Talk:Hindi

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To-do list for Hindi:	edit · history · watch · refresh
Standardize transliteration and/or use of devanagari for examples Clean up dialects (are movie dialects that important, or should they be moved to bollywood?) Sound samples References

Archives
Upto May 21, 2006

[edit] Help

I thought that the article may need a common phrases box so I found one. Could someone possibly fill the rest out (Hindi is not my native language, Tamil is).Bakaman%% 02:39, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Hindi is not my native language, either, but I have tried to fill the rest out. I also made some corrections/clarifications (I might make more later). I can't remember how to ask for help, though!--Kuaichik 05:25, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] why hasnt khari boli yet merged

why hasn't the khari boli been merged to this article yet. it may be a different form from popular language, but it still surely doesnt deserve to be a separated entity. its just like Hinduism, where all the sects are merged together, khari boli is just a part of it.

nids 22:01, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Another daughter-page?

This article features an outstanding write-up on Hindi phonetics and linguistics. Would it be a good idea to devote a separate page to this, while providing a summary here? I think the detail and excellence of the section warrants this. ImpuMozhi 01:13, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

"I" have written these "excellent" sections. I have made a few additional (minor) changes to yours, but I think now they all conform better to NPOV and factual truths.Cygnus_hansa 09:46, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hindi & Urdu: Same or Different Languages

I can't believe it! I expected there to be a record of revert wars and flaming among the partisans of "same language vs. different language on here." But no. The Talk page is almost empty but that might be due to the high quality of the article.

The article does a very good job of maintaing NPOV and intelligently discussing the differnces of (credible) opinion and giving evidence. In terms of mutual intelligibility between speakers, Hindi and Urdu are almost always best seen as dialects of the same language. However, in terms of specialed vocabulary or contexts, they can diverge sometimes to the point of intelligibility; in terms of codes, they remain mutually intelligible but readily identifiable. The article might want to clarify that even among Indians who say "I only know how speak Hindi, not Urdu" 1) a large portion of their vocabulary will be "Urdu" (that is of Perso-Arabic origin) and 2) they will easily be able to have a conversation with a Pakistani who says "I only know how to speak Urdu, not Hindi." Interlingua 03:39, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

There are several discussions of that topic in the archive, though nothing so uncivilized as a revert war. -lethe ^{talk +} 04:08, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reverting to the version on June 22

There have a lot of POV edits to the article after June 22. With due repect to all the bonafide edits after that version, I am therefore reverting to the version on 22 June by RMehra. I will gradually reverse all the bonafide edits since that date lost due to the revert. Czkwcm 14:40, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gender

I changed the line about Hindi's inheriting the genders of nouns borrowed from Persian and Arabic because Persian nouns have no gender. (They're like nouns in Bangla: gender-free.) Arabic nouns do have gender but since Hindi-Urdu got its Arabic nouns from Persian and since Persian scrubbed them clean of gender, they had to be reassigned gender when they came into Hindi-Urdu. The result is that many original Arabic nouns have a different gender in Hindi-Urdu than they do in Arabic. BTW: It's not just "non-Hindi speakers" that have to learn the genders of nouns referring to non-animates things by heart. Everybody who speaks Hindi has at one time or another (as an infant, a youth, or an adult) had to learn the gender assignments by heart. But many (about half?) of these are predictable on the basis of meaning (all language names are feminine; all month names are masculine) or of morphology (ghanţaa vs. ghanţii, saundary vs. sundartaa, etc.) so the psychic burden is not so heavy. (This is in accord with what the article suggests.) --Peh6n 05:18, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Retroflex "T"

Yes, use of the majuscule is the usual way of representing retroflex sounds in the South Asian linguistics literature. I'll see if I can find something closer to what you have in the chart of consonants. --Peh6n 05:18, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Only in the ITRANS and related transliteration schemes, not in others like IAST.Cygnus_hansa 18:22, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hindi is NOT the National Language of India.

This article states "A general belief prevails that Hindi is "the national language" of India"

Wasnt the goal of the Wikipedia to state facts. ?

Its a known fact that Hindi is NOT the National Language of India. It is one of the 23 Official languages of India.

The Constitution of India does not have any National language as of now.

This page reports incorrectly and it should be modified to have the latest information.

192.122.173.9 10:12, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Read the entire sentence, dear friend, before jumping up and down. NPOV is based on the antire stuff, not just a part of the phrase.Cygnus_hansa 18:21, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually Hindi and English are the 'official languages' of India. Official meaning - language used in official correspondence between the center and states or between states. All other major languages including the so called ‘regional’ languages fall under the ‘National’ language category.

