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How to typeset the short vowel, the long vowel, and the pause symbols used in Sanskrit/Marathi metres?

TeX - LaTeX Asked by Kedar Mhaswade on July 1, 2021

Sanskrit, and one of its derivatives, Marathi, have a rich literary history of various poetic metres. Like several other languages, they have notations for the short vowel, the long vowel, and the pause to annotate the lines of a metrical poem that aids its recitation. See below for an example in which the short vowels are shown (for clarity) in red squares, long vowels in green squares, and pauses in blue squares. Such an annotation, which is simply a sequence of these symbols, could be placed above or below the text. In the example shown, the annotation is placed above the text.

I see a metre package in CTAN that has some similarities (e.g. Ties) with the symbols I am looking for, but they are not the same.

Has anyone attempted to standardize these for Sanskrit in LaTeX? If not, how may one go about it? I am not yet too well-versed with the development of a package.

A Print Example

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One Answer

Short and long are in metre package (it uses OT1 encoding, though). A pause could be added, with more or less work according to which font/glyph it should be.

The much more recent metrix package also has long and short. It is built on TikZ and has many commands, settings and options.

example packages

MWE

documentclass[12pt]{article}
usepackage[table]{xcolor}
usepackage{fontspec}
usepackage{metre}
usepackage{metrix}


setmainfont{Noto Serif}
newfontfacefdeva{Noto Sans Devanagari}[Script=Devanagari,Renderer=HarfBuzz]

tikzset{
every metrix syllable node/.append style={font=fdeva},
}
begin{document}

begin{tabular}{ll}
rowcolor{blue!5}
bfseries Package & bfseries Example 
hline
 & fdeva दयानिधी 
 & 
metre & fdeva begin{metrica} -द={या}-{नि}={धी} end{metrica}
& 
metrix & metrics[2+4={colored highlight}]{u _ u _ }{द-या-नि-धी} 
metrix & 
tikzset{every superscript picture/.style={
baseline=1ex,
}}
setmetrixvar{symbolshift}{-0.6em} 
metrics[2=colored highlight,4={colored highlight,superscript=^^^^030b}]{u _ u _ }{द-या-नि-धी} 
& 
 hline
end{tabular}



end{document}

metrix has a pause (a , input produces |) but is ignored at the end of strings (for obvious reasons), so the one word example is not long enough.


Addendum

Glyph U+030B (combining double acute accent), raised or lowered as appropriate, could function as a placeholder for the pausemark, until a standard one is designed.

placeholder pausemark

MWE

documentclass[12pt]{article}
usepackage[table]{xcolor}
usepackage{fontspec}
usepackage{metre}
usepackage{metrix}


setmainfont{Noto Serif}
newfontfacefdeva{Noto Sans Devanagari}[Script=Devanagari,Renderer=HarfBuzz]

newcommandpausemark{lower2.3emhbox{^^^^030b}}
tikzset{
every metrix syllable node/.append style={font=fdeva},
}
begin{document}

begin{tabular}{ll}
rowcolor{blue!5}
bfseries Package & bfseries Example 
hline
 & fdeva दयानिधी 
 & 
metre & fdeva begin{metrica} -द={या}-{नि}={धी} end{metrica}
& 
metrix & metrics[2=colored highlight,4={colored highlight,superscript={pausemark}},9={superscript={pausemark}}]{u _ u _ u u u u _}{द-या-नि-धी ल-ल ल-ल-ला} 
metrix & 
tikzset{every superscript picture/.style={
baseline=1ex,
}}
setmetrixvar{symbolshift}{-0.6em} 
metrics[2=colored highlight,4={colored highlight,superscript=^^^^030b}]{u _ u _ }{द-या-नि-धी} 
& 
 hline
end{tabular}



end{document}

Correct answer by Cicada on July 1, 2021

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