Language: Hindi
When I was an infant, both my paternal and maternal grandparents lived with us. With their presence, I began to speak and understand basic Hindi, the language of Hindustan or India, and Kannada, a Dravidian language spoken in Karnataka. As a toddler, I asked my grandma for another paratha in Kannada and watched the Indian cricket team with my grandpa. Unfortunately, I can no longer speak Hindi or Kannada with proficiency.
After we grew up, my sister and I did not need our grandparents to stay with us, so they returned to India. When I began attending school, I stopped speaking Hindi and my parents got used to only speaking English to us. Now, at sixteen years old, I can barely hold a conversation in Hindi. It never seemed like such a big deal, but when I got older and began visiting India more and more often, I was disappointed that my grandmother and I were forced to have such rudimentary conversations or that we didn’t speak at all.
Hindi, an Indo-European language sharing its roots with many Germanic dialects, is the official language of India, a country with 150 actively spoken languages. English has incorporated many words of Hindi origin into its vocabulary like guru, nirvana, and pajamas. Most of its vocabulary is derived from Sanskrit, but several words are similar to Urdu, spoken primarily in Pakistan. Hindi is read from left to right similar to English, while Urdu and Persian languages are read from right to left. It is written in Devanagari script like so, हिंदी (Hindi). Words are written exactly as they are pronounced, making writing Hindi very simple. Even though I may not know what words mean, I know most of the Hindi characters and can write sentences correctly. Devanagari script does not have the concept of uppercase and lowercase. Hindi does not have articles such as “the” or “a.” It does have 42 consonants, 11 vowels, and 10 digits. Each consonant has an inherited vowel “e”, which remains silent. When two consonants are joined together, the inherited vowel from the first consonant is chopped off: for example, kya. Kya is the Hindi word for “why.” In this case, ka and ya are joined together. And, the sentence structure is different from English. Verbs come at the end of sentences. For example, आप कैसे हैं [aap kaise hain] mean “How are you?” If it is translated word for word, it becomes “You how are.” Similarly, मैं अच्छा हूँ [main achchha hoon], “I am fine,” becomes “I fine am.” I can converse with my cousins in a mix of Hindi and English. Typical words I remember and use are bindaas – chill, pyaar – love, and suvaar – stupid.
The roots of Hindi are extensive and fascinating. If I could study this wonderful language at great lengths, I could converse and connect with my huge extended family in India, travel around India alone and expose myself to the great diversity in a country many deem as homogeneous.
Misra is a high school junior from Livingston, NJ.
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