Hindi: spelling → sound

Hindi asks the ear for a distinction English does not make, and makes it twice. Every stop comes in four versions: plain, aspirated, voiced, and BREATHY-voiced — क ख ग घ, ka kha ga gha. And it runs that four-way set across two places English merges into one: dental त (tongue on the teeth) and retroflex ट (tongue curled back to the roof). Sixteen consonants where English has four. Breathy voice is not aspiration: the folds stay slack and keep vibrating through the puff, which is why भ is not just a loud ब. The tracer here reads the ROMANISATION, not the Devanagari — but Devanagari is worth learning early, because unlike English it spells exactly what it means.

Trace a word

Every box is one rule firing. Hover a box (or open the table) to see why. Rules are applied in order, first match wins — that order is the spelling system. Type the romanisation (namaste, paani) — the tracer reads that, not the Devanagari.

The rules, in order

38 rules. The left column is a pattern (regular expression) matched at the current position of the word; (?=…) looks ahead, (?<=…) looks behind, $ is the end of the word.