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Hindi

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Hindi script

[[w:Hindi|Hindi langauge (हिन्दी), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (मानक हिन्दी), is a standardised and Sanskritised register of the Hindustani language. Hindustani is the native language of most people living in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, and Rajasthan. Modern Standard Hindi is one of the official languages of India. Hindi literature is broadly divided into four prominent forms or styles, being Bhakti (devotional – Kabir, Raskhan); Shringar (beauty – Keshav, Bihari); Virgatha (extolling brave warriors); and Adhunik (modern).

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Hindi manuscript
  • Article 351 of Constitution of India reads “It shall be the duty of the Union to promote the spread of the Hindi language, to develop it so that it may serve as a medium of expression for all the elements of the composite culture of India and to secure its enrichment by assimilating without interfering with its genius, the forms, style and expressions used in Hindustani and in the other languages of India specified in the Eighth Schedule, and by drawing, wherever necessary or desirable, for its vocabulary, primarily on Sanskrit and secondarily on other languages."
  • Formal vocabulary is borrowed from Sanskrit, de-Persianized, de-Arabicized. Literary Hindi, or Hindi-Urdu, has 4 varieties: Hindi (High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, Literary Hindi, Standard Hindi); Urdu; Dakhini; Rekhta. “Hindustani”, though not listed separately in India, refers here to the unofficial lingua franca of northwest India. Has a lexical mixture in varying proportions of Hindi (vocabulary derived from Sanskrit) and Urdu (vocabulary derived from Persian or |Arabic).
  • Hindi, Hindustani, Urdu could be considered co-dialects, but have important sociolinguistic differences.
  • Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (also known as Manak Hindi, High Hindi, and Nagari Hindi ['City Hindi']), is a standardised and sanskritised register of the Hindustani language (Hindi-Urdu). It is the native language of people living in Delhi, Haryana, Western Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, northeastern Madhya Pradesh, and parts of eastern Rajasthan, and is the official language of India. But many non-native speakers from other parts of India, too, understand it easily because it is close to their native languages that, just like Hindi, originated from various Prakrit languages. These languages have common roots and the native speakers of several regional Indian languages find it easier to understand the more Sanskritised form of Hindi.
  • Hindi vowels do not distinguish between the capital and non-capital form
    • Lingua in: "FSI Hindi Course Free Live Lingua Project"

Hindi: The language of songs

Hindi is a direct descendant of Sanskrit through w:PrakritPrakrit and Apabhramsha. It has been influenced and enriched by Dravidian, Turkish, Farsi, Arabic, Portuguese and English....

In: Hindi: The language of songs, Colorado State University's Computer Science Department

  • Hindi started to emerge as Apabhramsha in the 7th century and by the 10 century became stable. Several dialects of Hindi have been used in literature. Braj was the popular literary dialect until it was replaced by khari boli in the 19th century.

Vocabulary Hindi language

File:Georgia Guidestones 02.jpg
Georgia Guide stone in Hindi

The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica in: Hindi language, Encyclopædia Britannica, 23 March 2014

