Nouns Are The Naan of Hindi

You’re probably wondering what does “nouns are the naan of Hindi mean?” I’m so glad you asked! When it comes to Indian cuisine, naan is ubiquitous. Everyone knows what it is. Most people love it and meals revolve around it.

Naan is the main attraction and the aloo gobi, daal, chawal, malai kofta, palak paneer, and raita complement it. Who’s getting hungry?

What will go well with garlic naan? How do make sure the naan doesn’t get cold and waxy at the wedding buffet dinner? These are the questions one hears and plans for.

Fun Facts/Sort-of-Tangent. In fact did you know that at most Indian weddings (outside of India) the caterer prepares pretty much everything in advance at their own restaurant except the naan? The naan is prepared on-site at the wedding venue.

Venues such as Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt didn’t originally allow what is now known as outside catering (where the Indian caterer makes the food vs. provided by the venue) thus these major hotel brands couldn’t book Indian weddings. Indian food – err good Indian food – was a dealbreaker. The community would opt for Indian restaurant banquet halls vs. nicer hotels that didn’t allow outside catering. Realizing that Indian weddings are bank, the hotel brands started opening their minds and found solutions to make it work.

Here in southern California, in the 90s, it started with a handful of more forward-thinking venues and now it’s difficult to find a venue that doesn’t allow outside catering.

So what does naan have to do with nouns? Well, just as naan is the superstar of Indian cuisine, nouns are the superstars of Hindi.

The Noun(s) Determine The Form Of Other Words In The Sentence

The noun determines the correct form of the other words in the sentence. Here’s a simple example and then I’ll explain.

If you wanted to say, “My car is red” in Hindi, which word do you use for “my”?

• mera
• meri
• mere

Common Misconception About Hindi

This is where you’re probably like, ummm, we should call Obvious Ooloo….because duh, if the speaker is female she’d say “meri” and if the speaker is male then he’d say “mera”.

Nope. That’s wrong.

Regardless of the gender of the speaker, the correct sentence is, “Meri gaadi laal hain.” Wait what? So no matter whether the speaker is a dude or a lady, the sentence is the same? Yes. But how can that be? Because…nouns are the naan of Hindi.

The noun determines the inflection of all of the other words in the sentence.

What’s Inflection?

Inflection is a fancy word that means a change in the form of a word. We already saw an example of this. There are 3 ways to say “my” in Hindi:

• mera
• meri
• mere

All 3 are very similar but the ending of each word changed – inflected – giving each a unique and different meaning. Which one to use is determined by the naan of the sentence…the noun to which the “my” belongs to; NOT whether the speaker is male or female. In this case the noun is “car”. Therefore the gender of “car” determines which “my” to use: mera, meri, or mere.

Did she just say, “the gender of the car”? Yep. Keep reading and it’ll all come together.

If you haven’t guessed yet:

Hindi is a highly inflectional language.

In Hindi, inflection can occur based on several different things: tense (present, past future etc.), gender, based, age as well as quantity.

For native English speakers this can be a tough concept to grasp because English does not have a lot of inflection. The most common case of inflection in English is making a noun go from singular to plural.

How Nouns Work in Hindi

Let’s get back to the whole “gender of the car” thing. You probably already know that a noun is a person, place, thing, animal or idea. That means that nouns are all around us. The glasses you are wearing (thing) – noun. Your Nintendo Switch (thing) – noun. The Taj Mahal (place) – noun. Your pet peacock (animal) – noun. Your Nani or Dadi (person) – noun. But this is where the similarities between nouns in English and nouns in Hindi end.

In Hindi, every noun has been pre-assigned a category. There are two categories:

• pul
• stri

Pul refers to the male category and stri refers to the female category. This is easier to understand when referring to people. For example, Mom, Nani, Dadi, Masi, your sister, and Bua would be in the stri category. Your Dad, Dadu, Chachu, Mamu, Masu, and brother would be in the pul category.

But what about inanimate objects? What category would your teddy bear go in? Or the microwave in your kitchen, or a spoon? There’s no such thing as a male or female microwave or a male or female spoon.

