HINDI

Hindi is an Indo-European language spoken in India, Pakistan, Nepal, and throughout the
Indian diaspora in Fiji, Singapore, Uganda, United Arab
Emirates, Trinidad, Suriname, Guyana, South Africa, UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New
Zealand, Mauritius, Germany, etc.. Of the 22 official languages and over 1,000 dialects of India,
Hindi is promoted by the government and viewed by over half the population as a "link-language."

Hindi is descended from Sanskrit, sometimes called "the mother of all languages," or "Latin of the
East." Hindi developed from the proto-Hindi Khar Bol (lit. "Pure language"). A mixture of
Hindi and Urdu, called Hindustani (though this name is also applied to the Caribbean dialect of
Hindi), is the form heard in most Bollywood films, that try to appeal to the widest audience possible.
Hindustani is different than what is taught at the literary level and what is used by news programs
and the government in India.

A striking fact is that, depending on the source, Hindi is listed anywhere from the 2nd-5th most
widely spoken language in the world. In contrast to languages such as Mandarin or Spanish, there
has not been much stress outside of India in promoting Hindi education. In 2006, however, President
Bush brought education of India's languages, including Hindi, to the forefront in the United States
through the National Security Language Initiative, thus highlighting the need for closer ties and
understanding between the two countries.

Writing

Hindi is written in the Devangar ( ) script, shared with Nepali, Marathi and a number of
other Indian languages. Learning Devanagari is not quite as difficult as you might think at first
glance, but mastering it takes a while and is beyond the scope of most travellers. See Learning
Devanagari for a primer.

About Hindi. Linguistic Information.

The Republic of India has 18 official or national languages: Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi,
Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu,
Urdu and English. Not all of these languages are from the same group, so an Indian speaker of Hindi
would understand a Tamil speaker as well as for example an Englishman would understand a
Chinese speaker! As one of the official languages of India (Bhaarat), Hindi has more than
180,000,000 speakers. It is an Indo-European language, descended from Sanskrit, and is written
using the Devanagari script. Another name for the Hindi language is "khadi boli" (khari boli), which is
actually the name of a dialect, originally spoken in Delhi, and from which Hindi developed.
Surprisingly, Hindi isn't spoken only in India and in parts of the surrounding countries, but also in...
Africa! Yes, it's true - there are over 2,000,000 Hindi speakers in Africa. About the half of them live in
South Africa (~800,000) and Uganda (~150,000).

Urdu, the national language of Pakistan is considered by many to be the same language as Hindi.
Historically, India was a much bigger country, including the territories of today's Pakistan and
Bangladesh, and the language spoken in the country was called Hindustani. The Hindi-Urdu
language is often spoken about but, as languages spoken in different countries, Hindi and Urdu are
also different in many ways - mostly in vocabulary. Since Urdu is spoken in an Islamic country, it had
borrowed many words from Arabic and Persian and therefore has an Arabic hue, whereas Hindi
uses more Sanskrit words. Another difference is the writing system: Hindi uses the Devanagari
script, but Urdu uses a modified version of the Arabic script (or rather the Persian script).

Most of the other official languages of India have their own script. However, some of them, such as
Marathi, use the Devanagari script too. Gujarati has its own script. Some Punjabi speakers use the
Devanagari script, but others (Sikhs) use a special script called "Gurumukhi". It's very similar to Hindi
though... It's regarded as the script of the gurus (teachers), and that is how it got its name - guru =
teacher, mukh = mouth. On the other hand, "Devanagari" means "the heavenly script", or the script
used in the city of gods (deva = god, nagari = city, town).

Hindi Alphabet - Hindi Varnamala

just as the English alphabet, has vowels and consonants. Here you can familiarize
yourself with the Hindi alphabet - Hindi Varnamala.

Hindi is normally spoken using a combination of sounds - vowels,consonants, nasalisation and

aspiration. These sounds are represented in the Devanagari script by 52 symbols: for 10 vowels,
2 modifiers and 40 consonants. You will also need to recognize characters that represent vowel
but are in less use, and four common conjunct consonants.

Once you have learnt the basic characters you will then be easily able to learn
the Matra symbols for the vowels and the conjunct characters.

