Learn more about Gujarati language
|Spoken in:||India, South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Pakistan, USA, UK, Australia, Fiji, Canada|
|Total speakers:||46 million|
|Language family:|| Indo-European|
|Writing system:||Gujarati script|
|Official language of:||Gujarat (India)|
|Regulated by:||Language Academy|
Gujarātī is an Indo-Aryan language, part of the greater Indo-European language family. It is one of the 22 official languages and 14 regional languages of India, and one of the minority languages of neighboring Pakistan. There are about 46 million speakers of Gujarati worldwide, making it the 23rd most spoken language in the world. Of these, roughly 45.5 million reside in India, 150,000 in Uganda, 250,000 in Tanzania, 50,000 in Kenya and roughly 100,000 in Pakistan. Gujarati is the chief language of India's Gujarat state, as well as the adjacent union territories of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli. It is also the language of the large Gujarati community in Mumbai, India. A considerable population of Gujarati speakers exists in North America and the United Kingdom as well. Gujarati was the first language of Mohandas K. Gandhi, the "father of India", Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the "father of Pakistan" and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the "iron man of India".
The history of the language can be traced back to 12th century CE. A formal grammar of the precursor of this language was written by Jain monk and eminent scholar Hemachandra-charya in the reign of Rajput king Siddharaj Jayasinh of Anhilwara (Patan). This was referred to as an Apabhransa grammar, signifying a "corrupted" form of the formal languages of the time, Sanskrit and Ardhamagadhi Prakrit. The earliest literature in the language survives in oral tradition and can be traced to the Krishna devotee and great egalitarian Narsinh Mehta. The story of Narsinh Mehta himself was composed in the 17th century as a long narrative ballad by Premananda, accorded the title mahakavi or "great poet" by modern historians of the language. Other than this, a large number of poets flourished during what is now characterised as the bhakti ("devotional") movement in Hinduism, a movement of the masses to liberate the religion from entrenched priesthood.
Premananda was a vyakhyan-kar, or traveling storyteller, who narrated his subject in song and then perhaps elaborated on the lines in prose. His style was so fluent that his long poems, running into hundreds of lines, were nonetheless memorised by the people and are still sung today. In this sense, the oral tradition of the much more ancient Vedas was clearly continuing in India till late. Premananda's famous poetic stories deal with epic themes couched in stories of mythical kings, and the Puranas. He also wrote a drama based on Narasinh Mehta's life capturing his simplicity and his disregard for worldly divisions of caste and class.
Modern exploration into Gujarat and its language is credited to British administrator Alexander Kinloch Forbes. During the nineteenth century he explored much of the previous thousand years of the history of the land and compiled a large number of manuscripts. Farbas Gujarati Sabha, the learned body devoted to the Gujarati language, is named after him, with headquarters in Mumbai.
 Geographic distribution
 Official status
Gujarati is officially recognized in the state of Gujarat, India.
As with most languages, Gujarati comes in numerous regional dialects that differ in pronunciation, vocabulary, and/or grammar. Some dialects have many Arabic and Persian borrowings, while others, such as the southern dialects, take more from Portuguese and English, while others take more from Hindi.
Selected dialects of Gujarati are listed below along with subdivisions.
- Standard Gujarati
- Saurashtra Standard
- Bombay Gujarati
- Ahmedabad city
- Eastern Broach Gujarati
- Persian-influenced Gujarati
- East African Gujarati
 Closely related languages
Kutchi, also known as Khojki, is often referred to as a dialect of Gujarati, but most linguists consider it closer to Sindhi. There are many regional dialects within the language of gujarati. For instance people from Mahesana district speak much differently than Ahmedabadis.
Gujarati possesses no definite or indefinite articles. The word "one" (એક ek) can sometimes be used for 'a'. Gujarati does have demonstratives, proximal and distal. An unusual feature of Gujarati, as compared to other Indo-European languages, is that it displays the inclusive and exclusive we feature, that is common to the Dravidian languages.
