HK transliterationmmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 1396

The Harvard-Kyoto Convention is a system for transliterating Sanskrit (and other languages that use the devanAgarI script) into ASCII. The standard HK system is described at --

wikipedia on Harvard Kyoto system

With minor exceptions (kLpta and tita::u), it is possible to get the devanAgarI back from the standard HK.

See also HKL transliteration.

HKL transliterationmmmmmmmmm ^ M- C+ 1397

The HKL transliteration is the one I use in this website. I made it up.

Most of the time it is the same as HK. The differences are minor --

(1) I misspell the nasalized ell sound from torli as l~. In correct HK, according to wikipedia, there is no way of writting it. According to indology it must be written "&l".

(2) I misspell the vowel that comes after "R" in the zivasUtra as "L". In correct HK it must be spelled "lR", same as if it were the consonant l followed by the vowel R that we hear in " syatAsIlRluToH " and " lRT " and " lRG ".

(3) I mispell the hiatuses a + i and a + u as a::i and a::u. According to wikipedia and to auroville they must be spelled as if they were the vowels ai and au of the zivasUtra ai auc.

Remember that, when using auroville, you must spell pra::uga and tita::u as prauga and titau, and kLp as klRp.

coloncolon symbolmmmmmmmmm ^ M- C+ 1398

In these pages I sometimes write : or :: between two letters.

Those are mostly useless. You are not supposed to write them yourself. I use them sometimes to help me in teaching, and other times to keep my scripts from getting confused.

Examples where I write "::" in the middle of a hiatus --

tita::unA

Here :: is used to prevent my scripts from turning "au" into the devanAgarI letter au, pronounced "ow!". The correct spelling of this word has a ta followed by an u.

qta::iddhAtoH

Same. This prevents scripts from turning "ai" into the devanAgarI letter ai, pronounced "eye".

bruva::IT

I like to write "::" in the middle of all hiati. You don't have to do that -- spelling bruvaIT is fine.

Example of "::" between consonants.

g::h means the letter g followed by the letter h. This is not the same thing as gh, which is just one letter in devanAgarI.

Example of colon after a nonjoiner.

amI: azvAH. Here the colon just reminds students that this I sound is a nonjoiner.