A Primer of Modern Standard Hindi

This primer presents a systematic introduction to the structure of Modern Standard Hindi. It is intended to provide the student with a thorough foundation in the grammatical structure of that variety of Hindi that is commonly taught in Indian schools and that is the common vehicle of Publication in Hindi. Although much emphasis is placed on the written language, discussion is also provided on aspects of conversational Hindi. The core of the work contains thirty-one chapters. The first four offer discussions of the linguistic status of Hindi as well as comprehensive descriptions of Hindi phonetics and Devanagari syllabary in which Hindi is written. Chapters 5 through 31, each contains descriptions of fundamental aspects of Hindi grammar. These chapters have extensive translation and grammatical exercises appended to them. The work as a whole introduces a core vocabulary of approximately fifteen hundred entries, incorporating lexical items found on most standard elementary word lists for the language. Supplemental materials in this book include graded reading passages, a guide to further study in Hindi, and Hindi-English glossary. Although the Devanagari syllabary is used throughout the book, Roman transliteration is also provided.