Hindi Belt

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Hindi Belt
Region
Hindi belt.png
Area (red) where various languages considered by the census as Hindi are spoken natively
CountryFlag of India.svg  India
Major urban agglomerations (2011 census)
States and Union Territories
List
Area
[1]
 • Total1,355,456 km2 (523,344 sq mi)
Population
 (2011) [2]
 • Total563,766,118
 • Density420/km2 (1,100/sq mi)
Demonym Hindi Bhashi
Time zone UTC+5:30 (IST)
Scheduled Languages
States and union territories of India by the most spoken language Language region maps of India.svg
States and union territories of India by the most spoken language

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 (based on Dehlavi) serving as the lingua franca of the region. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]

Contents

The term "Hindi belt" is sometimes also used to refer to the nine Indian states whose official language is Modern Standard Hindi , namely Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, as well as to the union territory of Chandigarh and the National Capital Territory of Delhi. [9] [10] [11] [12]

It is also sometimes broadly referred to as the "Hindi–Urdu Belt" or "Hindustani Belt". [13]

Hindi as a dialect continuum

Hindi is part of the Indo-Aryan dialect continuum that lies within the cultural Hindi Belt in the northern plains of India. Hindi in this broad sense is a sociolinguistic rather than an ethnic concept.[ citation needed ]

This definition of Hindi is one of the ones used in the Indian census, and results in more than forty per cent of Indians being reported to be speakers of Hindi, though Hindi-area respondents vary as to whether they call their language Hindi or the actual name of their language. As defined in the 1991 census, Hindi has a broad and a narrow sense. The term "Hindi" is thus ambiguous. Before being identified as a separate language, Maithili was identified by the census as a Hindi dialect. Many such languages still struggle for recognition.

The broad sense covers a number of Central, East-Central, Eastern, and Northern Indo-Aryan languages, including the Bihari languages except Maithili, all the Rajasthani languages, and the Central Pahari languages. [8] This is an area bounded on the west by Punjabi and Sindhi; on the south by Gujarati, Marathi, and Odia; on the east by Maithili and Bengali; and on the north by Nepali, Dogri, Kashmiri, Western Pahari and Tibetic languages. The varieties of this belt are usually considered separate languages, as opposed to dialects of a single language as considered by the Indian census.

In a middle sense, Hindi is equated with the Central Indo-Aryan languages. Based on their linguistic features, these are divided into Western and Eastern Hindi languages. The narrowest definition of Hindi is that of the official language, Modern Standard Hindi, a standardised register a Western Hindi language spoken around Delhi and Western UP. Standardised Hindustani—including both Standard Hindi and Urdu—is historically based on the Khariboli of 17th-century Delhi.

In many states like Himachal Pradesh, Hindi is the official language despite large resistance due to the region being part of the Western Pahari linguistic belt which also includes Jammu areas of the Jammu and Kashmir (princely state) further extending to Pakistan's Pothohar Plateau. [14] [15]

Number of speakers

Population data from 2011 Indian Census is as follows:

According to the 2001 Indian census, [16] 258 million people in India (25% of the population) regarded their native language to be "Hindi", however, including other languages considered by the census as Hindi, this figure becomes 422 million Hindi speakers (41% of the population). These figures do not count 52 million Indians who considered their mother tongue to be "Urdu", which is mutually intelligible with Hindi. The numbers are also not directly comparable to the table above; for example, while independent estimates in 2001 counted 37 million speakers of Awadhi, [17] in the 2001 census only 2½ million of these identified their language as "Awadhi" rather than as "Hindi".

There have been demands to include Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Kumaoni, Bundeli, Chhattisgarhi, Garhwali, Kudmali/Kurmali, Magahi, Nagpuri, and Rajasthani in the Eighth Schedule; these are otherwise regarded as dialects of Hindi by the government, although they have varying levels of mutual intelligibility with standard Hindi. [18] Some academics oppose inclusion of Hindi dialects in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution as full-fledged Indian languages. According to them recognition of Hindi dialects as separate languages would deprive Hindi of millions of its speakers and eventually no Hindi will be left. [19] [20]

Outside the Indian subcontinent

Much of the Hindi spoken outside of the subcontinent is distinct from the Indian standard language. Fiji Hindi is a derived form of Awadhi, Bhojpuri, and including some English and very few native Fijian words. It is spoken by majority of Indo-Fijians. In Mauritius, Bhojpuri is the most commonly spoken Hindi dialect. Once widely spoken as a mother tongue at 31.7% in 1972, [21] it has become less commonly spoken over the years. According to the 2022 census, [22] Bhojpuri was the most commonly spoken language at home for only 5.1% of the population, though the per cent of the population fluent in the language is likely still around 36.7%, according to Anjani Murdan of the Mauritius Times. [23]

Geography and demography

The Indo-Gangetic Plain Indo-Gangetic Plain.png
The Indo-Gangetic Plain

The highly fertile, flat, alluvial Gangetic plain occupies the northern portion of the Hindi Heartland, the Vindhyas in Madhya Pradesh demarcate the southern boundary and the hills and dense forests of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh lie in the east. The region has a predominantly subtropical climate, with cool winters, hot summers and moderate monsoons. The climate does vary with latitude somewhat, with winters getting cooler and rainfall decreasing. It can vary significantly with altitude, especially in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.

