Learn some common noun suffixes in Hindi
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Intro |
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| Alisha: What are some noun suffixes in Hindi? |
| Shakti: And why are they useful to know? |
| Alisha: At HindiPod101.com, we hear these questions often. In this scenario, Ben Lee hears a new word that sounds familiar, but he isn't sure about the meaning. He asks his friend, |
| "What does 'goodness' mean?" |
| बेन: "अच्छाई" का क्या मतलब होता है? ("acchaaii" kaa kyaa maTaLab hoTaa hai?) |
| Dialogue |
| बेन: "अच्छाई" का क्या मतलब होता है? ("acchaaii" kaa kyaa maTaLab hoTaa hai?) |
| ख़ुशबू: अच्छाई का मतलब होता है "नेक दिल होना"। (acchaaii ka maTaLab hoTaa hai "Nek DiL hoNaa.") |
| Alisha: Once more with the English translation. |
| बेन: "अच्छाई" का क्या मतलब होता है? ("acchaaii" kaa kyaa maTaLab hoTaa hai?) |
| Alisha: "What does 'goodness' mean?" |
| ख़ुशबू: अच्छाई का मतलब होता है "नेक दिल होना"। (acchaaii ka maTaLab hoTaa hai "Nek DiL hoNaa.") |
| Alisha: "It means 'having a good heart'." |
Lesson focus |
| Alisha: In this lesson, you will be learning some noun suffixes in Hindi and why they are useful to know. The Hindi word for suffix is: |
| Shakti: प्रत्यय (praTyay) |
| Alisha: and we will soon look at some examples of suffixes that form nouns in Hindi when attached to a root word. However, before we do that, let's quickly discuss what a suffix is. |
| A suffix is a kind of affix and an affix is a small element of language that is attached to a root word in order to modify the meaning of that word. A suffix, specifically, gets added to the end of the root word. A simple suffix that we find in English is "-ness."It is often attached to a root word in order to create an abstract noun such as "happiness." In this case, the root word is, of course, "happy." |
| It's important to note that Hindi is a subject-object-verb language, whereas English is a subject-verb-object language. This is the basic grammatical structure of most Hindi sentences, but Hindi word order in sentences is a lot more flexible than English word order. For this reason, it's not always clear which noun is the subject and which the object, for instance—at least not by the position of the word in the sentence. This is where suffixes come in. Suffixes attached to root words can, for instance, tell us if the resulting noun is the subject or the object of the sentence. This is one of the reasons it's important to know the noun suffixes in Hindi. |
| In this lesson, we will be looking at suffixes which result in nouns, when attached to a root word. |
| In Hindi language, three types of suffixes are used. The first one is: |
| Shakti: संस्कृत प्रत्यय (SanSkriT praTyay) |
| Alisha: which is derived from Sanskrit grammar. A common suffix of this type is |
| Shakti: ईय (iiy) |
| Alisha: If we add to this suffix to the Hindi word for "India" which is |
| Shakti: भारत (bhaaraT) |
| Alisha: we get the word for "Indian," which is |
| Shakti: भारतीय (bhaarTiiy) |
| Alisha: The second one is: |
| Shakti: विदेशी भाषा प्रत्यय (viDesii bhaasaa praTyay) |
| Alisha: That is, these are derived from foreign or other languages like Persian or Urdu. Here is an example of this type of suffix: |
| Shakti: गर (gar) |
| Alisha: If we add this suffix to the Hindi word for "magic," which is |
| Shakti: जादू (jaaDuu) |
| Alisha: We get the word for "magician," which is |
| Shakti: जादूगर (jaaDuugar) |
| Alisha: Now, let's take a look at the third and main form Hindi suffixes, which is |
| Shakti: हिंदी प्रत्यय (hiNDii praTyay) |
| Alisha: which is derived from Hindi. There are two types: |
| Shakti: कृत प्रत्यय (kriT praTyay) |
| Alisha: These suffixes are added at the end of root verbs and the words formed are known as |
| Shakti: कृदंत (kriDaNT) |
| Alisha: The second type of suffix is: |
| Shakti: तद्धित प्रत्यय (TaDDHiT praTayay) |
| Alisha: These suffixes are added at the end of nouns, pronouns and adjectives, and the words formed are called |
| Shakti: तद्धितांत (TaDDHiTaaNT) |
| Alisha: We will be taking a look at the forms of the first type of Hindi suffix, that is, |
| Shakti: कृत प्रत्यय (kriT praTyay) |
