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The word "Hindi" written in Devanagari


While the language has emigrated to all parts of the world, the noteworthy use of the language is in its country of origin - India. A large number of languages and dialects are spoken there, and no single one is spoken by all. The proper term for the form of Hindi used in northern India is Hindustani which is spoken in and around Delhi and borrows equally from other languages such as Urdu and Punjabi. Hindi though, is the most widely understood (~80%) and spoken (~66%) language in the region.

Writing System[edit]

Hindi is written in the Devanagari script (देवनागरी) a left-to-right writing system with a very characteristic top line. Several other languages such as Marathi, Nepali and Sanskrit use the Devanagari script.


Hindi originated in 17th century by the mixing of the Polulau languages of the areas around Delhi (capital of India) with Urdu and Persian (brought in by Muslim rulers from the west).

Hindi is indirectly derived from Sanskrit, the ancient language of India from which most of the Indian languages are derived. Hindi is heavily influenced by Urdu and even Persian, although it still retains the Devanagari script of Sanskrit.

Spoken Hindi and spoken Urdu are so similar that they are mutually intelligible by native speakers. In their literary forms, however, Hindi borrows more heavily from Sanskrit while Urdu borrows vocabulary from Persian and Arabic.


Devanagari Romanization Meaning
विकिपीडिया Wikipedia

Other resources[edit]