Hindi

In the broadest sense of the word "Hindi" means the combination of " Hindi languages " , a dialect continuum in the territory of the Hindi belt in northern India. In this sense, “Hindi” includes languages ​​such as Bhojpuri (besides India it is of great importance in Suriname and Mauritius ), the medieval literary language of Avadhi and Fijian Hindi. Rajasthani is seen as a Hindi dialect, then as a separate language, although the absence of a prevailing dialect as a possible basis for creating a standard language prevents its recognition. Three other idioms ( maithili , chhattisgarhs and dogri ) received the status of official languages ​​in the states of their distribution, therefore, they are now considered separate languages. Urdu speakers are not Hindi speakers in India and Pakistan, despite the fact that Urdu , the main language of a large community of Indian Muslims and the official language of Pakistan, is almost indistinguishable from Hindi in many respects. The Nepali language , being the language of an independent state, has never been included in the number of “Hindi languages” despite the fact that the other Pahari languages ​​to which it belongs are included in this community.

In a narrower sense of the word, the term “ Hindi ” includes dialects and standard languages ​​of the “ Western Hindi ” cluster, including braj , the medieval literary language of Hindi-language literature, the current prestigious dialect of Western Hindi, Khari-pain , the former language of the court of the Great Mughals , the language of the British colonial administration and became the basis for modern standard Hindi and Urdu . Sometimes the term khari pain is used synonymously with the term hindi . Urdu is also often excluded from the languages ​​of the Western Hindi cluster, although it refers to them by its characteristics. The term Hindustani , known from colonial times, is now somewhat outdated, continues to be used to refer to Urdu and Hindi as the language of the Hindu population.

In its narrowest sense, the term “ Hindi ” means standard Hindi , a Sanskritized form of khari pain, cleansed of some Persian borrowings that appeared during the rule of the Mughals. The Indian constitution provides for Hindi using Devanagari letter, the status of the state language ^[5] , together with Urdu, preserving the Arab-Persian graphics , and three other Hindi in the broad sense, mentioned among 22 official languages ​​of India ^[6] .

Standard Hindi , which became the official language of India (along with English ) on January 26, 1965 , is used by the central government ^{[7] [8]} . Hindi is distributed mainly in the northern states ( Rajasthan , Delhi , Hariana , Uttarakhand , Uttar Pradesh , Madhya Pradesh , Chhattisgarh , Himachal Pradesh , Jharkhand and Bihar ). It is the second most important language in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands , and is also used throughout northern and central India along with regional languages ​​such as Punjabi , Gujarati , Marathi and Bengali . Standard Hindi can also be understood in some other areas of India and neighboring countries ( Nepal , Bangladesh and Pakistan ).

According to the Fiji Constitution ^[9] , Hindustani, along with English and Fijian, is the official language. When applying to state authorities at the central and local level, everyone has the right to do this in English, Fijian or Hindustani either in person or through a competent translator ^[10] . In Hindi, all Fijians with Indian roots speak. In the west of Viti Levu and the north of Vanua Levu, it is a common language used for communication between Fijians of Indian descent and indigenous Fijians. Fijian-Hindi speakers make up 48% of the population. These include those Indo-Fijians, whose ancestors emigrated to the archipelago from regions of India that are not part of the Hindi-speaking area.

Hindi, in terms of the number of speakers, is in one of the first places in the world (2-5), clearly inferior only to Chinese in the number of speakers. For example, according to SIL , if we consider only those for whom Hindi is native (minus carriers of Hariani , Magahi and other idioms considered in India as Hindi dialects), then it will be in 5th place in the world after Chinese , Arabic , Spanish and English . In addition, the inclusion or exclusion of Urdu speakers, the inclusion or exclusion of those for whom Hindi is a second language, affects the assessment of the total number of speakers. The following are data from various sources.

In 2001, the number of speakers of Hindi dialects was 422 million, that is, 41% of the Indian population ^[13] .