| Alisha: To begin with, let's look at some examples of suffixes that tell us that the resulting noun is the subject of the verb. The subject of the verb is the "doer" of the action that the verb denotes. In Hindi, suffixes that tell us which noun is the subject are called: |
| Shakti: कृतवाचक प्रत्यय (kriTavaacak praTyay) |
| Alisha: This is the first and most important of the primary suffix categories that we will be looking at. As mentioned before, for the purposes of this lesson, we are only interested in those suffixes in this category that form nouns. You will see that they all convey the meaning, roughly, of "one who does" to the root word they are modifying. The resulting noun always describes a person who does the thing that the root word refers to. For instance, if the root word is "forgotten" |
| Shakti: भूल (bhul) |
| Alisha: and we add the suffix |
| Shakti: अक्कड़ (akkad) |
| Alisha: to it, we can form the word |
| Shakti: भुलक्कड़ (bhuLakkad) |
| Alisha: which means "one who forgets." Pretty simple, right? Here's another one. This time, let's take the Hindi word for "swim" |
| Shakti: तैर (Tair) |
| Alisha: and attach to it the suffix |
| Shakti: आक (aak) |
| Alisha: resulting in the word |
| Shakti: तैराक (Tairaak) |
| Alisha: I'm pretty sure you will have guessed by now what the meaning of this word is. Yes, it means, "one who swims" or the "swimmer." Now, let's try a final one. This suffix is often Anglicized into "wallah." If you are familiar with some Hindi words that have been Anglicized, you might have heard of a "chaiwallah" for instance. This means "tea seller," and it is composed of the root word: |
| Shakti: चाय (caay) |
| Alisha: meaning "tea," and the suffix we've already discussed, which is |
| Shakti: वाला (vaaLa) |
| Alisha: The resulting word is, of course, |
| Shakti: चायवाला (caayavaaLaa) |
| Alisha: Let's quickly hear those suffixes again before we learn about suffixes that tell us that the noun is the object of the verb. Here they are, in the order that you learned them: |
| Shakti: अक्कड़ (akkad), [pause] आक (aak), [pause] वाला (vaaLa) |
| Alisha: And now, three suffixes that tell you when the noun is the object of the verb. The object of the verb is the "receiver" of the action that the verb refers to. Suffixes that tell us which noun is the object can be seen as "passive suffixes." This is the second category of suffixes. In Hindi, they are called: |
| Shakti: कर्मवाचक कृत प्रत्यय (karmavaacak kriT praTyay) |
| Alisha: If we take the root word |
| Shakti: खेल (kheL) |
| Alisha: which means "game" and attach to it the suffix |
| Shakti: औना (aauNa), |
| Alisha: we form the word, |
| Shakti: खिलौना (khiLauNaa) |
| Alisha: which means "toy." Similarly, the suffix |
| Shakti: नी (Nii) |
| Alisha: when attached to the root word |
| Shakti: ओढ़ (odh) |
| Alisha: which means "to drape" or "cover" then forms the word "stole" or a piece of cloth which you will often find Indian women wrapping around their shoulders or head |
| Shakti: ओढ़नी (odhaNii) |
| Alisha: The third suffix we will look at in this category is |
| Shakti: ना (na) |
| Alisha: Like the others, when this suffix is attached to a root word, it also results in a noun that is the object of the verb in a sentence. If, for instance, we attach it to the Hindi word for "eat," which is |
| Shakti: खा (kha) , |
| Alisha: we then form the noun |
| Shakti: खाना (khaaNa) |
| Alisha: which means "food." Before we move on to the third category of primary suffixes in Hindi, let's quickly listen to these three suffixes one more time, just to help you remember them: |
| Shakti: औना (aauna), [pause] नी (nī), [pause] ना (na). |
| Alisha: Now, you have learned how to tell when a noun is the subject of the verb and when it is the object of the verb. Sometimes suffixes are used to form abstract nouns as well. Abstract nouns are ones like "happiness," which we discussed earlier. In Hindi, the abstract suffix is called: |
| Shakti: भाववाचक कृत प्रत्यय (bhaavavaacak kriT praTyay) |
| Alisha: This is the third category of primary suffixes that we will learn about in this lesson. The first suffix in this group is |
| Shakti: आन (aaN). |
| Alisha: We can attach it to a word like |
| Shakti: उड़ (ud) |
| Alisha: which means "fly," as in an airplane that flies. The resulting abstract noun is "flight" or |
| Shakti: उड़ान (udaaN). |
