Visarga

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Visarga (Sanskrit: विसर्ग, romanized: visarga, lit. 'sending forth, discharge'), in Sanskrit phonology (śikṣā), is the name of the voiceless glottal fricative, [h], written as 'ः'. It was also called, equivalently, visarjanīya by earlier grammarians.

Visarga is an allophone of /r/ and /s/ in pausa (at the end of an utterance). Since /-s/ is a common inflectional suffix (of nominative singular, second person singular, etc.), visarga appears frequently in Sanskrit texts. In the traditional order of Sanskrit sounds, visarga and anusvāra appear between vowels and stop consonants.

The precise pronunciation of visarga in Vedic texts may vary between Śākhās. Some pronounce a slight echo of the preceding vowel after the aspiration: aḥ will be pronounced [ɐhᵄ], and iḥ will be pronounced [ihⁱ]. Visarga is not to be confused with colon.