2. _vyaNjan/s (Consonants)

These _vyaNjan/s (व्यंजन; vyanjan) are very logically arranged in following groups.
A. Sparsh
B. Antashth
C. Ushm

A. _sparsh (Touch)

_sparsh (स्पर्श) means touch. While speaking, alongwith vibrations in vocal cord and passage of air from mouth and nose, tongue and lips move. Particularly for pronouncing consonants the movements of tongue and lips are important. In DevaNagari, most of the consonants are arranged logically; depending upon the position of tongue (what it touches) and movements of lips. There are five sequences in this group. Each sequence has five consonants.

These sequences follow similar phonetic pattern! The first and second forms a pair. The third and forth forms another pair. The last one can be thought of as nasalised form of the third one!!!

B. AntaHsth (Liquids)

This is the 'middle' set. 'AntaHsth' (अन्तःस्थ) in Sanskrit means 'middle' or 'inner'. The semivowels 'ya' (य) and 'va' (व) were/are considered as consonants!

C. UShm (Fricatives)

'UShm' (उष्म) means hot! Isn't it amazing to know that terminologies developed separately resulted in related terms - 'Friction' and 'hot' (heat)!

>> Click here to read about maatraa/s...

† do not pronounce these DevaNagari consonants as regular pronunciation of its English transliteration.
‡ these consonants cannot generally be pronounced by those not familier with any Indic language/script.