Hindi

Hindi, a member of the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is, by any standard, one of the major languages of the world. With upwards of 300 million native speakers, it ranks between the third and fifth among the world's languages in terms of the number of native speakers. Along with English, Hindi is one of the two officially recognized national languages of India. It has significant concentrations of speakers in the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, and Delhi. Distinctive varieties of Hindi are found in other regions of India outside of the so-called "Hindi belt," including those spoken in Mumbai, Calcutta, and Hyderabad. Varieties of Hindi are spoken by millions of people in South Asia as a second or subsequent language. Overseas varieties of Hindi are spoken in many countries, including Guyana, Suriname, Trinidad, Fiji, Mauritius, and South Africa. Hindi, along with its sister language Urdu, is used as a lingua franca in emigrant South Asian communities throughout the world.

Hindi is the language of a rich literary tradition, written in both the modern standard language and in medieval dialects such as Braj and Avadhi. The devotional poets Surdas (16th century), Tulsidas (1532-1623), and Kabir (15th century) wrote in early literary varieties of Hindi. Important Hindi literary figures in more recent times include Bharatendu "Harishchandra" (1850-85) and Dhanpat Rai "Premchand" (1880-1936).

The Department of Asian Languages and Literature offers a wide range of courses in Hindi language and literature, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. These courses include three years of basic instruction in the language, courses in modern and medieval Hindi literature, and advanced courses in Hindi grammar, reading, and conversation.

In its official style, Hindi is written in the Devanagari writing system. A sister language to Hindi, written in Perso-Arabic script, and drawing upon the rich cultural and linguistic resources of Persian and Arabic, is Urdu, which is also offered in the Department of Asian Languages and Literature.

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