Symbols
98Click a symbol to copy it and open its page.
Gujarati vowels (સ્વર)
Each vowel has a full letter, used at the start of a word or syllable, and a vowel sign (matra) that attaches to a consonant: ક + ા = કા. અ has no sign: it is the vowel every consonant already carries. ૠ and its sign ૄ appear only in Sanskrit words; ઍ and ઑ write the open vowels of English loanwords such as બૅટ (bat) and ડૉક્ટર (doctor).
Gujarati consonants (વ્યંજન)
The five stop rows are read across: plain, aspirated, voiced, voiced aspirated, nasal. After them come ય ર લ વ, then શ ષ સ હ and ળ, the retroflex l that Hindi lacks. The chart's last two letters, ક્ષ and જ્ઞ, are conjuncts typed as ક + ્ + ષ and જ + ્ + ઞ.
Signs: anusvara, visarga, virama, nukta, avagraha and Om
ં ઃ ઁ attach to the letter before them (કં, કઃ). ્ removes a consonant's vowel and joins it to the next one: ત + ્ + ર = ત્ર. ઽ marks a dropped a in Sanskrit, and ૐ is the sacred syllable Om in Gujarati script.
Gujarati digits
૧ ૨ ૩ is 123, and the year 2026 is ૨૦૨૬. Gujarati text uses these digits or the international 0–9.
Punctuation
Modern Gujarati ends a sentence with the full stop, like English. The danda । and double danda ॥ are kept for verse and religious texts.
Currency
Where Gujarati is spoken
Largest communities first: Gujarat in India, then the diaspora in Britain, North America and East Africa.
Gujarat in emoji
The emoji Gujarati speakers add to their messages: Uttarayan kites, Navratri garba, Diwali lamps for the Gujarati New Year, the lions of Gir and folded hands for જય શ્રી કૃષ્ણ.
On the map
Loading…
The Gujarati alphabet: vowels, matras and consonants
Gujarati (ગુજરાતી) is written in its own script, a close cousin of Devanagari, the script of Hindi and Marathi. Its most visible feature is that Gujarati letters stand free, with no top line joining them (the shirorekha of Devanagari), so ગુજરાતી looks rounder and lighter than the same word in Devanagari, गुजराती. Many letters share their basic shape with Devanagari but are drawn without the line (ટ ઠ ડ ઢ), while others have a shape of their own, such as અ and જ.
Like other Brahmic scripts, it is an abugida: a consonant on its own already includes the vowel a, so ક is read ka, and other vowels are added as signs (matras) around it. The vowels are અ આ ઇ ઈ ઉ ઊ ઋ એ ઐ ઓ ઔ, and school charts often add અં and અઃ at the end. Each vowel except અ has a matra: કા કિ કી કુ કૂ કૃ કે કૈ કો કૌ. The sign િ is drawn before the consonant (કિ) although it is said after it; in Unicode you still type ક first and િ second, and the font moves the sign into place.
The consonants follow the classic order of Indian grammar: five rows of stops (ક ખ ગ ઘ ઙ, ચ છ જ ઝ ઞ, ટ ઠ ડ ઢ ણ, ત થ દ ધ ન, પ ફ બ ભ મ), then ય ર લ વ, શ ષ સ હ, and ળ. Charts end with ક્ષ and જ્ઞ, which are conjuncts rather than separate characters: you type them as ક ્ ષ and જ ્ ઞ.
Gujarati barakhadi: one consonant, twelve vowel forms
The barakhadi (બારાખડી, from બાર, twelve) is how Gujarati children learn to read: each consonant is written with all twelve vowel forms in turn. For ક it runs ક કા કિ કી કુ કૂ કે કૈ કો કૌ કં કઃ (ka, kā, ki, kī, ku, kū, ke, kai, ko, kau, kaṃ, kaḥ), and the same pattern repeats for ખ, ગ and every other consonant.
A few letters change shape with some matras, so they are worth practising separately: ર with ુ and ૂ becomes રુ and રૂ, as in રૂપિયો (rupee), and જ with ી is written જી. To copy any barakhadi form from this page, copy the consonant and then the matra; pasted together they join into one syllable.
