The Letter प (pa)

Let's jump back to consonants for a while. The letter which makes the pa sound in the Devanagari syllabary is प. Although the sound made by this letter is almost exactly the sound found in the English word, spin , one pronounces it without as much breath being released (Snell, 9). At this point, however, you can think of it as essentially making the same sound as the English letter P.

Look at the Devanagari letter प (pa) and then look at the English letter which has the same sound, P. Look at them beside each other: पP. They look pretty similar, don't they? In fact, the letter प (pa) looks like a letter P that has been turned around backwards and then had its top flattened. प makes the pa sound, just like the English letter it resembles.

Compared to the other letters we've learned, there's a lot here that's the same. There's that horizontal line, from which all the letters hang, and there's a slightly-off-center vertical line, just like the letters य (ya) and म (ma). Lastly, there's a loop that comes straight down from the left of the horizontal line, curves to the right, and up a bit to meet the vertical line, much like you'd make a backwards English, P.

Be careful not to confuse प (pa) with य (ya). य (ya) has the "dent" in the left side, which makes it curve around like a cursive English Y. The new letter, प (pa), has no wiggles at all as it curves around from the horizontal bar to the vertical bar.

Now that you know what sound the letter प makes just by looking at it, say its sound a few times. Pa. Pa. Pa. Pa.