This section will overview the grammar of standard Gujarati. It will be written in Gujarati script, along with according romanizations.
 Word Order
The word order of Gujarati is SOV. Though since Gujarati has more of an agglutinative character, there is considerable flexibility in word order, such that SVO can be used for stylistic or complex constructions, and OVS for short replies. OSV is also acceptable for a set of "passive-type" verbs. Personal pronouns can also be omitted in conversational speech and instead inferred from context as well as through unique verbal conjugations that render the pronouns redundant.
However to say that Gujarati's word order is SOV compared to English's SVO does not relay enough information. A better summation would be that like English, Gujarati starts with S, but all that follows is reversed. Thus with an order of A verbs and B objects the English formation of (S)(V1...VA)(O1...OB) would be (S)(OB...O1)(VA...V1) in Gujarati.
|SVO → SOV||He is a teacher||એ શિક્ષક છે e śikṣak che||He (a) teacher is|
|SV1V2 → SV2V1||We were running||આપણે દોડતા હાતા āpṇe doḍtā hatā||We running were|
|SV1V2O1O2 → SO2O1V2V1||They're phoning me||તેઓ મને ફોન કેરે છે teo mane fon kere che||They me phone doing are|
|SV1V2V3O1O2 → SO2O1V3V2V1||I shall be going to give a letter to her||હું એને કાગળ આપવા જતો હઈશ huṃ ene kāgaḷ āpvā jato haīś||I to her (a) letter to give going shall be|
 Gender and number
Gujarati has three genders and two numbers possessed by its nouns. They are masculine (પુલ્લિંગ pulliṃg), neuter (નપુંસકલિંગ napuṃsakliṃg), feminine (સ્ત્રીલિંગ strīliṃg), singular (એકવચન ekvacan), and plural (બહુવચન bahuvacan).
As such, with three genders and two numbers, there are five gender markers and two number markers in Gujarati. Gender and number markers may find themselves on the ends of nouns, and gender (but not number) markers may find themselves on the end of adjectives, verbs, adverbs, possessives, and pronouns that agree with those nouns.
- Number markers
- ∅ Singular
- ઓ o Plural
- Gender markers
- ઈ i Feminine
- ઓ o Masculine singular
- ઉં uṃ Neuter singular
- આ ā Masculine plural
- આં āṃ Neuter plural
Non-nouns that have a gender marker, made for agreeing with the noun, are called 'variable'. They are marked by default as neuter singular, ઉં, when there is nothing there for them to agree with. Non-nouns without gender markers, ending in consonants, are called 'invariable'.
Honourables are plural. Honourable and plural feminine animates take આં āṃ instead of ઈ i.
 Common Nouns
Common nouns come in the form of Noun Stem + (Gender marker) + (Number marker) + Case Marker.
Dealing with gender and number markers first, in the case markerless nominative case, we can say that nouns can have...
- Both GM and NM: સંદેશો, સંદેશાઓ (message, messages)
- Only the NM: આંખો (eyes)
- Only the GM: વીજળી (electricity)
- Neither: ઘાસ (grass), પાણી (water)
Since masculine and neuter already have distinct gender markers for the plural form, the pluralizing ઓ is often dropped in the direct case.
No other words can have a gender marker except for common nouns.
- Case Markers
- ∅ Nominative
- ને Accusative / Dative (1)
- એ Ergative, Locative, Accusative / Dative (2)
- નું Genitive
Out of the direct case, when being appended with a marker, the noun takes the oblique form, which is made by using the plural form of the gender marker.
 Becoming a Noun
Certain non-noun words can become nouns if isolated. In the French language, for example, vieux is an adjective for old. However, when not attached to a noun, it becomes a noun itself, old one. The similar follows in Gujarati.
For example, possessive determiners can become pronouns if left alone.
