CONTENTS MevbrOclctacr a see eee eee eee The Hindi script and sound system _____55 Tam Pratap. 19 la Pratap, from London, meets his Delhi host 1.1 Personal pronouns and the verb ‘to be’ 1.2. Questions and answers 1b Kamala shows Pratap his room 1.3 Nouns 1.4 Adjectives 1.5 The simple sentence Questions and answers 29 2a Pratap in his Hindi teacher's office 2.1 Interrogative words 2.2. Agreement of adjectives with mixed genders 2b Pratap’s little problem 2.3. Some conversational features 2.4 More on adjectives and nouns Rooms in the house 39 3a Pratap’s mother phones from London 3.1 Simple postpositions 3.2 Nouns with postpositions 3b Prakash has lost his glasses 3.3 Adjectives in the oblique case 3.4 Pronouns in the oblique caseHINDI Who was that handsome man? ___ 49 4a Sangeeta’s friend Suhas — just a friend? 4.1 ‘was’ and ‘were’ 4.2 d¥ to ‘so, as for’ 4.3. Comparison of adjectives 4b Khanna ji at the office 4.4 Some constructions with 1 ko 4.5 The vocative case Please sit here 5a Kamala’s neighbour Suresh comes for lunch 5.1 The infinitive verb 5.2 Commands and requests 5b Lost keys and lost tempers 5.3 Possession with #1 ka 5.4 #Yko with the indirect and direct object 5.5 Alternative forms of the oblique pronoun + #t ko What does Pratap do? 73 6a Suresh asks Prakash about his household 6.1 The imperfective present tense 6.2 Possessive pronouns 6b Pratap and Sangeeta 6.3 ATAT ‘one’s own’ 6.4 Compound postpositions 6.5 Pronouns revisited Father used to teach Urdu. 86 7a Grandmother's childhood in Kanpur 7.1 The past imperfective 7.2 and Fe 7.3 ~a1fat ‘is wanted/needed’ 7b Who works where? 74 Ordinal numbers 7.5 Aggregatives 7.6 Conjunct verbsCONTENTS 10 11 What is Arun doing in Lucknow? 98 8a Arun in Lucknow 8.1 The continuous tenses 8.2 Expressions for ‘to have’ 8b Khanna Sahib’s coming to dinner! 8.3 Some adverbial phrases 8.4 What's today’s date? aia at aha aT $7 8.5 Word order 8.6 Some colloquial usages, and pronunciation reminders In the future 111 9a Dinner at home, or the cinema with Pinkie? 9.1 The future tense 9.2 Future tense in the auxiliary verb 9.3 ‘Presumptive’ uses of the future 9b Arun and his co-author 9.4 The emphatic ét 9.5 Some expressions of quantity 9.6 The infinitive as verbal noun: ST ‘to go, going’ What should I say?. 124 10a Chotu leaves a message for Prakash 10.1 The subjunctive 10.2 The subjunctive in the auxiliary verb 10.3 The verb Tet 10b Sangeeta’s dilemma 10.4 Conditional sentences (1) 10.5 The suffix -4TaT Pratap has come back. 135 11a Pratap rejoins his Hindi class 11.1 Transitivity 11.2 Perfective tenses — intransitive verbs 11b What Pratap did in Nepal 11.3 Perfective tenses — transitive verbs3. 12 13 14 15 HINDI 11c Pratap phones home 11.4 More on perfective verbs Ask him and tell me__ Cid 12a Khanna phones Prakash 12.1 47#< ‘having gone, after going’ 12.2 What's the time? 12b Dinner preparations 12.3 GAT, TAT, FRAT 12.4 Compound verbs (1) 12.5 Verbs in combination Those who know___ i611 13a Pratap practises his Hindi with Rishi 13.1 44... 74, ‘when ... then’ (Relative clauses 1) 13.2 Infinitive + Tfeq, ‘should, ought’ 13.3 Infinitive + g™T/ TST, ‘Iam to, must’ 13b At the dinner 13.4 i... 4, ‘the one who...’ (Relative clauses 2) 13.5 fawAT ‘to be available’ (‘to get’) 13.6 @TAT ‘how does it strike you?’ (‘do you like?’) This was bought in Kathmandu 176 14a Sangeeta gets touchy 14.1 The passive — 4a STAT ‘to be spoken’ 14.2 Transitivity and the passive 14.3 WAT Isa AT ‘it began raining’ — to begin to 14.4 Wat STF @ | ‘let me go!’ — to allow 14b Arun's book 14.5 faa... STAT ‘as much as’ (Relative clauses 3) 14.6 4a... 7aT ‘as... so’ (Relative clauses 4) 14.7 wet... tet ‘where... there’ (Relative clauses 5) 14.8 Clause reversal (Relative clauses 6) Go on learning Hindi! 190 15a Pratap’s ‘new peacock’ 15.1 FRAT WAT/ STAT ‘to go on doing’CONTENTS vii 15.2 fear FET ‘to do habitually’ 15.34 revisited 15b Harish at his father’s office 15.4 a ‘like’ 15.5 -aT ‘-ish, -like’ 15.6 Inverted postpositions 15.7 Reflexive pronouns 16 | He was praising you 203 16a Chotu misses his chance 16.1 Conjunct verbs with #@T/aat 16.2 Other conjunct verbs 16b Khanna’s anxiety about Harish 16.3 *ét ‘somewhere’ 16.4 Repetition of words 16.5 Echo words 16.61 a... WT; 7. A; WS... WS 17 | If you weren't so stubborn... 