Standard Hindi

For other uses, see Standard Hindi (disambiguation).

Hindi
हिन्दी, हिंदी
Native to	India and Pakistan. (Hindustani).
Native speakers	First language: ~ 490 million (2008) Second language: 120–225 million (1999)
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Hindi
Writing system	Devanagari, Kaithi, Latin, and several regional scripts.
Official status
Official language in	India (Standard Hindi, Urdu, Maithili) Fiji (Hindustani)
Regulated by	Central Hindi Directorate (India),
Language codes
ISO 639-1	hi
ISO 639-2	hin
ISO 639-3	hin
Distribution of native Hindi speakers in India

Hindi (Devanāgarī: हिन्दी or हिंदी, IAST: Hindī, IPA: [ˈɦɪndiː] ) is the name given to an Indo-Aryan language, or a dialect continuum of languages, spoken in northern and central India (the "Hindi belt").

Hindi is the official language of the Republic of India.

Native speakers of Hindi dialects between them account for 41% of the Indian population (2001 Indian census). The Constitution of India accords Hindi in the Devanagari script as the official language of the Indian Republic. The other official language being English. It is also one of the 22 scheduled languages specified in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution. Official Hindi is often described as Standard Hindi which, along with English, is used for administration of the central government. Hindustani or Standard Hindi is also an official language of Fiji.

History

Main articles: History of the Hindi language and Hindavi

Hindi evolved from the Sauraseni Prakrit. Though there is no consensus for a specific time, Hindi originated as local dialects such as Braj, Awadhi, and finally Khari Boli after the turn of tenth century (these local dialects are still spoken, each by large populations). In the period between the reigns of (the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire) using Persian as their official language, Khari Boli adopted many Persian and Arabic words. As for the ultimately Arabic words, since almost every one of them came via Persian, their form in Hindi-Urdu does not preserve the original phonology of Arabic.

Current use

Hindi is the most widely spoken of India's official languages. It is spoken mainly in northern states of Rajasthan, Delhi, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar. It is the second major language in Andaman and Nicobar Islands and it is also spoken alongside regional languages like Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi or Bengali throughout north and central India. Hindi is also understood in a few other parts of India as well as in the neighbouring countries of Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Hindi is spoken by all persons of Indian descent in Fiji. In Western Viti Levu and Northern Vanua Levu, it is a common spoken language and a link language spoken between Fijians of Indian descent and native Fijians. The latter are also the only ethnic group in the world of non Indian descent that includes majority Hindi speakers. Native speakers of Hindi dialects account for 48% of the Fiji population. This includes all people of Indian ancestry including those whose forefathers emigrated from regions in India where Hindi was not generally spoken. As defined in the Constitution of Fiji (Constitution Amendment Act 1997 (Act No. 13 of 1997), Section 4(1), Hindi is one of the three official languages of communication (English and Fijian being the others). Section 4(4)(a)(b)(c)(d) also states that 4) Every person who transacts business with: (a) a department; (b) an office in a state service; or (c) a local authority; has the right to do so in English, Fijian, or Hindustani, either directly or through a competent interpreter.

Hindi and Urdu

Urdu can clearly be termed as a mere sub-sect or a branch of Hindi which contains many Persian words. Urdu does not have it's own grammar or structure, but it is clearly based on Hindi. So to call Urdu an independent language would be utterly false. Hindi derives it's grammar, syntax, structure and vocabulary from Sanskrit, the original language of India. Urdu merely adds words to Hindi owing to Persian/Turkish influences, so it can clearly be called a branch of Hindi. Hindi can survive independently by purging Persian/Urdu words from it's vocabulary and using Sanskrit words instead but Urdu cannot exist as it cannot exist without the structure, language, syntax and vocabulary of Hindi. Urdu as it is contains 71% original Hindi/Sanskrit words. [1] Urdu at most can be said to be Hindi written in the Arabic script with addition of some Persian words in it. The terms "Hindi" and "Urdu" were used interchangeably even by Urdu poets like Mir and Mirza Ghalib of the early 19th century (more often, however, the terms Hindvi/Hindi were used); while British officials usually understood the term "Urdu" to refer solely to the writing system and not to a language at all.

