Speak the right way!

Sanskrit is the divine language in the world, which belongs to the Indo-European family. It is the ancient language which is structured very systematically and logically.The main speciality of this language is while pronouncing the sanskrit letters,one should use all nerves of the tongue.It is said that the sound vibration of this extra ordinary language helps to heal any kind of problem in our body and mind. Everyone is using this language in one way or another to chant mantras, or to recite slokas.It is not an easy thing to pronounce Sanskrit letters in the correct way. There are systematic rules to pronounce each letter, by touching the correct place.

Sanskrit Alphabets and Pronunciation

In Sanskrit every letter is pronounced, there are no silent letters.In English,a vowel sound can either be short or long. Sanskrit also has long and short vowel sounds.When a sanskrit word is written using english letters, it is called transliteration.Reading transliterated sanskrit is a challenge.It is important to differentiate long and short vowels in sanskrit because it can make difference in the meaning of the word.

Short vowels are a,i,u and (ṛ)

Long vowels are ā,ī,ū,e and o

Diphthongs - ai and au 

Semi vowels -  य (ya),र (ra),ल (la),व (va),ऋ (ṛ), ॠ (ṝ), ऌ (ḷ)

ṃ is called Anusvāra 

ḥ is called Visarga

Let’s see the position of Sanskrit letters, so that we can easily understand how to pronounce the letters without any mistakes.The position / place of letters is divided into 5.They are:

1. from back to front -  Guttural
2. at the palate - Palatal
3. behind the teeth - Retroflex
4. at the teeth - Dental
5. at the lips - Labial
   In English, some consonants can be aspirated.Aspiration means where there is a puff of air after saying some consonant letters. Most consonants in Sanskrit have aspirated and unaspirated variations.

dh  ḍh  th  ṭh  gh  kh  ch  jh  - These are aspirated sounds.

d  ḍ  t  ṭ  g  k  c  j - These are unaspirated sounds.

Other letters which we confused and mispronounced letters in sanskrit are:

s (pronounced as normal ‘s’ sound)

ś (pronounced as ‘sh’) 

ṣ (pronounced as ‘ss’)

In the table below, let's see the Sanskrit letters and their examples.

Confusion in pronouncing some consonant letters.Those ones are as follows:

These are the Sanskrit letters which one could pronounce wrongly.With the examples we can easily understand how to pronounce a letter, its position,style and way to use.

Sanskrit is not easy to pronounce by anyone, it's Devabhasha so we have to learn it properly before use.Once we learn, it is the most simplest language to handle and use.It’s not like any other language, sanskrit language has the power and positive vibrations so if anyone is trying to use or learning the language that person will get the result. It will develop our skills like cognitive,intellectual,motor and even cure speech defects. 

Learn Sanskrit and spread positivity!