Union Territories:
Delhi
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...
,
Andaman and Nicobar Islands
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a union territory of India consisting of 572 islands, of which 37 are inhabited, at the junction of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. The territory is about north of Aceh in Indonesia and separated f ...
and
Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu
Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu is a union territory in India. The territory was constituted through the merger of the former territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. Plans for the proposed merger were announced by the ...
.
Although there is no specification of a national language in the constitution, it is a widely held belief that Hindi is the national language of India. This is often a source of friction and contentious debate. In 2010, the
Gujarat High Court
The Gujarat High Court is the High Court of the state of Gujarat. It was established on 1 May 1960 under the ''Bombay Re-organisation Act, 1960'' after the state of Gujarat split from Bombay State.
The seat of the court is Ahmedabad. The pre ...
clarified that Hindi is not the national language of India because the constitution does not mention it as such.
In 2021, in a
Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act case involving Gangam Sudhir Kumar Reddy, the
Bombay High Court claimed Hindi is the national language while refusing Reddy bail, after he argued against his statutory rights being read in Hindi, despite being a native Telugu speaker. Reddy has filed a Special Leave Petition before the Supreme Court, challenging the Bombay High Court’s observation, and contended that it failed to appreciate that Hindi is not the national language in India. In 2021, Indian food delivery company
Zomato
Zomato () is an Indian multinational restaurant aggregator and food delivery company founded by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah in 2008. Zomato provides information, menus and user-reviews of restaurants as well as food delivery options fro ...
landed in controversy when a customer care executive told an app user from Tamil Nadu, “For your kind information Hindi is our national language.” Zomato responded by firing the employee, after which she was reprimanded and shortly reinstated.
In 2018, The Supreme Court has stayed a judgment of Madhya Pradesh High Court that held that the Hindi version of enactment will prevail if there is a variation in its Hindi version and English version. The prominence thus attached to English over Hindi in the judgement underlines the social significance of English over Hindi.
Fiji
Outside
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
, the
Awadhi language
Awadhi (; ), also known as Audhi (), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in North India, northern India and Nepal. It is primarily spoken in the Awadh region of present-day Uttar Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, India. The name ''Awadh'' is connected to ...
(an Eastern Hindi dialect) with influence from
Bhojpuri
Bhojpuri (;[Bhojpuri entry, Oxford Dictionaries](_blank)
, Oxford U ...
,
Bihari languages
Bihari is a group of the Indo-Aryan languages. The Bihari languages are mainly spoken in the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh and also in Nepal.Brass, Paul R. (1974). ''Language, Religion and Politics in North ...
,
Fijian and
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
is spoken in Fiji.
It is an official language in
Fiji
Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...
as per the 1997 Constitution of Fiji, where it referred to it as "Hindustani", however in the
2013 Constitution of Fiji
Fiji's fourth constitution was signed into law by President Ratu Epeli Nailatikau on September 6, 2013, coming into effect immediately. It is the first to eliminate race-based electoral rolls, race-based seat quotas, district-based representation, ...
, it is simply called "
Fiji Hindi
Fiji Hindi (Devanagari: ) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by Indo-Fijians. It is an Eastern Hindi language, considered to be a dialect of Awadhi that has also been subject to considerable influence by Bhojpuri, other Bihari dialects, and H ...
" as the official language. It is spoken by 380,000 people in Fiji.
Nepal
Hindi is spoken as a first language by about 77,569 people in
Nepal
Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...
according to the
2011 Nepal census
Nepal conducted a widespread national census in 2011 by the Nepal Central Bureau of Statistics. Working with the 58 municipalities and the 3915 Village Development Committees at a district level, they recorded data from all the municipalities an ...
, and further by 1,225,950 people as a second language. A Hindi proponent, Indian-born
Paramananda Jha
Parmanand Jha ( ne, परमानन्द झा; born 1946) is a Nepali politician who served as the first vice president of Nepal from 23 July 2008 to 31 October 2015. Previously he served as a Supreme Court judge. He was born and broug ...
, was elected vice-president of Nepal. He took his oath of office in Hindi in July 2008. This created protests in the streets for 5 days; students burnt his effigies; there was general strike in 22 districts. Nepal Supreme Court ruled in 2009 that his oath in Hindi was invalid and he was kept "inactive" as vice-president. An "angry" Jha said, “I cannot be compelled to take the oath now in Nepali. I might rather take it in English.”
South Africa
Hindi is a protected language in
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
. According to the
Constitution of South Africa
The Constitution of South Africa is the supreme law of the Republic of South Africa. It provides the legal foundation for the existence of the republic, it sets out the rights and duties of its citizens, and defines the structure of the Govern ...
