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In our native languages, pronunciations of the words are different if we write it in normal English. For that reason, we have a different set of alphabet. Such writing helps us speak correct pronunciation. This specially happens in writing language like Sanskrit in English.

What do we call that English? Here is the example:

Sanskrit written in special English

Maulik V
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    From the title, I came here expecting a Morse code question... but this is much more interesting, in my opinion. – Ghotir Oct 31 '17 at 18:01
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    It's important to understand the difference between a language and a script. You're transcribing from Devanagari script to Latin script, but the language is still Sanskrit, not English. – wjandrea Nov 01 '17 at 04:45
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because while this is a good linguistics question, it is not about learning English. – user3169 Nov 01 '17 at 19:50
  • Transliteration#Difference_from_transcription –  Nov 01 '17 at 21:05
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    @user3169 it actually is on topic: OP is searching for an expression to describe the concept of „dots and dashes around letters“ in English (tag: word-request), not about linguistics. The rest is simply explaining the context of the question. That I (and others) have chosen to add some linguistic remarks is like some„extra background information“ I gave to round off my answer. The core question asks for the term diacritics, which I answer in the last sentence of my answer below. – Stephie Nov 02 '17 at 07:11
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    In addition to the answer (diacricic marks), you might have a specific name for the transliteration rules and letter/mark meanings. For example, I'm familiar with Chinese being written in “pinyin”, which is what I would ask for if I wanted a Latin character representation. Wade is a different one. – JDługosz Nov 02 '17 at 15:30

4 Answers4

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Technically, you are not writing “in English”, you are using a Latin script1 with diacritics2 to transcribe3 Sanskrit.

If you want a writer to use the “dots and dashes”, ask them to “use diacritic marks”.

1 the letters of the English and many other western languages
2 the dots and dashes
3 to write in another script

Community
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Stephie
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    Ad 1. Technically it's not "letters of English (...) language" but letters of Latin language reused later by English and many other languages;) – el.pescado - нет войне Oct 31 '17 at 12:33
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    @el.pescado that's what I said? I was referring to everyday use, not historic roots. – Stephie Oct 31 '17 at 13:04
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    @el.pescado It is the letters that are in use in the English written language, so even though it was appropriated for that use rather than originated there, in my opinion it's correct to say that the Latin script is "the letters of the English (...) language". The letters aren't owned by the English language, but they are used by it. – Arthur Oct 31 '17 at 13:12
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    Sometimes diacritics are (less accurately) referred to as "accents". I feel your average speaker would be more likely to understand that term than "diacritics" but I might be wrong. – Muzer Oct 31 '17 at 16:10
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    @Muzer: I'd only expect accents to cover á, à and â. This already doesn't include German umlauts like ä and other rather common diacritics like ñ or ç. That said, I'm from Germany and influenced by local customs, so YMMV (though I guess the situation would be similar in the UK/Ireland). – hoffmale Oct 31 '17 at 17:25
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    Of course the average (native) English speaker wouldn't understand what pronounciation was intended to be indicated by the diacritic marks. Speakers of other languages that are written in the Latin alphabet might, but the meanings could well be different for different languages. – jamesqf Oct 31 '17 at 17:59
  • @jamesqf The pronunciation indicated by letters even without any diacritics varies between languages (examples from Hungarian: Hungarian c is like English ts, s is like sh, j is like y as a consonant; and then there's the digraphs like sz, gy, cs). So no, speakers of any random non-Sanskrit language that uses the latin script with those diacritics probably can't pronounce Sanskrit much more reliably than an English speaker. – Ben Nov 01 '17 at 02:42
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    @hoffmale All the diacritics (including accents, umlaut, vergulilla, cedilla) change the sound and are thus generally covered by being called "accents" or "accent marks" in English. – Andrew Leach Nov 01 '17 at 09:17
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    @Arthur "English letters" or "the English alphabet" is used to refer to the particular use of Latin script (with such evolutions as the invention of W, the import and then dropping from use of Þ and so on) in English. That is not how Latin script is used with Sanskrit, so it would be the wrong term. – Jon Hanna Nov 01 '17 at 23:25
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    Why did you edit the answer to use "transcribe" rather than "transliterate"? "Transcribe" does not mean "to write in another script". – Will Nov 02 '17 at 12:14
  • Yes, should be "transliterate" rather than "transcribe". – G. Ann - SonarSource Team Nov 02 '17 at 13:57
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The process of converting the letters of one script into the letters of another is called "transliteration"

Definition of TRANSLITERATE

transliterated; transliterating

transitive verb

:to represent or spell in the characters of another alphabet

— transliteration [...] noun

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transliterate

Indeed the scheme used in your OP is called IAST (International Alphabet for Sanskrit Transliteration).

You should ask for a "transliteration" or a transliterated version.

Now, for sure, sarvasya chaahaN hridi ... is also a transliteration, but it's not an academic/scientific transliteration. Both of these words ('academic' and 'scientific') are used for precise, scholarly transliterations of Cyrillic and I see no reason why they cannot be used more generally. If you want a precise, scholarly transliteration, what you must really do is specify the scheme, which is more important. There is nothing inherently wrong with the Indian government-approved Hunterian transliteration which uses few diacritics, or Harvard-Kyoto which uses its own schemes with no diacritics at all, but also doesn't strive to reflect pronunciation closely. So what you must do is specify the transliteration scheme which you are using. For example, IAST will transliterate ए as e whereas ISO15919 will use ē. Both, however, will transliterate आ as ā. Many transliteration schemes use diacritics. You can ask for a transliteration with diacritics, but you must specify the scheme, because different schemes may use different diacritics or use diacritics for different purposes.

Au101
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These are called diacritical marks.

John O'K
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Writing foreign language in English alphabet is called Romanization because the letters we use are actually Latin.

Wilson
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    That doesn’t address the “dots and dashes” part which was the main part of the question. – Stephie Oct 31 '17 at 15:48