Hindi Course Guide - Section 1 Part 2: Letters and Sounds - Consonants 1

[Austin.Vheissu]

Hindi Course Guide

Section 1 Part 2.1: Consonants 1

Notes:

• The same as with the vowels, in the current Duolingo course, consonants are learned in lessons “Pair letters with sounds” found in units 1 and 2.

• We saw that vowels that follow consonants in a syllable will be written as an attached form, which means in reading Devanagari writing you will see many different consonant+vowel combined characters, but don’t worry, the “core” consonant letter stays the same, and all that changes is the attached vowel form is added to it. In this post I will write the “core consonant” (which if read alone would imply an inherent vowel)

• And as I mentioned last time, a future guide will go over some of the more particular details, modifications, and exceptions to the fundamentals in this guide, so if you're reading Hindi somewhere else and see something unexpected, just know it'll probably be discussed later.

Consonants:

	Voiceless	Voiceless aspirated	Voiced	Voiced aspirated	Nasal
Velar consonants	क	ख	ग	घ	ङ
Palatal consonants	च	छ	ज	झ	ञ
Labial consonants	प	फ	ब	भ	म
Dental/Alveolar consonants	त	थ	द	ध	न
Retroflex consonants	ट	ठ	ड	ढ	ण

Flaps and Trills	र	ड़	ढ़
Fricatives	स	श	ष	फ़	ख़	ज़	ग़
Other	व	ल	य	ह	क़

In this post I will cover the velar, palatal, and labial consonants.

• As we shall see for these and several other of the sets of Hindi consonants, there is a set of 5 types of consonants in each category: voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, voiced unaspirated, voiced aspirated, and nasal.

• A consonant is voiced if your vocal chords vibrate to make noise while you say the letter. For example the English "s" is the unvoiced version of the sound, whereas "z" is the voiced version of the same sound; similarly, the English "f" is the unvoiced version of the sound, whereas "v" is the voiced version of the same sound.

• Aspiration has to do with the amount of air released when a consonant is said, there is always some amount of air required to make the sound, but Hindi distinguishes between "unaspirated" with a minimal puff of air, and "aspirated" with a larger puff of air. It is hard for me as a native English speaker to hear the difference unless I am paying close attention, but books say that in English the "k" of "kit" is aspirated, whereas the "k" of "skit" is unaspirated (or at least less aspirated than in "kit"). In Hindi these differences in aspiration make a big difference, so it is worth training your ear to hear the difference.

Velar consonants

• Velar consonants are formed by the tongue touching the soft palate in the back of the roof of the mouth.

क

• IPA - ⟨k⟩ -voiceless velar plosive

• Often romanized as "k"

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_velar_plosive

• This is the same "k" sound as in English, except it is unaspirated, so only a minimal puff of air is released.

• Examples:

  • का Listen

  • करना Listen

  • टिक Listen

  • सकना Listen

ख

• IPA - ⟨k^h⟩ - aspirated voiceless velar plosive

• Often romanized as "kh"

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_velar_plosive

• This is the same "k" sound as in English, except it is aspirated, so generally a stronger puff of air than in English.

• Examples:

  • देखना Listen

  • खेल Listen

  • रखना Listen

  • खुश Listen

ग

• IPA - ⟨ɡ⟩ - voiced velar plosive

• Often romanized as "g"

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_velar_plosive

• This is the same "g" sound as in English, except it is unaspirated, so only a minimal puff of air is released.

• Examples:

  • जगह Listen

  • अगर Listen

  • लोग Listen

  • पागल Listen

घ

• IPA - ⟨ɡ^h⟩ - aspirated voiced velar plosive

• Often romanized as "gh"

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_velar_plosive

• This is the same "g" sound as in English, except it is aspirated, so a larger puff of air is released.

• Examples:

  • घर Listen

  • घड़ी Listen

  • घाव Listen

  • घोड़ा Listen

ङ is not used in Hindi (from what I can tell only in very rare Sanskrit loan words). So I'm not going to discuss it.

Palatal consonants

• Palatal consonants are formed when the tongue is touching the hard palate on the roof of the mouth.

