Compound and Separate Spelling in Devanāgarī and Transliteration

Separate spelling and compound spelling

According to the Sandhi rules described here, vowels as final sounds merge with the following word to form one single word. In Devanāgarī script, they are therefore written together.

It is only since the 19th century that separate spelling has been used in cases where we are not dealing with compound words and where a vowel remains as a final sound that does not merge with the following word and thus does not contain the initial sound of the following word. This means that separate spelling results from:

• a dissolution of the umlaut in front of a vowel (4)
• an unchanged vowel in front of a consonant (5)
• an unchanged "ī"/"ū" or "e" from dual forms (exception)

In phonetic script, an additional spelling with a hyphen has become established for:

• compound words which would be spelled separately according to the above rule,
• optionally: when the initial sound of the added word is not changed according to one of the Sandhi rules. Also applies to the formation of consonants with i, ī, u, ū, r̥, r̥̄, l̥, l̥̄ as final sounds (3).

Identical vowels - lengthening

Two identical vowels melt to form one single long vowel (spelled together).