| Alisha: The second suffix that we will learn about in this category is |
| Shakti: आई (aai) |
| Alisha: One can attach it to a root word like "write" or |
| Shakti: लिख (Likh) |
| Alisha: to form an abstract noun meaning, "writing": |
| Shakti: लिखाई (Likhaaii) |
| Alisha: And, speaking of writing, you might experience some nervousness when asked to write Hindi. "Nervousness" is an abstract noun too and it can be formed in Hindi by adding the suffix |
| Shakti: आहट (aahat) |
| Alisha: to the root word |
| Shakti: घबरा (ghabaraa), |
| Alisha: resulting in the abstract noun for "nervousness," which is |
| Shakti: घबराहट (ghabaraahat). |
| Alisha: Before we proceed to learning about instrumental case suffixes, let's quickly hear these last three suffixes one more time: |
| Shakti: आन (aaN), [pause] आई (aaii), [pause] आहट (aahat). |
| Alisha: There are several more suffixes in the category of abstract nouns, and it would be a good idea to research these on your own. For this lesson, we will stop at the three we have now learned about and continue to the study of "instrumental case suffixes" or |
| Shakti: करणवाचक कृत प्रत्यय (karanavaacak kriT praTyay) |
| Alisha: These are suffixes that form nouns which tell us how something is achieved. The thing that is achieved is carried out by the subject of the sentence. As always, an example is the best way to explain this. If we take, for instance, the Hindi suffix |
| Shakti: ई (ii) |
| Alisha: we can attach it to a word such as |
| Shakti: खेत (kheT) |
| Alisha: which means "farm."The result of this combination is the word |
| Shakti: खेती (kheTii) |
| Alisha: which means "farming." Here, the principles discussed earlier are quite clear. The word "farming" tells us how a "farm" is built—a farm is built by farming it. In the same way, the word |
| Shakti: ढक्कन (dhakkaN) |
| Alisha: which means, "a cover" or "a covering" tells us how the verb meaning "cover" is achieved. In Hindi, the verb for "cover" is |
| Shakti: ढक (dhak) |
| Alisha: and thus, by elimination, you can tell that the suffix used in this case was |
| Shakti: अन (aN) |
| Alisha: So, the two suffixes that indicate that the noun is the instrument of the verb are, once again: |
| Shakti: ई (ii), [pause] अन (aN) |
| Alisha: Now, let's take a look at the fifth form of primary suffixes in Hindi. This is |
| Shakti: गुणवाचक कृत प्रत्यय (gunavaacak kriT praTyay) |
| Alisha: These suffixes help identify a specific quality of an object or person. For example, when you take the suffix |
| Shakti: आ (aa) |
| Alisha: and add it to the Hindi word for "thirst," which is |
| Shakti: प्यास (pyaaS), |
| Alisha: you get the word "thirsty" |
| Shakti: प्यासा (pyaaSaa) |
| Practice Section |
| Alisha: Let's review. Respond to the prompts by speaking aloud. Then, repeat after Shakti focusing on pronunciation. |
| Do you remember how to say "What does 'goodness' mean?" |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Shakti as Ben: "अच्छाई" का क्या मतलब होता है? ("acchaaii" kaa kyaa maTaLab hoTaa hai?) |
| Alisha: Listen again and repeat. |
| Shakti as Ben: "अच्छाई" का क्या मतलब होता है? ("acchaaii" kaa kyaa maTaLab hoTaa hai?) |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Shakti as Ben: "अच्छाई" का क्या मतलब होता है? ("acchaaii" kaa kyaa maTaLab hoTaa hai?) |
| Alisha: And do you remember how Khushbu says "It means 'having a good heart'?" |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Shakti as Khushbu: अच्छाई का मतलब होता है "नेक दिल होना"। (acchaaii ka maTaLab hoTaa hai "Nek DiL hoNaa.") |
| Alisha: Listen again and repeat. |
| Shakti as Khushbu: अच्छाई का मतलब होता है "नेक दिल होना"। (acchaaii ka maTaLab hoTaa hai "Nek DiL hoNaa.") |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Shakti as Khushbu: अच्छाई का मतलब होता है "नेक दिल होना"। (acchaaii ka maTaLab hoTaa hai "Nek DiL hoNaa.") |
| Cultural Insight |
| There are many different Hindi suffixes and types and there is no way everything can be included in one lesson. Therefore, in this lesson, we only focused on the main noun suffixes in Hindi. |
Outro |
| Alisha: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Shakti: फिर मिलेंगे! (phir miLenge!) |
| Alisha: See you soon! |
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