Select languages...
Hindi linguistic data
Select languages above to compare their features side by side
Common questions about Hindi
What linguistic data does this Hindi page show?
Word order, tone, gender count, case marking, adposition direction, syllable structure, consonant inventory traits, vowel system, morphological alignment, script, register stratification, speaker count, and geographic area. Each row is one feature with Hindi's value visible; you can add other languages to read the same feature side by side.
Where do the Hindi data points come from?
Typological features are merged from URIEL+ (Mortensen et al.) and a curated set authored against descriptive grammars. Speaker counts come from Ethnologue and Glottolog. Geographic area is computed from the Asher 2007 world language atlas. Similarity scores combine genetic distance, typological overlap, and lexical-borrowing data.
What is the relationship between Hindi and Urdu?
At the spoken-colloquial level, Hindi and Urdu are mutually intelligible — speakers consider them registers of a single Hindustani vernacular. They diverge on script (Devanagari vs Perso-Arabic), high-register vocabulary (Sanskrit-sourced for formal Hindi, Persian/Arabic-sourced for formal Urdu), and prestige domains (Hindi in India, Urdu in Pakistan and among Indian Muslims).
What is split ergativity in Hindi?
In the past tense of transitive verbs, Hindi flips the agreement pattern: the subject takes the postposition ने ne (ergative case) and the verb agrees with the object instead of the subject. राम ने रोटी खाई (Ram-ERG bread.F.SG eat.PFV.F.SG, 'Ram ate bread'). Present and intransitive past don't trigger this split.
Why does Hindi have such a high similarity score with Marathi or Punjabi?
All three are Indo-Aryan languages descended from Sanskrit-era prakrits, share the SOV/postposition/split-ergative typology, and (for Hindi-Marathi) Devanagari script. Vocabulary overlap is heavy at the formal/Sanskritic register. They diverge on phonology (Marathi's three genders, Punjabi's tones) and verb morphology. The factor breakdown chip on the row tells you which dimensions contributed most.
Sources for Hindi
The grammatical descriptions on this page are informed by the following published reference and descriptive grammars. Grammatical facts themselves are not subject to copyright; the scholars who documented them deserve attribution.
- Kachru, Yamuna (2006). Hindi. Amsterdam: John Benjamins (London Oriental and African Language Library 12).
- Shapiro, Michael C. (2003). Hindi. In G. Cardona & D. Jain (eds.), The Indo-Aryan Languages, pp. 250–285. London: Routledge.
- McGregor, R. S. (1995). Outline of Hindi Grammar, 3rd ed. Oxford University Press.
- Snell, Rupert & Weightman, Simon (2003). Teach Yourself Hindi, 4th ed. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
- Mohanan, Tara (1994). Argument Structure in Hindi. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.