Hindi is the world's third most commonly used language after Chinese and English. It is a modern Indo-European language spoken as a first or second language by almost a half billion people in India, as well as other parts of Asia, Africa, the Americas, Europe, and Oceania.

This book's primary aim is to describe Hindi sounds and their pattern. Little previous knowledge of phonology is assumed. The book is comprehensive and detailed. Traditional and current concepts and technical terms are explained. The various chapters discuss the historical and sociological background of Hindi, the nature of Hindi lexicon both native and borrowed, the conventions of the Devanagari symbols (since in the text examples are also transcribed in the Devanagari), the articulation of Hindi sounds and their characterization in terms of distinctive features, the concept of phonemes, the significant allophones of Hindi, the natural classes of Hindi sounds, Hindi syllables and their structure, and Hindi stress.

The author, a native speaker of Hindi, is professor of linguistics at Georgetown University. He has published extensively in the areas of anthropology, linguistics, and literature.

2nd printing.