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What's with Visarga and Anusvara? How are they different from ह and म/न?

Jan. 15, 2022

Author - manisar

Visarga ( ः), ह and ह् are indeed disparate in Sanskrit, and so are anusvara ( ं - ṃ), न, न्, म and म्.

Interest in Vedanta brings with it, howsoever little, an interest in Sanskrit.

And one having interest in Sanskrit is sure to get perplexed by these two super-fine concepts - of Visarga and Anusvara.

To one's surprise, both of these are vowels in Sanskrit!
But these are unlike other vowels in the sense that these are actually applied to other vowels (and not to consonants)!
So, these are special vowels - vowels which aid other vowels!
And, that's why they have only 1/2 matra (duration of pronunciation), whereas short vowels have 1 matra, and long vowels have 2 matras.

I assure you that once you get the hang of these, you will be amazed by how perfection-loving, peculiar and precise the rule-makers of Sanskrit were - no wonder it was called Sanskrit - the refined one!

Let's look at these one by one, in the end you will clearly see how connected these two ideas are.

You may jump to the TL; DR below.

Just keep these two things in mind regarding both of the visarga and anusvara:

  1. Both of these modify the vowel preceding them.
  2. These cannot be pronounced on their own - not, at least, like other vowels and consonants*.

Visarga ( ः) vs. ह and ह्

The first thing to note is that visarga (:) can not be pronounced like other consonants and vowels* in the fashion ह and ह्  can be. Visarga needs to be applied to a previous vowel to make it pronunceable.

  1. One way of looking at Visarga:
    1. Visarga is like a faint ह sound but which is partially merged into the previous letter.
    2. Think of these two words - thought and tahoe (with a soft t).
      In the first one, the sound of h has completely merged with t. We are simply aspirating t.
      In the second one, the sound of h is very distinct. We are not aspirating t or a, we are just using a distinct h sound.
      Visarga is exactly in between. Not completely merged with the consonant, but not distinct either - because it aspirates the vowel that the consonant has.
      Example - kutaḥ (कुतः). Try to bring the faint sound of h as close as possible to that of t, but without merging in it.

  2. Another way - BETTER:
    1. Another way to think of this is as if you have made a sigh of relief while pronouncing the last letter of the word!
    2. Just breathe out from your mouth in a relaxed way without making any explicit sound from your throat - that is the sound of Visarga (the sound of pure breath coming out from mouth) - there is no vibration in it, nor any contraction of throat muscles (which is there in both ह and ह्).

  3. So when, e.g. we are saying नमः (namaḥ), we are ending the word with one and a half vowels in succession - a and ḥ.
    Here ḥ is aspirating the previous vowel a. Similarly, we can have पतिः, गुरुः etc.
  4. Listen to the three pronunciations below I recorded for नमः, नमह and नमह् respectively.
    Pardon me for the background noise, and also for the dramatic out-of-breath effect in trying to pronounce नमः for the sake of providing extra clarity 😛!

  5. So, if you had this question, namaḥ cannot be written as नमह्. The latter would be namah (with a crisp h sound in the end).
नमः
नमह
नमह्

Anusvara ( ं - ṃ) vs. न, न्, म and म्

The following discussion is regarding the Sanskrit anusvara.
Anusvara in Hindi can sound in many different ways - scroll to Hindi! When you Borrow, Misuse, but then Improvise! for learning more.

A little bit of Theory

The name 'anusvara' is composed of two words - a prefix 'anu' and the main word 'svara'.
While the latter means a vowel, the former can have different meaning depending upon the context.
It can mean 'later', or 'following' and that is what is understood by most people trying to understand 'anusvara' - 'that following a vowel', or 'that (manipulating) the previous vowel'.
There is another meaning of 'anu' that I would want to use here - subordinate/inferior/smaller. That suggests that anusvara would be a smaller vowel.

So, like visarga, the anusvara is applied to the previous vowel (and not to other consonants).

So much for the theory.

Unlike other distinct nasal sounds such as न, न्, म and म् (and there are more - ङ, ञ and ण), the anusvara is merged with the previous vowel (the vowel applied to the letter below it) - there is absolutely no gap between that vowel and the nasal sound.

