virama
Noun
Meaning
A sign which serves the same purpose in any writing system.
A diacritic used in most writing systems of the Indian subcontinent to signify the lack of an inherent vowel.
Source: en.wiktionary.orgSynonyms
Anagrams
Examples
In other Indic scripts, it is generally preferred to use a ligature or a half form to write a syllable or a cluster containing a dead consonant, although writing it with a visible virama is also possible.
Most other conjunct consonants are made with an explicit virama, called al-lakuna or hal kirīma, and the zero-width joiner as shown in the following table, some of which may not display correctly due to limitations of your system.
The inherent vowel can be removed by a special virama diacritic, the hal kirīma ( ), which has two shapes depending on which consonant it attaches to.
Consonantal finals are indicated with a virama ( main), as in Burmese.
That is, the vowel diacritic and virama are both written after the consonants for the whole syllable.
The Indic virama ( etc.) and the Arabic sukūn ( ــ ) mark the absence of a vowel.