Hindustani orthography
Encyclopedia
Hindustani
(Standard Hindi and Urdu
) has been written in several different scripts. Most Hindi texts are written in the Devanagari script, which is derived from the Brāhmī script
of Ancient India
. Most Urdu texts are written in the Urdu alphabet
, which comes from the Persian alphabet. Hindustani has been written in both scripts. In recent years the Roman alphabet has been used in these languages for technological or internationalization reasons.
writing system, so the written form of consonant
s have an inherent default vowel afterward, namely a schwa
. In certain contexts, such as at the end of words, these schwas are deleted in correct Hindi pronunciation, in a phenomenon called the schwa syncope. Devanagari consonants which have other vowels afterward use diacritical marks around the consonant. The script is written from left to right, with a top-bar connecting the letters together.
क्ष kṣ is pronounced /kʃ/ and ज्ञ jñ is /ɡj/.
software for Hindi.
As a result of schwa syncope, the correct Hindi pronunciation of many words differs from that expected from a literal rendering of Devanagari. For instance, राम is Rām (incorrect: Rāma), रचना is Rachnā (incorrect: Rachanā), वेद is Véd (incorrect: Véda) and नमकीन is Namkeen (incorrect Namakeen).
. It is written from right to left, and most letters connect to each other. This leads to different forms of a letter depending on its position in a word, although the different forms generally resemble each other. Most vowel
s are omitted in normal texts, although they may be written for disambiguation or pedagogical purposes. Urdu is primarily written in a calligraphic
style of the script called Nasta'liq.
has been used to write Hindustani for technological or internationalization reasons. Roman Urdu
uses the Basic Latin alphabet. It is most commonly used by young native speakers for technological applications, such as chat
, email
s and SMS
.
ITRANS
, ISCII
, IAST
, and Harvard-Kyoto
romanization schemes have been employed primarily for usage by non-native speakers who are more familiar with the Latin alphabet.
Hindustani language
Hindi-Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language and the lingua franca of North India and Pakistan. It is also known as Hindustani , and historically, as Hindavi or Rekhta...
(Standard Hindi and Urdu
Urdu
Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
) has been written in several different scripts. Most Hindi texts are written in the Devanagari script, which is derived from the Brāhmī script
Brāhmī script
Brāhmī is the modern name given to the oldest members of the Brahmic family of scripts. The best-known Brāhmī inscriptions are the rock-cut edicts of Ashoka in north-central India, dated to the 3rd century BCE. These are traditionally considered to be early known examples of Brāhmī writing...
of Ancient India
Middle kingdoms of India
Middle kingdoms of India refers to the political entities in India from the 3rd century BC after the decline of the Maurya Empire, and the corresponding rise of the Satavahana dynasty, beginning with Simuka, from 230 BC...
. Most Urdu texts are written in the Urdu alphabet
Urdu alphabet
The Urdu alphabet is the right-to-left alphabet used for the Urdu language. It is a modification of the Persian alphabet, which is itself a derivative of the Arabic alphabet...
, which comes from the Persian alphabet. Hindustani has been written in both scripts. In recent years the Roman alphabet has been used in these languages for technological or internationalization reasons.
Devanagari script
The Devanagari script is an abugidaAbugida
An abugida , also called an alphasyllabary, is a segmental writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as a unit: each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel notation is obligatory but secondary...
writing system, so the written form of consonant
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
s have an inherent default vowel afterward, namely a schwa
Schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
. In certain contexts, such as at the end of words, these schwas are deleted in correct Hindi pronunciation, in a phenomenon called the schwa syncope. Devanagari consonants which have other vowels afterward use diacritical marks around the consonant. The script is written from left to right, with a top-bar connecting the letters together.
| ə | aː | ɪ | iː | ʊ | uː | eː | ɛː | oː | ɔː |
| k | kʰ | x | ɡ | ɣ | ɡʱ | ŋ | |||
| t͡ʃ | t͡ʃʰ | d͡ʒ | z | d͡ʒʱ | ɲ | ||||
| ʈ | ʈʰ | ɖ | ɽ | ɖʱ | ɽʱ | ɳ | |||
| t̪ | t̪ʰ | d̪ | d̪ʱ | n | |||||
| p | pʰ | f | b | bʱ | m | ||||
| j | r | l | ʋ | ʃ | ʂ | s | h |
क्ष kṣ is pronounced /kʃ/ and ज्ञ jñ is /ɡj/.
Schwa deletion
The schwa (अ or 'ə', sometimes written 'a') implicit in each consonant of the Devanagri script is "obligatorily deleted" in Hindi at the end of words and in certain other contexts. This phenomenon has been termed the "schwa syncope rule" or the "schwa deletion rule" of Hindi. One formalization of this rule has been summarized as ə -> ø | VC_CV. In other words, when a vowel-preceded consonant is followed by a vowel-succeeded consonant, the schwa inherent in the first consonant is deleted. However, this formalization is inexact and incomplete (i.e. sometimes deletes a schwa when it shouldn't or, at other times, fails to delete it when it should), and can yield errors. Schwa deletion is computationally important because it is essential to building text-to-speechSpeech synthesis
Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware...
software for Hindi.