216 17a Sangeeta angers Prakash 17.1 Conditional sentences (2) 17.2 eratfs ‘although’ 17b Sangeeta angers Kamala 17.3 Compound verbs (2) 17.4 The vocabulary of Hindi 18 | A love that won’t be stopped 229 18a Sangeeta confides in Suresh 18.1 Participles 18b A happy ending 18.2 Intransitive and transitive verbs 18.3 Causative verbs Appendixes. 251 1 Numbers 2 Money and shopping 3 The calendar4 Kinship terms 5 Body and health 6 Letterwriting 7 Summary of verb tenses and constructions Key to exercises Hindi-English glossary English-Hindi glossary Glossary of grammatical terms Taking it further Index. HINDI 260 298 327 351 355 356| INTRODUCTION This course is designed to enable those with no previous knowledge of Hindi to learn to read, write and converse in the language with confidence and enjoyment. The course has also proved effective as teaching material for both class tuition and individual study. The Hindi presented in this course is primarily colloquial and practical. To start by learning a very formal linguistic register, such as the purists might prefer, would be to invite looks of incredulity (and incomprehension) during everyday encounters with Hindi-speakers. An advantage of the colloquial approach is that it gives greater access to Urdu, Hindi’s sister-language. Hindi and Urdu share a virtually identical grammar and much of their vocabulary. In the higher registers they do part company, because Hindi looks to the classical Indian language of Sanskrit for its higher vocabulary, script and general cultural orientation, while Urdu looks to Persian and Arabic for these things. But at the everyday spoken level, Hindi and Urdu are virtually identical, and you should not be surprised if you are complimented on your spoken ‘Urdu’ when you complete this course in ‘Hindi’! How to use the course The course is divided into 18 units, each of which is based on (usually two) dialogues which exemplify and bring to life the new grammar introduced in that particular unit. Transliteration in the roman script is provided for the first five units and for all words in the Hindi-English glossary. The dialogues form a kind of soap opera based on the life of a Delhi family; the English translations2 HINDI are deliberately close and literal, so as to function as a key to the Hindi. The book ends with some additional material in the appendixes, together with a Key to the exercises and complete Hindi-English and English-Hindi glossaries. Once you have worked carefully through the introductory section on script and pronunciation, taking help from the cassette and/or a native speaker if possible, you should turn to Unit 1. Familiarise yourself with the vocabulary of the first dialogue (given beneath it) before reading the dialogue and working towards an understanding of it by means of the translation; then work through the grammatical explanations and the examples; alternatively, you may prefer to start with the grammar sections, and then turn back to the dialogue. Either way, learning the dialogues by heart will give you a sound basis for conversations of your own. When you have completed the whole unit in this way, learn the vocabulary (no short cuts here — this is essential!), and then do the exercises, checking your work against the key. Don’t forget to revise earlier sections as you progress through the book. The grammatical explanations are meant to be as accessible and non-technical as possible. A book of this kind cannot aim to be exhaustive, but the main grammatical structures of Hindi are all presented here. Learn as much as possible by heart and augment your vocabulary from other sources whenever you can. Hindi is not a particularly difficult language to learn and you will find your efforts amply rewarded by the warm reactions of the Hindi- speaking world. A note on further learning material is included in Exercise 18b.3, which you can read in translation in the Key to the exercises. Acknowledgements The authors wish to thank Dr A.S. Kalsi, Mr M.D. Mundhra and Dr R.D. Gupta for their invaluable comments and suggestions on the Hindi text. RS and SCRWINTRODUCTION 3 Acknowledgements to the new edition The number of students, teachers and other readers whose suggestions over the last decade have influenced the content of this second