- મારી ચોપડી છે mārī copḍī che / It's my book
- ચોપડી મારી છે copḍī mārī che / The book is mine
|Case||Marker||First Person||Second Person||Third Person|
|Singular||Plural||Singular + Informal||Plural / Formal||Proximal||Distal|
|Nominative||∅||હું huṃ||આપણે āpṇe||અમે ame||તું tuṃ||તમે tame||આ ā||તે te||તેઓ teo|
|Accusative / Dative (1)||ને ne||મને mane||આપણને āpṇne||અમને amne||તને tane||તમને tamne||આને āne||આમને āmne||તેને tene||તેઓને teone, તેમને temne|
|Accusative / Dative (2)||એ e||મારે māre||આપણે āpṇe||અમારે amāre||તારે tāre||તમારે tamāre||આણે āṇe||આમણે āmṇe||તેણે teṇe||તેઓએ teoe, તેમણે temṇe|
|Ergative||મેં meṃ||અમે ame||તેં teṃ||તમે tame|
|Genitive||નું nuṃ||મારું māruṃ||આપણું āpṇuṃ||અમારું amāruṃ||તારું tāruṃ||તમારું tamāruṃ||આનું ānuṃ||આમનું āmnuṃ||તેનું tenuṃ||તેઓનું teonuṃ, તેમનું temnuṃ|
The third person (last three columns) works differently than in English and must be explained. Both આ and તે are demonstrative pronouns, meaning this/these (proximal) and that/those (distal). Therefore, આ ગાડીઓ is these cars and તે બિલાડી is that cat, and so on. When આ and તે are not put before specific nouns, they become this/these one(s) and that/those one(s). In this way they can move from being demonstrative pronouns to being personal pronouns. "That one" or "this one" may be used for He/She/It and "these ones" and "those ones" for They. One does not have the ability to specify gender like in English, but unlike in English one does have the ability to specify whether the referred to He is a proximal ("this") or a distal ("that") He. Most of the time, the He/She/It's we use in English are distal, so grammars generally just stick the label of He/She/It to તે, rather than go through this lengthy explanation. And finally, when used as a personal pronoun, તે can get the pluralizing ઓ as a number marker to make "they", which is the only instance where a word that isn't a common noun gets a number marker.
Further things to note for personal pronouns:
- For boxes with two entries, the underline denotes the more frequently used.
- તેઓ is almost never spoken. Instead, it's તે લોકો (lit. those people).
- As there are no આઓ, તમેઓ, and આપઓ, લોકો can added to specify plurality.
- The ત્ in તે, તેમ-, and the other (correlative) pronouns that start with it is mostly dropped in speech, for એ, એ લોકો, એમનું, એટલું, etc.
- હ્ is also dropped in હું for ઉં.
- આપ is borrowed from Hindi and is much more formal in Gujarati than in its original Hindi. It is very rarely used.
- Accusative/Dative (1) is the primary form; (2) is a special form used for specific circumstances: expressing want, need, possession, obligation, and intention.
- Though Accusative/Dative (2)'s third person forms match those of Ergative, modern usage tends to match Accusative/Dative (1)'s.
|Variable||શું śuṃ||What||શેનું śenuṃ|
|કયું kayuṃ||Which||કયાંનું kayāṃnuṃ|
|કેવું kevuṃ||What kind|
|કેટલું keṭluṃ||How much||કેટલાંનું keṭlāṃnuṃ|
|કેવડું kevḍuṃ||How big|
|Invariable||ક્યાં kyāṃ||Where||ક્યાંનું kyāṃnuṃ|
|કોણ koṇ||Who||કોનું konuṃ|
|ક્યારે kyāre||When||ક્યારનું kyārnuṃ|
In speech, શું is most often not variable. The underlined genitive forms deviate from their nominative.