The Hindi Heartland supports about a third of India's population and occupies about a quarter of its geographical area. The population is concentrated along the fertile Ganges plain in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar.

Although the vast majority of the population is rural, significant urban cities include Chandigarh, Panchkula, Delhi, Lucknow, Kanpur, Raipur, Allahabad, Jaipur, Agra, Varanasi, Indore, Bhopal, Patna, Jamshedpur and Ranchi. The region hosts a diverse population, with various dialects of Hindi being spoken along with other Indian languages, and multi-religious population including Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs along with people from various castes and a significant tribal population.

Political sphere

Over the years political development in some of these states has been dominated by caste-based politics, but this has changed somewhat in recent years with the BJP national victory in 2014 and state victory in Uttar Pradesh in 2017. [24] In 2019 election, 226 members from the Hindi belt states had been elected to the Lok Sabha. [25] [26]

See also

Bibliography

Notes

  1. ↑ Some languages may be over- or underrepresented as the census data used is at the state-level. For example, while Urdu has 52 million speakers (2001), in no state is it a majority as the language itself is primarily limited to Indian Muslims.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hindi</span> Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia

Modern Standard Hindi, commonly referred to as Hindi, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in North India, and serves as the lingua franca of the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been described as a standardised and Sanskritised register of the Hindustani language, which itself is based primarily on the Khariboli dialect of Delhi and neighbouring areas of North India. Hindi, written in the Devanagari script, is one of the two official languages of the Government of India, along with English. 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indo-Aryan languages</span> Branch of the Indo-Iranian languages

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 in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Maldives. 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Languages of India</span> Overview of the languages spoken in India

Languages spoken in the Republic of India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by 78.05% of Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 19.64% of Indians; both families together are sometimes known as Indic languages. Languages spoken by the remaining 2.31% of the population belong to the Austroasiatic, Sino–Tibetan, Tai–Kadai, and a few other minor language families and isolates. According to the People's Linguistic Survey of India, India has the second highest number of languages (780), after Papua New Guinea (840). Ethnologue lists a lower number of 456.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bhojpuri language</span> Indo-Aryan language native to India and Nepal

Bhojpuri is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Bhojpur-Purvanchal region of India and the Terai region of Nepal. It is chiefly spoken in eastern Uttar Pradesh, western Bihar and western Jharkhand in India as well as western Madhesh and eastern Lumbini in Nepal. 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Magahi language</span> Indo-Aryan language spoken in India

Magahi, also known as Magadhi, is a Indo-Aryan language spoken in Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal states of eastern India, and in the Terai of Nepal. Magadhi Prakrit was the ancestor of Magahi, from which the latter's name derives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Awadhi language</span> Indo-Aryan language spoken in Northern India

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 god Rama. It was, along with Braj, used widely as a literary vehicle before being displaced by Hindi in the 19th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caribbean Hindustani</span> Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Caribbean

Caribbean Hindustani is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by Indo-Caribbeans 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 India as indentured laborers. It is closely related to Fiji Hindi and the Bhojpuri-Hindustani spoken in Mauritius and South Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fiji Hindi</span> Indo-Aryan language of most Indo-Fijians

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 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western Hindi languages</span> Indo-Aryan language and dialect cluster of northern and central India

The Western Hindi languages are a branch of the Indo-Aryan language family spoken chiefly in Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh and Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh, in Northern 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 Indian Union and one of the 22 Scheduled Languages of India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tharu languages</span> Indo-Aryan language group of Nepal and India

The Tharu or Tharuhat languages are any of the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by the Tharu people of the Terai region in Nepal, and neighboring regions of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Languages of Uttar Pradesh</span>

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 Awadhi people or Awadhis are an Indo-Aryan ethno-linguistic group who speak the Awadhi language and reside in the Awadh region of Uttar Pradesh. Many Awadhis also migrated to Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Odisha in India and some adjoining regions of the Terai in Nepal, and in addition 3 per cent of Nepalis are Awadhi speakers. Awadhi people can be found throughout the world, most notably in Fiji, Guyana, Mauritius, South Africa, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. Historically, Indo-Aryans dominated the North Indian Gangetic Planes; thus, the Awadhi language continuously evolved over the centuries in the Awadh region of Uttar Pradesh.

