Symbols
81Click a symbol to copy it and open its page.
Vowels (स्वर)
Each vowel has a full letter, used at the start of a word or after another vowel, and a sign (matra) that attaches to a consonant: क + ा = का. अ has no sign, because every consonant already carries its a. The sign ि is written before the consonant but typed after it.
Consonants (व्यंजन)
Devanagari orders its consonants by where they are said in the mouth. Each row is one place; the columns run plain, breathy (aspirated), voiced, voiced breathy, nasal. ड़ and ढ़ are the flapped r-like sounds, ड and ढ with a nukta dot.
Signs
These attach to a letter. The halant ् removes the built-in a and joins consonants into clusters: क्ष, त्र, स्त.
Digits
Devanagari digits; in everyday print and on prices most people use 0–9.
Punctuation
The danda ends a sentence; ? ! , and quotation marks are the same as in English.
Currency and where it's spoken
Bhilali is spoken in India, mainly in western Madhya Pradesh.
Bhilala life
Emoji for the drums and flutes of Bhagoria, the horses of Pithora paintings, the bow and the maize of the hills.
On the map
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Bhilali language script: Devanagari, as taught in Hindi schools
Bhilali, written भिलाली and also called Bhilala after the community that speaks it, is one of the Bhil languages of western India. It is above all a spoken language: children grow up speaking it at home and in the village, and learn to read and write in Hindi at school. When Bhilali is written down, in songs collected by teachers, literacy primers, religious texts or a WhatsApp message, it is written in Devanagari, the script of Hindi, Marathi and Nepali, with the letters and spelling habits people learned for Hindi.
There is no official Bhilali spelling and CLDR keeps no letter list for it, so this page gives the standard Devanagari letters that Bhilali is normally written with: twelve vowels with their signs, the 33 consonants of the school chart (the varnamala), the flapped ड़ and ढ़, and the signs that sit on letters. Two of the vowels, ऋ and ऑ, appear mainly in names and in words taken from Hindi and English (कृष्ण, डॉक्टर). Letters that only Sanskrit needs (ऌ, ॠ) and the dotted letters Hindi keeps for Persian and Arabic sounds (क़ ख़ ग़ ज़ फ़) are left out; if you need one, add the nukta ़ to the plain letter.
How Devanagari letters work in Bhilali words
Devanagari is an abugida: each consonant already carries the vowel a, so क reads ka. Other vowels are added as signs called matras: का कि की कु कू के कै को कौ. The full vowel letters अ आ इ ई उ ऊ ए ऐ ओ औ are used only at the start of a word or after another vowel. The name भिलाली itself is built this way: भ ि ल ा ल ी. Note that ि is drawn before the consonant it follows in speech, but you type it after.
To write two consonants with no vowel between them, add the halant ्: स ् त gives स्त, and fonts join many pairs into one shape, such as क्ष, त्र and ज्ञ. Nasal sounds use the dot ं (anusvara) or the moon-and-dot ँ (chandrabindu), as in Hindi गाँव (village). The retroflex flaps heard across the whole region are written ड़ and ढ़, a ड or ढ with a dot below.
How to type Bhilali letters
There is no widely used Bhilali keyboard; use a Hindi one, since the letters are the same. Windows: add Hindi under Settings › Time & language › Language & region and choose a Devanagari layout such as Hindi Traditional (INSCRIPT), then switch with Win Space. In Word you can also type a code and press Alt X: 0964 for the danda । and 20B9 for . On the English (India) keyboard layout, is Ctrl Alt 4.
Mac: System Settings › Keyboard › Input Sources offers Devanagari, Devanagari – QWERTY and Hindi – Transliteration; the last lets you type bhilali in Latin letters and pick भिलाली. Phones: add Hindi in Gboard or the iPhone keyboard; Gboard can also turn Latin typing into Devanagari. HTML: । for ।, ् for the halant and ₹ for . Or tap any letter on this page to copy it.
Where the Bhilali language is spoken
CLDR estimates about 1.3 million speakers of Bhilali, all of them in India . Its heartland is western Madhya Pradesh, in the hills and the Narmada valley around Alirajpur, Barwani, Dhar and Khargone, with smaller communities across the borders in Gujarat and Maharashtra. The Indian census counts it under the umbrella mother tongue Bhili/Bhilodi, and like the other Bhil languages it is not one of India's scheduled languages. Prices are in rupees, written .
Its closest relatives are the other Bhil languages, such as Bhili and Wagdi, and it sits among Nimadi, Khandeshi, Gujarati and Marathi, each with its own collection. Hindi is the language of school, offices and signboards in Madhya Pradesh, so many Bhilali speakers read Hindi too; the Hindi collection and the India collection are the natural next stops.
Bhagoria, Pithora and the emoji on this page
A famous festival of the Bhil and Bhilala country is Bhagoria (भगोरिया), held at the weekly haats of Alirajpur, Jhabua, Dhar and nearby districts in the days before Holi. People come in their brightest clothes and silver jewellery, and groups play big drums and flutes, hence and in posts and videos from the fairs.
stands for Pithora (पिथोरा) painting, the ritual wall paintings full of horses that Rathwa and Bhilala households make on the walls of their homes to honour Baba Pithora. is the bow, which the Bhil peoples count among their oldest traditions and still carry in songs, stories and slogans, and is maize, the staple crop of the hill fields.
How to use them
4 situationsClick to copyBhilali Script & Letters combos
10Worth knowing
- The flapped ड़ exists in Unicode twice: as one character and as ड nukta ़. They look identical, and Unicode normalization always turns the single character into the two-character pair, so a search can miss words typed the other way.
- The rupee sign was chosen in 2010 from a public competition; its designer, D. Udaya Kumar, joined the Devanagari letter र and the Latin R, and Unicode added it the same year.
- India's Constitution makes the international digits 0–9 the official form for the Union's purposes. Prices and phone numbers in Madhya Pradesh are mostly written 0–9 even in Devanagari text, while ० १ २ ३ live on in books and calendars.
- A popular explanation derives the name Bhil from a Dravidian word for bow, the that Bhil communities still treat as a symbol of who they are.
Questions people ask
6What script is Bhilali written in?
Devanagari, the same script as Hindi. Bhilali has no script of its own; speakers write it with the Hindi letters they learned at school, including the matras, the halant ् and the flaps ड़ ढ़.
Is Bhilali the same as Bhili?
No, but they are close relatives. Both are Bhil languages of western India with separate language codes, bhi for Bhilali and bhb for Bhili; Bhilali is the language of the Bhilala community, mainly in western Madhya Pradesh.
What is the Bhili language script?
Bhil languages, Bhilali included, are usually written in Devanagari. In Gujarat, Bhil languages are sometimes written in the Gujarati script instead.
Where is Bhilali spoken?
Mainly in western Madhya Pradesh, around Alirajpur, Barwani, Dhar and Khargone, with smaller communities in Gujarat and Maharashtra. CLDR estimates about 1.3 million speakers.
How do I type Bhilali on my phone?
Add a Hindi keyboard in Gboard or the iPhone keyboard settings. You can type in Devanagari directly, or type in Latin letters and let Gboard turn them into Devanagari; or copy letters from this page.
How do I type the danda । and the rupee sign ?
In Word, type 0964 then Alt X for । and 20B9 then Alt X for . On a Hindi keyboard the danda has its own key, and on the English (India) layout is Ctrl Alt 4.
