Hindi Culture
If you’re learning how to speak Hindi, you’ll be learning a lot more than a language. Hindi culture is very much tied to the language. It’s an ancient language and, because of that, it contains traces of the entire history of many of the peoples of India.
Hindi culture has mixed with other cultures for many centuries. Each of these cultures has been impacted by the Hindis and the Hindi people themselves have been impacted by their contact with those cultures. The impacts oftentimes manifest in borrowed words. If you take Hindi lessons, you may have a much different experience depending upon the preferences of your instructor. Some linguistic purists believe that Hindi should only use Hindi words whenever possible and others like the mix.
Some Hindi phrases and words, for example, come from Arabic. Because of India’s geographic position in the world, there has been extensive trade between India and the Middle East for many centuries. There are also English words found in Hindi because of the influence of the British. Hindi culture does include people who have strong feelings about whether or not the Hindi language should regularly make use of borrowed words. The best advice in this regard is to stick with Standard Hindi, which, like Standard English, is the language of educated, well-spoken people. Avoid slang as some people may find it offensive.
One of the most fascinating thing about Hindi culture is the written form of Hindi. Like the Kanji writing of Asia, written Hindi is an art form. The language is also one of the most complex where the organization and specificity of the written form is concerned. You’ll find few languages that are so ready to assign a new letter to a slight difference in pronunciation as Hindi. This makes the alphabet for this language endlessly fascinating. Remember: If you can read and speak Hindi, you can explore documents relating to Hindi culture that go back many centuries.
Learning Hindi is a great way to broaden your understanding of the world. There are few languages that have been spoken for so long and that have evolved so much. If you’re planning on going to India, you’ll find that you’ll be invited to learn a lot about