Indian Script : DEVANAGARI

Devanagari is one of the scripts used in India. Today it is officially used for writing Hindi, Sanskrit and Marathi. If you are planning to visit India, this is the script you will most probably see everywhere - on boards, billboards, panels, signs etc. In this article you can learn more about devanagari and how to write/read it.

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Devanagari is an old Indian script. It derived from even older script brahmi (used on king Ashoka's edicts who converted to Buddhism after a heavy bloody battle) which derived from Aramaic script. This means we can trace back the origins of devanagari all the way in to early centuries BC. The earliest texts written with devanagari were composed in 8th century. The name, devanagari, consists of two Sanskrit words - deva (God, deity) and nagari (nagar=city; nagari (F)=of the city, town) which together form one meaning - (the script = lipi) of god's city (F). It is written from left to right and there is no difference between upper- and lowercase letters

Devanagari is a phonetic and syllabic script. That means it is written mostly as you read it and every consonant will come with a vowel, in this case a short vowel a. Therefore it is not quite correct to call devanagari as an alphabet. Some authors of Hindi grammar books say that devanagari is the most scientific script. The reason for that is the order in which letters (or syllables) are put. Letters are distributed according to their place and way of articulation. The order they are put in is called as varnmala - garland of letters. If you try to speak the letters you will notice many regularities on your own as well.

Vowels are written in two ways. the way of writing depends if they follow a consonant or not. Consonants are always written in the same way except when they are in clusters. Here you can briefly see the rules of writing devanagari. Handwritten devanagari is a bit different, however, not much different. The line above the letters is one of the most characteristic features of this Indian script. 

Devanagari - vowels and consonants

Devanagari - vowels

Although it might seem difficult to learn devanagari because there are so many letters, it is actually no different than any other script. You can start out with writing down your own name - later you can frame it and put it as a decoration (Make Your Home More Indian). Once you get it right, you will be able to write it and read it just as fast as you are reading this article right now. And after all, it is quite cool once you come to India knowing you can read the menu in devanagari in a restaurant or boards with the name of the cities!

Meet Hindi Language

Hindi is an Indoeuropean language that is an official language of Republic of India. Today more than 200 MILLION people can speak Hindi. It is also the language of Bollywood films.

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It is commonly misunderstood that Hindi is a very difficult language to learn. Actually, if you are a native speaker of any of the Indoeuropean language, it should be easier than learning Chinese, Turkish or any other non-Indoeuropean language - even though it might sound very "exotic" to you. 

It has developed from Sanskrit - an ancient language such as Greek and Latin but, however, still has native speakers! So, you see - what is Latin to Spanish, exactly the same is Sanskrit to Hindi - a parent :) Native Hindi speakers will not have much problems with understanding Sanskrit as much as native speakers of Slavic languages will not have problems with understanding Old Slavonic and native speakers of Roman languages - Latin. If you are a native speaker of, for example, any of the Slavic languages and you had to learn Latin at school - you can understand Roman languages easier. The point is, Indoeuropean languages follow almost the same rules and their constructions will be somewhat very similar. There is no need to be scared of Hindi just because you do not have an opportunity to hear it on the TV very often - being an Indoeuropean language, it is already closer to your own mother tongue than other "exotic" languages.

Hindi is written in Devanagari script. A very old script whose tracks we can follow all the way to Aramaic script. Today it is officially used for writing Hindi, Marathi and Sanskrit language. In this article you can learn more about this Indian Script : DEVANAGARI. It is really fun to learn! There are many tutorials on how to write and read Devanagari. Also there are many tutorials about Hindi understanding the Hindi grammar. There are not many, however, tutorials on building Hindi vocabulary so from time to time we will try to work on that topic over here as well :)

Let us know in the comments if you have already tried to learn Hindi and how did you like it! You can also LIKE Spicy Bhaarat on Facebook and Google+.

Here are some tips on how to build up your Hindi vocabulary - Building up your Hindi vocabulary!

Hindi Language

Make Your Home More Indian

Tips on how to decorate your home more oriental and Indian.

Colours

~ Golden, red and other vibrant colours are a must. If this is too flashy for your taste, use more gentle pastel colours. Avoid too much of black, white and grey colour. Use them as the colours of patterns.

Colours of India

Shapes

~ Indian home usually has more square shaped furniture, however, it is not a must to have such furniture and no, there is no need to change your furniture if it looks different. Adding a couple of comfortable cushions in Indian colours can already add that Indian touch.

Indian Style Cushions

Decorations

~ Adding symbols or something that reminds of India will do just great!

Here are some of the decorations you can use:

*figurines or pictures of elephants, Hindu deities, lotus flower

*little boxes

*scented sticks

*small Indian carpet in your living room, in front of your doorstep or on the wall

Elephant Figurine

Small Oriental Boxes

Scented Sticks

Decorative Carpet

Aum and Swastika symbols

~ It is believed that the frequency of the vibration of the "Aum" sound is equal to the one of the God or Absolute. It is very popular among Hindu Indians and Westerns. Swastika is a Sanskrit word which would mean "something small that brings well-being" - kind of what we call as a "lucky charm." These would look really nice somewhere near your entrance doors as a Welcome to your guests and your family. If you think some of your visitors might feel uncomfortable around them, try to make the symbols less obvious.

Aum Decoration

Swastika Decoration

Your name in devanagari

~ Learn how to write your name or names of your family members in devanagari and make a painting. Here you can see an article about this Indian Script : DEVANAGARI.

Name "Shakuntala" in Devanagari