The Devanagari Script - Basics:2
To write the Indians use their own script, called DEVANAGARI. Hindi is a very
easy to read language, since all is read as it's written. The script looks very
beautiful and at first maybe strange and kinda unintelligible, since to a
beginner all letters look alike. I'm here to prove the opposite - that Hindi is
even more logical and easy to read than English, let's say. The only
"disadvantage" about the Hindi script is that there exist some letters that a
written before certain character, but read after it..., and that there exist
many letter combination forming for example one letter from two others, that I
unfortunately cannot list all here, for I myself don't know them all! :-)
But..., enough of my involved words. Let's start learning!
We'll start with a few consonants - ' h, n, d, m, r, k':
ह
|
That's the letter for the sound "H" as in "Hindi".
It's easy to pronounce, it sounds just the same as English H in HAND... Here is
the point to say that every Hindi consonant "inherits" the vowel A with
it. So if you see "H" you have to read it "HA"... A better understanding
you'll gain after learning some more letters and see some examples... |
न
|
The next letter we learn is "N". It's the same as the
English "N". So, having two letter is quite a treasure :) Let us join them
together (by the two only possible ways) and pronounce them! |
| हन |
At first sight, this looks probably to you like "HN",
and it is, you're right. BUT, however, as I told you - with every consonant
comes the vowel 'a', so we have to read that as "hana". Another BUT comes into
play. In modern Hindi the last a in a word isn't pronounced, so we have to read
this as "HAN". In past times, that is, very long time ago that last "a"
was pronounced. For example the name of Buddha would be pronounce from a
contemporary Hindi speaker as "Siddharth Gautam Buddh", but not as it's known
round the world: Siddharta Gautama Buddha. |
| नह |
That's would be of course "NAH" |
| द |
That's "D" as in "hinDi". There is another D in Hindi,
which mostly is pronounced as R or as a sound between D/R. We'll deal with it
later. |
| म |
That's the M as in "magnet", so same as English M. If
we join two Ms we'll have a word, which will be pronounced in Hindi exactly the
same way as the English "mom": मम |
| र |
R as in "roll". No need of further
explanations. |
| क |
K as in "keen", so same as Englis
K. |
You could be wondering at this stage, why I've started with the consonants
and not with the vowels (well, you could be also not wondering...). For those
wondering (and for those - not) I'll gladly explain. In Hindi there exist two
types of vowel letters - detached vowel letters and vowel marks. The latter ones
you can (in my opinion) encounter more often than the detached vowels... There
is one simple rule about where to use the two types of vowels:
If you have to
start a word with a vowel OR you have to write a vowel after another vowel OR
you have to write a vowel after the nasal mark (which is a dot over the letter)
you have to use the detached vowels! In all other cases you have to use
the vowel marks. All that will be cleared out after we've learned some
vowels.
We'll start with the
vowel marks:
(I hope you
remember, that every consonant comes with an "A")
ा
|
A
|
That's the vowel "A" - a straight vertical line -,
usually pronounced a bit longer - "AA". (the dashed little circle
left of it isn't written at all, nor it is some kind of letter or character,
it's there just to show that this letter cannot stand alone, and left to it
should be another letter) |
हा |
ि
|
I |
That's the short "i", pronounced as the i in
English "hit". The most important thing about it, you should certainly know, is
that it's written before a consonant, but read after it! |
हि |
ी
|
I |
That's the long version of the "i" (ee),
pronounced as the English "ee" in "see". It's written after the consonant. |
ही |
ो
|
O |
O as in "domain". Not the same as the usual English O,
which sounds like "ou". |
हो |
ौ
|
AU |
AU (what is actually "O", but spelled like that to
differ from the O, you see above) is pronounced almost liek O, but it's a bit
closed sound and a bit longer... |
हौ |
| ु |
U |
That's LONG U, as in "coooool"... |
हु |
| ू |
U |
That's the SHORT U as in "look". |
हू |
| े |
E |
This E is pronounced as in the English word
"hElm". |
हे |
| ै |
AI |
That's also an E. It's related to the E in the same
way as AU is to O. So it's E, but a bit closed sound... |
है |
An important thing, before we continue. A dot over a letter
nasalizes
it. Let's have a look at that "dot":
ं
|
That letter (a dot) put over a letter nasalizes it (gives it an
-n or -ng sound). For example if we have dot over NO, we'll pronounce that as
"NO~" (non) - exactly the same as the French word for "no". नो
-> नों (no -> no~). In the lessons I note the nasalized letter as
~ |
That were the Vowel Marks, but we won't hurry to learn the other vowels - the
detached ones. First, we'll write some words, using the letters we've learned so
far:
हिंदी - At last! We can write "HINDI". Now let's have a
closer look. First we see that the word starts with "i", but since that the
short I, it's read
after the next letter, i.e.
after
the next consonant. So knowing that we have to look at the next letter. It's
"H". So far we have "HI", next we see the dot, for which I told you that you
should nasalize, so "hi~" (hin). Next too letters: D and the long "i". Now we
can read the wohle word: "HINDI"... (actually "hi~di", i.e. a nasalized 'i', but
in middle of words I don't use the ~ to show nasalization, but a plain N).