[edit] three lookalike characters ड़, ङ and ड

The IPA for the three characters is given in // and explained in the brackets The chars are ड़ /ɽ/ (i.e. d with a hook in the bottom), ङ /ŋ/ (i.e. h with the right stem of n longer and turned towards left) and ड /d/ (i.e. the letter d)(this last one is Unicode 0921) The question is that What is the position of the charater ड in the Hindi letter chart? It is definitely a very important and much used symbol e.g. damroo, dabba etc.. Also if some expert/linguist could explain why the Unicode does not have the symbol for ड़ in the Unicode even though it is native hindi (unlike क़ which is mostly used in Urdu and Arabic..)? Also could somebody give examples of usage of ङ. Thanks. Saurabh Mangal 11:29, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I will use linguistics terminology. Simple ड without dot is the voiced retroflex plosive. It is used in words like डब्बा, डमरू, etc. Its symbol is ɖ. It comes in the ट ठ ड ढ ण series. It does NOT correspond to the English /d/. The consonant ङ is a velar nasal plosive (ŋ). It is a conditioned allophone of n, before क, ख, ग, घ. E.g., गङ्गा (गंगा). For simplification, its use has been dropped in the favor of the anuswar. As for ड़, it is an unaspirated retroflex flap. Its symbol is ɽ. I really dont know why Unicode does not have a symbol for it. My guess is that it is based on the slow and inefficient bureaucracy of the Govt. of India, whose Hindi officials did not even attend the Unicode meeting, but have sought some changes later. Probably Unicode might be having a separate symbol for the dot below, which can be used with any alphabet, who knows? Cygnus_hansa 18:18, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The ङ "velar nasal" exists in English as well (the 'n' of 'English,' 'thing,' 'song' etc) so there is no reason why the laxity of Indian bureaucracy should have resulted in no unicode. Also, I gather that the ङ syllable, which exists in English and the Indian languages only as a half-syllable, exists as a whole syllable in the languages of east Asia, including Korean. I am certain a unicode convention for it must exist. I think Saurabh's question is about the third 'ड', with no dot whatsoever. What is that about? ImpuMozhi 20:36, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

All three characters have individual codepoints in the Unicode chart (there is a 'dot below' diacritic too called Nukta). ङ - U+0919, ड - U+0921 and ड़ - U+095C (equivalent to ड + '़'). All nukta consonants used in Hindi are given separate code points (not that it makes any difference, but it's for alignment with ISCII). Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 20:50, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I do wonder about the history behind ङ ? Why does it not have a unique letter shape? Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 20:54, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Importance of Movie Dialects

The "To-Do List" asks:

are movie dialects that important, or should they be moved to bollywood

Damn important. I would say that movie dialects or language as used in popular movies is one of, if not the, most important factor affecting the development of languages in South Asia since independence. In 1947, people rioted at the idea of Hindi being declared the sole national language of India. Today, nearly everyone (under a certain age) across the subcontinent understands Hindi to some degree because of their exposure to Hindi-language movies. Movies have promoted pan-Indian acceptance of Hindi far more successfully than any political or nationalistic measures. Hmm. Maybe that should be in the article somewhere. Acsenray 17:48, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Just because movie dialects are important doesn't justify having such a lengthy list. Much better would be to say in a few sentances the effect movies have had and back that up with references. Without that, it needs to go, and the list needs to go anyway. - Taxman ^Talk 13:53, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bengālī?

What is this "Bengālī"? In English, it's "Bengali." In Bengali, it's Bangla/Bānglā. Where does Bengālī come from? When I say it out loud, it sounds like I'm trying to talk in a fake French accent. Acsenray 17:56, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

It is how Bengali is pronounced in Hindi: /bəŋgaːliː/Cygnus_hansa 14:11, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Character Encodings

The section on "Social Status" refers to the situation wrt character encodings, mentioning in particular ISCII and Unicode. Reading it, I would get the impression that Unicode was the only encoding being used now. In fact, I would say _as an outside observer_ that the exact opposite is true: very few places use Unicode, and those that do are mostly outside India (e.g. VOA and BBC). Everyone else is using proprietary 8-bit encodings. I am however reluctant to edit this, because I might be wrong--the situation might have improved greatly since the last time I seriously looked at it (three years ago).

If I am (still) correct, I would suggest the following re-wording. (I am also unaware of the history of the Unicode standardization for Devanagari, but I am rewording it slightly to make it flow better. If I have erred, let me know.)

—————

The present encoding in Unicode was finally standardized only after significant deliberations. Indeed, the Hindi unicode standard was initially based on inputs from scholars hailing from Fiji and other countries. It is only when Unicode became the dominant standard for scripts of the world that a number of changes were sought by the Indian government. To this day, many—perhaps most—web sites in India use any of numerous proprietary 8-bit encodings, rather than Unicode. (The situation is different outside India, since many non-Indian web sites that are written in Hindi do use Unicode.)

One implication of this is that it is virtually impossible to use web search engines to search across the range of web sites written in Hindi in India, because the character encodings are incompatible, and encoding converters do not reliably cover many of these proprietary encodings.

—————

--Mcswell 14:51, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed merge of Origin of some common Hindustani words into this article

This proposal is an alternative to proposing the deletion of the article, Origin of some common Hindustani words. That article seems to be indiscriminate (i.e. no basis for which words were chosen for analysis) and maybe even original research. However, it did seem that it would be appropriate to include some of the information from that article in the "Hindi" article. Normally, I'd have been bold and merged the article myself; however, given how well written this article is and how little I know about Hindi, I thought doing the actual merge (if at all) should be left to those who actually know what they're talking about (in English or Hindi or whatever)! Agent 86 17:46, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

