় The nuqta (

Hindi–Urdu Hindustani (; Devanagari: , * * * * ; Perso-Arabic: , , ) is the ''lingua franca'' of Northern and Central India and Pakistan. Hindustani is a pluricentric language with two standard registers, known as Hindi and Urdu. Thus, the langua ...

: //, fa, , noqte; from ar, نقطة, nuqṭa, dot; sometimes also spelled nukta) is a

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

mark that was introduced in

Devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ...

and some other

Indic scripts The Brahmic scripts, also known as Indic scripts, are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and parts of East Asia. They are descended from the Brahmi script of ancient India ...

to represent sounds not present in the original scripts. It takes the form of a dot placed below a

character Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...

. This idea is inspired from the

Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and th ...

; for example, there are some letters in Urdu that share the same basic shape but differ in the placement of dots(s) or nuqta(s) in the

Perso-Arabic script The Persian alphabet ( fa, الفبای فارسی, Alefbâye Fârsi) is a writing system that is a version of the Arabic script used for the Persian language spoken in Iran ( Western Persian) and Afghanistan ( Dari Persian) since the 7th ce ...

: the letter ع ''ain'', with the addition of a nuqta on top, becomes the letter غ g͟hain.

Use in Devanagari

Perso-Arabic consonants

Examples from Devanagari (the script used to write Hindi): hi, क़, qa, translit-std=ISO, label=none; hi, ख़, k͟ha, translit-std=ISO, label=none; hi, ग़, ġa, translit-std=ISO, label=none; hi, ज़, za, translit-std=ISO, label=none; hi, झ़, zha, translit-std=ISO, label=none; hi, ड़, ṛa, translit-std=ISO, label=none; hi, ढ़, ṛha, translit-std=ISO, label=none; and hi, फ़, fa, translit-std=ISO, label=none. Respectively, these letters modify hi, क, ka, translit-std=ISO, label=none; hi, ख, kha, translit-std=ISO, label=none; hi, ग, ga, translit-std=ISO, label=none; hi, ज, ja, translit-std=ISO, label=none; hi, झ, jha, translit-std=ISO, label=none; hi, ड, ḍa, translit-std=ISO, label=none; hi, ढ, ḍha, translit-std=ISO, label=none; and hi, फ, pha, translit-std=ISO, label=none. The term () is itself an example of the use of the nuqta. Other examples include hi, क़िला ( ur, ), qilā, fortress, translit-std=ISO, label=none; and hi, आग़ा ख़ान ( ur, ), Āġā K͟hān, translit-std=ISO, label=none: a combination of a Perso-Arabic (''āġā'') and a Turko-Mongolic (''k͟hān'') honorific, now the title of the leader of the

Nizari Ismaili The Nizaris ( ar, النزاريون, al-Nizāriyyūn, fa, نزاریان, Nezāriyān) are the largest segment of the Ismaili Muslims, who are the second-largest branch of Shia Islam after the Twelvers. Nizari teachings emphasize independent ...

sect. Examples of more common words are hi, बड़ा, baṛā, big, translit-std=ISO, label=none; hi, पढ़ना, paṛhnā, to read, translit-std=ISO, label=none; hi, पेड़, pēṛ, tree, translit-std=ISO, label=none; hi, अंग्रेज़ी, Aṅgrēzī, English, translit-std=ISO, label=none; and hi, करोड़, karōṛ,

crore A crore (; abbreviated cr) denotes ten million (10,000,000 or 107 in scientific notation) and is equal to 100 lakh in the Indian numbering system. It is written as 1,00,00,000 with the local 2,2,3 style of digit group separators (one lakh is eq ...

, translit-std=ISO, label=none. The nuqta, and the phonological distinction it represents, is sometimes ignored in practice; e.g., being simply spelled as . In the text ''Dialect Accent Features for Establishing Speaker Identity'', Manisha Kulshreshtha and Ramkumar Mathur write, "A few sounds, borrowed from the other languages like Persian and Arabic, are written with a dot (bindu or nuktā). Many people who speak Hindi as a second language, especially those who come from rural backgrounds and do not speak conventional Hindi (also called ''Khariboli''), or speak in one of its dialects, pronounce these sounds as their nearest equivalents." For example, these rural speakers will assimilate the sound ɣ (Devanagari: ग़; Urdu: ) as ɡ (Devanagari: ग; Urdu: ). With a renewed

language contact, many

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' in Devanagari editions. Since the Perso-Arabic orthography is preserved in

Nastaʿlīq script ''Nastaliq'' (; fa, , ), also romanized as ''Nastaʿlīq'', is one of the main calligraphic hands used to write the Perso-Arabic script in the Persian and Urdu languages, often used also for Ottoman Turkish poetry, rarely for Arabic. ''Nas ...