, the
Pan South African Language Board
The Pan South African Language Board ( af, Pan-Suid-Afrikaanse Taalraad , abbreviated PanSALB) is an organisation in South Africa established to promote multilingualism, to develop the 11 official languages, and to protect language rights in Sou ...
must promote and ensure respect for Hindi along with other languages.
According to a doctoral dissertation by Rajend Mesthrie in 1985, although Hindi and other Indian languages have existed in South Africa for the last 125 years, there are no academic studies of any of them - of their use in South Africa, their evolution and current decline.
United Arab Emirates
Hindi is adopted as the third official court language in the
Emirate of Abu Dhabi
The Emirate of Abu Dhabi (, , or ; ar, إِمَارَةْ أَبُوظَبِي , ) is one of seven emirates that constitute the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It is by far the largest emirate, accounting for 87% of the nation's total land area o ...
. As a result of this status, the Indian workforce in UAE can file their complaints to the labour courts in the country in their own mother-tongue.
Geographical distribution
![Hindi_languages_2011_Indian_Census_by_district](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Hindi_languages_2011_Indian_Census_by_district.svg)
Hindi is the
lingua franca
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
of
northern India
North India is a loosely defined region consisting of the northern part of India. The dominant geographical features of North India are the Indo-Gangetic Plain and the Himalayas, which demarcate the region from the Tibetan Plateau and Central ...
(which contains the
Hindi Belt
The Hindi Belt, also known as the Hindi Heartland, is a linguistic region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern and western India where various Central Indo-Aryan languages subsumed under the term 'Hindi' (for example, by the In ...
), as well as an official language of the Government of India, along with English.
In
Northeast India
, native_name_lang = mni
, settlement_type =
, image_skyline =
, image_alt =
, image_caption =
, motto =
, image_map = Northeast india.png
, ...
a pidgin known as
Haflong Hindi
Haflong Hindi ( hi, हफ़लौंग हिन्दी) is the lingua franca of Dima Hasao district of Assam state of India.Col Ved Prakash, "Encyclopaedia of North-east India, Vol# 2", Atlantic Publishers Distributors;Pg 575, It is a pid ...
has developed as a ''lingua franca'' for the people living in
Haflong
Haflong is a town and headquarters of Dima Hasao district (formerly North Cachar Hills district) in the state of Assam in India. It is the only hill station in Assam.
Etymology
Haflong is a Dimasa word meaning '' ant hill''.
Climate
Haflon ...
,
Assam
Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...
who speak other languages natively. In
Arunachal Pradesh
Arunachal Pradesh (, ) is a state in Northeastern India. It was formed from the erstwhile North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) region, and became a state on 20 February 1987. It borders the states of Assam and Nagaland to the south. It shares int ...
, Hindi emerged as a lingua franca among locals who speak over 50 dialects natively.
Hindi is quite easy to understand for many
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
is, who speak Urdu, which, like Hindi, is a standard register of the Hindustani language; additionally, Indian media are widely viewed in Pakistan.
A sizeable population in
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
, especially in
Kabul
Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Acco ...
, can also speak and understand Hindi-Urdu due to the popularity and influence of
Bollywood
Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...
films, songs and actors in the region.
Hindi is also spoken by a large population of
Madheshi
Madheshi people ( ne, मधेशी) is a term used for several groups of people living in the Terai region of Nepal, literally meaning the people of ''Madhesh''. It has also been used as a political pejorative term by the Pahari people of Nep ...
s (people having roots in north-India but having migrated to Nepal over hundreds of years) of
Nepal
Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...
. Apart from this, Hindi is spoken by the large
Indian diaspora
Overseas Indians (IAST: ), officially Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and Overseas Citizens of India (OCIs) are Indians who live outside of the Republic of India. According to the Government of India, ''Non-Resident Indians'' are citizens of Indi ...
which hails from, or has its origin from the "Hindi Belt" of India. A substantially large North Indian diaspora lives in countries like the
United States of America
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...
, the United Kingdom, the
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...
, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname, South Africa, Fiji and
Mauritius
Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It incl ...
, where it is natively spoken at home and among their own Hindustani-speaking communities. Outside India, Hindi speakers are 8 million in
Nepal
Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...
; 863,077 in
United States of America
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...
; 450,170 in Mauritius; 380,000 in Fiji;
250,292 in South Africa; 150,000 in Suriname;
[Frawley, p. 481] 100,000 in
Uganda
}), is a landlocked country in East Africa
East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territor ...
; 45,800 in United Kingdom; 20,000 in
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
; 20,000 in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
; 26,000 in Trinidad and Tobago;
3,000 in
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
.
