There are many languages in India; depending on the definition, the number is thought to exceed a thousand. In fact, India is one of the few countries that does not have a national language, though both English and Hindi are the official languages of India used by the government - and the language spoken, or at least understood, by most of its inhabitants is Hindi.
It’s no wonder why you find yourself reading this article to learn more about what is arguably the most intriguing language out there.
Following only Mandarin, Spanish and English, Hindi ranks as the fourth most commonly spoken language in the entire world.
When you combine the related Urdu language, it climbs to the podium as the third biggest language. While predominantly spoken in North, West, and Central India, the language is practiced and studied just about anywhere in the world, even in this article, for instance!
Is Hindi a Language?
Hindi is indeed a language, but it also goes a step further by extending to be one with a rich tapestry of cultural and historical richness.
In addition to the domestic examples given in the introduction, the language is also spoken in Nepal and has official status in several Indian states and Fiji.
Would you believe that the language actually belongs to the Indo-European language family? If you know Bengali or Punjabi, then you can expect to find many commonalities.
However, you may not have expected that this means that it is also a cousin language of English and German. So, learning the language might be easier than you have been making it out to be in your head.
What’s even more interesting about Hindi is that it’s a language with many different styles and speech registers. At the most colloquial level, it has more in common with Urdu, while at a more formal level, its Sanskritized roots begin to surface.
If you ask anyone who speaks the language fluently, they will likely tell you how Hindi allows for nuanced expressions of thoughts and feelings. This has rendered the language a vehicle for expression for the arts that are so deeply rooted in the culture.
How old is Hindi?
Few languages have linguistic histories quite as deep as Hindi, dating back to ancient times. To provide some context on Hindi's origins, I will explain its connection to Sanskrit, which is essentially the parent language from which all Prakrit languages are derived.
Hindi's roots are in Sanskrit. So, if you were impressed by the length of time Hindi predates some of the other languages that you are familiar with, then you will be shocked to hear its earliest form, Vedic Sanskrit, dates back to around 1500 BC!
You might already be familiar with the Rigveda hymns as a famous piece of Hindi literature; they were actually written in this ancient language.
Around 800 BC, it morphed into Classical Sanskrit, a language mostly spoken by the upper class, which remained the classical literary language in India for a long time. Though few still speak it, it is still taught in schools the same way that Latin is taught as the classical literary language of Europe.
Ready to learn this ancient Indian language? Find a Hindi class anywhere in the UK.
If you think past the dates and attempt to contextualise just how long ago this was with respect to the minute lifetimes that we have experienced, it truly is a marvel how old the origins of Hindi date back!
Between 500 BC and 800 AD, different Prakrit languages developed, evolving from Vedic and Classical Sanskrit. However, the language that shaped the development of Hibdi the most was Shauraseni Apabhramsha, which emerged around the 7th century.
The Hindi languages started branching off from Apabramsha around the 11th century AD, most of them being entirely distinct by the 12th, though in many places the Apabhramsha languages were still spoken in parallel.
It was under the Delhi Sultanate that the Persian language first started mixing with the local Apabhramsha dialects to form what would later become the Hindi and Urdu languages. Hindi and Urdu can continue to influence each other so that their differences slowly erode.
Language Families In India
India is a land rich in languages. Hundreds of languages and dialects co-exist, some of which are spoken by only a few hundred people.
While it’s not unusual for several different languages to be spoken in one country, India is fairly uncommon not only through the number of languages but also their diversity, as not all languages belong to the same language group.
Indo-European Languages of India
According to Nations Online, 78% of Indians speak a language belonging to the Indo-European language family, to which English also belongs.
However, they do not belong to the same sub-group. The Indian languages are part of the Indo-Iranian languages, forming a subgroup called Indo-Aryan.
The oldest Indo-Aryan language attested in India is Vedic Sanskrit, with texts dating to the 2nd-1st millennium BC transmitted orally before being set down in writing—for example, some of the sutras of the Rigveda, an important collection of Hindu hymns. Check out Hindi courses London on Superprof.
You can learn more about this ancient Indian language by watching the video below, which includes sample texts.
