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Title

shouldn't it be Hindi language?

Hindi language redirects here. utcursch | talk 05:32, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)
Yes, but the majority of major languages redirect the other way round. Hindi (and Urdu) should (I think) be treated consistently with the way that German, French, Yiddish, and for that matter Gujarati and Marathi are treated. Which is to say where "X" is a language name, the article should be titled "X language" and "X" should redirect to it (or perhaps, in some cases, should be a disambiguation page). --Haruo 06:27, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

speakers

How about spanish? I thought it was more spread than english, thus english should come later ...

I removed a line about "reading and writing", because India has 65% literacy, and it is even lower in the Hindi-speaking region. Therefore I'm sure the number of readers/writers of hindi is lower than 600 million.

"About 600 million people speak Hindi, in India and abroad, and the total number of people who can understand the language exceeds 1.3 billion"

I believe both figures would be considerably inflated, and only arrived at by including related languages under Hindi, and expanding the definition of the word "understanding". Perhaps 400m and 800m would be more meaningful figures. Imc 12:35, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

According to "Ethnologue" the numbers are 180m and almost 500m. I aggree with imc and will cange the numbers to 400m and 800m (even considerably more than "Ethnologue" indicates).

Are you sure Hindi is not the UK`s 2nd language? My source was the The Independent, but of course journalists aren`t always correct.I would be grateful to know what is ? Andycjp 20/5/04

Hindi would probably be the UK's second language only if you used a wide definition, that included Punjabi and Urdu speakers with it. This definition would probably not be acceptable to speakers of these languages. Imc 17:41, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

hindi = urdu?

Is it really true that linguists consider Hindi and Urdu the same language? Indian people that I know do not. In fact, i have been told that Urdu and Hindi are not mutually intelligible, which suggests to me that they should be considered distinct languages, even by linguists...

Urdu and Hindi and almost completely mutually intelligible. The fact that Bollywood (Hindi) movies are so popular in Pakistan, and that Pakistani television miniseries (called Pakistani plays in India for some reason) are frequently watched by Northern Indians (especially older people) should prove this point. Neither is a standardized language, and the division is mostly political rather than linguistic. Indians and Pakistanis can usually tell each other apart from the expressions and words they use. Pakistanis use a smattering of words (mostly nouns) that originate in Persian/Arabic, while Indians use words that are more sanskritized. This does not mean that Hindi-sanskrit words are unheard of in Pakistan or Urdu-Persian words are unfamiliar to the Hindi speaker. Much of what is considered 'Urdu' is essentially derived from Sanskrit grammar, and many Hindi words have their origin in Persian or Arabic. In conversation, speakers of Hindi and Urdu would essentially be speaking the same language with regional differences, much like speakers of Spanish in South America can understand one another (although South American Spanish also has different regional accents while Hindi and Urdu speakers in India and Pakistan have no major difference in terms of their accent).

The whole Hindi-Urdu divide (as it is envisioned by Western scholars) is a little ridiculous when you consider the linguistic landscape of the subcontinent. Hindi/Urdu arose not as distinct languages, but as points on a linguistic continuum. Pakistan, carved from the Westernmost provinces of British India, retains the Perso-Arabic influence of its neighbors, while the deeper you go into the Indian interior, the influnce of Persian and Arabic is softened by the influence of Sanskrit and the Dravidian languages of the South (many of which have themselves been greatly influenced by Sanskrit, but notable exceptions remain, such as Tamil, which is least influenced by Sanskrit). Wikipedia lists a number of Indian languages (eg. Haryanavi) that are considered dialects of Hindi (and they essentially are), but most Hindi speakers would have much greater difficulty trying to understand Haryanavi, than Urdu.

For many Indians, especially, Urdu is not so much a separate language, as it is a way of speaking. Formal Urdu is essentially a hybrid language created by the heavy influence of Persian/Arabic/Turkish (the word Urdu itself is derived from a Turkish word) on a bedrock Indian language of Sanskritic origin. Urdu was the court language of the Mughal empire whose rulers were themselves of Persian/Turkic descent. For ordinary people, Urdu represented a finely cultivated manner of speaking that employed poetic flourishes of Persian. Under the British Empire, Urdu (with its Arabic script) became the de facto language for the vast bureacracy while a more vernacular version was spoken by Indians (muslims and hindus) everywhere. To this day, many elderly Indians who grew up under the British Raj cannot read or write the Devanagari script used for modern Hindi. Urdu (with its Arabic script) and English were the sole languages taught at schools around Northern India's two major cities, Delhi and Lahore (Delhi became capital of Independent India, and Lahore became capital of Pakistan's half of the partitioned province of Punjab). Obviously, this generation of North Indians can speak and understand what is now termed as Hindi in India, because it is really the same language they learnt at school.

As I understand it, they're regarded as recently diverged dialects. I wouldn't know about the mutual intelligibility issue, but I am pretty sure that the divergences are questions of script and vocabulary, both of which are rather minor, from the linguist's standpoint. But there are many ways that a linguist's understanding of a language differs from a common speaker's understanding. For example, a person who only knows standard English might encounter difficulty communicating with a person using African-American Vernacular English, despite the two being obviously dialects of the same language, and the standard English speaker might think the AAVE user "incorrect", while few knowledgeable linguists would be willing to assign that sort of value to a dialectical difference. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 06:54, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hindi and Urdu, although very similar at a conversational level become completely different at a technical level. Urdu draws almost all of its new words from Persian and Arabic; and Hindi from Sanskrit. Even at a conversational level, there are often at least two words which can be used to say the same thing - one Persian- or Arabic-derived and one Sanskrit-derived. More recently there has been a move towards speaking purer Urdu in Pakistan and purer Hindi in India Bish 16:13, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think the exact opposite is true. While Hindi and Urdu both use essentially the same syntax and grammatical structure, the two differ simply on the conversational level where Urdu speakers tend to use nouns of Arabic/Persian origin while Hindi speakers use words that are derived from Sanskrit. Are the two separate languages? probably not.

