RIT Manual

(This document is copied from Telugu literary home page)

This file describes the transliteration scheme.
For details on invoking RIT read the file invoking rit This file
describes only the transliteration scheme.


RIT lets you type in roman characters and outputs a postscript file
which can contain Telugu and English characters. It uses the
character # to switch between Telugu and English modes. For example,

maaku ee rOju #school# lEdu

Here is the transliteration scheme:

a
aa A a'
i
ea ee ii I i' ia
u
uu oo U u' ua
R
~l
~L
e
ae E e'
ai ei
o
oa oe O o'
ou au ow


k
kh kH Kh KH K
g
gh gH Gh GH G
~m
c ch
C Ch CH c'
j z
jh jH Jh JH J
~n
T t'
Th th'
D d'
Dh DH dh' dH'
N n'
t
th
d
dh
n n&
p
ph pH Ph PH f P
b
bh bH Bh BH B
m m&
y
r
l
v w V W
s' S
sh sH Sh SH
s
h H
L l'
ksh x
~r r''


^ pollu
| poem mode




n m followed by kKgGcCjJTDtdpPbBlLsShHv sunna
m' ma-pollu
n' na-pollu


@M @m arasunna
@h visarga
@n @N nakarapollu
@2 avagraha


Each line above represents exactly one telugu character.
They are listed in the order normally written in Telugu.
Alternate spellings are separated by a blank.

For example, ottu pha has six alternates:

ph pH Ph PH f P

Special attention needs to be paid to the following.

sunna generation

RIT doesn't have any special letter for sunna. Instead, when
'n' or 'm' is followed by a consonant except 'r' or 'y' RIT assumes
it to be a sunna. However, this rule doesn't work in all the cases.
Sometimes, you want to prevent a sunna generation when 'n' or 'm' is
followed by a consonant. For example, RIT would generate a sunna after
'a' if you write 'anvayamu'. What you want instead is a 'na' with a 'va'
ottu. You can prevent a sunna generation by writing 'n&' or 'm&'.
The correct spelling is 'an&vayamu' instead of 'anvayamu'.

pollu

If the last letter in a word ends in a consonant, RIT automatically supplies
a pollu. For example, consider writing the English word 'color' in Telugu.
You might write it as 'kalar' or 'kalaru'. In 'kalar' the last consonant
'r' doesn't have a vowel associated. In this case RIT automatically
supplies a pollu to 'r'.

Sometimes you need a pollu in the middle of a word, usually when writing an
English or Hindi word in Telugu. For example consider writing the word
'lifeless' in Telugu. If you write it as 'laifles' RIT would think you want
a 'fe' with a 'la' ottu. To prevent that you can write it as 'laif^les'.

Special Symbols

I hope it is quite clear from the above table how to genearate arasunna,
visarga, nakarapollu, and avagaha from the above table. Avagraha is necessary
only when writing Sanskrit text in Telugu.

Poem Mode

The normal mode for RIT is prose, i.e. it automatically concatenates lines into
paragraphs. However when you type a poem you don't want to merge separate lines
into one paragraph. For handling this RIT has a mode called poem mode. You can
enter poem mode by typing a vertical bar |. You can end the poem mode by typing
the same vertical bar.