How and Why
These two are not so clear-cut. From a more archaic and grammatically consistent point of view, these are the words for how and why:
- કેમ | How ("કેમ છો?" means "How are you?", and its relative-correlative of જેમ...તેમ is suited for "how")
- શા માટે | Why (lit. for what, "pourquoi")
However this is the general modern usage:
- કેવી રીતે / કયી રીતે | How (lit. in what kind of way / in which way)
- કેમ | Why
So basically, don't use કેમ as 'how', except in certain rare phrasings.
|શું śuṃ||What||જે je||What||તે te||That|
|કેવું kevuṃ||What kind||જેવું jevuṃ||As (noun)||તેવું tevuṃ|
|કેટલું keṭluṃ||How much||જેટલું jeṭluṃ||As much||તેટલું teṭluṃ||That much|
|કેવડું kevḍuṃ||How big||જેવડું jevḍuṃ||As big||તેવડું tevḍuṃ||That big|
|ક્યાં kyāṃ||Where||જ્યાં jyāṃ||Where||ત્યાં tyāṃ||There|
|કોણ koṇ||Who||જ je, જેઓ jeo||Who||તે te, તેઓ teo||He/She/It/They|
|ક્યારે kyāre||When||જ્યારે jyāre||When||ત્યારે tyāre||Then|
|કેમ kem||જેમ jem||As (verb)||તેમ tem|
The formation of the infinitive is: Root + વું. Remember, the ઉં is the variable gender marker, shown right now in default neuter form. If the verb is paired with a direct noun, it will agree with it. Otherwise, if it is alone, or paired to an adjective, it will remain neuter.
- કરવું To do
- ગાવું To sing
- ખાવું To eat
- કહેવું To say, to tell
- ફોન કરવો To phone
- વાત કરવી To talk
- Present: તું
- Past: એલું
- Conjunctive: ઈને
The conjunctive is the form, "Having (past participle)". Also, where in English two verbs are separated by an "and", the conjunctive form is frequently used Gujarati. "Go upstairs and sleep!" → "Having gone upstairs, sleep!"
There are three ways of expressing the passive voice. Verbal agreement is with the direct object.
A transitive verb's passive counterpart is made by modifying the root as such:
- If there is an આ ā vowel, it becomes અ a.
- If ending in a vowel, હ ha or વ va is suffixed.
- Final suffix of આ ā.
"To come in" suffix
A passive counterpart can be equally made by suffixing માં આવવું maṃ āvvuṃ to the infinitive. The infinitive is of course obliqued.
A third way is simply to use the active, 3rd person, and just omit the subject. This would be like English's generalized "They... ", or "One... ", but even slightly more so.
|Gujarati||English||Root Modification||"To come in" suffix||English||Root Modification||"To come in" suffix|
|Present||He's doing (the) work / He does (the) work||એ કામ કરે છે e kām kare che||કરવું karvuṃ||To do||કરાવું karāvuṃ||કરવામાં આવવું karvāmaṃ āvvuṃ||To be done||એનાથી કામ કરાય છે enāthī kām karāy che||એનાથી કામ કરવામાં આવે છે enāthī kām karvāmaṃ āve che||(The) work is being done by him / (The) work is done by him|
The post-position થી thī marks the agent ("by"). The major meaning is underlined.
The distinction between intransitive and transitive is very important in Gujarati. It effects two things: first being is verb form, discussed here; the second, subject case and verb agreement, discussed in the section on Past Tense.
Take these three English verbs: "to tear", "to spoil", and "to crack". Here are some phrases using those three:
- "The paper is tearing... ", "Did you tear the paper?... "
- "Make sure the food doesn't spoil... ", "You're really spoiling him... "
- "I noticed that the glass has cracked... ", "I think I cracked it yesterday... "
However, these three English verbs represent six Gujarati verbs. For each pair of phrases for a single verb, the first phrase is the intransitive usage, and the second the transitive. Oftentimes, a single English verb can cover for both intransitive and transitive usage, but not the case in Gujarati: the intransitive and transitive have a different verb for each.
