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This is the pronunciation key for IPA transcriptions of Hindi and Urdu on Wikipedia.

It provides a set of symbols to represent the pronunciation of Hindi and Urdu in popflock.com resource articles, and example words that illustrate the sounds that correspond to them. Integrity must be maintained between the key and the transcriptions that link here. Do not change any of the symbols or their values without establishing consensus on the talk page first, so that no discrepancies between the key and transcriptions are made.

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This page contains Indic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks or boxes, misplaced vowels or missing conjuncts instead of Indic text.

The charts below show the way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) represents Hindi and Urdu pronunciations in popflock.com resource articles. For a guide to adding IPA characters to popflock.com resource articles, see {{IPA-hns}}, {{IPA-hi}}, {{IPA-ur}} and popflock.com Resource: Manual of Style/Pronunciation § Entering IPA characters.

See Hindustani phonology, Devanagari, and Urdu alphabet for a more thorough discussion of the sounds of Hindi-Urdu.

Key

Consonants
IPA^[1]	Hindi^[1]	ISO 15919 ^[1]	Urdu	Approximate English equivalent
b	?	ba	?	butter
b?	?	bha		abhor
d^[2]	?	da	?	the
d?^[2]	?	dha		within (as a dhh sound, tongue touches palate, strong air exhalation)
d?	?	ja	?	jazz
d	?	jha		hedgehog (strong jhh sound)
?^[2]	?	?a	?	gourd
^[2]	?	?ha		adhere
f		fa	?	food
?	?	ga	?	green
	?	gha		big headed
?		?a	?	similar to a French r (mostly Urdu; sometimes substituted for [?] (?) in Hindi).
?	?	ha	?	head
j	?	ya	?	yak
k	?	ka	?	sky
k?	?	kha		car
l	?	la	?	leaf
m	?	ma	?	much
n	?	na	?	not
?	?	?a	?	burn (mostly Hindi; Urdu uses [n] (?)).
?	?	ña	?	roughly like canyon (mostly Hindi; Urdu uses [n] (?)).
?	?	?a	?	bank (mostly Hindi; Urdu uses [n] (?)).
p	?	pa	?	sport
p?	?	pha		pencil
q		qa	?	quail (k in the throat, tongue not touching palate) (mostly Urdu; sometimes substituted for [k] (?) in Hindi)
?	?	ra	?	American butter (r may be trilled^[3])
r	?	ra	?	American butter (r may be trilled^[3])
?		?a	?	garter (GA)
		?ha		as [?] plus h; somewhat as the US: warhead
s	?	sa	?	sue
?	?	?a	?/?	shrimp (mostly Hindi; Urdu uses either [?] (?) or [s] (?)).
?	?	?a	?	shoe
t^[2]	?	ta	?	still
t?^[2]	?	tha		tip
t?	?	ca	?	catch
t	?	cha		choose
?^[2]	?	?a	?	carts
^[2]	?	?ha		trip
?^[4]	?	va	?	varies between w and v
x		k?ha	?	Scottish Loch (mostly Urdu; sometimes substituted for [k?] (?) in Hindi)
z		za	?	zen
?		zha	?	pleasure

Vowels
IPA	Hindi	ISO 15919	Urdu	Approximate English equivalent
a:	?,	?	?,	far
e:	?,	?		Yale
?:	?,	ai	?	hen
?^[5]	?, ?	a		strut
i:^[6]	?,	?	?	feed
?^[6]	?,	i		dill
o:	?,	?		story
?:	?,	au	?	dog
u:^[6]	?,	?	?	moon
?^[6]	?,	u		wood
r?	?,	r?		(mostly Hindi, Urdu uses [r] (?)).
	?	m?		nasal vowel faun ([ã:, õ:], etc.)

Suprasegmentals
IPA	Hindi	ISO 15919	Urdu	Approximate English equivalent
'?				stress (placed before stressed syllable)
?:				doubled consonant (placed after doubled consonant)

Notes

^ ^a ^b ^c In the letter series beginning with ?, ? = + ?; ka = k + a. Thus '?' has the inherent vowel '?', giving '?' without added vowel sign using diacritics (The halanta "?" is removed). But the IPA shown here has the consonant 'k' only & does not include the vowel 'a'.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h To an English-speaker's ear, [? t t?] all sound like /t/, and [? d d?] all sound like /d/. However, to a Hindi-Urdu-speaker's ear, each is a very different sound. [t d] are like the Spanish or French [t d], with the tongue touching the teeth. [t? d?] are how a Hindi-Urdu speaker hears English [? ð] (the th and dh sounds). Hindi-Urdu [? ?] are pronounced with the tongue further back, touching behind the teeth mid-palate. [ ] are how a Hindi-Urdu speaker hears English t d, and [?] is how they hear the English t after an s (as in st).
^ /?/ can surface as a trill [r], mostly as an allophone in word-initial and syllable-final positions, and geminate /?:/ is always a trill, e.g. zar? [za:] (? - 'little') versus well-trilled zarr? [z?ra:] ( - ? 'particle').
^ , and intermediate [?] are allophonic in Hindi-Urdu. Some words, such as vrat ('?', '', religious fast), are pronounced with [v]; others, such as pakwan ('', '', cooked food), are pronounced with [w].
^ /?/ occurs as a conditioned allophone of /?/ near an /h/ surrounded on both sides by schwas. Usually, the second schwa undergoes syncopation, and the resultant is just an /?/ preceding an /h/.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d /i:, ?/ and /u:, ?/ are neutralised to , at the end of a word.

[inherentv-1] In the letter series beginning with ?, ? = + ?; ka = k + a. Thus '?' has the inherent vowel '?', giving '?' without added vowel sign using diacritics (The halanta "?" is removed). But the IPA shown here has the consonant 'k' only & does not include the vowel 'a'.

[coronal-2] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h To an English-speaker's ear, [? t t?] all sound like /t/, and [? d d?] all sound like /d/. However, to a Hindi-Urdu-speaker's ear, each is a very different sound. [t d] are like the Spanish or French [t d], with the tongue touching the teeth. [t? d?] are how a Hindi-Urdu speaker hears English [? ð] (the th and dh sounds). Hindi-Urdu [? ?] are pronounced with the tongue further back, touching behind the teeth mid-palate. [ ] are how a Hindi-Urdu speaker hears English t d, and [?] is how they hear the English t after an s (as in st).

[3] /?/ can surface as a trill [r], mostly as an allophone in word-initial and syllable-final positions, and geminate /?:/ is always a trill, e.g. zar? [za:] (? - 'little') versus well-trilled zarr? [z?ra:] ( - ? 'particle').

[vwallophone-4] , and intermediate [?] are allophonic in Hindi-Urdu. Some words, such as vrat ('?', '', religious fast), are pronounced with [v]; others, such as pakwan ('', '', cooked food), are pronounced with [w].

[5] /?/ occurs as a conditioned allophone of /?/ near an /h/ surrounded on both sides by schwas. Usually, the second schwa undergoes syncopation, and the resultant is just an /?/ preceding an /h/.

[V-6] /i:, ?/ and /u:, ?/ are neutralised to , at the end of a word.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

Key

See also

Notes