Namaste (नमस्ते)! This is my first post of the year and the fact is, I am so excited to share my knowledge of the Hindi language and culture with all of you. I thought it would be fitting to introduce a common Hindi greeting that you might have heard before.  Namaste (नमस्ते) literally means I bow to you.  You’re probably thinking that the phrase “I bow to you” is a little over the top for a greeting, but it just goes to show how respectful Indians are when they greet each other.  This is a useful and common greeting. You would use Namaste (नमस्ते) when you want to say hello in Hindi. Chances are, you’ll probably use it very often if you’re in India. I’ll do a more thorough post on Hindi greetings some other time.

For today I’d like to start with Devanagari (देवनागरी), which is the Hindi writing system.  I’m going to show you the actual Hindi script and show you how it’s pronounced. Just to warn you though, it’s pretty hard to match a perfect English equivalent sound to some of the Hindi letters. For some of the sounds, the English equivalents are approximations of what it would sound in Hindi.

Everyone ready? Let’s start with the vowels:

अ a as in About     This letter can be seen in the Hindi word for pineapple which is ananas (अनन्नास)

आ aa as in fAther     Aam (आम) is the Hindi word for mango

इ it’s kind of pronounced as the i in sIn    You san see this letter in the Hindi word for tamarind (इमली) which is a spice used in Indian food.

ई it sounds like the i in machIne     (ईख) is the word for sugarcane

उ sounds like oo as in bOOk     (उल्लू) means owl

ऊ sounds like the oo in mOOd      (ऊन) is wool

ऋ sounds like ri in RIo de janeiro      (ऋतु) means season

ए similar to the a in shAme     (एड़) is the word for heel as in the heel of your foot

ऐ similar to the e in the name Ed      (ऐनक) which is the word for glasses

ओ similar to the British pronunciation for the ou in Ought     (ओठ) means lip

औ similar to the au in gaudy     (औरत) is the word for woman

Ok, so let’s stop here for today. Next time we’ll look at devangari (देवनागरी) in further depth!

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