This article is already too long and needs to be trimmed. That article seems salvageable, but it would take some research to back it up. An article on the evolution of Hindi words seems a legitimate one, and could use some researched examples to illustrate points instead of being an indescriminate collection and a title that makes it sound like an indescriminate collection. Does that sound like a reasonable approach? I'll try to go to a research library tomorrow and see if I can find some good sources. I'd like to find enough sources to get this article (Hindi) up to FA status. Short answer is I don't think this article would benefit from merging that in, but I will try to save it. - Taxman ^Talk 22:49, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I oppose the merger, as it would spoil this already long article. I already have a good book listing the origin of words, but I hav no time. Also, there is no need to merge Shuddha Hindi with this article.Cygnus_hansa 14:08, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I also oppose the merge. The Origin of some common Hindustani words article can be further developed and made into an informative and thorough article. This topic deserves an article of its own. For these reasons, I removed the merger tag. Now that this article has been categorized, I'm sure others will be able to see it and edit it. Thanks! Zulfikkur 01:17, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I suspected that it might not be prudent to merge the article into this one. However, I still don't think Origin of some common Hindustani words stands on its own or meets the criteria of WP:NOT and other policies, so I have nominated it for deletion. Please see the AfD discussion here. Agent 86 02:06, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Macrons

I understand why the macrons in the words for "Hindi", "Urdu", "Punjabi", etc., were added in the article, but I really feel that this is excessive and inappropriate for an article written in English. There are English names for these languages, and they don't have macrons over the long vowels. If the macrons need to be placed on the names, it should be done in parentheses in the article belonging to that specific language. Otherwise, it's just clutter that some browsers won't be able to pick up, and that don't exist in the English names for the words in question. Please respond in my talk page if you have a comment about this edit. --SameerKhan 04:42, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Even I agree. Cygnus_hansa 17:53, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

So once again, I have removed some macrons from the English words for "Hindi", "Urdu", etc. I totally agree that macrons belong in the transliterations of words in other languages when following the IAST, but they do not belong in the English translations of those words. It's confusing, I know, but the point is that "Hindi" and "Urdu" are English words, while hindī and urdū are representations of words in other languages put into an English-language article. It's like the situation with the words "French" and "German" as opposed to français and Deutsch. The italicized words representing the words in foreign languages can have all the diacritics and non-English spellings they wants, but the non-italicized English words "French" and "German" must stick to standard English spelling. The confusing part is that obviously "Hindi" and "Urdu" look so much like hindī and urdū that people think they are the same thing, when actually one set is English and the other set is composed of the names for those respective languages in those languages. Anyhow, in the future, please keep non-English spellings and diacritics in italics, and keep the English names accurate with regards to standard spelling. Thank you! --SameerKhan 09:25, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bihari

The Bihari subsection of the dialects section of this article is a little misleading. The most respected sources on linguistic classification would not count these languages (Bhojpuri, Maithili, etc.) as dialects of Hindi. They're as close to Hindi as languages like Oriya and Bengali are, as the "Bihari languages" evolved from the same language as Bengali and Oriya (Magadhi Prakrit), and not from Sauraseni like most of the other Hindi dialects. I don't know much about Awadhi and other "Eastern Hindi" dialects, so I won't say anything about that, but I do know that the so-called Bihari dialects of Hindi are not actually related to Hindi any more than Assamese is related to Hindi. Of course, I understand why there still needs to be a mention of these languages in this article; many Indians, and probably many speakers of Bihari languages, feel that Bhojpuri, Maithili, etc., are variants of Hindi, due to the use of the same script, and the fact that many Biharis are to some extent bilingual in Hindi and their native language. Anyhow, we shouldn't promote this misconception, although we should acknowledge its existence. Please reply to my talk page if you have any comments or questions. --SameerKhan 04:49, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

It depends upon perceptions, as created by Grierson. At that time, Hindi as a language had no social status. Hindi is a linguistic continuum, and by social perceptions (those regions where standard Hindi is the literary and formal language), its boundary extends well into the Bengali borders, and not confined to Bihari borders. In a linguistic continuum, neighboring languages change very slowly. Coming from UP, I can assure you that Bhojpuri is very, very similar to Awadhi. If Awadhi can be considered under Hindi, why not Bhojpuri, and then Magahi and Maithili; Begali and Assamese are extremely different. My neighbor was a Bengali. Cygnus_hansa 18:00, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Indian Languages: Aspirated Consonants?

This article originally stated that "(t)he distinction between the aspirated and the unaspirated consonants is really very strong, not only in Hindi, but also in Sanskrit and all other Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages of India."

I have changed the word "all" to "many." Not ALL "Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages of India" have such a strong distinction. In fact, some do not even HAVE aspirated consonants. Let me provide a few examples here:

Malayalam has both aspirated and unaspirated consonants, but the aspirated consonants are often pronounced just like an unaspirated consonant. For example, the word "paThikkuka" (to learn) is usually pronounced "paDikkuka."

