33 Facts About Hindi

1.

Hindi has been described as a standardised and Sanskritised register of the Hindustani language, which itself is based primarily on the Khariboli dialect of Delhi and neighbouring areas of North India.

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2.

Hindi, written in the Devanagari script, is one of the two official languages of the Government of India, along with English.

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3.

Hindi is one of the 22 scheduled languages of the Republic of India.

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4.

Outside India, several other languages are recognised officially as "Hindi" but do not refer to the Standard Hindi language described here and instead descend from other dialects, such as Awadhi and Bhojpuri.

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5.

Such languages include Fiji Hindi, which has an official status in Fiji, and Caribbean Hindustani, which is spoken in Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Suriname.

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6.

Apart from the script and formal vocabulary, standard Hindi is mutually intelligible with standard Urdu, another recognised register of Hindustani as both share a common colloquial base.

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7.

Term Hindi originally was used to refer to inhabitants of the Indo-Gangetic Plain.

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8.

Early Hindi literature came about in the 12th and 13th centuries CE.

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9.

Hindi is known for his role in the foundation of University College London and for endowing the Gilchrist Educational Trust.

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10.

On 14 September 1949, the Constituent Assembly of India adopted Hindi written in the Devanagari script as the official language of the Republic of India replacing Urdu's previous usage in British India.

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11.

At the state level, Hindi is the official language of the following Indian states: Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

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12.

Hindi is an official language of Gujarat, along with Gujarati.

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13.

Similarly, Hindi is accorded the status of official language in the following Union Territories: Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.

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14.

In 2010, the Gujarat High Court clarified that Hindi is not the national language of India because the constitution does not mention it as such.

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15.

In 2021, in a Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act case involving Gangam Sudhir Kumar Reddy, the Bombay High Court claimed Hindi is the national language while refusing Reddy bail, after he argued against his statutory rights being read in Hindi, despite being a native Telugu speaker.

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16.

Hindi is spoken as a first language by about 77, 569 people in Nepal according to the 2011 Nepal census, and further by 1, 225, 950 people as a second language.

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17.

Hindi is adopted as the third official court language in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.

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18.

Hindi is the lingua franca of northern India, as well as an official language of the Government of India, along with English.

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19.

In Northeast India a pidgin known as Haflong Hindi has developed as a lingua franca for the people living in Haflong, Assam who speak other languages natively.

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20.

Hindi is quite easy to understand for many Pakistanis, who speak Urdu, which, like Hindi, is a standard register of the Hindustani language; additionally, Indian media are widely viewed in Pakistan.

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21.

Hindi is spoken by a large population of Madheshis of Nepal.

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22.

Apart from this, Hindi is spoken by the large Indian diaspora which hails from, or has its origin from the "Hindi Belt" of India.

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23.

However, Hindi is written in the Devanagari script and contains more Sanskrit-derived words than Urdu, whereas Urdu is written in the Perso-Arabic script and uses more Arabic and Persian loanwords compared to Hindi.

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24.

Hindi is the most commonly used official language in India.

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25.

Unlike Sanskrit, Devanagari is not entirely phonetic for Hindi, especially failing to mark schwa deletion in spoken Standard Hindi.

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26.

Traditionally, Hindi words are divided into five principal categories according to their etymology:.

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27.

Hindi makes extensive use of loan translation and occasionally phono-semantic matching of English.

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28.

Hindi has naturally inherited a large portion of its vocabulary from Sauraseni Prakrt, in the form of tadbhava words.

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29.

Much of Modern Standard Hindi's vocabulary is borrowed from Sanskrit as tatsam borrowings, especially in technical and academic fields.

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30.

Hindi literature is broadly divided into four prominent forms or styles, being Bhakti; Srngar (beauty – Keshav, Bihari); Vigatha (epic); and Adhunik (modern).

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31.

Medieval Hindi literature is marked by the influence of Bhakti movement and the composition of long, epic poems.

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32.

Literary, or Sahityik, Hindi was popularised by the writings of Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Bhartendu Harishchandra and others.

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33.

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 Chayavadi movement, and by a return to simple language and natural themes.

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