Let's look into Indo-Aryan languages of India, with data on how many people speak Hindi as well as Bangla, Punjabi, and other Indian languages:
| Language | Number of Speakers | Region |
|---|---|---|
| Hindi & Urdu | 590 Million | Spoken across India, Nepal, Fiji, and among the Indian diaspora worldwide. |
| Bengali or Bangla | 205 Million | Mostly spoken in the state of West Bengal and part of Assam |
| Punjabi | 100 million | Spoken in the states of Punja, Haryana and Delhi, as well as much of Pakistan |
| Marathi | 75 million | Spoken in Maharashtra and Goa |
| Gujarati | 50 Million | Spoken in Gujarat and the federal (union) territories of Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli. |
| Bhojpuri | 40 million | Spoken in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand |
| Maithili | 35 million | Spoken in Bihar and Jharkhand |
| Odia | 35 million | Spoken in Odisha, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh |
| Marwari | 30 million | Spoken in Rajasthan, Gujarat and Haryana |
| Sindhi | 25 million | Spoken in Gujarat and Maharashtra and the Sindh province of Pakistan |
| Assamese | 24 million | Spoken in Assam (of tea fame) and Arunachal Pradesh |
| Rajasthani | 20 million | Spoken in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab and Haryana |
| Rangpuri | 15 million | Spoken in Assam and West Bengal |
| Bishnupriya | 12 million | Mostly spoken in Assam and Tripura |
If you want to understand where Hindi is spoken, the below map of the language in India and the regions of India will help:
Dravidian Languages
Dravidian languages seem to be native to India (though some scholars disagree). This fact was established in studies as early as 1956 in the UK. They are not related to any other language family. Only two Dravidian languages are spoken outside of India (Brahui in Pakistan and Afghanistan and Dhangar in Nepal and Bhutan).
The oldest written evidence of a Dravidian language in India is the Tamil-Brahmi script found on cave walls in Tamil Nadu dating to the 2nd century BC.
In 1526, the Moghul Empire, a Persianized empire of Turko-Mongol descent, supplanted the Delhi Sultanate and ruled over much of India, allowing even more Persian loanwords to enter the language.
By the time the Moghul Empire slowly dissolved in the 18th century, Khari Boli or Khariboli vernacular, successor dialects to the Apabhramsha languages, had replaced Persian as the common language.
The variant of Khariboli used by the upper class in northern India became known as Hindustani.
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The Hindi Language
Hindi derives from Sanskrit, making it one of the oldest languages. It has endured much, including times when it wasn't the official Indian language.
Throughout the Moghul Empire and for many following and rival dynasties, Persian was the court language.
However, when the British colonised India in the 18th through the 19th century, they were on the lookout for a widely spoken language they could use for administration. Hindustani was widespread enough that it became the official language of the British Indian Empire under the name of Urdu.
Hindustani is still used as a vernacular and lingua franca in the northern and western regions of the Indian subcontinent.
Around 57% of the Indian population are able to converse in Hindi.
Interestingly, in Bollywood, the balance between Hindi and Urdu is seen as producers making films suitable for everyone.
Bollywood uses the vernacular of North Indians and Pakistanis, which generally means that a lexicon is used commonly by both Hindi and Urdu speakers. Thus, Bollywood movies are effectively trying to increase their appeal across India.
Today, we speak of Hindi if it is spoken in India and Urdu as the language of Pakistan - though, as we will see, there are some differences between the two.
Basic Linguistic Features and Dialects of Hindi
Given the extensive history of the language that we have discussed, it’s only expected that it has evolved with its unique characteristics and regional variations.
If you are a native English speaker, you will likely be taken aback by the language's ten-vowel system, which encompasses five long vowels and five short vowels.
Hindi includes 28 consonants inherited from Indo-Aryan tongues alongside additional consonants borrowed from languages like Persian and Arabic.