Tamil does not have any aspirated consonants. This is one reason why it has fewer letters than many other Indian alphabets.--Kuaichik 23:06, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually what I wrote was just meant as an approximate generalization. I also know about Tamil and Malayalam. Cygnus_hansa 05:37, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I remember learning about this in linguistics class, when we were doing a survey of the world's major language families. If memory serves, the aspiration distinction is a clear mark of (Indoeuropean) Indo-Aryan languages, as distinct from the Dravidian

languages, which mostly lack the distinction. In fact, Dravidian languages mostly don't have a voice distinction either, with the same underlying consonant being voiced or unvoiced, aspirated or unaspirated, depending on phonological context. This seems to be the original situation in Proto-Dravidian: just one oral stop (and one nasal) for each articulation position. Malayalam sometimes appears to be a modern exception, but this is due to the profound influence of Sanskrit on Malayalam in medieval times. I wish I had a good reference for these statements. ACW 19:44, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Interesting to note here that Punjabi doesn't have voiced aspirates. Instead they are used to indicate tones. Also, at the beginning of words, the voiced aspirates turn to their equivalent voiceless unaspirates! Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 19:54, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

ACW, in fact, both Kannada and Telugu have aspirated consonants. (There are distinct letters for the sounds "kha, gha," etc. as opposed to "ka, ga," etc.) Whether or not they are often pronounced without an aspiration is not for me to answer. However, Tamil (apparently the oldest of all Dravidian languages?) certainly does not have aspirated consonants (though aspirated sounds are sometimes used in loanwords). And certainly Sanskrit did profoundly influence Malayalam during the Middle Ages, when poetry was often written in a highly Sanskritized version of Malayalam known as "Manipravalam" (maaNipravaaLam). Cygnus_hansa, thank you for understanding and for replying. And sorry about the long complaint! And Sukh, I never knew that Punjabi managed aspirated consonants so intricately. Thank you!--Kuaichik 04:28, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I think people are confusing "having aspirated consonants" and "having letters that in some way correspond to aspirated consonants". Most Dravidian languages, regardless of the fact that they might have "gha"/"dha"/etc. in their alphabets, do not have aspirated consonants in the actual languages (contrastively). To compare with another language, consider French - in the French alphabet, there is a letter "h", even though there is no consonant sound [h] in their language at all. The fact that the letter exists in the alphabet can be completely irrelevant if we're talking about sounds in real languages. --SameerKhan 12:12, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

This is not true of Kannada. ಮುಖ್ಯ mukhya, for example, is never pronounced ಮುಕ್ಯ mukya. The distinction between ಕ k and ಖ kh is a real one even in the spoken language. -- Arvind 13:53, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Sameer, I don't think anyone is confusing the two concepts besides me!! :) I'm sorry, what I meant to say was that both Kannada and Telugu have letters that correspond to aspirated consonants. However, the situation with Malayalam and Tamil is not quite like that of French. Aspirated sounds are sometimes used in Malayalam and Tamil (depending on the speaker and word in question). Arvind, mukhya may not be pronounced mukya, but is this always the case with Kannada? For example, is budhavaara (Wednesday) ever pronounced budavaara? (In Malayalam, the equivalent "buddhanaazhcha" is often pronounced "buddanaazhcha"). --Kuaichik 19:28, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

The th/thh and dh/dhh distinction is a tough one to make, and is often glossed over in colloquial speech but it's supposed to be kept in formal speeech. Kannada DD newsreaders, for example, will observe the distinction. The distinction between k/kh and T/TH is usually kept even in colloquial speech. This simply reflects the fact that Sanskrit influence has run much deeper in Kannada and Telugu than in Malayalam. Malayalam has, in a sense, accepted Sanskrit strictly on its own terms - as someone once said, Malayalam words are written according to the orthography of Panini, but pronounced according to the phonology of Tolkappiyar. -- Arvind 23:02, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

How interesting! Thank you so much! Based on what I can recall from Keralapaniniiyam (the first Malayalam grammar book ever written in Malayalam), it seems to me that Malayalam has always had a very wavering relationship with Sanskrit. Sometimes Sanskritized Malayalam (Manipravalam) was favored, sometimes Tamilized Malayalam ("Paattu"?) was used, and quite often both were mixed together. Also, Malayalam pronounciation may vary quite significantly by regional dialect, social class, etc.--Kuaichik 23:19, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

By the way, if this discussion is getting out of hand (i.e. if I'm causing it to just drag on), please, please let me know!--Kuaichik 23:22, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Clearly the Dravidian languages don't form one monolithic bloc in this regard. Each one has a different phonological system, obviously, although they share a lot of features with each other that are not shared among Indic languages. Anyhow, either way, I just removed the reference to language types, keeping on the vague "in Sanskrit and many other languages of India", which is certainly not inaccurate in any perspective. --SameerKhan 09:08, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with this edit. Thanks, Sameer! --Kuaichik 15:37, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Aspirated consonants are indeed a feature of Indo-Aryan languages. Proto-Tamil and modern Tamil do not have them, and afaiks, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada also dont use them in native words. In Sanskrit loanwords, which are massive in these three, aspirated consonants are used. They are shown in orthography but may or may not be realized phonetically. Cygnus_hansa 14:17, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think that the situation with Tamil is a bit more complicated than you suggest. Nowadays, I think, educated Tamilians (in particular) often use aspirated consonants when pronouncing some loan-words. Of course, my knowledge of Tamil is very limited, but I have a hunch that (in particular) the word "makaap pirapO" (the Tamil transliteration of "mahaprabho") would be pronounced "mahaaprabho" by educated Tamil-speakers. Also "Madras coffee" may be spelled "mathiraas kaappii" but is pronounced "Madraas kOfii" sometimes. In any case, I would be careful when saying that "(p)roto-Tamil and modern Tamil do not have [aspirated consonants]." --Kuaichik 21:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