edition is too great for them all to be named individually. I am however particularly indebted to my friend Dr A-S. Kalsi for his close reading of the new text and for teaching me Hindi as we teach it together at the School of Oriental and African Studies; such colleagues are among the greatest boons of academic life. Professor Frances Pritchett of the University of Columbia also deserves special thanks. The Macintosh fonts ‘Jaisalmer’ (Devanagari) and ‘Taj’ (roman with diacriticals) have been kindly provided by their designer, Professor K.E. Bryant of the University of British Columbia; and the illustrations to the dialogues are by Kavita Dutta. Sue Hart, of Hodder & Stoughton, has been the most supportive of commissioning editors. Many thanks to these people. RS The dialogues: meet the Kumar family The 37 dialogues tell the story of the Kumar family, who live in Delhi, and their paying guest Pratap, who is from London; many of the exercises also form part of the same narrative. Pratap (21) has come to India to study Hindi at a private college run by Sharma ji. Pratap’s divorced mother Anita, living in London, has arranged for him to stay as a paying guest with the Kumars. The Kumar family consists of the strong-willed Kamala and her obedient husband Prakash, their daughter Sangeeta (19), sons Rishi (14) and Raj (12) and Prakash's elderly but spry mother, whom everybody addresses as Dadi ji (‘Grandma’). Tensions between Kamala and Prakash are not helped by their shared concern about the future of Sangeeta: they would like to see her married, but she strongly cherishes her independence. Sweet- natured Dadi ji, meanwhile, has a calming effect on the whole family. Prakash’s younger brother, the aspiring author Arun, often stays with them; he speaks a rather Sanskritised or formal Hindi4 HINDI (whereas his co-author Prem speaks a Hindi liberally sprinkled with English). Suresh, a neighbour of the Kumars, is another frequent visitor; he is closer to Kamala than to Prakash. Prakash works in a company recently taken over by Mr Khanna, who has a rather pathetic office peon called Chotu. Khanna’s younger sister Pinkie is a close friend of Sangeeta Kumar. Khanna’s son Harish, like Pratap, admires Sangeeta from afar; but Sangeeta’s heart is engaged elsewhere.THE HINDI SCRIPT AND SOUND SYSTEM Hindi is written in the Devanagari script, which is also used by Marathi and Nepali and is the main script for Sanskrit (India’s classical language). Devanagari is pronounced as it’s written, so ‘what you see is what you get’. This makes it quite easy to learn. The script is written from left to right and has no capital letters. Vowels have two forms: an independent character used when a vowel stands at the beginning of a syllable, and a dependent sign used for a vowel immediately following a consonant. Here’s an example: at is the independent character form of the long vowel 4, pronounced as in the English word ‘calm’. Placed before the consonant ¥ m it forms the word 374 am, ‘mango’. But in the name ‘Ram’, the same vowel sound is written with its dependent form (the sign T ), because the vowel now follows ‘r’ (7) as part of the syllable ra: hence 14 Ram. Consonants that are not followed by a dependent vowel sign are automatically followed by the short vowel a, pronounced as in ‘alive’. It’s called the ‘inherent vowel’ because it is inherent in the consonant character. This is why the Hindi consonants in the following table are transliterated ka, kha, ga etc. and not k, kh, g etc. The inherent vowel can be cancelled by writing the sign | (called virdm or halant) below the consonant: # ka, % k. You may have noticed that no inherent vowel was shown just now after the m character in the name 7; this is because the inherent vowel is dropped at the end of a word (and sometimes elsewhere, as we shall see later on). But this dropping doesn’t occur in Sanskrit, where the name 71 has two full syllables - Rama, not Ram.6 HINDI Two important contrasts lie at the heart of correct Hindi pronunciation. First, you must distinguish between ‘dental’ and ‘retroflex’ consonants. Dental consonants are pronounced with the tip of the tongue touching the upper teeth, giving a ‘soft’ sound: Hindi @* fin ‘three’ has much softer consonants than English ‘teen’. Retroflex