Dear Venerable Johann,
Which should we use: ṁ ṃ or ŋ?
Note that ṃ is favoured by the Pali Text Society in the latest Pali Dictionary by Margaret Cone, and also on the VRI Chatthaya Sangha ROM. For the sake of harmony, I recommend we follow their lead. The Pali Text Society has established itself as the world authority in terms of Roman lettering. VRI is likewise worthy of respect This can hardly be ignored.
... [splitt into new topic]
All best wishes,
Varado
Aramika
In the Devanagari script, anusvara is represented with a dot (bindu) above the letter (e.g. मं). In the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST), the corresponding symbol is ṃ (m with an underdot). Some transcriptions render notation of phonetic variants used in some Vedic shakhas with variant transcription (ṁ).
In writing Sanskrit, the anusvara is often used as an alternative representation of the nasal stop with the same place of articulation as the following plosive. For example, [əŋɡə] 'limb (of the body)' may be written with either a conjunct, अङ्ग aṅga, or with an anusvara, अंग aṃga. A variant of the anusvara, the anunāsika or 'candrabindu', was used more explicitly for nasalized vowels, as in अँश aṃśa for [ə̃ɕə] 'portion'.[7]
In Inari Sami, an underdot denotes a half-long voiced consonant: đ̣, j̣, ḷ, ṃ, ṇ, ṇj, ŋ̣, ṛ, and ṿ. The underdot is used in dictionaries, textbooks, and linguistic publications only....
The underdot is also used in the Devanagari script, where it is called nukta.
The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) is a transliteration scheme that allows the lossless romanization of Indic scripts as employed by Sanskrit and related Indic languages. It is based on a scheme that emerged during the nineteenth century from suggestions by Charles Trevelyan, William Jones, Monier Monier-Williams and other scholars, and formalised by the Transliteration Committee of the Geneva Oriental Congress, in September 1894.[1] IAST makes it possible for the reader to read the Indic text unambiguously, exactly as if it were in the original Indic script. It is this faithfulness to the original scripts that accounts for its continuing popularity amongst scholars.