The situation with the definition of dialects is very complicated. In modern India, there is a tendency to refer to Hindi all the local Indo-Aryan idioms in the states of Uttar Pradesh , Madhya Pradesh , Bihar , Hariana , Himachal Pradesh . Some scholars include Rajasthani and Pahari languages ​​(except Nepali) ^[14] .

Usually, all Hindi dialects are divided into two groups:

• Western Hindi ( Khari-pains , Urdu / Dakhni / Rekhta , Bazaar Hindustani , literary Hindi , Bundels , Kanaudzhi , Braj Bhakha , Hariani );
• Eastern Hindi ( Avadhi , Bagheli , Chhattisgarh ) ^[15] .

It should be noted that this classification may be somewhat outdated due to the fact that the Chhattisgarh acquired official status in the state of Chhattisgarh (2000).

Of particular note are the Bihar dialects, which various scholars either include or exclude from the Hindi-language language area. For example, J. Grierson and A. Hernle excluded dialects east of Allahabad to Bengal from Hindi, establishing a special Bihari language. The issue of assigning the Biharic languages Bhojpuri , Magahi, and Maithili to Hindi in Soviet Indology has been controversial. The domestic researcher V. A. Chernyshev considered them independent languages. B. I. Klyuyev believed that “in all likelihood, these areas can no longer be included in the Hindi proper”. According to P.A. Barannikov,

... one cannot agree with the judgment that the territory of the state of Bihar does not belong to the Hindi-speaking area ^[16] .

At the same time, P. A. Barannikov emphasized that

Hindi language itself is a very complex whole, which is characterized by variability.

Maithili has officially received official language status in Bihar and Nepal .

According to G. A. Zograf , the Pahari languages ​​and dialects of Rajasthani should be considered independent despite the influence exerted on them by Hindi ^[17] . In particular, one of the Pahari languages, Dogri , became official in the state of Jammu and Kashmir (2003).

Standing apart is the recent emergence of a mixture of different dialects of Fijian Hindi .

There is no generally accepted point of view about the time of the emergence of Hindi. Hindi evolved from the prakrit shauraseni ^[18] . Most likely, it arose in the form of local dialects (such as braj , avadhi and, finally, khari pain ) not earlier than the 11th century . In the era of the Delhi Sultanate (1206–1526 and 1539–1555) and the Mughal Empire (1526–1540 and 1555–1858), in which the Persian language was used as an official language , Khari-pain incorporated many Persian and Arabic words. As for the latter, since almost all of them were borrowed through Persian, their form in Hindi-Urdu did not preserve the phonetic appearance of the Arabic originals.

At the end of the 19th century, attempts were made in North India to standardize Hindi and introduce it as an independent “folk” language, separating it from Urdu, which was the language of the elite. In 1881, Bihar authorities adopted Hindi as the only official language, and thus Bihar became the first state of India with the state language of Hindi.

Before the partition of India, the terms “Hindustani”, “Urdu” and “Hindi” were synonymous ^[19] .

The Constituent Assembly, which adopted the Constitution of India at the end of 1949, adopted Hindi as the official language of the country on September 14, 1949, which is celebrated in India as "Hindi Day."

Grammar Type Expression Type

From the point of view of the morphological typology, Hindi is rather an analytical language: syntactic relations are expressed using postpositions attached to forms of the indirect case of nouns, pronouns or infinitives. An essential role in the implementation of grammatical relationships is played by the word order. However, the Hindi grammatical system does not give a pure picture of analytism: along with analytical forms, which, of course, prevail, there are also elements of synthetism dating back to different periods of language development.

