Hindi Language

Hindi, also called Hindi-Urdu or Hindustani with reference to the spoken vernacular, is one of the official languages of India and one of the most widely spoken languages of the world. Hindi is mutually intelligible with its 'sister' language Urdu, however Hindi and Urdu are typically written in different scripts. Truly a 'world language', it is understood by about 500 million people, most of them within the Southasian subcontinent! The so-called Hindi belt is a swath of northern and central Hindi where Hindi is the mother tongue of most. While there is great regional variation in the way Hindi is spoken, the form of Hindi taught at MSU is the Delhi standard or 'Khari Boli' Hindi. Please follow the links on the left and below for more information.