है - "hai". Means "is".
हैं - "hai~" (hain), meaning 'are'.
मैं - "mai~" = I
I think it's pretty easy. The beauty of the Devanagari script is not only in
its shapes, but also in the easy pronunciation...
Next come the
Detached forms of the Vowels:
First, a word about them. They're used after a vowel or at the beginning of a
word, which starts witha vowel. They have exactly the same pronounciation as
their cousins - the vowel marks:
| अ |
A
|
That's the sound, which is equivalent of the "inherited a", I
told you about - which comes after every consonant, if there is not other
vowel... |
|
| आ |
AA |
Equivalent of ा - pronounce it the same way |
|
| इ |
I |
Same as the short i vowel mark. |
|
| ई |
I |
Same as the long i vowel mark. |
|
| ओ |
O |
Same as the O vowel mark. |
|
| औ |
AU |
Same as AU vowel mark. |
|
| ऊ |
U |
Same as long U vowel mark. |
|
| उ |
U |
Same as short U vowel mark. |
|
| ए |
E |
Same as E vowel mark. |
|
| ऐ |
AI |
Same as AI vowel mark. |
|
As I told you those sounds are pronounced exactly the same way as the vowel
marks, so no need to explain here. I'll just give you some examples:
एक - "ek" = one
उन्नीस - "unnis" = nineteen
आप - "aap" = you
उनका - "unka" = Their
अब - "ab" = now
आंख - "aankh" = eye
अच्छ - "accha" = good
और - "aur" = and
भाई - "bhai" = brother
Don't bother about the letters you don't know, we'll learn them in short. The
more important thing is that you should recognize and see the detached vowels.
Now I'll continue with comparatively a full list of Hindi consonants. Learning
them you make you able to read in Hindi. Of course as I said in the beginning
there exist many combinations of letters etc, but howevery they don't appear so
often. For convenience I'll show the consonants in groups.
| Gutturals (sound is made
from the back of throat) |
| क |
ख |
ग |
घ |
|
|
|
| K |
KH |
G |
GH |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Palatals (sound is made by
the tongue touching the hard palate) |
| च |
छ |
ज |
झ |
|
|
|
| CH |
CCH |
J |
JH |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Cerebrals (sound is made by
rolling the tongue) |
| ट |
ठ |
ड |
ढ |
|
|
|
| T |
TH |
D |
DH |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Dentals (sound is made by
the tongue touching the teeth) |
| त |
थ |
द |
ध |
न |
|
|
| T' |
TH' |
D' |
DH' |
N |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Labials (sound is made with
lips almost closed /or closed - by M/) |
| प |
फ |
ब |
भ |
म |
|
|
| P |
F |
B |
BH |
M |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Semi Vowels (pronounced
with lips and throat open) |
| य |
र |
ल |
व |
ज़ |
|
|
| Y |
R |
L |
V/W |
Z |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Sibliants /
Aspirants |
| श |
ष |
स |
ह |
|
|
|
| SH |
SSH |
S |
H |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Compound and
Others |
| क्ष |
त्र |
ज्ञ |
श्र |
ऋ |
|
|
| KSH |
T'R |
GY |
SHR |
RI |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Double Letters (formed only
from one consonant, but which is doubled..., actually easy to
spot)(* Note that on some browsers you won't see the
letters propertly and instead of seeing one letter under another, you'll see one
letter left to another with the first letter having under it the special mark,
called "viraama" to make it semi-consonant.) |
| क्क |
ट्ट |
ठ्ठ |
त्त |
न्न |
ड्ड |
द्द |
| KK |
TT |
TTH |
T'T' |
NN (*Note the
similarity with TR) |
DD |
D'D' |
After learning all that letter you should be able to read Hindi texts! Well,
you could encounter occasionally some compound letters, but that'll be pretty
seldom. Now, just one thing before we end that lesson, and it's very important
thing:
THE HALF CONSONANTS:
I told you that every consonant comes with the vowel "a" with it. So when you
see "SM" you should read this as "SAM". But what if you want to say something
that begins with "SM", not "SAM". You cannot write such thing in Hindi you may
think, but that's not so. For such occasions, where one want to mute the
inherited A-vowel, there exist a special mark called "
virama". It's put
below the letter and if you see a letter with such mark you don't have to
pronounce "A" after it. Let us see how that virama-thing looks like:
टम = T + M = TAM
ट्म = T +
virama + M = TM
You see the small mark under the T? I bet you do! Well, that's the virama, it
mutes the A, so we pronounce "TM", not "TAM". However as much as useful it may
be, it's not used that much! Why? Almost all consonants in Hindi have their
"HALF CONSONANT" equivalent, so it's not necessary to write the virama, but
instead of this one has to write the corresponding
half consonant.
Half consonant are extremely easy to notice, since they look like the left half
of a consonant. Lemme give you some examples:
सस = S + S = SAS
सक = S + K =
SAK
स्स =
Half S + S = SS
स्क =
Half S + K = SK
By the way, some half letter do combine with the next consonant and change
shape. I'll give you some of the most used (i.e. those which you may encounter
more often):
