Romanisation of Telugu explained

There are several systems for romanisation of the Telugu script.

Vowels

Independent	With క (k)		IPA	Independent	With క (k)		IPA
అ	క	a	pronounced as //a//	ఆ	కా	ā	pronounced as //aː//
ఇ	కి	i	pronounced as //i//	ఈ	కీ	ī	pronounced as //iː//
ఉ	కు	u	pronounced as //u//	ఊ	కూ	ū	pronounced as //uː//
ఋ	కృ	r̥	pronounced as //ɾu//	ౠ	కౄ	r̥̄	pronounced as //ɾuː//
ఌ	కౢ	l̥	pronounced as //lu//	ౡ	కౣ	l̥̄	pronounced as //luː//
ఎ	కె	e	pronounced as //e//	ఏ	కే	ē	pronounced as //eː//
ఐ	కై	ai	pronounced as //aj//	ఒ	కొ	o	pronounced as //o//
ఓ	కో	ō	pronounced as //oː//	ఔ	కౌ	au	pronounced as //aw//

Consonants

IPA	pronounced as /k/	pronounced as /kʰ/	pronounced as /ɡ/	pronounced as /ɡʱ/	pronounced as /ŋ/	pronounced as /tʃ/	pronounced as /tʃʰ/	pronounced as /dʒ/	pronounced as /dʒʱ/	pronounced as /ɲ/	pronounced as /ʈ/	pronounced as /ʈʰ/	pronounced as /ɖ/	pronounced as /ɖʱ/	pronounced as /ɳ/	pronounced as /t/	pronounced as /tʰ/	pronounced as /d/	pronounced as /dʱ/	pronounced as /n/	pronounced as /n̪/	pronounced as /p/	pronounced as /pʰ/	pronounced as /b/	pronounced as /bʱ/	pronounced as /m/	pronounced as /j/	pronounced as /ɾ/	pronounced as /r/	pronounced as /l/	pronounced as /ɭ/	pronounced as /ɻ/	pronounced as /ʋ/	pronounced as /s/	pronounced as /ʂ/	pronounced as /s/	pronounced as /ɦ/
Telugu	Telugu: క	Telugu: ఖ	Telugu: గ	Telugu: ఘ	Telugu: ఙ	Telugu: చ	Telugu: ఛ	Telugu: జ	Telugu: ఝ	Telugu: ఞ	Telugu: ట	Telugu: ఠ	Telugu: డ	Telugu: ఢ	Telugu: ణ	Telugu: త	Telugu: థ	Telugu: ద	Telugu: ధ	Telugu: న		Telugu: ప	Telugu: ఫ	Telugu: బ	Telugu: భ	Telugu: మ	Telugu: య	Telugu: ర	Telugu: ఱ	Telugu: ల	Telugu: ళ		Telugu: వ	Telugu: శ	Telugu: ష	Telugu: స	Telugu: హ

Irregular Consonants

		ITRANS
Telugu: క్ష		kSa / kSha / xa
Telugu: జ్ఞ		GYa / j~na

Other diacritics

• Virama (్) mutes the vowel of a consonant, so that only the consonant is pronounced. Example: క + ్ → క్ or pronounced as /[ka]/ + pronounced as /[∅]/ → pronounced as /[k]/.
• Anusvara (ం) nasalize the vowels or syllables to which they are attached. Example: క + ం → కం or pronounced as /[ka]/ + pronounced as /[m]/ → pronounced as /[kam]/
• Candrabindu (ఁ) also nasalize the vowels or syllables to which they are attached. Example: క + ఁ → కఁ or pronounced as /[ka]/ + pronounced as /[n]/ → pronounced as /[kan]/.
• Visarga (ః) adds a voiceless breath after the vowel or syllable it is attached to. Example: క + ః → కః or pronounced as /[ka]/ + pronounced as /[h]/ → pronounced as /[kah]/

UN romanisation for geographical names

The United Nations romanisation systems for geographical names (approved 1972, I1/11; amended in 1977 IH/12) was based on a report prepared by D. N. Sharma.^[1]

The UN romanisation uses macrons for long vowels ā ī ū, a dot under ṛ for vocalic r, and caron on ĕ and ŏ.

ka kā ki kī ku kū kṛ kĕ ke kai kŏ ko kau

ISO

There are differences between the UN system and the ISO transliteration standard ISO 15919: 2001^[2]

ITRANS

ITRANS also has transliteration for Telugu.^[3]

RTS

Used in Vemuri Rao's English-Telugu Dictionary (2002) Rice University's Reverse Transliteration System (RTS) (created by Ramarao Kanneganti and Ananda Kishore) can be used for the transliteration of Telugu into Roman script as an alternative to phonetic alphabet.^[4] The RTS is defined below. (1) Represent short vowels by the lower case ..."

• RTS represents short vowels by the lower case English character and long vowels by the corresponding upper case character: అ = a, ఆ = A; etc.
• Unaspirated consonant-vowel pairs are represented by a lower case letter followed by a suitable vowel.

The result is a phonetic representation mostly suitable for dictionaries and computer input methods.^[5] Examples:

• vaiDUryaM
• gOmEdhikaM

External links

• Library of Congress Telugu romanisation table

Notes and References

1. Technical reference manual for the national standardization of ... 2007- Page 39 " ... Nations recommended system was approved in 1972 (I1/ 11) and amended in 1977 (IH/12), based on a report prepared by D. N. Sharma. ... There is no evidence of the use of the system either in India or in international cartographic products. Telugu uses an alphasyllabic script whereby each character represents a syllable rather than one sound. Vowels and diphthongs are marked in two ways: as independent characters (used syllable-initially) and in an abbreviated form, ......
2. Web site: Telugu chart . www.unicode.org . 2020-11-10.
3. Information Systems for Indian Languages: International ... - Page 131 Chandan Singh, Gurpreet Singh Lehal, Jyotsna Sengupta - 2011 "Table 1. The Indian Language Transliteration (ITRANS) symbols of phonemes common to three languages Hindi, Tamil and Telugu Manual labeling of the recorded data has been carried out."
4. English-Telugu Dictionary - Page li Vemuri Rao - 2002 "Transliteration of Telugu using RTS This dictionary uses RTS (Rice University's Reverse Transliteration System) for the transliteration of Telugu using Roman script.
5. Web site: Read / Write Telugu in Linux . 1 July 2010 . e-తెలుగు . 10 Apr 2014.