"Nepala"? No, I think it isn't. As far as I remember, it's called "Nepal" in Nepali. Correct me if I'm wrong...

I wonder where I got this from... I think it was from Wikipedia and there must have been an error in the article back then.

Now it's been fixed there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepal

Thanks for drawing my attention to that.

Cool, thanks!

Maybe it was a transcription error of some sort, as the Nepali word doesn't end in a virama.

It's a question of you transliterate Devanagari. Sanskrit, by convention, always pronounces the final schwa, and so Sanskrit words are usually transliterated retaining the 'a' (Nepala, Rama, Arjuna, karma, dharma, etc.).

Most modern Indo-Aryan languages do not pronounce the schwa, but also do not use the virama, as Vortarulo pointed out, to "officially" deny it. So a technically correct transliteration would include the final "a", while a more practical one would ignore it. Most lay transliteration of Hindi and Marathi I see ignores the final schwa, while scholarly transliteration systems always retain it.

I think both "Nepala" and Nepal" would be acceptable (although "Nepāla" would be best if it had to be completely accurate).

I think in this context, of what a country is *called* in a language, the actual spoken form is to be preferred. And that would be Nepāl or, phonetically [neˈpal], so I think "Nepal" is fine.

I think if we were to include the "ā", then it would be necessary to include the final "a" as well, because otherwise there would be no distinction between नेपाल and नेपाल् . But of course, I agree, "Nepal" is good enough. Besides, it prevents mispronunciations, which are all too common with the Sanskrit-transliterated words that do include the 'a'.

>>>> I think if we were to include the "ā", then it would be necessary to include the final "a" as well, because otherwise there would be no distinction between नेपाल and नेपाल् .

Yes. But since we generally don't include diacritics (that might be very confusing for non-infirmed readers who might not no how to read them), it's preferrable we keem the "flattened" or simplified transliteration, "Nepal."

Sabretou is our Indian subcontinent language expert :-D

Yes, that's what I meant. I also prefer "Nepal".