Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics
Indo-Aryan language with several dialects. Hindi, along with English the official language of India, has approx. 200 million speakers; Urdu, the official language of Pakistan, has approx. 30 million speakers. Hindi and Urdu can be seen as dialects of one language, whose differences seem largely a factor of the cultural differences of the speakers (Hindus vs Muslims) and of the use of different writing systems (Devanāgarī vs Persian-Arabic).
Characteristics: relatively complex sound system (forty consonants, ten vowels); no distinctive word accent. Two numbers, two genders (masculine, feminine), and three cases. Numerous causative and compound verbs (e.g. kha lena ‘take to eat, eat up’). Aspect is expressed morphologically, tense by auxiliaries. Several classes of verbs must be distinguished (including volitional vs non-volitional, affective vs non-affective), which require syntactically different constructions. Causatives often serve to derive volitional verbs from non-volitional ones. Participial forms are often used instead of subordinate clauses. Word order SOV.
References
Bahri, H. 1986. Hindi semantics. (New edn, rev. and enlarged.) New Delhi.
Beg, M.K.A. 1988. Urdu grammar, history and structure. New Delhi.
Bhatia, T.K. 1987. A history of the Hindi grammatical tradition: Hindi—Hindustani grammar, grammarians, history and problems. Leiden.
Kachru. Y. 1966. An introduction to Hindi syntax. Urbana, IL.
——1980. Aspects of Hindi grammar. New Delhi.
McGregor, R.S. 1972. Outline of Hindi grammar. Oxford. (3rd edn. Delhi, 1995.)
Neim, C.M. et al 1975.
Introductory Urdu, 2 vols. Chicago, IL.
Ohala, M. 1983. Aspects of Hindi phonology. Delhi.
Rai, A. 1984. A house divided: the origin and development of Hindi/Hindavi. Delhi.
Ucida, N. 1977. Hindi phonology. Calcutta.
Dictionaries
Abdul Haqim. 1985. The Standard English-Urdu dictionary, 4th edn. Karachi.
——1989. Urdu-English dictionary. Delhi.
Bahri, H. 1985. Comprehensive English-Hindu dictionary, 2 vols. (3rd rev. and enlarged edn.) Varanasi.
Chaturvedi, M. and B.N.Tiwari. 1980. A practical Hindi-English dictionary. New Delhi.
Fallon, S.W. 1879. A new Hindustani-English dictionary. Allahabad.
McGregor, R.S. (ed.) 1993. The Oxford Hindi-English dictionary. Oxford and Delhi.
Platts, I.T. 1930. A dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English. (5th impr. Repr. 1968.) Oxford.
Bibliography
Aggarwal, N.K. 1978. A bibliography of studies on Hindi language and linguistics. Gurgaon (Haryana).
Indo-Aryan
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