In the course of the normal English text, no specfial characters are explicitly used to indicate special intonations and pronunciations. It is left to the reader to decipher the appropriate terms.

For instance for terms like 'Naama' 'Raama', 'Raadha', 'Swaamiji' etc., the 'aa' in which is pronounced as 'a' in 'war' or 'water' is still written as Nama, Rama, Radha, Swamiji respectively.

However when there are two terms with the same spelling but vary drastically in meaning, efforts are taken to use the conventions given below to clearly depict the pronunciation.

When it comes to Sanskrit slokas (verses) and Tamil verses that are stated from the scriptures, the following conventions are used to indicate appropriate intonations.

'a' : eg. 'hari' 'o' as in 'honey'
'A' : eg. nAma 'a' as in car, 'party' etc.
'e' : eg. 'eNNam' 'e' as in 'men'
'E' : eg. 'Ekam' 'a' as in 'prayer'
'O' : eg. 'gOvinda' 'o' as in bone, window etc.
'i : eg. 'iraivan' 'i' as in 'twin', 'sin' etc.
'I' : eg. 'gIta' 'ee' as in 'peel'
'u' : eg. 'suka' 'oo' as in 'look'
'U' : eg. ' 'u' as in 'pure'
'l' : eg. 'bilwa' - the tongue touching the teeth when 'la' is uttered
'L' : eg. 'praLaya' - the tongue touching the inner upper jaw when 'La' is uttered
'n' : eg. 'nara' - the tongue touching the teeth when 'na' is uttered
'N' : eg. 'krishNa' - the tongue touching the inner upper jaw when 'Na' is uttered