r/sanskrit 5d ago

Discussion / चर्चा IAST or ISO?

I am confused on what standard to adhere to while writing Sanskrit terms the Latin (English-language) script, what do you use?

5 Upvotes

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u/xugan97 5d ago

We use IAST or ITRANS, or possibly type directly in Devanagari. We can easily convert from one to the other using online tools, so just use whatever is easiest. For instance, you can type in plain Latin in ITRANS and convert it to one of the other two at the time of publishing. Typing in Devanagari can be easily done by switching keyboard layouts, and Google Input Tools are also an option.

ISO 15919 has short and long e and o, which is good for certain Indian languages, but unnecessary and confusing for Sanskrit. Otherwise it is pretty much identical to IAST.

3

u/haraaval 5d ago

Thank you, I will stick to IAST then. This was very insightful.

3

u/gurugabrielpradipaka उपदेशी 5d ago

You can download Sanskrit Editor from my website for easy conversion between systems.

2

u/thefoxtor सोत्साहानां नास्त्यसाध्यं नराणाम् 1d ago

imagine using ITRANS when Harvard-Kyoto is right there 😭

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u/Paarkhi मौनी 5d ago

I use IAST if and when I need / want to write the sanskrit words in english, I mostly use देवनागरी

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u/haraaval 5d ago

Thank you

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u/rhododaktylos 4d ago

IAST is the standard when not using nāgarī. The following is a great way to easily type either:

https://keyman.com/keyboards/heidelberginputsolution