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So you have decided to take the plunge and learn how to speak Hindi. You are eager to discover Indian culture and ready to immerse yourself in this Indo-European language.
But of course, you can learn to speak Hindi - but you also need to learn to read and write it.
So come and discover the Hindi alphabet with us!
How Do You Write in Hindi?
Hindi is written using an alphabet called Devanagari. It is only one of many scripts in India.
Many of the Indian languages have their own script. While Hindi is an official language of India, so are many others - the government of India has issued a list of several dozen recognised languages, many of which have their own writing system.
So if you decide to learn Punjabi, you could be writing in either Shahmukhi or Gurmukhi. Gujarati has its own script, as does Telugu, Kannada, Sinhalese (Sinhala), Tamil, Odia. Nepali also has its own alphabet, though it can be written in Devanagari.
Bengali and Assamese, though separate scripts, are very similar to Devanagari, being all of them derived from Brahmic scripts.
The Devanagari script is used for the Hindi language, but also more than 120 others. A few of the Indian languages that use Devanagari are:
- Hindi
- Bhojpuri
- Bodo
- Chhattisgarhi
- Dogri
- Haryanvi
- Kashmiri
- Konkani
- Marathi
- Maithili
- Nepali
- Newar
- Pali
- Rajasthani
- Sanskrit
- Santali
- Sindhi
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How do you write Urdu?
The version of Hindi spoken as the official language of Pakistan, Urdu, is written with a variation on a Persian calligraphy script called Nasta’liq. This script, derived from Arabic, is written from right to left. The letters have a slightly different form depending on whether they are at the beginning, middle or end of a word.
History of the Devanagari Script
The word “Devanagari” comes from the word “Nagari” (older versions of the script go by that name) which means “city”, and “deva” meaning “holy, heavenly”.
It is a Brahmic script - a family including several of the Indian scripts, as well as alphabets from Nepal, Tibet and South-East Asia.
Brahmic Scripts
The origins of the Brahmic scripts is still debated. Some believe they may derive from Aramaic, others from Phoenician, still others postulate an indigenous origin from this Indic script.
The earliest-known examples of a Brahmic inscription are Prakrit texts dating to the 3rd to 1st century BC. Brahmic scripts were first used to write Sanskrit in the 1st century BC. Examples of Brahmi can be found throughout northern and central India.
The Gupta script
The Gupta Brahmi Script is first attested around the 1st century AD, mostly on pillars of iron or stone, and on coins minted by the Gupta Empire of India.
It was further developed into the Nagari, Sharada and Siddham scripts.
The Nagari Script
By the 7th century AD, Nagari was in common use to write Prakrit and Sanskrit; by the end of the first millennium AD, it had evolved into Devanagari and Nandinagari (one of the Hindi alphabets used in central and south India, and that has also been used for Sanskrit.)
Basics of the Hindi Alphabet
Hindi is an alphabet writing based on the abugida system in which consonants are the main element, with vowel notation being secondary.
While in the English alphabet (derived from Latin), vowels and consonants have an equal importance, the Hindi alphabet writing uses modifications of the consonants to indicate vowel sounds.
There are separate vowel letters, but they are only used if the vowel:
- stands on its own or
- is at the beginning of the word.
Otherwise, vowels are indicated with a diacritic modification to the basic consonant.
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Hindi transliteration
Transliteration is a means of bringing a language with another system of writing into the Latin script.
While there is an internationally recognised standard for transliterating Sanskrit, there is no true standard to approximate how Hindi is pronounced.
This is why it is so important to know the Hindi letters when learning Hindi.
If you can, it is useful to learn the international phonetic alphabet. If you click on one of the symbols on this site, you can hear it spoken, making it easier to learn the consonants and vowels with the right pronunciation.
Use Bollywood movies to learn Hindi and have fun at the same time.
The Hindi Vowels
Each of the Hindi vowels exists as a standalone letter. However, they are only used to write Hindi words if the vowel:
- stands alone (as the name suggests)
- is at the beginning of a word.
There is generally a long and a short version of each of the vowels - a difference that becomes important once you start to pronounce Hindi. The long versions generally take the symbols for the shorter version but add on to it with one or more extra strokes.
Here are the vowels in their independent form (in the Chandas font):
The vowels (in black) are, from left to right:
- a and ā
- i and ī
- u and ū
- ṛ/r̥ and ṝ/r̥̄
- ḷ/l̥ and ḹ/l̥̄
- e/ē and ai
- o/ō and au
The Hindi Consonants
Each Hindi consonant, in its independent form, automatically comes with the short version of the vowel “a” attached to it. Here is a list of Hindi consonants:
From left to right:
- ka
- kha
- qa
- gha
- na
- ca
- cha
- ja
- jha
- ña
- ṭa
- ṭha
- ḍa
- ḍha
- ṅa
- ta
- tha
- da
- dha
- na
- pa
- pha
- ba
- bha
- ma
- ya
- ra
- la
- lha
- va
- śa
- ṣa
- sa
- ha
You can hear them pronounced at Wikimedia Commons.
If, however, a vowel other than the short “a” follows the consonant in Hindi nouns or adjectives or verbs, then a so-called diacritic is added to the consonant sign, modifying it slightly.
