The Devanāgarī Alphabet

This article was originally published on Apr 4, 2026.

Why?

There is a need to standardise how I’ll be writing and romanising native words. Words from most Indian languages are not conducive to English alphabet usage all the time. Let’s take the word बालों which can be romanised as baalo, balon, or baalon. The idea is to let people not native to the language also be able to decently pronounce the word correctly.

Because Devanāgarī is used for many languages in India, you can use this for all those languages (Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, to name a few). This isn’t the extent of the entire alphabet or all the sounds we can produce (there are partial sounds and pairs as well), but it’s a good place to start.

For romanisation I prefer using the system below. Instead of using borrowed English letters which make the spellings confusing, these stand for phonetic sounds so it’s clear how to pronounce a word. Some don’t have equivalent English sounds, so I’ve used Spanish in some places.

Consonants

Most consonants have an accompanying harder consonant. Most of these are marked with a diacritic below the letter. English only has the hard consonants. However, Spanish has some of the softer consonants so I’ll be using those in the examples.

I’ve grouped consonants in the way they’re pronounced. Usually this is how the alphabet is written also, but I’ve moved some letters a little here and there.

Velar Sounds

For these, the base of your tongue will move and cover your throat. Use similar method for other alphabets except the last two.

क [ k ] : Pronounced as ‘k’ in kite.

ख [ kh ] : Pronounced as ‘kh’ in khalifa.

ग [ g ] : Pronounced as ‘g’ in garden.

घ [ gh ] : Pronounced as ‘gh’ in ghost.

य [ y ] : Pronounced as ‘y’ in your.

ह [ h ] : Pronounced as ‘h’ in hi.

Palatal Sounds

For these, the tip of your tongue will be just above your teeth on the roof of your mouth.

च [ ch ] : Pronounced as ‘ch’ in Spanish leche or english children.

छ [ chh ] : When you pronounce ‘ch’ you will be touching the front part of your tongue to the roof. Keep the tongue position same, but instead of touching the tip, touch the middle part of your tongue to the roof. Another way would be to be in position of ‘ch’ but use more force and push out more air to get ‘chh’

ज [ j ] : Pronounced as ‘j’ in July.

झ [ jh ] : Get in position to pronounce ‘j’ but use more force and push out more air to get ‘jh’

ल [ l ] : Pronounced as ‘l’ in love

Retroflex Sounds

For these, your will curve your tongue on the roof of your mouth before you start saying the alphabet. The last two are a little looser.

ट [ ṭ ] : Pronounced as ‘t’ in tomato. Hard t, hence the diacritic.

ठ [ ṭh ] : Add ‘h’ to above pronunciation. Another way would be to be in position of “ṭ” but use more force and push out more air to get “ṭh”

ड [ ḍ ] : Pronounced as ‘d’ in dumb. Hard d, hence the diacritic

ढ [ ḍh ] : Add ‘h’ to above pronunciation. Another way would be to be in position of “ḍ” but use more force and push out more air to get “ḍh”

ण [ ṇ ] : When pronouncing ṭ or ḍ , you will place/rest your tongue at roof of mouth and then flick it. For this alphabet, just flick tongue at the roof of mouth without hooking it. Will sound like a hard n.

र [ r ] : Pronounced as ‘r’ in run. Soft roll the r.

Dental Sounds

For these, your tongue will be touching the top of your teeth.

त [ t ] : Pronounced as ‘t’ in Spanish tomate. Soft t, not found in English.

थ [ th ] : Add ‘h’ to above pronunciation. There will be bigger burst of air with this alphabet.

द [ d ] : Pronounced as ‘d’ in Spanish madre or donde. Soft d, not found in English.

ध [ dh ] : Pronounced as ‘the’ in the.

न [ n ] : Pronounced as ‘n’ in nice.

Labial Sounds

For these, your lips will touch each other or the teeth.

प [ p ] : Pronounced as ‘p’ in pair.

फ [ f ] : Pronounced as ‘f’ in fall

ब [ b ] : Pronounced as ‘b’ in ball.

भ [ bh ] : Pronounced as ‘bh’ in Bhutan. Add ‘h’ to above pronunciation. Another way would be to be in position of ‘b’ but use more force and push out more air to get ‘bh’

म [ m ] : Pronounced as ‘m’ in mouse.

व [ v ] : Pronounced as ‘v’ in village.

श [ sh ] : Pronounced as ‘sh’ in share

स [ s ] : Pronounced as ‘s’ in simple

ञ [ ny / ñ ] : Pronounced as ‘ñ’ in jalapeño.

क्ष [ ksh ] : Keep tongue in ready position to say ‘k’ but then say ‘sh’ instead.

श्र [ shr ] : Pronounced as ‘shr’ in shriek.

Vowels

Each vowel has a short and long version. Longer versions have the diacritical mark macron.

अ [ a ] : Pronounced as ‘u’ in under.

आ [ ā ] : Pronounced as ‘a’ in father. Same as Spanish a.

इ [ i ] : Pronounced as ‘i’ in sin.

ई [ ī ] : Pronounced as ‘i’ in seen. Same as Spanish i.

उ [ u ] : Pronounced as ‘u’ in full.

ऊ [ ū ] : Pronounced as ‘oo’ in fool. Same as Spanish u.

ए [ e ] : Pronounced as ‘e’ in bebe. Same as Spanish e.

ऐ [ ai ] : Pronounced as ‘eh’ in meh without the ‘h’ aspiration.

ओ [ o ] : Pronounced as ‘o’ in rope.

औ [ au ] : Pronounced traditionally as “ou” in ouch but a little quicker. Combination of the above ‘a’ and ‘u’ sounds if they were bound together. However, modern pronunciation is closer to ‘aw’ in saw.

अं [ ṅ ] : Pronounced as ‘un’ in dunk. Has a slight nasal twang to it like the french ‘in’.

अः [ ḥ ] : Pronounced as ‘uh’ sort of.

Miscellaneous

[ ' ] - used to indicate half/partial sound of that letter