Bhashao: Learn Hindi-Gujarati

About

Har bhaasha ek pul hai. Darek bhaasha ek pul chhe. Every language is a bridge. Hindi and Gujarati are sisters. Both grew out of Sanskrit through the spoken Prakrits, and much of their core vocabulary is one inherited word worn down two ways: hasta became हाथ in one house and હાથ in the other. They are still two languages, and a Hindi speaker cannot simply follow Gujarati. Bhashao shows where the two meet and where they part, one pair of words at a time. WORD PAIRS, ON YOUR DEVICE Each entry sets a Hindi word beside its Gujarati counterpart: both scripts, a romanization, each side’s origin and noun gender, and a plain statement of how the two relate. Inherited together from one Sanskrit word, borrowed together from Persian, Arabic, Portuguese or English, shared through learned Sanskrit, or simply different words for the same thing. The list is a curated starter set, reviewed by hand, that grows with every release. Search either language in either script, offline. THE RULES A HINDI SPEAKER NEEDS Hindi -aa is Gujarati -o: घोड़ा is ઘોડો. Gujarati kept the neuter Hindi lost: पानी is masculine, પાણી is neuter, and कपड़ा becomes કપડું. Gujarati writes no dotted letters, so बाज़ार is બજાર and ख़ुशी is ખુશી. A retroflex ળ stands where Hindi has l: काला, કાળો. Infinitives trade -naa for -vu: खाना, ખાવું. And the verb “is” parts completely: है against છે. ASK ABOUT ANY WORD Type a word the list lacks and Bhashao builds the same entry for it: both scripts, both origins, and whether the two sides connect. These answers are AI-generated, labeled on screen, each with a control to flag anything wrong. YOUR OWN TUTOR Write Gujarati in Roman letters, in Gujarati script or in Devanagari, and a patient tutor corrects the sentence, explains the fix in plain English, translates, and answers you. Replies come in Roman, Gujarati or Devanagari, so a Hindi reader can follow Gujarati before learning its script. It asks consent first; conversations stay on your device. WHAT THAT SONG IS ACTUALLY SAYING Type a garba, a bhajan or a film song, Gujarati or Hindi, and get its language taken apart: where the words come from, what the poetry is doing, and the film, composer and lyricist where known. Original commentary only; lyrics never reproduced. HONEST ABOUT WHAT IS NOT KNOWN A wrong etymology is worse than an honest “scholars disagree,” so an unsettled origin is labeled unsettled. काग़ज़ and કાગળ are one Persian word, but no one has settled why the Gujarati ends in ળ, and the entry says so. GENDER AND THE TWO SCRIPTS Gujarati has three genders to Hindi’s two, so each side of an entry carries its own. Devanagari and the Gujarati script are close cousins: the same skeleton with the headline removed. The chart sets 57 rows of letters and marks side by side with the 14 vowel signs and 11 conjuncts, and marks where the match breaks: the seven dotted letters Gujarati never adopted, and ળ, which Hindi never writes. Three practice modes teach you to read the other script. A WORD A DAY, FIVE ESSAYS, A QUIZ One word from the list each morning, with an optional 9 a.m. notification. Five essays: why the two are sisters and not strangers, how the line came off the top of the letters, the sound rules that bend घोड़ा into ઘોડો, why the bazaar lost its z, and the key that came by sea. Each reads itself aloud. Plus eight-question quizzes. No account. No ads. No tracking. The interface runs in English, हिन्दी or ગુજરાતી, light or dark; entries stay in English. The word list, the chart, the practice, the quiz, the daily word and the essays work in airplane mode. Pronounce buttons play a voice from our server and fall back to the voices on your device. Four more things need a connection, only when you ask: a word beyond the list, the tutor, song breakdowns, and reading an essay aloud. Bhashao, ભાષાઓ, is Gujarati for “languages”: the plural of bhaasha, a Sanskrit word both languages use unchanged, one of the first pairs in the list.