Hindi language

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 described as a standardised and Sanskritised register of the Hindustani language, which itself is based primarily on the Khariboli dialect of Delhi and neighbouring areas of North India. Hindi, written in the Devanagari script, is one of the two official languages of the Government of India, along with English. It is an official language in nine states and three union territories and an additional official language in three other states. Hindi is also one of the 22 scheduled languages of the Republic of India.

Hindi is the ''lingua franca'' of the Hindi Belt. It is also spoken, to a lesser extent, in other parts of India (usually in a simplified or pidginised variety such as Bazaar Hindustani or Haflong Hindi). Outside India, several other languages are recognised officially as "Hindi" but do not refer to the Standard Hindi language described here and instead descend from other dialects, such as Awadhi and Bhojpuri. Such languages include Fiji Hindi, which has an official status in Fiji, and Caribbean Hindustani, which is spoken in Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Suriname. Apart from the script and formal vocabulary, standard Hindi is mutually intelligible with standard Urdu, another recognised register of Hindustani as both share a common colloquial base.

Hindi is the fourth most-spoken first language in the world, after Mandarin, Spanish and English.Mikael Parkvall, "Världens 100 största språk 2007" (The World's 100 Largest Languages in 2007), in '' Nationalencyklopedin''. Asterisks mark th
2010 estimates
for the top dozen languages. If counted together with Urdu, it is the third most-spoken language in the world, after Mandarin and English.

Etymology

The term ''Hindī'' originally was used to refer to inhabitants of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It was borrowed from Classical Persian ''Hindī'' ( Iranian Persian pronunciation: ''Hendi''), meaning "of or belonging to '' Hind'' (India)" (hence, "Indian").

Another name ''Hindavī'' () or ''Hinduī'' () (from fa, هندوی "of or belonging to the Hindu/Indian people") was often used in the past, for example by Amir Khusrow in his poetry.

The terms ''"Hindi"'' and ''"Hindu"'' trace back to Old Persian which derived these names from the Sanskrit name ''Sindhu'' (), referring to the river Indus. The Greek cognates of the same terms are "''Indus''" (for the river) and "''India''" (for the land of the river).

History

Middle Indo-Aryan to Hindi

Like other Indo-Aryan languages, Hindi is a direct descendant of an early form of Vedic Sanskrit, through Sauraseni Prakrit and Śauraseni Apabhraṃśa (from Sanskrit ''apabhraṃśa'' "corrupt"), which emerged in the 7th century CE.

The sound changes that characterised the transition from Middle Indo-Aryan to Hindi are:
* Compensatory lengthening of vowels preceding geminate consonants, sometimes with spontaneous nasalisation: Skt. ''hasta'' "hand" > Pkt. ''hattha'' > ''hāth''
* Loss of all word-final vowels: ''rātri'' "night" > ''rattī'' > ''rāt''
* Formation of nasalised long vowels from nasal consonants (-VNC- > -V̄̃C-): ''bandha'' "bond" > ''bā̃dh''
* Loss of unaccented or unstressed short vowels (reflected in schwa deletion): ''susthira'' "firm" > ''sutthira'' > ''suthrā''
* Collapsing of adjacent vowels (including separated by a hiatus: ''apara'' "other" > ''avara'' > ''aur''
* Final ''-m'' to ''-ṽ'': ''grāma'' "village" > ''gāma'' > ''gāṽ''
* Intervocalic ''-ḍ-'' to ''-ṛ-'' or ''-l-'': ''taḍāga'' "pond" > ''talāv'', ''naḍa'' "reed" > ''nal''.
* ''v'' > ''b'': ''vivāha'' "marriage" > ''byāh''

Hindustani

During the period of Delhi Sultanate, which covered most of today's north India, eastern Pakistan, southern Nepal and Bangladesh and which resulted in the contact of Hindu and Muslim cultures, the Sanskrit and Prakrit base of Old Hindi became enriched with loanwords from Persian, evolving into the present form of Hindustani. The Hindustani vernacular became an expression of Indian national unity during the Indian Independence movement, and continues to be spoken as the common language of the people of the northern Indian subcontinent, which is reflected in the Hindustani vocabulary of Bollywood films and songs.

Dialects

Before the standardisation of Hindi on the Delhi dialect, various dialects and languages of the Hindi belt attained prominence through literary standardisation, such as Avadhi and Braj Bhasha. Early Hindi literature came about in the 12th and 13th centuries CE. This body of work included the early epics such as renditions of the '' Dhola Maru'' in the Marwari of Marwar, the ''Prithviraj Raso'' in the Braj Bhasha of Braj, and the works of Amir Khusrow in the dialect of Delhi.

Modern Standard Hindi is based on the Delhi dialect, the vernacular of Delhi and the surrounding region, which came to replace earlier prestige dialects such as Awadhi and Braj. ''Urdu'' – considered another form of Hindustani – acquired linguistic prestige