Pronunciation Guide

Here are examples on how to pronounce the modified alphabets. This is based on IAST. Each alphabet corresponds to the boldfaced and underlined letters in the sample word.

Vowels:

a	ā	i	ī	u	ū	ṛ
amuse	car	sit	beet	put	toot	writ

ḷ	e	ai	o	au	aṃ	aḥ
baklava	way	pie	mode	vow	dumb	aha

Consonants, Semi-vowels and Symbols:

k	kh	g	gh	ṅ
cup	buck	gum	gherkin	sing

c	ch	j	jh	ñ
chap	beachhead	jug	hedgehog	canyon

ṭ	ṭh	ḍ	ḍh	ṇ
tuck	battalion	dun	adhere	annals

t	th	d	dh	n
myth	bathe	thus	dharma	nut

p	ph	b	bh	m
pun	uphold	bud	abhor	mud

y	r	l	v
yum	run	lug	vow

ś	ṣ	s	h
shun	fishtail	sum	hum

kṣ	jñ	śr	ḻ	ō
action	jnanam	srimati	black

There are some other special cases not covered here. These are mentioned in the remarks of the relevant kritis. (Eg)In a Sanskrit kriti, o is always a long o as in goal. In a Telugu or Tamil kriti, a long o is indicated by ō, but just an o indicates only a short vowel sound as in port. That is, Sanskrit kritis are in IAST. Other kritis are in ISO 15919. Parts of this guide are revised and adapted from RK Math and MB publications.