I am not a native speaker of either language, but I have travelled in both India and Pakistan. In the former country people told me I was speaking Hindi, in the latter Urdu. In both cases I was speaking the same language. At a colloquial, spoken level the two languages are almost identical, and the vocabulary in common use in India as well is normally of Perso-Arabic origin. For instance, in both Hindi and Urdu the common word for book is "Kitab", which is Arabic. There is a Sankrit word, "Pustak", but this is only used in formal, written contexts and by those who pride themselves on speaking Shodh Hindi ('pure' Hindi). To take another example, the Sanskrit-derived word for "independence" in Hindi is "Swatantra", but again, this is only used in the formal, written language. The commonly used word for the concept of independence in spoken Hindi is "Azadi", which is Persian and means "freedom", and is also used in Urdu. Another factor which brings the modern versions of the two languages closer together despite recent political divisions is the extensive borrowings both take from English. Thus in Shodh Hindi "University" is "Vishvavidyalya" (Sanskrit), whilst in 'High' Urdu it is "Daneshgah" (Persian), but you are much more likely to hear the words "University" or "College" used. By far the most significant difference between the two languages is that of script. In spoken, colloquial form, they are very similar indeed, exhibiting no more difference in vocabulary than you see between English and American English. Sikandarji 10:53, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Grammar & Orthography

It's unfortunate that nothing at all is said about either the grammar or the orthography of Hindi (other than which script it uses).

A page on Hindi grammar would be nice. And then sanskrit grammar.
I agree. There is nothing really in this article so far about grammar, which is what I was looking for. Have, however, added this link which gives some useful basic information. -- Picapica 11:03, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I have a spelling-related question which may get things kicked off:

On Wiktionary we have now two spellings for the Hindi translation of the English word "French". Which of these two are right? Could they both be right?
for many nationalities, there are two acceptable variants. I'm not sure that this is the case with French, but it may be.

Are the virama and candrabindu optional in Devanagari or just Hindi's use of it? Here are how the two spellings work:

When writing a ?-conjunct, you can use either a ? or a (candra)bindu. the choice is yours. when denoting nasalized vowels, the bindu is obligatory. you only use the virama in hindi if, for some reason, you don't want to write a conjunct.
फानिसिस
pa aa na i ra i ra
what you have written here is: phaanisis
फ़्राँसीसी
fa virama ra aa candrabindu sa ii sa ii
here you have frãsiisii. I don't recall how to say "french" in hindi, but i don't think either of these is it. I stand corrected, that's it, except that when using it for a na-conjunct, there should be no candra, just the bindu. -Lethe | Talk
Due to browser, font, or OS rendering support, the devanagari may not be rendered correctly. This is why I have spelled out the characters as well. — Hippietrail 00:53, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I am absolutely certain that फ़्राँसीसी is the right spelling. Beside the fact that I speak fluently hindi, I got this from the Dictionnaire Hindi-Français de Federica Boschetti, Editions du Mark. Yann 19:37, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I am also absolutely certain. I checked in the Oxford Hindi-English dictionary, along with my college Hindi textbook. Oxford Hindi-English dictionary agrees that फ़्रांसीसी is hindi for french. And my textbook agrees that bindu only is used for nasal conjuncts, rather than candrabindu. Maybe we can find some third parties to settle the dispute? -Lethe | Talk
I just wanted to mention Google hits for the various spellings. For our old spelling there are a few hits but all seem to be mirrors of the Wiktionary article. The spelling with candrabindu gets no hits. The spelling with just bindu gets 281 hits on real Hindi pages. — Hippietrail 00:59, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)


Yes, it's my theory that Yann's dictionary has it with the candrabindu because it's french, and in french, the word is nasalized. however, i think that in Hindi it's not nasalized, and that you should change it back. Edit:oops, I see Yann has already changed it back -Lethe | Talk

No- Hindi and Urdu are not the same languages

To a person who has only heard a language spoken on the streets or from movies, the languages may seem similar. The fact is that the so called 'Urdu' speaking people and 'Hindi' speaking people do not converse in the purest forms of these languages. Due to Bollywood (Indian film Industry) and the British Invasion, in this era the people use a hybrid language of Urdu, Hindi, and English.

If one were to use complete Urdu and another complete Hindi, they wouldn't be intelligible to one another. Just because people using a language alter the way they speak and vocabulary they use, it doesn't mean that the language has changed, but they are using a mixture of languages. Urdu will always remain Urdu (Persian/Arabic derived) and Hindi will always remain Hindi (Sankrit derived).

The grammatic structure in these languages, however, is very similar. The nouns and adjectives are what are completely different.

The language spoken by most people in this era is neither completely Urdu nor Hindi. Due to the emphasis of English in Pakistani and Indian schools, the mother tongues are being forgotten. The primary source that the majority of people turn to for education in their native language is movies. Bollywood (Indian Film Industry)'s use of a hybrid language consisting of Urdu, Hindi, and English is what is spoken by the majority of people who have not studied Urdu or Hindi. This fact doesn't change the original languages however. 

          Let me reiterate in a more simpler language :

because you hear people speak a certain language doesn't necessarily mean they are using the language in its original form. You may not understand this if you are someone overseas in India now, but if someone is speaking ebonics it doesn't represent proper English. Although I see one's point that if that is all they hear on the streets they may be fooled into believing it is English.

  • This article is about "Hindi, the language spoken by people". If you're not happy, you can write an article called "Hindi, the language spoken by some books" and ditto for urdu. BernardM 19:04, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes - Hindi and Urdu are the same languages

Hindi and Urdu are just slighty different variants of each other. For example, if a person goes to a shop and asks for something, just talks in general to the next fellow, or even speak up a formal report without going into technical, political or religious aspects - you say EXCATLY the same thing in Hindi and Urdu. Day to day conversation is ABSOLUTELY intelligible - rather, identical. Narrow minded polititians and communal minded Hindus and Muslims, of course, don't know this in India.

  • Simple minds fail to realize that a language is called so because it has a set structure and vocabulary. The borrowing of words from English and Urdu will never change Hindi. This article is about the Hindi language not Bombay slang. You should make a page called Bombay Slang, you can write down how it doesn't make use of proper Hindi.

