Hindi
Hindi, also known as Khadi Boli, Khari Boli, belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family. It is spoken as a very first language primarily in northern and central India by more than two hundred fifty eight million people (Ethnologue). It is the language that unifies multilingual India, home to some four hundred different languages/dialects. Outside of India, Hindi is spoken in Australia, Bangladesh, Belize, Bhutan, Botswana, Canada, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Germany, Guyana, Kenya, Nepal, Fresh Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Sint Maarten, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Yemen, Zambia (Ethnologue). Such a broad distribution makes Hindi one of the most spoken languages of the world.
The name Hindi is of Persian origin. The Persians used it to refer to the Indian people and to the languages they spoke. Scholars postulate that Hindi developed in the 8th-10th centuries from khari boli, the speech around Dehli which was adopted by the Moslem invaders to communicate with the local population. Eventually, it developed into a diversity called Urdū (from Turkish ordu ‘camp’), characterized by numerous borrowings from Persian and Arabic, which became a literary language. In the meantime, the language of the indigenous population remained relatively free of borrowings from Persian and Arabic, and instead borrowed words and literary conventions from Sanskrit. This language became Hindi.
As a result of these different influences, Hindi is written in the Devanagari script and draws much of its vocabulary from Sanskrit, while Urdū is written in the Perso-Arabic script and draws a excellent deal of its lexicon from Persian and Arabic. The two languages also differ in a number of relatively minor ways in their sound system and grammar. Both Hindi and Urdū have been used as literary languages commencing in the 12th century. Under the influence of English, Hindi and Urdū literature flourished beginning in the 18th century.
Hindi and Urdū have a common colloquial form, called Hindustani. Hindustani never achieved the status of a literary language, albeit Mahatma Gandhi used it as a symbol of national unity during India’s fight for independence from England.
Hindi is the primary official language of the Union government of India. It is the primary tongue of about a third of India’s 1.09 billion people. Hindi became the official language of India in 1965, albeit the Constitution of India also recognizes English plus twenty one other official languages.
After the Independence of India from Britain in 1947, the Government of India undertook the standardization of the language. In 1958, ‘A Basic Grammar of Modern Hindi’ was published as a result of the work of a government-appointed committee. Hindi spelling was standardized, and a standardized system of transcribing the Devanagari alphabet was devised.
For speakers of India’s approximately four hundred languages/dialects to function within a single country requires some common language. The choice of this language, known in India as the ‘link’ language, has been a sensitive political issue since independence in 1947. Efforts to reach a consensus on a single national language that is acceptable to all the diverse language communities have been largely unsuccessful.
Both Hindi and English are extensively used, and each has its own supporters. On the one forearm, native speakers of Hindi, concentrated in northern and central India, assert that English is a relic from India’s colonial past. In addition, since it is spoken mostly by the country’s educated elite, it is too sensational to be India’s official language. Proponents of English, on the other arm, argue that the use of Hindi is unfair because it disadvantages those who have to learn it as a 2nd language.
Education in English resumes to be a prerequisite for social status. English remains the foot language of higher education in almost every field of learning. Code-switching inbetween Hindi and English is enormously common, especially among educated Indians.
Click on the MLA Interactive Language Map to find out where Hindi is spoken in the U.S.
Dialects
There are many regional varieties of spoken Hindi. Literary Hindi has four varieties: High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, Literary Hindi, and standard Hindi.
Hindi, About World Languages
Hindi
Hindi, also known as Khadi Boli, Khari Boli, belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family. It is spoken as a very first language primarily in northern and central India by more than two hundred fifty eight million people (Ethnologue). It is the language that unifies multilingual India, home to some four hundred different languages/dialects. Outside of India, Hindi is spoken in Australia, Bangladesh, Belize, Bhutan, Botswana, Canada, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Germany, Guyana, Kenya, Nepal, Fresh Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Sint Maarten, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Yemen, Zambia (Ethnologue). Such a broad distribution makes Hindi one of the most spoken languages of the world.
The name Hindi is of Persian origin. The Persians used it to refer to the Indian people and to the languages they spoke. Scholars postulate that Hindi developed in the 8th-10th centuries from khari boli, the speech around Dehli which was adopted by the Moslem invaders to communicate with the local population. Eventually, it developed into a multitude called Urdū (from Turkish ordu ‘camp’), characterized by numerous borrowings from Persian and Arabic, which became a literary language. In the meantime, the language of the indigenous population remained relatively free of borrowings from Persian and Arabic, and instead borrowed words and literary conventions from Sanskrit. This language became Hindi.
As a result of these different influences, Hindi is written in the Devanagari script and draws much of its vocabulary from Sanskrit, while Urdū is written in the Perso-Arabic script and draws a good deal of its lexicon from Persian and Arabic. The two languages also differ in a number of relatively minor ways in their sound system and grammar. Both Hindi and Urdū have been used as literary languages beginning in the 12th century. Under the influence of English, Hindi and Urdū literature flourished beginning in the 18th century.
Hindi and Urdū have a common colloquial form, called Hindustani. Hindustani never achieved the status of a literary language, albeit Mahatma Gandhi used it as a symbol of national unity during India’s fight for independence from England.
Hindi is the primary official language of the Union government of India. It is the primary tongue of about a third of India’s 1.09 billion people. Hindi became the official language of India in 1965, albeit the Constitution of India also recognizes English plus twenty one other official languages.
After the Independence of India from Britain in 1947, the Government of India undertook the standardization of the language. In 1958, ‘A Basic Grammar of Modern Hindi’ was published as a result of the work of a government-appointed committee. Hindi spelling was standardized, and a standardized system of transcribing the Devanagari alphabet was devised.
For speakers of India’s approximately four hundred languages/dialects to function within a single country requires some common language. The choice of this language, known in India as the ‘link’ language, has been a sensitive political issue since independence in 1947. Efforts to reach a consensus on a single national language that is acceptable to all the diverse language communities have been largely unsuccessful.
Both Hindi and English are extensively used, and each has its own supporters. On the one arm, native speakers of Hindi, concentrated in northern and central India, assert that English is a relic from India’s colonial past. In addition, since it is spoken mostly by the country’s educated elite, it is too sensational to be India’s official language. Proponents of English, on the other arm, argue that the use of Hindi is unfair because it disadvantages those who have to learn it as a 2nd language.
Education in English resumes to be a prerequisite for social status. English remains the foot language of higher education in almost every field of learning. Code-switching inbetween Hindi and English is utterly common, especially among educated Indians.
Click on the MLA Interactive Language Map to find out where Hindi is spoken in the U.S.
Dialects
There are many regional varieties of spoken Hindi. Literary Hindi has four varieties: High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, Literary Hindi, and standard Hindi.