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Does anybody here have a devanagari font installed on their PC? I have two, but in neither can I find all the bits and pieces needed to recreate the maatras and conjuncts effectively. One font wil do some of them, the other will do some others, but the problem seems to be trying to squeeze a syllabary of around 200 characters onto a 101-key keyboard. Given that my efforts at writing Roman characters look like the footprints of a spider that had had one too many of whatever it is that spiders have on a night out, the ability to be able to produce legible script by means of my PC would be a great boon. So, if anybody has a Devanagari font, complete with keyboard map, that they could share, I would very grateful. Dhanyvad!
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old hand
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Hmmm...
For the maatras etc, I'd have thought a function or control key would be the best idea for the vowels, instead of trying to create an entire syllabary of every combination mof vowel and consonant. Ideally (but I haven't seen how these things works), you ought to need about 45 main characters, 25 or so extra conjunction signs (mainly vowels, but also nasals and r) and a few specialist signs. 200 seems a bit excessive. Could you tell me what the 200 or symbols you need are?
cheer
the sunshine warrior
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I don't need 200 ( at my level, I barely know what to do with 20!), but I can't figure out how to access even the basic maatras. I have been trying combinations of the CTRL and Alt keys, but so far I have been unable to add any of the "subscript" (for want of a better word) dependent vowel forms, the ones on the middle row in this screenshot - http://maxqnz.com/maatras.jpg. I have figured out many of the basic conjuncts, but a few that have already featured in my coursebooks are still eluding me, along with many of the maatras. It horrifies me that I'm actually going to have to learn to write this fiendish script, instead of just tapping it out on the keyboard!  
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Fiendish script? How can you say that about one of the most flexible, useful scripts extant? (It beats heck out of Roman for ability in just about any functional criterion you choose!)
My advice - ignore the bloomin' keyboard mapping and get started with writing it out yourself. It's not that difficult once you get started.
BTW, I went on a quest to look up Devanagari, and happened upon a fantastic resource - Hindi film song lyrics. (http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~navin/india/songs/) I can't think of a better way to get into it. Buy a few albums, download the lyrics (in Devanagari of course) and go through them together. I highly recommend Manna Dey's interpretation of Madhushaala. Not only do you get great music, but the poetry is the most renowned work by Harvansh Rai Bacchan, one of India's most distinguished 20c poets (and, incidentally, the father of Amitabh Bacchan, about the most famous actor in Hindi film history).
cheer
the sunshine "Hindi's not as bad as it looks" warrior
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Devanagari is everything you say it is, which is precisely why I am trying to learn it right from the outset of learning Hindi. Nevertheless, for my Roman-rutted neurons, it is a tad on the fiendish side.
Thanks for the URLs to the song lyrics, I shall definitely give that a go. I did the same thing with Italian, so I know it is an enjoyable way to learn.
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sjmaxq-- If you're going to write Hindi, a devanagri font and a keyboard are about all you'll need. With roughly 33 consonant glyphs and about 13 vowels, I count the combinations (maatraas) at over 400), but since most of these are simply the consonants and the vowels conjoined in a sytematic fashion, nothing special is needed. If you were going to write Sanskrit, though, you'll need about 200 extra compound consonant signs, and those are not quite as simple as the CV compounds. Ideally, you'd want to type words phonetically, unless you want to learn a new layout for a Hindi keyboard. You don't mention which OS you're using; probably Windows. If you're using Win2K or XP, you can go to the Control Panels > Regional Options; select the Indic checkbox; then under the Input Locales tab, select Hindi. (I found this on the web, and have used it for installing Japanese input systems, but I couldn't find a keyboard for Hindi, so you might have to install something extra from the OS CD-ROM.) The only way, I've been able to typeset Sanskrit has been to use a program called TeX (and some auxiliary programs designed for translating a Roman representation into Devanangri; see link below. I agree with shanks though that writing by hand is probably better at this point. It helps learning the characters more quickly. http://www.aczone.com/itrans/
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Fiendish script? How can you say that about one of the most flexible, useful scripts extant? (It beats heck out of Roman for ability in just about any functional criterion you choose!)
While I wouldn't call Devanagri a fiendish script. I think it's quite beautiful and easy to learn. I also don't see how it's any better or worse than other alphabetic or syllabic scripts (say Roman alphabet or Korean Hanggul).
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Thanks fore the replies, jheem. I actually am planning to learn to write devanagari. The reason I'm trying to get the keyboard mapping figured out is in order to be able to print the main characters nice and big on a template sheet for me to copy by hand. As to fiendish, that's really a personal thing, related to the presence of subtle curves and other fineries that are not easy for my clumsy, CP-impaired hands to get the hang of.
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You're welcome, sjmaxq. Actually, the reason I installed Japanese and Chinese input systems on my PC was to make nice flashcards, too. For devanagri, you can probably just use an existing Unicode font, like Code2000 (see link below), and just use the Character Map and something like Excel to make a grid. I've never seen one for devanagri, but I have seen online web apps that show the sequence for drawing Sino-Japanese characters stroke by stroke in traditional order. PM if you'd like to work on it. http://home.att.net/~jameskass/The best description I've read of devanagri was near the end of Hundred Years of Solitude where the lines in a MS written in Sanskrit are described as a clothesline hung with clothes drying.
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>For devanagri, you can probably just use an existing Unicode font, like Code2000 (see link below), and just use the Character Map and something like Excel to make a grid. Yep, that's what I'm planning. It is frustrating to have TWO devanagari fonts installed, including the one used on most Hindi-language webpages, and not know how to use them properly. I have, however, found a very good tutorial at http://www.avashy.com/hindiscripttutor.htm, so all is not lost.
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