The Punjabi dialects and languages or Greater Panjabic are a series of dialects and languages spoken around the Punjab region of Pakistan and India with varying degrees of official recognition. They have sometimes been referred to as the Greater Punjabi macrolanguage. Punjabi may also be considered as a pluricentric language with more than one standard variety.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Central Indo-Aryan languages</span> Central Indo-Aryan

The Central Indo-Aryan languages or Hindi languages are a group of Indo-Aryan languages spoken across Northern and Central India. These language varieties form the central part of the Indo-Aryan language family, itself a part of the Indo-European language family. They historically form a dialect continuum that descends from the Middle Prakrits. Located in the Hindi Belt, the Central Zone includes the Dehlavi (Delhi) dialect of the Hindustani language, the lingua franca of Northern India that is the basis of the Modern Standard Hindi and Modern Standard Urdu literary standards. In regards to the Indo-Aryan language family, the coherence of this language group depends on the classification being used; here only Eastern and Western Hindi languages will be considered.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angika</span> Bihari language of India and Nepal

Angika is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language spoken in some parts of the Indian states of Bihar and Jharkhand, as well as in parts of Nepal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eastern Hindi languages</span> Indo-Aryan language and dialect cluster of northern and central India

The Eastern Hindi 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.

The Bhojpuri people, also known as Bhojpuriya-sawb are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group from the Indian subcontinent who speak the Bhojpuri-language and inhabit the Bhojpur-Purvanchal region. This area is now divided between the western part of the Indian state of Bihar, the eastern part of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, western Jharkhand, along with some neighbouring districts in the Madhya Pradesh and Madhesh and Lumbini of Nepal. A significant diaspora population of Bhojpuris can be found in Trinidad and Tobago, Netherlands, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, other parts of the Caribbean, Fiji, South Africa, and Mauritius.

References

  1. ↑ "Largest State in India 2022: Check the list of all states by area and population". 16 February 2022.
  2. ↑ "A-1 No of Villages, Towns, Households, Population and Area". Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. Retrieved 3 March 2024.
  3. ↑ "Report of the Commissioner for linguistic minorities: 50th report (July 2012 to June 2013)" (PDF). Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities, Ministry of Minority Affairs, Government of India. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 July 2016. Retrieved 26 December 2016.
  4. ↑ B.L. Sukhwal (1985), Modern Political Geography of India, Stosius Inc/Advent Books Division, ISBN   9780865906082, ... In the Hindi heartland ...
  5. ↑ Stuart Allan, Barbie Zelizer (2004), Reporting war: journalism in wartime, Routledge, ISBN   0-415-33998-7, ... located in what is called the "Hindi heartland" or the "Hindi belt" of north and central India ...
  6. ↑ B.S. Kesavan (1997), Origins of printing and publishing in the Hindi heartland (Volume 3 of History of printing and publishing in India : a story of cultural re-awakening), National Book Trust, ISBN   81-237-2120-X
  7. ↑ "Battle for the Hindi heartland: Will it favour the BJP again?". www.orfonline.org.
  8. 1 2 "Congress' revival in Hindi patti". www.nationalheraldindia.com. 8 February 2019.
  9. ↑ "How languages intersect in India". Hindustan Times. 22 November 2018.
  10. ↑ "How many Indians can you talk to?". www.hindustantimes.com. Retrieved 22 December 2019.
  11. ↑ "Hindi and the North-South divide". 9 October 2018.
  12. ↑ Pillalamarri, Akhilesh. "India's Evolving Linguistic Landscape". thediplomat.com. Retrieved 22 December 2019.
  13. ↑ Khan, Abdul Jamil (2006). Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide: African Heritage, Mesopotamian Roots, Indian Culture & Britiah Colonialism. Algora Publishing. p. 313. ISBN   9780875864389. In the 'Hindi-Urdu belt' also these variations are visible
  14. ↑ Sharma, Vishal (14 September 2018). "Hindi Belt's Imposition Sparks Resistance in Himachal Pradesh". TheQuint. Retrieved 23 August 2020.
  15. ↑ Sharma, Vishal (7 June 2019). "Dreaming of Peace Dividends: Revival of Shimla-Murree Linkages". The Wire. Retrieved 23 August 2020.
  16. ↑ "Census of India: Abstract of speakers' strength of languages and mother tongues –2001". censusindia.gov.in. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 22 December 2019.
  17. ↑ USCWM
  18. ↑ "38 languages stake claim to be in Eighth schedule". www.dailyexcelsior.com. 15 August 2013.
  19. ↑ Pathak, Vikas (20 January 2017). "Don't add Hindi dialects in Eighth Schedule, say academics". The Hindu.
  20. ↑ "Linguists divided over inclusion of Bhojpuri in 8th Schedule". www.indiatoday.in.
  21. ↑ "Housing and Population Census of Mauritius 1972" (PDF). Ministry of Economic Planning and Development. Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  22. ↑ "2022 Population Census - Main Results" (PDF). Government of Mauritius. Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  23. ↑ Murdan, Anjani (10 June 2022). "Is the Bhojpuri language spoken by only 5.3% of the Mauritian population, as stated by the 2011 Census report?". Mauritius Times. Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  24. ↑ Jaffrelot, Christophe (1 January 2000). "The Rise of the Other Backward Classes in the Hindi Belt". The Journal of Asian Studies. 59 (1): 86–108. doi:10.2307/2658585. JSTOR   2658585. S2CID   162845558.
  25. ↑ "2019 elections may have no precedent in terms of past elections". @businessline. 10 February 2019. Retrieved 22 December 2019.
  26. ↑ "Why BJP is staring at a loss of nearly 100 seats from 2014 tally". 9 November 2018.

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