Well guess what, in Hindi these items and everything else are defined as either pul or stri. This does NOT mean that there is such a thing as a male spoon or a female spoon, but it means that the Hindi word for the item has been assigned into either the pul or stri category. So it is actually helpful to ask: is microwave Mr. or Mrs.? Is spoon Mr. or Mrs.?

This may seem silly and odd but this is what makes the world wonderful. Every language is unique; and languages teach us about different countries and cultures. Speaking of languages and cultures there are lots of languages that have inflection.

Spanish: el niño and la niña (the boy | the girl) = gender inflection
German: meine Schwester and meine Schwestern (my sister | my sisters) = quantity inflection

These are just a couple of examples of languages that feature inflection.

Why Is This Important?

For anyone learning Hindi, it’s important to understand how nouns work because without this one cannot properly speak Hindi. Have you ever wondered why sometimes one object is bada (big) and another object is badee (big)?

Bada and badee, both mean big so how do you know which one to use? Is it bada spoon or badee spoon? In this case the noun category for “spoon” determines which adjective to use.

Spoon is chamach. Chamach is a pul word. Therefore, bada chamach.

Noun(s) Have A Direct Relationship With Adjectives and Pronouns

So far we have gone through 2 examples: “My car is red” and “big spoon”.

In the example of “My car is red” we said that the possessive pronoun “my” takes the form “meri” because car = gaadi = stri noun.

In the example of “big spoon” the adjective bada (big) stays in its pul form because chamach is a singular pul noun. In other words bada didn’t inflect to badi or bade. If it was “big spoons” then it would become “bade chamach” because there are more than 1 and chamach is still a pul noun.

Now, inflection only applies to adjectives and possessive pronouns that end with an “a” sound. For example the word heavy in Hindi = bhari. It ends with an “ee” sound. If I was describing a heavy spoon, I wouldn’t inflect bhaari to bhaara. It would still be “bhaari chamach”.

I know, this is a lot. But re-read this article a few times (and keep reading til the end) and it will make sense. I promise.

There’s a lot to Hindi grammar, more than I can explain here and if you’d like to learn to speak Hindi try one of my classes and/or refer to the videos on our YouTube channel.

How do we say “big peacock”? Which is correct? Bada, badee or baday?
Peacock = mohr = pul noun, therefore, “mohr bada hai”.

How To Identify A Noun’s Category

Now that your mind is blown realizing that this is a thing in Hindi, let’s suss out how you can suss out whether a noun is pul (male) or stri (female). There are a couple of rules of thumb. They’re not perfect but they will help.

Hindi Noun Rule 1

If the Hindi word for the noun ends with an “a” sound, then the noun is pul.

Hindi Noun Rule 2

If the Hindi word for the noun ends with an “ee” sound, then the noun is stri.

Hindi Noun Rule 3

What if the noun doesn’t end in “a” or “ee”? Then, you’re on your own. jkjkjk…kind of. Seriously though, this is where it gets tricky. And honestly, I have learned by:

1. trial and error
2. active listening during Hindi shows, movies, others are speaking

Hindi Noun Rule 4

Consider the essence of the noun. For example, in Hindi a dress is called “poshaak”. It doesn’t end with “a” nor “ee” so what do we do? How do we know if it’s a pul or a stri noun? Well, typically who wears dresses: males or females? Females. So a good guess in this case is that poshaak is a stri noun.

Therefore, green dress would be haree poshaak vs. hara poshaak.

Believe me, I am fully aware of how un-woke this seems, but I’m just a lady tryin’ to help all you homies out – I didn’t make the rules.

BUT at the same time, look at the word “lehenga”. A lehenga is a traditional women’s outfit consisting of a top, skirt and shawl. We’d expect it to be a stri word even though it ends with an “a” sound. But nope, it’s a pul noun.

The same goes for “dupatta”.

I realize I seem like I’m negating Rule #4 but I still stand by it because notice that “lehenga” and “dupatta” both end with an “a” sound. So that “a” sound supersedes Rule #4.

