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Hindi Belt | |
|---|---|
 Area (red) where various languages considered by the census as Hindi are spoken natively | |
| Country |  India |
| Major urban agglomerations (2011 census) | |
| States and Union Territories | |
| Area | |
• Total | 1,355,456 km2 (523,344 sq mi) |
| Population (2011)[2] | |
• Total | 563,766,118 |
| • Density | 415.9236/km2 (1,077.237/sq mi) |
| Demonym | Hindi Bhashi |
| Time zone | UTC+5:30 (IST) |
| Scheduled Languages | |
TheHindi Belt, also known as theHindi Heartland orHindi-speaking states, is a linguistic region encompassing parts ofnorthern,central,eastern, andwesternIndia where variousNorthern,Central,Eastern andWesternIndo-Aryan languages are spoken, which in a broader sense is termed asHindi languages, withModern Standard Hindi (a Sanskritised version, based onKhari Boli) serving as thelingua franca of the region. This belt includes all the Indian states whose official language isModern Standard Hindi.[4][5][6][7][8]
The term "Hindi Belt" is sometimes also used to refer to the nine Indian states whose official language isModern Standard Hindi, namelyBihar,Chhattisgarh,Haryana,Himachal Pradesh,Jharkhand,Madhya Pradesh,Rajasthan,Uttar Pradesh andUttarakhand, as well as to the union territory ofChandigarh and the National Capital Territory ofDelhi.[9][10][11][12]
It is also sometimes broadly referred to as theHindi–Urdu Belt orHindustani Belt.[13]
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Hindi is part of theIndo-Aryandialect continuum that lies within the cultural Hindi Belt in the northern plains of India. Hindi in this broad sense is a sociolinguistic rather than an ethnic concept.[citation needed]
This definition of Hindi is one of the ones used in theIndian census, and results in more than forty per cent ofIndians being reported to be speakers of Hindi, though Hindi-area respondents vary as to whether they call their language Hindi or the actual name of their language. As defined in the 1991 census, Hindi has a broad and a narrow sense. The term "Hindi" is thus ambiguous. Before being identified as a separate language,Maithili was identified by the census as a Hindi dialect. Many such languages still struggle for recognition.
The broad sense covers a number ofCentral,East-Central,Eastern, andNorthern Indo-Aryan languages, including theBihari languages exceptMaithili, all theRajasthani languages, theCentral Pahari languages and mostWestern Pahari languages.[8] This is an area bounded on the west byPunjabi andSindhi; on the south byGujarati,Marathi, andOdia; on the east byMaithili andBengali; and on the north byNepali,Dogri,Kashmiri andTibetic languages. The varieties of this belt are usually considered separate languages, as opposed to dialects of a single language as considered by the Indian census.
In a middle sense, Hindi is equated with theCentral Indo-Aryan languages. Based on their linguistic features, these are divided intoWestern andEastern Hindi languages. The narrowest definition of Hindi is that of the official language,Modern Standard Hindi, astandardisedregister a Western Hindi language spoken aroundDelhi andWestern UP. Standardised Hindustani—including both Standard Hindi and Urdu—is historically based on theKhariboli of 17th-centuryDelhi.
Population data from 2011 Indian Census is as follows:
According to the 2001 Indian census,[14] 258 million people in India (25% of the population) regarded theirnative language to be "Hindi", however, including other languages considered by the census as Hindi, this figure becomes 422 million Hindi speakers (41% of the population). These figures do not count 52 million Indians who considered their mother tongue to be "Urdu", which is informally mutually intelligible with Hindi. The numbers are also not directly comparable to the table above; for example, while independent estimates in 2001 counted 37 million speakers of Awadhi,[15] in the 2001 census only 2½ million of these identified their language as "Awadhi" rather than as "Hindi".
There have been demands to includeAwadhi,Bhojpuri,Kumaoni,Bundeli,Chhattisgarhi,Garhwali,Kudmali/Kurmali,Magahi,Nagpuri, andRajasthani in theEighth Schedule; these are otherwise regarded as dialects of Hindi by the government, although they have varying levels of mutual intelligibility with standard Hindi.[16] Some academics oppose inclusion of Hindi dialects in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution as full-fledged Indian languages. According to them recognition of Hindi dialects as separate languages would deprive Hindi of millions of its speakers and eventually no Hindi will be left.[17][18]
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Much of the Hindi spoken outside of the subcontinent is distinct from the Indian standard language.Fiji Hindi is a derived form of Awadhi, Bhojpuri, and including some English and very few nativeFijian words. It is spoken by majority ofIndo-Fijians. In Mauritius,Bhojpuri is the most commonly spoken Indian language. Once widely spoken as a mother tongue at 31.7% in 1972,[19] it has become less commonly spoken over the years. According to the 2022 census,[20] Bhojpuri was the most commonly spoken language at home for only 5.1% of the population, though the per cent of the population fluent in the language is likely still around 36.7%, according to Anjani Murdan of the Mauritius Times.[21]
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The highly fertile, flat, alluvial Gangetic plain occupies the northern portion of the Hindi Heartland, the Vindhyas in Madhya Pradesh demarcate the southern boundary and the hills and dense forests of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh lie in the east. The region has a predominantly subtropical climate, with cool winters, hot summers and moderate monsoons. The climate does vary with latitude somewhat, with winters getting cooler and rainfall decreasing. It can vary significantly with altitude, especially in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.
The Hindi Heartland supports about a third of India's population and occupies about a quarter of its geographical area. The population is concentrated along the fertile Ganges plain in the states ofUttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh,Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand andBihar.
Although the vast majority of the population is rural, significant urban cities includeChandigarh,Panchkula,Delhi,Lucknow,Kanpur,Raipur,Allahabad,Jaipur,Agra,Varanasi,Indore,Bhopal,Patna,Jamshedpur andRanchi. The region hosts a diverse population, with various dialects of Hindi being spoken along with other Indian languages, and multi-religious population includingHindus,Muslims,Sikhs along with people from various castes and a significanttribal population.
Political development and climate in these states since Indian independence has been dominated bycaste andcreed based politics.[22] Politically these states has been mostly been dominated by mainstreamnational parties likeCongress andBJP for the past few decades. They also have been crucial for winningnational elections due to their relatively large population size and political influence.[23]
... In the Hindi heartland ...
... located in what is called the "Hindi heartland" or the "Hindi belt" of north and central India ...
In the 'Hindi-Urdu belt' also these variations are visible