Hindi Alphabet
Devanagari is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal. It is written from left to right,
lacks distinct letter cases, and is recognizable by a distinctive horizontal line running
along the tops of the letters that links them together. Devanagari is the main script
used to write Hindi, Marathi, and Nepali. Since the 19th century, it has been the most
commonly-used script for Sanskrit and Pali. Devangar is also employed for Gujari,
Bhili, Bhojpuri, Konkani, Magahi, Maithili, Marwari, Newari, Pahari (Garhwali and
Kumaoni), Santhali, Tharu, and sometimes Sindhi, Panjabi, and Kashmiri. It was
formerly used to write Gujarati.

English Hindi English Hindi English Hindi English H

a B L Sa

aa Bha Li Sha

e Ca Li Shha

ii Chha Lii Ta

ei Da Lii T'a

ei Dha Ma Tha

ai Fa Na Tha

i Fi N'a T'ha

o Ga Nia Thha

oi Gha Nae ugDha

oii Ghi Ni ugDhha

uu Ha oms Va

ou Ja Pa Ya

u Jha Qi Yi

Ka Ra Za

Kha Ri

Khi Ri

Ri
Vowels in Hindi

Listen - Hindi Vowels

Hindi alphabet have ten vowels and two modifiers which are given below. The symbols shown
below the alphabets are known as "matra" symbols. Matra symbols are used when consonants
and vowels are to be written together.

Vowels Not In Common Use

Consonants in Hindi Alphabets

Listen - Hindi Consonants

Dot+Consonants (Extensions)

Special Symbols

The following symbols are pronounced using nasal in conjunction with other
consonants.
Pronunciation

Hindi Pronunciation In Brief

These six parts of mouth - throat (kanth), palette (taaloo), teeth (danta), lips (oshhth), nasal

(nasika) and front of palette (agr-taaloo) are mainly used to speak

For some of alphabet syllables, you need to use two of these organs. Look at the last three rows
in table below.

Organs of Hindi Pronunciation

 Organ Vowels Consonants

, , , , ,

, , , , ,

, , , ,

-- , , , ,

, , , , ,

-- , , , , ,

, --

, --

--

Special Alphabets

The alphabets , , , , are pronounced using nasal in conjunction with other parts noted
above.

Hindi Pronunciation Examples

Vowel As In

Ultra

Father

Ink

Feel

Pull

Moon

Ray

Angel

So

Owl

Hunger

Ah!
Vowel As In

Hindi Barakhadi :Twelve Hindi vowels when put behind a consonant

gives us 12 different sounds from each consonants. Twelve is
baarah in Hindi which gives us Barakhadi.

Youll learn how to form different sounds using Hindi

Vowels and Hindi Consonants

But before we learn this in Hindi, we must see how make different
sounds using English vowels and English consonants

English has 5 vowels: a,e,i,o,u.

English has 5 vowels: a,e,i,o,u.

If I take an English consonant K and combine K with 5 vowels of

English, I have five different sounds

1) k + a= ka as in amerika
2) k+ e= ke as in kettle
3) k+i=ki as in kim
4) k+o=ko as in kola
5)k+u=ku as in kumar

Hindi is no different. Twelve vowels when put behind a Hindi

consonant gives us twelve different sounds for each consonant. The
word twleve translates to barah in Hindi. Hence what you are
going to learn now is called Barakhadi.

Let us take the example of Hindi alphabet (ga)

When (ga) combines with the first Hindi vowel (a), the sound
remains as it is
(ga) + (a) = (ga) as in gun
When (ga) combines with the second Hindi vowel (aa), it
takes the sound of (aa) at the end.
(ga) + (aa)= (gaa) as in Gandhi
while writing the sign (known as maatraa) is attached to
(ga).
When (ga) combines with the third Hindi vowel (ii), it takes
the sound of (ii) at the end.
(ga) + (ii)= (gi) as in Gift
while writing the sign is attached to (ga).

The following presentation shows the complete Barakhadi of .

+ + + + + + + + + + +

Most English speakers find Hindi pronunciation rather challenging, as there are 11 separate vowels
and 35 separate consonants, employing a large number of distinctions not found in English. Don't
let this intimidate you: Many speakers do not speak standard Hindi at home, and are quite used to
regional accents and mangling in various degrees.
Hindi is written in a script called Devanagari, which is highly phonetic. Once it is learned, Hindi
becomes an easy language to read. Each character is pronounced the same way it appears each
time, with very few exceptions. Its primary difficulties are that 1) there are some letters written down
before another character but pronounced after it, and 2) some letters are formed from the
combination of two others.

