HINDI

A language always keeps on moving, just like an ocean. It has its own properties and characteristics. Every language has some advantages and some disadvantages too. Human beings learn from their ancestors. India is a very ancient country and our civilization is one of the oldest. This is the reason we have spoke many languages over a long duration of time. ‘Pali’ was the first commonly used language. It is also known by the name ‘Oldest Prakrit’. This was the language used by Gautam Buddha and his disciples to give their sermons to the common people. The age of this language was over around 1100AD and the age of modern languages began. Many modern languages took their origin from these old languages. Sanskrit and Pali had more number of words in comparison to them. And around 1000AD, Hindi was in its old form. Hindi is very much similar to German in the formation of new words.

The origin of Hindi is considered to be from Western Hindi. Braj, Kannauji, Bundeli and Rajasthani are some examples of Western Hindi languages. In spite of presence of many dialects in Eastern Hindi, it has continuously developed itself since the last two century. Though Hindi was born in Northern India, its naming was done by Iranians and Indian Muslims. Hindi is not a language of any religion or Caste. every body has common rights over it.

Since the 8^th century, Hindi has been used in three modes, via, broad sense, general sense and special sense. Before the coming of Islam in India, it was used in broad sense. ‘Broad’ sense refers to any object or language used all over Indian boundary, without a difference. Many words like ‘Hindu’ find their existence in ‘Avista’, the religious book of Iranians. Some people connect ‘Hindi’ with ‘Sindhi’. It was used in the same sense until 8th century by the Iranians. It has been adopted as the National Language in Indian Constitution. We cannot find existence of words like ‘Hindu’, ‘Hind’ or ‘Hindi’ in ancient religious books of India. ‘Hindi’ can be found in middle age literature of the Persians and the Arabians. In the 6^th century, Court poet, of King Nowsherwah, entitled ‘Hind’ with ‘Jawan-e-Hindi’. It is clear that Hindi has been used outside India in two senses.

Rahim, Court Poet of Akbar, has been called ‘Poet of Hindi’. Indian-Persian Poet ‘Oufi’, of 13^th century, used the word ‘Hindwi’ for the first time for the language of the country.

Hindi language is used in a special sense too. In the beginning, it was written in both Devanagari scripts. Muslim Poets of South India turned Hindi in a very literature way.

On coming of the Britishers in the 18^th century and on declaration of Hindi to be Hindustani, a new trouble emerged. If India is called by the name ‘Hind’ then its language’s name also should be ‘Hindi’. But our country cannot be named Hindustan since it is not a country of Hindus only. The result is that Hindi is a language of the common man. It is the language of Unity of the country, of the great Sages and of the heart of the country. Among all the languages of the world, which are about eight hundred in numbers, Hindi holds 3rd position. About 45 crore people speak Hindi. It is the language that is spoken most even outside India and throughout Asia. It is a live and immortal language. Its simplicity and ease of usage makes it a very efficient language. But it is being refused by the modern age for the sake of English. But we should remember that it is a part of our culture and any civilization cannot be safe unless it respects and saves its identity.