  • While borrowing Persian and Arabic words, Hindi also borrowed phonemes, such as /f/ and /z/, though these were sometimes replaced by /ph/ and /j/. For instance, Hindi renders the word for ‘force’ as either zor or jor and the word for ‘sight’ as nazar or najar. In most cases the sounds /g/ and /x/ were replaced by /k/ and /kh/, respectively. Contact with the English language has also enriched Hindi. Many English words, such as button, pencil, petrol, and college are fully assimilated in the Hindi lexicon.
  • Hindi has borrowed a number of prefixes and suffixes from Persian that, when combined with indigenous roots, have created new words. Similarly, the process of hybridization with English has produced a large number of derived nominals, such as Kaohsiung (congress + i), Ameriki (America+ i), and vaiscansalari (vice-chancellor + i), in which the base word is English and the suffix is typically Hindi. Nouns that mix contributions from English and Persian, such as table-kursi ‘tables and chairs’ and school-imarat ‘school building,’ are also found. In spoken Hindi, English-based complex verbs are used as well. For instance, one can say either aram karna or rest karna ‘to rest,’ parhai karna or study karna ‘to study,’ and bahas karna or plead karna ‘to plead.’
  • In earlier Hindi the relative clause was placed either at the beginning or at the end of the main clause. For instance, one could render ‘the boy who came here yesterday is my friend’ in several ways: wo larka mera dosht hai jo kal yaha aya tha, literally ‘that boy my friend is who yesterday came here’; jo larka kal yaha aya tha, wo mera dosht hai, literally ‘which boy yesterday here came, he my friend is’; or wo larka jo kal yaha aya tha, mera dosht hai, literally ‘that boy who yesterday here came, my friend is.’
  • After colonization, Hindi syntax was influenced by English, though in a limited way. For instance, until the mid-19th century, Hindi had no form for indirect narration—one could formerly say Ram ne kaha, mein nahi aaoonga ‘Ram said, “I won’t come,”’ and now one can also say Ram ne kaha ki wo nahi ayega ‘Ram said that he won’t come.’
  • From the mid-20th century, the use of Hindi on national television increased the use of a linguistic device called code switching, in which the speaker creates sentences by combining a Hindi phrase with another in English, as in I told him that mai bimar hu ‘I told him that I am sick.’ This device differs from code mixing, in which words of different origins are mixed: usne sick leave ki application de hai ‘he has applied for sick leave.’
  • In 1931 linguist Sumit Kumar Chatterjee conducted a study in Calcutta (now Kolkata) detailing the use of a lingua franca that he called Bazaar Hindustani. It had minimal grammatical forms and a simplified basic vocabulary used by both Europeans and Indians who spoke such languages as Assamese, Bengali, Oriya, Tamil, and Hindi. In the early 21st century, what came to be known simply as Hindustani—a colloquial spoken language that, depending on geographic location, draws extensively from Hindi and Sanskrit or from Urdu and Persian—continued to be the lingua franca of Kolkata and other cosmopolitan and industrial cities that had drawn people from all parts of India. As Hindi originated in just such a multilingual situation centuries ago, so may urbanism instigate the development of an even richer lexicon and even more flexible syntactic devices.
  • Pressure on standard Hindi is felt not only from non-Hindi speakers but also from the many Hindi speakers who have recently switched over from their dialects to standard Hindi without having entirely eliminated the influences of those regional languages. In such cases, sound systems often retain a regional touch; for instance, Biharis use /s/ in place of /sh/, and the hill peoples (the so-called Scheduled Tribes) of Uttar Pradesh use /sh/ for /s/. The syntax of such speakers may also have recognizable variants; for example, instead of the standard Hindi form mujhey jana hai ‘I have to go,’ Punjabis and Delhites say maine jana hae, Hindi speakers of Telangana say maiku jana hai, and people of western Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra say apanko jana hai.
  • The Central Hindi Directorate, a government agency with the mission of standardizing and modernizing Hindi, is moving the language closer to Sanskrit. Non-Hindi speakers, however, are pulling the language in another direction by using increasing numbers of English words and phrases and by simplifying the complex rules of subject-verb agreement found in standard Hindi. Notably, both groups are motivated by the same goal—to widen the scope of Hindi by making it more comprehensible to non-Hindi speakers.

A Guide to Hindi - 10 facts about the Hindi language

A scene from the play Vikramorvashiyam - Hindi in its present form emerged through different stages, during which it was known by other names. The earliest form of old Hindi was Apabhramsa. In 400 AD, Kalidasa, a famous Indian literary playwright, wrote a romantic play in Apabhramsa called Vikramorvashiyam.
File:Dancer in Sari.jpg
The most common word for greetings in Hindi is नमस्ते namaste). It’s a formal way to say hello to anybody with a sense of respect. Literally, it means ‘I bow to you’....

BBC in: A Guide to Hindi - 10 facts about the Hindi language, BBC

  • Hindi got its name from the Persian word Hind, meaning 'land of the Indus River'. Persian speaking Turks who invaded Punjab and Gangetic plains in the early 11th century named the language of the region Hindi, 'language of the land of the Indus River'.

Just like European languages, Hindi is written from left to right.

