Chhattisgarhi Language Letters

Chhattisgarhi (छत्तीसगढ़ी) is the language of Chhattisgarh, the state of central India formed on 1 November 2000. It is written in Devanagari, the script of Hindi, Marathi and Nepali, with the same letters as Hindi. There is no separate Chhattisgarhi alphabet and no special Chhattisgarhi font: any font that covers Devanagari, including the ones built into Windows, macOS, Android and iOS, writes it correctly. The language's own name already shows three things worth copying: the doubled consonant त्त, the long vowel sign ी and the dotted letter ढ़.

Linguists place Chhattisgarhi in the Eastern Hindi group together with Awadhi and Bagheli, and it has its own ISO language code, hne. In 2007 the state assembly made it an official language of Chhattisgarh alongside Hindi, and 28 November is kept as Chhattisgarhi Rajbhasha Diwas, official language day. It is not among the languages of the Eighth Schedule of India's constitution, and many writers campaign for it to be added, which is the background to the much-searched question whether Chhattisgarhi is a bhasha (language) or a boli (dialect).

Chhattisgarhi alphabet: vowels, matras and consonants

Devanagari is an abugida: every consonant carries a built-in short a, so क is ka and धान (paddy) is dhān. Other vowels are added as signs called matras, written before, after, above or below the consonant: का कि की कु कू के कै को कौ. The full vowel letters अ आ इ ई उ ऊ ए ऐ ओ औ stand at the start of a word or after another vowel, as in ओ or the इ of लइका (child). ऋ and its sign ृ appear in learned words from Sanskrit, and ऑ ॉ write the English o of loanwords such as डॉक्टर.

The 33 consonants run in rows by where the sound is made: क ख ग घ ङ, च छ ज झ ञ, ट ठ ड ढ ण, त थ द ध न, प फ ब भ म, then य र ल व and श ष स ह. The dot below, the nukta ़, turns ड and ढ into the flapped sounds ड़ and ढ़, as in गढ़ (fort) and बढ़िया (great). The virama ् removes the built-in vowel so that letters join in conjuncts: त + ् + त gives the त्त of छत्तीसगढ़. The candrabindu ँ marks vowel nasalization, while the anusvara ं can represent a nasal consonant or nasalization. The candrabindu is very common in Chhattisgarhi verb endings: हँव (I am), जाँथौं (I go).

In everyday Chhattisgarhi speech श and ष are generally said as स, and writers who spell words as they are spoken often write स there too; learned and official writing keeps the Hindi spelling. Hindi's extra dotted letters for Persian and Arabic sounds (ज़ फ़ क़) are left out of this page because Chhattisgarhi's own sounds do not include z, f or q and such loanwords are often said with j, ph and k. Sentences end with the danda ।, verses with the double danda ॥, and numbers can be written with Devanagari digits ० १ २ ३ ४ ५ ६ ७ ८ ९ or with 0–9.

Chhattisgarhi language words and sentences

The greeting of Chhattisgarh is जय जोहार (jai johār), said with folded hands 🙏 and often extended to जय जोहार, जय छत्तीसगढ़. "How are you?" is कइसे हस? and the answer is बने हँव, "I am well": बने, "good, well", is an everyday Chhattisgarhi word. The proud slogan छत्तीसगढ़िया सबले बढ़िया means "the people of Chhattisgarh are the best of all".

A few features make Chhattisgarhi sentences easy to recognise. "My" and "your" are मोर and तोर, and "to me" and "to you" are मोला and तोला. The suffix मन makes plurals: लइका is a child, लइकामन are children, and हमन means "we". The object marker is ल, as in धान ल (the paddy). People search "chhattisgarhi words in hindi" because these forms differ so clearly from Standard Hindi मेरा, मुझे and बच्चे.

Songs, festivals and the words people write

Song lyrics, status lines and film titles are a popular kind of Chhattisgarhi writing online: the Chhattisgarhi film industry, nicknamed Chhollywood, began with Kahi Debe Sandesh (1965) and took off again after Mor Chhainha Bhuinya (2000). The state song अरपा पैरी के धार, by the poet Narendra Dev Verma, is named after two of its rivers. Pandwani, the sung telling of the Mahabharata made famous by Teejan Bai, and dadaria love songs are written down and shared in Devanagari too.

The festivals have their own words. हरेली (Hareli), on the new moon of Sawan, opens the farming year: farm tools are worshipped and children walk on गेड़ी, bamboo stilts. At पोरा (Pola) bullocks are decorated 🐂 and children play with clay bulls. Around Diwali 🪔 women dance the सुआ (Suwa) dance around a model parrot 🦜, and Raut men dance the राउत नाचा. At छेरछेरा (Cherchera), on the full moon of Paush, children go from house to house calling for rice from the granary. Chhattisgarh is called dhān kā kaṭorā, "the rice bowl" 🌾, and its plainest meal, बोरे बासी, is cooked rice 🍚 left to soak in water overnight.

How to type Chhattisgarhi on a keyboard and phone

On Android, Gboard offers Chhattisgarhi and Chhattisgarhi transliteration layouts; Hindi keyboards also cover its Devanagari letters. On Windows, add Hindi under Settings → Time & language → Language & region and choose a layout: Hindi Traditional is the InScript standard with one key per letter, and the phonetic layout lets you type ka to get क. Switch with Windows + Space. On a Mac, add Hindi under System Settings → Keyboard → Input Sources and pick Devanagari, Devanagari – QWERTY or Hindi – Transliteration.

On a phone, add the Hindi keyboard in Gboard or in iPhone settings. Both offer transliteration: type jai johar in Latin letters and pick जय जोहार from the suggestions, which is a common way to write Chhattisgarhi on WhatsApp and in status posts. For one-off characters, copy them from this page. In HTML, छ is छ, । is the danda । and ₹ is ₹. Do not use the vertical bar | for a danda: it looks close, but search and screen readers treat it as a different character.

Where the Chhattisgarhi language is spoken

Chhattisgarhi is spoken across the plains of Chhattisgarh, around Raipur, Bilaspur, Durg-Bhilai, Rajnandgaon and Raigarh, and over the borders in neighbouring districts of Odisha and Madhya Pradesh. CLDR estimates about 15.5 million speakers, all in India. Counts vary between sources, because India's census records Chhattisgarhi as a mother tongue under Hindi, and many speakers also use Hindi for school and office.

Its closest relatives are Bagheli to the north and Awadhi further north, the other Eastern Hindi languages, with Bhojpuri and Hindi beyond; all are written with the same letters. Inside the state it lives side by side with Gondi, Kurukh and Sadri, with Odia to the east and Marathi to the south-west, and each has its own collection. For the flag 🇮🇳, the rupee and India's emoji, see the India page.