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Appendix 2: Glossary of key terms

अक्षर akṣar: a single letter or character of the alphabet

अंक aṅk: numeral, digit, number

अघोष aghōṣ: voiceless consonant

अनुस्वार anusvār: dot written above the top line and between two consonants showing a “half” nasal consonant appending to the second consonant

अयोगवाह ayōgavāh: helper or auxiliary symbol, such as अनुस्वार anusvār or विसर्ग visarg

अल्पप्राण alpaprāṇ: unaspirated consonant

उच्चारण uccāraṇ: pronunciation

कंठ्य kaṇṭhya: velar

घोष ghōṣ: voiced consonant

चंद्रबिन्दु candrabindu: symbol of a horizontal crescent moon shape with a dot on top, used to indicate a nasalized vowel (moon shape can be omitted if the vowel matra is already in that space)

तालव्य tālavya: palatal

दन्त्य dantya: dental

द्वयोष्ठ्य dvayoṣṭhya: bilabial

नासिक्य nāsikya: nasal

महाप्राण mahāprāṇ: aspirated consonant

मात्रा mātrā: dependent vowel or diacritic, a marker that appends to a consonant to form a syllable

मूर्धन्य mūrdhanya: retroflex

युक्ताक्षर yuktākṣar: conjunct (combined) consonant

राकर rākar: a shortened form of र taking the form of a short diagonal stroke, used in conjunct consonants where र is the last sound of the conjunct

रेफ reph: a shortened form of र taking the form of a small curve shape at the top of the letter it precedes, used in conjunct consonants where र is the first sound of the conjunct

वर्णमाला varṇmālā: the Devanāgarī alphabet, literally the “garland of letters”

विराम virām: long vertical line equivalent to a period or full stop at the end of a sentence

विराम चिन्ह virām cinha: general term for punctuation

विसर्ग visarg: indicates a puff of air after a syllable, somewhat like adding a “huh” sound

व्यंजन vyañjan: consonant

स्वर svar: vowel

शिरोरेखा śirōrēkhā: the horizontal line at the top of a letter or word, always written after the entire word is complete rather than letter by letter

हलंत halant: indicates suppression of vowel

1 However, we have largely dispensed with representing final short a as this is not usually pronounced in Hindi and has the potential to cause confusion.
2 In a handful of words the character ॹ or झ़ may be is used to represent the sound z̈ (IPA: ʒ), found in Persian and Avestan derived words such as अझ़दहा or झ़ाला. However, most learners are highly unlikely to come across this character.
3 You may find many examples of tables with rows and rows of multi-consonant conjuncts, some with 3 or more letters conjoined, but these are fairly rare in everyday Hindi vocabulary. For some examples see: https://www.omniglot.com/writing/devanagari.htm, https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Hindi/Consonant_combinations

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A Practical Guide to Hindi Script Copyright © 2025 by Gwendolyn S. Kirk and Shobha SV. All Rights Reserved.