LESSON NOTES

All About S1 #2
Cracking the Hindi Writing System

CONTENTS
2 Grammar

# 2
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GRAMMAR

The Focus of This Lesson is the Hindi Writing System

We write the Hindi language using Devnagari script. Origin

The Devnagari script, also known as the Naagarii script, has its origin in the Brahmi script of
eleventh century A.D. We use the Devnagari script to write Hindi, and also use it for writing
other languages of South Asia like Sanskrit, Marathi, Nepali, Maithili, Bhojpuri, Kannauji, and
so on, with minor alterations.

Notable Features

1. Type of writing system: Alphasyllabary.

2. Direction of writing: left to right in horizontal lines - same as English.

3. Devanagari is not a case-sensitive script.

4. Hindi has borrowed punctuations from English, except the sentence terminator called
khadi pai, written as "। ," which is used to complete the sentence that is equal to a full

stop in English.

5. Every consonant letter in Hindi carries an inbuilt vowel with it. That vowel is "-a,"
which can be further changed by using "diacritics," which is known as maatraa.

6. We can write maatraa above, below, before, or after the vowel or consonant. We can
see this style of writing in most of the south and southeast Asian languages.

The Hindi alphabet consists of eleven vowels and forty consonants. We call vowels and
consonants together AkShars (अर ). The meaning of the word AkShar is "immortal."

The consonants represent different Sanskrit consonants we pronounce identically in Hindi.

Write the Same Hindi as You Speak

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One of the very intresting features of the Hindi written system is that the Devnagari script is a
phonetics-based script. Simply said, in Hindi, we write words largely the same as we
pronounce them. This makes foreign words very easy to write in Hindi with little or no
difference in pronunciation. Devanāgarī Alphabet for Hindi
Consonants

Hindi Consonant Romanized

क ka

ख kha

ग ga

घ gha

ड da

च cha

छ chha

ज ja

झ jha

ञ Ja

ट ta

ठ tha

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ड da

ढ dha

ण na

त ta

थ tha

द da

ध dha

न na

प pa

फ pha

ब ba

भ bha

म ma

य ya

र ra

ल la

व va

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श sha

ष Sa

स sa

ह ha

 ksha

 Tra

 gya

 Shra

क़ qa

ग़ gha

़
ख kha (fricative)

ज़ za

फ़ fa

ढ़ Retro. rha

ड़ Retro. ra

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Vowels

The chart below gives the independent and dependent forms of each vowel. The dependent
vowel maatrass are shown attached to the letter -sa (स)

Vowel: Maatraa: Pronunciation

Independent English Dependent Maatraa with of Consonant
Form Equivalent Form Consonant + maatraa

अ -a "as in about" स [sa]

अा -a "as in father" ◌ा सा [saa]

इ -i "as in sin" ि◌ स [si]

ई -i "as in seen" ◌ी सी [see]

उ -u "as in book" ◌ु स [su]

ऊ -u "as in food" ◌ू सू [soo]

ए -e "as in bet" ◌े से [se]

एे -ai "as in sad" ◌ै सै [sai]

अाे -o "as in soda" ◌ाे साे [so]

अाै -au "as in saw" ◌ाै साै [saw]

Hindi Numerals

0 : - (०) shoonya - शू  य

1:-

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(१) ek - ए क

2 : - (२) do - दाे

3 : - (३) teen - तीन

4 : - (४) char -चार

5 : - (५) paanch -पांच

6 : - (६) chah -छह

7 : - (७) saat -सात

8 : - (८) aath -अाठ

9 : - (९) nau -नाै

10 : - (१०) das - दस

As we know, Hindi is a rich language with a good collection of consonants and vowels, but
what about some of the foreign language sounds? To represent many sounds that occur in
foreign languages, in Devanagari it is very simple, just by adding a dot (called a nukta) under
the similar sound of existing Devanagari script.

For example, let us take one very common sound in English: the sound [z] as in "zoo" that
cannot be written by using Hindi. To write it, the similar sound ज or [j] is modified as ज़ , which

becomes the sound [z]. We not only use the nukta for the foreign sounds, but we also use it to
represent some native sounds like ड becoming ड़, and ढ becoming ढ़.

Writing a "Half" or "Schwa-less" Consonant

As we know, every consonant automatically includes a short "-a" vowel sound with it. What if
we want to write two consonants together without any intervening vowel? In such cases, we
can literally chop off the trailing part of the first consonant letter and attach what's left to the

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second consonant.

For Example:

1. धयवाद, dhanyavad ("thank you") - half न (na) is attached to the following य (ya).

2. अछा, achha ("good") - half च (cha) is attached to the following छ (chha).

Example of Hindi Writing

मंदर में हम चपल उतार के जाते है।

Mandir me hum chappal utar ke jate hai.
"We always go inside a temple with shoes off."

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