Modern Standard Hindi, commonly referred to as Hindi, is an Indo-Aryan language written in Devanagari script. It is the official language of India alongside English and the lingua franca of North India. Hindi is considered a Sanskritised register of the Hindustani language, which itself is based primarily on the Khariboli dialect of Delhi and neighbouring areas. It is an official language in nine states and three union territories and an additional official language in three other states. Hindi is also one of the 22 scheduled languages of the Republic of India.
Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan, where it is also an official language alongside English. In India, Urdu is an Eighth Schedule language, the status and cultural heritage of which are recognised by the Constitution of India; and it also has an official status in several Indian states. In Nepal, Urdu is a registered regional dialect and in South Africa it is a protected language in the constitution. It is also spoken as a minority language in Afghanistan and Bangladesh, with no official status.
Hindustani is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in North India and Pakistan, and functioning as the lingua franca of the region. It is also spoken by the Deccani people. Hindustani is a pluricentric language with two standard registers, known as Hindi and Urdu which serve as official languages of India and Pakistan, respectively. Thus, it is also called Hindi–Urdu. Colloquial registers of the language fall on a spectrum between these standards. In modern times, a third variety of Hindustani with significant English influences has also appeared which is sometimes called Hinglish or Urdish.
The Indo-Aryan languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated east of the Indus river in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Nepal. Moreover, apart from the Indian subcontinent, large immigrant and expatriate Indo-Aryan–speaking communities live in Northwestern Europe, Western Asia, North America, the Caribbean, Southeast Africa, Polynesia and Australia, along with several million speakers of Romani languages primarily concentrated in Southeastern Europe. There are over 200 known Indo-Aryan languages.
Bihari languages are a group of the Indo-Aryan languages. The Bihari languages are mainly spoken in the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal, and also in Nepal. The most widely spoken languages of the Bihari group are Bhojpuri, Magahi and Maithili.
Bhojpuri is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Bhojpur-Purvanchal region of India and the Terai region of Nepal and it is chiefly spoken in eastern Uttar Pradesh, western Bihar, and northwestern Jharkhand in India, as well as western Madhesh, eastern Lumbini, southeastern Gandaki, and southwestern Bagmati in Nepal. Bhojpuri is also widely spoken by the diaspora of Indians descended from those who left as indentured laborers during the colonial era. It is an eastern Indo Aryan language and as of 2000 it is spoken by about 5% of India's population. Bhojpuri is a descendant of Magadhi Prakrit and is related to Maithili, Magahi, Bangla, Odia, Assamese, and other eastern Indo-Aryan languages.
Kauravi, also known as Khaṛībolī, is a dialect of Hindustani descended from Shauraseni Prakrit that is mainly spoken in northwestern Uttar Pradesh, outside of Delhi.
Awadhi, also known as Audhi, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Awadh region of Uttar Pradesh in northern India and in Terai region of western Nepal. The name Awadh is connected to Ayodhya, the ancient city, which is regarded as the homeland of the Hindu deity Rama, the earthly avatar of Vishnu. It was, along with Braj, used widely as a literary vehicle before gradually merging and contributing to the development of standardized Hindi in the 19th century. Though distinct from standard Hindi, it continues to be spoken today in its unique form in many districts of central Uttar Pradesh.
Hindustani is one of the predominant languages of South Asia, with federal status in the republics of India and Pakistan in its standardized forms of Hindi and Urdu respectively. It is widely spoken and understood as a second language in Nepal, Bangladesh, and the Persian Gulf and as such is considered a lingua franca in the northern Indian subcontinent. It is also one of the most widely spoken languages in the world by total number of speakers. It developed in north India, principally during the Mughal Empire, when the Persian language exerted a strong influence on the Western Hindi languages of central India; this contact between the Hindu and Muslim cultures resulted in the core Indo-Aryan vocabulary of the Indian dialect of Hindi spoken in Delhi, whose earliest form is known as Old Hindi, being enriched with Persian loanwords. Rekhta, or "mixed" speech, which came to be known as Hindustani, Hindi, Hindavi, and Urdu, also locally known as Lashkari or Lashkari Zaban in long form, was thus created. This form was elevated to the status of a literary language, and after the partition of colonial India and independence this collection of dialects became the basis for modern standard Hindi and Urdu. Although these official languages are distinct registers with regards to their formal aspects, such as modern technical vocabulary, they continue to be all but indistinguishable in their vernacular form. From the colonial era onwards, Hindustani has also taken in many words from English, with an urban English-influenced variety emerging known as Hinglish.
