Hindi words for days, months, numbers and greetings, in Devanagari
These Hindi words cover the first vocabulary every learner needs: the seven days, the twelve months, the numbers and the greetings, each written in Devanagari with an IAST romanisation and the IPA pronunciation beside it.
Hindi words by topic
Four pages, each with a full word table, notes on spelling and grammar, and example sentences.
- 01Days of the week in Hindi: seven names in Devanagari, IPA and usageThe days of the week in Hindi, Monday to Sunday: सोमवार somvār, मंगलवार maṅgalvār, बुधवार budhvār, गुरुवार guruvār, शुक्रवार śukravār, शनिवार śanivār, रविवार ravivār. Every name ends in -vār, the word for a weekday, and every one is masculine.
- 02Months in Hindi: Gregorian and Hindu calendar months, IAST and IPAThe months in Hindi for the everyday calendar are जनवरी janvarī, फ़रवरी farvarī, मार्च mārc, अप्रैल aprail, मई maī, जून jūn, जुलाई julāī, अगस्त agast, सितंबर sitambar, अक्टूबर akṭūbar, नवंबर navambar and दिसंबर disambar. Beside them Hindi keeps twelve month names of the Hindu calendar, from चैत्र caitra to फाल्गुन phālgun.
- 03Numbers in Hindi: 0 to 100, lakh and crore, Devanagari digits, IPANumbers in Hindi start एक ek, दो do, तीन tīn, चार cār, पाँच pā̃c and run to सौ sau for a hundred. Almost every number from 1 to 99 has its own word that has to be learned, and large amounts are counted in lakh (1,00,000) and crore (1,00,00,000).
- 04Greetings in Hindi: namaste, hello, thank you and goodbyeThe standard greeting in Hindi is नमस्ते (namaste), or the slightly more formal नमस्कार (namaskār), said with the palms pressed together. It serves for hello and goodbye at any hour; धन्यवाद (dhanyavād) or शुक्रिया (śukriyā) means thank you.
Reading Hindi words in Devanagari
- हिन्दीHindi Devanagari
- नमस्तेhello Devanagari
- सोमवारMonday Devanagari
Hindi is written in Devanagari, the script also used for Sanskrit, Marathi and Nepali. Each consonant letter carries a short a unless a vowel sign replaces it, so क alone is ka and कि is ki. Hindi pronunciation drops that inherent a in many positions: सोमवार is said somvār, not somavāra. The romanisation on these pages writes words the way they are spoken, with the letter values of IAST, the scholarly system for Sanskrit and the languages of India.
Devanagari has no capital letters. Weekdays and months therefore never raise the capitalisation question, and a word looks the same at the start of a sentence as inside it. A dot under a letter, the nuqta, marks sounds borrowed from Persian, Arabic and English: फ़ is f, ज़ is z. The Devanagari chart shows every letter and vowel sign.
How Hindi handles dates, numbers and greetings
The calendar words come from three directions. The days of the week are Sanskrit compounds named after planets, सोमवार for the Moon's day down to रविवार for the Sun's. January to December were borrowed from English and, for four autumn months, from Portuguese. Beside them Hindi keeps the twelve months of the Hindu calendar, from चैत्र to फाल्गुन.
Numbers are where Hindi words are hardest to learn: nearly every number from 1 to 99 is a separate word, and above a hundred thousand the count runs in lakh and crore. Greetings sort by register and community. नमस्ते and नमस्कार serve everyone, धन्यवाद and शुक्रिया both mean thank you, and religious greetings such as राम राम or सत श्री अकाल mark who is speaking.
Hindi and Urdu share their grammar and everyday vocabulary and are often grouped together as Hindustani. Many words on these pages, such as शुक्रिया, हज़ार and अलविदा, are equally at home in Urdu, which writes them in a Perso-Arabic script.
Where Hindi is official
Hindi is an official language of India, where the country calls itself भारत (Bhārat), and it is one of the languages listed on the Fiji page together with English and Fijian. The Indo-Aryan word list sets 243 Hindi words beside Sanskrit, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi and eight more languages of the family.
Questions about Hindi words
Which script is used to write Hindi words?
Devanagari, written left to right. The same script serves Sanskrit, Marathi and Nepali.
What is the word for Hindi in Hindi?
हिन्दी (hindī). In Urdu the same name is written in Perso-Arabic script, and the languages list gives the name in many other languages.
Are Hindi and Urdu the same language?
In everyday speech they are very close and share most basic words and the grammar. Hindi is written in Devanagari and draws learned words from Sanskrit; Urdu uses a Perso-Arabic script and draws learned words from Persian and Arabic.