hindi

Friends, When one uses uThnaa as an auxiliar verb, it indicates only suddenness, or there is also the suggestion of some ascending (standing) action? For example, in: jab bhii tiraNgaa dekhte hai, to man bol uThtaa hai «bharat maataa kii je» is it the heart or soul personified that...

Friends, In an interview (in Hindi) given by the actor Pankaj Tripathi, he says that he aspires to improve as a person, rather than as an actor. The way he expresses that idea is as follows: merii laRaaii achchhaa ekTar banne se zyaada(h) achchhaa insaan banne kii hai maiN jaisaa aadmii aaj...

Friends, Are commas also utilized in HU, as a way differentiate a clause that provides essential information versus another that provides only incidental information? For example, if I say 1. vo laRkaa jo vahaaN khaRaa hai meraa beTaa hai 2. vo laRkaa, jo vahaaN khaRaa hai, meraa beTaa hai...

Friends, Can proximal words like je, yahaaN, itnaa, idhaar, aisaa, ab, etc. be the correlatives in a relative-correlative construction? In other words, are phrases like: jo laRkii khaRii, ye laRkii lambii hai jitnii ho sake, itnii madad karnii chaahie jidhar tuu jaae, idhar maiN bhii...

Friends, In songs, I find often forms that seem to be subjunctive, both inside and outside a condition, as in: teraa jalva(h) jo paauN, maiN har Gam bhuul jaauuN = "if I attained your brilliance, I would forget every sorrow" tuu bhii dekhe agar, to kahe, hamanshin = "if you saw her, you...

Friends, I have noticed on both Pakistani and Indian channels presenters and others not declining yih to is and vuh to us. I have heard plenty of such cases on Pakistani TV channels but haven't written any examples down. Just now I heard one of the sports presenters on an Indian channel utter...

Friends, When using possessive pronouns like is_kii, un_kaa, etc., but in a context in which the possessor's distance in relation to the speaker is unimportant, is it my impression, or speakers overwhelmingly choose the distant forms, i.e., us_kaa, un_kii, etc. over the is_, in_ forms? Is it...

Friends, I found some articles about women telling their biographies, where they say that they "are good at something" (at some activity like painting or Youtube recording), and they use the expression "maiN (kis meN) achchaa huuN". Is that correct? From Tehmina Durani: From Shruti...

Friends, If paun kilograam = paunaa kilograam = paune ek kilograam, why is it that, for the time, I can find over the internet "paun bajaa hai" and "paune ek bajaa hai", but no "paunaa bajaa hai"? Is there anything wrong with "paunaa bajaa hai"? (BTW, in a dictionary there is also "paunaa ek...

Friends, The names of the letters in Hindi are pronounced with a long sound aa aftertwards -/ɑː/, or with a short sound a aftertwards -/ə/? I was almost sure it was the former, but some illustrations over the internet (like the one attached) made me doubt. Thanks in advance.

How do I say something will become more and more (or increasingly more) [and the counterpart for less and less]: e.g. As he gets older, it will become more and more difficult for his children to take care of him? Am I right that we do this via the verb? i.e. जैसे-जैसे वे बुज़ुर्ग ( बुढे...

Dear Foreros, In a police interrogation where an accomplice is put through the ringer a question that is often yelled to him/her is give me the names of the kingpins involved. How would one express that very sentiment in Urdu/Hindi? Would "mujhe/hameN naam do un ke/us kaa" suffice or is naam...

How do children in Indian families call their parents 'aap' or 'tum' ? And why?

Friends, When one speaks of a word metalinguistically (i.e. the word sound or spelling per se, not the meaning it represents), that word is feminine (because it is a baat) or it is a generic masculine? For example, if I wanted to say: Neha said a "hey!". That "hey" is masculine or feminine...

I’ve heard the expression “chalaakomaasii”, often used for young kids who act clever or naughty in an endearing way. I’m curious about the formation of this term. It may be of Punjabi origin but I have heard it used by non-Punjabis as well. How would you analyze the term “chalaakomaasii”? Does...

I've noticed that I and many others I know pronounnce words following the pattern of consonant+schwa+h+'long a' with a 'long a' instead of the schwa. For example the pronouncing यहाँ as याहाँ, महान as माहान, महा as माहा. Am I just mishearing this or is this a Mumbai thing or does this happen in...

