English in Hindi

 | 1 min

One of the interesting things about the Hindi language is that the alphabet works very differently to the English alphabet. In fact, I think that technically it is not an alphabet at all - it is a syllabary. That means that Hindi symbols directly represent spoken syllables, and therefore is almost completely phonetic.

The same syllable (e.g. 'ka') is always pronounced the same way every time you see it, something that is decidedly not the case in English. Native English speakers internalise all the weird rules and exceptions, so we don't realise how weird it is unless/until we spend time helping someone learning the language.

To someone used to a very regular, phonetic alphabet, it makes no sense that the 'fa' sound is different between father and fate, depending on what comes later.

The regularity of the Hindi script (called Devanagari) is that it can be used pretty well to represent English. Several times, I've been trying to read a decipher a sign in Hindi, only to realise that it is actually in English (but written in Devanagari) and says something like "Patel Medical Clinic and Pharmacy".

My favourite example of this is a sign I saw a couple of weeks ago. I wasn't quick enough to get a picture as we drove past, but I found a similar one on the interwebs.


The Devanagari says "ess bee eye, "ay tee em", meaning it is just a transliteration of the English acronyms (SBI is State Bank of India). I think the one I saw didn't actually have the English version at all, just the Devanagari version. I really like the way Hindi freely mixes in stuff from other languages. Especially when that language is English, because that gives me a shot and understanding what is going on!