च

• IPA - ⟨tʃ⟩ - voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant affricate

• Often romanized as "c" or "ch"

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless ... _affricate

• This is similar to the English "ch" but note that it is unaspirated.

• Examples:

  • चाहना Listen

  • चलना Listen

  • नीचे Listen

  • सच Listen

छ

• IPA - ⟨tʃ^h⟩ - aspirated voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant affricate

• Often romanized as "ch"

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless ... _affricate

• This is similar to the English "ch" but note that it is aspirated.

• Examples:

  • कुछ Listen

  • पीछे Listen

  • छोटे Listen

  • पूछना Listen

ज

• IPA - ⟨d͡ʒ⟩ - voiced palato-alveolar sibilant affricate

• Often romanized as "j"

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_po ... _affricate

• This is similar to the English "j" but note that it is unaspirated.

• Examples:

  • जब Listen

  • जाना Listen

  • आज Listen

  • जैसे Listen

झ

• IPA - ⟨d͡ʒ⟩ - aspirated voiced palato-alveolar sibilant affricate

• Often romanized as "jh"

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_po ... _affricate

• This is similar to the English "j" but note that it is aspirated.

• Examples:

  • मुझ Listen

  • समझना Listen

  • झूठ Listen

  • सुझाव Listen

ञ is also not used in Hindi aside from very rare Sanskrit loan words, so I'm not going to discuss it.

Labial consonants

• Labial consonants are formed by using the lips to change the airflow pattern.

प

• IPA - ⟨p⟩ - Voiceless bilabial plosive

• Often romanized as "p"

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless ... al_plosive

• Similar to the English "p" but it is unaspirated.

• Examples:

  • आप Listen

  • पर Listen

  • अपने Listen

  • पता Listen

फ

• IPA - ⟨p^h⟩ - Aspirated voiceless bilabial plosive

• Often romanized as "ph"

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless ... al_plosive

• Similar to the English "p" but it is aspirated.

• Examples:

  • फूल Listen

  • काफी Listen

ब

• IPA - ⟨b⟩ - Voiced bilabial plosive

• Often romanized as "b"

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_bilabial_plosive

• Similar to the English "b" but it is unaspirated.

• Examples:

  • अब Listen

  • बहुत Listen

  • बात Listen

  • सब Listen

भ

• IPA - ⟨b^h⟩ - Aspirated voiced bilabial plosive

• Often romanized as "bh"

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_bilabial_plosive

• Similar to the English "b" but it is aspirated.

• Examples:

  • भी Listen

  • कभी Listen

  • भाई Listen

  • भूल Listen

म

• IPA - ⟨m⟩ - Voiced bilabial nasal

• Often romanized as "m"

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_bilabial_nasal

• Similar to the English "m"

• Examples:

  • मैं Listen

  • तुम Listen

  • हम Listen

  • काम Listen

References:

• Duolingo course Tips and Notes
  On my version of the app and browser versions these are no longer available (instead they just show some example sentences with no explanation). However, they are still available on DuoMe (they’re not added in the main menu bar “Tips and Notes” but you can access them by clicking on “Hindi” in your profile, for example, for me this directs me to https://duome.eu/Austin.Vheissu/en/hi and below my profile information is a tab for “Tips and Notes”).

• Wikipedia pages for Hindustani grammar, and Devanagari

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindustani_grammar

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devanagari

• Textbooks:

  • Snell, R. Teach Yourself Beginner's Hindi Script. Hodder Headline. 2003.

  • Snell, R. Teach Yourself Beginner's Hindi. Hodder Headline. 2003.

  • Snell, R., Weightman, S. Teach Yourself Hindi. Hodder Headline, 2003.

  • Bhardwaj, M., Wells, G. Hindi Urdu Bol Chaal. BBC Books, 1989.

  • Bhatia, T.K., Colloquial Hindi. Routledge. 2002.

  • McGregor, R.S. Outline of Hindi Grammar. Oxford University Press, 1972.

  • Agnihotri, R.K. Hindi An Essential Grammar. Routledge, 2007.

  • Koul, O.M. Modern Hindi Grammar. Dunwoody Press, 2008.