The Central Indo-Aryan languages or Hindi languages are a group of related language varieties Spoken across

North 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 Centr ...

and Central India. These language varieties form the central part of the Indo-Aryan language family, itself a part of the Indo-European language family. They historically form a

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varie ...

that descends from the Middle

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 ...

s. Located in 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 th ...

, the Central Zone includes the Dehlavi (Delhi) dialect (one of several called ' Khariboli') of the

Hindustani language Hindustani (; Devanagari: , * * * * ; Perso-Arabic: , , ) is the ''lingua franca'' of Northern and Central India and Pakistan. Hindustani is a pluricentric language with two standard registers, known as Hindi and Urdu. Thus, the ...

, The lingua franca of Northern India that is the basis of the

Modern Standard Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been des ...

and Modern Standard Urdu literary standards. In regards to the Indo-Aryan language family, the coherence of this language group depends on the classification being used; here only Eastern and Western Hindi will be considered.

Languages

If there can be considered a consensus within the dialectology of Hindi proper, it is that it can be split into two sets of dialects: ''Western'' and ''Eastern Hindi''. ''Western Hindi'' evolved from the Apabhraṃśa form of Shauraseni Prakrit, ''Eastern Hindi'' from Ardhamagadhi Prakrit.

# Western Hindi #* Braj (1.6 m), spoken in western

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 ...

and adjacent districts of

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern s ...

and

Haryana Haryana (; ) is an Indian state located in the northern part of the country. It was carved out of the former state of East Punjab on 1 Nov 1966 on a linguistic basis. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with less than 1.4% () of India's land ...

. #* Haryanvi (8 m), spoken in

Chandigarh Chandigarh () is a planned city in India. Chandigarh is bordered by the state of Punjab to the west and the south, and by the state of Haryana to the east. It constitutes the bulk of the Chandigarh Capital Region or Greater Chandigarh, which ...

, and as a minority in

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...

and

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 wi ...

. #*

Bundeli Bundeli ( Devanagari: बुन्देली or बुंदेली; or Bundelkhandi) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Bundelkhand region of central India. It belongs to the Central Indo-Ayran languages and is part of the Western ...

(3 m), spoken in south-western

and west-central

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital city, capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, Sagar, and Rewa, India, Rewa being the othe ...

. #* Kannauji (9.5 m), spoken in west-central

. #*

Hindustani Hindustani may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Hindustan (another name of India) * Hindustani language, an Indo-Aryan language, whose two official norms are Hindi and Urdu * Fiji Hindi, a variety of Eastern Hindi spoken in Fiji, and ...

languages, spoken in western

, and after partition in

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 ...

. #**

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of North India, northern, Central India, centr ...

(322 m), a Sanskritized register of Hindustani, the most common language in India #**

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

(275 m), a Perso-Arabicized register of Hindustani, an official language in both India and Pakistan # Eastern Hindi #* Awadhi (4.35 m), spoken in north and north-central Uttar Pradesh as well as the Caribbean, Fiji,

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 ...

and

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 count ...

#** Caribbean Hindustani (166 k) #**

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 ...

(460 k) #* Bagheli (8 m), spoken in north-central Madhya Pradesh and south-eastern Uttar Pradesh. #*

Chhattisgarhi Chhattisgarhi ( / ) is an Indo-Aryan language, spoken by approximately 16 million people from Chhattisgarh & other states. It is mostly spoken in the Indian states of Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh & Maharashtra. It is closely related ...

(18 m), spoken in southeast Madhya Pradesh and northern and central Chhattisgarh. #**

Surgujia Surgujia is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Chhattisgarh. It belongs to the Eastern Hindi subgroup. Speakers Surgujia is primarily spoken in Surguja, Jashpur, and Koriya districts of Chhattisgarh; and to a lesser extent in Raigarh and Korb ...

(1.7 m), spoken in Chhattisgarh This analysis excludes varieties sometimes claimed for Hindi for cultural reasons, such as Bihari, Rajasthani, and Pahari.

Romani Romani may refer to: Ethnicities * Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia ** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule * Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...

Domari Domari is an endangered Indo-Aryan language, spoken by Dom people scattered across the Middle East and North Africa. The language is reported to be spoken as far north as Azerbaijan and as far south as central Sudan, in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Palest ...

, Lomavren, and Seb Seliyer (or at least their ancestors) appear to be Central Zone languages that migrated to the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...

and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

ca. 500–1000 CE in three distinct waves.

Parya Parya may refer to: * Parya language, spoken in Central Asia * several mountains in Peru: ** Parya (Ayacucho) ** Paria (Peru) ** Puka Parya ** Parya Chaka See also * '' Parrya'', a genus of plants * Paria (disambiguation) Paria may refer to th ...

is a Central Zone language of Central Asia. To Western Hindi '' Ethnologue'' adds Sansi, Bagheli, Chamari (a spurious language),

Bhaya Bhaya is a moribund and possibly extinct Indo-Aryan language spoken in the lower Sindh province. According to ''Ethnologue'', it belongs to the Western Hindi subgroup, and possesses considerable lexical and morphemic similarities with neighbou ...

, Gowari (not a separate language), and Ghera.

Use in culturally non-Hindi regions

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

is the official language of

. Although only the native language of 7% of the population, it is nearly universal as a second language among the literate. * Bombay Hindi ("Bombay Baat"), the dialect of the city of

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the secon ...

(Bombay); it is based on

but heavily influenced by

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

. Technically it is a

pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from s ...

, i.e. neither is it a native language of any people nor is it used in formal settings by the educated and upper social strata. However, it is often used in the films of Hindi cinema (

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 ...

) because Mumbai is the base of the Bollywood film industry. * Dakhini, including Hyderabadi Urdu, and Bangalori Urdu, a dialect of Urdu spoken in the present areas of the erstwhile

Hyderabad State Hyderabad State () was a princely state located in the south-central Deccan region of India with its capital at the city of Hyderabad. It is now divided into the present-day state of Telangana, the Kalyana-Karnataka region of Karnataka, and ...

, and the historical Deccan region. There is a small but distinct difference between Dakhini and standard

, which is bigger the further south it is spoken. * Andaman Creole Hindi is a trade language of the

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 ...

. * Arunachali Hindi is a trade language of

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 share ...

* Haflong Hindi is a trade language of the areas adjacent to Haflong in

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 ...

is an Eastern Hindi lingua-franca that developed among Indo-Fijians.

Comparison

The Delhi Hindustani pronunciations commonly have

diphthong A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...

al realizations, ranging from to and from to , respectively, in Eastern Hindi varieties and many non-standard Western Hindi varieties.

References

Bibliography

* {{Central Indo-Aryan languages Indo-Aryan languages Languages of India North India