Dogri (Devanagari : डोगरी, Dogra Takri : 𑠖𑠵𑠌𑠤𑠮) is a language spoken primarily in the Jammu Division of northern India, and is also one of the 22 official languages of India. It is also spoken in parts of Himachal Pradesh & Northern Punjab. Dogri is a Western Pahari language. All the Western Pahari languages form a dialect chain from Himachal Pradesh through Jammu and up to Pakistan occupied Kashmir in Pakistan. The dialects spoken in Pakistan occupied Kashmir and Rajouri, Jammu and Kashmir are not classified as Western Pahari; they are classified under Western Punjabi. Sindhi, Lahnda, Punjabi, and Western Pahari form a dialect continuum with no clear-cut boundaries.

However, most people understand Hindustani in North India and Pakistan. Thus, majority of Dogri speakers speak Hindi or Urdu as a second language.

Pronunciation and alphabet guide edit

Dogri is written using either Devanagari script or Persian variant of the Arabic script. It was historically written in Dogra variant of the Takri script.

Devanagari edit

Devanagari writing is often likened to a washing line: a line is drawn above the words, and the letters are hung out to dry below the line. A break in the line indicates a break between words.

Devanagari is classified as an abugida, which means that each character represents a syllable, not a single letter as in English. If the character is a consonant, the implicit vowel following it is assumed to be a, unless modified by special vowel signs added above, below, after or even before the character.

Vowels edit

Each vowel has two forms: an "isolated" form when beginning a word or following another vowel; and another used within a word by use of diacritics called मात्रा mātra. As an example, the forms used with consonants are placed with the letter त्. Note that if there is no vowel sign, the vowel is assumed to be a.

Arranged with the vowels is a consonantal diacritic - the final nasal anusvāra ं ṃ (called अं aṃ). ं is written above a syllable to denote that the vowel has to be pronounced using both nose and mouth.

Consonants edit

Ligatures edit

One of the things which appears daunting to most beginners are the over 100 conjunct characters. These happen when two or more consonants are joined together (with no vowel between). Upon seeing all these, the new learner might gasp, thinking that they will have to memorize each one as if they were Chinese ideograms. The good news is that most of these are quite simple and merely involve dropping the inherent 'a' stem. e.g.:

• त् + म = त्म
• न् + द = न्द
• स् + क = स्क

However there are a few special constructions. For many of these, you may also use the previous method though. e.g.

• त् + त = त्त
• क् + ल = क्ल

Most often odd forms arise, in consonants without a stem. e.g.

• द् + भ = द्भ
• ह् + ल = ह्ल
• ट् + ठ = ट्ठ

Do not worry too much about conjuncts though, you may always suppress the inherent 'a' with a halant.

Another thing which causes problems for new learners is the use of र, which is treated as a vowel as in Hindi it is a "semi-vowel." There are three forms for conjuncting र, and one for ऋ:

1. After a consonant with a stem add a slash from the lower half of the stem (top-down, right-left). e.g.:

• प् + र = प्र
• क् + र = क्र
• ग् + र = ग्र

note:

• श+ र = श्र
• त् + र = त्र.

2. After a vowel and before a consonant र is written as a small hook (a good mnemonic trick is to picture a stylized lower case r). This conjunct cannot occur alone, nor begin a word. Therefore, an example shall be given within the context of words:

• गर्म hot
• सिर्फ़ only
• कर्म karma (In Sanskrit, the last inherent vowel is not written long as it is in Hindi)

If followed by ā, ī, e, o, or ai the "hook" is moved one letter to the right, e.g. the name Marco would be written: मॉर्को.

3. In most letters without stems, the र is joined to the consonant by placing a circumflex-like diacritic below the letter, e.g.:

• द् + र = द्र
• ट् + र + ट्र
• ड् + र = ड्र

4. ऋ, when preceded by a consonant, is written as a small hook resembling the Polish ogonek attached to the stem. Only occurs in Sanskrit loan words, most notably the word Sanskrit itself: संस्कृत.

Finally, र has two special forms when followed by u, and ū respectively:

• रु ru
• रू rū

Avagraha edit

The avagraha ऽ अऽ (usually transliterated with an apostrophe) is a Sanskrit punctuation mark for the elision of a vowel in sandhi: एकोऽयम् eko'yam ( ← ekas + ayam) "this one". It is used to pronounce the vowel a little longer. It is usually found at the end of the words in Dogri : त्राऽ (tra) "shock" .

Nasta'līq edit

Dogri, as mentioned earlier, is also written in a modified Perso-Arabic script called abjad. An abjad does not write short vowels, except at the beginning of a word with alif' serving as a place holder. This can make it frustrating for the learner as the words I and in are both written ميں in Dogri. Dogri is also written in a stylized form of the Arabic script called nast'alīq (نستعليق). Developed in Persia, it is still used for religious and poetic calligraphy in Iran today. The script is mainly used to write Urdu and the Pahari dialects on the west of Standard Dogri. Therefore, if you want to read an Urdu newspaper, street sign, etc. you will have to learn to read nastaliq, which can prove difficult for the beginner. As a result, a simpler style called Naskh (نسخ), as used in other languages using the Arabic abjad will be used for two reasons: 1. to ease the learner into nastaliq, and 2. because Unicode does not support nast'aliq. Vowel diacritics do exist, mostly used to modify the alif vowel holder at the beginning of a word but also used for educational purposes, in the Qur'ān, and for clarifying ambiguous spellings.

The Arabic system of writing is cursive. Most letters have four forms. Others, which do not attach to the letter coming next to them, have only two. These forms are quite self-explanatory: initial, medial, final, and isolated. When written alone letters are written in their isolated form. Example:

• پ + آ + ك + س + ت + آ + ن

when these isolated letters are joined together they look like this:

• پاكستان, Pākistān

Vowels edit

At the beginning of a word alif serves as a placeholder for the diacritical mark. Due to directional issues with unicode the medial/final occurs before the initial example, when they should appear after, i.e., to the left of the letter. A final ﻪ is sometimes used do represent an inherent 'a' at the end of a word (c.f. Arabic usage). When choṭī ye and baṛī ye occur in the middle, both take the ﻴ form. For further reference, in Urdu transliteration ai is ae and au is ao.

Dogra Akkhar (Takri) edit

Vowels edit

The initial form is followed by non-initial form.

Consonants edit

Ligatures edit

Phrase list edit

Some phrases in this phrasebook still need to be translated. If you know anything about this language, you can help by plunging forward and translating a phrase.

The transliterations are based on standard.

Basics edit

Problems edit

Interrogatives edit

Numbers edit

Dogri numerals follow the Hindu-Arabic number system. Both Persian and Devanagari numerals are used in Dogri. Historically, Dogri was written in Dogra Akkhar script which had its own numerals. However, it is acceptable to use Latin numerals are often used when writing the language in any of the scripts.

The numbers in words are given below.

Time edit

Clock time edit

कड़ी दा टैम

Duration edit

Days edit

The Dogri days of the week are derived from Hindi names of week and are a deviation of them. Most of them are named after the planets like mangalwar(Mars day), buddhwar(mercury day) etc but some are different like Saturday-sunday are called Vaar-Taar.

Months edit

There are three main calendar systems followed in the Duggar Belt : the Georgian calendar, the Hindu calendar and the Islamic calendar. The Georgian calendar in used for all administrative purposes. The Hindu calendar and the Islamic calendar are used for religious purposes and mark many official holidays.