Marginalia
संस्कृत · how to read the marks

Reading Sanskrit

This library writes Indian words in IAST, the scholarly alphabet with dots and lines — Kṛṣṇa, Śaṅkara, nirvāṇa — because it shows exactly how each word sounds. Five minutes here and you will never again say "Krish-na" for Kṛṣṇa or "Kar-vaka" for Cārvāka. Below the guide is a transliterator: type a word in IAST and see it in Devanagari, then hear it.

The transliterator

IAST → देवनागरी
No diacritics on your keyboard? Type aa ii uu for ā ī ū, .r for ṛ, .t .d .n .s for ṭ ḍ ṇ ṣ, "s or sh for ś, .m .h for ṃ ḥ, ~n for ñ, "n for ṅ.

Vowels

a line on top means long

Velar — back of the tongue

Palatal — tongue on the palate

Retroflex — tongue curled back

Dental — tongue on the teeth

Labial — the lips

Semivowels, sibilants, h

Marks

Five rules that fix most mistakes

  1. A "h" after a consonant is a puff of breath, never a new sound. Buddha is "Bud-dha", with a breathy d — not "Budda" with an English "th". Phala is "p-hala", not "fala".
  2. C is always "ch". Caitanya is "Chai-tanya"; Cārvāka is "Chaar-vaa-ka".
  3. Ś and ṣ are both "sh". Śiva, Kṛṣṇa, Upaniṣad.
  4. Ṛ is a vowel, said "ri". Ṛg Veda is "Rig Veda"; Kṛṣṇa is "Krish-na" — with the curled-back sh.
  5. Long vowels are twice as long, and carry the stress. Gītā is "Gee-taa", Rāmāyaṇa "Raa-maa-ya-na".

In modern Hindi, the short a at the end of many words is dropped: Sanskrit Rāma becomes Hindi Rām, yoga becomes yog, karma becomes karm. Both are right, in their own language.