Lesson 3. A The sound or letter ka is called kakara ('ka-action'); the sound or letter ga is called gakara, and so on. This applies to all the sounds/letters, including the vowels (e.g. akara), except for ra which is traditionally called repha ('snarl' or 'burr') or simply ra, but not rakara. The anusvara and visarga (or visarjanlya), which only arise through the rules of sandhi (euphonic combination) and are thus not strictly part of the alphabet, are always referred to by their own name and have no -kara name. We shall now consider the final eight consonants (vyanjana). 3.A.1 The Four Semi- Vowels: ya ra la va A semivowel (antahstha) arises when one of the basic vowels moves to the a sound: i moving to a gives rise to the sound ya, similarly, r moving to a produces ra, 1 to a produces la, and u to a produces va. As a moving to a will not produce a new sound, there are only four semivowels. These are considered to be between vowels and consonants, and so are called antahstha ('stand between'), and are naturally voiced (ghosa). They are formed by slight contact (Tsatsprsta), and thus allow a restricted flow of air through the mouth. kanthya guttural talava palatal murdhanya cerebral dantya dental osthya labial — ya ra la va The first three of these, ya ra and la, are similar to the English sounds in 'yum', 'rum', and 'luck', but do pay attention to the mouth position. The derivation of the last semivowel (antahstha), although transliterated as va, produces a sound akin to the English 'wa': this latter pronunciation accords with the grammatical tradition and makes the rules of sandhi (euphonic combination) easier to grasp. Other traditions pronounce this as the English 'va', in which case its mouth position, making use of both teeth and lips is called dantostya. In the alphabetical order, these follow after the twenty-five stops, i.e. : ... pa pha ba bha ma ya ra la va
