An "anusvaram" ( "anusvāram"), or an "anusvara," originally denoted the nasalization where the preceding vowel was changed into a nasalized vowel, and hence is traditionally treated as a kind of vowel sign. In Malayalam, however, it simply represents a consonant after a vowel, though this may be assimilated to another nasal consonant. It is a special consonant letter, different from a "normal" consonant letter, in that it is never followed by an inherent vowel or another vowel. In general, an "anusvara" at the end of a word in an Indian language is transliterated as "ṁ" in ISO 15919, but a Malayalam "anusvara" at the end of a word is transliterated as "m" without a dot.