Gujarati letters to know: ળ, ઍ, ઑ and the anusvara
Gujarati distinguishes two sets of t, d and n sounds. ટ ઠ ડ ઢ ણ are retroflex, said with the tongue curled back, and ત થ દ ધ ન are dental, with the tongue against the teeth: પાણી (water) has the retroflex ણ. ળ is a retroflex l, a letter Hindi does not have, heard in કમળ (lotus) and વાળ (hair). Each stop also has an aspirated partner written with a different letter: ક ka and ખ kha, પ pa and ફ pha.
ઍ and ઑ (with the vowel signs ૅ and ૉ) write the open vowels of English words: બૅટ (bat), બૅન્ક (bank), ડૉક્ટર (doctor), કૉલેજ (college). ઋ appears in words from Sanskrit and is said ru, as in ઋતુ (season); ૠ and its sign ૄ are kept for Sanskrit texts.
The anusvara ં makes a vowel nasal or adds an n or m sound before a consonant, and it is everywhere: હું (I), પાંચ (five), ગુજરાતીમાં (in Gujarati). The visarga ઃ is a breath h at the end of Sanskrit words, as in શ્રી ગણેશાય નમઃ, the line printed on top of many wedding invitations. The virama ્ removes a consonant's vowel; between two consonants it makes a conjunct such as ત્ર in ત્રણ (three) or સ્ત in નમસ્તે. The candrabindu ઁ is rare in Gujarati, and the nukta ઼ is used for Perso-Arabic transliterations; the avagraha ઽ and ૐ (Om) are mostly seen in Sanskrit and religious texts.
How to type Gujarati on a laptop, in Word and on WhatsApp
Windows 10 and 11 include a Gujarati keyboard: Settings Time & language Language & region Add a language Gujarati, then switch to it with Windows Space. It uses INSCRIPT, the Government of India layout shared by all Indian scripts, with vowels under the left hand and consonants under the right; you type the consonant, then the matra. The text is Unicode, so it works in MS Word, Excel, browsers and email, and the built-in Shruti and Nirmala UI fonts display it. Mac: System Settings Keyboard Input Sources add Gujarati or Gujarati – QWERTY, the second mapping letters to similar-sounding English keys.
Phones: on Android, Gboard offers Gujarati in two forms: the full Gujarati keyboard, and a transliteration keyboard where you type in English letters, kem cho, and it writes કેમ છો. Add it in Gboard Settings Languages Add keyboard Gujarati. On iPhone add it in Settings General Keyboard Keyboards Add New Keyboard Gujarati. WhatsApp, Instagram and SMS then take Gujarati directly.
Many older Gujarati documents and wedding cards were typed with non-Unicode fonts such as Terafont or LMG Arun, which store Gujarati shapes as English letters. Copied out of such a file the text turns into Latin gibberish and needs a Gujarati font converter, or retyping in Unicode, before it can be pasted elsewhere. Everything on this page is Unicode. HTML: the Gujarati block is U0A80–U0AFF, so અ is અ and ળ is ળ; the rupee sign is ₹.
Gujarati numbers, punctuation and the rupee
Gujarati has its own digits: ૦ ૧ ૨ ૩ ૪ ૫ ૬ ૭ ૮ ૯. The numbers 1 to 10 are એક, બે, ત્રણ, ચાર, પાંચ, છ, સાત, આઠ, નવ, દસ, and zero is શૂન્ય. Newspapers, calendars and school books use Gujarati digits; prices, phone numbers and forms just as often use the international 0–9.
Unlike Hindi, which ends a sentence with the danda ।, modern Gujarati uses the full stop: હું ગુજરાતી બોલું છું. (I speak Gujarati.) The danda । and double danda ॥ survive in poetry, bhajans and religious texts. Commas, question marks, exclamation marks and the quotation marks “ ” ‘ ’ are the same as in English. Unicode also has a Gujarati abbreviation sign ૰, a small circle that can follow a shortened word, though most writers simply use a full stop.
Gujarat is in India, so its money is the Indian rupee, રૂપિયો (rupiyo), with the sign , introduced in 2010. Prices in Gujarati are also often written with the abbreviation રૂ. before the amount. Unicode further keeps a traditional Gujarati rupee sign from older account books.