As a result of schwa syncope, the correct Hindi pronunciation of many words differs from that expected from a literal rendering of Devanagari. For instance, राम is Rām (incorrect: Rāma), रचना is Rachnā (incorrect: Rachanā), वेद is Véd (incorrect: Véda) and नमकीन is Namkeen (incorrect Namakeen).
Persian alphabet
The Persian alphabet is an extension of the Arabic alphabetArabic alphabet
The Arabic alphabet or Arabic abjad is the Arabic script as it is codified for writing the Arabic language. It is written from right to left, in a cursive style, and includes 28 letters. Because letters usually stand for consonants, it is classified as an abjad.-Consonants:The Arabic alphabet has...
. It is written from right to left, and most letters connect to each other. This leads to different forms of a letter depending on its position in a word, although the different forms generally resemble each other. Most vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s are omitted in normal texts, although they may be written for disambiguation or pedagogical purposes. Urdu is primarily written in a calligraphic
Calligraphy
Calligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of fancy lettering . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...
style of the script called Nasta'liq.
| Letter | Name of letter | Transcription | IPA International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic... |
|---|---|---|---|
| alif | - | - | |
| be | b | /b/ | |
| pe | p | /p/ | |
| te | t | /t̪/ | |
| /ʈ/ | |||
| se | s | /s/ | |
| jīm | j | /d͡ʒ/ | |
| che | ch | /t͡ʃ/ | |
| h | /h/ | ||
| khe | kh | /x/ | |
| dāl | d | /d̪/ | |
| /ɖ/ | |||
| zāl | dh | /z/ | |
| re | r | /r/ | |
| /ɽ/ | |||
| ze | z | /z/ | |
| zhe | zh | /ʒ/ | |
| sīn | s | /s/ | |
| shīn | sh | /ʃ/ | |
| su'ād | ṣ | /s/ | |
| zu'ād | z̤ | /z/ | |
| to'e | t | /t/ | |
| zo'e | ẓ | /z/ | |
| ‘ain | ' | - | |
| ghain | gh | /ɣ/ | |
| fe | f | /f/ | |
| qāf | q | /q/ | |
| kāf | k | /k/ | |
| gāf | g | /ɡ/ | |
| lām | l | /l/ | |
| mīm | m | /m/ | |
| nūn | n | /n/ | |
| vā'o | v, o, or ū | /ʋ/, /oː/, /ɔ/ or /uː/ | |
| h | /h/ | ||
| do chashmī he | h | /ʰ/ | |
| hamza | ' | /ʔ/ | |
| ye | y, i | /j/ or /iː/ | |
| bari ye | ai or e | /ɛː/, or /eː/ |
Romanized Hindustani
The Latin alphabetLatin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
has been used to write Hindustani for technological or internationalization reasons. Roman Urdu
Roman Urdu
Roman Urdu is the name used for the Urdū language written with the Roman alphabet.According to the famous Urdū scholar Habib R. Sulemani: "Roman Urdu is strongly opposed by the traditional Arabic script lovers...
uses the Basic Latin alphabet. It is most commonly used by young native speakers for technological applications, such as chat
Online chat
Online chat may refer to any kind of communication over the Internet, that offers an instantaneous transmission of text-based messages from sender to receiver, hence the delay for visual access to the sent message shall not hamper the flow of communications in any of the directions...
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
s and SMS
Short message service
Short Message Service is a text messaging service component of phone, web, or mobile communication systems, using standardized communications protocols that allow the exchange of short text messages between fixed line or mobile phone devices...
.
ITRANS
ITRANS
The "Indian languages TRANSliteration" is an ASCII transliteration scheme for Indic scripts, particularly for Devanagari script. It was developed by Avinash Chopde. The latest version of ITRANS is version 5.30 released in July, 2001...
, ISCII
ISCII
Indian Standard Code for Information Interchange is a coding scheme for representing various writing systems of India. It encodes the main Indic scripts and a Roman transliteration. The supported scripts are: Assamese, Bengali , Devanagari, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya , Tamil,...
, IAST
IAST
The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration is a transliteration scheme that allows a lossless romanization of Indic scripts as employed by the Sanskrit language.-Popularity:...
, and Harvard-Kyoto
Harvard-Kyoto
The Harvard-Kyoto Convention is a system for transliterating in ASCII the Sanskrit language and other languages that use the Devanāgarī script...
romanization schemes have been employed primarily for usage by non-native speakers who are more familiar with the Latin alphabet.
See also
- HindustaniHindustani languageHindi-Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language and the lingua franca of North India and Pakistan. It is also known as Hindustani , and historically, as Hindavi or Rekhta...
(HindiHindiStandard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
-UrduUrduUrdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
) - Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu) word etymologyHindustani (Hindi-Urdu) word etymologyHindustānī also known as "Hindi-Urdu," is a term used by linguists to describe several closely related idioms in the northern, central and northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent. It encompasses two standardized registers in the form of the official languages of Hindi and Urdu language, as...
- Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu) phonology
- Hindustani grammarHindi-Urdu grammarHindi is one of the official languages of India. Urdu is the national language of Pakistan as well as a scheduled language in India. The two are often held as separate languages for social and political reasons, and in terms of their preferred sources of classically derived vocabulary; however, on...