In conjunction with previous work on converting MW72 conventions to modern IAST in the Cologne digitizations, several issue comments have dealt with this dictionary's conventions:
The printed text uses Devanagari for 'major' headwords. These are transcoded in the Cologne
digitization to SLP1: {#dfzad#}. After the Devanagari, the text shows in italics the indo-romanic
spelling.
'Minor' headwords appear only in italic font with indo-romanic spelling, and are capitalized.
The cologne digitization includes these minor headwords as headwords.
'Compound' headwords are also appear only in italic font with indo-romanic spelling, and are capitalized.
The cologne digitization currently does not recognize these minor headwords as headwords.
Sanskrit words in italic text appear in indo-romanic spelling, such as 'cf. *upalā*'
Many Sanskrit proper names appear within entries but in non-italic font, and these also have
the indo-romanic spelling; for instance Upalā.
In the current MW72 digitization , all the text identified as being in indo-romanic spelling has been
converted to modern IAST.
Points of agreement between mw72's indo-romanic letters and modern IAST
Simple Vowels: a, ā, i, ī, u, ū,
All diphthongs: e, ai, o, au
Visarga: ḥ
Gutturals: k, kh, g, gh
Palatals: j, jh
All cerebrals: ṭ, ṭh, ḍ, ḍh, ṇ
All dentals: t, th, d, dh, n
All labials: p, ph, b, bh, m
All semivowels: y, r, l,
Note: ḷ and ḷh are also used for the vedic variants; these are not mentioned in our source for IAST
Sibilants : ś , s (palatal, dental) and 'h'
Points of difference between mw72's indo-romanic letters and modern IAST
Vowels: ṛi, ṛī, lṛi, lṛī used in text vs. modern IAST ṛ, ṝ, ḷ, ḹ
Anusvara: ṉ and ṃ used in text; modern form ṃ is used in digitization (except in the digitization of
the preface.
Gutturals : n-with-middle-dot (no unicode equivalent) used for modern ṅ :
Palatals: ć, ćh and ṅ in text, vs. modern c, ch, and ñ.
Sibilant: sh for cerebral sibilant, vs. modern ṣ.
misc comments:
º ((\u00ba) MASCULINE ORDINAL INDICATOR) that the rest of a word is to be supplied.
Perhaps should use ° (\u00b0) DEGREE SIGN, as in MW(1899). There is inconsistency across
dictionaries in this detail of the digitization.
MW72 does not use accents in Sanskrit words, although MW99 does
MW72 does not use the circumflex to indicate long vowels occurring via sandhi, as MW99 does.
MW72 IAST conventions
Monier-Williams provides a table of nāgarī letters with indo-romanic equivalents. He also writes an opinionated multi-page treatise Alphabet and System of Transliteration .
previous discussion
In conjunction with previous work on converting MW72 conventions to modern IAST in the Cologne digitizations, several issue comments have dealt with this dictionary's conventions:
Sanskrit words
*upalā*'Upalā.In the current MW72 digitization , all the text identified as being in indo-romanic spelling has been converted to modern IAST.
Points of agreement between mw72's indo-romanic letters and modern IAST
Points of difference between mw72's indo-romanic letters and modern IAST
shfor cerebral sibilant, vs. modern ṣ.misc comments: