Let's Learn Telugu! తెలుగు నేర్చుకుందాం!

[hippopotame]

I figured there wasn't enough information about Dravidian languages on this forum (Telugu in particular). So I've decided to try teaching you all Telugu!

So a little general information about Telugu: It's the Dravidian language with the most native speakers, spoken mainly in the state of Andhra Pradesh in South India. It's heavily influenced by Sanskrit, so there will be a lot of vocabulary in common with Indo-Aryan languages, despite the difference in language families.
I'll start with teaching the script. I'll go through it pretty quickly so we can get to the grammar etc.; I'll probably primarily use a romanization during the lessons so you won't need to know the script for them. I'll teach it anyway to help you learn about the phonology and to introduce the romanization I'll be using.

It is an alphasyllabary. Each letter represents a consonant (or a consonant cluster) with the vowel following it, represented by a diacritic. The inherent vowel sound is /ʌ/ or /ə/. Let's start with vowels.

Lesson 1 - VOWELS:

There are 18 vowels in Telugu, each with a unique diacritic. In Telugu words, you'll only see the vowel in it's non-diacritic form at the beginning of a word. Here, I have each vowel, followed by the diacritic, followed by the IPA pronunciation, followed by the romanization I will use in future lessons.

అ (inherent) /ʌ/ or /ə/ - a (I've seen it notated as either of those sounds; from now on I'll just be notating this in IPA as /ʌ/.)
ఆ ా /a:/ - ā
ఇ ి /ɪ/ - i (I've seen this notated as both /ɪ/ and /i/; I believe it is closer to /ɪ/)
ఈ ీ /i:/ - ī
ఉ ు /ʊ/ - u (I've seen this notated as both /u/ and /ʊ/; I believe it is closer to /ʊ/
ఊ ూ /u:/ - ū
ఋ ృ /ṛʊ/ - ṛu
ౠ ౄ /ṛu:/ - ṛū
ఌ /ḷʊ/ - lu
ౡ /ḷu:/ - lū
ఎ ె /ɛ/ - e (I've seen this notated as both /ɛ/ and /e/; I believe it is closer to /ɛ/)
ఏ ే /e:/ - ē
ఐ ై /ʌj/ or /əj/ - ai
ఒ ొ /ɞ/ - o (I've seen this notated as both /o/, but believe it is closer to /ɞ/)
ఓ ో /o:/ - ō
ఔ ౌ /ʌw/ or /əw/ - au
అం ం /ʌm/ or /əm/ - am
అః ః /ʌh/ or /əh/ - ah

Here's a (slightly annoying...) video that shows the pronunciation of each vowel, and the way to write each letter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln_TXVWLqXM

As you can see, most of the vowels have a short and a long form. Just a note, words containing అః , ఋ, ౠ, ఌ, or ౡ are Sanskrit in origin, because these letters were taken from Sanskrit. ౠ, ఌ, and ౡ are very rarely used (if you looked at the video, you'll notice they skipped ఌ and ౡ, since they're so infrequently used). ఋ, however, is fairly common, and has the same sound as does ऋ in Devanagari (a syllabic alveolar trill). The vowels in Telugu are fairly similar to those in Hindi (at least, the first half of the vowels. After ౡ there are a few differences.)

Here is the first consonant in the Telugu alphabet, క /kʌ/, with the different diacritics:
క /kʌ/
కా /ka:/
కి /kɪ/
కీ /ki:/
కు /kʊ/
కూ /ku:/
కృ /krʊ/
కౄ /kru:/
కౢ /klʊ/
కౣ /klu:/
కె /kɛ/
కే /ke:/
కై /kaj/
కొ /kɞ/
కో /ko:/
కౌ /kʌw/
కం /kʌm/
కః /kʌh/

[vijayjohn]

Hi hippopotame! Thanks so much for posting lessons here! I want to learn Telugu, and I'm so glad you're willing to get to the grammar part ASAP.

Well, hey, I'm already pretty familiar with the alphabet, so... (The title of this thread is [t̪ɛˈlʊgu ˈneːrtʃʊkʊ̃n̪d̪ãːm] or something, right?).

[Meera]

Thank you sooo much!! PLEASE PLEASE continue these lessons.

[vijayjohn]

Seconded.

[hippopotame]

Hi hippopotame! Thanks so much for posting lessons here! I want to learn Telugu, and I'm so glad you're willing to get to the grammar part ASAP.

Well, hey, I'm already pretty familiar with the alphabet, so... (The title of this thread is [t̪ɛˈlʊgu ˈneːrtʃʊkʊ̃n̪d̪ãːm] or something, right?).

Thanks, I'm glad there are people who want to learn it! Yup, that is what it says.

Now onto Lesson 2
Lesson 2 - CONSONANTS:

On to the consonants. After the IPA, I will provide a romanization that I will be using in future lessons (it will correspond somewhat to English orthography, just because we're learning through English).
The alphabet (like other Indic alphabets) is organized by place of articulation.
It starts with velar stops -

క - /ka/ - ka
ఖ - /kʰa/ - kha
గ - /ga/ - ga
ఘ - /gʰa/ - gha
ఙ - /ŋa/ (When saying the alphabet, the letter's name is pronounced /inja/)
Note: ఙ is rarely used as a letter; it is usually represented by the sunna ం /am/, which takes on the nasal sound corresponding to the consonant that follows it. If the sunna is at the end of the word, it just makes the /m/ sound.

For example, in the word "ఇంకా" ("and"), the sunna takes on the /ŋ/ sound, because it precedes a velar stop. Thus, the word is pronounced /iŋka:/



Next group of consonants:
చ - /t͡ʃa/ - cha
ఛ - /t͡ʃʰa/ - chha
జ - /d͡ʒa/ - ja
ఝ - /d͡ʒʰa/ -jha
ఞ - /ɲa/ (When saying the alphabet, the letter's name is pronounced /iɳi/)
Again, ఞ is rarely used as a letter, and is instead represented by the sunna.

For example: కంచం is pronounced /kaɲt͡ʃam/ (kancham -"plate")


Next group - retroflex consonants:
ట - /ʈa/ - ṭa
ఠ - /ʈʰa/ - ṭha
డ - /ɖa/ - ḍa
ఢ - /ɖʰa/ - ḍha
ణ - /ɳa/ - ṇa


Next group - dental consonants:
త - /◌t̪a/ - ta
థ - /t̪ʰa/ - tha
ద - /◌d̪a/ - da
ధ - /d̪ʰa/ - dha
న - /na/ - na

Next group - bilabial consonants:
ప - /pa/ - pa
ఫ - /pʰa/ - pha
బ - /ba/ - ba
భ - /bʰa/ - bha
మ - /ma/ - ma

Note: ఫ /pʰa/ is sometimes pronounced as /fa/

And the rest:
య - /ja/ - ya
ర - /ra/ - ra
ల - /la/ - la
వ - /ʋa/ - va
శ - /ʃa/ - śa
ష - /ʂa/ - sha
స - /sa/ - sa
హ - /ha/ - ha
ళ - /ɭa/ - ḷa
క్ష - /kʂa/ - ksha
ఱ - /ra/ - ra (when saying the alphabet, the name of the letter is "banḍi ra", to differentiate it from ర. ఱ tends to be substituted with ర nowadays anyway, because there is no longer a difference in the pronunciation of the two letters.)

Note: When a sunna precedes any of the letters in this last group, except for క్ష /kʂa/, it takes on the /m/ sound.


Just a little practice:
Try transliterating the following words.
ఊరు
మంట
రాక్షసి
కళ
వంకాయ
అంతఃపురము

[Meera]

Thanks for this

[vijayjohn]

Yeah, thanks a lot!

Anybody want to try the practice exercise out?

[u:rʊ]
[eɳʈa]
[ra:kʂəsi]
[kəɭa]
[eŋkaːja]
[ən̪t̪əhpʊrəmʊ]