The Letter ए (e)

There are several commonly-used vowels that you need to learn. One of these is the letter ए, whose sound will be represented by the English, e.

The English letter e can make several sounds. Since Devanagari is phonetic, however, the letter ए only produces one sound: the first part of the vowel sound found in the English word cable (Snell, 11).

As you learned when discussing the letter ओ (o), Devanagari vowels are pure, as opposed to many English vowels which actually combine several sounds. In this case, when an English-speaker says the word, cable, he or she says something similar to kay eee bull, although this is slightly exaggerated. The Nagari vowel ए (e), on the other hand, does not vary. This is why I say that the sound corresponds to the first part of the sound found in cable .

The vowels you have learned so far all have been similar in shape, all modifications of अ (a). The vowel ए (e) has a completely different shape. It has two vertical lines, the first of which has a tail draping down and to the right, while the second has a small, almost unnoticed hook. In fact, you may want to remember the sound of this letter by the fact that it has that tail , which has a similar sound in the middle. Just a forewarning, though: we will learn one other vowel which looks very similar to ए (e), so don't automatically think that every letter with a tail makes the e sound—only this one.

The Mātrā े (e)

Here is where the rules change slightly: as usual, ए (e) has a mātrā, but it is not what you would expect in comparison to the others we have discussed. The other vowels simply need the अ part of the letters removed to form their mātrās. ए (e), in contrast, is of a completely different form. Its mātrā is a mark which slants upward and to the left. This mark, like candrabindu, is placed above the letter which it modifies. Unlike candrabindu, े (e) is placed above consonants instead of vowels.

For example, if we were to write, ek (English: one) in Hindi letters, we would write एक (sounding similar to the English word ache). However, if we were to write ke (not actually a word in itself) in Hindi letters, we would write, के. The consonant and the vowel in the latter case combine to make one letter, pronounced ke, as contrasted with just the consonant क, pronounced ka.

You should be careful not to confuse े (e) with the letter ओ (o). These two vowels have the same mark े above their respective characters, which may confuse you at first. Remember that the vowel े is always placed above consonants and represents an e sound, while ओ is a vowel that represents the sound o.

े (e) and Anusvār ं

You have already leaned about ँ (candrabindu), which is a nasalization mark placed above letters. In fact, the mātrā े (e) can also receive a mark indicating it should be nasalized; in this case, since े (e) already appears above the consonant, the candrabindu also appears above the consonant. Furthermore, since there are other marks above the horizontal line (specifically, the mātrā े (e)), the second and more common mark for nasalization, a single dot ं (anusvār) is used.

Using anusvār with े (e) seems much simpler if you first see an example and then read that explanation again. क is ka, के is ke, and कें is ke nasalized, represented by kẽ.