We'll start with a few straightforward consonants - h, n, d, m, r, k. For now we'll consider them out of
"alphabetical" order just to get an idea how they work. They'll be presented in order later.

This is the letter for the sound H as in "Hindi," pronounced just as in English. Note that every Hindi
consonant "inherits" the schwa vowel // with it unless it is otherwise marked (the schwa sound is
the initial a in about or the vowel sound in the). However, the schwa is not typically pronounced
when at the end of a word. The character "h" is read with the schwa as "ha."

This is "na," similar to the English "n."

Let's join the two together (by the only two possible ways) and pronounce them.

At first sight, this looks like "hn." But with every consonant except the last comes the schwa, so
we read that as "han." In the ancient language Sanskrit that Hindi decends from that final "a"
was pronounced. A contemporary Hindi speaker would read "Siddharta Gautama Buddha" as
"Siddharth Gautam Buddh."

That would of course be "nuh".

That's "d" as in "Hindi", pronounced with the tongue a little flatter against the back of the
teeth. Consonants pronounced this way are known as dental consonants. There is another d
in Hindi, known as retroflex, and made with the toungue touching the roof of the mouth.

M as in "magnet", so same as English m. If we join two m's we'll have a word, which will
be pronounced in Hindi exactly the same way as the English "mum": .

R as in "roll."

K as in "keen."

In Hindi each vowel is written in two ways--as a vowel mark called a matra, and as a
detached vowel letter. Matras are seen more often than detached vowels. Detached vowels
appear at the start of a word, or when one vowel follows another. In all other cases the
vowel marks are used.

Let's start with the vowel marks:

(I hope you remember, that every consonant comes with an "a" unless otherwise marked, so
there is no matra for that sound)
The vowel "" - a straight vertical line is both its matra and its vowel mark. It sounds
similar to the a in father. The dashed little circle to its left isn't part of the language--
it just shows you the place of where the preceding consonant would be. Here is a
consonant with the matra:

- "haa".

The long version of the "i" (ee), pronounced as the English "ee" in "see". It's
written after the consonant. With a character it looks like: - "hee".

o O as in "domain". With it looks like: - "hoe".

a au may be pronounced a lot like an English "o", though some dialects

u pronounce it as a dipthong. With it looks like: - "how".

u That's the short u, as in "look": - "hu".

That's the long u as in "coooool": - "hoo".

e This e is pronounced as in the e in grey. Together with this would be: .

ai That's also an e. It's e, but a bit closed sound and some speakers pronounce it
as a dipthong.

An important thing, before we continue. A dot over a vowel nasalizes it, forcing some of the
expired air through the nasal cavity. When pronounced, a nasalized vowel is pronounced by
forcing some of the expelled air through the nose, producing a slight n or ng sound:

The anusvara dot, nasalizing a vowel. For example if we have dot over no, we'll
pronounce that as "no~" (sometimes written as "non") - exactly the same as the French
word for "no." -> (no -> no~). In the lessons I will transcribe the nasalized letter as
~.

These are all the basic vowel marks, allowing us to write some words, using the letters
learned so far:

- "Hindi." Let's have a closer look. First we see that the word starts with "i", but
since it is the short i matra, it is written before but pronounced after the next consonant,
which is "h," So far we have "hi". Next we see the dot, nasalizing the vowel to "hi~"
(hin). Next two letters: a dental d and the long "i." This word can also be written with the
na character written explicitly (in shortened form in this case) as: .

Some more words with what we know so far:

- "hai" or "hay" (without the "i" sound in "hei") means "is."

- "hai~" (hain) means "are."

- "mai~" (main) means "I."

Next come the Detached forms of the Vowels:

Recall that these are used after another vowel or at the beginning of a word which starts
with a vowel. Their pronunciation is exactly the same pronounciation as in their vowel
mark form:
. Hindi Number System

digits and their equivalent Arabic/English figures are given below.

Count in Hindi

Writing Hindi Numbers

Though Hindi numerals are quite different than Arabic ones, you can use Arabic numerals in
most of official communications in Hindi language too. The use, however, should be consistent
throughout your written page.

Decimals In Hindi Number System

Hindi Number System follows a simple pattern of repeating itself after every ten numbers,
known as Decimal system. See further below to find how numbers are written and spoken.

Listen - Hindi Number Words

Hindi Ordinal Numbers

Numbers up to 20. Wh-questions and other question-words.

