in india there are many ethnicities such as punjabi,bengali,tamil and the list goes on and on....for example bengali people speak the bengali language,the punjabi people speak the punjabi language and the tamil people speak the tamil language...tamil language and tamil people came from tamil nadu,punjabi people and language came from punjab and the bengali people and language came from bengal...


but i always wonder...the hindi language came from which state or which territory???it came from where???which part??/from what ethnicity???as far as i know there is no such thing as hindi ethnicity...why is it the official language of india,then???


and are all indian citizens know how to speak hindi????all kind of ethnicities???is hindi is a compulsory subject in all indian states???or only the local language???



please explain..i'm so confused.........

To first clear your doubts. All the states in India are logical entities there is no clear distinction that only a particular language is spoken in one state but yes the majority do speak the official language of the state. Hindi is not confined to only one state, it is spread in many states. Hindi is the main language of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand. All this region is known as Hindi belt.

Hindi is the mother tongue in Uttar Pradesh (U.P.), Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh (M.P), Haryana, Bihar, Delhi, etc. You probably have never ran into Indians from these states because they didn't migrate abroad like Punjabis, Tamils and Bengalis. Hindi-speaking people usually just say whatever state they're from, or they can call themselves "Hindustani." But the term Hindustani is ambiguous and can also refer to Indians/Hindus in general.


These states are often called the "Hindi belt" like Vaman said. Other nicknames are the "cow belt" or the BIMARU belt (a shorter way of saying Bihar, MP, Rajasthan and UP).


There are a lot of different dialects of Hindi with different names found within the Hindi belt. U.P. Hindi cam be different from Rajasthani Hindi.

Not everyone knows Hindi, but anybody can speak it. A lot of Punjabis and Gujaratis are raised to speak Hindi, and not their regional mother tongue.

I don't think Rajasthanis speak hindi, their language is completely different. I never understood Rajasthanis when they spoke in their "tongue".

it's funny that you said this, because i actually know a few people from these states that were born/raised in the US...but you're right though, it is rare to find ppl from these states outside india.



all the gujaratis and punjabis i know and those that i've met (and it's a LOT of ppl) all speak their mother tongue...while most know or at least understand hindi, a lot dont, but instead know gujurati and punjabi. those languages are so similar to hindi, that it's usually easy to pick up hindi.

and while rajasthanis have their own language, most of the rajasthanis i've met in america speak hindi at home with their families.

I see that Hindi Imperialism is slowly wiping out Indian Languages!

kkd, go back to your Tamlish. ;P

My mom said she can understand Rajasthani dialects, and doesn't the Saat Phere show speak Rajasthani? I read somewhere that the government doesn't recognize Rajasthani as a distinct language.




Yeah some are here obviously..but what I meant is that they're not as prevalent for the non-Desi to learn about them...

When white people ask my mom where in India she's from, she just says Bombay or Delhi to make it simple for them and I also just say I'm from the North and don't bother going into detail........I'm pretty sure white people expect us to say that we're Gujarati or Hydrabadi and will go "huh?" if we say where we're really from.




Yeah but I was giving an example to the OP at how you don't have to be from a hindi-speaking state like UP or MP to have Hindi as your mother tongue in your household. Some Pakistani Punjabis also speak Urdu instead and don't know Punjabi at all.

Lot of the languages such as Rajasthani language and Bihari languages (such as Angika, Bhojpuri, Magadhi, and Maithili) are not dialect of Hindi. Indian government are forcibly trying to make them part of Hindi. Therefore, those languages don't have any official statues and native speakers learn standard Hindi from early education and native speakers themselves believe that their language is part of Hindi dialect.

Linguist puts Bihari languages (such as Angika, Bhojpuri, Magadhi, and Maithili) in the Eastern zone language group with Bengali and Assamese; where Hindi is part of central zone language group.
See: http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=90292

If you take out all of the false dialects of Hindi, you will see that Bengali language has more native speakers than Hindi. Bengali has 189,000,000 native speakers, where Hindi has only 182,000,000. But all Indian government websites shows that Hindi has 337,000,000 speakers, which is a false claim.
Source: http://web.archive.org/web/19990429232804/...gue/top100.html

I don't know. Has your mom been to Rajasthan and really talked to rajasthani ppl? not the ones in the city, cuz they can converse in hindi. Also most Rajasthanis can converse in hindi, but when they do speak in their language it is almost impossible to figure out what they are speaking.

I don't know what Saat Phere show is, but I highly doubt they would broadcast a show in Rajasthani dialect/language.

The above poster is correct, Indian Govt doesn't recognize some languages to inflate the number of hindi speakers.

Most of north india from Maharashtra & up speak hindi along with their state language.

Not all can speak it like in tamil nadu which banned hindi, although people there do learn it in school due to them being private schools.

Saat Phere is an Indian soap opera about a Rajasthani family. It has English subtitles too.

No, my mom hasn't been to Rajasthan and um, two cousins married Rajasthanis. That's it.

what do you mean not everyone know hindi but everyon can speak it.i don't get it at all

wow..it's the national language and they banned it????wow!!!

anyway,thanks you guys for the explanations...i get it a little bit now...


but one thing that no one answers is whether all indians in india (except tamil nadu) know hindi (even a little bit)..... ????
are all schools in all 28 states and 7 territories teach hindi and is it a compulsory subject for all.... ????
are all states and territories have their own official language and they don't practice hindi at all even in politics and official stuff ???


please you guys...make it clear for me...


thank you again

Hindi is NOT india's national language, in fact India has NO national languages. It has official languages for the purposes of communicating official work.

Hindi is not compulsory (at least in Southern States). Although, most schools teach hindi at 7th grade level (its too late by then).

hmmmmmmmmmmm.ok

I mean anyone has the CHOICE to speak it. Some Punjabi families CHOOSE to raise their kids as Hindi-speaking, even though their mother tongue is technically Punjabi.

Does anyone knows how many ethnic groups are in India? I know there are many "tribal" groups.

I think someone on here said 1000..By the way, states alone don't only make up ethnic groups..there are sub-communities within those states.

may i ask does kror or lakh means million????

lakh = 100,000
crore = 10,000,000

10 lakh = 1000,000

Speaking of Indian Ethnicities,i remember something interesting.

The Tharus are the Terai’s dominant ethnic group. They are said to originate from the Thar desert in Rajasthan, India. They fled north to escape persecution by the Muslim invaders in mid 19th century.

I also like to add they fled even before the Mughals invaded india centuries ago all the way through the east of india to Nepal,,if they really are originated from Rajasthan(they claim it too)does this mean they are an indian ethnicity ?

This is an example how one of those people of a Tharu tribe looks,just a magazine but still. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0008/images/tharu.jpg

^They've probably mixed with the Nepalese natives.

Rajasthani language has more 10-15 different dialects, some of them are very similar to Hindi and some are far off.


The Saath Phere show is set in Rajasthan but they speak Hindi with a couple of words and such thrown in from the Rajasthani language like most other TV dramas that are supposed to be set in Punjab/Gujarat or families with those ethnicities.

The Rajasthani language is sadly only recognized as a state language. I think it had something to do with the fact that there is no written guide to the language as it consists of so many different dialects that some of them sound like a total different language.

Yeah, it's better if English wipes put all indian languages! Then you won't have those funny accents!

so lakh is a hundred thousand
crore is ten million
and 10 lakh is a million



right?