हिन्दी
That says "Hindi" in the Devanagari script. I just found out that Blogspot supports a variety of different alphabets.
Right now the complex Hindi alphabet (also used by Marathi and Sanskrit) is a diminishing barrier to learning Hindi. There are thirteen vowels, that are mostly used if the word starts with a vowel. There are thirty-five consonants, most of which have variations for the thirteen vowel sounds. There are also a couple of other marks that add nasal sounds, or an "R" to the sound. For example, here are twelve variations of "K":
क का कि क़ी कु कू के कै को कौ कं कः (I can't figure out how to get the thirteenth variant)
Got that?? Multiply by 35!
(And I should mention that there's two versions of English consonants K, G, CH, J, P, B,
SH, and four versions each of T and D.)
And for consonant blends, you use a "half" letter. Even more to keep in mind!
Yesterday, we spent the day in Mumbai to try to repair my ailing MacBook Pro. We bought a new one instead, so I'm spending today getting that up and running. (Yay!) We also visited the uber-stylish High Street Phoenix mall, created from vacated textile mills. (Yes, even India faces out-sourcing to Bangladesh and Viet Nam.) The vast majority of the stores are American or European. All the English names are transliterated into Hindi -- a good way to practice the Hindi alphabet. Here's my favorite -- it took me a bit to figure out what it said:
रंग्लेर = Wrangler (jeans) -- except that the "L - ल" should not have the "hat" -- it's an artifact of how I have to type in the Hindi.
And the local language, Gujarati, uses a related, but different alphabet that we haven't even begun to examine -- one language at a time!
Every post needs a photo (even if they don't all have one). So here's for learning Hindi:
This is a "milepost" (km-post?) on National Highway 8 near our bungalow. We felt like we've reached our own milepost when we could read that it's 182 km to Mumbai and 363 to Ahmedabad. The top line is Hindi. The bottom line is Gujarati. (Don't know how to read that yet!) While western "Arabic" numerals are used universally, Hindi and Gujarati also have their own numerals, which are similar, but frustratingly different. It's ironic, because India created the decimal system millennia ago.
० १ २ ३ ४ ५ ६ ७ ८ ९ These are the Hindi numerals for 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
That says "Hindi" in the Devanagari script. I just found out that Blogspot supports a variety of different alphabets.
Right now the complex Hindi alphabet (also used by Marathi and Sanskrit) is a diminishing barrier to learning Hindi. There are thirteen vowels, that are mostly used if the word starts with a vowel. There are thirty-five consonants, most of which have variations for the thirteen vowel sounds. There are also a couple of other marks that add nasal sounds, or an "R" to the sound. For example, here are twelve variations of "K":
क का कि क़ी कु कू के कै को कौ कं कः (I can't figure out how to get the thirteenth variant)
Got that?? Multiply by 35!
(And I should mention that there's two versions of English consonants K, G, CH, J, P, B,
SH, and four versions each of T and D.)
And for consonant blends, you use a "half" letter. Even more to keep in mind!
Yesterday, we spent the day in Mumbai to try to repair my ailing MacBook Pro. We bought a new one instead, so I'm spending today getting that up and running. (Yay!) We also visited the uber-stylish High Street Phoenix mall, created from vacated textile mills. (Yes, even India faces out-sourcing to Bangladesh and Viet Nam.) The vast majority of the stores are American or European. All the English names are transliterated into Hindi -- a good way to practice the Hindi alphabet. Here's my favorite -- it took me a bit to figure out what it said:
रंग्लेर = Wrangler (jeans) -- except that the "L - ल" should not have the "hat" -- it's an artifact of how I have to type in the Hindi.
And the local language, Gujarati, uses a related, but different alphabet that we haven't even begun to examine -- one language at a time!
Every post needs a photo (even if they don't all have one). So here's for learning Hindi:
This is a "milepost" (km-post?) on National Highway 8 near our bungalow. We felt like we've reached our own milepost when we could read that it's 182 km to Mumbai and 363 to Ahmedabad. The top line is Hindi. The bottom line is Gujarati. (Don't know how to read that yet!) While western "Arabic" numerals are used universally, Hindi and Gujarati also have their own numerals, which are similar, but frustratingly different. It's ironic, because India created the decimal system millennia ago.
० १ २ ३ ४ ५ ६ ७ ८ ९ These are the Hindi numerals for 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
I'm hoping that you were being sarcastic with this, "Right now the complex Hindi alphabet (also used by Marathi and Sanskrit) is a diminishing barrier to learning Hindi" because after you noted, "क का कि क़ी कु कू के कै को कौ कं कः (I can't figure out how to get the thirteenth variant)
ReplyDeleteGot that?? Multiply by 35!" my mind was officially blown.
Glad you got the new Pro. Congrats.