-Saumya Ranjan Dept of Chemical Engg. IIT Bombay


Again, it is a grave mistake to describe Urdu as derived from Persian/Arabic. It is derived from Sanskrit, as is universally accepted by all linguists. You should look at the family tree of languages, and not create one from your own sweet will. Maybe this link helps : Classification for Urdu I personally come from UP which is the heartland of both Hindi and Urdu, and I am not just a prattler in Bambaiya Hindi. "Simpler Minds" fail to understand that it is not simply the script or the borrowed vocabulary for technical usage that determines the classification of a language. Language is somethin people "speak", and not that artificial jargon taught in school textbooks that are never encountered in speaking. Hindi has typically four "varieties": the Standard High Hindi or Khariboli, Dakhini, Rekhta and Urdu. However for socio-political purposes Hindi maybe regarded as different from Urdu, as it is by the Indian Constitution. For example, English borrows almost the whole of its technical (meaning not only scientific, but also all words worthy of noble and educated class usage) vocabulary from Greek and Latin, but that certainly does not make it either a Romance language or a Hellenic language. Because English is considered to be a Germanic language, despite the fact that if one uses only the Germanic vocabulary, the resulting language would only be fit for a cottage-dwelling simpleton. Remember, Hindi is Hindi, and not Sanskrit. The presence of artificially stuffed Sanskrit words severely undermines it because Hindi has its own different phonology and acceptable consonant clusters. Even many Hindi teachers are unable to pronounce these difficult tongue twisting Sanskrit words. The same thing also applies for the Urdu - Persian/Arabic relationship. But one is forced to introduce words from Sanskrit/Arabic/Persian/English in order to enrichen Hindi or Urdu. And although Arabic words are heavily used in Urdu due to religious influence, Urdu is in no way a descendent of Arabic. Urdu (also Persian) is an Indo-European language and Arabic is a Semito-Hamitic (Afro-Asiatic) language. Both are completely different families of languages. 203.199.51.148 00:39, 13 September 2005 (UTC)Saumya Ranjan <magicalsaumy@yahoo.co.in>

Sound system

I started adding a section on the sound system. It's getting much too long. I'm having trouble figuring out what the right level of detail is.

What I think is most important is to list the sounds, and then describe what is special about the Hindi phoneme repertoine from the point of view of an English speaker.

Listing is easy in principle, but I think it should be done in IPA, and I just don't have my IPA-editing act together.

The important features of the Hindi system that I can think of are:

  • Four-way opposition in oral stops, with voice and aspiration acting independently
  • Presence of the retroflex series
  • Almost-predictable syncopation of schwa (short a)

What would you want to know about the sounds of Hindi if you were learning about the language for the first time?

ACW 22:46, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Phonetics

I have added IPA and SAMPA tables. But, the first column doesn't have Devanagari alphabets, because my browser doesn't display them. Probably I will put them sometime later. If anybody has time, please do that. utcursch 08:47, Dec 11, 2004 (UTC)

Ambarish did that. utcursch 08:29, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, Utcursh; I am still working on more changes to the phonetics section, and thought of chiming in here after I'm done. Looks like I'll never get done :-( Ambarish 07:46, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Oh, outstanding progress here. I'm very pleased by the look of the vowels section. Left to do, but I don't know how:

  • Use actual IPA characters instead of images
Done.
  • Add a romanization column, because a consensus romanization certainly has been emerging
Do you mean transliteration into Roman? Is there some discussion on this?
  • Do the consonants!

The list of consonants in romanization is clearly just a sketch. Did the author mean ngaa instead of rdaa? ACW 18:06, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have some issues with the vowel phonetics itself. Compare the phonetics in Sanskrit and in Hindi. Clearly, some vowels like ऐ and औ are pronounced differently in Hindi and in Sanskrit, but surely आ, इ and उ are pronounced the same way? The two tables indicate different IPA symbols. Anyone more familiar with IPA care to comment? Ambarish 07:46, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I put the list of consonants just like that. I am going to prepare a table (similar to that of vowels) for them. But I don't know what it will look like. I think instead of having a row for each consonants, we can have a row for each varga (eg. ka-varga, cha-varga etc.) I hope to do that soon. utcursch 10:18, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)
Actually the examples given for ऐ and औ are wrong. I understand that Hindi-speakers (at least my colleague) pronounce ऐ close to ऍ and औ close to ऑ but still they are different. Note that "doctor" is spellt in Hindi as डॉक्टर and not डौक्टर. Probably the article should say "between bait and bad", etc. I suppose French or some other European language also has a similar "between ai and ae" thingy & probably also a "between au and ao" thingy, so we could search for the proper IPA using that. -- Paddu 22:25, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Please keep the phonology and orthography sections separate. The description of the sounds of any language is separate from the writing system. There is also the problem that while foreign scripts are hard to read in many browsers, Devangari tends to be even more problematic. Keeping orthography and IPA in the same tables is bound to cause a lot of headaches to anyone who has a computer that won't properly display either.
Try also to avoid getting overly detailed. If you want to describe individual groups of phonemes, please do so in Hindi phonology. This article should be a fairly general summary, so a consonant table and a vowel chart along with some general comments will do fine.
Peter Isotalo 00:37, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Touching up the vowels

I have fixed some of the IPA and closest-English-sound listings in the vowel table, using information from the Devanagari article and also from Omniglot. The problem with coming up with an English equivalent is that in Hindi the mid-close vowels are short and the mid-open vowels are long, where in English it is the opposite.

I have tried to make the English as close to the Hindi as possible. One way I've done this is by matching long Hindi vowels with English words ending in voiced consonants, and matching short Hindi vowels with English words ending in voiceless consonants. Many English speakers shorten vowels before voiceless consonants and lengthen them before voiced consonants, so this helps a little. However, the match isn't perfect.

As a linguist trying to learn about Hindi (everything I know, I learned from y'all!), it looks to me like the symbol 'α' used for the "long Open back unrounded vowel" (Open_back_unrounded_vowel) is incorrect; it should be 'ɑ'. The former is the Unicode U+03B1 "Greek small letter alpha", while the latter is U+0251 "Latin small letter alpha." The two are somewhat different looking, and definitely have a different meaning.

I'll also put a note to this effect on the Hindi_grammar talk page, which in addition has a problem with tildes.

I would edit the page, but I hesitate to do so because I don't know anything about Hindi...