|The paper is tearing||કાગળ ફાટે છે kāgaḷ fāṭe che||ફાટવું fāṭvuṃ||To tear → to be torn||Did you tear the paper?||તેં કાગળને ફાડયું? teṃ kāgaḷne fāḍyuṃ?||ફાડવું fāḍvuṃ||To tear → to cause to be torn|
|Make sure the food doesn't spoil||જોઈજો કે ખાવાનું ન બગડે joījo ke khāvānuṃ na bagḍe||બગડવું bagaḍvuṃ||To spoil → to be spoiled||You're really spoiling him||તમે એને ખરેખર બગાડો છો tame ene kharekhar bagāḍo cho||બગાડવું bagāḍvuṃ||To spoil → to cause to be spoiled|
|I noticed that the glass has cracked||મારાં ધ્યાનમાં આવ્યું કે કાચ ફૂટયો છે mārāṃ dhyānmāṃ āvyuṃ ke kāc fūṭyo che||ફૂટવું fūṭvuṃ||To crack → to be cracked||I think I cracked it yesterday||મને લાગે છે કે મેં ગઈ કાલે ફોડયો mane lāge che ke meṃ gaī kāle foḍyo||ફોડવું foḍvuṃ||To crack → to cause to be cracked|
As at a basic level, "to cause to... " is being added to transitivize these verbs, they are also called causatives. An English example: the intransitive "to fall"'s causative would be the transitive "to cause to fell", or conveniently, "to fell". That's one example where the verb is modified, like in Gujarati, instead of using auxiliaries. Also, to note, the definitive "to cause to... " is a rare phraseology, often in spoken English amounting to either nothing at all (as the examples above show) or "to get to (root)" or "to get to be (past participle)"..
Furthermore, that causative can be causativized again, for a double causative ("to cause to cause... "). Also, many transitive verbs are not causatives - an intransitive counterpart does not exist. Conversely, a few intransitive verbs don't transitivize.
The so-called "distinct" category of compound verb formation is when verbs are simply in conjunction, retaining their distinct meanings. Here are some English examples: "I like acting", "He's coming to eat", "They started to speak Gujarati". With these we can make the observation that English verbs are strung together in two ways: using the "to" and the "ing". "To" can be placed before the root of the second verb (infinitive), or "ing" appended on (present participle). They also have different meanings; the usage of "to" links the subject to the verb, while "ing" posits the verb as a general concept. To be shown below are the Gujarati equivalents of "to" and "ing": the declensions made when verbs are put together.
This category has to do with instances where verbs are in conjunction and do not retain their distinct meanings. This is an important feature of modern Indo-Aryan languages and is not found in English. Oftentimes, instead of a verb being used by itself, a second verb from a set of common auxiliaries can be added to colour or nuance the meaning of the verb it has been added to. Again, this added verb does not to act as a new, second, stand-alone verb, but instead an auxiliary or helper verb. Also, the meaning of the auxiliary itself often does not seem to have a logical connection with the way in which it colours and nuances.
- જવું To go
- આવ્વું To come
- લેવું To take
- દેવું To give
- કાઢવું To remove
- નાખવું To throw
- આપ્વું To give
 Tenses and Conjugation
The general scheme of Gujarati verb conjugation involves the verbal root appended with tense marking information, further appended with some sort of a person marker.
Verbs agree with subjects, and the subjects are in nominative case, except for in the transitive past tense, where verbs agree with objects and the subjects are in ergative case.
- હોવું hovuṃ, To be
હોવું hovuṃ should be dealt with first, due to its importance. In English, "to be" can in simple tenses be just like any other verb; in continuous tenses it becomes unique as an auxiliary verb. Gujarati follows the latter to an even higher degree by having હોવું hovuṃ as an auxiliary in almost every verb form, even when it wouldn't mean anything in English. As it would in the English continuous, and more so overall in Gujarati, the હોવું hovuṃ auxiliary has an important role as a tense marking particle.
