Translation Resources

Hindi is the National Language of India and the regional language of six Indian states, namely, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Himachal Pradesh

Facts

• The Hindi alphabet consists of 11 vowels and 33 consonants.
• Hindi is an Indo-European language spoken mainly in North and Central India.
• Hindi in written in the Devanagri script and is India's official language. However, English continues to be the working language.
• Hindi is the second-most spoken language in the world, after Mandarin.

	Some facts on Hindi Primarily spoken in: India Also spoken in: The US, Mauritius , South Africa , Yemen , Uganda , Nepal , Singapore , New Zealand , and Germany Official language of: India Total number of speakers: 500 million Rank: 2

Brief History

Hindi is a descendant of Sanskrit. Over a period of time, it evolved from Classical Sanskrit to Pali-Prakrit to Apabhransha to Hindi. The earliest form of Hindi can be traced back to the 10th century. It is very difficult to say as to when exactly Hindi was established as a language. Scholars have not arrived at a consensus on this issue. Modern Hindi and its literary tradition evolved towards the end of the 18th century. After independence, the Government of India worked on standardizing Hindi, resulting in changes such as:

• Standardization of Hindi grammar and spelling
• Standardization of Devanagari (Devanagari) script to bring about uniformity in writing and to improve the characters in terms of their shape
• Incorporation of diacritics to pronounce sounds from other languages

Vocabulary

Much of the formal and technical vocabulary of standard Hindi is derived from Sanskrit. Today, standard or shuddha ("pure") Hindi is used only in public addresses and radio or TV new casts. The everyday spoken language is a casual version of Hindi. The vocabulary includes Persian as well as Urdu words. Traces of Portuguese, English, and other languages are also found in spoken Hindi.

Writing system

Hindi is written in the Devanagari script.The Hindi alphabet consists of 11 vowels, two modifiers and 33 consonants.

Fonts

You can download Hindi fonts for free from the website of Government of Madhya Pradesh , India.

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