just a quick, simple question. and one that has been baffling me for a few years now....

why is it, that when an english word with "a" as the second letter is written in devanagari script, the first letter is an adha letter followed by a "ya"?!
examples- dhaulagiri "kyaset" center, color "lyab", fast food "kyafe", "kyampas"....

sorry for the silly, petty question. it's nothing urgent or profound. i just don't get it....why the "y"?!

Palpali it's very simple. Ever tried writing CAT, RAT, MAT, FAT, BAT in Nepali?

If not please do so and you realize that the "a" sound in the above words does not exist in Nepali/hindi. Therefore you will have to resort to writing in Nepali as

kyat, ryat, myat, fyat, byat :)

thanks for the answer....that's kind of what i figured, but with the "ya" in there, it looks kind of funny when it's then romanized....

thank you again for your fyast response.... (;-D)