Hindi languages

See also: Modern Standard Hindi and Hindi language (Hindi belt)

Hindi (Central Zone)
Madhya
Geographic distribution:	South Asia
Linguistic classification:	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Hindi (Central Zone)
Subdivisions:	Western Hindi Eastern Hindi

The Hindi languages, also known as the Madhya languages and the Central Zone of the Indo-Aryan languages, is a dialect continuum of the Hindi zone spoken across northern India that descend from the Madhya prakrits, and includes the official languages of India and Pakistan, Hindi and Urdu. The coherence of this group depends on the classification being used; here we will consider only Eastern and Western Hindi.

Contents

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• 1 Languages
  • 1.1 Use in culturally non-Hindi regions in the subcontinent
• 2 References
• 3 Bibliography

Languages[edit]

If there can be considered a consensus within the dialectology of Hindi proper, it is that it can be split into two sets of dialects: Western and Eastern Hindi.^[1] Western Hindi evolved from the Apabhramsa form of Shauraseni Prakrit, Eastern Hindi from Ardhamagadhi.^[2]

Western Hindi languages. Clockwise from the top: Hindustani, Kannauji, Bundeli, Braj, Haryanvi.
The Eastern Hindi languages are not shown individually. They are Awadhi in the north, east of Hindustani and Kannauji; Bagheli in the center, to the east of Bundeli, and Chattisgarhi to the southeast of Bundeli.

1. Western Hindi^[3]
   • Braj Bhasha (Brajbhakha), spoken in western Uttar Pradesh and adjacent districts of Rajasthan and Haryana
   • Haryanvi (Bangaru), spoken in the states of Haryana and Delhi.
   • Bundeli (Bundelkhandi), spoken in west-central Madhya Pradesh.
   • Kannauji, spoken in west-central Uttar Pradesh.
   • Hindustani, including the standard vernacular dialect Khariboli dialect (that is, Kauravi with influences from neighboring languages and Persian), with its standard registers of Urdu and Modern Standard Hindi.
2. Eastern Hindi
   • Awadhi, spoken in north and north-central Uttar Pradesh and in Fiji (Fijian Hindi).
   • Bagheli, spoken in north-central Madhya Pradesh and central Uttar Pradesh.
   • Chhattisgarhi, spoken in southeast Madhya Pradesh and northern and central Chattisgarh.

Romani and Domari appear to be Central Zone languages that migrated to the Middle East and Europe ca. 500–1000 CE. Parya is a Central Zone language of Central Asia.
To Western Hindi Ethnologue 16 adds Sansi, Chamari, Bhaya (= Malvi?), Gowli (= Gowlan?), and Ghera (a Pakistani enclave of an unidentified Indian language). Sansi is particularly close to Hindustani, but it's not clear the others are actually Central Zone.
This analysis excludes varieties sometimes claimed for Hindi for cultural reasons, such as Bihari, Rajasthani, and Pahari.^[4]

Use in culturally non-Hindi regions in the subcontinent[edit]

• Urdu is the official language of Pakistan. Although only the native language of 7% of the population, it is nearly universal as a second language.
• Bambaiya Hindi, the dialect of the city of Bombay (Mumbai); it is based on Hindustani but heavily influenced by Marathi and Gujarati. Technically it is a pidgin, i.e., neither is it a mother language of any people nor is it used in formal settings by the educated and upper social strata. However, it is often used in the movies of Hindi cinema (Bollywood) because Mumbai is the base of the Bollywood film industry.
• Dakhini (also called Hyderabadi Urdu), a dialect of Urdu spoken in the present areas of the erstwhile Hyderabad State.
• Bangalori Urdu, a dialect of Urdu native to Bangalore, Karnataka and a few surrounding districts.

Note: There is a slight difference between Urdu spoken in Hyderabad city (and a few surrounding districts) and the Urdu spoken in the other regions of the erstwhile Hyderabad State.

• Kolkata Hindi, a Khariboli-based pidgin spoken in the city of Calcutta (Kolkata), Shillong, etc., heavily influenced by Bhojpuri and Bengali.
• Andaman Creole Hindi is a trade language of the Andaman Islands.