A Door Into Hindi Devanagari
A Door Into Hindi Devanagari
A Door Into Hindi Devanagari
At any point you may wish to visit the SOAS Devanagari Learning Site for an excellent
introduction to the Hindi writing system.
A consonant's "schwa" can be changed to any other vowel by using a " matra " sign. A
matra sign is attached to the consonant letter. The matras are also called the dependant
forms of the vowels.Note : since schwa is the consonant's "default vowel," there is no
matra for schwa.
These three movies show how the vowel matras are used:
In addition to the matras, every vowel letter also has an independent form. Thus each
vowel letter has two forms:
The dependent form (matra) is used to indicate that a vowel (other than schwa) is
attached to a consonant.
The independent form is used when the vowel occurs alone, at the beginning of a
word, or after another vowel. In other words, the independent form is used whenever
there is no consonant for the vowel to attach to. This movie describes the
independent forms of the vowels:
The chart below gives the independent and dependent forms of each vowel. the
dependent vowel matras are shown attached to the letter "sa" =
Vowel
English
Equivalent
Independent
form
as in
about
as in
father
Dependent
Form (matra)
Dependent
form with
consonant
as in sin
as in seen
as in book
as in food
as in
ai
as in sad
as in soda
au
as in saw
Unaspirated
Aspirated
= sa
= na
= ya
= ma
= ha
= la
= ka
= ra
= va
= ba
= sha
= ta (retroflex t)
= ta (dental t)
= dha
= pa
= fa
= cha
(I)
(right)
Examples
(am)
(where)
("what")
half
(good)
half
VOWELS
Vowel
as in
Vowel
up
it
put
ri
make
over
CONSONANTS
(Note: Letters with dots below them were not part of
the original Devanagari alphabet. They mostly represent
"imported" sounds. They are shown below their
"undotted" counterparts.)
k (unasp.)
kha (asp.)
ga (unasp.)
qa (uvular)
kha (fricative)
gha (fricative)
cha (unasp.)
chha (asp.)
ja (unasp.)
jha (asp.)
za
retro. ta
(unasp.)
retro. tha
(asp.)
retro. da
(unasp.)
retro. dha
(asp.)
retro. ra (flap,
retro. rha
unasp.)
dental ta
(unasp.)
dental ta
(asp.)
dental da
(unasp.)
pa (unasp.)
pha (asp.)
ba (unasp.)
(flap, asp.)
dental dha
bha (asp.)
fa
ya
ra
la
va
sha
sha
sa
ha
ksha
tra (dental)
gya
shra