Devanagari Vowels

DEVANAGARI VOWEL PRONUNCIATION:

Devanagari vowels are usually pure, meaning they never change according to what sounds follow or precede them. They are more like Spanish vowels rather than English vowels. There are two kinds of vowels: short and long (a-aa; i- ee; u-oo...). While pronouncing several vowels following each other like in a Hindi word आईये (aaeeye – come), you have to pronounce each and every vowel as clear as possible: aa-ee-ye (I think similar rule is in Spanish).

India's politician's favorite car type in Pinjore Garden, Chandigarh, North India

Again, it is extremely important to try and pronounce long vowels noticeably long and short vowels - noticeably short. In Hindi there are many words that would sound similar if their vowels wouldn't be pronounced correctly. For example: कम and काम („kam“ and „kaam“ ) sound similar but mean two different things: little (uncountable) (कम) and work (काम);  सिख and सीख („Sikh“ and „seekh“ – Sikh (religion) learn! ).

Three vowels in this table: ऋ, अं, अः, are used quite rarely. The most frequently used vowel out of these, is probably „Ri“  (ऋ) and met within the words rather than in the beginning of a word.

The vowel „an“ is a nasal sound, similar to the Spanish  „ñ“ sound.  In the middle of a word, the nasal sound is written as a dot above the character it nasalizes. The dot may mean the nasal sound „n“ or the nasal sound „m“. 

Sound अः (ah or just an aspiration of air from the throat) is very rarely found in everyday texts and used in Sanskrit texts a lot more frequently. As I know only several words with this sound, I will not write in more detail about 
अः sound right now. However if you are interested, I will write more.

Vowel	Word beginning...	TTransliteration	English
अ	अनार	anaar	pomegranate
आ	आम	aam	mango
इ	इमली	imlee	tamarind
ई	ईख	eekh	sugarcane
उ	उल्लू	ullu	owl
ऊ	ऊन	oon	wool
ऋ	ऋषि	RiShi	yogi
ए	एड़ी	eDi	heel
ऐ	ऐनक	enak	glasses
ओ	ओखली	okhlee	pounder; mortar
औ	औरत	aurat	woman
अं	अंगूर	angoor	grape
अः	अः	ah	ah (sound)

Pink City in Jaipur (photo: Aditya)