Romanisation of Telugu

There are several systems for romanisation of the Telugu script.

Vowels

Independent With క (k) ISO IPA Independent With క (k) ISO IPA
అ క (ka) a /a/ ఆ కా (kā) ā /aː/
ఇ కి (ki) i /i/ ఈ కీ (kī) ī /iː/
ఉ కు (ku) u /u/ ఊ కూ (kū) ū /uː/
ఋ కృ (kr̥) r̥ /ɾu/ ౠ కౄ (kr̥̄) r̥̄ /ɾuː/
ఌ కౢ (kl̥) l̥ /lu/ ౡ కౣ (kl̥̄) l̥̄ /luː/
ఎ కె (ke) e /e/ ఏ కే (kē) ē /eː/
ఐ కై (kai) ai /aj/ ఒ కొ (ko) o /o/
ఓ కో (kō) ō /oː/ ఔ కౌ (kau) au /aw/

Consonants

ISO k kh g gh ṅ c ch j jh ñ ṭ ṭh ḍ ḍh ṇ t th d dh n ṉ p ph b bh m y r ṟ l ḷ ḻ v ś ṣ s h
IPA k kʰ ɡ ɡʱ ŋ tʃ tʃʰ dʒ dʒʱ ɲ ʈ ʈʰ ɖ ɖʱ ɳ t tʰ d dʱ n n̪ p pʰ b bʱ m j ɾ r l ɭ ɻ ʋ s ʂ s ɦ
Telugu క ఖ గ ఘ ఙ చ ఛ జ ఝ ఞ ట ఠ డ ఢ ణ త థ ద ధ న   ప ఫ బ భ మ య ర ఱ ల ళ   వ శ ష స హ

Irregular Consonants

Telugu ISO 15919 ITRANS
క్ష kṣa kSa / kSha / xa
జ్ఞ jña GYa / j~na

Other diacritics

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

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. ^ "Telugu chart" (PDF). www.unicode.org. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  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 ISBN 8120616367 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. ^ "Read / Write Telugu in Linux". e-తెలుగు. 1 July 2010. Retrieved 10 April 2014.