With anusvara, the nasal sound starts coming right at the end of the pronunciation of the letter below it (i.e. right after the pronunciation of the consonant + vowel below it).
So, again, this can be explained by the four stages of merging the nasal sound with the previous (or next) letter (just like in Visarga, we merged the h sound with the previous letter).

  1. Think of a fictitious word - sa-na-ka-la (सनकल) - each letter including the nasal n is distinctly sounded, with n sounding as it is does in 'miner'.
  2. sa-n-kal (सन्कल or सन्-कल). This time, there is no 'a' sound after n, n is half spoken, but is still distinct - as in 'banter'.
  3. sa-nkal (सङ्कल). Now, the sound of n is merged with the following letter, and hence modified. As in 'bangle'.
  4. san-kal (संकल). Though mostly (Hindi speaking) people pronounce it like 3. above, in this case, the 'n' sound is not merged with ल but with स (somewhat like Hindi's साँय-साँय but with more pronounced nasal sound)!

The fourth one above represents anusvara.

Though written like ṃ, anusvara has NOTHING to do with the sound of m or म!
Linguists should have come up with a different symbol for anusvara in English.
In fact, in most cases, anusvara sounds more like n than m.

Try to make the sound of n separately as it sounds in sing - just with your nose - do not add any effort from your throat, tongue or teeth - that is the sound of anusvara. Just like Visarga, it needs a another vowel before it for making itself pronounceable like other vowels and consonants*.

So, e.g. when we are saying अहं (ahaṃ), we are ending the word with one and a half vowels in succession - a and ṃ
Here ṃ is nasalizing the previous vowel a.

TL; DR

Think of the sound of the letter s (स्). Without any vowel, it is like the hissing sound.
In order to pronounce it properly:

  • You can add the vowel अ to it, and then it becomes स (sa). Any other usual vowels can be added as well.
    After adding any other vowel to स्, we can further add one of the two 1/2 matra vowels - the visarga (ḥ) or the anusvara (ṃ).

  • If you add the special vowel Visarga (ḥ) to स, it becomes स: (स ending with the sound of breath coming out of the mouth - a sigh of relief, kind of, and with no distinct ह sound).
    Adding visarga to a vowel is simply its aspiration - without any explicit sound of ह.
    Try observing the difference in pronouncing Aah! and Aaha! - the former would be written as आ: (as in पिता:), the latter as आहा.

  • If you add the special vowel Anusvara (ṃ) to it, it becomes सं - like the part 'sun' in 'sung' - with n even closer to s.
    Adding anusvara to a vowel is simply its nasalization (in the simplest possible way) - without any explicit sound of न or म (or of ङ, ञ, ण).
    And, if you try pronouncing anusvara suffixed to different vowels (which have been suffixed to consonants), you will find that the nasal sound is always the same - so there is no ambiguity, e.g. सं, पं, यं, कं, जं etc.

An Example Note on अहम्

The full proper word is अहम्.

Depending upon the word following it, according the rules of sandhi, म् generally changes in two steps as described below (when followed by a consonant):

  1. First, म् becomes the anusvara ,e.g. अहम्  गच्छामि becomes अहं गच्छामि.
    Here, the nasal sound is completely merged with the sound of ha. It would be written like ahaṃ, and will have no sound of m or n.

  2. Then, this anusvara changes to the nasal consonant of the class to which the following consonant belongs.
    Thus, when followed by कार, the anusvara (ं) changes to ङ्, and we get अहङ्कार - written in English like ahankaar, sounds like aha-nkaar (n sounding as it does in junk).
    The ha sound precedes, and is now completely separate from, the n sound of nk.

  3. Sometimes, the second rule is not applied, e.g. कृतम् च --> कृतं च.
    It's legal to apply 2. above, and make it कृतञ्च, but it is popularly left at कृतं च.

Finally, what the heck is Anunasika (ँ)?

This is my understanding and I may be wrong.

Anunasika, is simply anusvara without its (1/2) matra.
So, without any matra, anunasika cannot be used at most places except with the following:

  1. Standalone short vowels, e.g. अँ, इँ etc.
    In pronouncing these, just one total matra is enough.

  2. Long vowels - standalone or combined with consonants - आँ, महाँ-इन्द्र.
    Since we already have two matras, we can do without the half one at certain places.

