The Invisible Majority: Hindi
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Hindi is the fifth most-spoken tongue on earth, according to Ethnologue. In fact, counted together, Hindi and close relative Urdu seize fourth place, right behind English. Some even predict that within fifty years, the Hindi-Urdu juggernaut will crush English, yea mighty English, on the way to third place. (Meanwhile, 'way back in 1990, the World Almanac declared Hindi-Urdu the world's second most-spoken language, shaming both English and Spanish, kowtowing only to Mandarin.)
Yet Hindi remains virtually invisible, apparent victim of the radar blindness that afflicts many things Indian on the world stage. (Witness a favourite Simpsons moment, in which the Reverend Lovejoy lists world religions: "Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and assorted others." Whereupon kwikee-mart entrepreneur Apu exclaims, "What about Hindus? There are 400 million of us, for crying out loud!")
I'm frequently amazed at the number of discussions on world language issues from which Hindi is entirely absent. I'm as guilty as any, having mentioned Hindi in only three columns. (And one of those was on Sanskrit, which doesn't really count.)
What gives?
No shortage of heritage
Hindi is deeply rooted in Sanskrit's Prakrit vernacular tradition, by way of Apabhramsha. Identifiable Hindi shows up in documents from the 7th century CE. By 933, the Shravakachar of Devasena, considered the first work of classical Hindi literature, appears. It's worth noting that the Kama Sutra, the 15th-century sex guide that is probably the most widely-known work of Indian literature after the Bhagavad Gita, was not written in Sanskrit, as many assume, but Hindi. Hindi also played a major role in Sir William "Oriental" Jones' paradigm-shattering discovery that many Asian languages are closely related to European ones.
In the course of its journey, Hindi has absorbed Dravidian, Turkish, Farsi, Arabic, Portuguese, and English influences, among others. A true child of Bharat, modern Hindi is a diverse, intoxicating whirl of colour that defies precise definition. Recognised dialects include Marwari, Braj, Bundeli, Kanauji, Chattisgarhi, Bagheli, Avadhi, Bhojpuri... and the list goes on. Some would add Urdu, Punjabi, and Maithili, but others categorically reject this. As ever, politics, not science, dominate the debate over which traditions are Hindi dialects and which are independent languages.
Demographics to spare
However they define it, 66% of Indians surveyed in 1997 claimed Hindi competence, and 77% identified it as a single language within India. Official language of the Indian civil service since 1949, Hindi was recognised by the 1950 Constitution as "official language of the Union," notwithstanding India's overwhelming linguistic diversity. (This issue rankles Tamil and other separatists.) Although the tiny Indian ruling class is largely anglophone, Hindi has been riding Indian nationalism toward the superior position for some time, and may yet overtake it. At any rate, Hindi's coverage of Indian society beats English both horizontally and vertically, making it the natural choice for travellers, businessmen, and Indic scholars.
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