Chandrabindu
| ँ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 (ఁ), and Javanese (ꦀ) scripts.
It usually means that the previous vowel is nasalized. It is represented in Unicode as U+0901 in Devanagari, U+0981 in Bengali, U+0A81 in Gujarati, U+0B01 in Oriya, U+0C01 in Telugu and U+A980 in Javanese. 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.
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.
It should not be confused with another symbol, the fermata, which looks like an upside-down chandrabindu; it is an element of musical notation.