Over 500 million people speak Hindi, making it an Indo-Aryan language and one of the most spoken languages in the world. It is the primary language of communication in India, where it holds the status of an official language, alongside English. People widely speak it across northern, central, and western India, as well as in parts of Nepal, Mauritius, and Fiji. People also speak it in other countries with Indian diaspora communities.
The roots of Hindi trace back to Sanskrit, with influences from languages such as Persian, Arabic, Turkish, and English, due to India’s rich cultural and historical exchanges.
It evolved from the medieval language of Hindustani, which people spoke during the Mughal era. Over time, it split into two major dialects—Hindi and Urdu—which are linguistically very similar but differ mainly in their script and vocabulary. While Hindi is written in the Devanagari script, Urdu uses the Perso-Arabic script.
The vocabulary of Hindi is a blend of native words derived from Sanskrit and borrowed words from Persian, Arabic, and English. It has a rich literary tradition, with a significant body of work in poetry, fiction, and drama. The language literature includes classical works, such as the poetry of Kabir and Tulsidas, and modern works by famous writers like Premchand and Harivansh Rai Bachchan. The language also plays a central role in India’s film industry, popularly known as Bollywood. Hence Hindi is the dominant language of cinema.
In contemporary times, It is not just a language of communication but also a powerful tool in education, media, and politics. It is the medium of instruction in many schools across India and is used in print and digital media, radio, and television. Hindi continues to thrive and evolve, maintaining its position as a key cultural and linguistic symbol of India.
According to the 2022 edition of Ethnologue, Hindi is the third most spoken language in the world based on the total number of first and second language speakers.
As per the 2011 Census of India, 57.1% of the Indian population is familiar with Hindi, with 43.63% identifying it as their native language. Urdu, which shares grammatical similarities with Hindi and is mutually intelligible with it. 141 million people across India, Pakistan, and other countries speak Urdu. It serves as a second language for many of the approximately 1 billion people. Urdu is one of India’s 22 official languages or various regional dialects.
It serves as a link language across India and people widely understand it in a simplified form. The term ‘Hindi’ often refers to the nine Indian states with a Hindi-speaking majority. And Hindi is the official language: Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh. It is the official language of the National Capital Territory of Delhi too.
Historically, people have called the language by various names, including Desi, Bhakha, Hindavi, Dakhini, Rekhta, Aryabhasha, Hindustani, Khariboli, and Bharati. It belongs to the Indo-Aryan sub-branch of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family.