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Hindi

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Languages

   Hindī
   हिन्दी, हिंदी
   Spoken in: India
   Region: Indian Subcontinent
   Total speakers: ca. 330 million native, 630 million total
   Ranking: 2 or 3
   Language family: Indo-European
     Indo-Iranian
      Indo-Aryan
       Central zone
        Western Hindi
         Hindustani
         Hindī
   Writing system: Devanagari script
   Official status
   Official language of: India
   Regulated by: Central Hindi Directorate
   Language codes
   ISO 639-1: hi
   ISO 639-2: hin
   ISO/FDIS 639-3: hin
Indic script
            This page contains Indic text. Without rendering support you may see
            irregular vowel positioning and a lack of conjuncts. More...

   Hindi ( Devanagari: हिन्दी or हिंदी; IPA: [hɪnd̪iː]), an Indo-European
   language spoken mainly in northern and central India, is the official
   language of the Union government of India . It is part of a dialect
   continuum of the Indic family, bounded on the northwest and west by
   Punjabi, Sindhi, Urdu, and Gujarati; on the south by Marathi; on the
   southeast by Oriya; on the east by Bengali; and on the north by Nepali.
   Hindi also refers to a standardized register of Hindustani termed
   khariboli, that emerged as the standard dialect of Hindi. The
   grammatical description in this article concerns this standard Hindi.

Classification

   Hindi is classified as a language belonging to the Indo-European family
   of languages. It comes under the Indo-Aryan division of the
   Indo-Iranian branch of this family of languages.

Etymology

   Of Persian origin, the word Hindī (ہندی) is comprised of Hind, meaning
   "India", and ī, meaning "of". Hence Hindi translates as "Indian".

Demographics

Area

   Hindi text in Devnagari script (a prayer to a Hindu deity)
   Enlarge
   Hindi text in Devnagari script (a prayer to a Hindu deity)

   Hindi is the predominant language in the states and union territories
   of Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh,
   Bihar, Uttaranchal, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh. Linguistic
   scholars refer to this area as Hindi belt. Outside these areas, Hindi
   is widely spoken in cities like Mumbai, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Kolkata,
   and Hyderabad, all of which have their own native languages but harbour
   large communities of people from various parts of India.

   Local variations of Hindi are counted as minority languages in several
   countries, including Fiji, Mauritius, Guyana, Suriname, South Africa,
   Trinidad and Tobago, US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK among
   various other countries around the world.

Number of speakers

   Hindi is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, due to
   the large population of India. According to the 1991 census of India
   (which encompasses all the dialects of Hindi, including those that
   might be considered separate languages by some linguists—e.g.,
   Bhojpuri), Hindi is the mother tongue of about 337 million Indians, or
   about 40% of India's population that year. According to SIL
   International's Ethnologue, about 180 million people in India regard
   standard (Khari Boli) Hindi as their mother tongue, and another 300
   million use it as a second language. Outside India, Hindi speakers
   number around 8 million in Nepal, 890,000 in South Africa, 685,000 in
   Mauritius, 317,000 in the U.S., 233,000 in Yemen, 147,000 in Uganda,
   30,000 in Germany, 20,000 in New Zealand and 5,000 in Singapore, while
   the UK and UAE also have notable populations of Hindi speakers. Hence,
   according to the SIL ethnologue (1999 data), Hindi/Urdu is the fifth
   most spoken language in the world. According to Comrie (1998 data),
   Hindi is the second most spoken language in the world, with 333 million
   native speakers.

   Because of Hindi's extreme similarity to Urdu, speakers of the two
   languages can usually understand one another, if both sides refrain
   from using specialized vocabulary. Indeed, linguists sometimes count
   them as being part of the same language diasystem. However, Hindi and
   Urdu are socio-politically different, and people who self-describe as
   being speakers of Urdu would question their being counted as native
   speakers of Hindi, and vice-versa.

Official and social status

Official status

   The Constitution of India, adopted in 1950, declares Hindi in the
   Devanagari script as the "official language (rājabhāṣā) of the Union"
   (Article 343(1)). Hindi is also enumerated as one of the twenty-two
   languages of the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India, which
   entitles it to representation on the Official Language Commission. It
   was envisioned that Hindi would become the sole working language of the
   central government by 1965, with state governments being free to
   function in languages of their own choice. This has not, however,
   happened and English is also used along with Hindi for the official
   purposes. There was widespread resistance to the imposition of Hindi on
   non-native speakers, in some states, especially the Anti-Hindi
   agitations in the state of Tamil Nadu, which resulted in the passage of
   the Official Languages Act (1963). This act provided for the continued
   use of English, indefinitely, for all official purposes, by the Union
   government. However, the constitutional directive to the central
   government to champion the spread of Hindi was retained and has
   strongly influenced the policies of the Union government.

   At the state level, Hindi is the official language of the following
   states: Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttaranchal, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar
   Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and Delhi. Each of
   these states may also designate a "co-official language"; in Uttar
   Pradesh for instance, depending on the political formation in power,
   sometimes this language is Urdu. Similarly, Hindi is accorded the
   status of co-official language in several states.

Social status

   While the Union government has sedulously promoted the spread of Hindi,
   its official status is not reflected in social importance. As with
   other south Asian language groups, even native speakers of Hindi, if
   elite, are usually fluent in English. Education in English is a
   prerequisite for social status—hence the existence of several English
   medium "public" (actually private) and Christian missionary schools in
   India. English remains the sole language of higher education in many of
   the fields of learning such as Engineering, Medicine and Science. There
   were numerous pro-Hindi agitations in the so-called Hindi belt as a
   reaction to the anti-Hindi agitations in Tamil Nadu during the 1960's,
   but the movement de facto called for an expurgation of English (being a
   foreign language, sic) rather than actual promotion of Hindi.

