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Pronunciation guide.
pronunciation of vowels
wrong pronunciations of
about glides
Hiatus are two vowels in different syllables with no pause in between.
glottal stop
pronunciation of
pronunciation of
pronunciation of
Diphthongs and monophthongs.
pronunciation of consonants
pronunciation of
about slowdown
ell is never dark
pronunciation of
pronunciation of
^ 
common mispronunciations --
Many language tutorials say there's no way of explaining in words how to make sounds one's not used to, and that instead of relying on written descriptions in a book, you should just pay attention to how people say that sound and try to imitate it.
That's mostly good advice, but it won't work for Sanskrit. Sure you have to do the imitation part, that's always a good thing. Yet, what the ancient grammarians said about tongue position, timing, etc, must be followed no matter what. Unlike in English, the "correctness" of a pronunciation is not determined by agreement with a majority of speakers, but by agreement with the ancient rules.
Example. Some people in some regions say the Sanskrit word
See also --
^ 
long aN'' vowels (the long vowels last twice as much as the short vowels, see mAtrA) --
ec vowels (they are always long) --
Rk vowels --
See also wrong pronunciations of
This video here gets most of the above thirteen vowels right --
The First Sanskrit Lesson- Mastery of Sound
Caveat lector: the
Why does this guy say that M and H are vowels?
Saying so is an old tradition in India. NVM that. Just remember that these two sounds are consonants.
Back to pronunciation guide .
^ 
Because of reasons that are very reasonable, but quite boring, the vowels
in North India, and with
in South India, by people that haven't been taught Sanskrit properly. Which are about 99 percent of Sanskrit users.
Experts say that those replacements are wrong. Yet, in these times of
What should I use then? Correct or popular?
Use correct.
In English we say that a pronunciation like "Febry" is correct if most people say "Febry" except a few old folks that say "Febrery", while it is "incorrect" if a few low-class people say "Febry" but people that speak carefully say "Febrery". Shouldn't the rule "what the majority uses is always good" work in Sanskrit too?
No. The rightness or wrongness of pronunciation is not decided by popular vote, but by agreement with the vedic recitation tradition and with the writers of old phoneticiss that died more than two thousand years ago.
^ A vowel sound is said to be a "glide" if the tongue or lips move while saying it. Instead of "glide", you may say, if you which, " diphthong", which sounds more hifalutin but means the same thing.
For instance, the English sound EYE is a glide.
In most dialects of English, the sounds of nEEd and fOOd are glides, as the tongue moves from start to end. Yet, Sanskrit
^ Example in English --
"the idea" has four syllables, thee - eye - dee - uh. Here the sounds ee-eye and ee-uh are hiatuses.
"the idea of it" has six syllables, thee - eye - dee - uh - uv - it. Here the sounds uh-uv might be a third hiatus. But in many English dialects that is replaced with thee - eye - dee - ur - uv -it, adding an 'r' that avoids the hiatus.
Example in Sanskrit --
The sound
In Sanskrit the hiatus sounds happen mainly when a wordfinal
Many speakers will always replace these
If we interpret rule
The words
^ 
A glottal stop is a "throat catch" sound. To learn about it, read --
and maybe watch --
Some pro chanters say the glottal stop sound in the middle of every hiatus. I don't think the ancient grammarians ever mentioned that, but do it anyway if you feel like it.
^ The
You can hear the correct
The
See also Pronunciation of "Vlk zmrzl, zhltl hrst zrn" in Czech
See also pronunciation of
Back to pronunciation of vowels .
^ The
You can hear the correct
In the same video, the
Back to pronunciation of vowels .
^ The sound
This video explains how the ancient grammarians explained the pronunciation of
Right after explaining the correct way of pronouncing the
Many people misspell the
In inria you must spell
^ In phonetics, the word diphthong means a gliding vowel. For a clearer explanation --
In correct Sanskrit,
Some Western grammarians use the word "diphthong" to mean ec, that is, the four vowels
All of
(pronunciationofconsona) (cons)
^ Sanskrit has thirty-five consonant sounds. Here is a quick and dirty guide to their pronunciation, for absolute beginners.
The accurate pronunciation of this sound is messy and long to explain, because it depends on what consonant is next and other things. Yet, until you learn those, replace this sound with an
This sound, according to the ancient grammarians, must sound exactly like English H. Yet, it is replaced, more often than not, with a
the four yaN, namely
The
The
The
The
the nasals
the twenty stops
Sanskrit has five groups of four stops each. Ordered by position, back to front of the mouth, they are --
the hissy sounds
the Indian
^ The Sanskrit
Technically speaking, this sound is a "tapped r", in other words, an --
alveolar or postalveolar flap.
The Sanskrit version of the sound is more postalveolar than alveolar. So pay attention to move your tongue tip a bit back.
If you are Japanese you won't have any problems with
If you are a Standard Chinese speaker you will have a lot of problems with this sound because the
Spanish and Hindi speakers will find themselves replacing the flapped r sound with the rolled r sound sometimes. Doing so is incorrect Sanskrit, but no one will complain, and won't cause any confusion. So, don't worry about it. It just gives you a bad accent.
If you are an English speaker, you will have to be reminded again and a gain, that the Sanskrit
In this stanza the sound of Sanskrit
Back to pronunciation of consonants .
^ Youtube videos have a gear icon under them. You can use it to set speed to 75 percent of normal.
Doing this helps students a lot when listening to Sanskrit that is being pronounced too fast, that is, at normal speed. Please set the speed to 75 whenever you have trouble hearing some letters.
Setting speed to 50 percent is mostly always useless, because the sound comes out too distorted.
^ Sanskrit
If you don't know the difference between the "clear" and "dark" ells, please see Wikipedia on Voiced dental, alveolar and postalveolar lateral approximants.
Back to pronunciation of consonants .
^ The sound of the Sanskrit letter
It is a voiced sound, described at Wikipedia on voiced glottal fricative.
The
Do not confuse it with the
In Sanskrit words, I always spell the English H sound with an uppercase H, and the softer
^ According to Sanskrit grammarians, the
Yet, because of the influence of local languages, many people mispronounce that combination as
Watch this video --
How to Pronounce jJA in Sanskrit - 'gya' or 'gnya' or 'dnya' or 'jna'
and if that video is too long for you to watch, just remember:
Someone told me once that instead of saying
Back to pronunciation of consonants .
^ According to the descriptions of ancient grammarians, the
That description fits the way the
Oddly, that description ALSO fits the way English W is pronounced. So, if you find yourself incapable of imitating the sound the Indians make when they say
But I heard a guy say
Don't trust what you hear. Trust what the ancients taught. In Bengal even brahmins replace their
Someone told me that I must pronounce the
That's what people with Hindi accent do. Doing so is kosher, but by no means compulsory.
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