Visarga

Visarga (विसर्गः) means "sending forth, discharge". In Sanskrit phonology (), (also called, equivalently, by earlier grammarians) is the name of the voiceless glottal fricative, [h], written as 'ः'. Visarga is an allophone of /r/ and /s/ in pausa (at the end of an utterance). Since /-s/ is a common inflectional suffix (of nominative singular, second person singular, etc.), visarga appears frequently in Sanskrit texts. In the traditional order of Sanskrit sounds, visarga and anusvāra appear between vowels and stop consonants. The precise pronunciation of visarga in Vedic texts may vary between Śākhās. Some pronounce a slight echo of the preceding vowel after the aspiration: will be pronounced [ɐhɐ], and will be pronounced [ihi]. Visarga is not to be confused with colon. The visarga is commonly found in writing, resembling the punctuation mark of colon or as two tiny circles one above the other. This form is retained by most Indian scripts. According to Sanskrit phonologists, the visarga has two optional allophones, namely जिह्वामूलीय (jihvāmūlīya or the guttural visarga) and उपध्मानीय (upadhmānīya or the fricative visarga). The former may be pronounced before , , and the latter before , and , as in तव पितामहः कः (tava pitāmahaḥ kaḥ?, 'who is your grandfather?'), पक्षिणः खे उड्डयन्ते (pakṣiṇaḥ khe uḍḍayante, 'birds fly in the sky'), भोः पाहि (bhoḥ pāhi, 'sir, save me'), and तपःफलम् (tapaḥphalam, 'result of penances'). They were written with various symbols, e.g. X-like symbol vs sideways 3-like symbol above flipped sideways one, or both as two crescent-shaped semi-circles one above the other, facing the top and bottom respectively. Distinct signs for jihavamulīya and upadhmanīya exists in Kannada, Tibetan, Sharada, Brahmi and Lantsa scripts. In the Burmese script, the visarga (variously called shay ga pauk, wizza nalone pauk, or shay zi and represented with two dots to the right of the letter as ◌း), when used with joined to a letter, creates the high tone. Siddhaṃ script Motoori Norinaga invented a mark for visarga which he used in a book about Indian orthography.