   Since the elite can use English, Hindi has been particularly weak on
   the Internet. As a barometer, the Devanagari fonts and keyboards used
   on computers today were not standardized within India - earlier
   government standards such as the 8-bit ISCII (Indian Script Code for
   Information Interchange) or the GIST keyboard were never widely
   adopted. The present system was finally standardized only during
   Unicode deliberations. Indeed, Hindi unicode standards were finalised
   based on inputs from scholars hailing from Fiji and other countries. It
   is only when Unicode became the dominant standard that a number of
   changes were sought by the Indian government.

   At the informal level (as between friends, colleagues and co-workers,
   and in entertainment, films, etc.), the use of Hindi has been growing,
   even among non-native speakers. Hindi is often used if the speakers in
   question hail from different linguistic provinces, especially if they
   belong to a social stratum that has not accessed a very good English
   education, and often even otherwise. Hindi movies have been playing a
   substantial role in popularizing the language all over the country.
   Popular Hindi TV serials do the same today. Seeing the popularity of
   Hindi, BBC World Service started News in Hindi in 1940.

History

   Hindi evolved from Sanskrit, by way of the Middle Indo-Aryan Prakrit
   languages and Apabhramsha of the Middle Ages. There is no consensus for
   a specific time where the modern north Indian languages such as Hindi
   emerged, but c. 1000 AD is commonly accepted. In the span of nearly a
   thousand years of Muslim influence, such as when Muslim rulers
   controlled much of northern India during the Delhi Sultanate and the
   Mughal Empire, many Persian and Arabic words were borrowed into Hindi.
   All Arabic words were loaned into Hindi via Persian, and hence do not
   preserve the original phonology of Arabic (Tiwari [1955] 2004).

   Hindi is often contrasted with Urdu, another standardised form of
   Hindustani that is the official language of Pakistan and also an
   official language in some parts of India. The primary differences
   between the two are that Standard Hindi is written in Devanagari and
   draws its vocabulary with words from Sanskrit, while Urdu is written in
   Nastaliq script, a variant of the Perso-Arabic script, and draws
   heavily on Persian and Arabic vocabulary. The term "Urdu" also includes
   dialects of Hindustani other than the standardized languages. Other
   than these, linguists consider Hindi and Urdu to be the same language.

Standard Hindi

   After independence, the Government of India worked on standardizing
   Hindi, instituting the following changes:
     * standardization of Hindi grammar: In 1954, the Government of India
       set up a committee to prepare a grammar of Hindi; The committee's
       report was released in 1958 as "A Basic Grammar of Modern Hindi"
     * standardization of Hindi spelling
     * standardization of the Devanāgarī script by the Central Hindi
       Directorate of the Ministry of Education and Culture to bring about
       uniformity in writing and to improve the shape of some Devanagari
       characters.
     * scientific mode of transcribing the Devanagari alphabet
     * incorporation of diacritics to express sounds from other languages.

Vocabulary

   Standard Hindi derives much of its formal and technical vocabulary from
   Sanskrit. Standard or shuddha ("pure") Hindi is used only in public
   addresses and radio or TV news, while the everyday spoken language in
   most areas is one of several varieties of Hindustani, whose vocabulary
   contains words drawn from Persian and Arabic. In addition, spoken Hindi
   includes words from English and other languages as well.

   Vernacular Urdu and Hindi are practically indistinguishable. However,
   the literary registers differ substantially; in highly formal
   situations, the languages are barely intelligible to speakers of the
   other. It bears mention that in centuries past both Sanskrit and
   Persian have been regarded as the languages of the elite, even by those
   of differing ethnic and religious backgrounds.

   There are three principal categories of words in Standard Hindi:
     * Tatsam (तत्सम्) words: These are the words which have been directly
       lifted from Sanskrit to enrich the formal and technical vocabulary
       of Hindi. Such words (almost exclusively nouns) have been taken
       without any phonetic or spelling change. Among nouns, the tatsam
       word could be the Sanskrit uninflected word-stem, or it could be
       the nominative singular form in the Sanskrit nominal declension.
     * Tadbhav (तद्भव) words: These are the words that might have been
       derived from Sanskrit or the Prakrits, but have undergone minor or
       major phonetic and spelling changes as they appear in modern Hindi.
     * Deshaj (देशज) words: These are words of local origin.

   Similarly, Urdu treats its own vocabulary, borrowed directly from
   Persian and Arabic, as a separate category for morphological purposes.

   Hindi from which most of the Persian, Arabic and English words have
   been ousted and replaced by tatsam words is called Shuddha Hindi (pure
   Hindi). Chiefly, the proponents of the so-called Hindutva
   ("Hindu-ness") are vociferous supporters of Shuddha Hindi.

   Excessive use of tatsam words sometimes creates problems for most
   native speakers. Strictly speaking, the tatsam words are words of
   Sanskrit and not of Hindi—thus they have complicated consonantal
   clusters which are not linguistically valid in Hindi. The educated
   middle class population of India can pronounce these words with ease,
   but people of rural backgrounds have much difficulty in pronouncing
   them. Similarly, vocabulary borrowed from Persian and Arabic also
   brings in its own consonantal clusters and "foreign" sounds, which may
   again cause difficulty in speaking them.