(BTW, in Firefox v.1.5.0.2, the illustrative vowel chart overlays some of the text. I'm not sure how to fix this; it looks OK in Internet Explorer v6. I suspect this isn't the only place in Wikipedia that has this problem, it's likely s.t. to do with the underlying software...) Mcswell 15:09, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Number of Speakers

The page says that 66% of Indians can speak Hindi, but it also says that a total of 480 million people speak Hindi as a first or second language, and the latter works out to 45%. What gives? --Xiaopo ℑ 07:53, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)

I guess that Indians could often speak 3 or more of all Indian languages more or less fluently, thus the math would work out.

~*Number for speakers using Hindi has a native language needed.-Pedro 04:50, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

~* According to a linguistic survey Ignatius Language Survey the number of persons speaking hindi as a native language was 333 Million as of 1998.

Spelling Errors in Hindi Language on Main Wikipedia Pages

moved from Village pump (assistance), in hopes of finding someone who can follow through with this.

Hi, in those pages and parts of wikipedia that us normal users cannot edit, like the main page, the languages page, and the languages section on the left panel of every page, hindi is misspelled in hindi itself. So to the admin, or whoever has the control of it, please change it, this is the current spelling: हिन्दी And this is what it is supposed to be: िहन्दी The same error of "accents" was made in hindi all over wikipedia also. Some other people and I have been correcting this. If you have a database of pages that contains individual words in this language, please send it to me so I may have a look and fix accordingly.

For reference, the spelling on the Hindi page has been corrected already.

Added a few minutes later: Actually, I just noticed that the same error persists in Wikipedia Hindi...so is there a way for the admins to change this at all places at once, or will we have to do it one by one as we encounter it? Because the latter is a huge task and for an error this great, the quicker the fix, the better. Please let me know, my e-mail address is abhishekbh@gmail.com --Abhishekbh 18:58, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • We don't have an "ambassador" for Hindi. Is there someone who can take responsibility for this, or knows who could follow it through? -- Jmabel | Talk 02:44, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

<end moved text>

  • The reason you think this is a spelling mistake is because your computer has not been set up to render Devanagari and other Indic scripts properly. My computer displays Hindi correctly when written हिन्दी. Indian scripts use complex text rendering with Unicode and if your OS/Browser doesn't support this then you will carry on seeing incorrect text. Please do NOT change what you think is incorrect. Sukh 01:13, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If you can follow up on this, please make a note both here and in the relevant section on the Pump. Thanks. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:09, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

  • Jmabel, I am ready to take the responisbility. My initial question has been addressed by Sukh and I have corrected the problem, it was on my part. Please let me know what I am to do to become the "ambassador" of hindi. Thanks...


I just reinvented the wheel (recorrected the "error"). Will go undo my own damage now if nobody's beat me to the punch. One question to those whose browsers are configured to display Hindi correctly: what does my "correction" look like? --Haruo 19:25, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Font?

I've tried downloading several Hindi/Devanagari fonts, but none of them seem to work, either in Firefox or IE. Anyone have any tips? Please respond on my talk page, thanks :) --Golbez 07:58, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

Official Language and National Language

As far as I understand India has this particularity:

  • English is the Official Language of India and it is used by the government, by the legal system, by the internet, for education. Indians claim that it has to be this way because English provides "Neutrality". You don't get any respect in India if you don't speak English.
  • Hindi is the National Language of India, a politically correct way to say that "even we prefer English, we still love Hindi". Hindi is becoming some sort of working (servant)class language in India. -- Tequendamia
  This (aforementioned) is the "practical" reality. According to the Constitution of India Article 343,

"The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script. The form of numerals to be used for the official purposes of the Union shall be the international form of Indian numerals." and English is actually the co-official language of India till the Union government wishes to stop the use of English. Even the Hindi translated version of the Indian Constitution is regarded as solely authoritative (Article 394A : Indian Constitution). 203.199.81.148 00:51, 13 September 2005 (UTC) Saumya Ranjan

NUMBERS

I was curious about how the numbers are pronounced, but don't see it here. Anyone?

Edit war between Happytime and Sukh

Edits by Happytime

User:Happytime had removed this section. It has been added back by me. utcursch | talk 12:09, August 26, 2005 (UTC) User:Happytime removed this section again. It has been added back by me. skoosh (háblame) 22:53, 27 August 2005 (UTC) Hi,

I've been reverting Happytime's edits for several reasons:

  • They are biased
  • They contain no references
  • They tend to remove useful information rather than adding new information

I have reason to believe that this user is the same as User:Thetruth. If you check thetruth's contribution history you shall see what the user is like. Also check out happytime's edits to Khalistan and Punjabi_language. The user has been editing Hindi_language and Urdu_language. If he is 'thetruth' then I have tried again and again to come to some sort of agreement but attempts were futile.

Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 09:02, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Edits by Sukh

I had reverted this edit because it had replaced Sukh's comments. I have added it back now.

I've been reverting Sukh's edits for several reasons: 

   * They are biased, mostly anti-Hindu or anti-Muslim claims
   * They contain no references
   * They add irrelevant information to pages that relates to himself.

This user should add justification or proof to his claims.

Comments by utcursch

Both of you have already violated the three revert rule, for which you can be blocked as per the policy. I would try to clean up the article, taking into considerations edits by both of you. If you are not satisfied with the results, please have a look at Wikipedia:Resolving disputes. utcursch | talk 12:09, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

I've tried to clean up the article a bit. In the section Vocabulary, I've mentioned that spoken Hindi includes Persian, Arabic etal words. Personally, I don't think that information regarding Urdu is relevant in this article. I am not sure about the number of dialects. If you add the some information about the number of dialects, please cite references. One line in article says there are 1650 of them, while Sukh mentions there are about 10. utcursch | talk 12:51, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
Where did I mention 10 dialects? It depends on how you define the word 'dialect' - it's a loose definition at the best of times. Some people consider Punjabi to be a dialect. Most Punjabi speakers don't.
I actually do think Urdu needs a mention. The distinction between the vernacular version of Hindi and Urdu is minimal at best. It's true that higher forms of the languages can be very different (Sanskrit words on one side, Arabic/Persian on the other). Hindi and Urdu are one and the same and this is generally accepted by linguists. The differences? Well, Urdu is written in Nastaliq Arabic script and Hindi in Devanagari. That's it. Punjabi can be written in both Shahmukhi and Gurmukhi but they are still the same language. The distinction is largely political and religious.
I'll skim through your edits later and see what I can add to it. You may want to see my comments at User_talk:Sukh#Edit_war_with_User:Happytime. If this user is the user I think it is, I will not be suprised if there is no sort of dialogue - just blanket changes. I can only say I've tried. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 13:07, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Urdu and Hindi are complete different tongues when spoken at a scholarly level and if they were used at a spoken level. The problem is that in the present time these languages aren't used in everyday language. What is used nowadays is a mix of Hindi, Urdu, and English and the speakers refer to this as those languages. This does great injustice to the languages themselves as they are not being used then. In Hindi/Punjabi you call it kichri. That's not Hindi nor Urdu.-----------Happytime

