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Hindi
or
Hind or Mnak Hind

The word "Hindi" in Devanagari script

Pronunciation

Hindustani pronunciation: [mank

Native to

India

inn dni]

Significant communities in South

Africa, Nepal
Native speakers

180 million (1991)[1]

Language family

Indo-European

Indo-Iranian

Indo-Aryan

Sanskrit

Cen
tral Zone (Hindi)

Western Hindi

Hindustani[2]

[show]

Khariboli[2]

Hindi
Writing system

Devanagari (Brahmic)
Hindi Braille

Signed forms

Signed Hindi
Official status

Official language in

India[3]
Fiji

Regulated by

Central Hindi Directorate[4]

Language codes

ISO 639-1

hi

ISO 639-2

hin

ISO 639-3

hin

Linguist list

hin-hin

Glottolog

hind1269 [5]

Linguasphere

59-AAF-qf

Areas (red) where Hindustani (Khariboli/Kauravi) is the native

language, compared to all Indic languages (dark grey)

Hindi (), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi ( ), is

a standardised and Sanskritised register of theHindustani language. Hindustani is the native

language of most people living in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand,Chhattisgarh, Himachal

Pradesh, Chandigarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, and Rajasthan.[6] Modern
Standard Hindi is one of the official languages of India.
As of 2009, the best figure Ethnologue could find for speakers of actual Hindustani Hindi was 180
million in 1991.[1] In the 2001 Indian census, 258 million (258,000,000) people in India reported Hindi
to be their native language.[7] However, this number included millions of people who were native
speakers of related languages but who thought of their speech as a dialect of Hindi. (See Hindi
language (Hindi belt).)
Contents
[hide]

1 Official status

2 History

3 Comparison with Modern Standard Urdu

4 Script

5 Sanskrit vocabulary

6 Literature

7 Internet

8 Sample text

9 See also

10 References
o

10.1 Notes

10.2 Bibliography

10.3 Dictionaries

11 Further reading

12 External links

Official status[edit]

Digraphia in Hindustani

Article 343 (1) of the Indian constitution states "The official language of the Union shall be Hindi
in Devanagari script. The form of numerals to be used for the official purposes of the Union shall be
the international form of Indian numerals."[3]
Article 351 of the Indian constitution states "It shall be the duty of the Union to promote the spread of
the Hindi language, to develop it so that it may serve as a medium of expression for all the elements
of the composite culture of India and to secure its enrichment by assimilating without interfering with
its genius, the forms, style and expressions used in Hindustani and in the other languages of India
specified in the Eighth Schedule, and by drawing, wherever necessary or desirable, for its
vocabulary, primarily on Sanskrit and secondarily on other languages."[8]
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), [9] 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 Indian
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. [10]
Outside of Asia, Hindi is also an official language in Fiji. The Constitution of Fiji declares three official
languages: English,Fijian, and Hindi. The Hindi spoken there is Fiji Hindi, a form of Awadhi, not
Modern Standard Hindi's Hindustani.