Sociolinguistics of Hindi

Variants

   Sociolinguists^ have traditionally given what they call as four major
   variants or styles (शैली) of Hindi, viz.,
     * High Hindi, the standardized Hindi (based on the Khariboli
       dialect), written in Devanagari script, which contains numerous
       Sanskrit loanwords, including those introduced more recently to
       enrich the technical and poetical vocabulary or to replace words of
       Perseo-Arabic origin. Traditionally, this is the register spoken by
       the urban Hindu population of north India and is the form of Hindi
       taught in Indian schools and used in television news and
       newspapers. Today, High Hindi with many Persian, Arabic and English
       loanwords is the spoken form of this language in much of the north
       India, and is used in Hindi films, drama and television serials.
     * Dakhini, spoken in the Deccan plateau region in and around
       Hyderabad, similar to Urdu but with fewer words derived from
       Perso-Arabic in its vocabulary.
     * Rekhta, a form of Urdu used in poetry.
     * Urdu, a variant of Hindi (and also based on the Khariboli dialect),
       written in Perso-Arabic script. It utilizes a more extensive
       Persian and Arabic vocabulary and fewer Sanskrit loanwords,
       especially in its formal register. Before the Partition of India,
       Urdu's linguistic area was similar to that of High Hindi, but it
       was more commonly spoken as a mother tongue by Muslims and was
       identified as a cultural expression of Islam in north India.

   Additionally, Hindustani is generally coined for the neutral style that
   is in-between High Hindi and Urdu and used in common speech.

Dialects ("Mother Tongues")

   Hindi in the broad sense (formerly referred to as "Hindustani"; now
   often referred to as "Hindi-Urdu") is a dialect continuum without clear
   boundaries. For example, both Nepali and Panjabi are sometimes
   considered to be Hindi (based on the high level of mutual
   intelligibility for Panjabi and Hindi especially), though they are more
   often considered to be separate languages. Hindi is often divided into
   Western Hindi and Eastern Hindi, and these are further divided.
   Following is a list of principal Hindi dialects; many linguists regard
   only the dialects under Western and Eastern Hindi as proper Hindi
   dialects, and the rest as separate languages or sub-languages. The
   following listing is taken from Tiwari ([1966] 2004); even he notes
   that the classification of the dialects under various branches and
   their classification as a dialect of Hindi or as an independent
   language depends upon the perception of the linguist.

Hindi region of the Indian subcontinent

   This region includes the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi,
   Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttaranchal and
   Jharkhand. Some people, such as the Government of India (while taking
   census) regards all the languages spoken in these states to be dialects
   of Hindi (barring tribal languages). Tiwari ([1966] 2004) lists them
   under five groups:
    1. Western Hindi (the dialects developed from Sauraseni):
          + Khari boli (खड़ी बोली) or Sarhindi or Kauravi, originally
            spoken in western Uttar Pradesh (the districts of Saharanpur,
            Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Bijnor, Rampur and
            Moradabad, and district of Dehradun in Uttaranchal) and the
            Delhi region; the dialect that forms the basis of modern
            Standard Hindi. It is understood and/or spoken throughout the
            Indian subcontinent, from Afghanistan, the borders of Iran, to
            the borders of Burma, and in the south, it is understood in
            Sri Lanka. It is the almost the lingua franca of the Indian
            subcontinent, irrespective of political boundaries or official
            policies. This is not a great difference between the dialects
            of Khari-boli and Hindustani.
          + Braj Bhasha (ब्रज भाषा), spoken in south-central Uttar
            Pradesh, in the districts of Mathura, Agra, Aligarh, Dhaulpur,
            Mainpuri, Etah, Badaun and Bareilly. It has a rich poetic and
            literal tradition, especially linked with the Hindu divinity
            Krishna.
          + Hariyanvi (हरियाणी), spoken in the state of Haryana.
          + Bundeli (बुन्देली), the dialect of the districts of Jhansi,
            Jalaun and Hamirpur in Uttar Pradesh and Gwalior, Bhopal,
            Sagar, Narsinghpur, Seoni, Hoshangabad, etc. in Madhya
            Pradesh.
          + Kannauji (कन्नौजी), the dialect of the districts of Etawah,
            Farrukhabad, Shahjahanpur, Kanpur, Hardoi and Pilibhit in
            Uttar Pradesh.
    2. Eastern Hindi (the dialects developed from Ardhamagadhi)
          + Awadhi (अवधी), spoken in central and parts of eastern Uttar
            Pradesh, in the districts of Allahabad, Fatehpur, Mirzapur,
            Unnao, Raebareli, Sitapur, Faizabad, Gonda, Basti, Bahraich,
            Sultanpur, Pratapgarh and Barabanki. The famous Hindu
            scripture Ramcharitmanas was written by Tulsidas in this
            dialect.
          + Bagheli (बघेली), spoken in the districts of Rewa, Nagod,
            Shahdol, Satna, Maihar, etc. in Madhya Pradesh.
          + Chattisgarhi (छत्तिसगढ़ी), spoken mostly in the recently
            created state of Chhattisgarh
    3. Rajasthani, mostly spoken in the state of Rajasthan, and also
       comprised of several notable (sub)dialects:
          + Western Rajasthani or Marwari (मारवाड़ी)
          + Eastern Rajasthani or Jaipuri (जयपुरी)
          + Northern Rajasthani or Mewati (मेवाती)
          + Southern Rajasthani or Mewari (मेवाड़ी)
          + Malwi (मालवी) spoken in Western-southern Madhya Pradesh.
    4. Pahari (पहाड़ी), the dialects of the Himalayan mountains
          + Eastern Pahari, which includes Nepali, now considered a
            separate language
          + Central Pahari, which includes Garhwali and Kumauni
            sub-dialects of the newly created state of Uttaranchal.
          + Western Pahari, which includes the several sub-dialects spoken
            in Himachal Pradesh state.
    5. Bihari (traditionally thought to be dialects of Hindi, contra
       linguistic evidence)
          + Bhojpuri (भोजपुरी), which is spoken in eastern Uttar Pradesh
            (districts of Gorakhpur, Deoria, Mirzapur, Varanasi, Jaunpur,
            Ghazipur, Ballia), western Bihar (districts of Chhapra, Siwan,
            Gopalganj and Bhojpur) and a small part of Jharkhand
            (districts Palamu and Ranchi). Some linguists like Dr.
            Chatterji consider it so different from the other two Bihari
            dialects that they prefer keeping it outside the Bihari group.
          + Maithili (मैथिली), spoken in the East Champaran, Muzaffarpur,
            Munger, Bhagalpur, Darbhanga, Purnia and North Santhal Pargana
            districts of Bihar and Tarai of Nepal. It was included in the
            Eighth Schedule of the Indian constitution in January 2004 and
            is officially considered an independent language.
          + Magahi/Magadhi (मगही / मगधी), spoken in the districts of Gaya,
            Patna, Munger and Bhagalpur in Bihar state and Palamu,
            Hazaribagh and Ranchi in Jharkhand state.

