Working digitally in Hindi.
If you are taking a college course in Hindi for the first time or if you are using a computer to do work in Hindi for the first time you may find navigating the digital Hindi world to be challenging at first. Do not worry– with a little practice you will be able to type, search, and even compose in Hindi using a computer. This brief guide will help you get started; for more guidance and advice on accessing some of the wonderful Hindi-related resources on the web and also some of the great digital tools that can be used with content in Hindi, please contact the instructor.
Make sure that your computer speaks Hindi.
To work digitally in Hindi you need to first make sure that the Devanagari script (and preferably the Perso-Arabic or ‘Urdu’ script as well) is enabled as ‘input language’ on your computer.
- For Windows users, you can do this by entering Start>Time and Language>Language menu.
- For Mac users, you can do this by entering > System Preferences, click Keyboard, then click Input Sources.
The links above will take you to information on not only how to enable Devanagari and other scripts but also how to shift between different scripts and languages while you’re using your computer.
To QWERTY or not to QWERTY?
Your computer may give you multiple options for keyboard layouts in Devanagari, including QWERTY.
- QWERTY keyboard layouts attempt to pair the sounds of Hindi with their counterparts on an English keyboard: thus the Hindi त (ta) is assigned to the English ‘t’ key, the म (ma) to the ‘m’ key, and so forth. While this may seem intuitive at first, you may find that it actually gets somewhat complicated since there are more sounds in Hindi (and more letters in the Devanagari script) than there are in English, and their layout on a QWERTY keyboard doesn’t follow a clear logic.
- A ‘standard’ keyboard layout for Devanagari can seem a little intimidating at first, and one has to get used to holding the shift key to toggle between full vowels and their corresponding matras and between aspirated and unaspirated consonants.Yet you will quickly find that this keyboard layout makes sense: most of the consonants are on the right and all of the vowels are on the left. If you know the Devanagari alphabet (and the phonetic logic behind its arrangement) then you will notice that letters are arranged on the keyboard in a logical, consistent order. (The uses of the shift key also make sense.) So although it will take some practice to get used to, this keyboard layout is ultimately easy to master and–importantly–is shared with many other scripts and languages from South Asia.
Learn to type in Devanagari.
It’s difficult to type if you don’t know where the letters are.
Make learning the Devanagari keyboard easier by using the On-Screen Keyboard in Windows and the Keyboard Viewer on the Mac. These show you a picture of the keyboard in whichever input language you are currently using and even indicate which key you are pressing as you type.
Some important hints:
- Holding the <shift> key toggles between vowels in their matra form and full form, and between unaspirated consonants (e.g. ग/ga) and aspirated consonants e.g. घ/gha).
- To ‘connect’ two consonants as a conjunct: 1) type the first consonant, 2) type a halant (्), which is the lowercase ‘d’ on standard keyboard layouts, and 3) type the second consonant.
- Repeat to connect as many consonants as necessary.
- Pressing <shift> and the number keys produces a number of helpful conjuncts and symbols.
- Remember that nasalization marks (bindu, candra-bindu), subscript dots (like those under tongue-flap consonants ड़ and ढ़) must be added after typing the vowel or consonant that they modify.
Now, you just need to practice, practice, practice!
करत करत अभ्यास का जड़मत होत सुजान ।
रस री आवत जात से सील पड़त निसान ।
-कबीरPracticing and practicing
An ignoramus becomes wise.
A rope’s movement back and forth,
[Eventually] leaves a mark on a rock.
-Kabir
Use a transliteration tool
While you are becoming comfortable learning to type in Devanagari–or if you are encountering challenges while trying to type or have accessibility issues using a keyboard–you can always use the input tools provided by Google, the visual multilingual keyboard provided by Lexilogos, or other online input tools.
Scan a document
Oftentimes it simpler and easier just to write a document by hand and scan it. I recommend the Genius Scan app for your smartphone; it’s free and makes it easy to scan and send documents. There are of course plenty of other free applications that also do the same thing.
Use online dictionaries.
Dictionaries are incredible resources but navigating digital dictionaries can sometimes be disorienting.
This challenge can be compounded in Hindi by the fact that many terms vary in pronunciation and spelling from region to region, and early Hindi follows different grammatical rules than modern standard Hindi–meaning that the ends of words can make it difficult to identify and find them in a dictionary.
Whether you use R.S. McGregor’s Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary, Shyamsundar Das’s Hindī Śabd-Sāgar, JT Platts’s Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English, Mahendra Caturvedi’s Practical Hindi English Dictionary, Hardev Bahri’s Learner’s Hindi-English Dictionary or another digital dictionary, note the following:
- If you are having trouble finding a term in the dictionary, try to identify and search for its root. This means removing any prefixes, suffixes, or verb endings. Often, if you enter the correct root, then the online dictionary will recognize it and provide suggestions for possible headwords (entries).
- If the term that you are searching for does not appear to be in the dictionary, use the phonetic rules outlined by Rupert Snell to figure out whether there is another form or pronunciation of the same word that is in the dictionary.
- If you still can’t find the term that you’re looking for, look up a word that begins with the same letters, then click on the page number link to view all the entries on that ‘page’ of the dictionary. You may be surprised at how often you are able to find the term you are looking for in this manner.
- Spend time reading through the entry and the entries for similar terms. Many dictionaries like those of Shyamsundar Das, JT Platts, and SW Fallon provide examples of phrases, idioms, and even literary quotes that make use of the word. Taking the time to read these will quickly improve your Hindi.
- Try using a Hindi to Hindi dictionary as soon as you can. Learning how to define one word using other words, or learning synonyms, will help you to quickly improve your Hindi.
Read online in Hindi.
Did you know that there are many excellent books, magazines, audio recordings, and video in Hindi freely available on the internet? Many of them are even searchable.
Good news websites include BBC Hindi, Jansatta, and the Dainik Bhaskar.
Many books in Hindi (including fiction and non-fiction, dictionaries, and books for learning Hindi) are available for free through Archive.org.