The consonants of Indian scripts have been arranged in the order. They are in order of their creation in the mouth and the efforts taken. One notices five rows having five letters in each. I call them five families having five members in each row. The last one in each family is the smallest naughty kid escaping from nasal. First letter is representation of family.
- First row – Throat family. produced in the throat contraction.
- Second row – Ceiling family. I mean tongue strikes to the ceiling of mouth.
- Teeth joint Family – tongue strikes the part where teeth comes out.
- Behind teeth family – tongue strikes back of the front teeth.
- Lips family – both lips strikes to each other
This is shown in the figure below. I would pronounce the letter and class could feel the location and agree upon.
What are the rest one then. Last two rows are the eight one. Only difference is the touch is soft compare to earlier. So the difference of efforts is keeping them on the back benches. They produce more heat. Last three letters are dialect specific or mixture which we will deal later. This diagram is my favorite display in the classroom. I will use these till they get familiar with the concept. Repeating every time the same so that the foundation is strong. I will keep this introduction simple.
Now these consonants shall be memorized. I had found the trick last time while I was introducing the Vowels. I again made a song to sing in the classroom in melody with all possible different and familiar tunes like ‘Old McDonald had a farm’ or ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ or even ‘We will We will rock you’. The kids enjoyed it a lot so much so that one asked me to sing it on ‘ Gagnam Style’. We all stood up and danced. I got my last bit of memorization done here. Every session laterwe used to start with these two songs.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuSwA0qtUVE&w=560&h=315]
In three four weeks all the kids started singing it without a drop of any single letter. Simply they cant when it is in rhythm. One day one of my most quite student’s mother showed me a video clip. She is Telugu. At the end of prayer she continued with the song of consonants. This video gave me more confidence to carry on.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX3u5nRBc20&w=420&h=315]
These are alphabetical Periodic table of Indian Bhasha.These are the letters the BASIC 33 we are going to play the drum with.
