These changes have facilitated the use of the Kannada script for writing many of the literary Indic languages, including Sanskrit. Vowel letters There are thirteen (fourteen if the obsolete vowel ೠ is included) vowel letters ( svara). When a vowel follows a consonant, it is written with a diacritic rather than as a separate letter. Yōgavāha The Yōgavāha (part-vowel, part consonant) include two letters: The anusvara: (aṁ) The visarga: (aḥ) Another two Yōgavāha used in Sanskrit, but present in Kannada script, are known as Ardhavisarga: The Jihvamuliya: The Upadhmaniya: Consonant letters Two categories of consonant letters ( vyan̄jana) are defined in Kannada: the structured consonants and the unstructured consonants. Structured consonants The structured consonants are classified according to where the tongue touches the palate of the mouth and are classified accordingly into five structured groups. These consonants are shown here with their ISO transcriptions. Unstructured consonants The unstructured consonants are consonants that do not fall into any of the above structures: (ya), (ra), (ṟa; obsolete), (la), (va), (śa), (ṣa), (sa), (ha), (), (ḻ; obsolete). Consonant conjuncts The Kannada script is rich in conjunct consonant clusters, with most consonants having a standard subjoined form and few true ligature clusters. A table of consonant conjuncts follows although the forms of individual conjuncts may differ according to the font. Consonant conjuncts with ರ (ra) Of special note is the sequence concerning the letter (ra). Unlike other letters, the conjunct form is written second even if it is pronounced first in the sequence. For example, the /rnaː/ in the word Karnāṭaka (ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ) is written ರ್ನಾ rather than ರ‍್ನಾ. Consonant conjuncts with nasal consonants The nasal consonants (ṅa), (ña), (ṇa), (na), and (ma) are usually written as an anusvara when preceding another consonant rather than a consonant conjunct. For example, the /ŋg/ in the word Beṅgaḷūru (ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು) is usually written rather than (ಬೆಙ್ಗಳೂರು). Obsolete Kannada letters Kannada literary works employed the letters (transliterated '' or 'rh') and (transliterated '', 'lh' or 'zh'), whose manner of articulation most plausibly could be akin to those in present-day Malayalam and Tamil. The letters dropped out of use in the 12th and 18th centuries, respectively. Later Kannada works replaced 'rh' and 'lh' with (ra) and (la) respectively. It is still used to write the Badaga language and a vowel + virama + ḻ is used to transcribe its retroflex vowels. Another letter (or unclassified vyanjana (consonant)) that has become