Comparison with Modern Standard Urdu
Linguistically
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
, Hindi and Urdu are two registers of the same language and are mutually intelligible.
Both Hindi & Urdu share a core vocabulary of native Prakrit and Sanskrit-derived words.
However, Hindi is written in the Devanagari script and contains more
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
-derived words than Urdu, whereas Urdu is written in the
Perso-Arabic
The Persian alphabet ( fa, الفبای فارسی, Alefbâye Fârsi) is a writing system that is a version of the Arabic script used for the Persian language spoken in Iran ( Western Persian) and Afghanistan (Dari Persian) since the 7th cen ...
script and uses more Arabic and Persian loanwords compared to Hindi.
Because of this, as well as the fact that the two registers share an identical grammar,
a consensus of linguists consider them to be two standardised forms of the same language,
Hindustani or Hindi-Urdu.
Hindi is the most commonly used official language in India. Urdu is the
national language
A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a nation. There is little consistency in the use of this term. One or more languages spoken as first languages in the te ...
and ''lingua franca'' of
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
and is one of 22 official languages of India, also having official status in
Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...
,
Jammu and Kashmir,
Delhi
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...
,
Telangana
Telangana (; , ) is a States and union territories of India, state in India situated on the south-central stretch of the Indian subcontinent, Indian peninsula on the high Deccan Plateau. It is the List of states and union territories of India b ...
and
Bihar
Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West Be ...
.
Script
Hindi is written in the Devanagari script, an
abugida
An abugida (, from Ge'ez language, Ge'ez: ), sometimes known as alphasyllabary, neosyllabary or pseudo-alphabet, is a segmental Writing systems#Segmental writing system, writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as units; ...
. Devanagari consists of 11
vowels
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
and 33
consonants
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...
and is written from left to right. Unlike Sanskrit, Devanagari is not entirely phonetic for Hindi, especially failing to mark
schwa deletion in spoken Standard Hindi.
Romanization
The
Government of India
The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...
uses
Hunterian transliteration
The Hunterian transliteration system is the "national system of romanization in India" and the one officially adopted by the Government of India. Hunterian transliteration was sometimes also called the ''Jonesian transliteration system'' because i ...
as its official system of writing Hindi in the Latin script. Various other systems also exist, such as
IAST
The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) is a transliteration scheme that allows the lossless romanisation of Indic scripts as employed by Sanskrit and related Indic languages. It is based on a scheme that emerged during ...
,
ITRANS
The "Indian languages TRANSliteration" (ITRANS) is an ASCII transliteration scheme for Indic scripts, particularly for the Devanagari script.
The need for a simple encoding scheme that used only keys available on an ordinary keyboard was felt i ...
and
ISO 15919
ISO 15919 (Transliteration of Devanagari and related Indic scripts into Latin characters) is one of a series of international standards for romanization by the International Organization for Standardization. It was published in 2001 and uses dia ...
.
Romanized Hindi, also called Hinglish, is the dominant form of Hindi online. In an analysis of
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
comments, Palakodety et al., identified that 52% of comments were in Romanized Hindi, 46% in English, and 1% in
Devanagari
Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental syste ...
Hindi.
Phonology
Vocabulary
Traditionally, Hindi words are divided into five principal categories according to their etymology:
*
Tatsam ( "same as that") words: These are words which are spelled the same in Hindi as in Sanskrit (except for the absence of final case inflections).
[Masica, p. 65] They include words inherited from Sanskrit via
Prakrit
The Prakrits (; sa, prākṛta; psu, 𑀧𑀸𑀉𑀤, ; pka, ) are a group of vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan languages that were used in the Indian subcontinent from around the 3rd century BCE to the 8th century CE. The term Prakrit is usu ...
which have survived without modification (e.g. Hindi ''nām'' / Sanskrit ''nāma'', "name"; Hindi ''karm'' / Sanskrit ''karma'', "deed, action;
karma
Karma (; sa, कर्म}, ; pi, kamma, italic=yes) in Sanskrit means an action, work, or deed, and its effect or consequences. In Indian religions, the term more specifically refers to a principle of cause and effect, often descriptivel ...
"), as well as forms borrowed directly from Sanskrit in more modern times (e.g. ''prārthanā'', "prayer"). Pronunciation, however, conforms to Hindi norms and may differ from that of classical Sanskrit. Amongst nouns, the ''tatsam'' word could be the Sanskrit non-inflected word-stem, or it could be the nominative singular form in the Sanskrit nominal declension.