   Depending upon perceptions, people also include various other dialects
   under Hindi, such as Nimari, Baiswari, Vajjika, Angika, etc.

Non-Hindi regions in the Indian subcontinent

     * Bambaiya Hindi, the dialect of the city of Bombay (Mumbai); it is
       based on Khariboli dialect, but heavily influenced by Marathi and
       Gujarati. Technically it is a pidgin, i.e., neither is it a mother
       language of any people nor is it used in formal settings by the
       educated and upper social strata. However, it is often used in the
       movies of Hindi cinema ( Urdu) (Bollywood), where it often gives a
       comical effect on the movie characters.
     * Dakhini, as discussed above.
     * Kalkatiya Hindi, another Khariboli-based pidgin spoken in the city
       of Calcutta (Kolkata), Shillong, etc., heavily influenced by
       Bhojpuri and Bengali.

Outside the Indian subcontinent

     * Tadj-Uzbeki, a term coined by Tiwari ([1966] 2004), for the dialect
       spoken by Indian immigrants from 13th century onwards in the border
       region of Tadjikistan and Uzbekistan (towns of Hisar, Shehr-e-nau,
       Regar, Surchi, etc). It seems to be based on the Braj, Hariyani and
       Rajasthani dialects, and is of course highly influenced by Uzbek,
       Tadjik and Russian languages.
     * Mauritian Hindi, spoken in Mauritius, based on Bhojpuri and
       influenced by French.
     * Sarnami, a form of Bhojpuri with Awadhi influence spoken by
       Surinamers of Indian descent.
     * Fiji Hindi, a form of Awadhi spoken by Fijians of Indian descent.
     * Trinidad Hindi, based on Bhojpuri, and spoken in Trinidad and
       Tobago by people of Indian descent.
     * South African Hindi, based on Bhojpuri, and spoken in South Africa
       by people of Indian descent.

Hindi and Urdu

   The term Urdu arose in 1645. Until then, and even after 1645, the term
   Hindi or Hindvi was used in a general sense for the dialects of central
   and northern India.

   There are two fundamental distinctions between Standard Urdu and
   Standard Hindi that lead to their being recognised as distinct
   languages:
     * the source of borrowed vocabulary (Persian/Arabic for Urdu and
       Sanskrit for Hindi); and
     * the script used to write them in (for Urdu, an adaptation of the
       Perso-Arabic alphabet written in Nasta'liq style; for Hindi, an
       adaptation of the Devanagari script).

   Colloquially and linguistically, the distinction between the Urdu and
   Hindi is nearly meaningless. This is true over much of the northern
   half of the Indian subcontinent, wherever neither learned vocabulary
   nor writing is used. Outside the Delhi dialect area, the term "Hindi"
   may be used in reference to the local dialect, which may be very
   different from both Hindi and Urdu.

   The word Hindi has many different uses; confusion of these is one of
   the primary causes of debate about the identity of Urdu. These uses
   include:
    1. standardized Hindi as taught in schools throughout India,
    2. formal or official Hindi advocated by Purushottam Das Tandon and as
       instituted by the post-independence Indian government, heavily
       influenced by Sanskrit,
    3. the vernacular nonstandard dialects of Hindustani/Hindi-Urdu as
       spoken throughout much of India and Pakistan, as discussed above,
    4. the neutralized form of the language used in popular television and
       films, or
    5. the more formal neutralized form of the language used in broadcast
       and print news reports.

   The rubric "Hindi" is often used as a catch-all for those idioms in the
   North Indian dialect continuum that are not recognized as languages
   separate from the language of the Delhi region. Panjabi, Bihari, and
   Chhatisgarhi, while sometimes recognised as being distinct languages,
   are often considered dialects of Hindi. Many other local idioms, such
   as the Bhili languages, which do not have a distinct identity defined
   by an established literary tradition, are almost always considered
   dialects of Hindi. In other words, the boundaries of "Hindi" have
   little to do with mutual intelligibility, and instead depend on social
   perceptions of what constitutes a language.

