Chandrabindu
Chandrabindu (meaning "moon-dot" in Sanskrit, alternatively spelled candrabindu, chandravindu, candravindu, or chôndrobindu) is a diacritic sign with the form of a dot inside the lower half of a circle. It is used in the Devanagari (ँ), Bengali (ঁ), Gujarati (ઁ), Oriya (ଁ), Telugu (ఁ), Javanese ( ꦀ) and other scripts.
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It usually means that the previous vowel is nasalized.
In Hindi, it is replaced in writing by anusvara when it is written above a consonant that carries a vowel symbol that extends above the top line.
In Classical Sanskrit, it seems to occur only over a lla conjunct consonant, to show that it is pronounced as a nasalized double l, which occurs if -nl- have become assimilated in sandhi.
In Vedic Sanskrit, it is used instead of anusvara to represent the sound anunaasika when the next word starts with a vowel. It usually occurs where in earlier times a word ended in -ans.
Unicode encodes chandrabindu and chandrabindu-like characters for a variety of scripts:[1]
- U+1B01 ᬁ BALINESE SIGN ULU CANDRA
- U+1B00 ᬀ BALINESE SIGN ULU RICEM
- U+0981 ঁ BENGALI SIGN CANDRABINDU
- U+11C3C 𑰼 BHAIKSUKI SIGN CANDRABINDU
- U+11000 𑀀 BRAHMI SIGN CANDRABINDU
- U+0901 ँ DEVANAGARI SIGN CANDRABINDU
- U+A8F2 ꣲ DEVANAGARI SIGN SPACING CANDRABINDU
- U+A8F3 ꣳ DEVANAGARI SIGN CANDRABINDU VIRAMA
- U+0900 ऀ DEVANAGARI SIGN INVERTED CANDRABINDU
- U+1193C 𑤼 DIVES AKURU SIGN CANDRABINDU
- U+11301 𑌁 GRANTHA SIGN CANDRABINDU
- U+0A81 ઁ GUJARATI SIGN CANDRABINDU
- U+0A01 ਁ GURMUKHI SIGN ADAK BINDI
- U+0A70 ੰ GURMUKHI TIPPI
- U+A980 ꦀ JAVANESE SIGN PANYANGGA
- U+11080 𑂀 KAITHI SIGN CANDRABINDU
- U+0C80 ಀ KANNADA SIGN SPACING CANDRABINDU
- U+0C81 ಁ KANNADA SIGN CANDRABINDU
- U+1C34 ᰴ LEPCHA CONSONANT SIGN NYIN-DO
- U+1C35 ᰵ LEPCHA CONSONANT SIGN KANG
- U+0D01 ഁ MALAYALAM SIGN CANDRABINDU
- U+11CB6 𑲶 MARCHEN SIGN CANDRABINDU
- U+11443 𑑃 NEWA SIGN CANDRABINDU
- U+0B01 ଁ ORIYA SIGN CANDRABINDU
- U+A873 ꡳ PHAGS-PA LETTER CANDRABINDU
- U+A8C5 ꣅ SAURASHTRA SIGN CANDRABINDU
- U+111CF 𑇏 SHARADA SIGN INVERTED CANDRABINDU
- U+115BC 𑖼 SIDDHAM SIGN CANDRABINDU
- U+0D81 ඁ SINHALA SIGN CANDRABINDU
- U+0C01 ఁ TELUGU SIGN CANDRABINDU
- U+0C00 ఀ TELUGU SIGN COMBINING CANDRABINDU ABOVE
- U+0F82 ྂ TIBETAN SIGN NYI ZLA NAA DA
- U+0F83 ྃ TIBETAN SIGN SNA LDAN
- U+114BF 𑒿 TIRHUTA SIGN CANDRABINDU
- U+11A35 𑨵 ZANABAZAR SQUARE SIGN CANDRABINDU
- U+11A36 𑨶 ZANABAZAR SQUARE SIGN CANDRABINDU WITH ORNAMENT
- U+11A37 𑨷 ZANABAZAR SQUARE SIGN CANDRA WITH ORNAMENT
There is also a general-purpose combining diacritical mark COMBINING CANDRABINDU code point U+0310 (◌̐), but that is intended for use with Latin letters in transliteration of Indic languages.