Hindi Alphabet (DevaNagari Varnamala; वर्णमाला)
DevaNagari (देवनागरी; नागरी) is a widely used script (लिपि/lipi). It is used by more than 250 million people! It is used for writing text of Hindi, Marathi, Nepali, Sanskrit and many other regional languages and dialects in the Indian subcontinent.
If you want to see the pictures of DevaNagari alphabets (svar and vyaNjan) and skip the introduction of DevaNagari click following.
SKIP Reading Introduction;
GOTO svar, vyaNjan & maatraa...
These pages use the xNagari transliteration scheme for writing DevaNagari words in Latin.
Introduction
These pages are about alphabet of DevaNagari called 'varNNamaalaa' (वर्णमाला; varnamala). Varnamala is also called 'Aksharmala' (अक्षरमाला; AkShar-maalaa) or 'kakahara' (ककहरा; kakaharaa)!
Varnmala is incorrect spelling while varn-mala is not incorrect!
Unfamiliar words of Sanskrit or Hindi are written in single quotation.
DevaNagari letters are shown as Images.
One should not copy any text from the pages belonging to softfonts.com or hindidevanagari.com. If you find any similar text in any other reference please inform us.
Hindi (DevaNagari) AkShar
Vowels and consonants together are called AkShars (अक्षर). AkShar means something immortal. 'kShar' (क्षर) means 'cease to exist' or 'which will not remain'. 'A' is used here as 'un', so 'AkShar' means something 'which remains'! So knowledge remains in the form of AkShars.
Simply speaking an AkShar is a letter.
In a chapter titled 'AkShar vignyaan' of a book titled 'vaidik sampatti', 'AkShar' is compared to an atom! Then why not to compare 'conjuncts' or 'syllables' to molecules. ;-)
'kShar' also means 'agnyaan' (lack of knowledge), so we can say 'AkShar' mean 'not lack of knowledge' or 'light of knowledge'!
Hindi (DevaNagari) maatraaEN
In Hindi/Sanskrit, maatraa means extent or amount! So a maatraa represent amount of a vowel. Every vowel (except one) has a corresponding sign (or mark) called its maatraa.
We should not make plural of matra (or maatraa) by appending s (like matras or maatras), because in Hindi, there is a word maatraaEN (मात्राएँ) to denote plural form of maatraa (मात्रा).
There are marks which are applied over vowels. These marks (like 'chandra-bindu' ँ) are 'vowel modifiers' and are also called matraaEN.
Marks or signs of consonants like 'Anuswaar', 'visarg', 'reph' and 'rakaar' are also called maatraaEN! We will see what these marks means and how they look like!
DevaNagari is Syllabic
In DevaNagari, we do not always write characters one after the other.
The maatraaEN are applied over Consonants to form syllables. A maatraa represent amount of a vowel in a syllable. Syllable can be called शब्द-खन्ड!
Remember a maatraa is applied over an Akshar like a diacritic is applied over a letter in Latin. The main difference is that most of the maatraaEN connect to akshars while diacritics generally do not connect to the letters.
A conjunct is called a 'jod-akshar' (you guessed it right; 'jod' means join or joint).
Tentative Nagari varNNamaalaa (Varnamala)
In DevaNagari, we can study alphabets under following categories.
| 1. | swars (स्वर / Vowels & Diphthongs) | 13 |
| 2. | vyaNjans (व्यंजन / Consonants) | 33 |
| 3. | maatraaEN (मात्राएँ / Vowel-Signs / matras) | 12 |
| 4. | chihns (चिह्न / Marks / chihnas) | 08 |
| 5. |
Aavashyak joDdakShars (आवश्यक जोड़ाक्षर / Essential Conjuncts) |
10 |
| 6. | ANks (अंक / Digits) | 10 |
| 7. | viraam chihns (विराम चिह्न / Punctuation Marks) | 10 |
| 8. | Anya (अन्य / Miscellaneous) | 08 |
So, there are more than 100 basic letter-forms in DevaNagari.
The first thought that comes to one's mind is that in comparison to about 70 characters in English you have to learn more than 100 alphabets in DevaNagari. Let me remind you that it is not only about learning more characters, its more than that. As you may know there are rules for writing/forming DevaNagari words.
Think of the big reward! -
You will be able to write anything you speak - A N Y T H I N G !!
without having to worry much about how it will be pronounced.
You Write What You Speak
DevaNagari is a phonetics based script. Words are written largely according to phonetics (pronunciation). There are rules for pronouncing a written word. Possibility that a written word is pronounced differently is very less in Naagari. So, generally we get clear pronunciations of written words.
Indic languages do not require memorizing SPELLINGS. We need to just a bit careful about which maatraa (vowel sign) is correct for a particular word; which also help in correctly pronouncing that word. It also help in preserving the correct pronunciations of words over period of time!!