What is the Hindi Language
Native speakers of Hindi dialects between them account for 41% of the Indian population (2001 Indian census). As defined in the Constitution, Hindi is the official language of India and is one of the 22 scheduled languages specified in the Eighth
Schedule to the Constitution. Official Hindi is
often described as Modern Standard Hindi, which is used, along with English,
for administration of the central government. Standard Hindi is a sanskritised register derived from the khari boli dialect. Urdu is a
different, persianised, register of the same dialect. However, speakers of
the two dialects can easily
The word hindī is of pre-Islamic Persian origin. It literally means "Indian", comprising hind "India", and the adjectival suffix -ī. The word was originally used by pre-Islamic Persian merchants and ambassadors in north India to refer to any Indian language. The eleventh-century writer Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī used it to refer to Sanskrit. By the 13th century, "Hindi", along with its variant forms "Hindavi" and "Hindui", had acquired a more specific meaning: the "linguistically mixed speech of Delhi, which came into wide use across north India and incorporated a component of Persian vocabulary". It was later used by members of the Mughal court to distinguish the local vernacular of the Delhi region where the court was located from Persian, which was the official language of the court.
Most Evidence from the 17th century indicates that the language then called "Hindi" existed in two differing styles: among Muslims it was liable to contain a larger component of Persian-derived words and would be written down in a script derived from Persian, while among Hindus it used a vocabulary more influenced by Sanskrit and was written in Devanagari script. These styles eventually developed into modern Urdu and modern Hindi respectively.However the word "Urdu" was not used until around 1780: before then the word "Hindi" could be used for both purposes.The use of "Hindi" to designate what would now be called "Urdu" continued as late as the early twentieth century. Nowadays Hindī as taken to mean "Indian" is chiefly obsolete; it has come to specifically refer to the language(s) bearing that name.
Native speakers of Hindi dialects between them account for 41% of the Indian population (2001 Indian census). As defined in the Constitution, Hindi is the official language of India and is one of the 22 scheduled languages specified in the Eighth
Schedule to the Constitution. Official Hindi is
often described as Modern Standard Hindi, which is used, along with English,
for administration of the central government. Standard Hindi is a sanskritised register derived from the khari boli dialect. Urdu is a
different, persianised, register of the same dialect. However, speakers of
the two dialects can easily The word hindī is of pre-Islamic Persian origin. It literally means "Indian", comprising hind "India", and the adjectival suffix -ī. The word was originally used by pre-Islamic Persian merchants and ambassadors in north India to refer to any Indian language. The eleventh-century writer Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī used it to refer to Sanskrit. By the 13th century, "Hindi", along with its variant forms "Hindavi" and "Hindui", had acquired a more specific meaning: the "linguistically mixed speech of Delhi, which came into wide use across north India and incorporated a component of Persian vocabulary". It was later used by members of the Mughal court to distinguish the local vernacular of the Delhi region where the court was located from Persian, which was the official language of the court.
Most Evidence from the 17th century indicates that the language then called "Hindi" existed in two differing styles: among Muslims it was liable to contain a larger component of Persian-derived words and would be written down in a script derived from Persian, while among Hindus it used a vocabulary more influenced by Sanskrit and was written in Devanagari script. These styles eventually developed into modern Urdu and modern Hindi respectively.However the word "Urdu" was not used until around 1780: before then the word "Hindi" could be used for both purposes.The use of "Hindi" to designate what would now be called "Urdu" continued as late as the early twentieth century. Nowadays Hindī as taken to mean "Indian" is chiefly obsolete; it has come to specifically refer to the language(s) bearing that name.
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