| Western Hindi | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution | Braj,Bundelkhand,Haryana,Western UP |
| Ethnicity | Brajis,Bundelis,Haryanvis,Paryas |
Native speakers | approx. 272 million in India and Pakistan[citation needed] |
| Linguistic classification | Indo-European
|
Early form | |
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | west2812 |
 Geographical distribution of Western Hindi languages | |
TheWestern Hindi languages, are a branch of theIndo-Aryan language family spoken chiefly inHaryana,Western Uttar Pradesh andBundelkhand region ofMadhya Pradesh, inNorthwest andCentral India. The Western Hindi languages evolved fromSauraseni Prakrit.[1] The most-spoken language in the Western Hindi language family isStandard Hindi (commonly referred to as just 'Hindi'), one of the official languages of theGovernment of India (the other beingEnglish) and one of the 22Scheduled Languages of India.
Western Hindi languages are much more widespread and spoken than theirEastern counterpart.[citation needed] Western Hindi languages are spoken inIndia andPakistan. In India, it is chiefly spoken inWestern Uttar Pradesh, in theBundelkhand region and theBraj region and in pockets of theDeccan region. In Pakistan, it is spoken byMuhajirs (a multi-origin ethnic group of Pakistan, migrated from various parts of present-day India mostly after the partition). Apart from this,Hindustani forms the lingua franca in a large region inPakistan andNorth India (Hindi Belt) and the trade language inAndaman andArunachal Pradesh. A version of Hindustani heavily influenced byMagadhi,Maithili andBhojpuri, calledBihari Hindi is spoken in Patna and some other urban areas inBihar. Another version influenced byMarathi, calledBombay Hindi is spoken inMumbai and neighbouring urban regions inMaharashtra.[citation needed]
Numerically, the content of the Central Group of the Indo-Aryan languages has been very variously assessed by different researchers: Chatterji sees in it one language while Grierson enumerated six. Strictly speaking, the core of this group is represented not by languages at all, but by a number of closely related dialects-Braj, Kanauji and Bundell, which together with Khari Boli and Hariani, can be lumped under the common title 'Western Hindi'. The last-mentioned two dialects which occupy the north-western corner of the area covered by Hindi, display a number of common features with Panjabi, which in its turn can be seen as a transitional link with the most typical representative of the North Western group – Lahnda.
Closely connected with the dialects of the 'Western Hindi' group are Awadhi, Bagheli and Chattisgarhi, which come under the heading of 'Eastern Hindi'. Linguistically, these can be regarded as a transitional stage between the Central [= Western Hindi] and the Eastern groups of languages [= Eastern Indo-Aryan]. The 'intermediate' character of this group of dialects seems to have taken shape as far back as the Old Indo-Aryan period. The Middle Indo-Aryan forerunner of the contemporary Eastern Hindi dialects was the Ardhamagadhi Prakrit, which was a transitional form between Sauraseni and Magadhi; the present-day Central dialects go back to Sauraseni, while the languages of the Eastern group derive from Magadhi