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The Devanagari Script - Basics 1
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
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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
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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")
ा
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A
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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 |
ि
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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 |
ी
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I |
That's the long version of the "i" (ee),
pronounced as the English "ee" in "see". It's written after the consonant. |
ही |
ो
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O |
O as in "domain". Not the same as the usual English O,
which sounds like "ou". |
हो |
ौ
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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":
ं
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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
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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
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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... |
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आ |
AA |
Equivalent of ा - pronounce it the same way |
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इ |
I |
Same as the short i vowel mark. |
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ई |
I |
Same as the long i vowel mark. |
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ओ |
O |
Same as the O vowel mark. |
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औ |
AU |
Same as AU vowel mark. |
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ऊ |
U |
Same as long U vowel mark. |
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उ |
U |
Same as short U vowel mark. |
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ए |
E |
Same as E vowel mark. |
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ऐ |
AI |
Same as AI vowel mark. |
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