As long as we are having this collegial discussion (and I am enjoying it greatly) I should point out that there is another subtlety that is often missed when talking about these matters. What, exactly, do we mean when we say that a language "has" a sound? For example, would you say that English has aspirated consonants? In one sense, English certainly does. The p in pit is quite definitely aspirated in careful speech. "Ah," you might say, "but English doesn't have an unaspirated p sound." To the contrary, the p in spit is definitely unaspirated. Does English have aspirated stops? Despite the forgoing, I would still say "no", because the aspiration can be predicted from context. In the brain of an English speaker (if I may be so fanciful) there is only one sort of p; the aspiration is supplied by rule and is completely redundant. So while English may have p in both aspirated and unaspirated forms, this is merely phonetic; phonologically the distinction is not present. Arvind's example of mukya versus mukhya in Kannada, however, shows that (at least some register of) Kannada has a phonological aspiration distinction, unlike English. The example is a true minimal pair, one that could not be matched in English.

But to conclude. I think we have consensus that SameerKhan's edit was quite appropriate. The aspiration distinction is clearly native to Indic, and (I think we'll agree) rarer in Dravidian, and where we find it in Dravidian it is probably due to long cultural contact between the Indic and Dravidian language communities. And I think we'll also agree that the interaction between the two systems has produced some intricate and fascinating effects. ACW 04:32, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think we have a consensus as well. But, ohh, please, please, please be careful in your analysis of Arvind's example. This is only one example, and it is quite possible that there is an alternative explanation that you may or may not have considered, of which you may or may not have been aware: in some South Indian languages (certainly in Malayalam), letters preceding (and combined with) the sound "ya" must retain their original and formal sound. For example, in Malayalam, Madhya Pradesh would be pronounced maddhya pradESam and not madya pradESam. There is a special reason for this (in this particular case): maddhya means middle whereas madya refers to alcohol (the word madya appears to be related to the word mead; both may derive from Sanskrit madhu "honey." I know that "mead" is from "madhu.") --Kuaichik 05:04, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, wait a minute...I guess that only supports your point that "Kannada has a phonological...distinction!" Never mind! :-P --Kuaichik 05:11, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Or does it??? Sheesh, I never thought it was possible to confuse oneself so much and so quickly!!--Kuaichik 05:13, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

So it looks like the status of these sounds in Dravidian languages is similar to the status of sounds borrowed from Persian and Arabic into Indic languages. While most Indic languages make no phonological distinction between velar and uvular sounds, voiceless aspirated stops and their corresponding voiceless fricatives, voiced stops and their corresponding voiced fricatives, etc., there are some words where some speakers of some Indic languages make such distinctions. In the case of many Urdu and Hindi speakers, for example, these distinctions have reached the status of phonemic contrast (phonological distinction). In the case of many Gujarati, Oriya, and Bengali speakers, these contrasts do not exist at all. Even within languages, speakers differ, depending on many factors ranging from familiarity with the Persian and Arabic languages to the context of the speech act. At least in the case of Bengali (the language of all my current linguistic study), few would say that sounds like [z] or [x] are contrastive in the standard language, although some Bengalis may use them in borrowings. Typically, sounds such as these are described in paragraphs following the main phonemic inventory charts, or in footnotes. Similarly, the sound [x] is not included in the phonemic inventory of RP or American English, even if the sound has been borrowed in a number of words of Scottish, Yiddish, German, etc., origins. Many English speakers even have minimal pairs such as "lock" vs. "loch", but even so, this distinction is only marginally phonemic at best. Anyhow, I don't know very much about Dravidian languages, so maybe this is irrelevant or pointless... --SameerKhan 05:29, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Also - I know this is off-topic... but "mead" is cognate with "madhu", not from "madhu". Both words come from the same original Proto-Indo-European word, and were not borrowed one way or another. And that's the end of my random nitpicky comment, haha. --SameerKhan 05:29, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Does Hindi uses 'ळ' ?

Calling all Hindi experts.I want help if character 'ळ' is used in Hindi?If not then how id this used in *http://archive.eci.gov.in/HindiMay2006/pollupd/ac/states/s11/Acnstcand134.htm (search for ळ there)

Is the above usage a mere exception or just a typo?

Also advice me if the script written on the board(see the link given below) is Hindi or no?I need ur help.

http://www.pudhari.com/Static/Features/Belgaon_border_issue/f_belgaon154.htm

Thanks, mahawiki 10:28, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

No, that is not Hindi. The correct hindi letter is ल -- Lost^(talk) 10:31, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Mahawiki, I don't have Indic fonts installed, so I don't know for sure what letter you're talking about. If I'm not much mistaken, I think you're talking about the letter /La/ (looks sort of like a sideways 8 with a line sticking out from the top). That letter exists only in Marathi. It occurs in your second link, which is in Marathi (as you might know). Hope this helps! --Kuaichik 00:14, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I need help.

