Hindi Diwas 2020: Here are 10 interesting facts about the Hindi language

Hindi Diwas 2020: Hindi is the fifth most spoken language in the world, with 366 million people communicating in the language

Hindi Diwas is celebrated every year on September 14 to mark the adaptation of Hindi (written in Devanagari script) as the official language by the Constituent Assembly in 1949. The decision to mark September 14 as Hindi Diwas was taken by Jawaharlal Nehru. Hindi got its name from the Persian word Hind, meaning 'land of the Indus River'.

On Hindi Diwas 2020, Business Standard begins to you some interesting facts about the language

1. Hindi is an Indo-European language

Hindi is a standardised from of Hindustani, along with Urdu. Hindi is derived directly from Hindustani in North India and was standardised in the 19th century.

2. 5th most spoken language

Hindi is the fifth most spoken language. It is spoken by 366 million people across the globe.

3. Countries where Hindi is spoken

Hindi is spoken in many countries including Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, USA, UK, Germany, New Zealand, United Arab Emirates, Uganda, Guyana, Suriname, Trinidad, Mauritius, and South Africa.

4. Modern Devanagari script

The modern Devanagari script came into existence in the 11th century.

5. Some prominent Hindi writers

There were many writers like Kaka Kalelkar, Maithili Sharan Gupta, Hazari Prasad Dwivedi, Seth Govindadas made important contributions to make Hindi the official language.

6. English has borrowed a great number of words from Hindi

Examples of Hindi loanwords include avatar, bandanna, bungalow, dinghy, guru, jungle, khaki, karma, loot, mantra, nirvana, punch, pyjamas, sorbet, shampoo, thug, typhoon and yoga.

7. Hindi, easy to learn?

Each letter of the Hindi alphabet has its own independent and distinct sound. As a result, Hindi words are pronounced exactly as they are written, making the Hindi language easy to learn.

8. Aadhaar, dabba, hartal, shaadi among 26 new Indian English words added to Oxford Dictionary

The 10th edition of the Oxford dictionary, which was launched in January, has 384 Indian English words.

9. Bihar first state to adopt Hindi

In the year 1881, Bihar replaced Urdu with Hindi as its sole official state language, thus, becoming the first state of India to adopt Hindi as its official language.

10. No articles in Hindi language

There are no articles in Hindi language as English has three articles: a, an, and the. One of the most interesting facts about Hindi is that every noun has its own gender, either masculine or feminine.