Sanskrit : Introduction
Introduction
This prelude begins with an introduction to the Sanskrit letters. The writing
system used for Sanskrit is known as Devanagari. Indian languages are phonetic
in nature and hence the letters represent unique sounds. In Sanskrit as well
as in other Indian languages, proper pronounciation of the words is quite
important. Hence it is necessary to learn the sounds associated with the
letters of the language.
The word "alphabet" is not usually applied to Sanskrit or other Indian languages.
There is a subtle difference between the notion of "alphabet" and the "aksharas"
as the letters of Sanskrit are called. When we think of the word "alphabet"
we normally think of the letters of the language and a name given to each
letter to identify it. In most languages the letters of the alphabet have
names which may give a clue to the sound associated with the letter. In Sanskrit
and other Indian languages, there is no specific name given to the letters.
The sound the letter stands for is actually the name for the letter. In a
phonetic language reading becomes easy since the reader will be reading out
the letters by uttering the sound associated with the akshara. More information
on this is given in a separate section on Sanskrit and Phonetics.
For many years now, people of the world have learnt the letters of Sanskrit
through equivalent Roman transliteration characters which employ special
marks (known as diacritics). The diacritics are based on a standardized representation
for sounds followed in dictionaries. In India, the National Library at Calcutta
has recommended that a single transliteration scheme be used to represent
the letters across all the Indian languages. This scheme will be used in
the lessons covered in these pages. Students can take advantage of this when
it comes to pronouncing the letters and words. A reference to this Transliteration
scheme is also available in these pages. The scheme is similar to the International
Phonetic Alphabet representation but has some minor differences.
Continue to short vowels.
Back to Sanskrit contents.
Unicode conversion
from original
site (IIT Madras) completed by Walter
Stanish. Hosted at pratyeka.