Do you want to write in Hindi/Sanskrit?

Avinash · 04-18-2006, 06:48 AM

There are many posts in which people are asking how to write names into Hindi/Sanskrit. This thread should help them.
Both Hindi and Sanskrit use the same script named Devnagiri. So, writing your name in one is the same as writing in another. In this post I am showing different alphabets in Devnagiri.
IMPORTANT: There are some more letters than shown here but, on purpose, I am not showing those. It is because you will not need those to write a person's name in Hindi/Sanskrit. However, if I latter come across any name which requires the use of those letters, then I will include those letters.
In this post I am only showing the alphabets. When I get time, I will write how they are pronounced.

Avinash · 04-20-2006, 04:37 AM

The standard set of symbols to show pronunciation is IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet). But it uses lots of special characters, which require special fonts. Therefore, I am giving here the symbols that I will be using in this thread. These symbols can be written using normal English keyboard and normal English fonts like Times New Roman. The symbols are on left. Against each symbol I am giving a word (sometimes more than one) on the right. In each word one letter or a combination of letters are bold and underlined. This letter or combination shows how the symbol is to be pronounced.

Vowels:-
a cup
A father
i hit
I see
u put
U food
e bed
@ cat
o no
O box

Consonants:-
k cat
g give
c church
z zoo, pleasure, vision, just, large
T tea
D do
th think
d mother
n no
p pet
f father
b bed
m man
y yes
r red
l love
v voice, woman, five, window
s sun
S sharp
h how, hello

Next I will post the mapping between these symbols and Devanagiri.

Avinash · 04-21-2006, 05:08 AM

In the following table, I am giving how to write vowels in Devanagiri. The first row contains phonetic symbols (as explained in the post above). The second row contains corresponding representation in Devanagiri script.

Avinash · 04-21-2006, 05:23 AM

Here is how you write consonants in Devanagiri.

Avinash · 04-25-2006, 02:36 AM

A consonant cannot be pronounced without the help of a vowel. Often vowel comes just after the consonant, but it is not a must. Sometimes, a consonant sound is immediately followed by another consonant sound. In such cases, the symbol used for the first of these consonant sounds is different from what I showed earlier. These symbols are often called as half letters. Consider the English word bulb. Notice how l is pronounced in it. The consonant l sound is followed by consonant b sound. Contrast this with how l is pronounced in love. Here, consonant l sound is followed by vowel a sound. In the following table, I am giving half letters for various consonants. The table has three rows. The first row contains the pronunciations of various letters (when followed by vowel 'a' sound). The second row contains Devanagiri for these pronunciations. (You have already seen the contents of this row in a previous post). The third row contains corresponding half letters, i.e. Devanagiri when these consonants are immediately followed by another consonant.

The symbol for half r sound needs special mention. This symbol is to be put above the next letter.
Note: As explained in case of joint letters (one consonant immediately followed by another), half letter is used for first consonant. The half letters are shows in table below. However, if a consonant (other than 'r') is immediately followed by 'r', then letters are different. Such letters will be shown in a later post.

Avinash · 04-26-2006, 01:37 AM

A vowel sound can be alone or it can come at the end of a consonant sound. Consider the word 'are' pronounced as Ar. Here the first sound is a vowel 'A' sound. The letters for such vowel sounds are shown in post titled 'Vowels'. But consider the word 'father' pronounced as fAdar. Here vowel 'A' sound is not alone but is pronounced at the end of consonant 'f' sound. The letters for such consonant-vowel combination is given in this post and the next post. A row containing pronunciation is followed by another containing corresponding Devanagiri letters. As you can see I have taken letters from the post 'Consonants'. In each letter I have added some marks to indicate the succeeding vowel sounds. You will notice that the for a given vowel sound is the same irrespective of the consonant after which it comes. So, if you know the marks for one, you do not have to remember for others.

Avinash · 04-26-2006, 01:45 AM

Avinash · 04-27-2006, 02:13 AM

As explained in the post "Half letters", in case of joint letters i.e. letters to represent one consonant sound immediately followed by another without any vowel sound in between, half letter is used for the first of these consonant sounds.
But I mentioned at the end of that post that the letters should be different if one consonant sound (different from 'r') is immediately followed by 'r' sound. I am giving corresponding letters in the following tables. I am assuming that the vowel sound at the end (i.e. after 'r' sound) is vowel sound 'a'. However other vowel sounds can be represented as shown in posts Consonants with various vowels-1 and Consonants with various vowels-2 (this point will be made clearer in a later post).