Friends: Is mph (m + aspirated ph) a valid sound in either Urdu or Hindi? I cannot find in this forum a single word with the mph substring. In the Rekhta website (whose input box kind of suggests searches by substring as one types parts of the word) مپھ yields no results. Typing ंफ /...

Friends, If one takes away: - loanwords from Sanskrit like: viSHNRu, praaNR, kiraNR, pariNRiit, etc - loanwords from Punjabi like: sohNRii, raaNjhNRaa etc. - loanowrds from other languages: koNkaNR (?) - words in which the NR is not and independent sound (phoneme), but a mere nasal...

Hi-- I am new to learning Hindi, and coming from previously learning Latin languages, I'm surprised by just how few resources there are. I am trying to find out the translation of "Evolve" in Hindi, as an imperative. I realize this word isn't usually used in the imperative. On google...

I have to create a logo and this is the only typeface I can use, so I'd like to ask the native speakers of the language if this phrase looks alright as it's written here: I have noticed that the space between the second and third characters in the second word is usually smaller so I'd like to...

Hello, There was a brief thread here on 'wasting time,' but I thought I would expand the question. In the thread, we spoke about vaqt barbaad karnaa, which makes sense. What about in these contexts (colloquially): To waste money -- I mostly hear uRaanaaa -- can you say vo har mahine netflix...

Dear Foreros, Just for some context so that we can meet at an advanced stage of comprehension, top of mind relates to being front and center in one's cerebral attention, whereas if something is at the back of your mind, you are subconsciously wary of it, or it subliminally affects your decision...

Can anyone read this inscription? It is inlayed on the hilt of a 19th century sword from Lahore. My best guess it that it is some kind of Landa script, like Takri or Mahajani, but I can't read it.

Hello, I want to know the difference between the name "Karnan" and "Karna". The -n at the ending, does it make any diffference or are they the same name (in terms of pronunciation or other aspects) ? This is from the movie "Karnan" by the way. I have little knowledge about this but would like...

From the novel Ret Samadhi (रेत समाधी) by Geetanjali Shree: (Context: An old, seemingly depressed woman's children are trying to talk her into getting out of bed.) "नहीं अम्मा नहीं, बच्चे हठ करने लगे, बाहर देखो धूप खिली है, उठो, उठाओ, छड़ी टंगी है, चूड़ा खाओ, मटर पड़ी है, पेट बहा है, राई फ़ंकाओ।"...

How does one translate such a sentence? For what it's worth I tried translating it on my own but I didn't know where to go after "Agr meiN..."

Dear Foreros, I find this to be fairly odd in that whilst there are vogue terms in place for members of the White and black community in gora/gorii and kaalaa/kaalii no such term appears to be prominent for non-whites I.e. people of colour or brown people who are the most numerous in the...

Dear Foreros, I've wondered this for quite some time and although in the past I have had one individual confirm that this usage is indeed correct, I would nonetheless like to present it to the panel present here to verify the veracity of that claim. Can wusuul be used when it comes to picking...

Dear Foreros, As you may well know the aforementioned term/phrase has very little to do with actual fire but relates to being in the middle of the spray of bullets or cross-fire I.e. the use of artillery or guns towards a certain target. I have enquired in the past about terminology concerning...

Hello everyone, I would like to know a bit about the etymology of the Hindi word तर्जनी. I'm specially interested in knowing if the Hindi word bears any relationship to the verb "to indicate", "to point" or to "signal", as it happens in several languages in Europe. Thanks for your help and...

Friends, Over the years interacting with English-speaking people from India, I notice how oftenthey punctuate their speech with the word "distinct", but used as a noun. As in: "This distinct here ..." "That was one distinct that you can use Twitter to promote unrest" Sometimes, it seems...

What is the difference between sares and gond? Do you use both interchangeably, or is one more common than the other? Is it the same if actual glue vs metaphorically? i.e. sticking with glue vs he's the glue that holds the family together Thanks

Friends, Recently, I read a sports article where a (male) cricket player, overwhelmend by joy because of some victory, says: maiN [chhoTii bachchii jaisii] ro rahaa thaa Is that sentence grammatically correct? My understanding is that the relative pronoun can be either and adjectival jaisaa...

Friends, I am trying to understand when extactly is "legal" to break the continuity of a relative clause by inserting the main word (the word the clause qualifies) inside it. It seems to be the norm, but not always. In the following examples, which I took from the internet, the main word is in...

