blue CHINA ]0" ' ~worldbOOk.com SECTION 26 Vol. II r? H1NDl AlPHAB£T Vowels Consonants aT 3f a Gfi' ka ta pa ja au­ f a ~ kha tha pha ra ~ f ga ·s da ba (1 la t T T gt)a G aha bha Cf va -~ u ~ n3. ur na ma -&~ n ca ta ~a C"\ cr cha ~ r q- tl-IG. ~ sa c.. ~ 1Z '" e ja da tr sa ~ :r -t ai jt'a a­ dha Q. ha ,., aTr t 0 n::l na aft T au Numbers 0 'xt l..t C; Z ~ ~ \ ~. \9 ~ 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 -r..~ omniglot.com I HINDI HISTORICAL BACKGROUND The Republic of India, or Sharat, is a land more than 4,500 years old. Sixteen percent of the world's population lives in India (931 million). This means one out of every six people in the world lives, there with 733 people per 2.2 km 2. The two major religions are Hinduism (83 percent) and Islam (11 percent). India is home to one of the largest Muslim population, with 100 million. In many ways, India is still the separate continent that it began as geographically. It has a rich variety of geographical features and climate. Even its fossil remains are unique. When India collided with the Asian continent, the Himalayas were born. India began with the settlement of two large ethnic groups, the light-skinned Indo-Aryans (North­ Central), and dark-skinned Dravidians (south). The Dravidians arrived first in 2500 BCE in the Indus Valley which is now Pakistan and western India. Thus, began the Harappa cMlization. In 1500 BCE, the Aryans (nobles/pure) invaded and drove the Dravidians south. It was these Aryan invaders who brought their horse-drawn chariots, knowledge of astronomy and mathematics. This gave them a military and technological advantage over their neighbours. They also brought their gods, patriarchal family system, and a new social order that provided the infrastructure of the caste system. In 1000 CE, Asian and Islamic groups from the areas of ancient Persia and Afghanistan settled in the north and central areas. Their descendants can still be found in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West. Bengal. In 500 BCE, Buddhism arose, challenging the caste system. Many empires rose and fell from that time to 600 CE, when Hinduism once again reigned supreme. After the Hun invasion, northern India broke into smaller kingdoms that were united with the coming of the Muslims. By 1192 CE, the Muslims had taken control over the Ganges Basin. Two great kingdoms emerged: the Hindu southern kingdom of Vijayanagar and the Muslim northern kingdom of Bahmani. Mughal emperors entered the Punjab from Afghanistan. They defeated the Sultan of Delhi in 1525, and so began northern India's Golden Age. The Maratha Empire grew in the 17th century and took over Mughal lands. The Maratha consolidated power in central India until they, too, fell to new invaders, the British. The Portuguese, French, Danes and Dutch also had holdings in India. Mahatma Gandhi launched his passive resistance to British rule that eventua.lly gained India's independence, but at a great cost - the partition into Hindu and Muslim areas. As large Muslim populations were on opposite ends of India, a mass exodus of people ensued. 7th century CE, Devanagari script, Hindi (1- E, Indo-Iranian, Indic) India, Asia, alphabetic Pg. 1 Caribbean Ten million people moved: Hindus and Sikhs to India and Muslims to Pakistan. More than 250,000 were killed in the migrations. Since that time, three of the Gandhi family leaders have been assassinated: Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. LINGUISTIC BACKGROUND With 364 million speakers, Hindi is one of the world's leading languages, the third most commonly used language after Chinese and English. It is spoken as a first or second language by almost a half billion people in India. Hindi is the major language of the states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, and the lingua franca of Northern India. Speakers of Hindi can also be found in Bangladesh, Belize, Botswana, Fiji, Germany, Guyana, Kenya, Mauritius, Nepa.l, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Suriname, Trinidad, Uganda, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States, Yemen and Zambia. Hindi belongs to the Indo-Iranian, Central Indic branch of the Indo-European language family. The language families of all Indian languages can be broken into two main groups: Indo-Aryan (547 groups) and Dravidian. Hindi, GUjarati and Punjabi belong to the former group. Hindi is a direct descendant of Sanskrit through Prakrit and Apabhramsha. It has been influenced and enriched by Dravidian, Turkish, Persian, Arabic, Portuguese and English. Hindi is related to Marathi, Nepali and Northern Indian dialects. Urdu and Hindi are structurally the same. Hindi re'flects more of its Sanskrit (perfected) origin in vocabulary, whereas Urdu draws on Arabic and Persian; the real difference exists in the script. The Greeks knew the