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हिन्दी or मानक हिन्दी
Hindī or Mānak Hindī
The word "Hindi" in Devanagari script
Pronunciation Hindustani pronunciation: [ˈmaːnək ˈɦin̪d̪iː]
Native to India
Significant communities in South Africa, Nepal
Native speakers
180 million  (1991)[1]
Devanagari (Brahmic)
Hindi Braille
Signed Hindi
Official status
Official language in


Regulated by Central Hindi Directorate (India)[3]
Language codes
ISO 639-1 hi
ISO 639-2 hin
ISO 639-3 hin
Linguist list
Linguasphere 59-AAF-qf
Areas (red) where Hindustani (Khariboli/Kauravi) is the native language, compared to all Indic languages (dark grey)

Hindi (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 people living in Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and parts of Rajasthan.[4] Hindi is one of the official languages of India.

Related languages and dialects[edit]

Standard Hindi is mutually intelligible with the other standardised register of Hindustani, Urdu, which is associated with the North Indian Muslim community.[citation needed] The two standards are nearly identical in structure and grammar. Mutual intelligibility decreases in literary and specialised contexts, which rely on educated vocabulary drawn from different sources; Hindi drawing its specialised vocabulary from Sanskrit, whilst Urdu does so from Persian and Arabic. In their colloquial forms, the two varieties are nearly indistinguishable.

Hindi is the fourth-most-widely spoken language in the world,[5] but this includes not only Hindu speakers of Hindustani, but also people who identify as native speakers of related languages who consider their speech to be a dialect of Hindi, the Hindi belt. In the 2001 Indian census, 258 million (258,000,000) people in India reported Hindi to be their native language;[6] as of 2009, the best figure Ethnologue could find for speakers of actual Hindustani Hindi (effectively the Khariboli dialect less Urdu) was a figure of 180 million in 1991.[1]

Official status[edit]

The Indian constitution, adopted in 1950, declares Hindi shall be written in the Devanagari script and will be the official language of the Federal Government of India.[7] However, English continues to be used as an official language along with Hindi. 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.[8] The Constitution of India has effectively instituted the usage of Hindi and English as the two languages of communication for the Union Government. Most government documentation is prepared in three languages: English, Hindi, and the primary official language of the local state, if it is not Hindi or English.

Article 351 of the Indian constitution stipulates that Hindi language shall be enriched by drawing for its vocabulary primarily from Sanskrit and secondarily from other languages.[9] The trend is different in Hindi cinema where more and more English, Persian, Turkish and Arabic vocabulary is preferred. Article 344 stipulates that official language commission shall be constituted every ten years to recommend steps for progressive use of Hindi language and imposing restrictions on the use of the English language. In practice, the official language commissions are constantly endeavouring to promote Hindi but not imposing restrictions on English in official use.

It was envisioned that Hindi would become the sole working language of the Union Government by 1965 (per directives in Article 344 (2) and Article 351),[10] with state governments being free to function in the language of their own choice. However, widespread resistance to the imposition of Hindi on non-native speakers, especially in South India (such as the those in Tamil Nadu), Maharashtra, and West Bengal, led to the passage of the Official Languages Act of 1963, which provided for the continued use of English indefinitely for all official purposes, although the constitutional directive for the Union Government to encourage the spread of Hindi was retained and has strongly influenced its policies[citation needed]

At the state level, Hindi is the official language of the following states: Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand. Each may also designate a "co-official language"; in Uttar Pradesh, for instance, depending on the political formation in power, this language is generally Urdu. Similarly, Hindi is accorded the status of official language in the following Union Territories: Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu, National Capital Territory.

National-language status for Hindi is a long-debated theme. An Indian court clarified that Hindi is not the national language of India because the constitution does not mention it as such.[11]

Outside of Asia, Hindi is also an official language in Fiji. The Constitution of Fiji states 3 official languages, namely English, Fijian and Hindi. The dialect of Hindi spoken there is known as 'Fiji Baat' or 'Fiji Hindi.


The dialect upon which Standard Hindi is based is Khariboli, the vernacular of Delhi and the surrounding western Uttar Pradesh and southern Uttarakhand region. This dialect acquired linguistic prestige in the Mughal Empire (17th century) and became known as Urdu, "the language of the court". In the late 19th century, the movement standardising a written language from Khariboli, for the Indian masses in North India, started to standardise Hindi as a separate language from Urdu, which was learnt by the elite. In 1881 Bihar accepted Hindi as its sole official language, replacing Urdu, and thus became the first state of India to adopt Hindi.