  • It's fairly easy to read Hindi. In Hindi, unlike in European languages, words are written as they are pronounced because each character has a different sound.
  • The other good news is that Hindi doesn't have articles (words for 'the' or 'a').
  • However, sentence structure is different from English. Verbs always go to the end of sentences in Hindi and auxiliary verbs go at the very end of a sentence. For example, you would say आप कैसे हैं [aap kaise hain] for How are you?, which, translated word for word becomes 'You how are'. Similarly, मैं अच्छा हूँ [main achchha hoon], I am fine becomes 'I fine am'.
  • In Hindi, unlike in English, all nouns have genders, either masculine or feminine. Adjectives and verbs change according to gender. Learning the gender aspect of Hindi grammar is usually one of the most difficult steps in learning Hindi.
  • You'll find many familiar words in English which are either Hindi or of Hindi origin. For example guru, jungle, karma, yoga, bungalow, cheetah, looting, thug and avatar.
  • On the other hand, Hindi also uses lots of English words. They are read and pronounced as they are in English, but are written in Hindi. For example, डॉक्टर is pronounced doctor and स्टेशन is pronounced station. Other English words that are used are hospital, railway, train, cycle, motor, bus, car, cricket, football, tennis, judge, court. Therefore, if you want to say

In Hindi it's common to find long words created by combining several other words. For example, किम्कर्तव्यविमूढ़ [kimkartavyavimoorh] means confused, bewildered, indecisive and लौहपथगामिनी [lauhpathgamini] is a word created to mean train. It means 'a thing which travels on an iron path' and is a combination of three words, 'iron', 'path' and 'traveller'. But this word is only used in a funny sense, mostly in jokes, the Hindi word used for train is रेलगाड़ी [railgadi] , literally 'rail vehicle'.

  • Knowledge of Hindi will help with Sanskrit, Urdu, Nepalese, Bengali and Gujarati as they all have some similarities with Hindi, either in spoken language or in the written script.
  • Hindi is also helpful for communicating in Nepal, India's neighbour. Interestingly, a Hindi speaker will find it difficult to speak Nepalese, Nepal's official language, but easy to read it as both languages use the same script called Devanagari. On the other hand, it's easy for Hindi speakers to speak Urdu, the national language of Pakistan, but very difficult to read Urdu text as it uses Arabic script.
  • Another interesting aspect is that it's difficult for a Hindi speaker to communicate with many people in India itself, especially in south Indian states, where Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam languages are spoken!
  • Also, Hindi has hundreds of dialects which are spoken in different regions, but those languages of different Hindi dialects use the same script, Devanagari. South Indian languages use other Dravidian scripts.
  • There are three words for you: तुम [tum], तू[tu], and आप [aap] but [tum] and [tu] should never be used in formal situations, especially with elders as this will be considered extremely impolite. They are mostly used with friends and family members. The most appropriate expression for you is [aap] as it can be used in any situation.
  • Hindi in its present form emerged through different stages, during which it was known by other names. The earliest form of old Hindi was Apabhramsa. In 400 AD, Kalidasa, a famous Indian literary playwright, wrote a romantic play in Apabhramsa called Vikramorvashiyam.
  • The modern Devanagari script came into existence in the 11th century. The earliest evidence of Hindi printing is found in Grammar of the "Hindoostani Language", a book by John Gilchrist, published in 1796 in Calcutta. It deals with the Hindustani language, which is a common form of Hindi and Urdu, but is mostly a spoken language. The book has traces of Hindi/Devanagari texts but it is more of an Urdu-English book than a Hindi book.
  • "Prem Sagar", meaning ‘Ocean of Love’, by Lalloo Lal was published in 1805. It’s considered the first published Hindi book and tells the deeds of Lord Krishna, a Hindu religious figure.
  • The most common word for greetings in Hindi is नमस्ते namaste). It’s a formal way to say hello to anybody with a sense of respect. Literally, it means ‘I bow to you’. The word is derived from two Sanskrit words: नमस [namas] meaning bow and ते [te]meaning to you. When greeting each other, people generally bow slightly while bringing their hands in front of the chest pressing them together, touching palms and pointing fingers upwards.
  • Another very useful and common word to know is जी [jee], yes to show politeness and respect. It’s usually placed after people’s first or last names, and for both male and female. In the case of the name Ram Singh, it can either be [Ram jee] or [Singh jee].
  • In day-to-day communication, especially in formal situations or between people of different ages, then जी [jee] is considered a polite expression to show respect instead of using हाँ [haan], the Hindi word for yes. For example, if a teacher asks his student a question, then to say ‘yes’, the student should say जी [jee], rather than हाँ [haan].
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