Phonology

Main article: Hindi-Urdu phonology

Bilabial Labio- dental Dental/ Alveolar Retroflex Post-alv./ Palatal Velar Glottal Nasal m n (ɳ) Plosive p pʰ b bʱ t̪ t̪ʰ d̪ d̪ʱ ʈ ʈʰ ɖ ɖʱ k kʰ ɡ ɡʱ Affricate tʃ tʃʰ dʒ dʒʱ Fricative f s z ʃ ɦ Tap or Flap ɾ (ɽ) (ɽʱ) Approximant ʋ l j

Vowels

Writing system

Main article: Hindustani orthography

the word "Hindi" in Devanagari

Hindi is written in the Devanagari script. To represent sounds that are foreign to Indic phonology, additional letters have been coined by choosing an existing Devanagari letter representing a similar sound and adding a dot (called a 'nukta') beneath it. For example, the sound 'z', which was borrowed from Persian, is represented by ज़ , which is a modification of the letter which represents the sound 'j' ([ɟ] in IPA). The nukta is also used to represent native sounds, such as ड़ and ढ़, modifications of the characters ड and ढ respectively. These modify the voiced retroflex plosive characters ड and ढ to retroflex flap sounds.

Grammar

Main article: Hindi_grammar

Hindi is a subject-object-verb language, meaning that verbs usually fall at the end of the sentence rather than before the object (whereas in English it is often Subject Verb Object). Hindi also shows split ergativity so that, in some cases, verbs agree with the object of a sentence rather than the subject. Unlike English, Hindi has no definite article (the). The numeral one (एक "ek") might be used as the indefinite singular article (a/an) if this needs to be stressed.

In addition, Hindi uses postpositions (so called because they are placed after nouns) where English uses prepositions. Other differences include gender, honorifics, interrogatives, use of cases, and different tenses. While being complicated, Hindi grammar is fairly regular, with irregularities being relatively limited. The concept of punctuation other than the full stop having been entirely unused before the arrival of the Europeans, Hindi punctuation uses western conventions for commas, exclamation points, and question marks. Periods are sometimes used to end a sentence, though the traditional "full stop" (a vertical line) is also used.

Genders

In Hindi, there are two genders for nouns. All male human beings and male animals (and those animals and plants that are perceived to be "masculine") are masculine. All female human beings and female animals (and those animals and plants that are perceived to be "feminine") are feminine. Things, inanimate articles and abstract nouns are also either masculine or feminine according to convention, the same as Urdu and similar to many other Indo-European languages such as, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese.

Interrogatives

Besides the standard interrogative terms of who (कौन kaun), what (क्या kyā), why (कयों kyõ), when (कब kab), where (कहाँ kahã), how and what type (कैसा kaisā), how many (कितना kitnā), etc, the Hindi word kyā (क्या) can be used as a generic interrogative often placed at the beginning of a sentence to turn a statement into a Yes/No question. This makes it clear when a question is being asked. Questions can also be formed simply by modifying intonation, as some questions are in English.

Pronouns

Hindi has pronouns in the first, second and third person for one gender only. Thus, unlike English, there is no difference between he or she. More strictly speaking, the third person of the pronoun is actually the same as the demonstrative pronoun (this / that). The verb, upon conjugation, usually indicates the difference in the gender. The pronouns have additional cases of accusative and genitive, but no vocative. There may also be binary ways of inflecting the pronoun in the accusative case. Note that for the second person of the pronoun (you), Hindi has three levels of honorifics:

• आप (/ɑːp/): Formal and respectable form for you. Has no difference between the singular and the plural. Used in all formal settings and speaking to persons who are senior in job or age. Plural could be stressed by saying आप लोग (/ɑːp loɡ/ you people) or आप सब (/ɑːp səb/ you all).
• तुम (/t̪um/): Informal form of you. Has no difference between the singular and the plural. Used in all informal settings and speaking to persons who are junior in job or age. Plural could be stressed by saying तुम लोग (/t̪um loɡ/ you people) or तुम सब (/t̪um səb/ you all). Or "ap sab," formal form of "you all."
• तू (/t̪uː/): Extremely informal form of you. Strictly singular, its plural form being /t̪um/. Except for very close friends or poetic language involving God, it could be perceived as offensive in India.

Imperatives (requests and commands) correspond in form to the level of honorific being used, and the verb inflects to show the level of respect and politeness desired. Because imperatives can already include politeness, the word "kripayā", which can be translated as "please", is much less common than in spoken English; it is generally only used in writing or announcements, and its use in common speech may even reflect mockery.

