Symbols
126Click a symbol to copy it and open its page.
Shekhawati vowels (स्वर)
Each vowel has a full letter, used where a syllable begins with a vowel, and a matra added to a consonant: क + ा = का. अ has no matra; every consonant already carries it.
Nasal marks and other signs
The candrabindu and anusvara mark nasal vowels (हूँ, झुंझुनूं); the virama joins consonants into clusters such as म्ह; the nukta makes ड़ and ढ़.
Shekhawati consonants (व्यंजन)
The traditional Indian order: five rows by place in the mouth, each plain, aspirated, voiced, voiced aspirated, nasal; then the semivowels, the sibilants and ह.
Shekhawati's ळ and flapped ड़ ढ़
ळ is the retroflex l of काळो and मेळो. ड़ and ढ़ are the flapped sounds of बड़ो, नवलगढ़ and रामगढ़.
Punctuation and Devanagari digits
The danda । ends a sentence; the double danda ॥ closes a verse of a dhamal or a doha.
Om and currency
Where Shekhawati is spoken
The Shekhawati region of north-eastern Rajasthan, India: Jhunjhunu, Sikar and neighbouring parts of Churu.
Mahajani, the old merchants' script
The bookkeeping script (also called Mudiya) in which Shekhawati merchant families kept their accounts, in Unicode since 2014. Five vowel letters and no matras; it needs a font such as Noto Sans Mahajani to display.
Symbols of Shekhawati
Greetings and the safa; the painted havelis; chang drums of the Holi dhamal; Khatu Shyam and Salasar Balaji with their pilgrims' flags; the sandy edge of the Thar; the region's many soldiers; the merchant's account book.
On the map
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The Shekhawati language and its script
Shekhawati is the language of the Shekhawati region in north-eastern Rajasthan, between the Marwar desert to the west, Jaipur to the south and Haryana to the north. Linguists count it among the Rajasthani languages and often describe it as a variety of Marwari; it has its own ISO 639-3 code, swv. In Hindi people call it शेखावाटी भाषा or simply शेखावाटी बोली, and in English letters the name is also spelled Shekhawati or Shekhavati.
It is written in Devanagari, the script of Hindi and Marathi, so the "Shekhawati language in Hindi" letters are the ones every child in Rajasthan learns at school. There are no capital and small letters, a headline joins the letters of a word, and you read left to right. Devanagari is an abugida: every consonant carries a short a, so क is ka and म is ma, and other vowels are added as matras: का kā, कि ki, की kī, कु ku, के ke, को ko. The ि of कि is written before its consonant although it is said after it. The full vowel letters अ आ इ ई उ ऊ ए ऐ ओ औ stand where a syllable starts with a vowel, as in ऊंट (camel) or आज (today).
The consonants follow the Indian order by place in the mouth: 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 virama ् removes the built-in a so that consonants join, which Rajasthani does all the time with h: म्हारो (my), म्हैं (I). ऋ and the visarga ः come with Sanskrit words such as कृष्ण and दुःख and are rare in everyday speech.
Shekhawati language words and the letters ळ, ण, ड़ and ढ़
Spoken Shekhawati has the sound habits of the Rajasthani languages, and they show on the page. ळ, a retroflex l said with the tongue curled back, is heard in काळो (black) and मेळो (fair); Hindi says these with plain ल, काला and मेला. Between vowels Rajasthani often has the retroflex ण, where Hindi has न: पाणी (water), घणो (much, very). Many people typing quickly write ल and न anyway; the page gives you the letters for careful spelling.
Many words end in -o where Hindi has -ā: म्हारो and थारो (my, your; Hindi मेरा and तेरा), छोरो (boy), बड़ो (big), घणो चोखो (very good). कोनी means "not", and सा is the polite word added after a name or an answer: राम राम सा, हां सा. These are the shabd that people searching "shekhawati bhasha ke shabd" usually mean, and you will hear them in the Holi songs of the region.
The dot under ड and ढ, the nukta ़, makes the flapped sounds ड़ and ढ़, a quick tap of the curled tongue. Shekhawati place names are full of them: नवलगढ़ (Nawalgarh), रामगढ़ (Ramgarh), लक्ष्मणगढ़ (Lakshmangarh), मुकुंदगढ़ (Mukundgarh). Typed text may store ड़ as one character or as ड followed by ़; both look the same, so if a search misses a word, try typing it the other way.
Mahajani: the script of the Shekhawati merchants
Shekhawati is the home country of many of India's great trading families, the ones the rest of India calls Marwaris: the Birlas came from Pilani in Jhunjhunu district, and families from Nawalgarh, Ramgarh, Fatehpur and Mandawa built businesses in Kolkata and Mumbai in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Their ledgers, the red cloth-bound bahi-khata, were kept not in Devanagari but in Mahajani, the bookkeeping script of north Indian merchants, also called Mudiya or Muriya. It has no headline and writes few vowels, so it was quick to write and easy to misread.