After independence, the government of India instituted the following conventions:[original research?]

  • standardisation of the orthography, using the Devanagari script, by the Central Hindi Directorate of the Ministry of Education and Culture to bring about uniformity in writing, to improve the shape of some Devanagari characters, and introducing diacritics to express sounds from other languages.

The Constituent Assembly adopted Hindi as the Official Language of the Union on 14 September 1949. Hence, it is celebrated as Hindi Day.

Comparison with Modern Standard Urdu[edit]

Linguistically, Hindi and Urdu are the same language. Hindi is written in the Devanagari script and uses more Sanskrit words, whereas Urdu is written in the Persian script and uses more Persian words.


Hindi is mainly written in Devanagari script (देवनागरी लिपि devanāgarī lipi) also called Nagari. Devanagari consists of 11 vowels and 33 consonants, and is written from left to right.

Sanskrit vocabulary[edit]

Formal Standard Hindi draws much of its academic vocabulary from Sanskrit. Standard Hindi loans words are divided into five principal categories:

  • Tatsam (तत्सम / same as that) words: These are words which are spelt the same in Hindi as in Sanskrit (except for the absence of final case inflexions).[12] They include words inherited from Sanskrit via Prakrit which have survived without modification (e.g. Hindustani nām / Sanskrit nāma, "name"; Hindustani Suraj / Sanskrit Surya, "sun"),[13] as well as forms borrowed directly from Sanskrit in more modern times (e.g. prārthanā, "prayer").[14] Pronunciation, however, conforms to Hindi norms and may differ from that of classical Sanskrit. Amongst nouns, the tatsam word could be the Sanskrit uninflected word-stem, or it could be the nominative singular form in the Sanskrit nominal declension.
  • Ardhatatsam (अर्धतत्सम) words: Such words have typically undergone sound changes subsequent to being borrowed.
  • Tadbhav (तद्भव / born of that) words: These are words that are spelt differently from in Sanskrit but are derivable from a Sanskrit prototype by phonological rules (e.g. Sanskrit karma, "deed" becomes Pali kamma, and eventually Hindi kām, "work").[12]
  • Videshī (विदेशी/ 'Foreign') words: these include all words borrowed from sources other than Indo-Aryan. The most frequent sources of borrowing in this category have been Persian, Arabic, Portuguese and English.

The Hindi standard, from which much of the Persian, Arabic and English vocabulary has been purged and replaced by tatsam words, is called Shuddha Hindi (pure Hindi), and is viewed as a more prestigious dialect over other more colloquial forms of Hindi.

Similarly, Urdu treats its own vocabulary, borrowed directly from Persian and Arabic, as a separate category for morphological purposes. Excessive use of tatsam words creates problems for native speakers. They may have Sanskrit consonant clusters which do not exist in native Hindi. The educated middle class of India may be able to pronounce such words, but others have difficulty. Persian and Arabic vocabulary given 'authentic' pronunciations cause similar difficulty.


A Tram in Melbourne with a caution message in Hindi

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).

Medieval Hindi literature is marked by the influence of Bhakti movement and the composition of long, epic poems. It was primarily written in other varieties of Hindi, particularly Avadhi and Braj Bhasha, but also in Khariboli. During the British Raj, Hindustani became the prestige dialect. Hindustani with heavily Sanskritised vocabulary or Sahityik Hindi (Literary Hindi) was popularised by the writings of Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Bhartendu Harishchandra and others. The rising numbers of newspapers and magazines made Hindustani popular with 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 the Modern Hindi language in poetry and broadening the acceptable subjects of Hindi poetry from the traditional ones of religion and romantic love.


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.


Hindi has a presence on the internet,[15] but due to lack of standard encoding, search engines cannot be used to locate text.[16] Hindi is one of the seven languages of India that can be used to make web addresses.(URLs).[17] Hindi has also impacted the language of technology,[18] with words such as avatar (meaning a spirit taking a new form) used in computer sciences, artificial intelligence and even robotics.

