anusvara
|a-nu-sva-ra|
/əˈnʌsvərə/
nasalization / 'after-sound' mark
Etymology
'anusvara' originates from Sanskrit, specifically the word 'anusvāra', where 'anu-' meant 'after' and 'svāra' meant 'sound'.
'anusvāra' was used in classical Sanskrit phonology and passed into English technical usage via transliteration of Sanskrit and descriptions of Indic scripts, keeping the form 'anusvara'.
Initially, it meant 'after-sound' in Sanskrit, but over time it evolved into the technical sense of a diacritic indicating nasalization (or the nasal sound itself) in modern descriptive use.
Meanings by Part of Speech
Noun 1
a diacritic mark in many Indic scripts (e.g., Devanagari) indicating nasalization of a vowel or a following nasal consonant (commonly shown as a dot above the letter).
In Devanagari, the anusvara is written as a dot above the letter (e.g., अं).
Synonyms
Noun 2
in phonetics, the nasal sound itself produced as a homorganic nasal or a nasalization of a vowel; sometimes used to refer to the phonetic nasalization feature.
Some descriptions treat the anusvara as a nasal consonant occurring before certain consonants rather than only a diacritic.
Synonyms
Last updated: 2025/09/13 13:30