Devanagari Letter Ai

It is usually romanized as ai; its sound depends on the language. Hindi has a long, open e-like sound; classical Sanskrit traditionally has a diphthong, a glide between two vowel sounds. Marathi and Nepali readings have their own values, so a Hindi pronunciation guide does not settle every Devanagari spelling.

Devanagari has a long script lineage: Brahmi, an older Indian writing system, appears in royal inscriptions such as King Ashoka’s edicts (public proclamations) from the 3rd century BCE. Devanagari emerged from the Gupta script, another earlier Indian script, in the 7th century CE and matured around the 13th century CE. These dates trace the script’s development, not a first-use date for ऐ.

Use ऐ at a vowel’s start

Use standalone ऐ when a syllable begins with a vowel. If the consonant क (the Devanagari ka letter) comes first, add the ai matra ै to write कै. The sign is typed after the consonant even though its shape appears over it.

Unicode treats ऐ as a single character. Do not reconstruct it from the visually similar parts ए and े: it may look close, but text comparison and shaping treat the sequence differently.

How do I type ऐ?

Choose the independent-vowel entry, not the ai matra entry.

Phonetic layouts choose by position: type ai at a vowel-start position to get ऐ; after a consonant, it can produce the attached sign. Exact keys depend on the keyboard layout.