I started studying Sanskrit long before I got into yoga. It is a beautiful language, a sacred tongue to over a billion people of different faiths including Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism, and the language of a literary tradition spanning over three millennia in which some of the world’s greatest masterpieces were written.

Sanskrit can be thought of as a great-great-aunt to English. Both belong to the Indo-European family of languages. Many words are similar in the two languages. The word yoga is related to the English word “yoke,” meaning to join or unite. To give just a couple more examples that we come across all the time in our yoga practice: The word for “ three” is tri, so Trikonasana, or triangle pose, sounds like the English “three-corner asana.” Sutra, meaning “thread,” comes from the same root as our word “suture.” The Sutra is like a thread, and the commentary—the words of the guru—are like the beads and pendant hanging on the thread. This is why the Yoga Sutra by itself is very hard to understand. It was never meant to stand alone without the guidance of a teacher. The Yoga Sutra is like a set of bullet points, and it is almost always published with the commentary of a yoga teacher.

Since India was colonized by Britain, any time Sanskrit is written out in the Roman alphabet, most of the letters are pronounced similarly to how they would be in English. One thing to keep in mind is that the letter “h” is usually pronounced. So an Indian person would say the word dharma with a distinct “h” sound after the “d,” but you don’t necessarily have to do this in English. Just be aware that “d” and “dh” sound quite different to someone from India. “Th,” is likewise pronounced as in “hothouse,” although it is common for English speakers to pronounce it as in “think.”

In the Indian Devanagari script, Sanskrit is pronounced exactly as written; but not everyone follows consistent or logical principles when writing Sanskrit words in English.

Some confusion can come up because in English we use the combinations “sh,” and “ch” to represent special sounds, and publishers are not consistent in how they deal with these letters and sounds when writing Sanskrit words in the Roman alphabet.

Most of the confusion occurs with the letter “s.” Sanskrit had three different “s” sounds—one like our “s,” one like our “sh,” and another that sounded like a strong hissing sound. This is why we often see both savasana (confusing as the dickens) and shavasana (much closer to how the word is really pronounced). Basically, any time you see ṣ or ś, it is safe to pronounce the letter like the “sh” in “shop.” These sounds were distinct in ancient times, but they are pronounced the same in Modern Hindi, and nobody will hold it against you if you pronounce them the same too.

Some publishers make the lamentable decision also to write all three of the different Sanskrit “s” characters simply as “s,” so you have no way of knowing that savasana ought to be pronounced shavasana just by seeing it written. I’m sorry you have to put up with that. It isn’t my fault.

The combination “ch” is pronounced as in English “child,” and “c” by itself is very similar but without the blast of air that English speakers produce when making the sound. The Sanskrit sounds represented as “ch” and “c” sound quite different to an Indian, but—to make matters confusing—some books will write both as “ch” because they sound very similar to native speakers of English. So you will sometimes see the word for moon written as “chandra” and sometimes as “candra.”

Now for a final word on the “ch.” The way people often write and pronounce the word “chakra” makes no sense, so the word is a whole exception in itself. The word should really be written cakra and pronounced with a soft version of the “ch” sound in “child,” minus the blast of air we English speakers make. I’m not sure why in this one case alone people decided to start pronouncing the Indian “c” as an English “sh,” but the practice has become so common that no one will fault you if that’s what you say. The word is pronounced “chuck-ra.” "Chock-ra" is OK too, but if anyone tells you it is really “shock-ra,” you may slap them. Figuratively, of course, since we yogis practice ahimsa.

One final thing to keep in mind about Sanskrit vowels is that “y” is always pronounced as a consonant, as in “yell,” and never as a vowel, as in “only.”

Now that you know the basics for pronouncing consonants in Sanskrit, it is time to move on to the vowels. Rules for where the accent falls on a Sanskrit word are fairly complicated, and you don’t really have to know them. Your pronunciation will be perfectly respectable if you just memorize how to pronounce some of the more common words. People who have learned Sanskrit understand how complex the nuances of the language can be, so they ought not to mind if you stress the wrong syllable once in a while. But here are some guidelines that can help:

Sanskrit distinguishes between long and short vowels. In the Devanagari script, they are easy to spot because they are written with entirely different letters. English publishers, however, frequently ignore the difference, so you can’t really know which is which until you hear the word pronounced. Some books will write a long horizontal line over a long syllable, as in āsana. The accent is on the first syllable of this word because long vowels like to be accented. In a word with three short syllables, on the other hand, like niyama, the accent falls on the second syllable.

A vowel that occurs before two consonants will often be accented, as in the word anjali, “divine offering.” Even though all three vowels are short, the accent is on the first syllable because the “a” in that syllable is before two consonants. This word is used in yoga for Anjali Mudra, when palms come together, and it is also part of the name of the great sage Patanjali. The root √pat means “to fall,” so some take this name as a reference to Patanjali’s miraculous birth: “he who fell into the folded hands (of a Brahmin),” while others interpret it as, “he for whom the folded hands of the people are falling.”

Now for the hard part. Sounds at the beginning or end of a word change how other sounds around them are pronounced. This is a principle call sandhi, and how it works is so complex even Sanskrit scholars sometimes have to check their reference books. You don’t need to concern yourself with these intricacies unless your own karma draws you further into the wonderful and rewarding world of Sanskrit studies, but it is useful for yogis to know some of the basics.

Vowels at the beginning and end of words tend to run together. So you will sometimes see “yoga asana,” written as it would be in Sanskrit as yogasana (or yogāsana). Paschimottanasana is a combination of paschima (west) and uttanasana (forward fold). Yep, “a” and “u” combine here to make “o.” And that is one of the great many rules of sandhi. Don’t worry about it. Just know it happens.

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Chris Livanos