The Hindi Belt, also known as the Hindi Heartland, is a linguistic region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India where various Northern, Central, Eastern and Western Indo-Aryan languages are spoken, which in a broader sense is termed as Hindi languages, with Standard Hindi serving as the lingua franca of the region.
Dramatic Prakrits were those standard forms of Prakrit dialects that were used in dramas and other literature in medieval India. They may have once been spoken languages or were based on spoken languages, but continued to be used as literary languages long after they ceased to be spoken. Dramatic Prakrits are important for the study of the development of Indo-Aryan languages, because their usage in plays and literature is always accompanied by a translation in Sanskrit.
Caribbean Hindustani is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by Indo-Caribbean people and the Indo-Caribbean diaspora. It is a koiné language mainly based on the Bhojpuri and Awadhi dialects. These Hindustani dialects were the most spoken dialects by the Indians who came as immigrants to the Caribbean from Colonial India as indentured laborers. It is closely related to Fiji Hindi and the Bhojpuri-Hindustani spoken in Mauritius and South Africa.
Fiji Hindi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by Indo-Fijians. It is an Eastern Hindi and Bihari language, considered to be a koiné language based on Awadhi that has also been subject to considerable influence by Bhojpuri, other Eastern Hindi and Bihari dialects, and Standard Hindi-Urdu. It has also borrowed some vocabulary from English, Fijian, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, and Malayalam. Many words unique to Fiji Hindi have been created to cater for the new environment that Indo-Fijians now live in. First-generation Indians in Fiji, who used the language as a lingua franca in Fiji, referred to it as Fiji Baat, "Fiji talk". It is closely related to Caribbean Hindustani and the Bhojpuri-Hindustani spoken in Mauritius and South Africa. It is largely mutually intelligible with the languages of Awadhi and Bhojpuri, as well as with the Bihari languages of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhesh, Koshi, Bagmati, Gandaki and Lumbini, and the dialects of Eastern Hindi of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Lumbini, but differs in phonetics and vocabulary with Modern Standard Hindi and Urdu.
The Western Hindi languages, also known as Midland languages, are a branch of the Indo-Aryan language family spoken chiefly in Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh and Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh, in Northwest and Central India. The Western Hindi languages evolved from Sauraseni Prakrit. The most-spoken language in the Western Hindi language family is Standard Hindi, one of the official languages of the Government of India and one of the 22 Scheduled Languages of India.
Uttar Pradesh is a multilingual state with 3 predominant languages and 26 other languages spoken in the state. The languages of Uttar Pradesh primarily belong to two zones in the Indo-Aryan languages, Central and East.
The Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, also known as Māgadhan languages, are spoken throughout the eastern region of the subcontinent, which includes Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bengal region, Tripura, Assam, and Odisha; alongside other regions surrounding the northeastern Himalayan corridor. Bengali is official language of Bangladesh and the state of West Bengal, Tripura and the Barak valley of Assam while Assamese and Odia are the official languages of Assam and Odisha, respectively. The Eastern Indo-Aryan languages descend from Abahattha, which descends from Magadhan Apabhraṃśa and ultimately from Magadhi Prakrit.
Bhojpur is a ethnolinguistic and cultural area in the Indian subcontinent where the Bhojpuri language is spoken as a mother tongue. The Bhojpuri region encompasses parts of the Indian states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Jharkhand, and the Madhesh, Gandaki and Lumbini provinces of Nepal.
Most of the languages of Bihar, the third most populous state of India, belong to the Bihari subgroup of the Indo-Aryan family. Chief among them are Bhojpuri, spoken in the west of the state, Maithili in the north, Magahi in center around capital Patna and in the south of the state. Maithili has official recognition under the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India. The official language of Bihar is Modern Standard Hindi, with Standard Urdu serving as a second official language in 15 districts.
The Eastern Hindi languages, also called East Central languages, are a branch of the Indo-Aryan language family spoken chiefly in Awadh region of Uttar Pradesh, Baghelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh, in Northern and Central India. Eastern Hindi languages evolved from Ardhamagadhi Prakrit.
Ardhamagadhi Prakrit was a Middle Indo-Aryan language and a Dramatic Prakrit thought to have been spoken in modern-day Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and used in some early Buddhist and Jain dramas. It was likely a Central Indo-Aryan language, related to Pali and the later Shauraseni Prakrit. The Eastern Hindi languages evolved from Ardhamagadhi Prakrit.
