Dear Alex

Yours is a very interesting and thought-provoking suggestion that has
compelled me to comment.
You wrote:

> >From my arm-chair research, the niggahiita seems weakly defined as
> muddhaja, cerebral, retroflex. If this is the case, it seems logical
> that the m would have a dot below (.m) rather than above (^m) in line
> with other cerebrals (.d .t .n .l)

This statement is different from what we have understood. Niggahita is
what we call a "pure nasal" in contrast wtih "mixed nasals" such as "n",
which is a dental-nasal or "m", a labial-nasal, etc..

> Perhaps someone can be more definitive.
>
> Devanagari has two nasal markers. As I understand it, a dot above
> (anusvara) indicates a nasal consonant (hense ^n). However, a cresent
> with a dot above (anunasika or candrabindu [moon dot]) indicates a
> nasal vowel. Confusingly enough, when a devanagari character already
> has a diacritic above, a single dot is often used simply to minimize
> clutter.

These two markers are used in Sanskrit (See Kale - 5 and Whitney - 72)
but both of them seem not able to differentiate the usage of them.

> The brahmi script (according to the only chart recycled all over the
> internet) and some southeast asian scripts (such as Thai and Lao) have
> a dot (or small circle) above which produces something like (if not
> precisely) a niggahita. For example: daM (black) gaM (hold).

Burmese script also uses a dot.

> Unicode provides us with many diacritics to play with (breve, tildes,
> dots above and below). The a,A even has a combination breve
> (cresent)above and a dot below, but this is not available with most
> other vowels.
>
> However, instead of an M with a dot above or below, why do we use an M
> at all? It is never by itself. It can not be pronounced without a
> vowel, and confuses first-time readers.

Yes, a niggahita is never by itself, but other consonants can't stand by
themselves too. Pali consonants not accompanied by corresponding vowels
cannot be pronounced clearly, just like English accent sounds, e.g., the
"s" sound of "this".. In classic Pali grammars, niggahita is viewed as a
kind of consonant. Its main difference from others is that others are
followed by the vowels that they depend on while niggahita "follows" the
vowel that it depends on., e.g., in "ga.m", both "g" and ".m"
(niggahita) depend on "a".

> Perhaps, it is more logical to drop the M and place a dot below the
> vowel (.a .i .u). Conveniently,these vowels are all found in Unicode
> Latin Extended Additional range
> U+1E00 - U+1EFF.
>
> ah.a keva.t.tagaamasm.i ah.u keva.t.tadaarako.
> vs.
> aha.m keva.t.tagaamasmi.m ahu.m keva.t.tadaarako.

An ingenious idea, Alex. But I would like to object to it based on my
own experience.

In Burmese script, not only niggahita is written as an upper dot but
also the following consonant of each conjunct consonant is written in a
form different from that of a single letter. For instance, "ky" is
written by putting a certain sign under "k" instead of placing "y" after
"k". In such a situation, Pali teachers have a job of explaining that
"ky" is not a separate consonant but only "k" and "y" doubled into one.
Just imagine all possible conjuncts in Pali to be explained whenever
they are met! This is a case where Roman script is clearly superior to
the Burmese (I don't know about other south-east Asian scripts)

If we write niggahita by putting dots under vowels, these vowels would
appear like separate letters that require explanation by a teacher. It
would become more of a burden than of use. Therefore, I believe the
present system is still the best.

with metta

Ven. Pandita