Hello everyone, I would like to know which is the word for "blond" in Hindi. I would also like to know if a difference can be made between the word "blond" (a male with blond hair) and "blonde", meaning a female with blond hair. I'm also curious about to know if the Hindi word is also similar...

Friends, When verbs formed through [noun] + [auxiliar verb] (some grammars call them "denominative verbs") present both honaa and karnaa as auxiliars, my understanding is that the honaa compound tends to express the stative, intransitive, quasi-passive meaning, whereas the karnaa compound...

Friends, What is the exact structure surrounding sentences using the verb locution pyaar honaa? (Let's suppose, to translate "I love my work"). maiN aapne kaam kaa pyaar meN huuN? maiN aapne kaam kaa pyaar huuN? mujh_ko aapne kaam se pyaar hai? mujhe apne kaam pyaar hai? Can it also be...

I am working on a project to record portions of well-known Disney songs in their native languages. I found this Hindi version of "The Bare Necessities" on YouTube, but unfortunately can't seem to find the romanization of the lyrics anywhere for me to learn. This resource has text but not...

Friends, In Urdu orthography, for the ordinal numbers from 11 to 17 there seems to be a suppression of the inherent -a- in the sequences -rah-, -dah-, -lah-, resulting in those being written as aspirated letters: rh, dh, lh. Is the actual pronunciation different in both registers? For...

Hello all, This has been touched upon in some threads but there was no thread dedicated to this topic. There seems to be a lot of words that both mean salt and beauty... I've put a list at the end of this post. Does anyone have any ideas why this might be the case? Is this present in other...

Dear Foreros, For the above whilst I am familiar with "tum Ghalatii meN ho" to mean you are in the wrong, I can't put my finger on what would qualify as the opposite. Which of the following would make sense for the former?: 1. Woh Haq meN hai. 2. Woh sach aur Haq/sach-Haq meN hai. 3. Woh...

Friends, Can paun be used to indicate ¾ of a "unit of tens", "unit of hundreds", "unit of thousands", etc.? For example, is it valid to express 750 as "paun hazaar" or 750g as "paun kilograam"?

Friends, Is the passive voice "relatively rare" in HU (as opposed to, say, the extent to which it is used in English)? Searching the Internet, "full" passive sentence examples with [subject] + [passive verb] + [agent] are extraordinarily difficult to find. At most, I find impersonal-ish...

Friends, I have some trouble understanding the nunances provided by the different progressive verbal phrases that can be formed with jaanaa + participle. The phrases below mean all more or less the same, what is the difference between them? yah pAuliTiishan baRaa jhuuThaa hai, vah miiDiyaa...

Friends, My grammar book says that the verb rehnaa used as an auxiliar, and combined with the participle of the main verb, conveys the idea of duration, iteration, progressiveness of the action. As in: So far, so good. But then, the book goes on saying that present participles are used for...

Hello, Can singular interrogative pronouns take a plural verb? Or maybe Hindi interrogative pronouns can be both singular and plural? To wit: Who came to the party? paarTii pe kaun aayaa --> singular verb; but could this be plural as well, as you'd expect more than one person? Who all came...

Hi all - the recent thread about baiThnaa inspired a question I’ve been wondering for a while. There are several common verbs that can be used in all sorts of compounds: jaanaa, lenaa, denaa, saknaa, paanaa, chuknaa There’s also verbs I’ve only seen in a few compounds: baiThnaa, uThnaa...

Friends, What are examples of Turkic words in Hindi/Urdu? I know "urduu" itself is one. The references I get from the internet are confusing. For example: Hindi & Turkish (PDF) Case of Shared Vocabulary of Turkish and Urdu Languages (Similar Words in Turkish and Urdu Languages) because I...

(is threD meN "juuThaa/jhuuTaa/..." ma3ne/maane "kisii aur kaa khaayaa hu'aa" aur "jhuuT(h)aa" ma3ne/maane "jhuuT(h) bolne waalaa" ke baare meN baat-chiit kii ga'ii thii. meraa matlab yahaaN in shabdoN se nahiiN hai.) maiN kal-parsoN jhuuloN par khelte hu'e bachchoN ke paas se guzar rahaa thaa...

Friends, In a Hindi language podcast I listen to (LearnHindiOnTheGo), one of the speakers consistently pronounces the pronouns यह, वह not as /je/ /ʋo/, but as /jɛɦə/ /ʋɛɦə/. In other words, he not only doesn't transform the inherent a into /o/, but he also fully realizes the final /-ɦ/, to...