continent of India as Sind, named for the region traversed by the River Sindhu. The Greeks went on to name the whole continent by that regional name (similar to what Cartier did with Canada). As the Achaemenian Persians' area of conquest included the Greek Sind in the sixth century BCE, the S was replaced with H to become Hind. Alexander the Great invaded and conquered parts of India as well as defeating the Persian army. Hind became India as ancient Greeks lacked the alphabetical character for H, thus dropping it in the name. Hindi started to emerge as Apabhramsha in the seventh century, and by the 10th century, became stable. Several dialects of Hindi have been used in literature. Braj was the most popular literary dialect unm it was replaced by khari boli in the 19th century. Prakrits and Classical Sanskrit began as early as 750 BCE with the modern Devanagari script emerging in 1100 CEo Hindi was originally a form of Hindustani spoken in New Delhi. The British began to encourage its growth during the colonial period in order for it to be used as a standard language among government officials. In 1947, Hindi was originally chosen as the official language, but its failure to win acceptance by speakers of other languages forced it into a co-official role. This is due to the south having so few Hindu speakers, and the upper classes believing that speaking English was a mark of being well educated. 7th century CE, Devanagari script, Hindi (1- E, Indo-Iranian, Indic) India, Asia, alphabetic Pg. 2 Caribbean • SCRIPT: Hindi is written in a script called Devanagari, which means writing of gods. Originally, Hindi, like Sanskrit, was written with a reed pen. There are 7 basic strokes to the letters. Words begin with a consonant, and are read with a short a if no vowel symbol or diacritic is added, except when there is a consonant in the final position. EX: pa written as p, but bas is written as bas. If the vowel is a long aa, then it is written as a consonant + the T symbol. LINGUISTIC COMPARISON ENGLISH HINDI LANGUAGE Indo-European Indo-European FAMILY (West Germanic branch) (Iranian, Central Indic branch) WRITING - alphabet, Latin script - alphabet, Devanagari script (based on SYS'rEM - non-phonetic Sanskrit) - written from left to right - phonetic - letters disconnected - written from left to right - printedlwritten script - letters disconnected - one script # OF LETTERS 26 31 consonants + 11 vowels VOWELS 6 written, 15-16 spoken 11 vowels with diacritics called matra - matras used after a consonant 10 vowel signs exist. However, the diacritics are vowel sounds, too, that are added to the consonants. If a diacritic is not written or a vowel symbol, then the consonant is read with the short vowel sound of a =11th vowel. The vowels are divided into 2 groups: short and long pairs for the 5 vowels. DIFFERENT th (this, the), w, ng (sing) - voiceless/unaspirated Ip, t, k, chi CONSONANTS - Ifltongue in curled position - voiceless/aspirated Ip, t, k, chi - Ifhlsame as the Itt but aspirated - voiced/unaspirated fb, d, D, i, gl - voiced/aspirated fbh, dh, Dh, ih, ghl - Id/is produced further back in the mouth. - !WIhalfway between a wand v - Irltongue trilled - Ixllike German or Scottish ch - Ir, rh/tongue flaps; sounds only exist in Hindi CAPITALIZATION - begins new sentences - no capitals, one size only with capitals The end of a sentence is indicated by a parallel line I. 7th century CE, Devanagari script, Hindi (1- E, Indo-Iranian, Indic) India, Asia, alphabetic Pg. 3 Caribbean COMBINATION - each syllable has vowel/ - each syllable has vowel and consonant OF LETTERS consonant sound sound - many consonant clusters - begins each word with consonantlvowel unit NUMBERS - written from left to right - written from left to right - non-Arabic numerals ORDER • sentence - subject + verb + object - subject + object + verb - time words at end or - time words anywhere beginning of sentence • adjective - adjective + noun - adjective + noun Adjectives reflect the gender they refer to: aa, usually masculine, ee, usually masculine plural, ii, usually feminine singularlplural. hii is added to what is being emphasized. ARTICLES - no articles, one (eek) can be added, but optional • indefinite - a, an + noun - noun alone • definite - the + noun - noun + prefix such as yeh/veh to specify which one - inflected for gender, number, case Hindi nouns, besides having gender, have 3 cases for inanimate and animate objects. They refer to the position in the sentence and relation to the verb. They are direct, post positional and vocative (calling/addressing). VERBS - subject separate - subject included - verb only inflected for - verb inflected for subject, gender and some verbs(to be) number and in some tenses - verbs referring to animals use different suffixes The verb to be is used to replace the verb to have in Hindi.