The Letter न (na)

You've already learned one nasal letter: the letter म (ma). You will now learn about another nasal letter, the letter न, na.

A nasal letter (in this case, a consonant) is so-called because its sound is produced by allowing air to escape through the nose. (I'm sure you already know that nasal means relating to the nose, so I'll not mention that here.)

Have you ever noticed the nasal qualities of the sounds made by the English letters, m and n? No? Then try this quick experiment: hold your nose closed, and then say the first sound of magazine. It should come out sounding like Mmmmm, as in, Mmmmmm, this food tastes good. Are you surprised to find out that the sound hardly comes out at all? (Don't put too much energy into this; you don't want your head to explode.) Now try saying the first sound of, night—that is, the n sound without the ight.

This experiment illustrates that, whether you realized it or not, when you pronounce the letters m and n, you are letting the sound come out through your nose. For this reason, म (ma) and न (na) are called the nasals. There are a few other nasals, which we will learn later, but they are all variants of म (ma) and न (na).

Now, let's turn our attention back to the physical shape of the letter न (na) itself. It hangs from a horizontal line—no surprises there. It has a descending vertical line, which has a smaller protruding horizontal line coming from the left. On the end of this smaller horizontal line is a small hook.

The letter न (na) is quite simple and is easy to remember. Imagine that the top horizontal line is the ceiling of a room. Imagine that the long, vertical line is a wall (we're looking at a cross-section of the wall from inside a doorway). Someone, for whatever reason, has hammered a big nail into the wall. Maybe it was your younger nephew who wants to be a carpenter when he grows up. Your nephew definitely needs to improve his carpentry before getting a job, because he has bent the head of the nail, and didn't even drive it in all the way.

So when you see न (na), immediately think about a nail being driven into a wall, with its head bent by your ambitious young nephew (or maybe it was your niece). To remember that न (na) makes the sound that begins the word nail, say the letter a few times:

न na न na न na

न nail न nail न nail

न na न na न na