HINDI. An Indo-Aryan language, spoken by over 250m people in India and by Indians in Britain, Canada, FIJI, GUYANA, South Africa, SURINAM, TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO, the US, and elsewhere. Hindi is the official language of India, with English as associate official language, the state language of Bihar, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh, and one of India's 15 national languages. It is written in a modified form of the Devanagari script, and its literary tradition dates from medieval times. Hindi proper has three stylistic varieties: a Sanskritized variety used in higher law courts, administration, legislation, journalism, literature, philosophy, and religion; a Persianized variety used in lower law courts, in certain genres of literature, and in films; an Anglicized variety in day-to-day administration, on college campuses, and in scientific and technical registers. See BORROWING, BRITISH LANGUAGES, COCKNEY, CODE-MIXING AN CODE-SWITCHING, INDIAN ENGLISH, SANSKRIT, SOUTH AFRICAN LANGUAGES.

Hin·di / ˈhindē/ • n. a form of Hindustani written in Devanagari and with many loanwords from Sanskrit, an official language of India, and the most widely spoken language of northern India.• adj. of or relating to Hindi.

Hindi Most widespread language in India, spoken in the north-central area by 154 million people. Hindi and English are the official languages of India. It derives from Sanskrit and belongs to the Indo-European family.

Hindi XVIII. — Urdu hindī, f. hind India.
So Hindu, Hindoo XVII. — Urdu — Pers. hindū, f. hind India = Skr. sindhu — river, the Indus, (hence) region of the Indus, Sindh. Hindustani XVIII.