Hindi: The Name/Word
हिन्दी: एक नाम/शब्द
Hindi is a popular language
Hindi as you know is a major language spoken mainly in India. It is probably the third or fourth most spoken language after Mandarin (Chinese), English and Spanish!
If you include the number of people who speak languages very simillar to Hindi (like Urdu), you will find the total to be more than the number of English speakers. But as English is the de-facto international language, we may consider Hindi as the forth most popular language.
Hindi is just a language!
The most important thing one should always remember is that 'Hindi' (हिन्दी, hindee) is a language and 'Hindu' (हिन्दू, hindoo; Hinduism) is a religion.
Experts say these two words originated from the same root - 'Sindhu' (सिन्धु). Even the word 'India' might have originated from this word!
These two words -HINDI and HINDU are NOT tightly RELATED. Lots of upper and middle class Hindus tend to choose English over Hindi!
The language which is closely related with the Hindu religion is Sanskrit (संस्कृत, saNskRit). Most of the Indic languages (including Hindi) are derived from Sanskrit (refined and sacred language) and Prakrits (प्राकृत, praakRit; unrefined dialects).
Sanskrit language was spoken by Upper caste Hindus mainly Brahmans (ब्राह्मण; braahmaNN)!
Prakrits (and Apabhransha) were the languages spoken by masses in Ancient India! These languages along with Sanskrit are the roots of Hindi.
Lot of words in Hindi were also taken from South-Indian languages, Angreji (अंग्रेजी, ANgrejee = English), Farsi (फ़ारसी, faarasee = Persian), Arabi (अरबी, Arabee = Arabic), Turki (तुर्की, turkee = Turkish) and Purtagali (पुर्तगाली, purtagaalee = Portuguese).
So Hindi is for everybody who like to speak it.
Who speak Hindi?
Common people living in Central India and large part of Northern India speak mainly Hindi.
Definitely lots of Hindus speak 'Hindi', but lots of Hindus speak other languages as well. Most of people belonging to religions which are simillar to Hinduism speak Hindi. E.g. Buddhists (बुद्धिस्ट = बौद्ध, bauddha_s) and Jains (जैन).
People of a business community called Marwari (मारवाड़ी, maarawaaDdee) used to speak a dialect of Hindi. But most of them now-a-days speak Hindi. Some other Hindu communities influential in business and trade speak their native languages like Gujarati (गुजराती, gujaraatee) Sindhi (सिन्घी, sindhee), etc.
Some businessmen (communities) use their native languages/dialects as sort of code language. They speak their languages when they don't want customers and other people understand what they are talking about.
Nevertheless, Hindi is the main language of business and trades in South Asia!
Is Hindi spoken by most people in India?
YES. Hindi is the main language in Northern and Central India. People of Western India (who mainly speak Marathi and Gujarati) also speak Hindi comfortably. Punjabi (पंजाबी, paNjaabee) is similar to Hindi. Lots of people of Eastern & Southern India can also speak Hindi albeit with some accent!
But remember India is divided along/by languages. So sometimes the politicians and partisans try to make people of their constituencies hate Hindi! These handful of people want to see public divided over language, religion, caste etc. and avoid speaking Hindi.
Script of Hindi
'DevaNagari' is the name of the script used to write 'Hindi', 'Marathi', 'Sanskrit', 'Nepali' and many dialects. Devanagari was enhanced to write words of English, Arabi and Farsi. So DevaNagari is the main script of South Asia.
Hindi is also written using the Roman script mainly in Movie Titles and in SMSes in mobile phones.
Lots of influential people in Indian Industries don't use DevaNagari at all! Pharma companies use Hindi/Nagari unwillingly! Even Hindi Film Industry avoid Nagari.
Most of the Hindi movies are just a waste of time, too much of drama and very little story/content.
Hindi and Urdu
'Hindi' is the word used to describe the language mainly spoken by a wast majority of South Asian people. Another major language of South Asia is 'Urdu'.
Hindi and Urdu have lots of common words. The grammar of 'Urdu' is like that of 'Hindi'.
Urdu is mainly spoken by Muslims in South Asia. Many Muslims try hard to include more and more Farsi and Arabic words and avoid using words with Sanskrit roots.
Some Muslims (mainly Urdu poets, artists, maulvis) use those Arabic words and phrases which general public don't understand.
Some Hindus also try to use rare words with Sanskrit roots and avoid using common words with Arabic roots.
Hindi and Bharat (India)
Hindi is the official-language (raj-bhasha) of Bharat (India). हिन्दी भारत की राजभाषा है।
Why every Indian should learn atleast basic Hindi?
'Subhash-chandra Bose', 'Dayanand Sarswati' and other true bharatiya leaders and saints advocated use of Hindi for National integration.
I request Hindi speaking people to learn atleast one other Indian language.
Why this name: hindi.name?
- as it was available for registration ;-)
- because hindi.commonTLDs were not available :-(
You can guess 'Hindi' must be a very common word. In our humble opinion, it is the most searched Indian word! Though some would say 'OM' and 'Gayatri Mantra' (or 'Gayatri Manthra') are searched more than the word 'Hindi'. But a lot of queries such as 'Hindi Songs', 'Hindi etc...' make 'Hindi' the most searched desi (local; Indian) word. Don't think that we wrote this page just for search engines! Since 1991, we have been writing software and designing fonts for representing 'DevaNagari' in computers.
This page is meant to give real, unbiased information about the word Hindi. If you find any mistake, please inform us.
What will be the content of this site?
This domain name hindi.name will serve 2 purpose -
- Everything about the word 'Hindi' and a little about 'Hindi' as a language.
- Lists of Hindi/Indian name, like -
- names for babies/babas [English oriented memsaabs (madams;-) address male-baby as 'baba'!]
- technical vocabulary for those who know Hindi very well and those who want to translate technical articles from other languages to Hindi.
- essential Hindi/Indian words and their meaning in English like namaste, bhai, chai-wala, bindas, daru, tambbaku. We won't list words which one can find in typical English dictionaries like guru, avatar.
We are currently preparing list of names for Indian boys.
Hinglish
English in India is spoken mostly by e!ite and middle class people who live mainly in metros or big cities. These people uses Hindi sparingly, sometimes to refer to inferior things (shame on them) and things related to masses. The word Hinglish is sometimes used to refer to their language.