The Tamil script does not have letters for the voiced plosives (and no aspirates). For that it uses the corresponding voiceless plosives. After a nasal and between vowels k is pronounced  g: aṅku "there" is pronounces aṅgu, āku "to become", āgu or āhu. Word-initial k is pronounced k, as in kātal "love". So is double kk, as in the infinitive kākka "to protect". This phenomenon used to be known by the expression "convertibility of surds and sonants".

The "official" transcription is aṅku, āku, kātal, kākka. There is an unofficial transcription used in English language publications. For instance, kātali, " a lovely girl", is transcribed as kathali as well as kadhali.

In our youngest son's class in primary school there was a girl from Surinam called vasutha, that is, via vasutā, from Skt vasudhā.