Hindi

Hindi
मानक हिन्दी Mānak Hindī
The word "Hindi" in Devanagari script
Pronunciation	/maːn̪ək ɦin̪d̪iː/
Native to	India Significant communities in South Africa, Nepal
Native speakers	180 million  (1991) Total, including Urdu: 490 million
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Central zone Western Hindi Hindustani Khariboli Hindi
Writing system	Devanagari Hindi Braille
Official status
Official language in	India
Regulated by	Central Hindi Directorate (India)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	hi
ISO 639-2	hin
ISO 639-3	hin
Linguist List	hin-hin
Linguasphere	59-AAF-qf

Brahmi script - Hindi Language

Hindi is the most commonly spoken language in India. It is the fifth most spoken language in the world with about 182 million native speakers in 1998. The script used in writing Hindi is Devanāgarī.

Hindi is widely written, spoken and understood in north India and most other places in India. In 1997, a survey found that 66% of Indians can speak Hindi. The most common form of Hindi is known as Hindustani. It has taken words from the Dravidian languages of South India, many words from the Persian, Arabic, Turkish, English, and Portuguese languages.^[source?] Hindustani language is almost the same as Urdu, the most commonly spoken language in Pakistan; the difference is that Urdu is written in the Arabic alphabet from right to left.

Some other dialects of Hindi are: Avadhi, Braj, Bhojpuri, Bundeli, Bagheli, Chhattisgarhi, Dogri and Marwari. Hindi has developed from Sanskrit, the ancient language of India. Hindi started to develop in the 7th century as "Apabhramsha", but became pretty stable by the 10th century. Some famous Hindi poets are Tulsidas and Kabir. Hindi is also spoken with regional accents like Haryanvi, Rajasthani, and Bengali. In the past few years a new Hindi language (with unwritten grammar) has emerged from Mumbai. It is being spread by Hindi films.It is becoming very popular with younger generation.