Telugu the Italian of the East

Nineteenth-century Englishmen called Telugu the Italian of the East as all native words in Telugu end with a vowel sound, but it is believed that Italian explorer Niccolò Da Conti coined the phrase in the fifteenth century. Conti visited Vijayanagara empire during the reign of Vira Vijaya Bukka Raya in 1520s.

Achchulu అచ్చులు (vowels)

Like other major Dravidian languages, the Telugu vowel set adds short /e/ and /o/ in addition to the long /eː/ and /oː/ of theIndo-Aryan languages.

అ

ఆ

ఇ

ఈ

ఉ

ఊ

ఋ

ౠ

ఎ

ఏ

ఐ

ఒ

ఓ

ఔ

అం

అః

/a/

/ɑː/

/ɪ/

/iː/

/u/

/uː/

/ru/

/ruː/

/e/

/eː/

/ai/

/o/

/oː/

/au/

/um/

/aha/

[]Hallulu హల్లులు (consonants)

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క ఖ గ ఘ ఙ
చ ఛ జ ఝ ఞ
ట ఠ డ ఢ ణ
త థ ద ధ న
ప ఫ బ భ మ
య ర ల వ శ ష స హ ళ క్ష ఱ The letters for the consonants correspond almost one-to-one to the set in Sanskrit. However, the pronunciation of these letters diverges from that of Sanskrit with respect to the aspirated series: in most varieties of spoken Telugu, aspiration is not phonemic. That is, the presence or absence of aspiration in spoken Telugu, does not generally distinguish one word from another. There are two exceptions to the general correspondence of Sanskrit and Telugu consonants in their written form. One is the historical form of/r/ఱ. The other is the retroflex lateral ళ /ɭ/.

The table below indicates the articulation of consonants in Telugu.