Hindi
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Hindi, the name given to a major language spoken in central and northern
India, is based on Hindustani, a language used in and around Delhi in the 9th and
10th centuries. At that time, the language was known in Persia as Hindavi/Hindi,
which means “the language of the Hind” or “the land of the Indus River”.1
Hindi also can be traced ancestrally to Sanskrit.
The third most widely-spoken language in the world next to English and Mandarin
Chinese, an estimated 500 to 600 million people speak Hindi.2 The Hindi
alphabet consists of 11 vowels and 33 consonants, with pronunciation being relatively
easy as each letter generally corresponds to one sound. Hindi is written in what
is known as the Devanagari script (हिन्दी or हिंदी ), which has the appearance of
letters hanging from a line, and has only one case (as opposed to upper and lower
case).
When two people are engaged in conversation, the words they use are affected by
the relationship they have. One unusual aspect of Hindi is that it has only one
word for something like gratitude. It conveys the proper respect by referring to
the person being spoken to by referring to that person with an “honorific”, which
conveys respect terms such as “Mister”, “Doctor” or “Father”.3 This is
in contrast to a language like English, in which speakers convey honor and respect
through the choice of words. For example, if the individuals are peers, one may
express gratitude by telling the other, “Thanks”. If the speaker is younger, she
may convey respect to the elder person by saying, “Thank you”.
In the United States, Hindi is the 17th most frequently-spoken language (out of
322) according to the 2000 U.S. Census, with 1 of every 828 people age five and
above using Hindi in the home. Native speakers are heavily concentrated in New Jersey,
California, and the Washington D.C. metropolitan area; in Middlesex County, New
Jersey, one in every 68 residents is a Hindi speaker (approximately 11,500 persons
of an estimated county population of 787,000 persons).4
Hindi is classified by the Defense Language Institute as a “category three” (out
of four) language in regards to difficulty of mastery by native English speakers.5
On the Foreign Service Institute language difficulty scale, Hindi is rated as a
“category two” (out of three) language, due to significant linguistic and cultural
differences from English.6
Hindi is one of the ten NLSC Pilot Program languages.
Hindi is designated as one of the ten pilot languages that the NLSC is recruiting
during its pilot year. The languages chosen were selected based upon the following:
- They meet short- and long-term requirements with emphasis on high-level expertise in languages critical to our national security.
- These languages generally meet the requirements for a pilot such as this based on the number of persons residing in the United States who are proficient in these languages.
- The list of languages includes some whose populations are difficult to locate and recruit.
- Each of these languages has multiple proficiency tests available.
Interesting Resources on Hindi
- Hindi
Society Page
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- U.S. English Foundation Hindi Data Sheet
