Typing in Newar

I learned how to type in Newar! Dipak Tuladhar taught me. No more studying long tables to find a match and copy-pasting. No more Google Lens to grab the character. Typing any letter, like a boss, even ones with ligatures (which are apparently called half-letters).

The easiest way to type on a computer is with Nepali Unicode Romanized keyboard:

Install Nepali Romanized as a keyboard layout. Download it here.

Here is the layout:

This image seems mostly to match what I get with Nepali Romanized keyboard activated, with some small exceptions (c and shift-c are switched).

On iPhone, one option is Hamro Keyboard (annoying though because it’s hard to switch out of).

The nasal diacritics are made with capital V and capital M, respectively:

• Chandrabindu: V, as in छेँ – typed `CeV’
• Anusvara: M, e.g सकसितं – typed `sksitM’.

For Newari, the convention (I believe) is to use the chandrabindu (the crescent-shaped nasal) for nasalized short vowels and the anusavara (which looks like a dot) for nasalized long vowels. In the case that the nasalized long vowel is `a’, the explicit vowel sign is optional (?).

You can make ligatures using /.
There are three ligatures that are special for Newari, not found in the Nepali alphabet:

• ल्ह – l/h
• म्ह – m/h
• न्ह – n/h

The visarga is not the same as the colon. The visarga is typed using | (above backlash).

You can use Control+space to switch between keyboards on a Mac.

Certain distinctions are not made in Newari (or Magar) even though they are made in Nepali (no retroflex consonants):

• • त ट
  • थ ठ
  • द ड
  • ढ ध
  • न ण

The latter members of each pair are not part of the Newari alphabet.

Dipak was the only speaker I talked to who knew this typing method. Lucky that I encountered him early in the process!