Does Hindi use ळ?There is lots of speculation going on at belgaum:Talk.Plz give ur suggestion at Belgaum talk page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Belgaum#.22.E0.A4.B3.22_in_Hindi.3F (Look for the subtopic "ळ in Hindi?" mahawiki 15:56, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

No, Hindi doesn't. I know that it's used in Marathi and Gujarati. Tuncrypt 15:06, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edits by Sarvagnya

Sarvagnya, after vandalising articles on Jana Gana Mana, Vande Mataram etc. now you are ready for the main Hindi page itself. I have reverted all your changes. Please provide citations/ sources for whatever your added. I have already provided mine, but for the interest of others, it is The Union: Official Language. Now please do not add crap here.
I request others to please closely follow the edits on this page given the history of Sarvagnya's edits --APandey 18:24, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Belgaum is also on his hitlist.Few 'other vandalists' have also vandalised Marathi.mahawiki 04:57, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Correct Official Status and Difference from Other Official (Regional) Languages

Several times and on several wikipedia pages (e.g. Talk:Jana Gana Mana, Talk:Vande Mataram), the official status of Hindi has been questioned. For understanding the correct status, I have read the relevant sections of the Constitution of India and I am providing the links here for those who are interested.

Article 343(1) of the constitution states that Hindi in Devnagari script shall be the Official Language of the Union. Please see that no other language has been specified here as equivalent to Hindi. The same article when read in Hindi, translates "Official Language of the Union" to Rajbhahsa (see the pdf below). So Hindi is NOT the Rashtra-Bhasha (National Language) because no such term is coined in the Constitution of India, but it is indeed the Rajbhasha (Language of the Union).

The use of English for official purposes was allowed (first for 15 years and then through an amendment to be continued later also).

Most importantly, Article 345 (and the related articles 346 and 347) states that, The legislature of a State may by law adopt any one or more of the languages in use in the State or Hindi as the Language or Languages to be used for all or any of the official purposes of that State. So languages other than Hindi may be chosen as the official language of a state (under this provision) but that does not bring them to the same level as THE official language of the Union.

The 8th Schedule, provides a list of 22 identified languages (including Hindi) which are referred in Article 344(1) and 351.

Following are the sources (Government of India sites and others for the above claims):

PDF to read Articles 343-351

PDF (in Hindi and English) to confirm the claims on Rajbhasha

PDF containing the eighth schedule

Another Govt of India site to read the same stuff as above

Based on this, I am going to make some changes in this article and some others too. Please do not revert or provide a solid reasoning for your changes.

Just to mention that my aim is not to prove that other languages are less important or Hindi is the best or anything, but on the pages I have mentioned before, people had objections in allowing Hindi on symbols of national importance claiming that Hindi is just like any of the other 21 languages. That is the reason I had to do this research. --APandey 15:43, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, the changes are done now. Some other modifications that I made are these:

Removed the line where it says that English has also become the official language. English is used for official purpose but it has not given any such status along with Hindi. If this is wrong, provide citations to the contrary.

Removed the BIMARU word. It has no significance in an article about Hindi.

Higher learning, specially Arts is widely available in Hindi (and possibly in other languages too) in various universities so modified this section a little.

Had to remove the link to www.ishipress.com because wikipedia was saying its in the blocked list. Please add if you know how to unblock it. --APandey 16:44, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Venu62 and Bharatveer: I have added significant citations here to support the claims on Rashtrabhasha, Rajbhasha etc. Please do not modify anything without discussing it here. Dear Bharatveer, I have read the constitution of India (and provided link here for you guys also) and there is no notion of Rashtra Bhasha, rather Hindi is the Raj Bhasha of India. I have modified the statement a little bit so that it should be OK to both of you. If not discuss here before making changes. Thanks. --APandey 07:24, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I have removed the weasel words "Some people believe..." etc. Who believes? Can I also say that "some people believe that English is the national language?" or that "Some people especially living in South India believe that Hindi is only one of the 22 official languages of the Union? - Parthi 09:32, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

The Eighth Schedule has nothing to do with the language to be used in communications between the Union and the States. Article 346 makes it clear that that will be either Hindi or English, and the Official Language Rules[1] explain when each of these is to be used. The only places in the Constitution which reference the Eighth Schedule are Article 344(1) - which talks about the OL Commission - Article 351 - which talks about the development of Hindi. I've amended the text to remove the reference to centre-state communication. In my opinion, the entire free-standing text above the "Official status" section can go, as it doesn't add anything of value to the article. The first sentence of the "Official status" section explains the situation quite well. -- Arvind 10:47, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA failed

As a non-specialist in Hindi and Indian-related article, I found this article lacks of informative components to give me good understanding about Hindi. This article failed GA criteria, as follows:

Well-written? - passes, but small suggestions:
- For the prose, I think I can follow the story without too much problems. Not too much specific rare terms, although I'd to look 1-2 words in a dictionary.
- Lead section is not informatively summarizing the whole article. I think the last paragraph of comparison between Hindi and Urdu is too much presented and preferably replaced by a bit summary of Hindi's history and its status.
Factually accurate and verifiable? - need some improvements
- I found this article lacking of inline citations. There are some places that require inline citations. For example, in the Area subsection, where it is stated: "Hindi is the predominant language...". How can this be verified?
- There are also some external links embedded in the article. Please follow the guideline of embedded citations, otherwise put the links in the External Links section.
- I suggest not to mix between different citation styles, as it often confuses whether it is a citing or just a link to external source. I spotted all three citation styles are used in this article and they are not used consistently. For example, an embedded link is given as a footnote style.
NPOV? - spotted one POV sentence
- "Since the elite can use English, Hindi has been particularly weak on the Internet." I thas a strong Hindi's view and it is even unsourced.
Broad in its coverage? - need reduction
- I think this article is too long and need to be splitted.
- I found some high portion is given to the Hindi region, which I think should be given as a summary.
- This article should focus on linguistic, rather than regional position of spoken Hindi.
- Comparison between Hindu and Urdu should also be trimmed and just point to another article about it.
Stable? - some edit wars happening in the history
Images? - need map
- When I read this article, as I'm not a specialist in India, I'm confused as where the hell are these regions and languages?, especially when I was reading the lead section, demographics, history and Hindi region.
- Could somebody make a map of India and denote where Hindi is used and spoken and also other languages, described in this article?