Synthesis in Hindi is manifested:

• In nouns - 1) in the formation of plural forms of all feminine nouns and masculine nouns ending in -ā and -ã , for example: bețī “daughter” - bețiyã “daughters”, bețā “son” - bețe “sons”; 2) in the formation of the forms of the indirect and vocal cases of the plural of all nouns and the singular of nouns ending in -ā and -ã , for example: mazdūr “worker” - mazdūrő , dhuẽ “smoke” - dhuṏ .
• In adjectives ending in -ā , -ã when changing by gender, number and case, for example: baŗ-ā kamrā “large room” - baŗ-e kamre “large rooms” - bar-ī almāŗī “large cabinet”.
• In the verb - in the paradigm of the present tense of some verbs, for example: honā “to be” - hũ , hai , ho ; in the past tense paradigm of the same verb: thā , thī , the , thĩ . Also in the change by gender and number of participles, for example: karnā “do” - kartā , kartī , karte , kartĩ ; in the paradigm of the future I tense: jānā “go” - jāũgā , jāegā , jāẽge , jāoge , as well as in some other verb forms.

Synthetic forms are observed in the formation of words of indefinite multiplicity and collective numerals, as well as in postpositions and particles with a change in gender, numbers and cases.

Thus, in the morphological system, Hindi grammatical meanings are expressed in three ways : analytical, synthetic, and mixed analytical-synthetic (for example, mãi paŗhtā hũ “I read”, where hũ is a verb-connective that changes in person, and paŗhtā is a participle from the verb paŗhnā , literally: “I am the reader”).

The nature of the boundary between morphemes

Hindi is an inflectional language; As a rule, several grammatical values ​​correspond to one indicator (affix or clique), for example:

Marking Type

In possessive noun groups in Hindi, dependent marking is represented, see examples:

In predication, a verb can be consistent not only with the subject, but also with direct complement. A verb can be consistent with the subject only if it is in a neutral case, for example:

If the subject is in an indirect case (that is, it has, for example, an ergative postposition ne ), then the verb is consistent with direct addition:

If both the subject and the direct complement have a postposition, then the verb receives the neutral form of the third person singular:

Prediction Role Encoding

In Hindi, only two cases can be formally distinguished: neutral (NOM) and indirect (OBL), which is used only with postpositions and differs from unmarked not for all types of words. However, the postpositions themselves can indicate syntactic relations: for example, the postposition ko (को) denotes the direct complement of the transitive verb.

At all times, except for the aorist, encoding in predication is carried out according to an accusative scheme , for example:

In Aorist encoding is carried out according to a three-part scheme :

Direct addition can be made out either direct (unmarked) or indirect case with an accusative postposition ko . The choice between these two methods is determined by the degree of concretization and the animated / inanimate nature of the direct complement: abstract, non-specific nouns are formed by direct case, while the specific nouns get the form of indirect case. The indirect case may also use inanimate nouns with the aim of eliminating possible ambiguity in the case of using the direct case, for example: Nadī ke us pār mãi gharõ ko dekhtā hũ - “On the other side of the river I see house a” (if the noun ghar were framed directly case, the sentence could be translated as “On the other side I see a house”).

Word Order

The basic word order is SOV . The order of words in Hindi is not free: all members of a sentence have a more or less defined position, although the position of a word may vary depending on the context or stylistic tasks (for example, the reverse word order plays a stylistic role and serves to emphatically highlight any member of a phrase or sentence). Word order has a meaningful function. For example, if a subject and a direct complement are expressed by nouns in the form of a direct case, then the subject is in the first place, and a direct complement immediately precedes the predicate: Aisi sthiti sadā asantos utpanna kartī hai - “This situation always causes discontent” and Asantos sadā aisi sthiti utpanna kartī hai - "Discontent always causes such a situation."

Vocalism

Hindi vowels vary in duration, row, rise, lip position and soft palate position. Depending on the position of the tongue, the vowels are divided into vowels of the front, middle and back row ; according to the degree of lifting the tongue into the vowels of the lower, middle and upper lift ; according to the position of the lips on rounded (labialized) and non-labeled (non-labialized); according to the position of the soft palate, the vowels of the nasal (nasalized) and nasal ( non- nasalized) are distinguished; by duration, vowels are divided into long and short .

The contrast of vowels in longitude-brevity is meaningful in Hindi, for example: k a m “little” - k ā m “work”.

In addition to simple vowels, there are diphthongs in Hindi, which can also be nasalized and non-nasalized.

