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 and other modern languages that use Devanagari script, some phonological changes have occurred):
| Category | Devanāgarī | Transcription | Lower case | Upper case |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| vowels | अ | a | A | |
| आ | ā | Ā | ||
| इ | i | I | ||
| ई | ī | Ī | ||
| उ | u | U | ||
| ऊ | ū | Ū | ||
| ऋ | ṛ | Ṛ | ||
| ॠ | ṝ | Ṝ | ||
| ऌ | ḷ | Ḷ | ||
| ॡ | ḹ | Ḹ | ||
| diphthongs | ए | e | E | |
| ऐ | ai | Ai | ||
| ओ | o | O | ||
| औ | au | Au | ||
| anusvara | अं | ṃ | Ṃ | |
| visarga | अः | ḥ | Ḥ |
| velars | palatals | retroflexes | dentals | labials | |
| क k K |
च c C |
ट ṭ Ṭ |
त t T |
प p P |
tenuis plosives |
| ख kh Kh |
छ ch Ch |
ठ ṭh Ṭh |
थ th Th |
फ ph Ph |
aspirated plosives |
| ग g G |
ज j J |
ड ḍ Ḍ |
द d D |
ब b B |
voiced plosives |
| घ gh Gh |
झ jh Jh |
ढ ḍh Ḍh |
ध dh Dh |
भ bh Bh |
breathy-voiced plosives |
| ङ ṅ Ṅ |
ञ ñ Ñ |
ण ṇ Ṇ |
न n N |
म m M |
nasal stops |
| य y Y |
र r R |
ल l L |
व v V |
semi-vowels | |
| श ś Ś |
ष ṣ Ṣ |
स s S |
sibilants | ||
| ह h H |
voiced fricative |
Unlike ASCII-only romanizations such as ITRANS or Harvard-Kyoto, the diacritics used for IAST allow capitalization of proper names. The capital variants of letters never occurring word-initially (Ṇ Ṅ Ñ Ṝ) are only useful in Pāṇini contexts, where the convention is to typeset the IT sounds as capital letters.
Read more about this topic: International Alphabet Of Sanskrit Transliteration
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