When all those matters above are fixed, this article can be renonimated again. Cheers — Indon (reply) — 12:04, 18 September 2006 (UTC) This needs to be still more informative for a non Hindi guy.--Johnhardcastle 11:03, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rekhta and Urdu

The section on Variants suggests that there is a form of Hindi-Urdu called "Rekhta" which is distinct from Hindi, Dakkhni, and Urdu. Apart from the Ethnologue, which does get things wrong, can someone point me to any source which uses Rekhta to refer to any form of Urdu or Hindi currently in use? As far as I am aware, it is an old name for Urdu that was in use from the late 17th century till the closing decades of the 18th century, when it was largely supplanted by the name "Urdu" (although it continued to be used sporadically until the late 19th century). I have only ever seen it used thus in the academic literature (I have one of Shamsur Rahman Faruqi's works before me which bears this out), and every 18th or 19th century source I've read uses Rekhta to refer to what we will today call Urdu. So - could someone please cite a source other than the Ethnologue which bears out the claim that Rekhta and Urdu refer to two different things? If not, the reference to "Rekhta" should either be removed altogether, or replaced with something along the lines of "Rekhta, an early form of Urdu which was used in poetry in the Mughal court." -- Arvind 18:29, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

My Hindi teacher in the U.K., and my Persian/Urdu teacher in Delhi both told me that in the 18th and early 19th centuries "Rekhta", "Hindavi" and "Urdu" were all synonyms for what we now know as Urdu, or what the British called Hindustani i.e. a North Indian literary language based on the Khariboli dialect of Delhi with numerous borrowings from Persian and Arabic, so I think you're right. Sikandarji 21:47, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

It might help to see the article on Rekhta. I found a few sources that uses Rekhta to refer to any form of Urdu or Hindi currently in use: Major Indian Languages, UCLA Language Materials Project: Urdu, and Languages in Jammu & Kashmir. I hope this helps. I will add to the Rekhta article that the term was used to refer to the Urdu language in general. I hope this helps. With regards, Anupam^Talk 04:53, 3 October 2006 (UTC).

That is interesting - thank you for digging out those sources. -- Arvind 11:38, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Phonology

The charts which present the phonology of the consonants are at present inconsistent, in that the same consonant is in a few instances described differently in the first chart and in the following two charts. These are the specific issues:

न is described in the first chart as being an alveolar nasal, and in the second as being an apico-dental nasal.
व is described in the first chart as being a labio-dental approximant and in the third chart as a velar or glottal approximant.
र is described as being am alveolar trill in the first chart and a retroflex approximant in the third chart. A note explains that it was a retroflex approximant in Sanskrit, but surely the third chart should reflect Hindi phonology rather than Sanskrit.
ष is missing in the first chart. The note says that it is not used in modern Hindi pronunciation. Is this so even in formal speech? I was taught to pronounce the two aspirated sibilants differently, but Hindi's not my mother tongue and my maintaining the difference is probably because of its importance in Sanskrit.

Could someone please address these issues? I think it's important that the two tables be consistent. -- Arvind 15:14, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

व is labiodental, र is alveolar, I could well imagine that some people still pronounce ष differently, that is, retroflex.

[edit] Pronunciation of ऐ

In the article, the IPA equivalent of ऐ is given as /æː/ and its "approximiate equivalent in British English" is given as "like a in cat". (Presumably "British English" means Received Pronunciation/RP.) If I look up /æː/ under near-open front unrounded vowel I also get an example of "fat" in RP.

Now I'm a native speaker of British English who's learning Hindi. I claim no expertise in Hindi: however, I have never heard any native Hindi speaker pronounce ऐ anything like the way the "a" is pronounced in "cat" or "fat" in received pronunciation (or indeed any other British or American way of pronouncing English with which I am familiar).

I've heard ऐ pronounced in various ways, varying from "e" as in "hen" (this is the example given in one of my Hindi textbooks) to a diphthong like the "ai" as in "main" in RP.

I have heard native Hindi-speakers pronounce English words "fat" or "cat" with a sound like a ऐ. (I would transcribe this pronounciation as "fet" or "ket" in RP). Perhaps this is the source of the confusion.

This is really a cry for help since I'm having a lot of trouble learning this vowel. Can someone who is very familiar with both Hindi and English (as pronounced in Britain or the US) help?

