Devanagari Conjunct Letters

We have discussed how that, since Devanagari is a syllabary, each consonant has an inherent a sound that is pronounced. We also pointed out that an important exception to this rule is that the a sound is not pronounced at the end of a word that ends in a consonant; for example, मास, month is pronounced ā, not māsa.

If you are very familiar with Hindi, this might trouble you somewhat. It is obvious from only a brief encounter with Hindi that many words have consonant sounds in the middle of the word yet have no a sound between them. One familiar example is the traditional Hindi greeting namaste, which has no a sound between the s and t consonants. Similarly kyā, which means what, is not pronounced kayā; there is no, a sound between the k and the y consonants.

To deal with this issue, Devanagari has what are called conjunct letters, which simply means that the letters have been joined together. (To remember this term, recall that a conjunction in grammar joins two sentences, and that a junction is where more than one road come together.) Conjunct letters indicate that no vowel sound should be pronounced; that is, there is no inherent, a sound. Most often, the two letters are joined by removing the vertical line from the first letter and connecting what is left to the second letter in its full form (Snell, 12).

Let's look at a few examples of conjunct letters. The table below and the lessons that follow assume that your system has a Unicode font with the appropriate conjunct symbols.

These are only a few examples; there are well over 150 conjunct letters (or simply conjuncts), most of which can be found listed in (Snell, 12). There is also a chart on Wikipedia. I will not list them here, because it is best that you do not memorize them at this point; in fact you don't need to memorize them to read Hindi at all. As you can see from the examples, most conjuncts are formed in a straightforward way.

Once you drill yourself on the normal Hindi letters, you'll be able to see a conjunct letter and recognize it as such. In most cases, you'll be able to examine the letter and instantly recognize pieces of the normal, non-conjunct letters, which you will know. You'll then know what the conjunct is, even if you've never seen the conjunct letter before.

So for now, don't worry too much about conjunct letters; just know that they exist, and be prepared to see them from time to time. Understand that they are formed by combining two normal letters, and be ready to examine the conjunct for traces of the letters you are familiar with. When new conjuncts appear during future lessons, I'll point them out to you. In most cases, if all else fails, you'll be able to make a reasonable guess based upon the other letters in the word.