About the dialect count, I'm sorry - it wasn't you who said there were about 10. You just reverted an edit. As about Hindi-Urdu, I personally think information about Urdu and Hindi's similarities (and differences) will be more appropriate at Hindustani language. Maybe you can create a separate article? Anyway, if your edit war doesn't end here, please follow the guidelines at Wikipedia:Resolving disputes. utcursch | talk 13:22, August 26, 2005 (UTC)
The Hindi/Urdu similarities do need a paragraph in each of their respective articles. Obviously this should be expanded in Hindustani. I will look into getting the dispute resolved. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 13:24, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Sabun

Can I ask if the root is Sanskrit or maybe Portugese? I am discovering many congates in Tagalog and Sanskrit/Hindi. I always thought that the Tagalog word sabon came from the Spanish javon, now I find out it is a Hindi word and would like to research further. Thanks. --Jondel 00:45, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

I assume you mean the word for 'soap' (Spanish jabon, French savon?) I doubt the Tagalog comes from Spanish; how would you get [s] from an [x]~[h]? Of course, maybe Spanish was closer to Portuguese and still had an [s] in this word in the 16th century?
I can give you some info, but not really answer the question. My source is the OED, by the way.
This word is also cognate with English soap, from Old English sāpe. German has Seife and Danish sæbe. (Swedish såpa is evidently a borrowing from Old English.) An early Germanic form *saipōn- has been reconstructed. This is thought to be the source of Finnish saip(p)io and Latin sāpo, sāpōnem (first mentioned by Pliny), from where of course we get the modern Romance forms (It. sapone, F. savon, Sp. jabon, Pg. sabão, Rom. sapun, sapon).
The OED says that it's doubtful that this was originally a Germanic word: its occurrence in some of the [Turkic] languages may indicate that it was introduced by early trade from the East.
No mention is made of Sanscrit, and it would be if the Hindi word was directly related, so I doubt sabun is original to India either. It could have been introduced by the Turks/Persians (since the Persians were half Turk), or maybe by the Portuguese? kwami 20:03, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Soap falls into the category of the words like sugar, tea and coffee, i.e. words that are almost universal globally b/c they are trade products. Soap likely has a common root in the middle east. --964267sr 02:20, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

This article is two subjects conflated

There are two meanings of the word "Hindi", and they are completely confused in this article. For example, Hindi is classified in the table as a Western Hindi language of the Central Indo-Aryan family. However, not only are many of the 'dialects' listed further down not Western Hindi, they aren't even Central Indo-Aryan. The classification is for Standard Hindi, based on the language of Delhi, while the dialects are a large part of the continuum spread across northern India. Separate articles would probably not work well, but at least a clear distinction should be kept between generic Hindi and Standard Hindi.

PS. The distinction between Central, Eastern, etc. Indo-Aryan is artificial. It's used in Ethnologue, but that's not a good reason for using it here: Ethnologue is flawed in many ways. (For example, one dialect of Panjabi is classified as Central, while another is not.)kwami 00:10, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I disambiguated the template box. Y'all might have better names for these conceptions of "Hindi", but I think the basis is sound:
  1. "Hindi" in the generic sense (those portions of the dialect continuum of North India that aren't considered separate languages like Nepali),
  2. Hindustani as the Persian-influenced language that spread from the area of Delhi, and
  3. Standard Hindi as the official de-Persianized form of Hindustani.

kwami 20:11, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Uhm, the infobox is pretty confoosing right now. Standard languages are either mentioned in prose or get separate articles. The infobox is never used to include both the language and what technically counts as a dialect (albeit a standardized one). Look at Chinese, for example. Eventhough Standard Mandarin, the standardized form of Mandarin (linguistics), is officially defined and sanctioned by the gov't and all, it still isn't included in the infobox.
Peter Isotalo 07:24, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
You're right. If the article were about one conception of 'Hindi' or the other, that alone should be in the box. I just don't want to rewrite the article, and get involved in the edit wars that have been going on over it. kwami 09:12, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
Any language article should be as inclusive as possible. Any language article that is focused solely on the standard language is not NPOV. I don't see how this could be negotiable. I'm changing the infobox to reflect this.
Peter Isotalo 15:27, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
Okay, I'm broadening the classification to match your edit. Indo-Aryan > Hindi, without Western Hindi or Hindustani, which are further down in the classification. kwami 02:06, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Got deleted, so I'll expand on my reasoning here: the '480 million native' figure is for Hindi in general - that is, everything east of Panjabi and west of Bengali, south of Nepali and north of Marathi. Western Hindi is just a part of that dialect chain, Hindustani is just a part of Western Hindi, and 'High Hindi' is just a part of Hindustani. At this point we're down to 180 million native. To be consistant, we should either rank Hindi as #2 in the world, and classify it directly under Indo-Aryan, or rank it as #4 and classify it under Hindustani. kwami 19:14, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Punjabi

I see the dialects have been moved from Hindustani. Some anonymous IP was removing the Punjabi and Garhwali additions. I disagreed with this removal because some people do (or did - it's not a very wide held view anymore IMHO) consider Punjabi as a part of Hindustani. It certainly isn't a part of Hindi proper so I think maybe it should be removed now? I'm not sure about Garhwali. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 16:35, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I feel a revert war coming on over this issue. I now actually agree with 172.*. Punjabi has been (in the past) referred to as part of Hindustani but NOT part of Hindi. This should be mentioned on the Hindustani page, not here. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 11:41, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Phonology and orthography

Please do not attempt to join sections on phonology and orthography. They are completely separete entities. Written language is merely an approximation of spoken language and separate letters should not be equated with phonemes or sounds in general. There also seems to be tendency to disassociate several phonemes that are primarily used in loanwords, even those from Persian, as though they were not really Hindi. This smacks of Hindi puristic POV and should be avoided. It's certainly relevant to mention it in the commentary to the consonant table, but it should not be presented the way it is now. Only phonemes that are of questionable status (as phonemes) ought to be disassociated with asterisks or the likes.