consonants are pronounced with the tongue curled back to touch the roof of the mouth, which it touches further back than in English, giving a ‘hard’ sound: Hindi ¢€ [it has a harder ‘t’ than English ‘loot’ (which, incidentally, derives from the Hindi word). To Hindi-speakers, English consonants sound more retroflex than dental; so they'll pronounce ‘David’ as fas devid. The second important contrast is in the amount of breath that’s released when a consonant is pronounced: ‘aspirated’ consonants contrast with ‘unaspirated’ ones. The same effect sometimes occurs in English: put your hand in front of your mouth and say ‘pit, spit’ loudly (when alone!), and you'll probably feel that the ‘s’ reduces the aspiration accompanying the adjacent ‘p’. Hindi has several pairs of aspirated/unaspirated consonants; English-speakers must try hard to curb their aspiration in pronouncing the unaspirated ones (practise saying ‘Panjab’ and ‘Pakistan’ with minimum aspiration in the ‘p’). When pronouncing Hindi vowels, English-speakers must take care to avoid English-style diphthongs: words like @ se (‘from’) and 4 ko (‘to’) are pure vowels that can be held unchanged as long as you have breath to hold them (try it!); they must not be pronounced like ‘say’ and ‘Co’, in which the quality of the vowel changes as you utter it. You should now practise the shapes of the Devanagari characters. Using lined paper, begin on the left of each character and follow through to the right, completing the character with the headstroke, which should fall on the printed line; your words should hang from the printed line like washing put out to dry, not standing on the lower line as the Roman script does. Maintain the overall proportions of the characters carefully, not letting them get too straggly; each one should fill two-thirds of the space between your printed lines.THE HINDI SCRIPT AND SOUND SYSTEM 7 The Devanagari syllabary Independent vowel characters Ha aa i gi gu Hit mr Ce Tai ato att au Consonants ka | kha T ga a gha (Sn 4 ca © cha w ja St jha (aAnl* Sf ta S tha S da S dha T na aT ta a tha = da a dha T na qT pa pha a ba W obha A ma a ya vt ra a la aq va WM Sa WT sa a sa & ha *These bracketed forms rarely occur and can be ignored for now. Dependent vowel signs, based on & as an example % ka aT ka f% ki at i FE ku R ka Pe ¥ ke % kai = AT ko || kaw8 HINDI The Devanagari script and phonetics The phonetic organisation of the Devanagari script was laid down by the grammarians of ancient India, who codified the Sanskrit language in order to preserve the effectiveness of its sacred mantras or prayer formulae. As a result, the main block of consonants from # ka to 4 ma has a very precise layout: the vertical columns show the manner of articulation (voiceless unaspirated and aspirated; voiced unaspirated and aspirated; nasal) while the horizontal rows show the place of articulation in the mouth (velar, palatal, retroflex, dental, labial). Some Devanagari characters have ‘dotted’ versions which show sounds not occurring in Sanskrit. Thus the guide to pronunciation that follows includes seven characters that don’t appear in the syllabary: # qa, @ kha, 4 ga, % za, = ya, & rha, and & fa. These characters are not distinguished in dictionary order from their undotted equivalents; and the dots are often omitted in both handwriting and print. Vowels Shown first in their independent forms, then in their dependent forms, again using the consonant % by way of example. 3 a * ka asin‘alive’; inherent in any consonant not bearing a dependent vowel sign at a@ 9 ka asin’palm’ = i f® ki asin‘hit’ = i # kK asin ‘heat’ 3 ou ® ku asin‘foot’ &% & ® kit asin ‘fool’ a i Y # kr as‘ri’in‘critic’; in Sanskrit loanwords only Ue e ke as in French é; a pure vowel sound, not « diphthong as in English t ai * ki asin‘hen’ at o f ko asinthe first part of ‘o’ in ‘hotel’; a pure vowel sound, not a diphthong as in EnglishTHE HINDI SCRIPT AND SOUND SYSTEM 9 at au 4 kau asin‘off’ A consonant can support only one dependent vowel. When two vowels appear in sequence, the second is written in its independent form: Ga hud, Sat jao, fag lie, FE kai, eH daid, etc. The character ¢ ra is something of a maverick; ru and ri have special forms — € ru, and ¥ rii. Velar consonants (produced in the throat) ka as in ‘skit’, with minimal release of breath qa a‘k’ sound produced further back than # ka aspirated form of ¥ ka: as in ‘kit’, but more aspirated as ‘ch’ in Scottish ‘loch’, or German ‘Bach’ as in ‘gift’ ga a‘g’ sound produced further back than ga gha _ aspirated form of 7 ga: as in ‘dog-house’ n used only with a velar consonant; as in ‘ink’; it is rarely seen in Hindi but is included here for completeness Aaa a aaa sw ar Palatal consonants (produced at the palate) a as in ‘cheese’, but with less release of breath cha _ aspirated form of 4 ca: as in ‘pitch-hook’ ja as in ‘jeer’ ma as in ‘zip’ jha _ aspirated form of 4 ja: as in ‘large house’. n used only with a palatal consonant; as in ‘inch’ — rarely AMA da a a seen, but included here for completeness Retroflex consonants (tongue curls back to touch the palate: ‘hard’ sounds) = ta as in ‘train’, but harder 3 tha aspirated form of é fa; as in ‘at home’ Ss da as in ‘drum’, but harder10 HINDI Ss ya a flapped hard ‘r’— the tongue makes a = da sound as it moves past the palate = dha aspirated form of = da = rha flapped equivalent of ¢ dha 7 na the retroflex nasal; a hard ‘n’ sound Dental consonants (tongue touches the upper teeth: ‘soft’ sounds) aga ga ta tha da dha na as in ‘at’ within the phrase ‘at the’ aspirated form of T ta as in ‘breadth’ aspirated form of = da the dental nasal: as in ‘anthem’ Labial consonants (produced with the lips) 7 pa as in ‘spin’, with minimal release of breath % pha like ‘p’ in ‘pin’, but more aspirated, as in ‘top-hat’ a ba as in ‘bin’ =~ bha__ aspirated form of @ ba: as in ‘club-house’ AH = ma asin ‘mother’ Semi-vowels etc. a ya as in ‘yet’, but less tense = or as in ‘roll’ a ta a dental ‘I’; softer than the first ‘I’ in ‘label’, and much softer than the second aq va between English ‘v’ and ‘w’; the teeth don’t touch the lip as in ‘vest’, but neither are the lips rounded as in ‘west’ Sibilants a Sa as ‘sh’ in ‘ship’ a sa a retroflex ‘sh’; usually not distinguished from ® sa in pronunciation (found in Sanskrit loanwords only) a sa as in ‘sip’THE HINDI SCRIPT AND SOUND SYSTEM u Aspirate & ha This ‘h’ sound is always fully voiced, as in ‘ahead’. It often ‘lightens’ an adjacent a vowel: both vowels in et mahal (‘palace’) are similar to the ‘e’ in ‘melt’. Visarga Visarga looks like a colon with widely spaced dots; it occurs without a headstroke within or at the end of a word, and is pronounced as @ ha. It’s transliterated as h, as in ¥:4 duhkh, 8: chah. Mostly limited to Sanskrit loanwords. Conjunct characters Just when you thought you had mastered the script, along come the conjunct characters! When two consonants come in succession with no vowel between them, they are physically joined together as a ‘conjunct’. In the word sthan (‘place’) for example, no vowel separates the ‘s’ from the ‘th’, so 4 sa is reduced to a special half- form, € s, which is attached to the following 4 th to form ® stha (ear sthan). Without the conjunct, the word would be read as ‘sathan’. Most conjuncts are formed on this principle; but some are a little more complicated, and some don’t resemble either of their component parts. As already noted, ¢ ra is a bit of a wild card. As the first member of a i bas it appears in the ‘flying’ form “above the headstroke, as in a dharm (let's be very clear: the ‘r’ precedes the ‘m’ here). It’s written at the very end of the syllable that it precedes in pronunciation: wt Sarma, 41 barfi. As the second member of a conjunct its characteristic sign is - as in 5 pra; but its location changes according to its partner: Ugra Ztra $dra Atra Asra Asra Shra The common conjuncts are shown in the following tables. In the first column the consonants are written initially with the halant sign , introduced earlier; it cancels the inherent vowel. This list is meant for reference: have a look through it to familiarise yourself12 HINDI with the basic principle, but don’t feel you have to learn all the forms immediately. You will pick them up gradually, as you encounter them. To begin with, here are all the conjuncts that appear in Unit 1 UA A A MAL dy} OM HH q + & A + + + an gn aaa gaw a + oe a a qth aa g gy 4 And here is a list of the 100 most common conjuncts, numbered for convenience. (Two forms are regarded as independent characters in their own right: & (& + 9), pronounced ‘ksha’; and 7 (4% + 5), pronounced ‘gya’.) eo oN AH A A aa 4 4 Co 5 P+ FT = Re 6 & + FT = We7 R + TF = aT 8 FR + T = FT13 THE HINDI SCRIPT AND SOUND SYSTEM er ie i i’ 12 fa 13 + 37 © a Ke 14 ee 15 ee 16 Ke 17 be 18 ie + 7 & g Wwe hor 26 tw 27 te 51 28 +H 4+%T 5 | 52 31HINDI 14 rad 55 qa aa 81 58 a 82 wo bE RE be be RY RY RY ke 90 we 67 we 91 ee Be 69 be 93 we 70 be 71 + 6 & F we 72 we 73 we 74 we 75 Organ 100 & oF te 76 + ooTHE HIND! SCRIPT AND SOUND SYSTEM 15 Nasalised vowels, and conjuncts beginning with # or m Any Hindi vowel (except # r) can be nasalised — some of the breath flows through the nose. Nasalised vowels bear the sign “, a moon and a dot, called candrabindu (candra ‘moon’, bindu ‘dot’, logically enough)). This is transliterated with a tilde (~) as in Ht mih ‘mouth, face’, and @ ha ‘yes’. Any vowel sign that protrudes above the headline eclipses the candra moon, so the bindu dot has to appear alone — aa nahi‘no’, & hai ‘are’. Some people replace candrabindu with bindu for all nasalised vowels, writing @ for &f hd. Should you do this? 78 nahi ‘No’! Should you write candrabindu in full where there’s no superscript vowel? @f hi ‘Yes’! The bindu dot has a second function: it can replace any of the nasal consonants (¥, 5, , 7, 4) when they appear as the first member of a conjunct. Note its position in the following: a = w rang colour oss = ast panjab Panjab aT = aST andi egg fet 7 fart hindi Hindi wat = wat lamba long, tall Both spellings are correct and either may be used freely — although in the first two pairs, the simple anusvar forms (1, 114) are much more common than their complicated alternatives. In this book, no special symbol is used for anusvar: both fet and féet are transliterated as ‘hindi’. Pronunciation Do try to use the cassette, or better still get help from a native speaker, when practising pronunciation. Some watchpoints: 1 Short and long vowels in the pairs a/A, i/i, u/a must be clearly distinguished, especially the a/a pair as in #4 kam ‘less’ / 41 kam ‘work’; & dal ‘political party’ / T# dal ‘lentils’. 2 A doubled consonant is ‘held’ momentarily - as in English ‘night train’, whose ‘t...t’ is held to distinguish it from ‘night16 HINDI rain’. So 4=aT bacca ‘child’ sounds different from Fat bacd ‘survived’. The same effect occurs with repeated sounds in adjacent words: 3& @ us se ‘from that’ sounds different from 3@ use ‘to that’. 3 As we've seen, the inherent vowel is not pronounced at the end of a word. But there’s an exception: it may be lightly pronounced when the word ends in a conjunct. Thus faa mitr(a) ‘friend’, 74% avasy(a) ‘of course’. 4 There are occasions when an inherent vowel is not pronounced in the middle of a word, even though the spelling involves no conjunct. As a general rule, the inherent vowel remains silent in the second syllable of a word whose third character either includes a vowel sign (thus 44H samajh ‘understanding’, but aA samjha ‘understood’) or is followed by a fourth syllable (thus 44 manav ‘human being’, but S144 janvar ‘animal’). This rule does not apply when the second or third syllable of the word has a conjunct. 5 Inherent vowel + 4 ya, as in @4 samay ‘time’ and 4 jay ‘victory’, is pronounced ai (indeed, the spellings 7 samai and jai were once current). 6 The pattern of stress across a sentence is more even in Hindi than in English - emphasis is usually carried by the addition of ‘particles’ (short indeclinable words) rather than through the voice. Punctuation and other signs The ‘full stop’ is a vertical line (1) called dand ‘stick’ or khari pat ‘perpendicular line’. Other punctuation follows English usage. In writing abbreviations, a small circle ( © ) follows the first entire aksar or syllable of the abbreviated word: Jo Fo = 3a Fea Uttar Pradesh Yo tito ATo Wat = fea tre area wat Pandit Gopal Narayan SharmaTHE HINDI SCRIPT AND SOUND SYSTEM. 