Mahajani was added to Unicode in 2014 (version 7.0) as the block U11150–U1117F: five vowel letters 𑅐 𑅑 𑅒 𑅓 𑅔 (a i u e o), consonants from 𑅕 ka to 𑅱 ha and 𑅲 ṛa, a nukta, an abbreviation sign 𑅴, a section mark 𑅵 and the ligature 𑅶 for श्री, the auspicious word written at the head of a page. You need a font such as Noto Sans Mahajani to see them; without it they show as empty boxes. There is no standard keyboard, so copy them from the grid.
How to type the Shekhawati language in Hindi letters
Shekhawati is typed with the Hindi keyboards, which have every letter it needs except sometimes ळ. Windows: Settings Time & language Language & region add Hindi, then pick Hindi Traditional (InScript, one key per letter) or a phonetic layout that turns Latin typing into Devanagari; switch with WinSpace. Mac: System Settings Keyboard Input Sources add Hindi – Transliteration, Devanagari or Devanagari – QWERTY. iPhone and Android: add Hindi in Gboard, SwiftKey or the iPhone keyboard settings; with transliteration you type ram ram sa and pick राम राम सा, which is how many Holi dhamal lyrics and WhatsApp messages are written.
If ळ is missing from your layout, the Marathi keyboard always has it, or copy it from this page. In HTML, ळ is ळ, ण is ण, ड़ is ड़, ढ़ is ढ़, the danda । is ।, ॥ is ॥ and is ₹; the English (India) keyboard on Windows gives with AltGr4. End a sentence with the danda । rather than the vertical bar , which looks similar but is a different character for search and screen readers. Devanagari digits ० to ९ turn up in old ledgers and on temple boards; everyday writing mostly uses 0–9.
Shekhawati region language: where it is spoken
Shekhawati is spoken in Jhunjhunu (झुंझुनूं) and Sikar (सीकर) districts and the neighbouring parts of Churu (चूरू), a semi-desert land on the eastern edge of the Thar. CLDR estimates about 4 million speakers, all counted in India; India's census files Rajasthani varieties under Hindi, so every count is an estimate. The region is named after Rao Shekha, a fifteenth-century Rajput chief whose descendants are the Shekhawat Rajputs, and it is known across India for its painted havelis, for its Holi, and for the many soldiers it sends to the army.
Its painted havelis make towns such as Nawalgarh, Mandawa, Fatehpur and Ramgarh an open-air gallery: merchant families who grew rich far away covered their houses with frescoes of gods, horses, elephants and, later, trains and motor cars. Holi here lasts for days, with men singing dhamal to the big frame drum called the chang and dancing the stick dance gindad. Pilgrims walk to the temple of Khatu Shyam in Sikar district carrying flags called nishan, and Salasar Balaji in Churu district draws Hanuman devotees from all over India. For the neighbouring languages see the Marwari, Rajasthani, Haryanvi and Hindi collections, and for the flag and the country's emoji the India collection.
How to use them
5 situationsClick to copyShekhawati Language Letters combos
12Worth knowing
- Some Shekhawati haveli frescoes painted in the early twentieth century show steam trains, motor cars and Europeans in hats, the new wonders the merchant owners had seen in Kolkata and Mumbai.
- The region takes its name from Rao Shekha, a fifteenth-century Rajput ruler; his descendants, the Shekhawats, gave their name to the land.
- BITS Pilani, one of India's best-known engineering institutes, grew out of a school the Birla family founded in their home town of Pilani in Jhunjhunu district.
- Churu, on the western side of Shekhawati, recorded 50.8 C on 1 June 2019, among the highest temperatures ever measured in India.
Questions people ask
7what is shekhawati language?
Shekhawati is the Rajasthani language of the Shekhawati region (Jhunjhunu, Sikar and part of Churu) in Rajasthan, close to Marwari and written in Devanagari. CLDR estimates about 4 million speakers.
shekhawati language is spoken in which state?
Rajasthan, India: in Jhunjhunu and Sikar districts and the neighbouring parts of Churu, and by Shekhawati families who have moved to Jaipur, Kolkata, Mumbai and other cities.
what is the script of shekhawati language?
Devanagari, the same script as Hindi, with ळ, ण, ड़ and ढ़ used often. Merchants long kept their accounts in Mahajani (Mudiya), which is also on this page.
how to write shekhawati language in hindi?
Use any Hindi keyboard, phonetic or InScript: on a phone, Gboard or SwiftKey transliteration turns ram ram sa into राम राम सा. Copy ळ from this page if your layout lacks it.
shekhawati bhasha ke shabd?
A few common ones: म्हारो (my), थारो (your), घणो (much), चोखो (good), छोरो (boy), पाणी (water), कोनी (not), and सा, the polite word after a name or an answer.
is shekhawati the same as marwari?
They are close relatives in the Rajasthani group, and Shekhawati is often described as a variety of Marwari, but it has its own words and sound and its own ISO code, swv. See the Marwari collection for comparison.
what is shekhawati famous for?
Its painted havelis in towns such as Nawalgarh, Mandawa and Fatehpur, its Holi with chang drums and dhamal songs, the temples of Khatu Shyam and Salasar Balaji, its merchant families and its soldiers.
