自学印地语介绍

You'll have noticed that some characters have 'dotted' versions: these are for sounds which go beyond the range of Sanskrit, the classical language for which the script was first devised. They are क़ qa,ख() kha ,ग़ग़ ga. ज़  z.a,

and r.a (typically for words borrowed from Arabic and Persian) and ड(). r.a ढ़ rha (late developers in the long history of Indian anguages). These characters are not distinguished in dictionary order from their undotted equivalents. The showing of dots in print is often rather haphazard - but not in this book!

Remember that each consonant contains an inherent 'a' vowel as part of the deal. But it's important to notice that this 'inherent vowel' is not pronounced at the end ofa word: thus the word for 'all',सब ,reads sab (not 'saba'), and the word for 'simple', सरल , reads saral (not 'sarala'). Armed with this information you can now read and write these words:

कब kab when?  
जब jab when
तब tab then
पर par but; on
फल phal fruit
मन man mind  
सब sab all
हम ham we, us

कलम qalam pen
गरम garam warm
तरफ taraf direction
नमक namak salt
महल mahal palace
शहर sahar town
सड़क  sarak street
सरल saral   simple

In the words महल  mahal and शहर   shahar, the ह्  ha has the effect of 'lightening' the adjacent vowels, making them sound more like the 'e' in 'mend' than the 'u' in 'mundane' (this will vary somewhat from speaker to speaker). Elsewhere, Hindi is remarkably free of such contextual changes: the Hindi script is a 'what you see is what you get' system.

Thevowels
Now we move on to look at vowels. Each vowel has two different forms: one is the 'vowel sign', used after a consonant; the other is the 'vowel character, used in other positions. First, vowel signs.

A vowel sign is used when a vowel follows a consonant. It's a small mark that is added to the consonant, and it replaces the 'a' that is otherwise present as the inherent vowel. The examples below show the vowel 'e' added to the consonants "कka,ख kha, गga and घgha.
के ke  कहे khe  गे ge  घे ghe

here now is the full range of such vowel signs,based on क  -

का kaa A long vowel, as in 'calm'.
कि ki A short vowel, as in 'kipper'.
की kii A long version of the above, as in 'keep
कु ku Short, as in 'put'.

कू kuu A long version of the above, as in 'food'.
कृ  kri. A very short 'ri'  sound, as in 'thrill'.It only occurs in Sanskrit loanwords.
के ke Like the French e in 'ete'; not a rounded sound as in English 'payday'.