Sample text[edit]


अनुच्छेद 1 — सभी मनुष्यों को गौरव और अधिकारों के मामले में जन्मजात स्वतन्त्रता और समानता प्राप्त हैं। उन्हें बुद्धि और अन्तरात्मा की देन प्राप्त है और परस्पर उन्हें भाईचारे के भाव से बर्ताव करना चाहिए।
Transliteration (IAST)
Anucched 1 — Sabhī manuṣyõ ko gaurav aur adhikārõ ke māmle mẽ janmajāt svatantratā aur samāntā prāpt hai. Unhẽ buddhi aur antarātmā kī den prāpt hai aur paraspar unhẽ bhāīchāre ke bhāv se bartāv karnā cāhie.
Transcription (IPA)
ənʊtʃʰːeːd̪ eːk — səbʱiː mənʊʃjõː koː ɡɔːɾəʋ ɔːr əd̪ʱɪkaːɾõ keː maːmleː mẽː dʒənmədʒaːt̪ sʋət̪ənt̪ɾət̪aː pɾaːpt̪ hɛː. ʊnʱẽ bʊd̪ʱːɪ ɔːɾ ənt̪əɾaːt̪maː kiː d̪eːn pɾaːpt̪ hɛː ɔːɾ pəɾəspəɾ ʊnʱẽː bʱaːiːtʃaːɾeː keː bʱaːʋ seː bəɾt̪aːʋ kəɾnə tʃaːhɪeː.
Gloss (word-to-word)
Article 1 — All human-beings to dignity and rights' matter in from-birth freedom and equality acquired is. Them to reason and conscience's endowment acquired is and always them to brotherhood's spirit with behavior to do should.
Translation (grammatical)

See also[edit]



  1. ^ a b Hindi reference at Ethnologue (16th ed., 2009)
  2. ^ a b Hindustani (2005). Keith Brown, ed. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2 ed.). Elsevier. ISBN 0-08-044299-4. 
  3. ^ "Central Hindi Directorate: Introduction". 
  5. ^ Nigam, Late V.N. (1 January 1997). A Complete Course In Certificate Geography. Pitambar Publishing. p. 43. ISBN 978-81-209-0624-2. Retrieved 3 April 2014. 
  6. ^ "Data by speakers of language". Census of India. 2001. Retrieved 18 February 2013. 
  7. ^ "Sequence of events with reference to official language of the Union". 
  8. ^ "The Constitution of India" (PDF). Retrieved 18 February 2013. 
  9. ^ "Constitution of India". Retrieved 21 March 2012. 
  10. ^ "Rajbhasha" (in Hindi & English). india.gov.in. Archived from the original on 19 January 2012. 
  11. ^ "Hindi, not a national language: Court". The Hindu. 25 January 2010. Retrieved 20 March 2014. 
  12. ^ a b Masica, p. 65
  13. ^ Masica, p. 66
  14. ^ Masica, p. 67
  15. ^ "Usage of Hindi for websites". W3Techs.com. Retrieved 9 September 2013. 
  16. ^ Pann Yu Mon, Madhukar Pathak (2012). "Search Engines and Asian Languages". In Laurent Vannini, Hervé le Crosnier. Net.lang : towards the multilingual cyberspace. Caen: C&F éd. coord by Maaya Network. p. 174. ISBN 978-2-915825-09-1. Retrieved 9 September 2013. 
  17. ^ Eluvangal, Sreejiraj (4 April 2011). "URLs in 7 regional languages soon". DNA. Retrieved 9 September 2013. 
  18. ^ "Silicon Valley gets linguistic enlightenment from India". Retrieved 28 October 2013. 



  • John Thompson Platts (1884), A dictionary of Urdū, classical Hindī, and English (reprint ed.), LONDON: H. Milford, p. 1259, retrieved 2011-07-06 Oxford University
  • Academic Room Hindi Dictionary Mobile App developed in the Harvard Innovation Lab (iOS, Android and Blackberry)
  • McGregor, R.S. (1993), Oxford Hindi–English Dictionary (2004 ed.), Oxford University Press, USA .

Further reading[edit]

  • Bhatia, Tej K A History of the Hindi Grammatical Tradition. Leiden, Netherlands & New York, NY: E.J. Brill, 1987. ISBN 90-04-07924-6
  • Sadana, Rashmi, "Managing Hindi," The Caravan. April 2012.

External links[edit]