   The other use of the word "Hindi" is in reference to Standard Hindi,
   the Khari boli register of the Delhi dialect of Hindi (generally called
   Hindustani) with its direct loanwords from Sanskrit. Standard Urdu is
   also a standardized form of Hindustani. Such a state of affairs, with
   two standardized forms of what is essentially one language, is known as
   a diasystem.

   Urdu was earlier called Zabān-e-Urdū-e-Mu’allah (زبانِ اردوِ معلہ,
   ज़बान-ऐ उर्दू), lit., the "Exalted Language of the Camp". Earlier,
   terms Hindi and Urdu were used interchangeably even by Urdu poets like
   Mir and Mirza Ghalib of the early 19th century (rather, the terms
   Hindvi/Hindi was used more often). By 1850, Hindi and Urdu were no
   longer used for the same language. Other linguists such as Sir G. A.
   Grierson (1903) have also claimed that Urdu is simply a dialect or
   style of Western Hindi. Before the Partition of India, Delhi, Lucknow,
   Aligarh and Hyderabad used to be the four literary centers of Urdu —
   none of which lie in present Pakistan.

   The colloquial language spoken by the people of Delhi is
   indistinguishable by ear, whether it is called Hindi or Urdu by its
   speakers. The only important distinction at this level is in the
   script: if written in the Perso-Arabic script, the language is
   generally considered to be Urdu, and if written in devanagari it is
   generally considered to be Hindi. However, since independence the
   formal registers used in education and the media have become
   increasingly divergent in their vocabulary. Where there is no
   colloquial word for a concept, Standard Urdu uses Perso-Arabic
   vocabulary, while Standard Hindi uses Sanskrit vocabulary. This results
   in the official languages being heavily Sanskritized or Persianized,
   and nearly unintelligible to speakers educated in the other standard
   (as far as the formal vocabulary is concerned).

   These two standardized registers of Hindustani have become so
   entrenched as separate languages that many extreme-nationalists, both
   Hindu and Muslim, claim that Hindi and Urdu have always been separate
   languages. The tensions reached a peak in the Hindi-Urdu controversy in
   1867 in the then United Provinces during the British Raj. However,
   there were and are unifying forces as well. For example, it is said
   that Indian Bollywood films are made in "Hindi", but the language used
   in most of them is the same as that of Urdu speakers in Pakistan. The
   dialogue is frequently developed in English and later translated to an
   intentionally neutral Hindustani which can be easily understood by
   speakers of most North Indian languages, both in India itself and in
   Pakistan.

Phonology

   There are approximately 11 vowels and 35 consonants in Standard Hindī.
   They are shown below:

Vowels

   The vowels of Hindi with their word-initial devanagari symbol,
   diacritical mark with the consonant प (p), pronunciation (of the vowel
   alone and the vowel following /p/) in IPA, equivalent in IAST and
   (approximate) equivalents in British English are listed below:
   The vowel phonemes of Hindi

Alphabet Diacritical mark with “प” Pronunciation Pronunciation with /p/
                       IAST equiv. English equivalent
     अ प /ə/ /pə/ a short or long Schwa: as the a in above or ago
आ पा /ɑː/ /pɑː/ ā long Open back unrounded vowel: as the a in father
    इ पि /i/ /pi/ i short close front unrounded vowel: as i in bit
 ई पी /iː/ /piː/ ī long close front unrounded vowel: as i in machine
      उ पु /u/ /pu/ u short close back rounded vowel: as u in put
  ऊ पू /uː/ /puː/ ū long close back rounded vowel: as oo in school
 ए पे /eː/ /peː/ e long close-mid front unrounded vowel: as a in game
                              (not a diphthong)
ऐ पै /ɛː/ /pɛː/ ai long open-mid front unrounded vowel: as e in bed,
                                 but longer
ओ पो /οː/ /pοː/ o long close-mid back rounded vowel: as o in tone (not
                                a diphthong)
औ पौ /ɔː/ /pɔː/ au long open-mid back rounded vowel: as au in caught

Consonants

   Hindi has a large consonant system, with about 38 distinct consonant
   phonemes. An exact number cannot be given, since the regional varieties
   of Hindi differ in the details of their consonant repertoire. To what
   extent certain sounds that appear only in foreign words should be
   considered part of Standard Hindi is also a matter of debate. The
   traditional core of the consonant system, inherited from Sanskrit,
   consists of a matrix of 20 plosives, 5 nasals, and 8 sonorants and
   fricatives. The system is filled out by 7 sounds that originated in
   Persian, but are now considered Hindi sounds. The table below shows the
   phonology of the Hindi consonants. Note that all nasals, trills, flaps,
   approximants and lateral approximants in Hindi are regarded as voiced
   consonants, and that many linguists also call the aspirated voiced
   plosives as breathy voice or murmur stops.
   Bilabial Labio-
   dental Dental Alveolar Retroflex Post-alveolar/
   Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
                           Plosives ( unaspirated)
                           Plosives ( aspirated) p
                                    pʰ b
                                   bʱ t̪
                                  t̪ʰ d̪
                                  d̪ʱ ʈ
                                   ʈʰ ɖ
                                   ɖʱ k
                                    kʰ g
                                    gʱ q
                            Affricates ʧ or cɕ
                          ʧʰ or cɕʰ ʤ or ɟʝ
                               ʤʱ or ɟʝʱ
                           Nasals m n ɳ (ɲ) (ŋ)
                     Fricatives f x ɣ (χ) (ʁ) (h) ɦ
                              Sibilants s z ʃ
                                  Trills r
                                  Flaps ɽ
                                    ɽʱ
                              Approximants ʋ j
                                   Lateral
                                approximant l

