Heavily influenced by Persian, Hindi evolved from Hindustani.

The etymology of Hindi comes from the Persian word Hind, meaning the Indus River.

Hindi is the 4th most spoken language in the world as a mother tongue, and 3rd when counting all speakers.

Hindi is the official language of India, alongside English.

Hindi does not have articles for “a” or “the.”

Hindi has masculine and feminine nouns, similar to Spanish or Italian.

The majority of loanwords in Hindi come from Persian, Arabic, and English.

Hindi is mutually intelligible with Urdu.

Hindi words that have entered English include yoga, karma, bungalow, jungle, and guru.

One of the first notable Hindi books was Prem Sagar by Lallu Lal in 1805.

The first commercial-style writers in Hindi appeared in the 1930s.

The Hindi alphabet is called Varnmala, meaning “garland of letters.”

The word kal can mean either “yesterday” or “tomorrow.”

Hindi often uses verbs in forms that repeat for emphasis, such as “gave-gave” or “did-did.”