Learn to read देवनागरी

Devanāgarī is not a language: it is a script. Over the centuries Sanskrit was written in many different alphabets, and today the most common one is this, the same script used for Hindi, Marathi and Nepali. Once you can read it, you can read a mantra, the name of a yoga pose or a verse of the Bṛhat Parāśara Horā Śāstra exactly as it was written.

Every consonant comes with its own «a»

In English, the letter k on its own doesn't sound like anything. In Devanāgarī, क already reads ka: every consonant carries a built-in a. To change that vowel you add a sign, which is what module 2 is about. So with what you learn in this module alone, you can already read whole words.

The line on top

Almost every letter hangs from a horizontal line, the śirorekhā. Inside a word the lines join up, so you can see where each word starts and ends: कमल (kamala, lotus).

An order that makes sense

The alphabet isn't in a random order like ours. Vowels come first, then consonants, and the consonants move from the back of the mouth to the front: throat, palate, roof of the mouth, teeth and lips. Once you understand the order, you also understand how each letter is pronounced.

Transliteration

To write Sanskrit in our letters we use a system with marks: ā is a long a, ṭ with a dot underneath is said with the tongue curled back, and ś and ṣ are two kinds of «sh». These marks aren't decoration: they change the sound and, often, the meaning.

How to study here

In each part, read the lesson and then open the cards. You'll see a letter; try to say its sound out loud, flip the card and mark whether you knew it. The ones you miss come back at the end. Your progress is saved in this browser.

Vowels almost always come in pairs: a short one and a long one. The long one lasts twice as long, literally; in verse metre it counts as two beats. Lengthening a vowel or not changes the word, so it's worth exaggerating at first.

Two details: e and o are always long in Sanskrit, and they are pure vowels, without the glide English adds («say» ends in a little y, Sanskrit e doesn't). And ṛ is an r that works as a vowel, as in ṛṣi (sage) or Kṛṣṇa.

These aren't letters on their own: they sit on a vowel or a consonant. Here they're shown on a so you can see them.

There are 25 letters in five rows of five. Each row belongs to a place in the mouth, from the throat to the lips. And the columns always follow the same pattern: voiceless, voiceless with a breath, voiced, voiced with a breath, and nasal. Learn one row and you understand all five.

The breath is the hard part for English speakers. You already make both sounds without noticing: the k in «skin» has no puff of air, the k in «kin» has one. In Sanskrit that difference is a different letter. ka is the k of «skin»; kha is the k of «kin», with a clear puff. Same for pa/pha and ta/tha.

So the h is only a breath: pha is never «fa» and tha is never the «th» of «think».

The tip of the tongue curls back and touches the roof of the mouth, further back than an English t. In transliteration they have a dot underneath.

The tongue touches the back of the upper teeth, further forward than an English t or d, as in Spanish or Italian.

The last eight letters follow the same path through the mouth. Semivowels are consonants that sit very close to a vowel: ya is almost an i, va is almost a u. Then come three kinds of «s» and, closing the alphabet, ha.

You may have seen क्ष (kṣa) and ज्ञ (jña) in some alphabet charts. They aren't new letters: they're two consonants joined together. Conjuncts get a module of their own.

Since every consonant already carries its a, with what you've learnt you can already read whole words. Read letter by letter: ज ja + ल la = जल jala, water.

In Sanskrit the final a is always pronounced. In Hindi it is usually dropped, which is why you hear «yog» or «Ram»; in Sanskrit it's yoga and Rāma.

Some of these words come up all the time in Vedic astrology: phala is the result of a combination in the chart, dhana gives its name to the house of money, and bala is a planet's strength.