The charts below show the way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) represents Sanskrit pronunciations in Wikipedia articles.

Sanskrit has many complex phonological processes, called sandhi, that alter sounds due to the presence of neighboring sounds at morpheme or word boundaries. See Shiksha for a more thorough discussion of the sounds of Sanskrit.

Consonants
IPA Nagari[1] IAST English equivalent
b b abash
bh abhor
c c catch
ch choose
d ado
d̪ʱ dh adhere
ɖ guard
ɖʱ ḍh guardhouse
ɡ g agate
ɡʱ gh pigheaded
h head
ɦ h ahead
j y yak
ɟ j hedge
ɟʱ jh hedgehog
k k scan
kh can
l l leaf
m m much [2]
n not [2]
ɳ burner [2]
ɲ ñ canyon [2]
ŋ bank [2]
p p span
ph pan
r r
s sue
ʂ worship
ɕ ś shoe
t stable
t̪ʰ th table
ʈ art
ʈʰ ṭh art-historian
ʋ v between ‹w› and ‹v›
Vowels [2][3]
IPA Nagari[1] IAST English equivalent
ə अ, प a nut
ɑː आ, पा ā bra
ए, पे e between yell and Yale
i इ, पि i happy
ई, पी ī feet
ऌ, पॢ Syllabic ‹l›: bottle
l̩ː ॡ, पॣ Long syllabic ‹l›
ओ, पो o old
ऋ, पृ Syllabic ‹r›: better
r̩ː ॠ, पॄ Long syllabic ‹r›: bird
u उ, पु u look
ऊ, पू ū loot
əi ऐ, पै ai
əu औ, पौ au


Other symbols
IPA Nagari[1] IAST English equivalent
ɦ, x Visarga [4]
 ̃ nasal vowel ([ãː], [õː], etc.) [2]
ˈ stress
(placed before stressed syllable)
  1. In its time, Sanskrit was transmitted orally only. Traditionally, the various languages of India each used their local Brahmic script script for writing Sanskrit. In the past few centuries, Devanagari has come to be used as the default script for Sanskrit.
  2. Vowels may occur nasalized as an allophone of the nasal consonants in certain positions. See anusvara, chandrabindu.
  3. Sanskrit distinguishes between long and short vowels. Each monophthong has a long and short phoneme. The diphthongs, historically /ai, aːi, au, aːu/, also have a difference in quality: /e, əi, o, əu/. Vowels may rarely occur extra-long.
  4. Zieba and Stiehl 2002, p. 1
  • Zieba, Maciej; Stiehl, Ulrich (9 जून 2002). "The Original Pronunciation of Sanskrit" (PDF). Ulrich Stiehl. अभिगमन तिथि 27 सितंबर 2011.