The meaning of the rows and columns in Devanagari script

January 19, 2010 on 10:59 am | In Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Gather around, children, because we are going to talk about the Devanagari alphabet today. We are interested in the consonants, not the vowels. So, here are the consonants:

क ख ग घ ङ

च छ ज झ ञ

ट ठ ड ढ ण

त थ द ध न

प फ ब भ म

य र ल व

श ष स ह

I’ve intentionally dropped the ळ क्ष ज्ञ because anyway they are poor cousins that we don’t want to throw out on the streets.

Anyway, have you ever wondered why the alphabet is always written out as a 2-dimensional table like this? Compare that with the English alphabet which is pretty much a one-dimensional sequence of alphabets without any organizational structure. There are obviously strong reasons why the devanagari alphabet is arranged in a table like this.

To get a hint, focus on the first 5 rows above. First, say aloud the letters in any one of the horizontal rows (top 5 only). Notice any similarities? Now say aloud the letters in any vertical column (just the first 5 rows). Again, notice any similarities?

Before I give the answer, here is a full table, organized according to phonetics, taken from the Wikipedia page on Devanagari

sparśa

(Stop)

 anunāsika

(Nasal)

 antastha
(Approximant)		 ūṣma/saṃghashrī

(Fricative)
Voicing → aghoṣa ghoṣa aghoṣa ghoṣa
Aspiration → alpaprāṇa mahāprāṇa alpaprāṇa mahāprāṇa alpaprāṇa mahāprāṇa
kaṇṭhya

(Guttural)

 क ka
/k/		 ख kha

/kʰ/

 ग ga

/ɡ/

 घ gha
/ɡʱ/		 ङ ṅa

/ŋ/

 ह ha

/ɦ/
tālavya

(Palatal)

 च ca

/c,t͡ʃ/

 छ cha

/cʰ,t͡ʃʰ/

 ज ja

/ɟ,d͡ʒ/

 झ jha

/ɟʱ,d͡ʒʱ/

 ञ ña

/ɲ/

 य ya

/j/

 श śa

/ɕ,ʃ/
mūrdhanya
(Retroflex)		 ट ṭa

/ʈ/

 ठ ṭha

/ʈʰ/

 ड ḍa

/ɖ/

 ढ ḍha

/ɖʱ/

 ण ṇa

/ɳ/

 र ra

/r/

 ष ṣa

/ʂ/
dantya

(Dental)

 त ta

/t̪/

 थ tha

/t̪ʰ/

 द da

/d̪/

 ध dha

/d̪ʱ/

 न na

/n/

 ल la

/l/

 स sa

/s/
oṣṭhya

(Labial)

 प pa
/p/		 फ pha

/pʰ/

 ब ba

/b/

 भ bha
/bʱ/		 म ma

/m/

 व va

/ʋ/

If you read any row horizontally, you’ll notice that your lip position and tongue position remains the same, and only the method of expelling air from your voice box, nose and mouth changes. It remains exactly the same for the first 5 columns (until the nasals), and then changes slightly for the last row (the aproximant or the fricative).

If you read any column vertically, you’ll notice that the way air comes out of our mouth/nose/voicebox remains the same and only the tongue/lip position changes.

Also, I’m sure, this is the first time many of you have figured out how to correctly pronounce ङ and ञ. (Actually, my Hindi teacher in primary school taught us that ञ is the sound made by a small child crying, and ङ is an even smaller child crying. So, obviously, none of us had any clue how exactly one is supposed to pronounce those letters.) And, also, I’m sure there are many who have now figured out the difference between श and ष for the first time. (”They are ’same’,” is what I believed for many years due to the same Hindi teacher…)

6 Comments »

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  1. Thanks for this fantastic stuff. this way of looking at consonants was taught to me by my sanskrit teacher. He was a clerk in ST and taught us kids just for fun. No wonder he knew a lot more than school appointed teachers.

    I will use this to teach marathi to my daughter who struggles with pronunciations.

    Comment by Dr. Bhooshan Shukla — January 19, 2010 #

  2. Hi. Thanks for the nice article!

    As a matter of coincidence – just this Saturday, I was explaining the exact same theory to my wife, and I see a full-fledged article on that topic soon afterwards.

    Nice – I can simply refer people to this page whenever this is a topic of discussion! :)

    Comment by Ravindra — January 19, 2010 #

  3. This seems to be DIY phonetics from ya onwards. If any of this was true, there would have been another column – one thing you can tell from ka thru ma is that those guys knew their sounds. ra is not retroflex (it is alveolar; the hindi d of ladka is retroflex) and va is not labial (it is labiodental). I’m not even sure if the difference between the two sha’s has not been lost to history.

    Comment by saurabh — January 21, 2010 #

  4. @saurabh, I’m not really qualified to be able to debate the accuracy of what you are saying. But, if I understand you right, you’re saying that the table is accurate as far as क through म are concerned, but is inaccurate for य र ल व, श ष स ह. That might be. I’m not an expert, and I simply took this data from the wikipedia page, and prima facie, it seemed correct to me. On further digging, it appears that the data is taken from this paper, by Charles Wikner, who appears to be a scholar in these matters. I would be tempted to believe him, in absence of strong data to the contrary…

    For example, he does talk about व and points out that some traditions do pronounce it like the English ‘v’ (i.e. labiodental), but he makes a case that it is really supposed to be pronounced like the English ‘w’ (i.e. labial).

    Comment by navin — January 22, 2010 #

  5. Navin, I’m not qualified either but from experience know that one needs to trust existing knowledge (in this case what people speak, especially if the people are *you*!) more than academic theory. Theory wants to be precise and categorized; in practice it aint so.

    Yes I was saying ka thru ma is accurate but ya onwards it’s dubious – I tend to believe more the ancients who gave us this order (I’m not quite sure if the arrangement is ancient but remember having read somewhere that it is), than a guy who probably didnt learn the sounds growing up. That is, adults *hear* sounds differently than babies, and his arrangement could reflect that.

    Regarding va, I know no Indian who pronounces it labially; it just sounds more like w because the constrictedness of v is absent in va (technically the only difference is that va is an approximant while v is a fricative). In fact, I know a few people who were taught to say w correctly in convent schools, and the only possible reason for that is that w is not va!

    That said, I havent read the paper; plan to some day. Thanks for your additional research.

    Comment by saurabh — January 23, 2010 #

  6. Nice post buddy! People are forgetting about this Devanagari script. Once I was asked to write a name in Hindi on VISA form by my office travel desk lady. I asked her if she meant Devanagari to which she looked strangely at me and replied, ” I do’t know Devanagari. Pls write your name in Hindi”. :-)

    Comment by Vega — January 29, 2010 #

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