  3. Ardha-swars (semi-vowels) - य, र, ल, व - यँ, लँ etc.
    Once again, one matra, coming from the vowel (अ above) suffixed to these semi-vowels, is sufficient enough.

  4. Not without a following consonant, e.g. पुँस्कामा.

Note that the first three above are mandatory - it's not even possible to use the anusvara at these places with its 1/2 matra. Anunasika is the only choice.

Fourth one is optional - both पुंस्कामा and पुँस्कामा are legitimate.

Summarlily, anunasika (ँ) is a milder/shorter version of anusvara.

*Cannot be pronounced like other consonants and vowels - what does it mean?
Of course, both visarga and anusvara have a sound of their own, but, you do not have much control over them, e.g. you cannot control their loudness which is possible for other consonants, even vowels.

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Hindi! When you Borrow, Misuse, but then Improvise!

The confusion Hindi speakers have with Anusvara (ं) roots in the following.

Hindi is an easy and forgiving language - quite like English - and that is one of the main reasons for its popularity.
One example where it tried to simplify things is this.
Try to pronounce these five words paying attention to the nasal sound:
कङ्गन
कञ्चन
कण्टक
कन्धा
कम्पन
You will note that the nasal sound in each of these is markedly different from others.
That's Ok, and that's why Sanskrit had different letters for each of such nasal sounds.

But wait, what if we change the nasal letter in a couple of them?
कङ्टक
कञ्धा

It's easy to see that it's very difficult to pronounce the nasal sounds differently (as compared to the pronunciation of their original spellings)!

Hindi saw this as an opportunity to simply things

What if we just have a common symbol for the nasal sounds in all of the words above, and let the reader decide how to pronounce it? It's not going to make any noticeable difference. So, that's what they did.

The only mistake - instead of using a distinct unambiguous symbol, they simply used the existing anusvara - ं! So, now these words become:
कंगन
कंचन
कंटक
कंधा
कंपन
So far so good - it's not stupid if it works, right?

This actually leads to some ambiguity - in Sanskrit अहंकार and अहङ्कार would be read differently - in the former, the ह is nasalized, in the latter, क is preceded with its corresponding nasal (ङ्), and ह is not nasalized at all! Try pronouncing these once this way 🙂.

But the difference is so subtle that Hindi chose to ignore it!

Similarly, what about those places where the anusvara is meant to do its Sanskrit-like-job - that of nasalizing the letter below it, instead of adding a nasal consonant after it?
Simple again - Hindi lets anusvara do that at those places! E.g. हंस.

After this, there remains one last bit - to take care of cases where we need a milder/shorter nasalization than what is provided by the anusvara usually.
There are definitely those cases out there, I'll show below.
So, Hindi borrowed another symbol from Sanskrit - the anunasika or the Chandra-bindi - the gorgeous ँ!

See below the need of the chandra-bindi by comparing the highlighted nasal couplets appearing in the following phrases:

वह हंस को देख के हँस पड़ी (ह in हँस has a milder nasalization, and so on below)
संवत् सँवर गया
साँप का सैंपल
साँसों में संदल की खुशबू
संध्या में हवा की साँय-साँय
हांडी को हाँजी
कूंड में कूँ-कूँ
पंख और पूँछ
In all of the above, the anunasika or chandra-bindi is doing what it did in Sanskrit - providing a milder form of nasalization.

So, that's the story.
Except, it's not over.
To further simply writing, Hindi uses one more convention.

If a chandra-bindi is needed for a letter that has a matra (मात्रा) over it, the convention is to simply use the anusvara, and read it like a chandra-bindi.

  • In both माँ and में, the nasalization is the same, but the latter is using the simple bindi where it should have used the chandra-bindi.
  • In both चाँद and चें-चें, the nasalization is the same, but again different symbols used.

Sometimes, the reader has to use their discretion, that's it - e.g.: मेंढकों में लड़ाई!

  • In मेंढकों, anusvara is doing its Hindi (altered) job - of making the word sound like मेण्ढकों.
  • In में, anusvara is doing it Sanskrit-like-job - of nasalizing मे, that too like the anunasika or chandra-bindi!

It's a small price to pay for simplicity, isn't it 🤔?

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