   The 25 stop consonants occur in five groups, with each group sharing
   the same position of articulation. These positions in their traditional
   order are: velar, retroflex, palatal, dental, and bilabial. In each
   position, there are five varieties of consonant, with four oral stops
   and one nasal stop. An oral stop may be voiced, aspirated, both, or
   neither. This four-way opposition is the hardest aspect of Hindi
   pronunciation for a speaker of English. The table below shows the
   traditional listing of the Hindi consonants (in the Devanagari script)
   with the (nearest) equivalents in English/Spanish. Each consonant shown
   below is deemed to be followed by the neutral vowel schwa (/ə/), and is
   named in the table as such. The Roman script equivalent that is
   normally used to transcribe Hindi in casual transliteration is also
   given in the second line.
   Plosives
   Unaspirated
   Voiceless Aspirated
   Voiceless Unaspirated
   Voiced Aspirated
   Voiced Nasals
                               Velar क /kə/
                        k; English: scald ख /kʰə/
                        kh; English called ग /gə/
                        g; English: game घ /gʱə/
                    gh; Aspirated/murmured /g/ ङ /ŋə/
                              n; English: ring
                      Palatal च /cɕə / or / tʃə/
               ch; English butcher छ /cɕʰə / or /tʃʰə/
                chh; English: chat ज /ɟʝə / or / dʒə/
                j; English: jam झ /ɟʝʱə / or / dʒʱə/
                  jh; Aspirated/murmured /ɟʝ/ ञ /ɲə/
                              n; English: hinge
                            Retroflex ट /ʈə/
        t; like "t" but with the tongue tip curled back ठ /ʈʰə/
                        th; Aspirated /ʈ/ ड /ɖə/
        d; like "d" but with the tongue tip curled back ढ /ɖʱə/
                   dh; Aspirated/murmured /ɖ/ ण /ɳə/
               n; like "n" but with the tongue tip curled back
                          Apico- Dental त /t̪ə/
                      t; Spanish: tomate थ /t̪ʰə/
                       th; Aspirated /t̪/ द /d̪ə/
                       d; Spanish: donde ध /d̪ʱə/
                   dh; Aspirated/murmured /d̪/ न /nə/
                              n; English: name
                              Labial प /pə/
                        p; English: spin फ /pʰə/
                          ph; English pin ब /bə/
                        b; English: bone भ /bʱə/
                    bh; Aspirated/murmured /b/ म /mə/
                              m; English: mine
   Non-Plosives/Sonorants
   Palatal Retroflex Dental/
   Alveolar Velar/
   Glottal
                            Approximant य /jə/
                          y; English: you र /rə/
                     r; Scottish English: trip ल /lə/
                         l; English: love व /ʋə/
                       v; between English "w" and "v"
                                  Sibilant/
                            Fricative श /ʃə/
                        sh; English: ship ष /ʂə/
                        sh; Retroflex /ʃ/ स /sə/
                   s; English: same ह /ɦə / or / hə/
                             h; English: behind

   At the end of the traditional table of alphabets, three consonantal
   clusters are also added: क्ष /kʃə/ (in Hindi), त्र /t̪rə/ and ज्ञ /gjə/
   (pronunciation given for Hindi). Other than these, sounds borrowed from
   the other languages like Persian and Arabic are written with a dot
   (bindu or nukta) beneath the nearest approximate alphabet. They are not
   included in the traditional listing. Many native Hindi speakers do not
   pronounce these sounds (except /ɽ / and / ɽʱ/) and replace them instead
   with the nearest equivalents, as shown in column 4 in the table below.
   These are:
   Extra sounds
   Symbol IPA Pronunciation and name Equivalent in other languages Often
   replaced with:
          क़ /qə/ voiceless uvular plosive Arabic: Qur'an /k/
       फ़ /fə/ voiceless labiodental fricative English: fun /pʰ/
          ख़ /xə/ voiceless velar fricative German: doch /kʰ/
          ग़ /ɣə/ voiced velar fricative Persian: Mughal /g/
     ज़ /zə/ voiced alveolar fricative English: zoo /ɟ / or / dʒ/
               ड़ /ɽə/ unaspirated retroflex flap <none>
               ढ़ /ɽʱə/ aspirated retroflex flap <none>

   ड़ /ɽə/ and ढ़ /ɽʱə/ are not of Persian/Arabic origin, but they are
   allophonic variants of simple voiced retroflex stops of Sanskrit.

Supra-segmental features

   Hindi has a stress accent, but it is not so important as in English.
   Usually in a multisyllabic Hindi word, the stress falls on the last
   syllable if all the syllables are equally heavy or equally light. (A
   light syllable is closed by a short vowel a, i, u, while a medium
   syllable is closed by a long vowel or diphthong ā, e, ī, o, ū, au, ai
   or by two consonants, and a heavy syllable is closed by both a long
   vowel/diphthong and two consonants.) If the word contains a mixture or
   heavy and light syllables, the stress falls automatically on the
   penultimate heaviest syllable. (Cf. McGregor, pp. xx-xxi.) Strictly
   speaking, Hindi, like most other Indian languages, is rather a syllable
   timed language. The schwa /ə/ has a strong tendency to vanish into
   nothing (syncopated) if its syllable is unaccented. Also note that in
   written Hindi, many words end in short /u/ or short /i/, but in speech
   they are often converted to ending in long /uː/ or long /iː/,
   respectively. The intonation of speaking is very important in Hindi
   (although Hindi is not a tonal language like Chinese) to express the
   sentiments of respect, politeness, question, etc.

