Language Reference Guide For Hindi
By
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Contents:
1.
Grammar and Spelling
2. Punctuation
3. Measurements and Abbreviations
4. Hyphenation
5. Miscellaneous Peculiarities
6. Geographic Distribution
7. Character Set
Section One - Grammar and Spelling
1.
Gender and Case: There are two
genders in Hindi 
There are eight cases   
They can all be easily recognized and they
do not require any agreements.
2.
Articles: Articles are not used
in Hindi.
3.
Plural: The plural form can be
recognised as shown in the following example:
4.
Accents: Accents are not used in
Hindi.
5.
Capitalisation: Capitalisation
is not used in Hindi.
Section Two - Punctuation
Hindi
does not have any particular forms of punctuation
that an English-speaker might find odd.
1.
Full stops: Full stops are written as “।”
and are used at the end of a sentence.
2.
Speech marks: "..." (direct speech)
is used for conversation and '...' is used for highlighting
a noun. E.g.:
1.
“Give me more work!”, shouted Chloe.
2.
“Would anyone like some tea?” asked George.
3.
“I’m bored – can I go home now?”, Michala said.
3.
Colons, semi-colons and ellipsis: These are
used in the same way as in English.
4.
Apostrophe: Apostrophes are not used in Hindi.
Section
Three – Measurements and Abbreviations
1.
Measurements: The metric system is mostly
used.
For
decimals, a full stop '.' is used and, for separating
thousands, a comma ',' is used.
The
following shows how different times are written in
Hindi:
10.30
am / noon / 4.30 pm / midnight
The
following shows the different ways in which the date
can be formatted:
| 20
February 2004 |
 |
| 20th
February 2004 |
|
| 20/02/2004 |
20/02/2004 |
| February
20 |
 |
Spacing:
There should be a space between a figure and all measurement
abbreviations, except for °C, which would be:
30 °C.
2.
Abbreviations:
| N/a |
Abbreviation
not available |
| No.
(nos.) |
 |
| e.g. |
Abbreviation
not available |
| WxLxHxD |
Abbreviation
not available |
| 1st
/ 2nd / 3rd / 4th |
 |
| Mr.
/ Mrs. |
 |
| Messrs. |
 |
| Miss |
 |
| Dear
Sir / Madam |
 |
| m
(for metre) |
 |
| cm
(for centimetre) |
 |
| lb
(for pound weight) |
Abbreviation
not available |
| g
(for gram) |
 |
| km
(for kilometre) |
 |
| yr
(for year) |
Abbreviation
not available |
| k
(for 1000) |
Abbreviation
not available |
| EMEA
(Europe, Middle-East & Asia) |
 |
Days
of the week: Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri, Sat, Sun
Months:
Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct,
Nov, Dec
 
Seasons:
Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter (not normally abbreviated
in English)
Section Four - Hyphenation
Hyphens
are used when a word remains incomplete at the end
of a line while writing or when specifying a range,
e.g.: 2-3 
Hindi
has both prefixes and suffixes which are joined to
words with a hyphen,
e.g.: 
There
are no particular characters/combinations of characters
that can not be separated by a hyphen.
Section Five - Miscellaneous Peculiarities
Naming: Capitalisation does not apply in Hindi. Therefore, surnames
will never be capitalised, as in some other languages.
However, surnames may be written before the first name in specific
cases.
Section Six - Geographic Distribution
Hindi 
is a language spoken in most states in northern and
central India. It is an Indo-European language, of
the Indo-Aryan subfamily. It evolved from the Middle
Indo-Aryan prakrit languages of the Middle Ages, and
indirectly, from Sanskrit. Hindi derives much of its
formal and technical vocabulary from Sanskrit. Due
to Muslim influence in Northern India, a large number
of Persian, Arabic and Turkish words were adopted,
which eventually resulted in the formation of Urdu.
Standard or "pure" Hindi is used only in
public addresses and radio or TV news, while the everyday
spoken language in most areas is one of several varieties
of Hindustani. This fact can be observed in North
Indian (e.g. 'Bollywood') films.
Hindi became the official language of India on January 26, 1965,
and there are 14 other official languages: Bengali,
Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam,
Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi,
and Sanskrit. There are approximately 1650 dialects
spoken across India.
English enjoys associate status but is the most important language
for national, political, and commercial communication.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi
(accessed 20th June 2005)
Section Seven - Character Set
[
] = Alt key codes
A
sample of some of the characters in Hindi would be:
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