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INTRODUCTION

“The Language of the Gods”

Hindi, spoken today by nearly 500 million people as a first language, is derived from the ancient language Sanskrit, considered one of the most intriguing, musical, and divine languages ever spoken. Sanskrit is recognized by its unique written alphabet, Devanagari, meaning “Language of the Gods.” Hindi retains the use of Devanagari today as its own alphabet. Of the numerous daughter tongues originating from Sanskrit, Hindi is the most widespread, and is one of the 22 official languages of the Republic of India.

According to Hindu mythology, the human voice, or vak, was provided to mankind by the goddess Sarasvati, who presided over wisdom, knowledge, learning, music, and the arts. Vak is also often personified as a separate goddess commonly identified with Bharati (Bhaar-tee) or Sharda (Shaar-daa), the goddess of speech. The term vak is a cognate to the modern English word voice (Latin vox), and is derived from the verbal root vac-, meaning “to speak, tell, utter.” It also shares meaning with such words as “speech” and “talk.”

The Alphabet

Hindi script (Devanagari) is made up of 46 basic characters; there are 33 consonants and 12 vowels. Each character stands for one syllable.

The Devanagari script represents the phonetics of the Hindi language. This means that Hindi is spoken the same way it is spelled. Its alphabet is scientifically arranged.

Along with the written Hindi, each phrase in this book offers you an easy, English-based transliteration to help you pronounce it. Here’s how it works.

Pronunciation Guide

Long Vowels

ā (aa) car

ī (ee) beet

é (a) gate

ū (oo) fool

Short Vowels

i (it)

u (put, foot)

Nasal Sounds

A dot over a consonant or a vowel, or an “n” in parentheses, indicates a nasal sound. Imagine you are half-saying an “n” or “m” sound after that syllable.

hai(n) mei(n)

ṁ as in “ṁandir ” (mun-dir)

é̇ as in “lé̇gé” (layn-gay)

Sometimes you’ll see a nasal ending after a long vowel:

ā̇ as in “sārdiyā̇ ” (saard-iyaan)

Vowels

Consonants

Each consonant of the Devanagari (Hindi) script contains the inherent vowel “a ” in it. Without its help no consonant is considered to be complete. There are 33 consonants in the Devanagari script.

We can look at them organized according to the kinds of sounds they are—and where in the mouth the sounds are made.

A Bit More About Pronunciation...

You’ll see the pronunciation of a word or a phrase written in italics after it: Hindi (hin-dee). The words are broken into syllables, separated by a hyphen (-). Keep in mind that these hyphenated English phonetics should be pronounced in a smooth, even flow. Read them out loud several times to train your tongue and lips in making the proper sounds smoothly. Here are notes on a few special sounds: