Hindi is a standardised variant of Hindustani. It is an Indo-Aryan language that is mainly spoken in India. Hindi is spoken as a native language by 425 million people, and another 120 million use it as a second language.

Hindi belongs to the India group of the Indo-Iranian subfamily, which in turn belongs to the Indo-European language family. The language was influenced by Turkish, Persian, Arabic, Portuguese, English, and South Indian Dravidian languages. Knowledge of Hindi is helpful in understanding Sanskrit, Urdu, Nepali, Bengali, and Gujarati, languages that show similarities with spoken or written Hindi. This means Hindi is an important lingua franca (common communication language) throughout the entire region, but only partially so in India. But we’ll get back to that.

How many languages are spoken in India?

Hindi is one of the two official national languages of India. The other official national language is English, which has the status of ‘associated additional official national language’. Note the use of the word ‘national’ in the previous sentences, because in addition to Hindi, there are 21 smaller regional languages that are considered as an official language in the Indian constitution.

Hindi versus English

English is widely used in business and academic circles, but is also of great use in the southern states of India, where Dravidian languages are spoken and Hindi is not an official language and often not understood. A complicating factor is that the Dravidian script used in the south looks very different from the Devanagari script, which is used in the northern provinces. Therefore, to cover the entire country, at least two umbrella common languages are necessary: Hindi and English.

Hindi as a lingua franca

Hindi can also be used to communicate in Nepal. Hindi and Urdu, which is used in Pakistan, are closely related – in fact, many consider it the same language. Except Urdu looks nothing like Hindi in its written form, because it is written in a derivative form of the Arabic alphabet. We understand if your head is spinning at this point.

In-country translators

It goes without saying that knowledge of the local culture can make or break a translation. That is why we work with in-country translators, Hindi translators who live in India and know the ins and outs of their language and culture. In addition, because we are an ISO 9000 and ISO 17100 certified translation agency, we only work according to the highest European quality standards, because that is what those certificates represent. Both we, and the translators we work with must meet the highest competency requirements. After all, what good is a translation that does not appeal to the target audience?

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