* Ardhatatsam ( "semi-tatsama") words: Such words are typically earlier loanwords from Sanskrit which have undergone sound changes subsequent to being borrowed. (e.g. Hindi ''sūraj'' from Sanskrit ''sūrya'')
*
Tadbhav ( "born of that") words: These are native Hindi words derived from Sanskrit after undergoing phonological rules (e.g. Sanskrit ''karma'', "deed" becomes
Sauraseni Prakrit ''kamma'', and eventually Hindi ''kām'', "work") and are spelled differently from Sanskrit.
* Deshaj () words: These are words that were not borrowings but do not derive from attested Indo-Aryan words either. Belonging to this category are
onomatopoetic
Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', ''m ...
words or ones borrowed from local non-
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily ...
.
* Videshī ( "foreign") words: These include all loanwords from non-indigenous languages. The most frequent source languages in this category are
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
, Arabic,
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Examples are ''qila'' "fort" from Persian, ''kameṭī'' from English ''committee'' and ''sābun'' "soap" from Arabic.
Hindi also makes extensive use of loan translation (calqueing) and occasionally phono-semantic matching of
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
.
Prakrit
Hindi has naturally inherited a large portion of its vocabulary from Shauraseni language, Śaurasenī Prākṛt, in the form of ''tadbhava'' words. This process usually involves compensatory lengthening of vowels preceding consonant clusters in Prakrit, e.g. Sanskrit ''tīkṣṇa'' > Prakrit ''tikkha'' > Hindi ''tīkhā''.
Sanskrit
Much of Modern Standard Hindi's vocabulary is borrowed from Sanskrit as ''tatsam'' borrowings, especially in technical and academic fields. The formal Hindi standard, from which much of the Persian, Arabic and English vocabulary has been replaced by neologisms compounding ''tatsam'' words, is called ''Śuddh Hindi'' (pure Hindi), and is viewed as a more prestigious dialect over other more colloquial forms of Hindi.
Excessive use of ''tatsam'' words sometimes creates problems for native speakers. They may have Sanskrit consonant clusters which do not exist in native Hindi, causing difficulties in pronunciation.
As a part of the process of Sanskritization, new words are coined using Sanskrit components to be used as replacements for supposedly foreign vocabulary. Usually these neologisms are calques of English words already adopted into spoken Hindi. Some terms such as ''dūrbhāṣ'' "telephone", literally "far-speech" and ''dūrdarśan'' "television", literally "far-sight" have even gained some currency in formal Hindi in the place of the English borrowings ''(ṭeli)fon'' and ''ṭīvī''.
Persian
Hindi also features significant
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
influence, standardised from spoken
Hindustani.
Early borrowings, beginning in the mid-12th century, were specific to Islam (e.g. ''Muhammad'', ''islām'') and so Persian was simply an intermediary for Arabic. Later, under the
Delhi Sultanate
The Delhi Sultanate was an Islamic empire based in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent for 320 years (1206–1526). and Mughal Empire, Persian became the primary administrative language in the Hindi heartland. Persian borrowings reached a heyday in the 17th century, pervading all aspects of life. Even grammatical constructs, namely the izafat, were assimilated into Hindi.
Post-Partition of India, Partition the Indian government advocated for a policy of Sanskritization leading to a marginalisation of the Persian element in Hindi. However, many Persian words (e.g. ''muśkil'' "difficult", ''bas'' "enough", ''havā'' "air", ''x(a)yāl'' "thought", ''kitab'' "Book", ''khud'' "Self") have remained entrenched in Modern Standard Hindi, and a larger amount are still used in Urdu poetry written in the Devanagari script.
Arabic
Arabic also shows influence in Hindi, often via Persian but sometimes directly.
Media
Literature
Hindi literature is broadly divided into four prominent forms or styles, being ''Bhakti'' (devotional – Kabirdas, Kabir, Raskhan); ''Śṛṇgār'' (beauty – Keshav, Bihari (poet), Bihari); ''Vīgāthā'' (epic); and ''Ādhunik'' (modern).
Medieval Hindi literature is marked by the influence of Bhakti movement and the composition of long, epic poems. It was primarily written in other Hindi languages, varieties of Hindi, particularly
Avadhi
Awadhi (; ), also known as Audhi (), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in northern India and Nepal. It is primarily spoken in the Awadh region of present-day Uttar Pradesh, India. The name ''Awadh'' is connected to Ayodhya, the ancient city, ...
and
Braj Bhasha
The Braj language, ''Braj Bhasha'', also known as Vraj Bhasha or Vrij Bhasha or Braj Bhāṣā or Braji or Brij Bhasha or Braj Boli, is a Western Hindi language. Along with Awadhi (a variety of Eastern Hindi), it was one of the two predominant ...
