World Hindi Day 2020: All Facts That You Need to Know About It

World Hindi Day is celebrated every year on 10 January 2020. It is celebrated every year in order to promote Hindi language across the globe. It is also celebrated to present Hindi as the universal language.

On World Hindi Day, the Ministry of External Affairs conducts events through its missions worldwide to spread the greatness of the Hindi language. The Department of Official Language – Rajbhasha also organises several special programmes to mark the day.

Background

World Hindi Day (Diwas) was first celebrated on 10 January, 2006. It was chosen to mark the anniversary of first World Hindi Conference organized in 1975 which was inaugurated by the then Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi in Nagpur. The first conference was attended by 122 delegates from 30 countries where then Mauritius Prime Minister Seewoosagur Ramgoolam was the chief guest.

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Some Facts Related to Hindi Language

1. The word Hindi is originated from the Persian word Hind, which means the ‘land of the Indus River’.

2. Hindi is one of the seven Indian languages that can be used to make web URLs.

3. Hindi is the first language of around 430 million people around the world.

4. The gender aspects of Hindi are very strict. All nouns in Hindi possess genders and the adjectives and verbs change according to gender.

5. Apart from India, the language is also spoken in Nepal, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Fiji and Mauritius. Hindi and Nepalese share the same script – Devanagari.

6. Many English words have been derived from Hindi, such as chutney, loot, bungalow, guru, jungle, karma, yoga, thug, avatar and so on.

7. In linguistic terms, Hindi belongs to the Indo-Iranian sub-family of the Indo-European family of language.

8. Hindi has been influenced and enriched by Turkish, Arabic, Persian, English and Dravidian (ancient South India) languages.

9. Hindi is a descendant of Sanskrit. Its words and grammar follow that of the ancient language.

10. The first book believed to be published in Hindi was Prem Sagar. The book was published by Lalloo Lal and depicted tales of Krishna.

11. The earliest form of Hindi was called ‘Apabhramsa’, which was an offspring of Sanskrit. In 400 AD, poet Kalidas wrote Vikramorvashiyam in Apabhramsa.

World Hindi Day 2020: Celebration

The Indian Embassies located in other countries outside India celebrates World Hindi Day by organizing special programs. Various government and non-government institutions organize unique programs for the promotion of Hindi.

According to the Constitution, Hindi was declared as an official language but not the national language. Under Article 343, the official language of the Union has been prescribed, which includes English and Hindi in Devanagari script.

How is World Hindi Day different from National Hindi Day?

World Hindi Day is different than the National Hindi Day (Diwas), which is celebrated on the 14 September every year to mark the adoption of the official language of the Union by the Constituent Assembly back in 1949 as Hindi written in Devanagari script and to promote the language across the country, whereas the World Hindi Day is observed on 10 January to promote the language at the global or international level.

Hindi is one of the language that is considered the majority language of our nation. It’s promotion is very necessary for the uniformity.