Avagraha

Avagraha (ऽ) is a symbol used to indicate prodelision of an अ a in many Nepali and Indian languages as shown below. It is usually transliterated with apostrophe in roman script, in case of Devanagari, as in the Sanskrit philosophical expression शिवोऽहम् Śivo’ham (Śivaḥ aham), which is a sandhi of (शिवः + अहम्) ‘I am Shiva’. The avagraha is also used for prolonging vowel sounds in some languages, for example Hindi माँऽऽऽ! for ‘Mãããã!’ when calling to one’s mother, or when transliterating foreign words in instant messaging: for example, 'cool' can be transliterated as कूऽल.

In case of Hindi, the character is also sometimes used as a symbol to denote long or heavy syllables, in metrical poetry. For example, the syllables in the word छंदः chandaḥ ‘metre’ (in nominative) can be denoted as "ऽ ऽ", meaning two long syllables. (Cf. other notations in entry "Systems of scansion".)