17 The 0 is dropped when the initials cohere as an acronym: aT = anette seat ref Bharatiya Janata Party awTeT = AMIS ETAT NavBharat Times (newspaper) Sometimes abbreviations are merely transliterations of the English: qo ito = (yi. pi.) UP Slo Uo way = (ji.en. Sarma. G.N. Sharma Flo Foqto | = (bi. je. pi BJP English ‘o’ sounds as in ‘chocolate’ or ‘sorry’ are pronounced by some Hindi speakers as similar to @; and Devanagari spellings of such sounds may use a special candra character (without dot) over the vowel: aTwaz, art. Alternative spellings Te following a vowel in verb endings can have different forms (the standard form is shown in the left-hand column): TE jae = a4 jaye, ATI jay may go FEU jaie = ag jaiy please go sarfan cahie = uatfga cahiye needed The use of conjuncts in loans from Persian is not fully standardised: wR umar = TA umr age RA garam = mt garm warm, hot WaT parda = wat parda curtain, purdah Numerals ° g Rg 3 v 4 & 9 ‘ 8 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 The so-called ‘Arabic’ numerals (which originated in India!) are used at least as commonly as the Devanagari numerals.18 HINDI Dictionary order The dictionary order of the script follows the pattern shown in the Devanagari syllabary section, reading horizontally. Three principles apply: 1 Syllables with candrabindu or anusvar precede those without: ata gav ‘village’ precedes 4181 gari ‘train, car’, and @ tang ‘narrow’ precedes 4 tak ‘up to’. 2 Non-conjunct forms precede conjunct forms: 6Ta chata ‘umbrella’ precedes 814 chatr ‘pupil’, and 4T baca ‘survived’ precedes 4==T bacca ‘child’. 3 ‘Dotted’ forms (e.g. ¥ qa, $ ra, 3 za) are not distinguished in sequence from ‘undotted’ equivalents (¥ ka, = da, & ja). Note: Transcriptions of the Hindi sounds on the cassette are given at the beginning of the Key to the exercises on page 260.I AM PRATAP Frat = In this unit you will learn how to @ greet and identify people @ ask and answer ‘yes/no’ questions @ ask people how they are ™@ use adjectives a la Pratap, from London, meets his Delhi host i f 2 snare i | 2 oe Al TAT amet | Agave ft aaT ATG BHAT TE? rT oft af, # ere Z 1 THR | ag ASAT TTS | TaTT ares TT | TH STH eT? wT oft at, afear, # Sta E 1 ear arg dT S27 aT oft ard, H shits oat & fergeartt €20 HINDI wa ToT, HTT ESET E ! TaTT oft at sar ag ast TTB? wt adi, ag ara at &, ae ATA EI Pratap namaste. mai Pratap hii. kya ap Kamala ji hai? Kamala jt ha, mai Kamala hit. namaste. yah larka Raj hai. Pratap namaste Raj. tum thik ho? Raj jihad, Sukriya, mai thik hi. kya dp agrez hai? Pratap jinahi, mai dgrez nahi hii, hindustant hi. Raj accha, ap hindustani hai! Pratap Jihi. kya vah gari japani hai? Raj nahi, vah japani nahi hai, vah Maruti hai. ME) amet namaste hello @ ho are ® mai 1 YfRAT sukriyd thank you t hi am HAH agrez English {kya question-marker Hag jinahi no aT ap you (formal) at nahi not St ji respect-marker fergertt hindustani Indian € hai are HB accha good, really?, I see! otal jhi yes at na yes WE yah this 4 vah it, that weet ™ larka boy agt! gari car & hai is arartt japant Japanese FF tum you (familiar) arefat f maruti Maruti (make of SR thik allright car) Pratap Hello, lam Pratap. Are you Kamala ji? Kamala _Yes, I'm Kamala. Hello. This boy is Raj. Pratap Hello Raj. Are you OK? Raj Yes, thank you, I’m OK. Are you English? Pratap No, I'm not English, I’m Indian. Raj Oh, you're Indian! Pratap Yes. Is that car Japanese? Raj No, it’s not Japanese, it’s a Maruti.AM PRATAP. 21 (jj Grammar 1.1 Personal pronouns and the verb ‘to be’ SINGULAR. PLURAL we mathi Tam SH ham hai weare I€@ tihai youare(intimate) {4 @ tumho youare (familiar) amg Gphat youare (formal) wg yahhai he,she,it,thisis 4%& yehai these, they are; he, she is (formal) 4é% vahhai he,she,it,thatis 48 vehai those, they are; he, she is (formal) Hindi has a subtle system of ‘honorific’ levels - like French tu/vous, or German du/Sie. There are three second-person pronouns, each with its own verb form as shown in the table. { ti indicates great intimacy and is used in addressing a close loved one or a small child. FF tum is informal and casual and is used with a person expecting no formality or deference —a friend, child or servant. 