REPORT ON THE CURRENT STATUS OF
UNITED NATIONS ROMANIZATION SYSTEMS FOR GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES
Compiled by the UNGEGN Working Group on Romanization Systems
Version 4.0, March 2016

Telugu

The United Nations recommended system was approved in 1972 (II/11) and amended in 1977 (III/12), based on a report prepared by D. N. Sharma. The tables and their corrections were published in volume II of the conference reports1,2.

There is no evidence of the use of the system either in India or in international cartographic products.

Telugu uses an alphasyllabic script whereby each character represents a syllable rather than one sound. Vowels and diphthongs are marked in two ways: as independent characters (used syllable-initially) and in an abbreviated form, to denote vowels after consonants. The romanization table is unambiguous. The system is mostly reversible but there may exist some ambiguities in the romanization of vowels (independent vs. abbreviated characters) and consonants (combinations with subscript consonants vs. character sequences).

Romanization

In the romanization system below the table for subscript consonant characters has been added.

I. Independent vowel characters

1 అ a
2 ఆ ā
3 ఇ i
4 ఈ ī
5 ఉ u
6 ఊ ū
7 ఋ ṛ
8 ౠ ṝ
9 ఎ ĕ
10 ఏ e
11 ఐ ai
12 ఒ ŏ
13 ఓ o
14 ఔ au

II. Abbreviated vowel characters and other symbols (క stands for any consonant character)

1 క a
2 కా ā
3 కి iA
4 కీ ī
5 కు uB
6 కూ ū
7 కృ ṛ
8 కె ĕ
9 కే e
10 కై ai
11 కొ ŏC
12 కో oD
13 కౌ au
14 కం ṁ
15 కఁ m̐E
16 కః ḥ
17 క్ (F)

III. Consonant characters

1 క ka
2 ఖ kha
3 గ ga
4 ఘ gha
5 ఙ ṅa
6 చ cha
7 ఛ chha
8 జ ja
9 ఝ jha
10 ఞ ña
11 ట ṭa
12 ఠ ṭha
13 డ ḍa
14 ఢ ḍha
15 ణ ṇa
16 త ta
17 థ tha
18 ద da
19 ధ dha
20 న na
21 ప pa
22 ఫ pha
23 బ ba
24 భ bha
25 మ ma
26 య ya
27 ర raA
28 ల la
29 వ va
30 శ sha
31 ష ṣha
32 స sa
33 హ ha
34 ళ ḷa

IV. Subscript consonant characters (క stands for any base character)

1 క్క k
2 క్త t
3 క్న n
4 క్మ m
5 క్య y
6 క్ర r
7 క్ల l
8 క్వ v

Most other subscript consonant characters are recognizable modifications of the main character, e.g. చ్చ chcha, ట్ట ṭṭa, ప్ప ppa.

Other systems of romanization

For differences between the UN system and the ISO transliteration standard ISO 15919: 2001 see the section on the romanization of Hindi.

References

  1. Second United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names. London, 10–31 May 1972. Vol. II. Technical papers. United Nations. New York 1974, pp. 145–146.
  2. Third United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names. Athens, 17 August – 7 September 1977. Vol. II, Technical papers, pp. 393 etc.