Re: Sanskrit romanization (was: Yellowblue (was Re: Quest for colours: what's basic then?))

I wrote:

"On that page, the following list is given for the romanization system: "a A
i I u U R RR lR lRR e ai o au M H k kh g gh G c ch j jh J T Th D Dh N t th d
dh n p ph b bh m y r l v z S s h". What phonemes do these letters and
digraphs represent? Why are capital letters used even if the lowercase
letters are still available?"

Javier wrote:

"I have checked it and all the capital letters there have lowercase
counterparts with a different value.

"Capital vowels are long. Capital R is syllabic and when doubled it is long.
The digraph lR and trigraph lRR stand for short and long syllabic l
respectively (this is based on how these syllabic l sounds are spelled in
devanagari: an l with the diacritic for syllabic r and long syllabic r
respectively; but I think a transliteration with capital L and double
capital L would work better).

"Capital M stands for the anusvara (nasalization), which is commonly
transcribed as m with dot below or above. Capital H for visarga (aspiration
after a vowel), commonly transcribed as h with dot below. Capital G and J
stand for the velar and palatal nasals. Capital T, D, N stand for the
retroflex plosives and nasal. The digraphs with h stand for the
corresponding aspirated consonants. c and ch stand for the voiceless palatal
plosives/affricates, similar to English ch. There must be some error or
omission, because I only find one capital S, which is supposed to stand for
an sh sound, but Sanskrit has two such sounds, a plain sh and a retroflex sh
(commonly transcribed as s with tilde and s with dot below)."

I find this system to be too much like X-Sampa, so I've invented my own
romanization scheme:

a aa i ii u uu r rr lr lrr e ai o au ~ ' k kh g gh ng c ch j jh ny t` th` d`
dh` n` t th d dh n p ph b bh m y r l v z x x` s h

(x` = retroflex sh)

What does the j represent? And isn't G an allophone of J, so it could be
represented as just ny? And is there r, or just R?

Trebor.

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