Where Gujarati is spoken
Gujarati is the official language of the state of Gujarat in western India and is also official in the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. The CLDR estimate puts all speakers at about 66 million, some 63 million of them in India; the 2011 census counted about 55 million people with Gujarati as their first language. It is the mother tongue of Mahatma Gandhi, who wrote his autobiography in it.
Gujarati traders settled around the Indian Ocean for centuries, and the diaspora is large: CLDR estimates about 2 million speakers in the United Kingdom , many of them families who came from Kenya , Uganda and Tanzania in the 1960s and 70s, and about 225,000 in Canada ; there are big communities in the United States too. Its closest relatives include Hindi, Marathi, Sindhi and Kachhi (Kutchi), which is often written in Gujarati script; each has its own collection on this site, as does India.
How to use them
5 situationsClick to copyGujarati Alphabet & Letters combos
15Worth knowing
- Mumbai Samachar (મુંબઈ સમાચાર), a Gujarati newspaper founded in 1822, is often called the oldest continuously published newspaper in Asia.
- Mahatma Gandhi wrote his autobiography in Gujarati as સત્યના પ્રયોગો; it first ran in instalments in his weekly Navajivan before it became famous in English as The Story of My Experiments with Truth.
- Before the 19th century Gujarati literature was usually written in Devanagari; the headline-free Gujarati script was the everyday hand of merchants and bankers, which earned it nicknames such as the bankers' script.
- Unicode's Indian blocks are laid out in parallel: Gujarati અ is U0A85 and Devanagari अ is U0905, the same position in their blocks, and so on letter by letter.
Questions people ask
8How do I copy and paste Gujarati letters?
Click or tap any letter on this page (અ, ક, ળ, the matras ા િ ી, the digits ૧ ૨ ૩) to copy it, then paste with CtrlV, CmdV or a long-press and Paste on a phone. Matras and the virama ્ show a dotted circle on their own; pasted after a consonant they join it.
How many letters are in the Gujarati alphabet?
School charts teach 11 vowels (અ આ ઇ ઈ ઉ ઊ ઋ એ ઐ ઓ ઔ), often with અં and અઃ added to make 13, and 34 consonants from ક to ળ, with the conjuncts ક્ષ and જ્ઞ added to make 36. ઍ and ઑ are used for English words.
What is Gujarati barakhadi?
Barakhadi (બારાખડી) is the table of every consonant combined with the twelve vowel forms: ક કા કિ કી કુ કૂ કે કૈ કો કૌ કં કઃ, then the same for ખ, ગ and the rest. It is how Gujarati children learn to read.
What is the difference between Gujarati and Hindi letters?
Their core consonant order is similar, but Gujarati writes them without the top line, several shapes differ (અ, જ), Gujarati has the letter ળ, which Hindi does not use, and it ends sentences with a full stop instead of Hindi's danda ।.
How to type Gujarati in laptop or MS Word?
On Windows 10 or 11 add Gujarati in Settings Time & language Language & region and switch keyboards with Windows Space; on a Mac add the Gujarati or Gujarati – QWERTY input source. The text works in Word, Excel and browsers. Or copy letters from this page.
How to type Gujarati in WhatsApp?
Add a Gujarati keyboard to your phone: on Android, Gboard Settings Languages Add keyboard Gujarati (choose the transliteration version to type kem cho and get કેમ છો); on iPhone, Settings General Keyboard Add New Keyboard Gujarati. Switch with the globe key while typing.
What are the Gujarati numbers 1 to 10?
૧ એક, ૨ બે, ૩ ત્રણ, ૪ ચાર, ૫ પાંચ, ૬ છ, ૭ સાત, ૮ આઠ, ૯ નવ, ૧૦ દસ. Zero is ૦ (શૂન્ય).
Why does Gujarati text turn into English letters when I paste it?
The text was typed in an old non-Unicode font such as Terafont or LMG Arun, which stores Gujarati shapes as English letters. Run it through a Gujarati font converter or retype it with a Unicode keyboard. Broken matras or dotted circles instead mean the app's font lacks Gujarati: choose Shruti, Nirmala UI or Noto Sans Gujarati.
