Telugu Alphabets

When I came to high school, I remember in my first Telugu class my teacher wanted us to write the alphabet. We laughed at the idea first but the we found out only a handful in our class were able to write all the alphabet correctly. We have been learning telugu for so long yet none of us could remember all the 57 alphabet. Its really hard to remember them, don’t believe me then write them down yourself and find out if you can write all 57. If you can then I salute you for a wonderful memory. If you couldn’t, then you can follow me as I show you the basics of our language in detail.
I am going to present to you not only the alphabet but also give you the various details concerning these alphabets. Those who want to learn Telugu keep in mind its not simple.
oom namah Sivaaya siddham namah

Telugu is syllabic in nature - the basic units of writing are syllables. Since the number
of possible syllables is very large, syllables are composed of more basic units such as
vowels (“achchu” or “swar”) and consonants (“hallu” or “vyanjan”).

The first 16 of Telugu alphabet are commonly called ‘Acchulu’ which can also be referred to as ‘Praanaaksharamulu’ or ‘Swaramulu’.

These are the life of the language, so to say.
They are:
a - pronounced as a in all
aa - pronounced by stretching the above a
e - pronounced as i in it
ee - Pronounced as ea in eat
o - pronounced as woo in woolen
oo - pronounced as oo as in loot
a - pronounced as a in at
ae - pronounced as a in ate
I - pronounced as i in ice
O - pronounced as o in oat
Oa - pronounced as o in old
Ow - pronounced as ow in cow
Am - pronounced as ome in come
Aha - pronounced as aha!

Consonants or 'hallulu' in consonant clusters take shapes which are very different from the shapes they take elsewhere. Consonants are presumed to be pure consonants, that is, without any acchu (vowel sound) in them. However, it is traditional to write and read hallulu (consonants) with an implied 'a' vowel 'acchulu' sound.

The next set of alphabet are called ‘Hallulu’ which are 38. They are:
ka - as in ca of catch
Ka - (stress the above sound)
ga - as in g of god
Ga - (stress the above sound)
~m - (require a sharp tongue to pronounce)
cha - as in cha of change
Cha - (stress the above sound)
ja - as in ja of jam
Ja - (stress the above sound)
~n - (difficult to pronounce)
Ta - as in t of tea
TTa - (stress the above sound)
Da - as in da of dance
Dda - (stress the above sound)
Na - (difficult to pronounce)
ta - as in th of myth
tta - (stress the above sound)
dha - as in th of the
dhha - (stress the above)
na - as in n of none
pa - as in pa of papa
Pa - as in ph of photo
ba - as in b of bat
bha - as in b of best
ma - as in ma of mall
ya - as in ya of yak
ra - as in ra of rap
la - as in la of lava
va - as in o of one
Sa - as in s of same
Sha - as in sha of shame
sa - as in s of sun
ha - as in ha of happy
~la - (difficult to pronounce)
ska - (difficult to pronounce)
~ra - (difficult to pronounce)
These are also called ‘Vyamjanamulu’.


Then there are the 3 ‘Vubhayaksharamulu’
O - sunna
( - arasunna
: - visargha

When 'hallulu' combine with other 'acchulu', the vowel (acchu) part is indicated orthographically using signs known as 'Gunintaalu' or 'maatras'. The shapes of 'Gunintaalu' are also very different from the shapes of the corresponding vowels.