese script, the anusvara is represented as a dot underneath a nasalised final to indicate a creaky tone (with a shortened vowel).

Sinhala

In the Sinhala script, the anusvara is not a diacritic but an independent grapheme. It has circular shape (ං) and resembles a Latin or a <0>, which is why it is called ''binduva'' in Sinhala, which means ´ zero´. The anusvara represents the voiced velar nasal /ŋ/ at the end of a syllable. It is used in the name of the Sinhala language සිංහල. It has merged in pronunciation with the letter ඞ ṅa in Sinhala.

See also

★ Anunaasika

★ Chandrabindu