Wikipedia:Indic transliteration

All transliteration should be from the written form in the original script of the original language of the name or term. The original text in the original script may also be included for reference and checking.

The formal transliteration may be used to accurately and unambiguously present the phonetic content of the original script. It should be provided for reference whenever reference to the original source is needed.

The scheme is based on ISO 15919 for Indic scripts. This is very close to IAST with minor differences to accommodate non-Devanagari scripts. The differences are:

When the source script does not indicate the removal of the inherent 'a' and it is not pronounced in the original source language, such unpronounced 'a's are removed.

In certain instances, the inherent vowel is not pronounced. The rules for such differ among languages. In some instances, the removal of an inherent vowel is explicitly marked by the presence of a virama.

Vowels are presented in their independent form on the left of each column, and combined with the corresponding consonant ka on the right. An asterisk indicates that the letter or ligature exists, but has not been encoded in unicode or is archaic/obsolete.

See also Brahmic family#Consonants.

Punjabi is rather unique for an Indo-European language in that tones are a prominent feature of speech. As such, the IPA conversion is not accurate for Punjabi. Fortunately, there is a direct correlation between certain aspirated consonants and use of subscript /ha/ to represent different tones.

The consonants that are employed for voiced aspirates in other Indian languages are not prounced as such in Punjabi. In Punjabi these consonants are used to mark changes in tone. The table below indicates how each consonant is pronounced based on its position within a word.

At the beginning or middle of a word, a voiced aspirate indicates a low tone on the following vowel. Examples:

At the end of the word (stem-final), the voiced aspirates indicates a high tone on the preceding vowel. Examples:

At the beginning of a word, ਹ indicates [ha].

In the middle or at the end of a word, ha indicates a high tone on the preceding vowel. Examples:

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