Appendix:Hindi nouns

Hindi nouns can have masculine or feminine genders and take on three cases and two numbers.

Gender

There are two genders: masculine and feminine. Often, these are inherited from Sanskrit, with the neuter lost and changed to either of the two. Here are some examples of genders:

• m
  • आदमी (ādmī, “man”)
  • मनुष्य (manuṣya, “person”)
  • सेब (seb, “apple”)
• f
  • वीरता (vīrtā, “bravery”)
  • औरत (aurat, “woman”)
  • बिल्ली (billī, “cat”)

Cases

The three cases are:

• Direct case - usually used as the subject of the sentence
• Oblique case - used when the word isn't the "focus" of the sentence, as in a prepositional phrase
• Vocative case - used when calling people or animals, or even things and abstract entities

Number

The only two numbers are singular and plural. Since nearly all Hindi nouns are countable, constructions like ख़ुशियाँ (xuśiyā̃, “happinesses”) are common and standardized.

Types

There are several classes of Hindi nouns, sorted by gender and stem.

Masculine

ā-stem

Words ending in -ā are quite common. An example is बच्चा (baccā, “boy”):

Declension of बच्चा (masc ā-stem)

	singular	plural
direct	बच्चा baccā	बच्चे bacce
oblique	बच्चे bacce	बच्चों baccõ
vocative	बच्चे bacce	बच्चो bacco

other-stem

Words ending in consonants, or any other vowel, fall in the other category. An example is मनुष्य (manuṣya, “human”):

Declension of मनुष्य (masc cons-stem)

	singular	plural
direct	मनुष्य manuṣya	मनुष्य manuṣya
oblique	मनुष्य manuṣya	मनुष्यों manuṣyõ
vocative	मनुष्य manuṣya	मनुष्यो manuṣyo

Feminine

i, ī, and iyā-stem

Words with this stem are very common. An example is ग़लती (ġaltī, “mistake”):

Declension of ग़लती (fem ī-stem)

	singular	plural
direct	ग़लती ġaltī	ग़लतियाँ ġaltiyā̃
oblique	ग़लती ġaltī	ग़लतियों ġaltiyõ
vocative	ग़लती ġaltī	ग़लतियो ġaltiyo

other-stem

Feminine words ending in other stems are somewhat common. An example is भाषा (bhāṣā, “language”):

Declension of भाषा (fem ā-stem)

	singular	plural
direct	भाषा bhāṣā	भाषाएँ bhāṣāẽ
oblique	भाषा bhāṣā	भाषाओं bhāṣāõ
vocative	भाषा bhāṣā	भाषाओ bhāṣāo