હોવું hovuṃ has three roots: છ્ ch, હ ha, and હો ho. છ્ ch and હ ha are auxiliary forms, while હો ho is a non-auxiliary form. છ્ ch is for the present, હ ha for the past and future, and હો ho is used for conditional statements and general statements. Here is the conjugation table for the present tense of "to be":
|First||હું છું huṃ chuṃ / I am||આપણે, અમે છીએ āpṇe, ame chīe / We are|
|Second||તું છે tuṃ che / You are||તમે છો tame cho / You are|
|Third||તે છે te che / He-She-It is||તેઓ છે teo che / They are|
- Non-હોવું hovuṃ verbs, and continuous vs simple
With all other verbs, they are added, with હોવું hovuṃ acting as the auxiliary. The verb comes before હોવું hovuṃ, in between the subject and હોવું hovuṃ. Its root takes the same vowel suffix as its auxiliary છ્ root. Here is the conjugation table for the present tense of ઘસવું ghasvuṃ, "to scrub":
|First||હું ઘસું છું huṃ ghasuṃ chuṃ||આપણે, અમે ઘસીએ છીએ āpṇe, ame ghasīe chīe|
|Second||તું ઘસે છે tuṃ ghase che||તમે ઘસો છો tame ghaso cho|
|Third||તે ઘસે છે te ghase che||તેઓ ઘસે છે teo ghase che|
While the header says the ambiguous "Present (Tense)", one may infer that what is being referred to above is specifically the continuous present tense, as "to be" is the auxiliary, just as it is in the English continuous present tense. This is not the case. હું ઘસું છું huṃ ghasuṃ chuṃ can mean "I am scrubbing" or "I scrub", depending on the context. This is one present tense, covering both continuous and simple present (though in other grammatical situations, the distinction between continuous and simple can be cleanly made). However, this present tense is nonetheless more skewed towards the continuous ("I am scrubbing"), and for ease, now and later, it is best to go with that logical inference, that literal analysis, and make the reduction that this present tense is the continuous present tense, and that the છ્- ch- forms are "am/is/are" and the ઘસ્- ghas- forms are "scrubbing". The formation of present tense general statements (partly involving હોવું's હો root) will be elucidated later.
|તેઓ ઘસે છે teo ghase che||They are scrubbing||They scrub|
There are two words in Gujarati that are equivalent to English's "not". They are ન na and નહિ nahi. When ન na is used, it comes before the negated verb; નહિ nahi comes after. In some cases either can be used (future tense) and in others only one (imperfect tense, present tense). The present tense requires નહિ nahi. On top of that, whenever a છ્- ch- is followed by નહિ nahi, they combine to make an invariable નથી nathī. They are often separated back for emphasis.
If નથી nathī is not alone and is an auxiliary to a non-હોવું hovuṃ verb, then the root of that verb is appended with તું tuṃ. Remember, ઉં uṃ is a variable gender marker. Gender marker vowel suffixes are different from the less logical vowel suffixes shown for the affirmative present tense so far (ઉં uṃ/એ e/ઈએ īe/ઓ o). Refer to the gender section for the appropriate appended vowel endings.
The subjunctive is the affirmative present tense without the છ્- ch- auxiliary, negateable by either ન na or નહિ nahi.
It is a broad form with many functions, used essentially when expressing something less than firm fact. The specific grammatical forms it manifests for different situations:
- Conditional sentence, If clause: Simple Present Tense
- Conditional sentence, Then clause: Conditional Tense
- Interrogative mood: Adds, major- "should" / minor- "can"
- Indicative mood: Generalized statement, Conditional Tense, "weakened" Future Tense
- હોવું hovuṃ, the હ ha root
If છ્- ch- is the present root for હોવું hovuṃ and accounts for "am/is/are", then હ ha is its past counterpart accounting for "was/were". હ ha is suffixed with તું tuṃ.