Peter Isotalo 09:51, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Someone added a vanity link and when I was getting rid of it, I noticed that there were many other vanity links. Links to companies, ashrams, what have you. I pruned, but I may not have gotten everything. I'd appreciate it if the other editors could click through the links and make sure that all the sites are reputable, reliable, and non-commercial. Zora 10:07, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Grammar section

Though maybe it should have been done by someone more qualified, it wasn’t, so in the spirit of being bold I wrote a grammar section. I primarily used Snell, though I added in bits from A door into Hindi, and these audio webcasts. So please fix any errors I may have introduced, but please keep in mind these aims I had in writing it: 1) Make it accessible to the average educated reader, not just linguists. 2) Be general and not include too many examples and usage suggestions. Maybe I should have been more strict about the second one, because the section makes the page too long but we can discuss that. Any ideas to condense it but still keep the most important points would be good. Maybe it should also be copied out to Hindi grammar and expanded there, because there are a lot of bits like subjunctive and conditional that I didn’t get into yet. Finally, please review it to standardize the transliteration for the Hindi example to what the rest of the page uses as I don’t have fonts for things like the long aa, ii, etc. - Taxman Talk 19:59, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! I am hardly in a position to criticize your efforts, since I know much less than you do. It seems like a useful and helpful addition to me. It's nice to see some forward movement, beyond the revert wars. Zora 23:18, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Future of Hindi, a dead language?

So much discussion about a language that receives a third class treatment in the country of origin baffles me. In India Hindi is being systematically replaced by English, there seems to be a policy for its elimination. Education is in English which means Hindi will stop evolving and developing, in other words Hindi is the fast track to death row.

Indians feel more proud of speaking English than they feel about their own language which in some cases is cause of shame. Everybody seems happy with this unprecedented situation, every Indian I talk to believes that becoming "anglophones" is the path to development. The justify this situation on the bases of many myths, I have heard Indians say that the "whole world" speaks English and that's why they have to. If speaking English is so enlightening why Jamaica, Guyana, Belice, Nigeria, Liberia, etc are among the poorest countries in the world? How Japan, France, Germany, Spain, powers of the past continue to be powers today? And what about the China boom? --tequendamia 07:04, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

That's absolutely ridiculous. There's not really any more to say about your claim. French is probably closer to becoming a dead language than Hindi is. - (Corby 04:16, 18 April 2006 (UTC))
Fast track? Fluent English speakers are a tiny minority in India, and although their number may be growing, they've a long way to go before they can threaten Kannarese, let alone Hindi. You're also assuming that English will become the home language of these people, and that children will stop learning Hindi. True, that could happen, but it would take generations, and we can't predict what Hindi language attitudes will be in another century.
India is currently experiencing an economic boom, at least among certain segments of society, and this is partially fueled by a knowledge of English. But once the novelty has worn off, or the economy stabilizes, the enamoration with English may wear off as well. kwami 08:08, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm afraid the "enamoration with English" may never wear off. After all, the linguistic situation in north india(i dont know about the south) has always been like this. The "people" speak prakritic slangs such as hindusthani, while the great (kings, priests and learned ones) talk in the refined language sanskrit. Its just that these great ones have abandoned sanskrit and have fallen in love with english. Naturally, its sounds "cool" and learned to speak english. So, in the capital, every one speaks this great subtle universally understood tongue that is spoken by the kings of the world. You see, indians need a hard, near-impossible-to-understand "noble" language which few speak properly. Its in our blood, and its required in order to maintain a difference between the speech of the classes. That is why I personally think the prakrits must and will endure. Because languages like hindi have always been (and now it seems) forever will be the language of the greater people, the one which everyone speaks and understands, but few read or write. Slangs never die out, man, they only evolve endlessly. -guest

Requested move

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Discussion

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Latin, Sanscrit, Esperanto, Urdu, Tok Pisin, etc. are the names of languages. English, French, Japanese, etc. are the names of peoples, only secondarily applied to languages. Thus the word 'language' is needed to disambiguate in the latter case, but not in the former.

'Hindi' is nearly always used in the sense of the Hindi language. Although it derives historically from 'Hindi' as a generic adjective, modern occurances of phrases like 'the Hindi people' are vanishingly rare. The OED only gives one example, from 1853. Are there any other uses we need to disambiguate, such as 'Hindi cooking'? If not, then the simple form 'Hindi' should be acceptable. (Things like 'Hindi literature' are of course related to the language definition, so they don't count.) kwami 21:50, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

The OED actually has four usage examples for "Hindi" as an adjective meaning "of or belonging to Northern India or its language", and says nothing to indicate the word is falling out of common use in that sense. Where it "only gives one example, from 1853" is definition B2, a noun meaning "a native of Northern India", which is does note as being "rare". Tox's internet-based investigation (below) may indicate this use has gained steam recently, though. –Tom1907 03:01, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Hindi is sometimes used as an adjective, although searches for Hindi culture and Hindi food get less than a thousand hits, Hindi matrimonials gets 49 thousand hits. Furthermore, Hindi is also used as a noun referring to a person who speaks the Hindi language. A search for just Hindi gets too many hits to show that very well, but a search for the plural Hindis gives you 23 thousand hits, slightly more than Telugus gets. Because of rivalries in language and culture around modern India, and the common use of Marathi, Tamil, etc. as generic adjectives and terms for the people speaking those languages, it's unclear to me that Hindi is necessarily dying out in those uses. —Tox 01:05, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Are they symmetrical? Can you say a Telugu who only knows Hindi (like a Panjabi in the UK who only knows English) and also a Hindi who only knows Telugu? kwami 02:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I would add that disambiguation in the title is only necessary if more than one topic can legitimately considered a primary topic. I do not believe that any of the other uses of "Hindi" are anything other than secondary, and can be handled by primary topic disambiguation: use one of the {{otheruses}} templates and a Hindi (disambiguation) page, or one of the other styles of primary topic disambiguation described at Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Page_naming. Nohat 04:26, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

exsecuse me hindi is a language that can never die it is one of the finest language in the world it might be difficult to learn but it joins the indians abroad and in india. i would not stand you saying hindi has no future. please do not say anything this conterversial ever again