Word order

The standard word order in Hindi is, in general, Subject Object Verb, but where different emphasis or more complex structure is needed, this rule is very easily set aside (provided that the nouns/pronouns are always followed by their postpositions or case markers). More specifically, the standard order is 1. Subject 2. Adverbs (in their standard order) 3. Indirect object and any of its adjectives 4. Direct object and any of its adjectives 5. Negation term or interrogative, if any, and finally the 6. Verb and any auxiliary verbs. (Snell, p93) Negation is formed by adding the word नहीं (nahī̃, "no"), in the appropriate place in the sentence, or by utilizing न (na) or मत (mat) in some cases. Note that in Hindi, the adjectives precede the nouns they qualify. The auxiliaries always follow the main verb. In general, Hindi speakers or writers enjoy considerable freedom in placing words to achieve stylistic and other socio-psychological effects, though not as much freedom as in heavily inflected languages.

Tense and aspect of Hindi verbs

Hindi verbal structure is focused on aspect with distinctions based on tense usually shown through use of the verb होना (honā - to be) as an auxiliary. There are three aspects: habitual (imperfect), progressive (also known as continuous) and perfective. Verbs in each aspect are marked for tense in almost all cases with the proper inflected form of होना. Hindi has four simple tenses, present, past, future (presumptive), and subjunctive (referred to as a mood by many linguists). Verbs are conjugated not only to show the number and person (1st, 2nd, 3rd) of their subject, but also its gender. Additionally, Hindi has imperative and conditional moods. The verbs must agree with the person, number and gender of the subject if and only if the subject is not followed by any postposition. If this condition is not met, the verb must agree with the number and gender of the object (provided the object does not have any postposition). If this condition is also not met, the verb agrees with neither. It is this kind of phenomenon that is called mixed ergativity.

Case

Hindi is a weakly inflected language for case; the relationship of a noun in a sentence is usually shown by postpositions (i.e., prepositions that follow the noun). Hindi has three cases for nouns. The Direct case is used for nouns not followed by any postpositions, typically for the subject case. The Oblique case is used for any nouns that is followed by a postposition. Adjectives modifying nouns in the oblique case will inflect that same way. Some nouns have a separate Vocative case. Hindi has two numbers: singular and plural—but they may not be shown distinctly in all declensions.

Literature

Main article: Hindi literature

The Hindi literature, is broadly divided into four prominent forms or styles, being Bhakti (devotional - Kabir, Raskhan); Shringar (beauty - Keshav, Bihari); Veer-Gatha (extolling brave warriors); and Adhunik (modern).

The medieval Hindi literature is marked by the influence of Bhakti movement and composition of long, epic poems, and written in Avadhi and Brij Bhasha dialects. During the British Raj, Khadiboli became the prestige dialect of Hindi. Khadiboli with heavily Sanskritized vocabulary or Sahityik Hindi (Literary Hindi) was popularized by the writings of Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Bhartendu Harishchandra and others. The rising numbers of newspapers and magazines made Khadiboli popular among the educated people. Chandrakanta, written by Devaki Nandan Khatri, is considered the first authentic work of prose in modern Hindi. The person who brought realism in the Hindi prose literature was Munshi Premchand, who is considered as the most revered figure in the world of Hindi fiction and progressive movement.

The Dwivedi Yug ("Age of Dwivedi") in Hindi literature lasted from 1900 to 1918. It is named after Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi, who played a major role in establishing modern Hindi language in poetry and broadening the acceptable subjects of Hindi poetry from the traditional ones of religion and romantic love.

In 20th century, Hindi literature saw a romantic upsurge. This is known as Chhayavaad (shadowism) and the literary figures belonging to this school are known as Chhayavaadi. Jaishankar Prasad, Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala', Mahadevi Varma and Sumitranandan Pant, are the four major Chhayavaadi poets.

Uttar Adhunik is the post-modernist period of Hindi literature, marked by a questioning of early trends that copied the West as well as the excessive ornamentation of the Chhayavaadi movement, and by a return to simple language and natural themes.

Popular media

Hindi films play an important role in popular culture. The dialogues and songs of Hindi films use Khari Boli and Hindi-Urdu in general, but the intermittent use of various dialects such as Awadhi, Rajasthani, Bhojpuri, and quite often Bambaiya Hindi, as also of many English words, is common.

Alam Ara (1931), which ushered in the era of "talkie" films in India, was a Hindi film. This film had seven songs in it. Music soon became an integral part of Hindi cinema. It is a very important part of popular culture and now comprises an entire genre of popular music. So popular is film music that songs filmed even 50–60 years ago are a staple of radio/TV and are generally very familiar to an Indian.

