Hindi is the national language of India – a country that boasts of 22 distinct languages that enjoy an official status and nearly 400 minor languages that are spoken in various pockets of India but have not gained the status of a language.

Apart from being the national language, Hindi is also the official language of several populous states such as Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Chhatisgarh, Jharkhand and Rajasthan.

Due to their common Sanskrit stock, Hindi shares a very large vocabulary with other Indo-Aryan languages such as Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, Oriya and Assamese, as well as the four Dravidian languages spoken in South India. Hence, standard Hindi is largely understood in most other non-Hindi-speaking regions as is evident from the immense popularity of Hindi (Bollywood) films and songs.

Officially the number of people who have declared Hindi to be their native language can range from 258 million to 180 million.

The wide discrepancy is accounted for by the fact that many of them speak their regional language such as Awadhi, Brij Bhasha, Maithili, Magahi, Bihari, Hariyanvi, Pahadi and so forth at home. These languages are rich in folk idiom, traditional songs and ballads. However the medium of instruction and the language at work place for those who colloquially use these colorful variations of Hindi, is undoubtedly, standard Hindi, as spoken in modern India.

Hindi is written in Devnagari script, in which each letter has a horizontal line on top which also links the letters of a word together. It is written from left to right. Hindi has 38 native consonants. In addition to these, there are 4 variations in existing consonants that have come into Hindi through Arabic and Persian words. Like most Indic languages, the number of vowels is 13. Two new vowels for æ and ɒ sounds have been incorporated in modern Hindi with the assimilation of certain English words.

Contemporary Hindi, like most Indian languages delves into Sanskrit when new coinages need to be forged for modern concepts. At the same time it has also started the process of borrowing English terminology for maintaining global uniformity.

The earliest reference to Hindi was recorded by the likes of Abul Hasan and Amir Khusro, dating back to 13th-14th centuries, when it was referred to as Hindvi - a form of dialect spoken by the people of Central India, in effect around Delhi. In fact Khusro gave enough importance to Hindvi by writing some pieces in Hindvi as well, while his main language remained Persian.

Hindvi, by virtue of having evolved under Muslim rulers, also had a liberal assimilation of Arabic and Persian words depending on geographic locations of those using this language.

Hindvi acquired a more defined identity between 15th and 16th Centuries when it gained prominence as "Bhakha", being the spoken language, vis-a-vis Sanskrit, the literary language. Kabir Das and Khan Khanan Rahim ( from Emperor Akbar's court) are some of the illustrious poets of that era who wrote in Hindvi.

The Saint Poets of the Bhakti (Devotional) Movement, immensely popular to this date, contributed substantially in enriching this language, that laid the foundation of what we know today as Hindi.

In the early 18th century when Hindvi began to morph into modern Hindi it came to be known as Khadi Boli, the precursor to Hindi as we speak today.

Hindi boasts of a rich cultural and literary tradition, with littérateurs such as Bharatendu Harishchandra, Jayashankar Prasad, Nirala and Premchand to name but a few.

However, the fabric of contemporary Hindi is being unraveled and reinvented, by popular media such as Bollywood Films and Television Serials. Hindi has opened itself up as it were, to pick up phrases and idioms from many regional languages which constitute the backdrop of these media.