Here is a table of the numbers up to 20:

Number Hindi Transliteratoin Number Hindi Transliteration

1 ek 11 gyarah

2 do 12 barah

3 thin 13 terah

4 char 14 chaudah

5 panch 15 pandrah

6 chha (chhe) 16 solah

7 sath 17 satrah
8 aath 18 athharah

9 nau 19 unnis

10 das 20 bis

Next come the question words:

(kya) = What?

(kaun) = Who?

(kaha~) = Where?

(kyo~) = Why?

/ / (kaisa/kaise/kaisi) = How?

/ / (kitna/kitne/kitni) = How much?, How many?

So, basically, that was the lesson, but I forgot something to tell you about. It's concerning the
numbers. The Devanagari script even possess its own letters for writing the numbers, but those are
not used much in our time. However I'll give them here too:

=1

=2

=3

=4

=5

=6

=7

=8
 =9

= 10

As you can see they resembles the ""Arabic"" ciphers we use, and it should be so, since actually the
Arabic ciphers are INDIAN ciphers. The writing system, on base 10, developed in India, where
people used to write numbers with the letters you see above... Later Arabs adopted that system and
brought it all over the word, thus it became known as "Arabic numbers"... By the way, written in
Devanagari, the year, in which I'm writing these lesson will look as ...

Hindi Numbers 1-10

(ek) 1

(do) 2

(teen) 3

(chaar) 4

(paanch) 5

(chhah) 6

(saat) 7

(aaath) 8

(nou) 9

(das) 10
 (gyaaraa) 11

(baaraa) 12

(teraa) 13

(choudaa) 14

(pandhraa) 15

(solaa) 16

(satraa) 17

(athraa) 18

(unnees) 19

(bees) 20
 Hindi numbers 21-30
(ikkees) 21

(baaees) 22

(teiis) 23

(chobees) 24

(pacchees) 25

(chhabbees) 26

(sattaaees) 27

(atthaaees) 28

(unntees) 29

(tees) 30

Hindi Numbers 31-40

Thirty one (31) () ikatsa

Thirty two (32) () battsa

Thirty three (33) () taitsa

Thirty four (34) () chautsa

Thirty five (35) () paitsa

Thirty six (36) () chattsa

Thirty seven (37) () saitsa

Thirty eight (38) () aatsa

Thirty nine (39) () untlsa

Forty (40) () chlsa

Hindi Numbers 41-50

Forty one (41) () ikatlsa

Forty two (42) () baylsa

Forty three (43) () taitlsa

Forty four (44) () chautlsa

Forty five (45) () paitlsa

Forty six (46) () chiylsa

Forty seven (47) () saitlsa

Forty eight (48) () aatlsa

Forty nine (49) () unacsa

Fifty (50) () pacsa

Hindi Numbers 51-100

Fifty one (51) () ikybana

Fifty two (52) () bvana

Fifty three (53) () tirpana

Fifty four (54) () chaubana

Fifty five (55) () pachapana

Fifty six (56) () chappana

Fifty seven (57) () sattvana

Fifty eight (58) () ahvana

Fifty nine (59) () unasaha

Sixty (60) () sha

Sixty one (61) () ikasaha

Sixty two (62) () bsaha

Sixty three (63) () tirasaha

Sixty four (64) () chausaha

Sixty five (65) () paisaha

Sixty six (66) () chiysaha

Sixty seven (67) () saasaha

Sixty eight (68) () aasaha

Sixty nine (69) () unahattara

Seventy (70) () sattara

Seventy one (71) () ikahattara

Seventy two (72) () bahattara

Seventy three (73) () tihattara

Seventy four (74) () chauhattara

Seventy five (75) () pachahattara

Seventy six (76) () chihattara

Seventy seven (77) () satahattara

Seventy eight (78) () ahahattara

Seventy nine (79) () uns

Eighty (80) () ass

Eighty one (81) () ikys

Eighty two (82) () bays

Eighty three (83) () tirs

Eighty four (84) () chaurs

Eighty five (85) () pachs

Eighty six (86) () chiys

Eighty seven (87) () sats

Eighty eight (88) () ahs

Eighty nine (89) () navs

Ninety (90) () nabb

Ninety one (91) () ikynab

Ninety two (92) () bnav

Ninety three (93) () tirnav

Ninety four (94) () chaurnav

Ninety five (95) () pachnav

Ninety six (96) () chiynav

Ninety seven (97) () sattnav

Ninety eight (98) () ahnav

Ninety nine (99) () ninynav

(One) hundred (100) () () (ka) sau

Numbers[edit]

The numerals used to write in decimal are called Indo-Arabic numerals. Developed in India, they
were borrowed by the Arabs, and gradually spread to Europe. The similarities are hard to miss.
Here are their respective numerals.