Thanks! Grover cleveland 02:03, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

You're right, Grover cleveland. The vowel ऐ should be properly transcribed /ɛː/ in IPA according to the majority of sources on Hindi phonology, including the entry for Hindi in the Journal of the IPA (where the vowel chart was copied from). This is basically the sound in RP "hen" /hɛn/ and "head" /hɛd/, although pronounced with longer duration than the RP version. This added length makes the ऐ sound somewhat like /ɛɪ/ to non-Hindi speakers, which is close to RP /eɪ/ (as in "hay" /heɪ/ and "hate" /heɪt/), and even closer to the same vowel in some (non-RP/GA) English dialects and in Dutch as well ("mijn" /mɛɪn/). Still, this vowel ऐ is used to transcribe foreign words with /æ/ (like "cat" /kæt/, etc.), even though the native Hindi pronunciation is made with a higher tongue position /ɛː/. Confusingly enough, actual English words with /ɛ/ (like "head" /hɛd/) tend to be transcribed with ए /eː/ in Hindi (along with English /eɪ/ words like "hate" /heɪt/!) - all of this basically helps put together the so-called Indian accent.

You can practice this sound by making the sound in the English word "head" /hɛd/ and then just practice lengthening the duration of the vowel. If you can drop the "d" in "head" after lengthening the vowel, you already have a real Hindi word, है /hɛː/! Hope this helps. --SameerKhan 05:20, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Great -- that makes a lot of sense. If as you say the entry in the Journal of the IPA has /ɛː/ then surely this should go in the vowel chart in the main article instead of /æː/. Does anyone know why this got changed in the first place? Grover cleveland 08:39, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I've made the change in the article Grover cleveland 14:06, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm now confused by the vowel chart image. It clearly shows an /æː/, but there's no account given of any Hindi letter that is pronounced that way in the main text. Possible what's going on is that the pronunciation of ऐ varies between [ɛː] and [æː] (note phonetic, not phonemic brackets!), but if that's the case, then surely the chart (which is supposed to be of phonemes) shouldn't show both. It would be good if somebody could go back to the JIPA, and look at the original chart, to see if it's possible to figure out what the people who made it were thinking.ACW 20:07, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I do have the Hindi entry in the Handbook of the IPA, and it says that the pronunciation of ऐ is only [æː] in English loanwords, and it remains [ɛː] in native words. I'll make the change. --SameerKhan 01:56, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the pronunciation of that vowel varies according to dialect and region. Both pronunciations are correct. HeBhagawan 02:53, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notable Hindi works

Picking some works of literature as "notable" and ignoring others is personal opinion and NOT OK by WP rules. I removed the section of "Notable Hindi works," as there is a main article on Hindi literature and a whole section on ditto just above the section I deleted. Zora 07:58, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Social Status" Section Needs Rewrite

The subsection "Social status" needs to be revised for clarity. The paragraph in question is

Since the elite can use English, Hindi has been particularly weak on the Internet. As a barometer, the Devanagari fonts and keyboards used on computers today were not standardized within India - earlier government standards such as the 8-bit ISCII (Indian Script Code for Information Interchange) or the GIST keyboard were never widely adopted. The present system was finally standardized only during Unicode deliberations. Indeed, Hindi unicode standards were finalised based on inputs from scholars hailing from Fiji and other countries. It is only when Unicode became the dominant standard that a number of changes were sought by the Indian government.

What does "Hindi unicode standards" refer to? Unicode does writing systems, not languages. Did the author of this paragraph mean to refer to Devanagari?

Sarayuparin 02:54, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Writing System" Section Revision

Is it necessary to have the table of hypothetical conjuncts in the "Writing System" section? It belongs -- and in fact does -- more appropriately in the Devanagari article. Sarayuparin 02:56, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. --SameerKhan 18:33, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll make the change. Sarayuparin 20:39, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Etymology

We need to agree on the phrasing of the very brief content in the "Etymology" section. I originally added the section and the following content:

The name "Hindi" is derived from the Persian word hindi, which referred to the language spoken in region of hind comprising modern India and Pakistan.

Tuncrypt changed the content to

Of Persian origin, the word Hindī (ہندی) is comprised of Hind, meaning India, and ī, meaning of. Hence Hindi translates as Indian.

I objected to Tuncrypt's revision for two reasons. (1) If we are going to specify the morphology of the term "Hindi", it should be done accurately and completely. (2) The phrase Hindi translates as Indian" is misleading. "Hindi" does not 'translate' simply as "Indian". If we're going to split hairs, then the Persian term "Hind" and its adjectival derivative "Hindi" refer specifically to the region around the Indus River.

Any comments?

Sarayuparin 05:57, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your concern Sarayuparin. I think it would be great if you provided the complete morphology of the word Hindi. I can see why you find the translation of Hindi to Indian misleading. However, the Persian term Hind (हिन्द ہندی) not only refers to the region around the Indus River but to all of the area the Mughals conquered (it originally did refer to the region around the Sindhu). It is actually a shortened form of Hindustan. In fact, the Iranians still refer to India as Hind and we still use Jai Hindi to mean Hail India (the whole country). The term is contentious because many would associate Hindustan or Hind with North India and the North Indian culture. In light of these facts, we could insert North in front of Indian if necessary. Please let me know what you think. Thanks, Anupam^Talk 22:14, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] translators needed at Wikipedia:WikiProject India/Translation

Wikipedia:WikiProject India/Translation--D-Boy 19:30, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

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