Hindi | |
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Modern Standard Hindi | |
हिन्दी, Hindī | |
![]() The word "Hindi" in Devanagari script | |
Pronunciation | [ˈɦɪndiː] |
Native to | India |
Region | Hindi Belt (Western Uttar Pradesh, Delhi) |
Speakers | L1: 345 million speakers of Hindi and various related languages who reported their language as 'Hindi' (2011 census)[1][2] L2: 264 million (2020)[3] Total: 610 million (2011–2020)[4] |
Early forms | |
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Indian Signing System | |
Official status | |
Official language in | |
Recognised minority language in |
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Regulated by | Central Hindi Directorate[9] |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-1 | hi |
ISO 639-2 | hin |
ISO 639-3 | hin |
Glottolog | hind1269 |
Linguasphere | 59-AAF-qf |
![]() Distribution of L1 self-reported speakers of Hindi in India as per the 2011 Census |
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Part of a series on the |
Hindustani language (or the Hindi-Urdu continuum) |
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History |
Grammar |
Linguistic history |
Accessibility |
Modern Standard Hindi (आधुनिक मानक हिन्दी, Ādhunik Mānak Hindī),[10] commonly referred to as Hindi, is the standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of the Government of India, alongside English, and it is also the lingua franca of North India. Hindi is considered a Sanskritised register[11] of Hindustani. Hindustani itself developed from Old Hindi and was spoken in Delhi and neighbouring areas containing significant Persian loanwords.[12]
Hindi is an official language in nine states (Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand), and three union territories (Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Delhi, Chandigarh), and an additional official language in three other states - West Bengal, Nagaland, Mizoram.[13][14][15][16] Hindi is also one of the 22 scheduled languages of the Republic of India.[17]
Apart from the script and formal vocabulary, Modern Standard Hindi is mutually intelligible with standard Urdu, which is another recognised register of Hindustani, as both Hindi and Urdu share a core vocabulary base derived from Shauraseni Prakrit.[18][19][20][21] Hindi 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).[13][14] 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 nearby languages, such as Awadhi and Bhojpuri. Such languages include Fiji Hindi, which has an official status in Fiji,[22] and Caribbean Hindustani, which is spoken in Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana.[23][24][25][26]
Hindi is the fourth most-spoken first language in the world, after Mandarin, Spanish, and English.[27] When counted together with the mutually intelligible Urdu, it is the third most-spoken language in the world, after Mandarin and English.[28][29] According to reports of Ethnologue (2022, 25th edition), Hindi is the third most-spoken language in the world when including first and second language speakers.[30]
Hindi is the fastest-growing language of India, followed by Kashmiri, Meitei, Gujarati and Bengali, according to the 2011 census of India.[31]
The national language of India and Pakistan 'Standard Urdu' is mutually intelligible with 'Standard Hindi' because both languages share the same Indic base and are all but indistinguishable in phonology and grammar (Lust et al. 2000).
High Hindi written in Devanagari, having identical grammar with Urdu, employing the native Hindi or Hindustani (Prakrit) elements to the fullest, but for words of high culture, going to Sanskrit. Hindustani proper that represents the basic Khari Boli with vocabulary holding a balance between Urdu and High Hindi.
In terms of cross-linguistic relations, Urdu's combinations of Arabic-Persian orthography and Sanskrit linguistic roots provides interesting theoretical as well as practical comparisons demonstrated in table 12.1.
The linguistic and cultural ties between Sanskrit and Urdu are deeply rooted and significant, said Ishtiaque Ahmed, registrar, Maula Azad National Urdu University during a two-day workshop titled "Introduction to Sanskrit for Urdu medium students". Ahmed said a substantial portion of Urdu's vocabulary and cultural capital, as well as its syntactic structure, is derived from Sanskrit.
The position of Hindi-Urdu among the languages of the world is anomalous. The number of its proficient speakers, over three hundred million, places it in third of fourth place after Mandarin, English, and perhaps Spanish.
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