Roman Devanagari

6
7

Hindi numbers ending in 9 are named as "un" (-1) plus the next multiple of ten. Instead of
naming powers of a thousand, Hindi has unique names for a thousand, a hundred thousand, ten
million etc. These peculiarities don't seem to have affected the proliferation of Indian
mathematicians.

Hi
Num Translit Num Hind Translit Num Translit Num Hin Translit
nd Hindi
eral eration eral i eration eral eration eral di eration
i

shUnya, pachatta
0 25 paccs 50 pacs 75
bi.ndi r

chihatta
1 ek 26 chabbs 51 ikyvan 76
r

sathatta
2 do 27 sats 52 bvan 77
r

ahhatta
3 tn 28 ahs 53 tirpan 78
r

4 chr 29 unts 54 cauvan 79 unys

5 pnc 30 ts 55 pacpan 80 ass

6 cheh, 31 iktts 56 chappan 81 ikys

, chai,
 ,
che

7 st 32 batts 57 sattvan 82 bays

ahva
8 h 33 taints 58 83 tirs
n

9 nau 34 caunts 59 unsah 84 caurs

10 das 35 paints 60 sh 85 pacs

11 gyreh 36 chatts 61 iksah 86 chiys

12 bareh 37 saints 62 bsah 87 satts

13 tereh 38 ats 63 tirsah 88 ahs

14 caudeh 39 untls 64 cainsah 89 navs

15 pandreh 40 cls 65 painsah 90 nabbe

chiysa ikynav
16 soleh 41 iktls 66 91
h e

17 satreh 42 bayls 67 sarsah 92 bnave

ahre taintl tirnav

18 43 68 asah 93
h s e

unhatt caurn
19 unns 44 cavls 69 94
ar ave

paintl pacna
20 bs 45 70 sattar 95
s ve

21 ikks 46 chiyl 71 ikhatta 96 chiyna

 s r ve

saintl behatt sattna

22 bs 47 72 97
s ar ve

ahna
23 tes 48 atls 73 tihattar 98
ve

chaub cauhatt ninyn

24 49 uncs 74 99
s ar ave

Numeral Hindi Transliteration

100 sau

200 do sau

300 tn sau

1000 hazr

2000 do hazr

3000 tn hazr

1,00,000 lkh

1,00,00,000 karo

1,00,00,00,000 arab

1,00,00,00,00,000 ? kharab

number _____ (train, bus, etc.) _____ , , ... nambar _____ ren, bas, ...

1 half dh

less / kam/thoa

more / adhika/jyada
 English Hindi Numbers Devanagari Script

0 Zero shunya / sifer /

1 One eyk

2 Two do

3 Three teen

4 Four chaaR

5 Five paanch

6 Six chey

7 Seven saat

8 Eight aat

9 Nine no

10 Ten das

11 Eleven gyaaRah

12 Twelve baaRah

13 Thirteen teyRah

14 Fourteen chodah

15 Fifteen pandRaah

16 Sixteen solaah

17 Seventeen satRah

18 Eighteen ataaRaah

19 Nineteen unees

20 Twenty bees

30 Thirty tees

40 Forty chaalees

50 Fifty pachaas

60 Sixty saat
 English Hindi Numbers Devanagari Script

70 Seventy sataR

80 Eighty asee

90 Ninety nabey

100 Hundred so

1,000 Thousand hazaaR

10,000 Ten Thousand das hazaaR

100,000 Hundred Thousand eyk laak

1,000,000 Million das laak

Plus adik

Minus gataav

More (than) sey adik ___( )

Less (than) sey gat ___( )

Approximately lagbag

First pehelaa

Second doosRaa

Third teesRaa

Hindi Cardinal Numbers

Cardinal numbers in Hindi as well as in English are digits like 1, 2, 3, 4 There are
two ways of writing the numbers in Hindi, in Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3) or in Hindi
script (, , ). The table below contains more information about the hindi
numbers.

Hindi Ordinal Numbers

Ordinal numbers in Hindi as well as in English are used to determine a position or a
rank, for example: first, second, third ... please look at the table above.