Telugu script, an abugida from the Brahmic family of scripts, is used to write Telugu, a Dravidian Language found in the Southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, as well as several other neighboring states.

Vowels

Telugu uses 14 vowels, each of which has both a singular form and a diacritic form used with consonants to create syllables. It is important to note that this language does make a distinction between short and long vowels.

The singular form is used when the vowel occurs at the beginning of a word or syllable, or is a complete syllable in itself (example: a, u, o). The diacritic form is added to consonants (represented by the dotted circle) to form a consonant-vowel syllable (example: ka, kru, mo). It should be noted that అ does not have a diacritic form, because this vowel is already inherent in all of the consonants. The other diacritic vowels are added to consonants to change their pronunciation to that of the vowel.

Examples:

ఖ + ఈ (ీ) → ఖీ

+ ^*

జ + ఉ (ు) → జు

+ ^*

There are also several other diacritics used in the Telugu script. ్ mutes the vowel of a consonant, so that only the consonant is pronounced. ం and ఁ nasalize the vowels or syllables to which they are attached. ః adds a voiceless breath after the vowel or syllable it is attached to.

Examples:

క + ్ → క్

+ ^*

క + ఁ → కఁ

+ ^*

క + ం → కం

+ ^*

క + ః → కః

+ ^*

Consonants

Telugu in Unicode

The Unicode range for Telugu is U+0C00 ... U+0C7F.

External links

• Telugu Association Inc. Sydney Australia. Celebration of Telugu Culture in Sydney
• Omniglot - Telugu script
• Vignanam - Learn Something Today

Abugida writing systems

Telugu-Schrift | Телугу (письменность)