Telugu phonology

The Roman transliteration of the Telugu script is in National Library at Kolkata romanisation.

Telugu words generally end in vowels. In Old Telugu, this was absolute; in the modern language m, n, y, w may end a word. Atypically for a Dravidian language, voiced consonants were distinctive even in the oldest recorded form of the language. Sanskrit loans have introduced aspirated and murmured consonants as well.

Telugu does not have contrastive stress, and speakers vary on where they perceive stress. Most place it on the penultimate or final syllable, depending on word and vowel length.

Vowels

Telugu features a form of vowel harmony wherein the second vowel in disyllabic noun and adjective roots alters according to whether the first vowel is tense or lax. Also, if the second vowel is open (i.e., /aː/ or /a/), then the first vowel is more open and centralized (e.g., [mɛːka] 'goat', as opposed to [meːku] 'nail'). Telugu words also have vowels in inflectional suffixes that are harmonized with the vowels of the preceding syllable.

Vowels – అచ్చులు ACHULU
	Front		Central		Back
	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	i ఇ i	iː ఈ ī	ʉ ఇ y	ʉː ఈ ȳ	u ఉ u	uː ఊ ū
Close-mid	e ఎ e	eː ఏ ē			o ఒ o	oː ఓ ō
Open-mid	œ œ	œː œ			ʌ ʌ	ʌː ʌ
Open	æ æ	æː æ	a అ a	aː ఆ ā	ɒ ɒ	ɒː ɒ

/æː/ only occurs in loan words. In the Guntur dialect, [æː] is a frequent allophone of /aː/ in certain verbs in the past tense.

Telugu has two diphthongs: /ai/ ఐ ai and /au/ ఔ au .

Consonants

The table below lists the consonantal phonemes of Telugu.

Telugu consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar
Plosive	tenuis	p	t	ʈ	t͡ʃ	k
	voiced	b	d	ɖ	d͡ʒ	ɡ
	aspirated*	pʰ	tʰ	ʈʰ	t͡ʃʰ	kʰ
	breathy voiced*	bʱ	dʱ	ɖʱ	d͡ʒʱ	ɡʱ
Nasal		m	n	ɳ
Fricative*		f	s	ʂ	ɕ	x
Approximant		ʋ	l	ɭ	j
Flap			ɾ

*The aspirated and breathy-voiced consonants occur mostly in loan words, as do the fricatives apart from native /s/.

External links

• Telugu language