Urdu orthography, these writers use the nuqta in Devanagari when transcribing these consonants. Sometimes, व़ is used to explicitly represent the /w/ consonant and to differentiate it from /v/ consonant व.

Dravidian consonants

Devanagari also includes coverage for the Dravidian consonants hi, ऴ, ḻa, translit-std=ISO, label=none /ɻ/; hi, ऱ, ṟa, translit-std=ISO, label=none /r/ and hi, ऩ, ṉa, translit-std=ISO, label=none /n/. (Respectively, these letters modify hi, ळ, ḷa, translit-std=ISO, label=none /ɭ/; hi, र, ra, translit-std=ISO, label=none /ɾ/ and hi, न, na, translit-std=ISO, label=none /n̪/). An example is hi, तमिऴ् /t̪amiɻ/ ( ta, தமிழ்), tamiḻ, translit-std=ISO, label=none.

Dardic consonants

For example, the letters and are used in Devanagari to write the

Kashmiri Kashmiri may refer to: * People or things related to the Kashmir Valley or the broader region of Kashmir * Kashmiris, an ethnic group native to the Kashmir Valley * Kashmiri language, their language People with the name * Kashmiri Saikia Baruah ...

alveolar affricates and respectively.

Eastern Indo-Aryan letters

To represent the

Eastern Nagari Eastern may refer to: Transportation *China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai *Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways *Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991 *Eastern Air Li ...

letter representing /ɔ/, the consonant hi, य़, ẏa, translit-std=ISO, label=none is used in Devanagari. In Maithili, there are four non-syllabic vowels: i̯, u̯, e̯, o̯ written in Devanagari as य़, व़, य़ॆ, व़ॊ. But colloquially, these are written without nuqta.

Similar diacritics

Sindhi's and Saraiki's

implosive Implosive consonants are a group of stop consonants (and possibly also some affricates) with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism.''Phonetics for communication disorders.'' Martin J. Ball and Nicole Müller. Ro ...

s are accommodated in Devanagari with a line attached below—a diacritical bar: , , , . In

Tamil script The Tamil script ( , ) is an abugida script that is used by Tamils and Tamil speakers in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and elsewhere to write the Tamil language. Certain minority languages such as Saurashtra, Badaga, ...

, the special character (, ) is used like nuqta to represent non-native consonants. In

Thaana Thaana, Taana or Tāna ( ) is the present writing system of the Maldivian language spoken in the Maldives. Thaana has characteristics of both an abugida (diacritic, vowel-killer strokes) and a true alphabet (all vowels are written), ...

script of

Maldives Maldives (, ; dv, ދިވެހިރާއްޖެ, translit=Dhivehi Raajje, ), officially the Republic of Maldives ( dv, ދިވެހިރާއްޖޭގެ ޖުމްހޫރިއްޔާ, translit=Dhivehi Raajjeyge Jumhooriyyaa, label=none, ), is an archipelag ...

, one or many nuqtas are added to their native consonants to represent Perso-Arabic consonants, and each phoneme is encoded as a whole in the Unicode block (instead of a separate codepoint for the diacritic).

References

Works cited

Bibliography

*Vajpeyi, K. D. (Kishorī Dās Vājpayī; किशोरीदास वाजपेयी), ''Hindī shabdanushāsan'' हिन्दी शब्दनुशासन (1957, 1958, 1973, 1976, 1988).

External links

Nuqte ka funda , नुक़्ते का फ़ंडा , نقطے کا فنڈا
(in Hindi/Urdu)
An Introduction to Indic scripts

SCRIPT GRAMMAR FOR HINDI LANGUAGE
{{Navbox diacritical marks Brahmic diacritics Hindustani orthography