I have removed portions that I am not responding to:

Harry Spier wrote:

 
2)Also regarding the ISO draft transliteration standard I'm wondering about
the rational of having the three nasalization indicators (anusvara,
candrabindu and modern nasalization := tilde).
SKIP...
  Would it be completely unambiguous to use chandrabindu for transliterated
vowel nasalization and anusvara for consonent nasalization and thus
eliminating the need for the third nasalization symbol the tilde? Isn't the
ISCII document indicating that the real symbol for vowel nasalization is
chandrabindu and that when anusvara is used for this it is a mere
convenience.  Also how long has the tilde been in use as a nasalization
symbol?
 
The pronunciation of the nasalized word and one with anusvara can be different and hence it is nt appropriate to use just one symbol.  The example cited by Harry Spier
Hindi example ha&sa (laugh), haMsa (Swan)." [& represents chandrabindu and M represents anusvara]
illustrate this as well. I have not seen the modern tilde used, so it must be fairly new!

Of course, most of these are discussions about Hindi/Marathi. We have had detailed discussion about the Sanskrit story!

 
3) I've come across an explicit transliteration standard for mute "a" in
Hindi words.  In "Kabir Legends and Ananta-Das's Kabir Parachai, SUNY press
by David N. Lorenzen" in his notes on transliteration he has. "In the case
of Hindi words, a mute a at the end of a word or before a hyphen is usually
dropped.  A final a is usually kept when it is preceded by two consonents
(including nasals and semivowels)."

Can someone tell me what the reason is for keeping final "a" after two
consonents?
 

I presume the reason to drop the final "a" is to be faithful with the pronunciation in practice, which omits the final "a" and often many in the middle too! With multiple consonants, you need some amount of vowel to finish and so perhaps it is kept. In original devnagari, you keep the vowels anyway, since they are built in the characters.  (BTW, note my "devnagari"; it illustrates dropping "a" in the middle from "deva". That is how the word is pronounced in non-sanskrit context! There are other "mis-spellings" in this word as well!)

P.S. I personally prefer the Itranslator fontsfor generating as well as displaying devnagari characters. I believe they should be usable. Check the site;  http://sanskrit.bhaarat.com/Omkarananda/Sanskrit/Itranslt.html . They have true-type fonts which look good too!

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Web page: www.ms.uky.edu/~sohum