Many learners who are new to the language find there to be a bit of a learning curve due to the following specificities of the language:
- masculine and feminine genders
- singular and plural
- nominative, oblique and vocative cases
- declinable and indeclinable adjectives
So, if you have the intention of picking up Hindi, you will need to wrap your head around how adjectives can be declinable or indeclinable, with declinable adjectives marked for gender, number, and case to agree with the nouns they qualify.
Another defining feature is the language’s verb system, which revolves around a blend of aspect and tense/mood markers with layers of elements attached to the root words. The language follows a subject-object-verb (SOV) sentence structure while utilising postpositions to indicate case relationships.
Classification of Eastern and Western Hindi Dialects
As with any language spoken over such a vast amount of land and across communities with distinct cultures, the dialect is expected to vary somewhat.
When it comes to Hindi, this is somewhat amplified due to its evolution from slightly different forms of Prakrit. In a nutshell, there are two major dialects that are spoken and they can be separated geographically: Western Hindi and Eastern Hindi.
⬅️ Western Hindi
Evolved from the Shauraseni Prakrit in the Apabhramsha form. Includes
Hindustani (standardized forms of Hindi and Urdu), Braj Bhasha, Haryanvi, Bundeli, and Kannauji.
Eastern Hindi ➡️
Stems from the Ardhamagadhi form of Prakrit. Spoken across Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
As you see, learning to speak Hindi will mean getting to know a language with a long and literary past and an exciting, dynamic future.
The history of Hindu languages is something that many people have studied for decades. Language constantly moves and evolves, which means that pinpointing the exact origin of the Hindi language is a challenge.
There are even disagreements between scholars and linguists, so try not to get too frustrated with yourself if you can't seem to pinpoint it.
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The article is very fine. but i need references
I’m glad you liked it – most of the information is taken from the links provided. We don’t offer scientific research articles on this site, but introductory pieces to provide some basic info. If your research should turn up anything interesting or contradictory, you’re welcome to let us know!
Latest Research (2019) on Linguistics have provided More Clarification on the Fact that Sanskrit is a language of Brahmins who Migrated to India From Europe and that slavic Brahmins did not* travel to Iran or Persia so Genetically were not related to Aryans who were Persians. So Brahmins or their language cannot be classified as Aryan as Brahmins were Purely European* and there fore their language too landed as pure European. Due to these Europeans Copying* All* Indian Linguistic not just one just to make all Indians feel that they have a upper hand just to make Sanskrit look primitive… misusing Indians Innocence used spiritual loop holes and India being Multi lingual …it was easy as Sanskrit was never a spoken language but only in script to act as if Sanskrit is mother of Any Indian lanuage….How can a non*spoken* foreign language ever be a mother or Origin point of any Indian language.? To have power to influence first it should have been in use/spoken language. Prakrit alone influenced Hindi.
Hindi has been clubbed with Urdu to “claim” its majority, mainly for political purposes. The bare fact is that Hindi is the sole language of the Hindi heartland ONLY, which happens to be central Uttar Pradesh. Madhya Pradesh is dominated by several tribal languages, which are indeginous to itself. Rajasthani is the native tongue of Rajasthan. So this RJ & MP may be excluded from the region shaded in the map under “Hindi-land”. Going by recent statistics, it will be found that Bengali & Telugu are good contenders for the most popular language of Indian origin, however, since they don’t enjoy political patronage, right from the British period, this fact will be shrouded in political intention. The literature of these two are richer than Hindi, whose only protagonist is the Bollywood lobby,only for business purposes and literary & creative contribution is negligible, since Bollywood thrives in shameless plagiarism of Hollywood, without attempts at genuine creativity. In order to really catapult Hindi to its intended popularity, the Hindi protagonists may be humbly urged to nurture their creativity in ALL fields, e.g. technical also, rather than cracking the political ringmaster’s whip while forcibly imposing it on all Indians (esp south) with much non-value added expenditure in its popularising through bribery in the form of prizes & incentives or utter persuation, solely for political hegemony. A little creativity is humbly & respectfully urged in popularising it without opposition, which could then be pleasurably enjoyed rather than painfully endured.
Relatively true narrative on Hindi and Urdu. The predominant languages with historical literature evidence is Sanskrit and Tamil as contemporary languages. Sanskrit the Indo-Aryan from where the European languages originated later on with mix of later persian.