Avinash · 04-27-2006, 04:58 AM

In the posts "Consonants followed by various vowels-1" and "Consonants followed by various vowels2" I showed various symbols attached to consonants to represent various vowel sounds pronounced at the end of these consonant sounds. But how do we represent a vowel sound at the end of a joint consonant sound (i.e. one consonant sound immediately followed by another)? The answer is that we have to still use the same symbol for vowel sound as if there were only one consonant. The only different is that instead of writing Devanagiri for one consonant, we have to write Devanagiri for the joint consonant. Let me take two examples:-

Example 1: In this example we will see how to represent the pronunciation kli in Devanagiri. The vowel sound i is pronounced at the end of joint consonant kl. Suppose instead of the joint consonant, we had only a single consonant k. Then the pronunciation would be ki. How do we represent this in Devanagiri? The answer as shown in post "Consonants with various vowels-1" is:-

Our aim in this example is to represent kli in Devanagiri. The consonant sound k is immediately followed by consonant sound l. As shown in the post "Half letters", half letter is to be used for the consonant sound k and the letter as shown in the same post is:-

Full letter is to be used for consonant sound l and the letter as shown in post "Consonants" is

Combine half k with full l letter and you get

Now, add ths symbol for vowel sound i as shown in the representation of ki and you get:-

Example 2: How do we write gru?

Consonant g is followed by consonant r. As shown in post "Consonants followed by r", this is written as:-

From post "Consonant followed by various vowels-1" or "Consonant followed by various vowels-2", you can see how to add symbol to represent vowel sound u. Attach that symbol to the above Devanagiri letter and you get:-

Avinash · 04-28-2006, 01:46 AM

In a few posts I will give examples of certain words written in Devanagiri. Since Devanagiri representation depends on how a word is pronounced, I will also be writing what I have assumed the pronunciation of the word to be (Please refer to the post "Symbols to indicate pronunciation"). If you pronounce any of these words differently, please let me know.
Under explanations, I will be referring to post "Consonants followed by various vowels". You can refer to "Consonants followed by various vowels-1" or "Consonants followed by various vowels-2" as the symbol for a vowel sound is the same irrespective of the consonant to which it is attached .

Avinash · 04-28-2006, 01:53 AM

Whenever you have to write a word in Devanagiri, first write how it is pronounced by taking help from the post "Symbols to indicate pronunciation" or using whatever phonetic representation you like. Then break the phonetic representation at vowel sounds. Let a vowel sound remain in the same group in which consonant(s) to the left of it is(are). Write each part in Devanagiri. Then combine the Devanagiri representations of all the parts.
As an example, the following post shows how to write Lindsay. I have assumed it is pronounced as linDse. The first vowel is i. It should go with the consonant l that comes before it. So, the first part is li.
Now, nDse remains. n,D,s are all consonants and there is no vowel in between, so these should belong to the same part. The vowel sound e is at the end and it should be with the consonant(s) before it. Therefore, this should also be in the same part. Hence, part 2 will contain nDse.

Avinash · 04-28-2006, 02:05 AM

Word: Lindsay
Pronunciation: linDse
Devanagiri:

Explanation: Break linDse into two parts:
1)li
2)nDse

1)As shown in post "Consonants followed by various vowels-2" li is written as

2)In nDse, three consonant sounds n,D, and s come consecutively. As per the rule the last (i.e. s) has to be written as full letter. Half letters should be used for the remaining i.e. for n and D.
From post "Half letters", half letters for n and D are respectively

From post "Consonants", s is written as

Combine these and we get nDs as

Attach the symbol for vowel sound e as shown in post "Consonants followed by various vowels" and you get nDse as

Combine Devanagiri representations as shown in parts 1 and 2 and you get the Devanagiri for linDse.

Avinash · 04-28-2006, 09:42 AM

Word: William
Pronunciation: viliyam (see post 'Symbols to indicate pronunciation' in this thread).
Devanagiri:

Explanation: As explained in post 'To break a word into parts to write in Devanagiri ', break viliyam into
1)vi 2)li 3)ya 4)m

1)Refer to post 'Consonants followed by various vowels-2'. 'vi' is written as

2)As shown in the same post, 'li' is written as

3) Refer to post 'Consonants'. 'ya' is written as

4)Again from post 'Consonants', m is written as

Combine these and you get viliyam in Devanagiri as shown near the start of this post.

Avinash · 05-22-2006, 07:12 AM

Please let me know if you have any doubts or if you would like to make any suggestions regarding the content of this thread.