The Hindi Language: History & Development 🇮🇳

What is Hindi? 🇮🇳

Hindi is the fourth most-spoken first language in the world after Mandarin, Spanish and English. It is thought to be one of the hardest languages to learn for English native speakers due to its enunciation.

While Hindi is the most spoken language in India, it is not the official language as India doesn’t recognise any languages at a national level. However, there are many official languages at state level. Alongside English, Hindi remains one of the two official languages of the Government of India, and is also an official language in 9 of the 28 states of India, and 3 of the 8 Union Territories.

The history of Hindi 🇮🇳

Hindi is a language belonging to the Indo-Aryan language family that is mainly spoken in India. It is written in the Devanagari script, a script also used for Sanskrit, Marathi, Prākrit, and Nepali languages.

Middle Indo-Aryan 🇮🇳

All Indo-Aryan languages, including Hindi, are a direct descendant of one of the early forms of Vedic Sanskrit through the Śauraseni Apabhramśa and Sauraseni Prakrit which came about in the 7th century CE.

Hindustani 🇮🇳

As a result of the Islamic rule in Northern India, many loanwords were transferred into Old Hindi from Persian and Arabic. The fusion of these two languages with Hindi resulted in the development of Hindustani. In the 18th century, Urdu emerged as a form of Hindustani that had been heavily influenced by Persian. As Urdu became associated with Muslims, Hindus decided to develop a Sanskritised version of Hindustani. This led to the development of Modern Standard Hindi in the 19th century.

Dialects 💬

Prior to Hindi being standardised on the Delhi dialect, many other dialects and languages belonging to the belt were prominent in literature - in particular, Braj Bhashaa and Avadhi. Early Hindi literature first emerged in the 12th and 13th century CE.

As Modern Standard Hindi is based on the Delhi dialect, it replaced the presence of other dialects, such as Maithili and Awadhi.

Indian Independence 🇮🇳

Two years after being granted independence in 1949, the Constituent Assembly of India made Hindi written in the Devanagari script the official language of the Republic of India. In 1954, the Indian government set up a committee to deal with the grammar of Hindi.

Hindi in India today 🇮🇳

Article 343 of the Indian Constitution states that the official languages of the Union are English, along with Hindi using the Devanagari script.

It was thought that Hindi would become the only working language of the Union government by 1965, however there was opposition to imposing the Hindi language on those who were not first-language speakers. This eventually resulted in the passing of the Official Languages Act of 1963, which meant that English was to be used for all official purposes. Despite this, the Union Government was still required to encourage the Hindi language.

Nepal 🇳🇵

According to the 2011 Nepal census, Hindi is spoken as a mother tongue by around 77,569 people. Another 1,225,950 Nepalese speak it as a second language.

South Africa 🇿🇦

In South Africa, Hindi is a protected language. The Constitution of South Africa says that it is the duty of the Pan African Language Board to promote and guarantee respect for the Hindi language, along with the other languages spoken in South Africa.

Fiji 🇫🇯

The Awadhi language, an Eastern Hindi language from the Indo-Aryan family of languages spoken in Northern India, is also spoken in Fiji. The 1997 Constitution of Fiji recognises it as an official language of Fiji, although it was referred to as 'Hindustani' rather than 'Hindi'. However, the 2013 Constitution of Fiji called it 'Fiji Hindi'. It is currently spoken by around 380,000 Fijians.