The Devanagari script: how to read Hindi, letter by letter

Devanagari looks harder than it is. Once you know that each consonant carries a hidden a, and that vowel signs replace it, most Hindi words can be sounded out. This guide follows the Government of India's own standard (2024 edition): the alphabet it fixes, the rules that catch beginners, and the first words to read. When you can read a little, our free Hindi level test shows where you stand.

Updated November 10, 2026 · 8 min read

What Devanagari is, and who uses it

Devanagari is the script India's Constitution names for its official language. Article 343 says: "The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script." At the 2011 census, 528,347,193 people, or 43.63% of India's population, gave Hindi or one of the mother tongues grouped under it as their mother tongue. Within that group, 322,230,097 answered "Hindi" itself.

Hindi is not the only user. The Unicode Standard lists classical Sanskrit, Marathi and Nepali among the languages written in it, along with Konkani, Santali and many others. Learning this script for Hindi therefore also lets you sound out Marathi or Nepali, even if you do not understand them.

According to the Central Hindi Directorate, the script descends from ancient Brahmi through the Gupta and Kutila scripts, and it has been continually refined since the ninth century. The Directorate also describes it as the most widely used script after Latin, Chinese and Arabic. If you like comparing writing systems, read how Chinese characters developed or how Japanese came to use kana and kanji.

The official Hindi alphabet

The Central Hindi Directorate, part of India's Ministry of Education, publishes the standard form of the alphabet. Its 2024 edition counts 11 vowels and 40 consonants: 33 basic ones and 7 others.

Learn the consonants row by row, because the five-letter rows follow a pattern. Within a row, the letters go from plain to aspirated, then voiced, voiced aspirated and nasal: क ka, ख kha, ग ga, घ gha, ङ ṅa. Aspiration changes meaning in Hindi, so treat क and ख as two different sounds from the first day.

The idea to learn first: the hidden a

As Unicode explains, each consonant has an inherent vowel, generally a short /a/. So क is not just /k/ but /ka/. To say another vowel, you add a vowel sign (matra), and it overrides the a. Full vowel letters such as इ are used where there is no consonant to attach a sign to, for example at the start of a word.

The grid of each consonant with each vowel sign is called the barakhadi. Here is the Directorate's row for क:

Four things that catch beginners

1. The short i is written first but said second

In कि (ki), the sign stands to the left of क, yet you say it after the consonant. Unicode's rendering rules place this vowel at the far left of the syllable. The first syllable of किताब (kitāb, book) shows it.

2. The final a is usually silent in Hindi

The spelling suggests ka-ma-la for कमल (lotus), but Hindi says kamal, with no vowel at the end: Wiktionary gives /kə.məl/. The same happens in घर (ghar, home), दिल (dil, heart) and भारत (bhārat, India). The script itself does not mark this, so learn each new word with its sound.

3. Two consonants together lose the a

To cancel the hidden vowel, Devanagari joins letters or uses the halant sign ( ् ). Unicode describes the joined half-forms as consonants that have lost their vertical stem. Four joined shapes are so common that the standard lists them in the alphabet: क्ष (क् + ष), त्र (त् + र), ज्ञ (ज् + ञ) and श्र (श् + र). You will meet the same thing in नमस्ते (namaste), where स and त join.

4. The top line belongs to the word

The horizontal bar across the top is the shirorekha, and the standard says it is required. It runs across the letters of a word, so a gap in the bar is a useful signal that a new word has begun. Devanagari, like the other South Asian scripts Unicode describes, is read from left to right.

Nasal sounds: the dot and the moon

Hindi has two marks here, and the standard treats them as different things. The anusvara ( ं ) stands for a nasal consonant. The chandrabindu ( ँ ) shows that the vowel itself is nasal, as in माँ, हूँ and आँख. The standard requires the chandrabindu where it belongs, because leaving it out can change the word: its own example is the pair हंस and हँस. Wiktionary gives हंस as swan, while हँस is the stem of हँसना, to laugh.

The dot under a letter: nukta

You will sometimes see a dot below a letter: क़ ख़ ग़ ज़ फ़. The Directorate lists these among the signs used for Urdu. Its rule for Hindi is narrower than many beginners expect. Nukta is not part of the basic Hindi alphabet, and words Hindi has absorbed from Urdu are written without it, such as कलम, किला and दाग. The dot stays when an original Urdu text is transliterated. The flapped ड़ and ढ़ are different: those two are full letters of the alphabet. Curious about Urdu? Try our free Urdu level test.

Numbers

Devanagari has its own digits: ० १ २ ३ ४ ५ ६ ७ ८ ९. Under Article 343 of the Constitution, however, the form for the official purposes of the Union is the international one (0–9), and the Constitution also provided for the President to authorise Devanagari digits alongside it. Learn to recognise both.

Twelve words to practise reading

Each of these is checked against Wiktionary. Try sounding them out before you look at the middle column.

A two-week plan for the script

1. Days 1–3: the 11 vowels and the first two consonant rows. Say each letter aloud as you write it.
2. Days 4–6: the other three rows, and practise telling apart plain and aspirated pairs such as प and फ.
3. Days 7–9: the semivowels and the barakhadi grid above, then the same grid with other consonants.
4. Days 10–12: the four conjunct letters, the halant, and the anusvara and chandrabindu.
5. Days 13–14: read the twelve words above without the middle column, then start on real vocabulary.

This timetable is our suggestion, not an official one. Take longer if you need to: reading accurately matters more than finishing quickly. Our level test gives you a rough starting point, and the same test exists for all 36 languages.

Keep learning

• Free Hindi level test
• Free Urdu level test and free Arabic level test
• Urdu, the same everyday words in another script: the Urdu alphabet
• Urdu's script, from its source: the Arabic alphabet; and another old script, the Hebrew alphabet
• Free Chinese level test and free Japanese level test
• Other scripts: the Georgian alphabet and Serbian's two alphabets
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