Maharashtra govt changes standardised way of writing two letters in Marathi Devanagari script

Marathi is currently written in the Balbodh version of Devanagari script, which consists of 36 consonants and 16 initial-vowels. Over the last few years, however, certain words in Marathi were being written using letters from the Hindi Devnagiri script.

In accordance with an expert committee’s recommendations, a new set of directives have been issued in regard to letters, vowels, punctuation and vowel markers, which will now be standardised practice.

The committee recommended addition of a few punctuation marks and other signs in Marathi Devanagari script, such as ‘Chandrabindu’ – a symbol used to indicate nasal pronunciation of a vowel. Further, the committee has recommended some conventions about definite space to be kept before/or after punctuation marks.

An official said, “Until now, there were two ways of writing these two letters due to the prevailing practice, which was the result of integration of Devanagari script used in different languages around 1965. Owing to limitations in technology available at that time, especially for typing on typewriters, an integrated format was introduced aiming at convenience. This is why many Marathi Devanagari font used in computers do not include the original Marathi script format of writing these two letters.”

Scholar Sadanand More, also chairman of Maharashtra State Board of Literature and Culture, said: “I am not sure about the letter ‘Sha’, as the now declared standard font is almost extinct.”

The changes will be applicable to all textbooks too.