Punjabi conflict

I was reverting before the remove of * Punjabi: Spoken by Sikhs and Punjabi Hindus because the edit summary was first offensive, and later void, now 172.216.63.152 have reverted again with the comment that it's not a dialect. I won't revert this one, because I can't neither verifiy or deny that fact, but I would like an expert opinion on this matter →AzaToth 19:51, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Punjabi has traditionally been considered a separate language from Hindi because it has a separate literary tradition. However, occasionally it is considered a dialect of Hindi, usually when people try to classify languages according to mutual intelligibility, because (as I understand) it is closer to neighboring Hindi dialects than some Hindi 'dialects' are to each other. I think it's more appropriate to mention Panjabit as being occasionally included under Hindi, rather than a straightforward dialect of Hindi. kwami 21:15, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Spelling Error on main page logo in hindi

Spelling of Azaad wrong! On the main page logo in the hindi section the spelling of translation of free that is Azaad is wrong. how can that be fixed? --210.214.16.136 19:09, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Do you mean on the Hindi Wikipedia version's logo? If so, then comment there, the different language editions are their own projects. I don't know enough Hindi to find the logo's page itself and to contact the editor that uploaded it, but from the talk page of the Hindi Wikipedia's Main page, it looks like someone has already pointed it out, but nothing's been done. It needs an administrator from the Hindi Wikipedia to fix it, and I contacted a couple to ask them to handle it. - Taxman Talk 19:47, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

ya thanks...dint know that...neways its been corrected now. still learning the ropes on wikipedia not yet very familiar or proficient with it.

Translation

Can someone take a look at Talk:Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom regarding the chant by Mota Ram. I think a great addition to the article would be a trivia section on what he was actually saying. Over at the Punjab page, it was suggested that he was speaking Hindi. What does everyone think? -Husnock 02:39, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

hindi and urdu could be the same language probably depends

from the information i know i can only hypothesis that hindi and urdu do have same origins and it is said that urdu was devloped from hindi accoring to few this makes me believe that hindi and urdu share almost a common past but these languages are not same because then why would they be known as two different languages then you could call them both hindi or urdu. but that is contrary to the given info so my final statement is that the languages shaare a common past but are not the same. thanks ________________ please fell free to coment

Well, my anonymous friend, these are deep and treacherous waters. I don't think anyone would deny that Hindi and Urdu are closely related. But when we begin to try to describe the nature of this relationship, we run into trouble, because there are deep cultural and political tensions between the two language communities. Perhaps some people would deny that the two languages share a common ancestor — that in the past, Hindi and Urdu were even closer than they are now, and that if you go back far enough, you would find only one language where there are now two. Was there a common ancestor? Even people who agree that there was, have bitter disagreements over the nature of that ancestor: was it Hindi, and Urdu split off? Or was it Urdu, and Hindi split off? It seems to me that neither account is satisfactory. Perhaps we can simply agree that there was a common ancestor, and agree not to give it a name. ACW 22:06, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
The whole talk of "common ancestor" is nonsensical for me, because Hindi and Urdu are the same languages--they are just variants of each other. In fact, upto 1850 AD, there was no differenciation in naming Hindi/Urdu. All Urdu poetry of the 18th century used to take the name of Hindvi. The term Hindvi was used first by Amir Khusro in the 13th century--refers to the colloquial language of the Delhi region. No language has split off from nothing.Cygnus_hansa 07:42, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

National Lanaguage - a misnomer

Assigning the status of National Language to Hindi, is disrespectful of millions of speakers of other native languages and relegates other languages to non-national languages. there is no nomenclature as to 'National Language' in the constitution of India. It is more apt to term it as the 'one of the official and main link languages of India'(refer to http://indiaimage.nic.in/languages.htm). Assuming Hindi to be the National Lanaguage is nothing but chivanistic and jingoistic expression.

Is the current phrasing (as of 2006 February 5, 2200 GMT) acceptable? It says "one of the national languages of India". That's a true statement, isn't it? ACW 21:57, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

movie dialects

I think listing the dialects used in movies is more appropriate here than in Bollywood, as the Bollywood article would have no reason to concern itself with the language of movies. However, listing "Bollywood" as a dialect of Hindi doesn't make sense to do to me, as a dialect seems like it needs to have speakers that are real human beings. ash

First section problems

I am bothered by a sentence in the first paragraph. "...the primary difference between the two is that Standardized Hindi has supplemented some of its Persian and Arabic vocabulary with Sanskrit words" or something along those lines, making it sound like Hindi is mainly Persian and Arabic with a few Sanskrit words thrown in, which I don't think was the intent, although I'm not sure what the intent was, exactly, or I'd edit it. Why don't we just describe Hindi and leave it to the Urdu editors to describe Urdu and allow the reader to make comparisons if he/she wants? ash

What seems to have the opposite problem is the later description including the distinction with "tadbhav" (which I assume includes words of Persian origin), seems to refer to all Persian words as borrowed. Isn't that a bit POV? I mean Hindi developed out of a combination of languages so saying one is the "real" base and the other is borrowed seems like a POV problem. What I'd really like to do is see what the currently accepted scholarly opinion is on the origin and development of the language. I'm not sure I know where to look for reliable references on the topic and I'm also aware of the obvious nationalistic, religious, and other biases that will be inherent in any studies of the language. Does anyone know what are the most respected papers or references on the subject? - Taxman Talk 22:32, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Actually tadbhav is said to include the borrowed words of Persian only for the purpose of a broader classification. It could well be treated as a separate category, bt for morphology, etc, such words are treated as tadbhav. The stress is on Sanskrit because Hindi is an Indo-Aryan language, and all Indo-Aryan languages are derived from Sanskrit. So conversely, all words of Persio-Arabic origin have to be treated as borrowed vocabulary.Cygnus_hansa 07:25, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Bollywood

As Bollywood has become a part and parcel of Hindi language, I have written an entire section on it. I have also mentioned some hit films and dialects. Hence I have deleted the other mention of Bollywood dialects. This section may be expanded if required to incorporate other details.Cygnus_hansa 14:52, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Broken template

I removed the "Indian featured article" template from the article. The template is broken: in addition to putting the nice little star at the top, it inserts a bunch of extra text around the insertion point of the template itself. To see what I'm talking about, use the history feature to go look at the article as it appeared with the template in it. Especially look at the end, around where the template itself was inserted.

