$JES 103 Jain Alphabet Book Level 1 Book

Author(s): JAINA Education Committee
Publisher: JAINA Education Committee

Page 10

Pronunciation Guide and a Disclaimer note on Transliteration
Jain scriptures are written using Devanagari characters. To correctly pronounce these characters in English, it is necessary to put various diacritical marks on some English vowels and consonants. Scholars usually follow a standard transliteration scheme adopted by the International Congress of Orientalists at Athens, Greece in 1912.
However, most Internet browsers and word processors may not display and print all transliterated characters. The main objective of these Jain education series has been to teach Jainism concepts to Jain youth and lay people who do not have the knowledge of this transliteration convention. As a result, a following simplified scheme has been adopted for this series.
Only one diacritical mark, two dots over the letter "ä" (aa) or “A” (AA) is used to indicate a long vowel sound of letter "ä" associated with certain words.
The transliteration used here is neither authentic nor totally consistent. Therefore, while it will serve the purpose of learning Jain concepts, this book should not be used for learning correct pronunciations.
The pronunciation guide is as listed below. The bold letter in each Sanskrit word should be pronounced similarly to the bold letter in each English word. Please do not pronounce ä (aa) if the letter "a" but not "a" appears at the end of word such as Karma or Jina.
fär
English vowel English word Sanskrit or Präkrit word
ago
Karma Ätmä
Deva police
Jina go
ogho rule
guru
red
CO-m D:D
Note - The Jain Sutra book (JES 201) will have all diacritical marks in the transliteration portion of the original Sutras.
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JAIN ALPHABET BOOK