Hello Hindi

Ever wondered how popular Hindi is globally?

Let’s find that out !! It is indeed surprising to know how widely spoken and understood Hindi really is. Hindi is spoken in a lot of countries too. Besides, it is the fourth most spoken first-language in the world after Mandarin, Spanish and English.

In India

In India, Hindi is predominantly spoken along the river Ganges where over a 100 dialects are spoken. Every one understands most of the dialects along the Ganges. The vocabulary, the expressions vary every 50 kilometers. Isn’t that something amazing !!

Outside of India

It is spoken in Fiji as the first language, where it is called Fiji-Hindi. Fiji-Hindi has some peculiar accents when you hear it. But largely it is read and written exactly the same way as in India.

Moreover, Hindi is also officially recognized as a regional language in Nepal, South Africa, Mauritius, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and Suriname.

It is also not hard to find many speaking or learning the language in Germany, Russia, Afghanistan, Japan, UAE and several countries in the Middle-East.

Much of the popularity is also because of the popularity of Hindi movies in these countries. And perhaps also because the constructs and the grammar is a bit similar.

Some Numbers

Within India alone, there are over a 300 million native speakers. There are an additional about 150 million speakers for whom it is a second language. It is also amongst the 22 scheduled languages of India.

You may want to know more about Hindi on the Wikipedia page for Hindi.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi

Namaste – could be your starting point as well, it is a common greeting !!

Influence of Bollywood

Now may I leave you with a video of a popular singer from Uzbekistan, Bobomurod Hamdamov singing a Hindi song, which went viral in 2015, when people mistook the singer for the President of Uzbekistan.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Bk3eaD_sH8

 

Furthermore, it even reached the Olympics in 2010, when the US team played it as their performance music…

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdhGTv5DOdM

 

The kids love it too. They sing Bollywood Hindi songs, in a language foreign to them but close to their heart,  at their birthday parties…

And the best is when FINNAIR celebrates India’s Republic Day, on-flight, after the passengers have boarded and before take-off. And no one minds it… but everyone loves it!!

Hope you will love it too !!!

And I am sure you have seen at least one flash mob dance performances with Bollywood music in your country. It happens a lot. And you can always find Bollywood dance classes close to your home, yes we like to dance as well.

  • Namaste