Reading the Telugu script
๐ฏ Read your name and simple words.
๐ฃ๏ธ Say these out loud
- เฐ เฐ เฐ เฐ เฐ เฐ ๐ a aa i ee u oo the first vowels Telugu has 16 vowels and 36 consonants.
- เฐ เฐ เฐ เฐ เฐ ๐ ka kha ga gha nga the throat consonants The same scientific order as Devanagari โ Telugu took the arrangement from Sanskrit even though the language is unrelated.
- เฐ + เฐพ = เฐเฐพ ๐ ka + aa = kaa how the vowel mark works Watch the talakattu change shape as the vowel changes.
- เฐคเฑเฐฒเฑเฐเฑ ๐ TE-lu-gu Telugu เฐค + เฑ + เฐฒ + เฑ + เฐ + เฑ.
- เฐชเฑเฐธเฑเฐคเฐเฐ ๐ POOS-ta-kam book The same word as Hindi เคชเฅเคธเฅเคคเค โ Sanskrit borrowing at work.
- เฐเฐฒเฑเฐฒเฑ ๐ IL-lu house A pure Dravidian word, related to Tamil เฎเฎฒเฏเฎฒเฎฎเฏ.
Read every line aloud twice before moving on. The mouth learns a language, not the eye.
๐ A consonant below a consonant
When two consonants meet with no vowel between them, Telugu writes the second one small, underneath the first. Once you spot this, the script stops looking crowded.
- เฐธ + เฐค = เฐธเฑเฐค, written with the เฐค tucked under
- เฐชเฑเฐธเฑเฐคเฐเฐ โ look for the small เฐค below the เฐธ
- Kannada does exactly the same thing; the two scripts were one until about the 15th century.
๐ Among the people
Telugu and Kannada scripts are so close that a reader of one can guess most of the other. They separated only a few centuries ago, from a common ancestor in the Kadamba script.
๐ Practise today
- Write your name in Telugu.
- Copy the first row of consonants daily for a week.
- Find the tucked-under consonant in five written words.
