Hindi

language · India · spoken by millions

Official language of India. Hindi is an official language of the Indian government and is the main way people communicate across northern India, even when they speak different regional languages at home.

Written in Devanagari. Hindi uses a special alphabet called Devanagari script, which looks quite different from English letters and has its own unique symbols and rules.

Hundreds of millions of speakers. More people speak Hindi as their first or second language than speak English, making it one of the most widely used languages on Earth.

Part of Indo-Aryan family. Hindi belongs to a large group of languages called Indo-Aryan that includes English, Spanish, and many others spoken across Europe, Asia, and beyond.

A lingua franca. When people from different regions of northern India meet and don't share the same local language, they often use Hindi to understand each other.