Here is how the consonant ka is modified depending on which vowel succeeds it:
From left to right:
- ka
- kā
- ki
- kī
- ku
- kū
- kṛ
- kṝ
- ē
- kai
- kō
- kau
The top line
A characteristic of Hindi writing is the horizontal line along the top of the words. When writing by hand it is often left out or written last, but it’s always present in print form. When writing down your Hindi vocabulary in your notebook or flashcards, you should try and include it so you can recognise the words better when you see them printed in a sentence.
Ligatures
Certain consonant clusters that appear often are grouped together into ligatures - think of how English has æ as a ligature of a and e in certain words. Often, the vowels between these consonants are suppressed, so that only the consonants appear in the ligature.
New World Encyclopedia has a great article that shows some of the most common ligatures.
Hindi Numbers
Hindi writes its numbers much the way we do, with single numerals from one to nine, and then the decimal in the first position and the numeral in second.
Learning to Write the Hindi Letters
It’s not always easy to learn a new script. Remember when you first had to learn the Latin alphabet? Fortunately, your coordination will have improved since then! Still, your brain will need to get used to forming these new characters, but it will take a little while before each letter is perfect.
Wikipedia Commons has a wonderful series of gifs to teach you the stroke order for making Hindi letters as a little animation.
To practice writing Devanagari, why not take a page out of your early school days? Get a lined notebook of the kind used by children to practise the alphabet, or for learning calligraphy. Then repeat each letter for several lines - first alone, and then with its diacritic marks.
The more you practise, the nicer your Hindi handwriting will be!
Resources to Help you Practice Writing in Hindi
Live Lingua
Here, we have discovered a great free online learning resource called Live Lingua (which is in fact a language school), whose creators believe that everybody should be able to learn another language no matter their age, financial situation, or background. Hence why they have made the Free US Peace Corps Hindi resources available for absolutely anyone to use and to take away some great language lessons from.
With this amazing resource, you can tackle learning Hindi from two perspectives: by listening and also reading, which will, in turn, help you with your writing and letter forming.
With this, you can read Hindi ebooks online. What's more, you don't need to have an Internet connection to take advantage of all this has to offer. You can download the files to your PC or device to use whenever you want. Therefore, this doubles up as an online/offline resource!
Translate Apps
We shouldn't underestimate the power of a simple dictionary or translation app to help us to learn basic Hindi phrases and what words actually look like to the naked eye. This could really open your eyes to the connection between letters, their pairing and the sounds that are made, especially if you use it alongside an audio resource. You could be listening to a Hindi radio station then looking up certain words you hear to look at the full word in writing. (For this, you'll likely need a Hindi font installed too, more on this below.)
And if you can't find the word because you really can't figure out how it is spelled, then try using voice detection tools like Siri or an app, if you have one, that will detect the word and display it on your screen!
Some of the best dictionary or translation apps are:
-Speak and Translate - Translator
-Hindi Translator Offline
-Hindi Dictionary +
Writing Activities to Practice What You've Learned
Writing Worksheets
If you really want to focus on just writing Hindi, though, and feel more confident at recognising Hindi script and want to try your hand at writing it yourself, you can find a range of downloadable resources such as worksheets. By looking on Google, I found some fantastic materials at Study Village focused on writing practice, as well as at Akhlesh. Twinkl is also a fantastic resource for learners of Hindi with some fabulous printable exercise sheets on offer for free.
What's more, you can purchase paperback workbooks with similar exercises in them from Amazon. Here are a few examples:
- Learn Hindi Writing Activity Book
ISBN-10 : 1676982396
ISBN-13 : 978-1676982395 - Class 5 Hindi Language Grammar Worksheets
ASIN : B07GPFC538
Hindi On Your Electronic Devices
If you want to write Hindi on your electronic devices, you will need to install a Hindi font. Unfortunately, none of the available fonts supports all the common ligatures, which is unfortunate when trying to learn and apply the finer points of the Hindi writing system.
Hindi fonts for your computer
Many computer Devanagari fonts try to imitate Hindi calligraphy and can be rather beautiful. This site offers a list of Hindi fonts grouped into several categories including professional, handwriting and decorative. Pick one you like and download away!
Do try and find a True Type (the icon will have TT on it) or Unicode font to ensure that it appears the way it does on the screen when you print.
Hindi fonts for your smartphone
Most smartphone operating systems come with some form of Hindi keyboard (some even support other Indian alphabets). Go to your system settings and simply change the keyboard setting.
However, this is only practical if you only want to type in Hindi. As soon as you will be switching between Hindi and English regularly, it gets annoying. This is why many Hindi prefer to write in transliteration when writing on social media such as WhatsApp and Twitter.
However, in 2016 Google released the Indic Keyboard for Android devices that allows you to switch easily between various different Indian alphabets and English.
On iPhones, you can simply add a new keyboard and switch by pressing down the “globe” icon on your current keyboard.
Do you need to get a Hindi keyboard?
To write the Devanagari script, you can simply change the keyboard options on your computer and type with your normal keyboard. Here is the usual layout (called InScript) on a normal QWERTY keyboard:
However, if you don’t want to learn the layout by heart, you might want to invest in an InScript keyboard for when you have to do a lot of typing in Hindi.
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