exotic symbols
About hyphens.
The moondot shows nasalization.
Spelling of wordfinal
Up to the 19th century, Sanskrit sentences were written, basically, with an alphabet of fifty letters, and no spaces and no punctuation. Since, some punctuation has been introduced, but I think it's far from perfect. So in this website I use some punctuation signs that you won't see anywhere else. They are intended to make things easier for first grade students. Most of them are useless for students in higher grades, so those can safely ignore them.
In devanAgarI script, it is customary to use spaces after all words that do not end in consonants and are not a former. Here I try to use spaces after all words and hyphens after all formers.
Using hyphens to separate the parts of a compound is an utter abomination. It's just not part of Indian Culture. Well, I do use them anyway sometimes, because my students find them helpful.
orthodox flycrap
When a word ends in
heterodox flycrap
Sometimes I write (') where an
Sometimes I write "::" or ":" in the middle of a hiatus. I'm not sure yet if this is useful for my students or not, and if I decide not, all colons will disappear suddenly from my website any time. So, just ignore them.
moondot a.k.a. squiggle a.k.a.
I use a squiggle (
Another weird thing that I do in this website is that sometimes I spell with
In old times Sanskrit was written without spaces --
The modern custom of book publishers makes spaces compulsory after words that end in a vowel, a topdot or a dotdot, unless the space would break a compound --
For some reason that escapes me, Westerners that use Roman letters to write Sanskrit add spaces after every word, unless the space would break a compound --
And as far as I know no one uses hyphens after the wordfinal letter that is inside a compound, this way --
Yet, I do that sometimes, because I have verified that these hyphens make reading easier for my students.
Also, I am in the habit of writing a hyphen after a nounbase, just to clarify that this is a nounbase that has not yet gotten its sup added. For instance, in --
the first
the
and the second
Similarly, in --
the first
the second
The moondot sign is written on top of a letter to mean that it is nasalized.
Examples --
It is called moondot or
Back to exotic symbols.
In this website, sometimes I type things like --
' When we add the
By typing the word this way I'm going against a long tradition of grammar teachers, as they always write the words that are alone, and have
' When we add the
It is because of this tradition that when you type
I have a great respect for tradition. However, I have a greater respect for my students, so I don't do that replacing when I think that beginners might find it confusing. That's why I spell sometimes --
My students already know that if they read aloud the word