Writing system

   Hindi is written in the standardized Devanagari script, which is
   written from left to right. The Devanagari script represents the sounds
   of spoken Hindi very closely, so that a person who knows the Devanagari
   letters can sound out a written Hindi text comprehensibly, even without
   knowing what the words mean. The entire alphabet has been discussed in
   the preceding section on phonology.

Transliteration Conventions

   The standard transliteration of Hindi into the Roman (English)
   alphabet) is usually the IAST scheme, whereby the retroflex consonants
   (retroflex t, d, their aspirates, n, vowel-like r) and the breath h are
   shown with a dot beneath; the long vowels are shown with a macron or a
   bar (as ā above; aspiration of a plosive is shown with a following h,
   and ś is used for sh; and c is used for ch. Other alphabet characters
   are pronounced as in normal English. Another transliteration ( ITRANS)
   uses capital letters of English to transcribe the long vowels and
   retroflex consonants. However, since English is a lingua franca of the
   educated Indians, and since computer keyboards do not have features for
   typing the IAST characters, Indians today use a casual transliteration
   into English for Hindi words; in such a casual transliteration, used
   especially in online chatting, the retroflex and dental consonants are
   not differentiated, and neither the short and the long vowels (except
   that sometimes people double the alphabet to indicate a long vowel).

Grammar

   Despite Hindi and English both being Indo-European languages, Hindi
   grammar can be very complex and is different in many ways from what
   English speakers are used to. In fact it has more similarity to
   Japanese grammar. Most notably, Hindi is a subject-object-verb
   language, meaning that verbs usually fall at the end of the sentence
   rather than before the object (as in English). Hindi also shows mixed
   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 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. Despite differences in
   vocabulary and writing, Hindi grammar is nearly identical with Urdū.
   The concept of punctuation having been entirely unknown before the
   advent 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 more generally used.

Genders

   In Hindi, there are only two genders for nouns. All male human beings
   and male animals (or those animals and plants which are perceived to be
   "masculine") are masculine. All female human beings and female animals
   (or those animals and plants which are perceived to be "feminine") are
   feminine. Things, inanimate articles and abstract nouns are also either
   masculine or feminine according to convention, which must be memorised
   by non-Hindi speakers if they wish to learn correct Hindi. While this
   is the same as Urdū and similar to many other Indo-European languages
   such as French and Spanish, it is a challenge for those who are used to
   only the English language, which although an Indo-European language,
   has dropped nearly all of its gender inflection.

   The ending of a word, if a vowel, usually helps in this gender
   classification. Among tatsam words, the masculine words of Sanskrit
   remain masculine in Hindi, and same is the case for the feminine.
   Sanskrit neuter nouns usually become masculine in Hindi. Among the
   tadbhav words, if a word end in long /αː/, it is normally masculine. If
   a word ends in /iː/ or /in/, it is normally feminine. The gender of
   words borrowed from Arabic and Persian is determined either by
   phonology (usually the last vowel in the word) or by the gender of the
   nearest Hindi equivalent. The gender assignment of Hindi words directly
   borrowed from English (which are numerous) is also usually determined
   by the gender of the nearest Hindi "synonym" or by the ending. Most
   adjectives ending in a vowel are inflected to agree with the gender of
   the noun: /meriː beʈiː/ 'my daughter' vs. /merαː beʈαː/ 'my son'.

Interrogatives

   Besides the standard interrogative terms of who (कौन kaun), what (क्या
   kyaa), why (कयों kyõ), when (कब kab), where (कहाँ kahã), how and what
   type (कैसा kaisaa), how many (कितना kitnaa), etc, the Hindi word kyaa
   (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, exactly 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 log/ 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 log/ you people) or तुम सब (/t̪um səb/ you
       all).
     * तू (/t̪uː/): Extremely informal form of you, as thou. 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 is usually
   intended as 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) The
   standard order can be modified in various ways to impart emphasis on
   particular parts of the sentence. 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. Also, 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 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
   honā. 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 declinations.

Common difficulties faced in learning Hindi

     * the phonetic mechanism of some sounds peculiar to Hindi (eg. rda,
       dha etc) The distinction between aspirated and unaspirated
       consonants will be difficult for English speakers. In addition, the
       distinction between dental and alveoloar (or retroflex) consonants
       will also pose problems. English speakers will find that they need
       to carefully distinguish between four different d-sounds and four
       different t-sounds.
     * pronunciation of vowels: In English, unstressed vowels tend to have
       a " schwa" quality. The pronunciation of such vowels in English is
       changed to an "uh" sound; this is called reducing a vowel sound.
       The second syllable of "unify" is pronounced /ə/, not "ee." The
       same for the unstressed second syllable of "person" which is also
       pronounced /ə/ rather than "oh." In Hindi, English-speakers must
       constantly be careful not to reduce these vowels.
          + In this respect, probably the most important mistake would be
            for English speakers to reduce final "ah" sounds to "uh." This
            can be especially important because an English pronunciation
            will lead to misunderstandings about grammar and gender. In
            Hindi, "vo bolta hai" is "he talks" whereas "vo bolti hai" is
            "she talks." A typical English pronunciation in the first
            sentence would be "vo boltuh hai," which will be understood as
            "she talks" by most Hindi-native speakers.
     * The 'a' ending of many Sanskrit and Sanskrit borrowed
       gender-masculine words, due to Romanization, is highly confused by
       non-native speakers, because the short 'a' is dropped in Hindi.
       There are exceptions, of course, if the devanagari script itself
       dictates the additional diacritical mark for the vowel "long ā" at
       the end of certain masculine words, like Brahmā (ब्रह्मा).
     * the Verbal concordance; Hindi exhibits split ergativity; see
       Ergative-absolutive language for an example.
     * Relative-correlative constructions. In English interrogative and
       relative pronouns are the same word. In "Who are you?" the word
       "who" is an interrogative, or question, pronoun. In "My friend who
       lives in Sydney can speak Hindi," the word "who" is not an
       interrogative, or question-pronoun. It is a relative, or
       linking-pronoun. In Hindi, there are different words for each. The
       interrogative pronoun tends to start with the "k" sound:" kab =
       when?, kahaaN = where?, kitna = how much? The relative pronouns are
       usually very similar but start with "j" sounds: jab = when, jahaaN
       = where, jitna = how much.

