Awadhi Letters & Script

Awadhi is written today in Devanagari, the same script as Hindi, Nepali and Marathi, and it uses the same letters as Hindi. There is no separate Awadhi alphabet and no separate Awadhi font: any font that covers Devanagari, such as the ones built into Windows, macOS, Android and iOS, writes Awadhi.

It was not always so. Awadhi literature was copied in several scripts. The early Sufi romances, from Mulla Daud's Chandayan (1379) to Malik Muhammad Jayasi's Padmavat (1540), survive in many manuscripts in Persian script, and everyday letters, accounts and some books in North India were long written in Kaithi, a fast clerks' script related to Devanagari. Kaithi has its own Unicode block (𑂀 𑂁 𑂂 …), but it went out of everyday use in the twentieth century; modern Awadhi books, poetry and posts are in Devanagari.

Awadhi letters: vowels, matras and consonants

Devanagari is an abugida: every consonant already contains the vowel a, so क is ka and म is ma. Other vowels are added as signs called matras, written before, after, above or below the consonant: का kā, कि ki, की kī, कु ku, कू kū, के ke, कै kai, को ko, कौ kau. The full vowel letters अ आ इ ई उ ऊ ए ऐ ओ औ are used only where a syllable starts with a vowel, as in अवध (Awadh), ऊपर or the last letter of लखनऊ (Lucknow). ऋ and its sign ृ appear in learned words from Sanskrit.

The 33 consonants are arranged by where they are made in the mouth: क ख ग घ ङ in the throat, च छ ज झ ञ at the palate, ट ठ ड ढ ण with the tongue curled back, त थ द ध न at the teeth, प फ ब भ म at the lips, then य र ल व and श ष स ह. Each row runs plain, aspirated (with a puff of breath), voiced, voiced aspirated and nasal. Two more letters are made with the dot ़ (nukta): ड़ and ढ़, the flapped r sounds of words like बड़ा, पेड़ and पढ़ाई.

The virama ् removes the built-in a, so two consonants can join in a conjunct: न् + द = न्द. The anusvara ं and the candrabindu ँ mark nasal sounds; the candrabindu is everywhere in Awadhi verse endings such as करउँ (I do) and तिहुँ (three). Sentences end with the danda ।, and verses close with the double danda ॥. Numbers can be written with Devanagari digits ० १ २ ३ ४ ५ ६ ७ ८ ९ or with ordinary 0–9; both are common.

Awadhi spelling in the Ramcharitmanas and the Hanuman Chalisa

Awadhi's most famous book is the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas, the story of Rama retold in Awadhi verse in seven books (kands), mostly in four-line chaupai stanzas closed by two-line doha couplets. The Hanuman Chalisa, forty chaupais framed by dohas and recited daily by millions, is in Awadhi too, not in Sanskrit or modern Hindi.

Tulsidas spelled words as Awadhi speakers say them, not in the Sanskrit way. Where modern Hindi writes प्राण, गुण, वचन, योग and लक्ष्मण, the Manas has प्रान, गुन, बचन, जोग and लछिमन: न for ण, ब for व, ज for य, छ for क्ष. So the Chalisa opens जय हनुमान ज्ञान गुन सागर, and the Manas says प्रान जाहुँ बरु बचनु न जाई, "let life go, but never one's word". When you copy these lines, keep that spelling; "correcting" it to Hindi changes the text.

Jayasi's Padmavat, the story of Queen Padmavati of Chittor, is the other classic of Awadhi literature. Jayasi came from Jais, in the Awadh region itself.

How to type Awadhi on a keyboard and phone

Because Awadhi uses Hindi's letters, you type it with a Hindi keyboard. Windows: Settings → Time & language → Language & region → add Hindi, then choose a layout: Hindi Traditional is the government InScript standard with one key per letter, and Hindi Phonetic lets you type in Latin letters (ram → राम). Switch with Windows + Space. The English (India) layout gives ₹ with Right Alt + 4.

Mac: System Settings → Keyboard → Input Sources → add Hindi and pick Devanagari (InScript), Devanagari – QWERTY, or Hindi – Transliteration, which turns Latin typing into Devanagari as you go. Phones: add the Hindi keyboard in Gboard or SwiftKey on Android, or Hindi on iPhone; both offer a mode where you type in Latin letters and pick the Devanagari word.

For one-off characters, copy them from this page. In HTML, the danda । is ।, the double danda ॥ is ॥ and ₹ is ₹. Please do not use the vertical bar | for a danda: it looks close, but search, screen readers and line breaking treat it as a different character.

Where the Awadhi language is spoken

Awadhi is the language of Awadh, the historic region of central and eastern Uttar Pradesh around Lucknow, Ayodhya, Barabanki, Sultanpur, Rae Bareli, Gonda and Bahraich. CLDR estimates about 27 million speakers in India and about 700,000 in Nepal, where it is spoken in the western Terai around Nepalganj and Kapilvastu. These are estimates: India's census groups Awadhi under Hindi, so many speakers are counted as Hindi speakers, while Nepal's constitution recognises every mother tongue of the country as a national language.

Awadhi is an Indo-Aryan language. George Grierson's Linguistic Survey of India put it with Bagheli and Chhattisgarhi in an "Eastern Hindi" group, and its nearest neighbours are Hindi, Bhojpuri to the east and Braj to the west. Indentured workers from Awadh and Bihar carried it to Fiji from 1879, where Fiji Hindi grew mainly out of Awadhi. See also the collections for Hindi, Bhojpuri, Maithili, Chhattisgarhi, Nepali, Fiji Hindi and Urdu, and the country pages for India 🇮🇳 and Nepal 🇳🇵, both of which count money in rupees (₹ in India, ₨ or रु in Nepal).

"Awadhi" is also the name of a cuisine: the slow-cooked dum biryani, kebabs and kormas of Lucknow's old court kitchens, which is why the word often turns up next to 🍛. Awadh is mango country too, above all the Dasheri mangoes 🥭 of Malihabad near Lucknow.