314 ap is relatively formal; it indicates the respect one shows towards equals (and above!) and is the natural choice in conversations with all people not falling into the previous categories. Both 7 tum and 37 dp are grammatically plural; but either may indicate several people (numerical plural) or a single individual (honorific plural). The honorific system extends into the third person: when referring to a person whom you would address face-to-face as 417 dp, use the plural forms 4 ye / 4 ve. a yah and its plural % ye refer to a subject that’s nearby, while 4 vah (which is often pronounced ‘vo’) and 4 ve refer to a subject that’s more remote — rather like English ‘this’ and ‘that’. Unless a specific sense of ‘nearness’ is involved, use 4@/ 4 vah/ve.22 HINDI The honorific system can indicate disdain as well as respect: to use a lower-grade honorific than expected by the person you're talking to can imply severe disrespect. So you must observe the usages of others and learn from them. When in doubt, stick to 477 ap! Forts! mai gujaratthi. 1am Gujarati. ae wT SI vah jarman hai. He/she is German. wr tara & 1 ham panjabi hat. We are Panjabi. wats 2 tum agrez ho? You're English? ay ferqeart 1 4p hindustani hai. You are Indian. aad gi ve bharatty hai. They are Indian. (or He/she is Indian.) 1.2 Questions and answers Questions expecting a ‘yes/no’ answer are formed by simply prefixing a statement with #41 kya: Hse a tum thik ho. You're OK. (statement) aa ga ath et? = kyatumthikho? —_ Are you OK? (question) In speech, a question can be conveyed by a rising tone, as in English: wate at? tum thik ho? You're OK? Kamala shows Pratap his room WE HAT TET TST F! FIT TAL HA ote F 7 of aa 1 fas om Har wets, TAT aT EI aa ag ast TTA Teg 2? oft af, wex, Fai aerarfeat ret F 1 aie vat un As ale a aefeat F 1 sar Gar ART 7 oar aet &; afarr fersat wret at F 1 AGT HST | HART ATH HK ART BATA S| Pratap yah kamrai bahut bara hai! kya dusre kamre chote hai? Kamala jinahi. sirf ek kama chota hai, ditsre bare hat.| AM PRATAP 23 Pratap kya yah bari almari khali hai? Kamala jth, zartr, doné almariya khali hat. Pratap aur yah ek mez aur do kursiyd hai. kya pankha nahi hai? Kamala pankha nahi hai; lekin khirkt kafi bari hai. Pratap bahut accha. kamra saf aur bahut havadar hai. 0) RI" kamra room aX aur and ‘gq bahut very aet yaha here wet bara big Aw! mez table ARI disra other a do two Bet choté small aed! kurst chair faci sirf only Far™ = pankha fan UH ek one,a fet lekin but aeraret!almari_ cupboard fastt! khirkt window are khali empty, vacant wT kafi_ quite SR zariir of course am = saf clean @¥ dond both BAAR havadar airy Pratap This room is very big! Are the other rooms small? Kamala _No. Only one room is small, the others are big. Pratap Is this big cupboard empty? Kamala _Yes, of course, both cupboards are empty. Pratap And here there’s a table and two chairs. Isn’t there a fan? Kamala _There’s no fan; but the window is quite big. Pratap Very good. The room is clean and very airy. (qj Grammar 13 Nouns Hindi nouns are either masculine or feminine; the gender of every new noun must be learnt. There is no definite article ‘the’; T# ek, the number ‘one’, sometimes functions as the indefinite article ‘a’. Masculine nouns are of two types: those ending -a in the singular, changing to -e in the plural; and all others, which are the same in both singular and plural.24 HINDI Masculine type 1 agat larka boy ast larke boys wat kamra room wt kamre rooms Masculine type 2 WaT ~=makan house watt makin houses aredt admit = =man areal admit men Not all nouns ending in -@ are masculine: many Sanskrit loanwords such as 3781 asa ‘hope’ and "TST bhasa ‘language’ (and names like =a Kamala) are feminine. A few masculines ending in -a belong to type 2 and therefore don’t change in the plural; these are mostly relationship terms like frat pita ‘father’, ATT cca ‘uncle’ — but also TT raja ‘king’. Feminine nouns are also of two types: those ending -i, -i or -iyd in the singular, all changing to -iyd in the plural; and all others, which add -é in the plural. Feminine type 1 aset larki girl asfirat larkiyd girls sft prati_ copy (of book) sfaat pratiya copies fafsar ciriya bird fafsat ciriyé birds Feminine type 2 aw mez table a3 -mezé tables "aT «= mata. mother uTaTe mataé mothers Feminine nouns ending -i are of type 2, but shorten the -i to -u- in the plural: 4 bahi ‘daughter-in-law’, at bahué ‘daughters-in-law’. Hi areit admit ‘man’ derives from Arabic and means ‘descendant of Adam’; compare 444 manav ‘man, human being’, derived from Sanskrit and meaning ‘descendant of Manw’ (the progenitor of the world in Hindu belief). 14 Adjectives Adjectives agree with the nouns they qualify. They are of two types: those that inflect (change their endings), and those that are invariable.