How to Pronounce

Though Tulu has an ancient script, it is generally referred to as a language without script. This is because, the script is totally unknown among its own people. It has been known only among the Tulu brahmins, who mainly used it for maintaining the Sanskrit Mantras, in Astrology and in medicinal reference books, in which these brahmins where revered in the entire west-coast of India. However, recent researches have revealed that, Tulu has got a number of ancient books with scholarly written literature, all of them written in this -currently almost extinct -Tulu script. But currently, a few periodicals published in Tulu language and books written now and then in Tulu - all use Kannada script (though it is not suitable for certain peculiar pronunciations of Tulu).

In this blog, I am using Roman script. Below you will find the letters and their pronunciation.

Short Vowels:

a
proniunced like 'u' in 'but'
i
proniunced like 'i' in 'pig'
u
proniunced like 'u' in 'put'
e
proniunced like 'e' in 'egg'
o
proniunced like 'o' in 'obey'
ae
proniunced like 'a' in 'man'

NOTE: Additionally, like Malayalam, Tulu has ŭ vowel which is called 'half-u' (or schwa /ə/). Every Tulu word ending with a consonant has half-u sound at the end. So I am not using a separate letter to show it in this blog. Eg: maraT (in a tree) has half-u sound at the end like if it is maraTŭ.  However, if half-u comes in the middle of a word, I use a single quote (') to represent it Eg: batt'ND (It came) = battŭNDŭ.  

ŭ

Long Vowels:

A
proniunced like 'a' in 'car'
I
proniunced like 'ea' in 'eat'
U
proniunced like 'oo' in 'mood'
E
proniunced like 'a' in 'ate'
ai
proniunced like 'i' in 'ice'
O
proniunced like 'o' in 'old'
au
proniunced like 'ow' in 'how'

Consonants:

k
proniunced like 'k' in 'kit'
kh
aspirated form of 'k'
g
proniunced like 'g' in 'good'
gh
aspirated form of 'g'
ch
proniunced like 'ch' in 'china'
Ch
aspirated form of 'ch'
j
proniunced like 'j' in 'jug'
jh
aspirated form of 'j'
T
proniunced like 't' in 'time'
Th
aspirated form of 'T'
D
proniunced like 'd' in 'drum'
Dh
aspirated form of 'D'
N
proniunced like 'n' in 'ground'
t
proniunced like 'th' in 'theme'
th
aspirated form of 't'
d
proniunced like 'th' in 'this'
dh
aspirated form of 'd'
n
proniunced like 'n' in 'nice'
p
proniunced like 'p' in 'put'
ph
aspirated form of 'p'
b
proniunced like 'b' in 'big'
bh
aspirated form of 'b'
m
proniunced like 'm' in 'mars'
y
proniunced like 'y' in 'yawn'
r
proniunced like 'r' in 'road
l
proniunced like 'l' in 'like'
v
proniunced like 'w' in 'ward'
sh
proniunced like 'sh' in 'shirt'
s
proniunced like 's' in 'sun'
h
proniunced like 'h' in 'hot'
L
Retroflex l sound. This sound is lost in common Tulu. But it is still preserved in the Brahmin dialect of Tulu.

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7 comments:

  1. you pronunciation is not working.. cant play the audio.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am sorry but it is working fine for me. I have checked it in both Firefox and Google Chrome. Can you please try with different browsers?

      Delete
    2. Its working good.

      Delete
  2. i couldn't play audio in any of the browser but is k i downloaded the audios of each i will use that. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Same here unable to play audio in any of the browser, please suggest other option if any.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I am sorry, I don't know what is the issue here. When I checked in mobile it works fine, but it didn't work in desktop. Sometimes it will work and sometimes it won't. I will try to fix the issue soon. In the mean time you can download the audio (right click and select "Save audio as") and play it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Bro audio is working but it take some time toply

    ReplyDelete