Hindi movies and songs are popular in many parts of India, such as Punjab, Gujarat and Maharashtra, that do not speak Hindi as a native language. Indeed, the Hindi film industry is largely based at Mumbai, in the Marathi-speaking state of Maharashtra. Hindi films are also popular abroad, especially in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Thailand, Iran and the UK, and a fan-base is emerging in the rest of Asia-Pacific. These days Hindi movies are released worldwide and have large audiences in the Americas, Europe and Middle Eastern countries.

The role of radio and television in propagating Hindi beyond its native audience cannot be overstated. Television in India was introduced and controlled by the central government until the proliferation of satellite TV made regulation unenforceable. During the era of control, Hindi predominated on both radio and TV, enjoying maximum air-time than any other Indian language. After the advent of satellite TV, several private channels emerged to compete with the government's official TV channel. Today, a large number of satellite channels provide viewers with much variety in entertainment. These include soap operas, detective serials, horror shows, dramas, cartoons, comedies, Hindu mythology and documentaries.

Further information: Bollywood and Bollywood songs

See also

• Anti-Hindi agitations of Tamil Nadu
• Complex text layout
• Hindi in Bihar
• Hindi Heartland
• Hindi languages
• Hindi literature
• Hinglish
• History of Hindustani
• Languages of India and Languages with official status in India
• List of languages by number of native speakers in India

References

Bibliography

• Bhatia, Tej K. Colloquial Hindi: The Complete Course for Beginners. London, UK & New York, NY: Routledge, 1996. ISBN 0-415-11087-4 (Book), 0415110882 (Cassettes), 0415110890 (Book & Cassette Course)
• Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.) (2005), "Hindi", Ethnologue: Languages of the World (15th ed.), Dallas: SIL International {{citation}}: |first= has generic name (help); External link in |chapter= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link).
• Grierson, G. A. Linguistic Survey of India Vol I-XI, Calcutta, 1928, ISBN 81-85395-27-6
• Hock, Hans H. (1991), Principles of Historical Linguistics, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin–New York, ISBN 3-11-012962-0
• Koul, Omkar N. (1994). Hindi Phonetic Reader.Delhi: Indian Institute of Language Studies.
• Koul, Omkar N. (2008). Modern Hindi Grammar. Springfield: Dunwoody Press.
• McGregor, R. S. (1977), Outline of Hindi Grammar, 2nd Ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford-Delhi, ISBN 0-19-870008-3 (3rd ed.)
• Masica, Colin (1991), The Indo-Aryan Languages, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521299442.
• Ohala, Manjari (1999), "Hindi", in International Phonetic Association (ed.), Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: a Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge University Press, pp. 100–103, ISBN 9780521637510.
• Pollock, Sheldon I (ed.) (2003). Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. ISBN 0520228219. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)
• Shapiro, Michael C. (2001), "Hindi", in Garry, Jane; Rubino, Carl (eds.), An encyclopedia of the world's major languages, past and present, New England Publishing Associates, pp. 305–309.
• Shapiro, Michael C. (2003), "Hindi", in Cardona, George; Jain, Dhanesh (eds.), The Indo-Aryan Languages, Routledge, pp. 250–285, ISBN 9780415772945.
• Snell, Rupert; Weightman, Simon (1989), Teach Yourself Hindi (2003 ed.), McGraw-Hill, ISBN 9780071420129.
• Taj, Afroz (2002) A door into Hindi. Retrieved November 8, 2005.
• Tiwari, Bholanath ([1966] 2004) हिन्दी भाषा (Hindī Bhāshā), Kitāb Mahal, Allahabad, ISBN 81-225-0017-X.

Dictionaries

• McGregor, R.S. (1993), Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary (2004 ed.), Oxford University Press, USA.
• Dasa, Syamasundara. Hindi sabdasagara. Navina samskarana. Kasi: Nagari Pracarini Sabha, 1965-1975.
• Mahendra Caturvedi. A practical Hindi-English dictionary. Delhi: National Publishing House, 1970.

Further reading

• Bhatia, Tej K A History of the Hindi Grammatical Tradition. Leiden, Netherlands & New York, NY : E.J. Brill, 1987. ISBN 978-90-04-07924-3

External links

• Hindi at Curlie
• The Union: Official Language
• Shabdkosh.com - Hindi To English Dictionary
• Hindi Online Web Application with 40 Interactive Free Lessons
• Web Hindi Resources
• Wikitravel Hindi Phrasebook
• Fiji Constitution Section 4 Languages
• Hindi Speaking Tree
• BBC HINDI