Literature

   Hindi literature draws upon the heritage of Sanskrit literature, and
   has a long history. Tulasidas's Ramacharitamanasa was an early work in
   recognizable Hindi that attained wide popularity. Modern Hindi
   litterateurs include :

Main Poetry (Kavya) writers

     * Sushil Kumar Srivastava
     * Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar'
     * Jaishankar Prasad
     * Sumitranandan Pant
     * Maithili Sharan Gupta
     * Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala'
     * Mahadevi Verma
     * Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayana 'Ajneya'
     * Harivansh Rai Bachchan
     * Nagarjun
     * Dharmveer Bharti
     * Ayodhya Singh Upadhyay 'Hariaudh'
     * Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh
     * Dushyant Kumar
     * Gopal Das 'Neeraj'
     * Ashok Vajpayee
     * Sarveswar Dayal Saxena
     * Dr. Jagdish Gupt

Main Prose (Gadya) writers

     * Bharatendu Harishchandra
     * Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan
     * Acharya Ram Chandra Shukla
     * Mahadevi Verma
     * Munshi Premchand
     * Phanishwar Nath Renu
     * Harishankar Parsai
     * Agyeya
     * Jainendra
     * Raja Radhika Raman Prasad Singh
     * Ramvriksh Venipuri
     * Prabhakar Machve
     * Chakradhar Sharma Guleri
     * Vishnu Prabhakar
     * Amrit Lal Naagar
     * Bheeshm Sahni
     * Usha Priyamvada
     * Krishna Sobti
     * Rangeya Raghav
     * Nirmal Verma
     * Jitendra Sahay
     * Kamaleshwar
     * Mithileshwar
     * Babu Gulabrai
     * Suryakant Nirala
     * Manohar Lal

   Etc.

Entertainment and showbiz

   Hindi films play an important role in popular culture. The dialogues
   and songs of Hindi films use Khariboli and Hindi-Urdu in general, but
   the intermittent use of various dialects such as Awadhi, Rajasthani,
   Bhojpuri, Punjabi 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 a layman. Most of these
   songs are written in Urdū shaayari style.

   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
   (Bombay), in the Marathi-speaking state of Maharashtra. Hindi films are
   also popular abroad, especially in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh
   and Iran.

   The role of radio and television in propagating Hindi beyond its native
   audience cannot be overstated. Television in India was controlled by
   the central government until the proliferation of satellite TV rendered
   regulation redundant. During the era of control, Hindi predominated on
   both radio and TV, enjoying more air-time than local languages. 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, host shows for Hindi songs, Hindu mythology,
   Persio-Arabic mythology and documentaries.

Common Phrases

          English                             Hindi
   Hindi                 Hindi
   English               Angrezi
   Yes                   Haan
   You^1                 Aap (assigned to Elders/Respected Person)
   You^2                 Tum (assigned to Kids/Person smaller in age)
   No                    Naheen
   Hi/Hello              Namaste
   Goodbye               Alvidaa or Namaste
   How are you?          Aap Kaise Hain?
   See you               Phir Milenge
   Thank you             Dhanyavaad
   I'm Sorry             Kshamaa Keejiye, (also Maaf Keejiye)
   Why?                  Kyon?
   Who?                  Kaun?
   What?                 Kyaa?
   When?                 Kab?
   Where?                Kahaan?
   How?                  Kaise?
   How much?             Kitne?
   I do not understand   Samajh naheen aati hai, (also Main samjha nahin)
   Help me (please)
   Help me!              Mujhe maddath deejiye / Sahaayetaa keejie!
   Do you speak English? Kyaa aap angrezi bolte hain?
   Time please?
   Time please?          Samay kya hua ? / kitne baje?
   I do not know         Mujhe nahin pata

Hinglish

   "Hinglish" is the use of Hindi and English, combining both, in one
   sentence. This is more commonly seen in urban and semi-urban centers of
   population, but is slowly spreading its root into rural and remote
   areas via television and word of mouth, slowly achieving vernacular
   status. Many speakers do not realize that they are incorporating
   English words into Hindi sentences or Hindi words into English
   sentences.

   This highly popular mixing of both the languages in most parts of
   northern and central India has grown from the fact that English is a
   popular language of choice amongst the urban youth who find themselves
   comfortable in its lexicon. It is already the medium for imparting
   education in many schools across the nation. The advent of cable
   television and its pervasive growth has seen the masses exposed to a
   wide variety of programming from across the world.

   Another factor contributing to the spread of Hinglish is the popularity
   of Bollywood films.

Examples

     * "Dad, time kya hua hai?" (Dad, what is the time right now?).
     * "I have hazaar things on my mind right now." (I have thousands of
       things on my mind right now.)
     * "Mom, mujhe mall se jeans lene hai." (Mom, I want to buy jeans from
       the mall).

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi"
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   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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