Sanskrit words contain the so-called syllable consonants ŗ and ļ , which are pronounced as [ri] and [li]. It is also worth noting that in some words, individual vowels can vary freely without changing the meaning of the words, for example: bāhar - bāhir "outside, outside."

The following is a classification of Hindi vowels based on the notation adopted in the article. NB: sounds formed as “ã:” are long nasalized vowels.

Consonantism

There are 40 consonant sounds in Hindi that vary in place and mode of education. The phoneme / n / has positional options that differ depending on the subsequent syllable consonant: combining with back-loud noisy, middle-language affricate and cerebral phonemes, it is assimilated by them and implemented as one of the options, respectively, rear-lingual ( ṅ ), middle-lingual ( ṉ ) or cerebral ( ṇ ) occlusal nasal sonant. All interdental non-aspiratory correspond to aspiratory correlate. Some consonants in separate words are in a relationship of free variation, for example: bālnā - bārnā “light”.

Hindi consonants are simple (short) and doubled (long). Double consonants are possible in the middle and at the end of a word, but are not allowed at the beginning of a word, for example: vallabh “beloved”, anna “food”.

The following is a classification of Hindi consonant phonemes by place and method of education:

	Labial		Labial dental		Dental / Alveolar		Retroflex		Postalveolar / Palatal		Back lingual		Uvular		Glottal
Nasal	m				n		(ɳ)
Explosive	p pʰ	b bʱ			t̪ t̪ʰ	d̪ d̪ʱ	ʈ ʈʰ	ɖ ɖʱ			k kʰ	ɡ ɡʱ	(q)
Affricates									tʃ tʃʰ	dʒ dʒʱ
Fricatives			f		s	z			ʃ		(x)	(ɣ)				ɦ
Single impact					ɾ		(ɽ) (ɽʱ)
Approximants			ʋ		l				j

Syllable structure

Hindi distinguishes between short and long syllables. Short are syllables consisting of one short vowel or a consonant and a short vowel following it, for example: ã / ku / sī “hook”. Thus, short syllables in Hindi are only open.

It is customary to carry out a syllable in Hindi after a vowel, separating it from the consonant subsequent syllable, for example: jā / nā “leave”. Single ending consonants usually make up a separate syllable. In cases of double consonants, a syllable section passes between them, for example: khaț / țā “sour”.

Accent

Stress in Hindi is power (expiratory), but it is less pronounced than, for example, in Russian, and is not accompanied by lengthening of the vowel if the stress falls on a syllable with a short vowel. In Hindi there is no reduction of vowels, therefore, an unstressed syllable is pronounced as clearly as a stressed syllable. The accent is free and motionless, however, when joining word-building suffixes, the place of stress can change, for example: šá: nti “peace” - šā: ntipú: rna “peaceful”.

Sandhi

With word and form formation, the laws of phonetic changes that affect the final sound of the first word (or morpheme) and the initial sound of the second word (or morpheme) when combined to form a new word are applied. In accordance with the rules of the sandhi, words are formed mainly on the basis of words and morphemes borrowed from Sanskrit. Cases of word formation according to the rules of the sandhi based on the vocabulary of Hindi itself or mixed (that is, Sanskrit-Hindi or Sanskrit-foreign language) are extremely rare.

According to the rules of the sandhi are combined:

• vowels (that is, the final vowel of one word or morpheme with the initial vowel of another word or morpheme);
• consonants (i.e. the final consonant of one word or morpheme with the initial consonant of another word or morpheme);
• visarga (:) followed by vowels and consonants.

Writing

The Hindi script is a late modification of one of the most ancient writing systems, the brahmi , and is called nagari ( nagāri ) or devanagari ( devanāgarī ). Devanagari's letter is literal; the alphabet contains letters corresponding to both vowels and consonants, but it can be defined as semi-syllable: each letter denoting consonants also contains a short vowel a . Devanagari is an alphabet in which the letters are ordered by the nature of the sounds they designate: first come the vowels, then the consonants, grouped by place and method of formation of the corresponding consonants.

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