Consonants

LESSON 10

In the class on Feb 4, 2011, we began our study of consonants. The Jan 28th class was canceled due to bad weather.



The consonants or Vyanjanani (व्यंजनानी) in Sanskrit are divided into a 5*5 grid, square or varga (वर्ग) structure to systematize the pronunciation of the language. Each Varga specifies the section of the mouth from where the sound is produced.

The 2 words we saw this week क and ख belong to the "ka" varga which is pronouned using the soft palate at the back of the mouth or the Kanta (कंठ ) denoted by the red dot in the picture above. We will talk more about this in the next class. 

You will notice that the क and ख sounds are made at the back of the mouth and not voiced. The ख sound is aspirated (ie there is a puff of air that is added to the क almost as if to stress the initial sound).  

As we talked about in the earlier classes, Sanskrit language is extremely streamlined and structured. In the olden day,s before the study of languages happened through the medium of writing, the teacher would speak and the student would hear and learn what was taught. The Varga structure helped to communicate the sounds and words clearly between the teacher and student leaving no room for mis-communication.


Homework:

• Write the letters क and ख with the14 maatras at least 5 times each. Please remember to pronounce the words while writing.

  maatras can be dropped as it is seldom used in the modern Sanskrit texts.

• Please revise the numbers from 1 to 19. You should be comfortable saying the numbers as well as writing the numerals in Sanskrit.

• We will also continue introducing ourselves and learning the meaning of our names. To make it interesting for everybody, as each of you introduce yourselves and explain the meaning of your names, if you can include any anecdotes or associations about your name it would be wonderful.

We will meet again on February 11th.