The Letter a

This is the first form of the Devanagari letter , "a," which makes a sound similar to the sound found in the English word, "alone." It should be easy to remember it, since you have already learned , "aa." After all, , "a," makes a shorter sound than , "aa," and is therefore physically shorter by one vertical mark.

Your first reaction may be, "Wait a minute; didn't we already go over the sound, 'a?' Doesn't every consonant make the, 'a' sound by itself? What about , 'ka' and , 'ya' and , 'ra' and , 'ma?' Why do we need another vowel if consonants already make this sound?"

That is a very good obvervation, which calls for a good explanation: We need a vowel letter for the sound, "a," whenever it starts a word. Of course, any consonant by itself (if not modified by another vowel) will make the vowel sound, "a," but the sound will come after the consonant. If we want to start a word with the sound, "a," we need to use , "a."

"Well, then," you might say, trying to straighten everything out in your mind, "shouldn't , "a," have a maatraa, too, for modifying the sound of consonant?" There are two ways to approach this. The first is to say, "No, all vowels make the 'a' sound anyway, so there is no need for a maatraa for , 'a.'"

However, take just a second to remember the first vowel we learned, , "aa." We formed its maatraa by taking away the "" part of the vowel, leaving, "." Let's follow that process with this vowel: Start with , "a," and take away the, "" part, leaving its maatraa, "". Following this reasoning, if , "a," has a maatraa, it is invisible.

This suddenly puts consontants in a completely differently light. If the maatraa of , "a," is really an invisible letter, then that means that there is an invisible between every single consonant. The maatraa of , "aa," which isn't seen, comes after , "ka" and , "ya" and , "ra" and , "ma." No wonder every consonant has an inherent, "a" sound; every consonant is followed by the invisible maatraa to , "a!"

Therefore, once you have learned , "a," you already know its maatraa, the "invisible letter." In fact, you've been using it since you learned your first Devanagari consonant!