Sanskrit Alphabet

Sanskrit Alphabet with English Transliteration

Ç a

ÇŸ â

Ñ

Ö

á

i

î

Ü

ä

ã

å

ç

e

u

ai

o

à

â

ƒ‡

é

ê

í

î

ñ

ò

ö

ú

û

†

¢

§

•

ß

®

™

¨

Æ

∞

≤

¥

∂

∏

∫

º

æ

¿

ƒ

∆

À

Œ

–

“

ë

ka ca øa ta pa ya åa

¯ë

kha cha øha tha pha ra æa

ja

èa da ba la

sa

au

Ç~

ö

ga

û

aò/aõ/an/aä gha jha èha dha bha

òa

ÇÅ aï

Guttural

õa

Palatal

ña

Cerebral

na

Dental

ma

Labial

va ha

’

kæa

◊

jõa

Sanskrit Pronunciation Guide Sanskrit’s breadth of expression comes in part from using the entire mouth for pronunciation, and from elongating accented vowels. With an alphabet of 49 letters, it has several different versions of familiar sounds such as ‘n’ and ‘s’, each issuing from a different part of the mouth. For this reason, diacritical marks are generally used to indicate how and where a consonant or vowel should be sounded.

a â i î u û e ai, ay o au â, î, û, ê, âi, âu k, kh, g, gh, ò c, ch, j, jh, õ ø, øh, è, èh, ñ t, th, d, dh, n p, ph, b, bh, m c, ch ë å æ õ ä jõ h alone ï h after a consonant

pronounced like ‘a’ in america pronounced like ‘a’ in barn pronounced like ‘i’ in bit pronounced like ‘i’ in liter pronounced like ‘u’ in put pronounced like ‘u’ in dude pronounced like ‘e’ in grey pronounced like ‘ai’ in aisle pronounced like ‘o’ in over pronounced like ‘ow’ in cow prolonged for two beats instead of one gutturals, arising from the throat palatals, arising from the back of the palate cerebrals, with tongue touching the roof of the mouth dentals, with tongue touching the back of the teeth labials, arising from the lips palatal, always pronounced like ‘ch’ in chop cerebral, pronounced like ‘ri’ in rip palatal, pronounced like ‘sh’ in shout cerebral, pronounced like ‘sh’ in leash pronounced like ‘ni’ in onion pronounced like ‘n’ in uncle pronounced like ‘gn’ in igneous pronounced like ‘h’ in hot a soft echo of the preceding vowel extra breath after the consonant (in Sanskrit there are no compound sounds like ‘th’ in thief or ‘ph’ in phone)