, but to a degree also in Delhavi, the basis for Modern Standard Hindi. During the British Raj, Hindustani became the prestige dialect.
Chandrakanta (novel), ''Chandrakanta'', written by Devaki Nandan Khatri in 1888, is considered the first authentic work of prose in modern Hindi. The person who brought realism in Hindi prose literature was Munshi Premchand, who is considered as the most revered figure in the world of Hindi fiction and progressive movement. Literary, or ''Sāhityik'', Hindi was popularised by the writings of Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Bhartendu Harishchandra and others. The rising numbers of newspapers and magazines made Hindustani popular with educated people.
The ''Dvivedī Yug'' ("Age of Dwivedi") in Hindi literature lasted from 1900 to 1918. It is named after Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi, who played a major role in establishing Modern Standard Hindi in poetry and broadening the acceptable subjects of Hindi poetry from the traditional ones of religion and romantic love.
In the 20th century, Hindi literature saw a romantic upsurge. This is known as ''Chhayavaad, Chāyāvād'' (''shadow-ism'') and the literary figures belonging to this school are known as ''Chāyāvādī''. Jaishankar Prasad, Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala', Mahadevi Varma and Sumitranandan Pant, are the four major ''Chāyāvādī'' poets.
''Uttar Ādhunik'' is the post-modernist period of Hindi literature, marked by a questioning of early trends that copied the West as well as the excessive ornamentation of the ''Chāyāvādī'' movement, and by a return to simple language and natural themes.
Internet
Hindi literature, music, and Bollywood, film have all been disseminated via the internet. In 2015, Google reported a 94% increase in Hindi-content consumption year-on-year, adding that 21% of users in India prefer content in Hindi.
Many Hindi newspapers also offer digital editions.
Sample text
The following is a sample text in High Hindi, of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (by the United Nations):
;Hindi in Devanagari Script
:
:
;;Transliteration (ISO 15919, ISO):
:
;Transcription (International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA):
:
;Gloss (word-to-word):
:Article 1 (one) ''–'' All humans birth from dignity and rights in independent and equal are. They logic and conscience from endowed are and they fraternity in the spirit of each other towards work should.
;Translation (grammatical):
:Article 1 ''–'' All humans are born independent and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with logic and conscience and they should work towards each other in the spirit of fraternity.
See also
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Hindi Belt
The Hindi Belt, also known as the Hindi Heartland, is a linguistic region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern and western India where various Central Indo-Aryan languages subsumed under the term 'Hindi' (for example, by the In ...
*Bengali Language Movement (Manbhum)
*Hindi Divas – the official day to celebrate Hindi as a language.
*Languages of India
*Languages with official status in India
* Indian States by most popular languages
*List of English words of Hindi or Urdu origin
*List of Hindi channels in Europe (by type)
*List of languages by number of native speakers in India
*List of Sanskrit and Persian roots in Hindi
*World Hindi Secretariat
Notes
References
Bibliography
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* George Abraham Grierson, Grierson, G. A. Linguistic Survey of India, ''Linguistic Survey of India'' Vol I-XI, Calcutta, 1928,
(searchable database)
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* Taj, Afroz (2002)
A door into Hindi'. Retrieved 8 November 2005.
* Tiwari, Bholanath ([1966] 2004) ''हिन्दी भाषा (Hindī Bhasha)'', Kitab Pustika, Allahabad, .
Dictionaries
* .
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* Academic Room Hindi Dictionary Mobile App developed in the Harvard Innovation Lab (iOS, Android and Blackberry)
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Further reading
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* Bhatia, Tej K. ''A History of the Hindi Grammatical Tradition''. Leiden, Netherlands & New York, NY: E.J. Brill, 1987.
External links
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The Union: Official LanguageOfficial Unicode Chart for Devanagari (PDF)
{{Authority control
Hindi,
Hindi languages,
Hindustani language
Fusional languages
Indo-Aryan languages
Official languages of India
Standard languages
Languages of Uttar Pradesh
Languages of Rajasthan
Languages of Himachal Pradesh
Languages of Madhya Pradesh
Languages of Bihar
Languages of Jharkhand
Languages of Jammu and Kashmir
Languages of Maharashtra
Languages of Arunachal Pradesh
Languages of West Bengal
Languages of Assam
Languages of Gujarat
Languages of Mizoram
Languages of Pakistan
Languages officially written in Indic scripts
Lingua francas
Subject–object–verb languages
Sahitya Akademi recognised languages
Articles containing video clips
Languages written in Devanagari