I would be bold and fix the template myself, if I knew how to do that. I'm sorry that I don't — there's always more to learn. ACW 23:13, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Excellent, it is fixed now. Thanks, Urshyam! (I still wonder what was wrong exactly, though. Just curious.) ACW 21:51, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
Actually, there was some mistake with template, it corrected later. Thanks -- Shyam (T/C) 22:22, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

A spoken Hindi article

I have created a spoken Hindi article on Hindi wiki. It is about Indo-European language family. Those interested, especially the foreigners learning Hindi, may wish to look at the page and listen to the spoken article here : hi:हिन्द-यूरोपीय भाषा-परिवार. Please tell me if you face any problem. Cygnus_hansa 17:07, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup and rearrangement

I have done a major cleaup and rearrangement, adding subsections and lines, and removing unnecessary repitition.

Hindi is now a spoken article

I have now made Hindi a spoken article. All sound samples have been uploaded. Those interested kindly go through the recording and message me feedback. For novices to linguistics, I have additionally added some explainations of phonetic terminology in simpler words in the spoken article. Cygnus_hansa 22:41, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Raja Harishchandra is a hindi film??

how can silent filnm be a hindi film?? just because it has hindi actors?? dont films made in other languages some times have hindi actors??

so how can a film not single hindi spoken wi=ord be termed a hindi film??

good point :) deeptrivia (talk) 05:46, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

The text can be in Hindi, the intended audience can be Hindi speaking, the actors can be Hindi speakers, the film makers could have been in Mumbai at the studios that later started making audio movies in Hindi. Just because the film has no sound does not mean that it was created in a cultural and linguistic vacuum. -lethe talk + 10:01, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Hindi script

looks different from the version given in the article: हिन्दी. It's as if the first two letters are reversed. Does that matter? AxelBoldt 22:11, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

This is caused by problems with your browser/operating system. See Wikipedia:Enabling complex text support for Indic scripts for further information and help. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 22:23, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, you're right. I was just about to suggest that you mention the problem in the article itself, but of course it's already done. Cheers, AxelBoldt 19:19, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

The chart of "Extra sounds" lists a voiced velar fricative, but uses the IPA symbol for a voiced uvular fricative (turned capital r) for it.

Both are regarded as allophones in most languages.Cygnus_hansa 04:58, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Another Spoken Wikipedia article in Hindi

On Hindi wikipedia, I have created another spoken wikipedia article on Kashmir. Please visit here hi:कश्मीर . Cygnus_hansa 18:21, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

हिन्दी and/or हिंदी

the word hindi can be written in two ways,
one way is the one shown here (हिन्दी)
another way is hindi with an anusvara on "ha" i.e (हिंदी)
if there are no objections, i'll add that to the article. --Girish 09:42, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree since my dictionary has it with the anusvara and refers to it as the more common form, although I must admit I don't see that form very often anywhere. - Taxman Talk 11:14, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Agree. My impression is also that the spelling with Na is more common, though. -- Olve 18:53, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
The form with the half-na is more common by far, as a quick browse through the Hindi wikipedia itself will show. I believe the form with the anusvara is favoured by more conservative writers. -- Arvind 19:59, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Just as an aside, the Constitution of India uses the half-na form[1], which probably makes it pretty clear that that is the "official" form. -- Arvind 00:18, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Official and social status

I'd like to reword the opening of this section as follows:

The Constitution of India declares Hindi, in the Devanagari script, to be the official language (rājabhāshā) of the Union of India (Art. 343(1)). It was envisaged that Hindi would become the working language of the central government and the language of parliamentary debate by 1965, with states being free to choose either Hindi or any local language as their official language. This has not, however, happened. The Official Languages Act, 1963, provided for the continued use of English for all official purposes of the union and in parliamentary proceedings, and as a result most high-level government and parliamentary business continues to be conducted in English although the use of Hindi in administration has increased over the past 40 years.
Hindi is also the official language of the states Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttaranchal, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and the National Capital Territory of Delhi. Note again that each of the several states mentioned above may also have another co-official language (usually in Hindi-speaking states, it is Urdu). Similarly Hindi is accorded the status of co-official language of many other states of the Indian Union. Many Indians claim that Hindi is the national language of India, though this is hotly contested by some Indians of non-Hindi-speaking states.
The failure of the government to fully implement Hindi's official status is reflected in its social importance...

and then continue with the article as it currently is written. Despite being the "official language" of the Centre, Hindi has not yet become the primary language of government business even in the Centre, and it seems to me that the article should state that because it has obviously been an important factor in Hindi being less socially privileged than English. -- Arvind 19:52, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

And less neutral......Sikandarji 01:23, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Could you elaborate on what makes it less neutral? -- Arvind 18:07, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Arvind, I have used your draft as a basis for rewording that section. Hope you approve. Regards, ImpuMozhi 22:07, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's obvious isn't it? Hindi is closely identified with the 'Cow-belt' of India, and any suggestion that it might become the sole national language is deeply resented in the Southern States of the Indian Union. In the 1960s when this was proposed people burnt themselves to death in Tamil Nadu. Making Hindi the 'national' language confers an unfair advantage on the 40% or so of the population who speak and understand it. English was originally an alien language, but is now increasingly indigenised, and it is more neutral because it does not confer an advantage on any one particular region. Hence it is more acceptable as a national language than Hindi. That was what I meant. Sikandarji 22:59, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Ah. Actually, I misunderstood and thought you meant the suggested wording was less neutral than the present one! -- Arvind 23:13, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
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