about Hindi

aghori

Is there “Oxford” (a place that considers an example of how language should be) for Hindi?
Are there strong dialects of Hindi in different Hindi-speaking states?
Is Hindi the closest modern language to Sanskrit?

Amit

Well, difficult to say there is an Oxford for Hindi, but the closest would be Allahabad (?)...
No, Hindi may be one of the closer ones, however, all indian languages are based on Sanskrit (and dont flame me if u find an exception!), but several like Marathi, Tamil and Malayalam are closer in (grammatical) form and vocabulary to Sanskrit. Hindi has evolved, shall we say!

Digital Drifter

Whoa! That's incorrect to a large degree! Can't say for Marathi but Tamil & Malayalam have different lineages from Sanskrit. In fact, there is a theory, Tamil developed independantly of Sanskrit and Malayalam is a variation od some other language(?). To the OP, the language which still has lots of Sanskrit origins would go to Telugu, I'd guess.

aghori

That is interesting, I heard about that, when I tried to learn it. But then I gave up because of pronounciation. I was afraid that even if I learn it, people will not understand my horrible Russian accent.
And then I was told that if I want to learn an Indian language, better to choose Hindi, because it is easier then Malayalam. What are opinions on that?
I also was told that in Malayalam there are more words from Sanskrit, then in Hindi, like 70%. Is it so?

Bigzero

I have heard someone say that tamil is the father and sanskrit is the mother of malayalam. All i can say is that malayalam has good measures of sanskrit and tamil words in it.

tamil is, as DD suggested, an original language like sanskrit.

i guess telugu and kannada too are queer mixes of sanskrit + dravidian ( tamil? not sure )

the north indian languages seems to have evolved from sanskrit in different ways.

i am not an expert in these areas, so i can't get into more details!!

heard/read somewhere that tamil and japanese have some common threads!! is that a fact?

__________________
miles to go....

Bigzero's Photo Gallery

aghori

Is there an article on the web where I can read about origin of different Indian languages?

aghori

And what is dravidian?
It is interesting! Is pronounciation of Tamil as difficult as the one of Japanese then?
And what about origin of Hindi? As far as I understand it is a mixture of Sanskrit and Arabic (or Persian?). But I didn't read any good articles or books about that, since it is rarely learnt in Russia, so not much information.

natasha chanda acharya

Amit is right. There are other regional languages that are closer to Sanakrit than Hindi. In Bangalore, for example, Kannada is very similar to Sanskrit.

The places in which Hindi is spoken the most fluently are Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Bihar, i think. Yes, all Hindi speaking regions have diferent dialects. Too many to even begin counting. If there was a contender for "Oxford", Benaras and Allahabad would possibly be in the race.

No one really speaks grammaticaly correct Hindi in India anymore (much like the fate of English in England, i suppose) except teachers and scholars of the language. Most Indians speak "Hindustani" (again ungrammatical) which is basically a fusion of Hindi and Urdu. Urdu being such a beautiful language, even the traditionalists don't mind it. It doesn't help the cause of either, of course, that most public medias, TV, Newspaper, etc..., have turned bilingual. They use a combination of Hindustani and English.

Even though I am a conservative at heart, being a linguist, i am a regular witness to how people take liberties with the language, and also reluctantly come to terms with the fact that languages have to "evolve" after all.

Bigzero

Here is a link that gives a high-level overview of the indian languages...

http://uk.encarta.msn.com/encycloped...Languages.html

explains dravidian too...

natasha chanda acharya

here is a website originally recommended by Karma Queen for looking up Indian English.
It is an excellent site for references, I have found.

Try reading up on Hindi and its origin and influences here.

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Hindi

Digital Drifter

Bigzero

Here is a link to a research paper on the Tamil-Japanese connection.

http://arutkural.tripod.com/tolcampus/jap-tamil.htm

very interesting....

phantom

Well, I don't think so. I have heard ppl talking in the purest hindi in Banaras. The kind of words they were using, could only be found in hindi newspapers these days.
The kinda language you are talking abt is rampant in metros. Smaller cities are still holding on to whatever is left of the pure hindi

Matty Gee

__________________
Check my gallery out : http://www.indiamike.com/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser =3636

beach

Folks does Akashavani still broadcast the Sanskrit news? (Pravachaka Baladevananda Sagara)
In my school days it was very important to me. At the end of the Sanskrit news in the morning my school van is at our doorstep to take me! Except the obvious common vocabulary I don’t understand Sanskrit.

There are much more words Malayalam & Kannada borrowed from Sanskrit. But but both of these languages are Dravidian.

Historically Kerala had a special affinity to Sanskrit. May of the old scholars in Kerala were scholars in Sanskrit too. Sanskrit was the language used by the ancient Indian philosophers, mathematicians, astronomers etc. All of the scientific, philosophical and sacred scripts were in Sanskrit. So was the ancient political science and ayurveda. That explains why Kerala is strong in the ayurvedic stream. And that is how Malayalam borrowed a huge vocabulary from Sanskrit.

Sanskrit use the Devanagari scripts the same way Hindi uses it. Probably that is the most common thing between the two languages.

In Tamilnadu, Hindi was received with black paint. Rumors say that the black paint merchants there became crorepathies …oops….kodeeswanan. That is history.Tamil is still pure. It's less 'infected' with other languages though there are strong regional variations in Tamil too.

In those days there was a strong move to use the roman script to write Hindi when it was proposed as the national language. The idea was to make the language more easy to use in administration and also to make it easy for all to learn.For some reason it was droped...