Hindi Noun Rule 5

When all of the above fail, go with pul. That’s what I do. But I make it a point to look it up later.

Watch Bollywood and Shows

I also want to reemphasize how helpful ACTIVE LISTENING while watching Hindi movies and shows is. If you can unstick your brain from all the dishoom and drama, you will be amazed by what you observe and pick up. The same applies for songs but in shows you get conversation, facial expressions and tones which are helpful for building understanding.

Exceptions To The Rules

Of course, there are exceptions to these noun rules. I tell my students that Hindi was created by the Hindi Fairies. And that said Fairies knew desi’s are smart. So they were like, “these peeps need more of a challenge, let’s make life complicated for them”. Enter exasperating exceptions:

Paani (water) is a pul word. (ends with an “ee” sound but nope it’s pul)

Haathi (elephant) is a pul word. (another one that ends with an “ee” sound but nope it’s pul)

Aadmi (man) is a pul word. Seriously? The Hindi word for man has a stri ending?!? #HindiFairies. It’s a pul word.

Bhasha (language) is a stri word.

Groups of Nouns That Are Pul

There are some groups of nouns that are defined as either pul or stri, regardless of the ending sound of the word. I have found that like anything, memorizing them comes with practice. The noun categories below are pul.

Groups of Nouns That Are Stri

Likewise there are groups of nouns that are defined as stri. Those groups are below.

Animals

Let’s talk about animals because this can be confusing and warrants special attention. Why? Because there are male and female animals. Naturally students will want to put female cat in the stri category and a male cat in the pul category. But that’s not the way it works.

What matters is the Hindi word for that animal and which category that word is in. For example cat = billi. It ends with an “ee” sound therefore it is a stri word. So if I wanted to say the sentence “the cat is big”. It would be, “billi badee hai”. That’s regardless of whether the cat referred to in the sentence is male or female. Why? Because billi is a stri word.

Similarly dog = kootha = pul noun. The dog is big = kootha bada hai.

In songs, poems or when someone wants to make a specific point you’ll see words such as billa vs. billi or a sher (male lion) vs. sherni (female lion) but, billa and sherni, are not how they are referred to in everyday conversational Hindi.

And if you think about it, the category based on the word vs. the actual animal makes sense. When you’re walking in your neighborhood and see people walking their dog can you tell which ones are male or female? No. When you go to the zoo or aquarium can you tell whether a monkey, elephant or shark is male or female? No.

The Hindi word for the animal and which noun category it is in, are the determinants, NOT whether the animal itself is male or female.

Summary and Take Aways

We talked about the importance of nouns and how they are like the naan of Hindi because the inflection of the other words on the sentence is determined by the noun’s category – pul or stri.

We defined what the two noun categories are: pul (male) and stri (female). And every noun has been pre-placed into one of these two categories and it’s up to us to know which. We discussed a couple rules to help with that.

We also addressed what inflection is – when the form of a word changes such as bada and badi or ladka and ladki. Hindi is a highly inflectional language.

Understanding and grasping all of this, understandably, takes time as this grammar structure doesn’t in English.

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About Samta Aunty

Growing up in Orange County, California, I learned Hindi and Indian culture from my parents and the community. At one point, in addition to understanding Hindi, I developed an interest in speaking, and my parents encouraged me.

Friday night was date-night with my mom. We would eat parathas and watch Hindi movies together. I asked lots of questions and switched to speaking in Hindi at home.

That day, in high school, when my Chachi in Delhi said, “Tumhari Hindi bahut achi hain” is one of my favorite memories.

I started Virtual PreSkool to pay it forward. It’s fulfilling when a student comes to class and excitedly shares that they successfully connected with grandparents/relatives or when they were in India and knew how to ask for directions.

After completing undergrad at UC Irvine, I did my MBA at the USC Marshall School of Business. I’ve been an entrepreneur my entire career.

When I’m not teaching and creating lessons, I’m usually exercising, cooking vegan meals, or traveling. I love writing about travel on my blog PassportPages.

Dhanyavaad!