The imperfect is made by the root taking તું tuṃ, with હતું hatuṃ as auxiliary.
|તું નાચતી હતી tuṃ nāctī hatī||You (f) were dancing||You (f) danced (as in, You used to dance)|
This tense is negated by placing ન na in front of હતું hatuṃ. In speech, the હ ha sound is almost always neglected.
|અમે રમતા હતા ame ramtā hatā||અમે રમતાતા ame ramtātā|
|મને ગમતું ન હતું mane gamtuṃ na hatuṃ||મને ગમતું નતું mane gamtuṃ natuṃ|
With this, there may be some ambiguity between the feminine નતી natī and the present tense's નથી nathī. This may be resolved by replacing the spoken નતું natuṃ with નહોતું nahotuṃ, as some speakers do.
The perfective is made by adding the gender-variable યું yuṃ onto the root; though minus the ય્ y in feminine. The auxiliary હોવું hovuṃ with its many forms acts as tense marker.
Also, here the distinction between transitive and intransitive comes into play:
|Tense (Active)||Subject Case||Verb Agreement|
|Transitive Perfective||Ergative||Direct Object|
These are the suffixes to the verbal root to form the simple future tense:
|First||ઈશ īś||ઈશું īśuṃ|
There is no હોવું hovuṃ auxiliary. The sentence can be negated by placing ન na before the verb or નહિ nahi after.
 More on "To be"
હોવું hovuṃ was introduced as the word for "to be". However, there are actually two verbs dealing with two connotions of meaning in "to be". હોવું hovuṃ deals with the state of being, while થવું thavuṃ deals with the act of being. In this way, થવું thavuṃ also means "to happen".
In situations where "become" would be equally valid in place of "be", થવું thavuṃ is to be used. In these two Gujarati sentences, which mean both "I will be a writer"...
- હું લેખક થઈશ huṃ lekhak thaīś
- હું લેખક હઈશ huṃ lekhak haīś
... the first can stand alone, relating to the future movement from non-writer, to writer. The second cannot stand alone, and is used in reference: "At age _____, I will be a writer". Again, હોવું hovuṃ "to be" concerns state, while થવું thavuṃ "to be" concerns act.
હોવું hovuṃ is the ubiquitous tense-marking auxiliary, and just as છ્- ch- marks present, હ- ha- marks future.
- તે વાંચે છે te vāṃce che / She is reading → તે વાંચતી હશે te vāṃctī haśe / She will be reading
The future of હોવું hovuṃ has a second meaning. It creates the word "must", as in probability or likeliness; not compulsion. So તે વાંચતી હશે te vāṃtī haśe could either mean "She will be reading" or "She must be reading", depending on context.
The imperative in Gujarati is similar to English, where the subject is dropped, but sometimes left on for emphasis. Word order is OV. There are three levels of time(?), corresponding to three levels of politeness. Added to the verbal root:
|તું tuṃ||તમે tame|
|Near Future||જે je||જો jo|
|Distant Future||ઈશ īś ?||શો śo ?|
Interrogative pronouns find themselves after the subject: S(i)OV. For Yes-No questions, which lack an interrogative pronoun, "What" (શું śuṃ) may be placed before the subject to designate it a question, though this is not done to the extent that it is in Gujarati's cousin language of Hindi.
The word order is not changed, nor is there an insertion of a "do"-type word; both are redundant. Similarly redundant, but used in Gujarati, are rising intonation and question mark punctuation. Gujarati makes a complete distinction between interrogative-relative pronoun counterparts. Relatives start with જ્ j and and interrogatives start with ક્ k (except for શું śuṃ). None of these four things are needed when there is a word being used that could only ever be used in the context of a question.
Though, a Yes-No question without "What" (શું śuṃ) at beginning would need rising intonation in speech and a question mark on paper to mark it as a question.
The words for If and Then are જો jo and તો to. Where in English the If is mandatory, with the Then optional, in Gujarati it is the જો jo that is optional and the તો to that is mandatory.
