नऽवऽपาलइइ (Navapali)

Demo

देवनागरी:

नमस्ते, मेरो नाम आयुष झा हो।

नवपाली:

नऽमऽसतए, मएरo नาम าयउष जहา हo.

why navapali?

Devanagari is the writing system of preference for many south-asian languages. It is a very old language, and as anything old, suffers from alot of legacy bloat. Navapali is a bloat-free modern take on Devanagari that simplifies the writing system for use on computers.

There are four reasons for creating a new writing system for devanagari based languages,

1. Devanagari is not well-suited for computers
2. Need for a fresh start - throw away the baggage

Navapali alphabet

Navapali	Devanagari	Navapali	Devanagari	Navapali	Devanagari
क	क्	ग	ग्	ङ	ङ्
च	च्	ज	ज्	ञ	ञ्
त	त्	द	द्	न	न्
ट	ट्	ड	ड्	ण	ण्
प	प्	ब	ब्	म	म्
य	य्	र	र्	ल	ल्
व	व्	स	स्	श	श्
ष	ष्	ह	ह्

Navapali	Devanagari	Navapali	Devanagari	Navapali	Devanagari
ऽ	अ	า	आ	इ	इ
उ	उ	ए	ए	o	ओ

Navapali premier

Navapali is based on the following rules;

• no fixtures
• easily convertable to Devanagari
• less keystrokes to type than in devanagari
• most keys fit on a qwerty keyboard without using modifiers
• easy to learn from scratch

Major differences from Devanagari

You can think of a letter as the atomic component of a writing system. This means a letter cannot be broken down into smaller pieces. But Devanagari has many letters, commonly called "sanyukt" letters that can be further broken down. An example is क्ष = क् + श This is fine because unicode lets you add letters to repre- sent common letters. But there are other two types of letters that can

1. Type 1: Letters without halanta

   Most letters in the unicode devanagari block are technically sanyukt. Take क for example. क = क् + अ but the unicode standard treats it like a single letter. This is an issue, but the reason is understandable. Halanta is explicit when writing, and you use the full-letter form most of the time anyway. But, while the reasoning is understandable, in hindsight, it is an issue. Computers are a different medium, and typing is very different than writing on paper.

2. Type 2: The Gadho letter

   These are letters that are very similar to their origin letter - except they have a ह added to them. For example, ख = क् + ह. There are many such letters in Devanagari

   Gadho Letter	Composition
   घ	ग् + ह
   छ	च् + ह
   झ	ज् + ह
   फ	प् + ह
   भ	ब् + ह

   There are many letters like these, that can be reduced to their atomic form. Navapali does this.

Default to halanta

When typing in devanagari, you have to explicitly write ् to denote halanta. While this makes sense when writing on paper, it is cumbersome when typing. Navapali assumes halanta by default.

tl;dr - क is क् in Navapali

Use alternate letters for some "noisy" letters

Some devanagari letters are noisy. By that, I mean they take too many strokes to write, and make the writing look more complicated than it should be.

So, to make the written text look more eligent and clean, we substitute these noisy letters with the following,

Devanagari Letter	Replacement letter in Navapali
अ	ऽ
ओ	o
आ	า

These simple substitutions reduce bloat from the text, and make it look eligent.

Dealing with sanyukt letters

Unlike Devanagari, Navapali does not support sanyukt letters. This decision means that navapali is not a CTL anymore, meaning it can render properly on terminals, and other dumb displays without the need for complex typesetting rules. On the other hand, not having sanyukt letters means having lengthly words that appear shorter in Devanagari. A simple example of this is

The word क्रम (meaning: sequence) can be written in Navapali as करऽम. Notice how the number of characters appears to double, from two in Devanagari to four in Navapali. This verbosity is the result of not reducing sanyukt letters. This is worse for certain words, like उकाली ओराली = उकาलइइ oरาलइइ. There is alot more happening in the Navapali transliteration, compared to the devanagari form.

1. So why are we making things verbose?

   To explain this, lets imagine a keyboard. This keyboard as a cursor that can go backwards or forwards. Here are the rules for the cursor,

   1. [FWD] When a key is pressed, it is printed at the cursor. The cursor then moves one step forward.
   2. [BWD] The backspace key moves the cursor one step back.

   Now let's take an example text in Devanagari.

   निशिको बेला, चल्छु अकेला,
   मिरमिर सडककिनार
   

   Lets see how the keyboard cursor would have to move to type this out in devanagari,

   न *BKSPC* ि *SHIFT* स *BKSPC* ि क *BKSPC* ो , _SPC_

   च *SHIFT* ल *SHIFT* च *BKSPC* ु *SPC* अ क *BKSPC* े ल *BKSPC* ा ,

   <NEWLINE>

   म *BKSPC* ि र म *BKSPC* ि र _SPC_ स ड क क *BKSPC* ि न *BKSPC* ा र

   Now lets look at the same thing in Navapali,

   न इ श इ क o *SPC* ब ए ल า , च ऽ ल च ह उ *SPC* ऽ क ए ल า ,

   <NEWLINE>

   म इ र म इ र *SPC* स ऽ ड ऽ क क इ न า र

   Notice how there are many modifier keys being used in devanagari, whereas the Navapali version does not use any modifiers at all. It looks alot cleaner than it's devanagari counterpart.

   Since the keyboard has a limited number of "slots" for keys, compromising consiceness for fewer keys has alot of benifits. When writing on paper, the number of letters in the alphabet is only limited by the memorization capability of the writer. On a computer, there is a physical limitation - the keyboard.

Example translation

Take the first verse from Diwas Gurung's hit song - Kati baschau maiti kai kausi ma,

Devanagari	Navapali
हे…	हए…
कति बस्छौ माईतीकै कौशीमा हौ,	कऽतइ बऽसचहऽउ मาइइतइइकऽइ कऽउશइइमา हऽउ,
माईतीकै कौशीमा	मาइइतइइकऽइ कऽउशइइमา
लाग्छ आँखा पाकेको लौसिमा	लาगचहऽ าनकहऽ पาकएकo लऽउसइमา
मैले के गरौ,	मऽइलए कए गऽरऽउ,
तिमी आउछौ कि अर्कै बिहे गरौ	तइमइइ าउचहऽउ कइ ऽरकऽइ बइहए गऽरऽउ
तिमी आउछौ कि अर्कै बिहे गरौ	तइमइइ าडचहऽउ कइ ऽरकऽइ बइहए गऽरऽउ

1. There are no fixtures here. They are replaced with letters instead.
2. Navapali looks more verbose (intentionally) than devanagari.