Hindi language

Hindi language
Name	Hindi
Nativename	हिन्दी
States	India
Region	Hindi Belt
Ethnicity	Hindi Belt peoples
Speakers	L1: ~350 million
Date	2011
Speakers2	L2: ~260 million (2011)
Familycolor	Indo-European
Fam2	Indo-Iranian
Fam3	Indo-Aryan
Fam4	Central Indo-Aryan
Fam5	Western Hindi
Ancestor	Shauraseni Prakrit
Ancestor2	Apabhraṃśa
Ancestor3	Old Hindi
Script	Devanagari
Nation	India
Agency	Central Hindi Directorate
Iso1	hi
Iso2	hin
Iso3	hin
Glotto	hind1269
Glottorefname	Hindi
Notice	IPA

Hindi language. It is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken in India and serves as one of the country's two official languages, alongside English. As a standardized and Sanskritized register of the Hindustani language, it is written in the Devanagari script and forms a key part of the linguistic and cultural fabric of South Asia. With hundreds of millions of native and second-language speakers, it holds significant cultural, political, and economic influence.

History

The linguistic lineage traces back through Middle Indo-Aryan languages like Shauraseni Prakrit and Apabhraṃśa, evolving into Old Hindi around the 7th century CE. A significant development occurred during the Delhi Sultanate and later the Mughal Empire, where the Khariboli dialect absorbed substantial vocabulary from Persian, Arabic, and Turkish, leading to the emergence of Hindustani. The 19th and 20th centuries, under figures like Mahatma Gandhi and institutions like the Indian National Congress, saw a push for linguistic standardization and purification, favoring Sanskrit derivations. This movement culminated in the Official Languages Act, 1963, which solidified its constitutional status alongside English for the Government of India.

Geographical distribution

It is predominantly spoken across the expansive Hindi Belt in northern and central India, encompassing states such as Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Bihar, and the National Capital Territory of Delhi. As a lingua franca, it is widely understood and used for inter-ethnic communication across much of the subcontinent, from Mumbai to Kolkata. Significant diaspora communities exist in Nepal, Pakistan, Fiji, Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, South Africa, Mauritius, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, and the United Kingdom, often maintaining the language through cultural associations and media.

Phonology

The sound system features a series of aspirated and unaspirated stops, a characteristic of Indo-Aryan languages, including a four-way distinction in places like the dental and retroflex series. It has ten vowels: /ə/, /aː/, /ɪ/, /iː/, /ʊ/, /uː/, /eː/, /oː/, /ɛː/, and /ɔː/, with phonemic length being distinctive. The presence of nasalized vowels is a notable feature, and the syllable structure typically follows a (C)(C)V(C) pattern. Stress is not phonemic but is generally placed on the penultimate syllable of a word.

Grammar

It employs a relatively flexible SOV (Subject-Object-Verb) word order, with postpositions used instead of prepositions. Nouns are marked for case, number, and gender (masculine and feminine), influencing adjective agreement. The verb system is complex, indicating tense, aspect, mood, and person, and it makes a fundamental distinction between perfective and imperfective aspect. A notable feature is the use of ergative case marking in perfective aspects for transitive verbs, a trait shared with languages like Persian and Kurdish.

Writing system

The primary script is Devanagari, an abugida where each character represents a consonant with an inherent vowel, modified by diacritics. The script is written from left to right and includes a distinctive horizontal top line, known as a shirorekha. It consists of 11 vowels and 33 consonants, with additional symbols for nasalization and gemination. While Devanagari is standard, historical and literary works, especially from the Mughal Empire period, were also composed in scripts like the Persian alphabet, and the language is sometimes transcribed into the Latin script for technological or informal communication.

Status and influence

It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and an official language of the Government of India, used in the Parliament of India, the Supreme Court of India, and major national institutions like All India Radio and Doordarshan. Its cultural influence is vast, dominating the Bollywood film industry and a significant portion of literature, music, and television. As a major world language, it is a subject of study in universities globally, including at the University of Chicago and University of California, Berkeley, and is a critical language for international diplomacy, business, and technology sectors engaging with South Asia.

Category:Languages of India Category:Indo-Aryan languages Category:Hindi