Bengali/Script/Symbols 1

Modifiers and others
ঃ -h and ং -ng are also often used as abbreviation marks in Bengali, with ং -ng used when the next sound following the abbreviation would be a nasal sound, and ঃ -h otherwise. For example, ডঃ ḍôh stands for ডক্টর ḍôkṭor "doctor" and নং nông stands for নম্বর nômbor "number". Some abbreviations have no marking at all, as in ঢাবি ḍhabi for ঢাকা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয় Ḍhaka Bishshobiddalôe "Dhaka University". The full stop can also be used when writing out English letters as initials, such as ই.ইউ. i iu "E.U.".

The jôphôla is sometimes used as a diacritic to indicate non-Bengali vowels of various kinds in transliterated foreign words. For example, the schwa is indicated by a jôphôla, the French u and the German umlaut ü as উ্য, the German umlaut ö as ও্য or এ্য, etc.

The apostrophe, known in Bengali as ঊর্ধ্বকমা urdhokôma "upper comma", is sometimes used to distinguish between homographs, as in পাটা paţa "plank" and পা'টা paţa "the leg". Sometimes a hyphen is used for the same purpose (as in পা-টা, an alternative of পা'টা).