Growing up in India, I was familiar with the language itself; however, I knew nothing about the history of the language. In order to make it easier to remember, I divided my research into three categories: basics, script, and history.
Basics
Hindi is the third most spoken language in the world, after English and Mandarin. There are approximately 500 to 600 million Hindi speakers around the globe. The language is a direct descendant of Sanskrit. Hindi consists of 11 vowels and 33 consonants. The pronunciation of Hindi is very similar to Urdu. The language closely related to Bengali, Punjabi and Gujarati.
Script
Hindi uses the Devanagari script. The pronunciation of the letters is always the same. For example, हिन्दी is always going to be pronounced Hindi. नाम is always going to be pronounced naam. This format is unlike English and the use of silent letters i.e. the word psychology where the p is silent. The Devanagari script consists of “hanging from a line” system. There is always a line drawn above the letters and the letters are “hanging from the line”. For example, पूजा, हिन्दी, etc. This script does not have capital letters. Also, in Hindi a period or a full stop is not a dot at the end. A vertical line at the end of the sentence implies a period. मेरा नाम पूजा हैI
History
Hindi is a direct descendant of Sanskrit. Sanskrit was the language used in the Hindu scriptures. It is a very proper and appropriate language. Hindi is essentially a colloquial version of Sanskrit. Over the years Hindi was heavily influenced by Persian, Turkish, Farsi, Arabic, Portuguese, and English. Turks controlled the regions of Punjab and Gangetic plains during the early years of Indian history. This population spoke Persian. They needed a means of communication with the native Indian population. Therefore, they merged Persian and Arabic words with Sanskrit into order to form Hindi. The language was then spread throughout India as the rulers of various dynasties expanded their rule over the nation. Hindi became the official language of India during the British colonial rule.
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