Furthermore, in both clauses, these changes are made:
- હોવું hovuṃ છ્- ch- forms become હો- ho- forms
- હતું hatuṃ becomes હોત hot
 Quoting Speech
Referring to someone else's speech may be done in two ways:
- 1. "... He said, 'I... '"
- 2. "... He said that he... "
In Gujarati, number 1 is the common form. Gujaratis often will say it in its original language too, making it even more of a "direct quote".
 Common Words and Phrases
|કેમ છો?||How are you?|
|તમે ગુજરાતી બોલો છો?||Do you speak Gujarati?|
|તમારું નામ શું છે?||What is your name?|
|મારું નામ ______ છે||My name is ______|
|હં, હા, હાંજી||Yes||In increasing formality|
|ના, નાજી||No||In increasing formality|
|શું થયું?||What happened?|
|કેટલાં વાગ્યા?||What time is it?||lit. How many did it strike?|
|મારું માથું ન ખા||Don't bother me||lit. Do not eat my head|
Modern Gujarati includes vocabulary from Arabic and Persian due to the more than five centuries of Islamic rule, as well as the influence of Zoroastrian Persian immigrants known as Parsis. The influence of English and Portuguese is also notable in modern spoken Gujarati due to the legacy of European colonisation.
- બૅન્ક Bank
- ફોન Phone
- બસ Bus
- ટેબલ Table
- સ્ટેશન Station
 Writing system
Gujarati is written using the Gujarati script, an abugida (alphasyllabary) very similar to Devanagari (the script used for Sanskrit, Marathi and Hindi), but without the characteristic horizontal line (matra) running across the top of the letters. There are also some other minor differences between the two scripts.
 See also
- Languages of India
- List of national languages of India
- List of Indian languages by total speakers
- Gujarati people
 External links
 Dictionaries and linguistic resources
- જયદીપનું જગત Jaydeep's World - Read Gujarati Liteature Online
- સિદ્ધાર્થનું મન Siddharth's Mind - Gujarati blog
- ઝાઝી સમાચાર Gujarat News
- Gujarati Wiktionary
- Chandaria's Gujarati Dictionary
- Gujarati News
- Gujarati English Dictionary from Webster's Online Dictionary - the Rosetta Edition
- Online Gujarati Type Pad
- Free Gujarati Tutorial - Learn Gujarati
- Useful Gujarati phrases in English and other Indian languages.
- Website for reading Gujarati Literature Online
- Gujarati script and alphabets
- Gujarati Editor
- Rachel Dwyer's Teach Yourself Gujarati
- Bhagavad Gita, Bhagavat, Ramayan, Mahabharat, Upanishad, Yog Sutra, Bhajans and more in Gujarati
- Religious and Spiritual Texts in Gujarati (islam)
- Gujarati Language and Literature
- Gujarati Samaj of Minnesota - An organization of Gujaratis in Minnesota, U.S.A. teaching values of our culture.
- Gujarati Samaj of Western Australia - Formed to celebrate the language and traditions of Gujarat in Western Australia.
- A brief history of the Gujarati language
- The UK Gujarati Teachers Association
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|Dardic||Dameli | Domaaki | Gawar-Bati | Kalasha-mun | Kashmiri | Khowar | Kohistani | Nangalami | Pashayi | Palula | Shina | Shumashti|
|Nuristani||Askunu | Kalasha-ala | Kamkata-viri | Tregami | Vasi-vari|
br:Goudjarateg ca:Gujarati da:Gujarati de:Gujarati es:Idioma guyaratí fa:زبان گجراتی fr:Gujarâtî gu:ગુજરાતી ભાષા ko:구자라트어 hi:गुजराती भाषा id:Bahasa Gujarati it:Lingua gujarati he:גוג'ראטית ka:გუჯარათული ენა nl:Gujarati ja:グジャラート語 nn:Gujarati pl:Język gudźarati pt:Gujarati ru:Гуджарати simple:Gujarati sr:Гуџарати језик fi:Gudžarati sv:Gujarati ta:குஜராத்தி th:ภาษาคุชราต