Tamil the predominant Dravidian language, has lierature evidence as old as Sanskrit with current evidence still available from 500BC on words but may older as a coin from Indus valley was found to have a Tamil letters indicating migration of Dravidians from Indus gradually. Telgu comes soon after Tamil on lierature evidence but late because of influence of both Sanskrit and Tamil was strong.
The intersting fact is Sanskrit has faded but Tamil and Telgu as ister languages survive!!
Agree Totally. But what worried is these languages Hindi or Sanskrit(European) which even if pleasurably enjoyed is Turing to become painful after a decade when it’s been made compulsary for a Central Govt Job. Or KV education – These are Reasons why South Indians Asked for a Dravidian language too to be included as official language of India.But in vain till Date. Remember there are n number of official languages in Many Countries in the world.Why not India.
Very informative..keep up
It would be appreciated if Hindi is not thrust on South Indians as we speak good English which is international. Since Indians speak good English why are we killing it. Good jobs Indian and International require English. All Banks start of with Hindi and sadly the same person cannot speak English for nuts. Please don’t thrust the language on us.
It’s good to know the English language as it’s international but don’t you think hindi would extinct in no time which is our language. Our minds are already westernised and we’re totally shifting towards them , their thinking, everything theirs and in this we’re going to loose the Indian identity. Hindi keeps us together and we’re proud of it.
How I know the historical and scientific pali language?
In time of Tathagat Gautam buddha.
Very nice good luck
I landed here after reading a page (link posted on FB by one of India’s leading playback singer). The article is informative and loaded with facts, would just like to have the references for the same. Speaking my mind: To start with, nothing is absolute true, and history is always twisted and crafted. We read just the history what the people sitting on the apex of the pyramid wants us to read. We Indians have learnt and the same we have inherently in our blood, to respect every culture alike our own. But the politics being played even in the field of academics instigate our minds to pose differences and anti-feelings towards other cultures and beliefs. That is a different thing that we still live as one helping each other and crossing our paths. To be true enough, if we have to reach the root of any language then we have to work together as one unit, the team being driven by like minded people void of conflicts and differences. An alien unit cannot determine something which has got no stance, and sad thing is even some front-line citizens, so called rationals are following the articles and getting them posted. The irony is at a time, when everyone is living in an age of (technology) revolution, we are not evolving and still revolving around some baseless conflicts of our horrendous past. But at this point the catch is we should never forget the past but of course let it go. To speak aloud here, just like Latin called the mother of English, similarly Sanskrit and Prakrit are two languages which have determine the form of Hindi and given a touch to many more languages too. People are just a tough nut not to crack and just living with subsumed and already consumed brain.
Mind blowing account of history and development of Hindi language. I read whole article and hold my breath til the end! Great article!
Excellent article, i live in Trinidad. It cleared up a lot of misconception. Qu, where did Sánskcrit originate from. Is it a spoken language?
Good information about Hindi language.
The beauty & capacity to explain
by Hindi language should have been included.
It binds people of different regional areas.
However, good description.
Wish you all the best.
Good Information. Thank You.
Kannada ♥️
Hindi is not India’s official language.
No where mentioned in constituent as Hindi or any language as official language.
Hindi and English are the official languages of the Republic of India
Kannada speaker number is wrong. According to 2011 census there are 40.37 million (4.37 crore) kannada mother tongue speakers in india.
Quite informative.
Very informative..keep up
Place in me
Very good article. It’s so interesting.
Awesome
Great explanation. Thanks.
Urdu is Hindi written in Arabic script
It is as much an a indo european language as Hindi
Muslims try to monopolise it so they do not leave Arabic script and adopt devnagrhi script which would make it more popular. But then muslims will not have monopoly in jobs related with this language.
The history of the Hindi is:
1. Sanskrit
2. Prakrit
3. Hindi in the mixture of (Hindi, Khari Boli, Punjabi, Bhojpuri, Urdu, Persian and Marwari)
4. Original Hindi
very interesting and informative article. very much appreciate.