Wagdi Language Script & Letters

Wagdi has no script of its own. It lived for centuries in speech and song, and when it is written today, in bhajan notebooks, school primers and posts on social media, it uses Devanagari, the script children in Rajasthan learn for Hindi. A line of Wagdi therefore looks like Hindi at first glance, although the words, endings and sounds are Wagdi's own and often closer to Gujarati.

Devanagari is an abugida: each consonant letter carries a built-in vowel a, so व is va and ग is ga. Other vowels are added as signs called matras: वा vā, वि vi, वी vī, वे ve, वो vo. The sign ि for short i is written before its consonant but typed after it. Full vowel letters such as अ आ इ ए ओ are used at the start of a word or syllable. The headstroke along the top joins the letters of a word: वागड़ी.

Letters and signs of Wagdi writing

The grid shows the standard Hindi Devanagari reference set, wider than the 2025 CIIL–NCERT Wagdi primer's own chart (ten vowels, no ङ ञ छ श ष, plus ळ), with eleven vowels with their matras, the 25 consonants in five rows by where they are said in the mouth, from the throat (क ख ग घ ङ) to the lips (प फ ब भ म), and य र ल व श ष स ह. Each row runs from plain to aspirated to voiced: त t, थ th, द d, ध dh. ङ ञ ष and ऋ ृ turn up mainly in words borrowed from Sanskrit and Hindi.

The 2025 CIIL–NCERT Wagdi primer writes the language name both ways, वागडी without a nukta in its Wagdi title and वागड़ी with the nukta in its Hindi subtitle, so both are published spellings, not merely a typing shortcut; ढ़ works the same way. Like Gujarati, Marathi and the Rajasthani languages, Wagdi has a retroflex l, written ळ. The anusvara ं and candrabindu ँ mark nasal vowels, and the virama ् joins consonants into conjuncts such as क्ष त्र ज्ञ.

How to type Wagdi in Devanagari

There is no separate Wagdi keyboard; people write it with a Hindi one. On Windows, add Hindi under Settings → Time & language → Language & region and pick the InScript keyboard or Hindi Phonetic, which turns sounds typed on an English layout into Devanagari; switch with Win+Space. On a Mac, add Devanagari – QWERTY or Devanagari (InScript) under System Settings → Keyboard → Input Sources. On Android and iPhone, add Hindi in Gboard or the system keyboard; Gboard can also transliterate as you type in Latin letters, so typing vagadi can offer वागडी.

For ड़ type ड and then the nukta ़. Unicode also has a single-code ड़, but it normalizes back to letter + nukta, so text copied from websites usually holds the two-part form; both look the same. In HTML any letter can be written by its code point: व is व, ़ is the nukta, । is the danda । and ₹ is ₹.

Sentences end with the danda ।. When bhajans and lokgeet are written out (the many searches for वागड़ी भजन लिखित में want exactly that), each line ends with । and each verse with the double danda ॥. Devanagari digits ० to ९ are taught in school, but prices and phone numbers are mostly written 0–9: ₹50 rather than ₹५०.

Where the Wagdi language is spoken in Rajasthan

Wagdi takes its name from Vagad (वागड़), the green, hilly south of Rajasthan made up of Dungarpur and Banswara districts, along the Mahi river where Rajasthan meets Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. It is the everyday language there, at home and in song, and its speech carries on across the state borders. CLDR estimates about 2.1 million speakers, all in India; most also speak Hindi and often Gujarati.

Linguists place Wagdi among the Bhil languages of western India, next to Bhili and Bhilali, each with its own collection here; its nearest large neighbours are Gujarati to the west and Mewari and the other Rajasthani languages to the north. Rajasthan exam guides often list वागड़ी among the dialects of Rajasthani and point out its strong Gujarati influence, which is why people search whose sub-dialect (upboli) it is. Marwari, Hadothi and Nimadi are other neighbours with pages here, and the India collection has the flag, rupee and emoji of the country as a whole.