Telugu Alphabets & Letters

Telugu (తెలుగు) is written in its own rounded script, a member of the Brahmi family and the closest cousin of the Kannada script: both grew out of the same medieval script, which is why many of their letters still look alike. It is an abugida: a consonant on its own already carries the vowel a, so క is read ka, and every other vowel is added as a sign. The alphabet (వర్ణమాల, varnamala) is taught in three parts: the achulu (అచ్చులు, vowels), the ubhayaksharalu (ఉభయాక్షరాలు, the three signs ఁ ం ః) and the hallulu (హల్లులు, consonants). Charts count the letters differently, depending on whether they keep the Sanskrit-only vowels and old letters such as ఱ, so you will see totals from the low fifties up to sixty.

The 16 achulu are అ ఆ ఇ ఈ ఉ ఊ ఋ ౠ ఌ ౡ ఎ ఏ ఐ ఒ ఓ ఔ. Telugu keeps short and long e and o apart, which Hindi does not: ఎలుక (eluka, rat) starts with a short e, ఏనుగు (ēnugu, elephant) with a long one; ఒంటె (oṇṭe, camel) has a short o, ఓడ (ōḍa, ship) a long one. The hallulu follow the classic order of Indian grammar: five rows of stops, 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, then య ర ల వ శ ష స హ ళ. Most charts add the cluster క్ష (kṣa, typed క + ్ + ష) and the old letter ఱ at the end.

ళ is a sound English lacks: an l said with the tongue curled back, as in కళ్ళు (kaḷḷu, eyes) and నీళ్ళు (nīḷḷu, water). The row ట ఠ డ ఢ ణ is said the same curled-back way, while త థ ద ధ న are said with the tongue against the teeth. చ and జ have two sounds: ch and j before i and e, but ts and dz before a, u and o, so చాలా (very) is said tsālā. Old Telugu had the separate letters ౘ and ౙ for the ts and dz sounds; modern spelling writes చ and జ for both.

Telugu has about 100 million speakers by CLDR's estimate, more than any other Dravidian language. It is the official language of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, with large communities in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Odisha, and abroad, above all in the United States. India declared it a classical language in 2008. Its relatives are Kannada, Tamil and Malayalam, and its everyday vocabulary is rich in words from Sanskrit, which is why the Sanskrit letters still have a place in its chart.

Guninthalu: the Telugu vowel signs

Guninthalu (గుణింతాలు) is the chart every Telugu child learns after the alphabet: one consonant written with every vowel sign in turn. For క it reads క కా కి కీ కు కూ కృ కౄ కె కే కై కొ కో కౌ కం కః, and the same pattern runs for every consonant. Each sign has a name of its own, the achulu gurthulu: ా is deergham (దీర్ఘం), ి gudi, ీ gudi deergham, ు kommu, ూ kommu deergham, ృ vatrasudi, ె ethvam, ే ēthvam, ై aithvam, ొ othvam, ో ōthvam and ౌ authvam.

Look at the small tick on top of క, గ or న: it is the talakattu (తలకట్టు), and it stands for the vowel a. When another vowel is added the tick usually gives way to the sign: క becomes కి, కె, కొ. In Unicode you type the consonant first and the sign second, and the font draws the result.

The sign ై is encoded as the single code point U+0C48; U+0C56 is the AI length mark that encodes its second element. The Telugu length mark ౕ (U+0C55) is not used in ordinary Telugu text. Keyboards type the finished signs, so you never need either mark on its own.

Vattulu, the pollu and the sunna

When two consonants meet with no vowel between them, Telugu writes the second one as a small vattu (ఒత్తు, also spelled ottu) below or beside the first. In Unicode the joint is made with the pollu ్ (the virama): క + ్ + క = క్క as in అక్క (elder sister), మ + ్ + మ = మ్మ as in అమ్మ (mother), ప + ్ + ర = ప్ర as in ప్రేమ (love). Every consonant has its own vattu form, and a vattulu chart lists them all; the font draws them, so you only ever type consonant, pollu, consonant.

Shown on its own, the pollu marks a consonant with no vowel, as in న్. Native Telugu words almost always end in a vowel, the reason Telugu is often called 'the Italian of the East', and English words borrowed into Telugu usually gain one: bus is బస్సు (bassu).

The sunna ం (the anusvara, పూర్ణానుస్వారం) writes a nasal that takes the place of the next consonant: n in పండు (fruit), ng in సంగీతం (music), and an m at the end of a word, as in నమస్కారం (namaskāram). The arasunna ఁ, a half-nasal, belongs to classical poetry and old spelling and is left out of most modern writing. The visarga ః, a breathy h, lives in a few words from Sanskrit such as దుఃఖం (sorrow). These three are the ubhayaksharalu that close the vowel row of the chart.

Sanskrit and old Telugu letters

ఋ is a vowel letter from Sanskrit, said ru in Telugu: ఋషి (sage), and as the sign ృ in కృష్ణ and హృదయం (heart). Its long partner ౠ with the sign ౄ, and the vowels ఌ and ౡ, appear only in Sanskrit written in Telugu script and in the full alphabet chart; you will hardly meet them in Telugu words.

ఱ, the bandi ra (బండి ర, 'cart r'), wrote a second r sound of Old Telugu. It is still printed at the end of many alphabet charts and in classical texts, but modern spelling uses ర in its place.

Telugu numbers, punctuation and the rupee

Telugu has its own digits: ౦ ౧ ౨ ౩ ౪ ౫ ౬ ౭ ౮ ౯, so the year 2026 is ౨౦౨౬. You meet them in almanacs, old books and some school material, but everyday Telugu writing uses the international digits 0–9. Pick one set and keep it for a whole text.

Modern Telugu prose uses the same punctuation as English: the full stop, comma, question and exclamation marks, and curly quotation marks “ ” and ‘ ’. The Indian danda । and double danda ॥ (the generic Indic danda characters, encoded in the Devanagari block) still end lines of verse, Sanskrit shlokas and devotional songs. Prices are written with the Indian rupee sign ₹, in Telugu రూపాయి.

How to type Telugu on WhatsApp, in MS Word and on a laptop

On a phone, add Telugu in Gboard on Android or in the iPhone keyboard settings. Gboard can also turn Latin typing into Telugu: type namaskaram and pick నమస్కారం, which is the quickest way to type Telugu on WhatsApp. Gboard's voice typing understands spoken Telugu too.

On a Windows laptop, go to Settings → Time & language → Language & region → Add a language → Telugu, then choose the Telugu phonetic keyboard (type the sounds in Latin letters) or the standard InScript layout, and switch with Windows + Space. On a Mac, add a Telugu input source in System Settings → Keyboard → Input Sources. Free web tools such as Lekhini turn Latin typing into Telugu that you can copy anywhere.

In MS Word, any Unicode Telugu keyboard works; set the text in a Unicode font such as Gautami, Nirmala UI or Noto Sans Telugu. Without a keyboard, type a character's hex code and press Alt+X: 0C15 Alt+X gives క. In HTML the same letter is క. Older documents typed in non-Unicode Telugu fonts store the text as Latin letters drawn to look like Telugu; pasted anywhere else they turn into gibberish, so convert them to Unicode before copying them to a website or a phone.