Hindi language
Hindi is an Indo-Iranian language that belongs to the Indo-European language family and is one of the official languages of India, alongside English. With over 425 million native speakers and an additional 120 million second-language speakers, Hindi ranks as the third most spoken language globally. The language is primarily written in the Devanagari script, a phonetic system where each symbol corresponds to a specific sound, and it is read from left to right. Hindi has deep historical roots, influenced by Sanskrit, Persian, and various regional dialects, which have shaped its grammar and vocabulary over centuries.
The structure of Hindi sentences differs from English, notably placing verbs at the end and using gendered nouns. The language's rich vocabulary includes many words derived from Persian and Arabic, reflecting centuries of cultural interactions. Despite the standardization efforts by the Central Hindi Directorate, the presence of numerous dialects and the influence of English in contemporary usage challenge a singular form of Hindi and lead to hybrid expressions. Bollywood cinema has played a significant role in popularizing Hindi, both within India and internationally, making the language more accessible to a broader audience and influencing its evolution in the twenty-first century.
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Hindi language
The Hindi language is an Indo-Iranian language within the Indo-European language family. Hindi, along with English, is the official language of India, and is spoken as a first language by more than 425 million people and as a second language by more than 120 million others. Hindi is also prominent in Bangladesh, Mauritius, South Africa, Uganda, and Yemen.
Hindi is written in a phonetic script called Devanagari, wherein each symbol corresponds directly to a sound so that each symbol always sounds the same. Text is written from left to right, similar to English. Sentence structure is slightly different from English, however, because in Hindi, verbs always go at the end of the sentence. In addition, all nouns in Hindi have genders to which adjectives and verbs must correspond.
Background
The Devanagari script of the Hindi language dates back to the eleventh century, around the same time that the language got its present name. Hindi was so named by the Persian-speaking Turks who invaded the region. The word Hindi was derived from the Persian hind, meaning "land of the Indus River." Hindi script is heavily influenced by Sanskrit, an Indo-Aryan language dating back to the sixth century BCE.
The spoken Hindi language has influences from a number of related languages. Sanskrit, Persian, and the Prakrit and Apabhramsha languages—from which Hindi developed—have all affected Hindi grammar. Like Sanskrit, Hindi has gendered nouns. In Sanskrit, however, there are three genders—male, female, and neutral; in Hindi, there are only two—male and female. Persian influence led to the change from nominal and verbal inflection, meaning that the adjective agrees in number and gender with the noun, to the present system where number agreement is made by postpositions, much like English prepositions. The Persian language also influenced the way that verbs are conjugated. In Hindi, only the present and future indicative forms have full conjugations. Other tenses are made by using perfective and imperfective participles and auxiliary verbs.
The actual words used in the Hindi language also come from a variety of sources. A large portion of Hindi vocabulary is directly pulled from Persian and Arabic, due to early interaction with Muslim invaders from central Asia. Many of the words brought to Hindi from the Persian language have to do with administration and everyday items, such as words for cosmetics and furniture. Contact with English, particularly due to interaction with the British Empire, created many hybridized words. Such words have an English base word, such as congress, and a Hindi suffix, making the word kaungresi.
Standard Hindi is one of the official languages of India; however, there are many dialects of Hindi that are spoken throughout India. The dialects tend to be more like regional languages than Hindi dialects. Some of the dialects are very different from one another, but they still share similarities, whether it is the writing system or pronunciations of certain words.
Topic Today
Hindi is one of the world's most widely spoken languages, ranking third in the world for number of native speakers and number of second language learners. It is spoken by about 7.5 percent of the world's population and the number of native speakers continues to rise. It is difficult to get a precise count of people who speak standard Hindi, as many people who report that they speak Hindi actually speak another language that they consider to be a Hindi dialect. These dialects were originally grouped with Hindi during the rule of the British Empire in an attempt to classify the languages. The dialects are typically seen as a lesser language in India, only being spoken among family and friends. Anyone who is a part of the urban middle class, or wants to succeed in work and social situations, speaks standard Hindi in everyday communication rather than a regional dialect.
The vast amount of regional dialects poses an issue to the efforts of the standardization of Hindi. Many of the people who speak Hindi also speak one of the regional dialects, and they allow the regional dialect to influence how they speak and use the Hindi language. Their use of the Hindi language is influenced by those regional dialects, slowly transitioning the language to include new, hybrid words or new pronunciations, hindering efforts to standardize the language. The Central Hindi Directorate is the government agency whose mission is standardizing Hindi, and its vision of standardization does not align with how the language is developing in the twenty-first century. The directorate envisions the language returning more to its roots and developing more closely to Sanskrit.
Despite the intentions of the Central Hindi Directorate, the non-native Hindi speakers are moving the language in another direction. By continuing to adopt English words and phrases into the language and simplifying the subject-verb agreement rules of standard Hindi, it is becoming easier for non-native speakers, particularly English speakers, to learn and comprehend Hindi. Both groups have the same goal of making the language easier for non-native speakers to understand, thereby widening the scope of Hindi.
One medium that has helped with widening the scope of the language is Bollywood movies. Bollywood movies, derived from Hollywood, are Indian movies typically with romantic plots, catchy songs, highly choreographed dance numbers, and locations exotic to Indians, such as the Swiss Alps. These movies play on televisions across India, giving the population a standard of the language they speak. Often, Bollywood movies are filmed in a mix of Hindi and English, providing Indians with an example of the languages. Bollywood movies are not just viewed in India, however. They are popular around the world and give people in other cultures who speak other languages a chance to hear standard Hindi, perhaps influencing them to learn Hindi as a second language.
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