Vinod Chandrashekhar Dixit
10th January is celebrated as World Hindi Day every year to spread awareness about Hindi as an international language across the world. Hindi speakers around the world observe World Hindi Day on 10th January. Hindi is considered to be the mother language of India. It is the simplest source of expression of our nation. It is our heritage and the most widely spoken language in the country. Hindi is a historical language; it is also one of the most spoken languages in the world. It also aims to raise awareness about Hindi as a historical and global language. Today, the number of people who speak and know Hindi is increasing all over the world, and Hindi is ranked third in the most spoken language in the world. Even today, about 500 million people speak Hindi all over the world and most people believe that the importance of the Hindi language is more, so the Hindi language has the status of the national language.
In the year 1975, the first-ever World Hindi Conference took place in Maharashtra’s Nagpur on January 10. The conference was inaugurated by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and saw participation from a total of 30 countries. The Hindi language acquired its name from the Persian term ‘Hind’ which means ‘the land of Indus’. The language is spoken in India, Trinidad, Nepal, Guyana, Mauritius, and various other countries. Hindi has fought for freedom, and Hindi has connected North to South. It is the only contact language of India.
Bhartendu Harishchandra born on 9 September is the one who discovered the Hindi language. But years later, in modern India Harishchandra came into the picture and was considered the father of the Hindi Language. Hindi became an official language of India in 1950 and since then it has been on a continuous march to become the “most popular language of the nation”. The modern form of the Hindi script, called Devanagari, is derived from the Brahmic script. It is similar to the Gujarati script and Sanskrit script. Devanagari is called “bhasaparochin” or the “new script” in Hindi.
In India many languages are spoken of which 22 languages have been recognized by the constitution. Among all these languages, Hindi is the most spoken language of India. Now, the number of people who speak and know Hindi is increasing all over the world, and Hindi is ranked third in the most spoken language in the world. In addition to being the oldest language in the world, Hindi is also the simplest and most prosperous language. Hindi was originally written with the script of the Sanskrit language. After 1822, when the first Devanagari edition was published, the script was revised and the Hindi language became available in a standardized form. The Hindi alphabet has 26 letters in contrast to the 26 letters of the Devanagari script and all 26 letters of the alphabet have the same form as in English. Hindi is the language that keeps us connected to our roots. No doubt, English is indeed a global language as it gives us a way to reach out to the diverse domains and spheres, but one should not forget the importance and the identity of Indians that is very much inherently rooted in the language- Hindi. It is also been said that to ensure strong foundation skills in numeracy and literacy, the curriculum should be imparted in a language that a child understands.1
In 1919, Gandhi ji had asked to make Hindi the national language in Hindi Sahitya Sammelan. After independence, there was a lot of discussion on the question of which language should be made the national language in 1949. Finally, it was decided by the Indian Constituent Assembly that the national language of the Union would be Hindi. Many writers, including Mahatma Gandhi, Kaka Kalelkar, Maithili Sharan Gupt, Hazari Prasad Dwivedi, Seth Govind Das, etc. worked tirelessly to make Hindi the official language.
It is to be appreciated that due to the rising demand for Hindi speakers, several governments and agencies worldwide have begun to provide scholarships and other opportunities to those who want to study the language. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi A nation is dumb without national language.
(The author is a freelancer and can be reached at [email protected])
