Hindi

Hindi is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India with official status in the federal union. It is one of the country's constitutionally recognized official languages, alongside English. Hindi is spoken as a first language by about 261 million people in India, or 15.4% of the country's population. It is the third most spoken language in the world after Mandarin and English.

Hindi is thought to have descended from Sanskrit through Prakrit and Apabhramsha. It is written in the Devanagari script, which is also used for other Indo-Aryan languages including Sanskrit, Marathi, Nepali and Sindhi.

There are many different dialects of Hindi, although Modern Standard Hindi is the most widely used.Dialects include Awadhi, Braj, Chhattisgarhi, Bundeli, Bhojpuri, Khari boli, shekhawati, kannauji, Doab, Avadhi, Brij, and Awadhi.

The Hindi Belt, which includes the states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Bihar, is where Hindi is primarily spoken. This area is sometimes referred to as the "cow belt" because of its large agricultural production.

Hindi is also spoken in other countries, including Fiji, Guyana, Mauritius, Nepal, Pakistan, Suriname, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Zambia.