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Guide
Lesson 3: Reading Vowel Markings
INTRODUCTION
Up to this point, we have studied the Devanagari alphabet in Lesson 1. Through those letters, we
have made simple words. If you look at those words that were used as examples
in Lesson 2, one can see a commonality between the words. The only vowel used
in the words were a. Every letter in the last lesson
ended with an a. In addition, we simply used the letters from the alphabet
directly. Remember the first example, tava (Sanskrit
for your), we split the word into ta and va and looked up the respective letters and then placed
the letters in order. This lesson makes use of the vowels besides the short a
sound. Before we see how to work this, we must look at one aspect of theory.
VIRAMA
(HALANT)
For the consonants of the Devanagari
alphabet, each letter is presented as a mix of a consonant with a short a
sound. However, when the a sound is dropped, then all we hear is just the
consonant without the vowel sound. For instance, ka without the a sound =
k. To cut the vowel sound out of a consonant, a special symbol is added
beneath a letter known as a virama (some
refer to this as the halant).
Figure 3.1
To stress the importance of the vowels presence in
the letter, the a sound is emphasized. Each consonant of the Devanagari alphabet is originally a letter with a virama which a added to produce the letter.
VOWEL MARKINGS
All vowels (except a) has a representative mark
made to add onto consonants. Whenever a consonant makes use of a particular
vowel, it adopts the representative mark of the vowel. Figure 3.2 shows the
listing of the vowel markings of the vowels.
Figure 3.2
To make practical use of this, Figure 3.3 will show
how each consonant has a virama added to it. With the
help of the particular vowel, the consonant receives the sound of the vowel
added. Looking at the letter ka, notice how the vowel addition yields the
vowel marking.
Figure 3.3
Remember, it is the consonant with the virama that gets the vowel marking. If you add the actual
letter (the letter that ends in short a), you do not get a vowel marking, for
it is interpreted as two syllables. Figure 3.4 shows this.
Figure 3.4
The process for adding vowel markings applies to all
letters. There are a few exceptions which will be discussed later.
SPELLING
WORDS USING THE DEVANAGARI ALPHABET
Just like the last lesson, we will first learn how
to write words.
EXAMPLE
1: rādhā (Radha
[Sanskrit]).
STEP 1:
Break the word down through its syllables.
There are two syllables in this word: rā and dhā.
STEP 2: Find
the letters of the word and examine which vowels belong to each letter.
Recall the letters for ra
and dha on the Devanagari
alphabet. See which vowel follows the original word. You will see that both ra and dha have the long
ā following them. Place the vowel markings
STEP 3:
Put the letters with vowel markings in order to form the word
The entire process is shown below in Figure 3.5
Figure 3.5
Here is another harder example. Two words!
EXAMPLE
2: tulasī devī
(goddess of the tulasī plant [Sanskrit]).
STEP 1:
Break the word down through its syllables.
There are five syllables total: tu,
la, sī, de and vī
STEP 2:
Find the letters of the word and examine which vowels belong to each letter.
Recall the letters for ta,
la, sa, da, and va on the Devanagari alphabet.
See which vowel follows the original word.
The letter ta has a
short u sound.
The letter la has a short a sound.
The letter sa has a
short ī sound.
The letter da has a
short e sound.
The letter va has a
short ī sound.
STEP 3:
Put the letters with vowel markings in order to form the word
The entire process is shown below in Figure 3.6
Figure 3.6
TRANSLITERATING
WORDS INTO DEVANAGARI
The steps of transliterating words are exactly the
same as the steps shown in Lesson 2.
Therefore, only one example will be examined.
EXAMPLE 1:
Figure 3.7
Break all
letters down. Each letter is one syllable long.
This is done in Figure 3.8.
Figure 3.8
Pay attention to the vowel markings highlighted in
orange in Figure 3.9. From the two vowel markings, a long ā and a long
ī" is present.
Figure 3.9
STEP TWO:
Identify the letters in order
Figure 3.10
Figure 3.10
STEP THREE:
Convert them into the transliteration scheme and say the word.
Finally, ba + la + rā + ma + jī = balarāma jī. (Elder
brother of Lord Krsna)
PRACTICE:
Try spelling these words using Devanagari
Script:
1. kṛpā
(grace in Sanskrit)
2. pūjā
(worshipping in Sanskrit)
3. auṣadhi
(medicine in Hindi and Bengali)
4. nitaī-gaura bolo
(Chant Nityananda and Gauras
name! in Sanskrit)
Try reading the words from Devanagari
script.
1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
UPDATED: June 16, 2009