[SKT] DEFAULT VOWEL

CONTEXT: WRITING SYSTEMS + LANGUAGES

The Sanskrit language belongs to a glamorous writing system called an abugida. Which is a fancy way of saying that Sanskrit uses an alphabet that's not actually called an alphabet.

Say what?

The thing we generally think of as an alphabet is more broadly known as a writing system.
"Writing system" is the umbrella term, under which we have: alphabet, abugida, abjad, syllabaries, logographies... etc

Fig. 1 Umbrella of writing systems: alphabet, abugida, abjad, syllabaries, logographies

In the English language, the writing system we use is Latin.
Latin is an alphabet.

In the Sanskrit language, the writing system we use is Devanagari.
Devanagari is an abugida.

Usually, writing systems are shared by multiple languages.
For example, Latin is also used by French; Devanagari is also used by Hindi.

Fig. 2 Examples of writing systems and languages

Infrequently, a language uses multiple writing systems.
For example, Turkish can be written using Latin or Arabic.

Fig. 3 A language using multiple writing systems: Turkish

Sometimes, confusingly, languages share a name with a writing system.

Latin, Arabic and Hebrew are writing systems AND languages.

Fig. 4 Some writing systems share their name with a language: Latin, Arabic, Hebrew

ALPHABET VS ABUGIDA: VOWEL BEHAVIOUR

Because English and Sanskrit belong to different writing systems, their vowels behave differently.

In English, we use vowels quite liberally.
In Sanskrit, less so.

VOWELS IN AN ALPHABET (ENGLISH)

In their alphabet-careers, vowels have the same weighting as consonants within words.
If you're wanting to make an "a" sound, you write the letter "a".
You don't write back-to-back consonants and expect the reader to fill in the rest.

For example, if you wanted to write banana using an alphabet, you'd write:
b + a + n + a + n + a.

Fig. 5 Spelling banana with an alphabet — Fig. 5 Spelling *banana* with an alphabet

VOWELS IN AN ABUGIDA (SANSKRIT)

In abugidas, vowels do NOT have the same weighting as consonants within words.

Sometimes they're included in spelling, but very often they're not.
Instead, we have a default vowel that follows every consonant.

If there's intended to be a different vowel (or no vowel), that will be specified.
But otherwise, resume operation default vowel.

VOWEL-RULES FOR SANSKRIT

Here are the rules for creating and interpreting vowels in Sanskrit:

DEFAULT VOWEL

After every consonant, the default vowel is "a" (अ).
Because it's assumed, it doesn't get written.

To use the example above, this means banana would be written as bnn.

b + [assumed "a"] + n + [assumed "a"] + n + [assumed "a"]
= banana

Fig. 6 Spelling *banana* with an abugida: using the default vowel

ANOTHER VOWEL

IF there's meant to be a different vowel to "a" (अ), the different vowel is written. Just like that.

So if banana was actually meant to be pronounced banano, it would be written as bnno.

b + [assumed "a"] + n + [assumed "a"] + n + o
= banano

Fig. 7 Spelling *banano* with an abugida: overriding the default vowel with another vowel

NO VOWEL: DIACRITICAL MARK or CONSONANT CLUSTER

IF there's meant to be no vowel sound, there are two options.

1) Diacritical mark
2) Consonant cluster

DIACRITICAL MARK

The first option is to place a diacritical mark below the consonant, which suppresses the vowel sound.

Example of the diacritical mark (assuming your device supports the proper rendering of devanagari):
"n" without a diacritical mark: न
"n" with a diacritical mark: न्

To really milk the banana example... if it's meant to be pronounced banan, it would be written as bnn WITH a small dash under the second "n".

(The small dash is called "virāma". Virāma banāna.)

b + [assumed "a"] + n + [assumed "a"] + n + diacritical mark under "n"
= banan

Fig. 8 Spelling *banan* with an abugida: suppressing the default vowel with a diacritical mark

CONSONANT CLUSTER

The second way to suppress the default vowel sound is to merge consonants, creating a "consonant cluster".

This sends a signal that we're moving from one consonant to another, without leaving any room for a vowel.

Final banana example... if we wanted to land really heavily on those two "n" sounds, pronouncing it banna, we would write bnn BUT merge the two "n" characters together.

To illustrate, the merged "n" characters will be represented by an English "m", but still pronounced as two "n" sounds.

b + [assumed "a"] + cropped n + n + [assumed "a"]
= bama (pronounced banna)