1.
Hindi (disambiguation)
–
In a slightly broader sense, Hindi is spoken Hindustani, as used for example in Hindi Cinema. In this sense Hindi is essentially the same as Urdu, in an intermediate sense, Hindi is the Central Zone dialects of Western Hindi and Eastern Hindi. In the widest sense, Hindi covers the varieties of the so-called Hindi belt, Western Hindi, Eastern Hindi, Bihari, Pahari. Historically, Hindi may refer to any Central-Zone Indic literary dialect, including Urdu, Braj Bhasha, Bhojpuri, and Awadhi. The term Hindi may also refer to, Bombay Hindi Haflong Hindi Fiji Hindi Urdu Caribbean Hindustani The word Hindi is cognate with Hind, Hindu, Indus, India, Indian, Sindhi, Sindh, in Persian and Arabic languages, the word Hindi means Indian. History of Hindustani Hindi literature Hindi cinema
Hindi (disambiguation)
–
Hindustani proper (red), including
Khari Boli and
Kauravi. Dark grey are the other
Indo-Aryan languages.
2.
Hindi belt
–
The Hindi Belt or Hindi Heartland is a loosely defined linguistic region in north-central India where varieties of Hindi in the broadest sense are widely spoken. Hindi, in the sense, is that part of the Indo-Aryan dialect continuum that lies within the cultural Hindi Belt in the northern plains of India. In the words of Masica, these are the regional languages of the Hindi area. Hindi in this sense is an ethnic rather than a linguistic concept. As defined in the 1991 census, Hindi has a broad, the name Hindi is thus ambiguous. This is an area bounded on the northwest by Punjabi, on the west by Sindhi, on the south by Gujarati, Marathi and Odia, on the east by Maithili and Bengali, and on the north by Nepali. Linguistically, the varieties of this area can be considered separate languages rather than dialects of a single language, in the narrow sense, the Hindi languages proper, Hindi can be equated with the Central Zone Indic languages. These are conventionally divided into Western Hindi and Eastern Hindi, an even narrower definition of Hindi is that of the official language, Modern Standard Hindi or Manak Hindi, a standardised register of Hindustani, one of the varieties of Western Hindi. Standardised Hindustani—including both Manak Hindi and Urdu—is historically based on the Khariboli dialect of 17th-century Delhi and these figures do not count 52 million Indians who considered their mother tongue to be Urdu. Much of the Hindi spoken outside of the subcontinent is quite distinct from the Indian standard language, most Pakistani speakers, and some Muslim Indian speakers, call their version of Hindustani Urdu rather than Hindi or Hindustani. Religious proponents both of Hindi and of Urdu often contend that they are two separate languages despite their mutual intelligibility, mauritian Hindi is spoken in Mauritius. It is based on Bhojpuri and influenced by French, sarnami is a form of Bhojpuri with Awadhi influence. It spoken by Surinamese of Indian descent, fiji Hindi is a derived form of Awadhi, Bhojpuri and including many English and native Fijian words. It is spoken by Fijians of Indian descent, Trinidad Hindi is based on Bhojpuri and is spoken in Trinidad and Tobago by people of Indian descent. South African Hindi is based on Bhojpuri and is spoken in South Africa by people of Indian descent, 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 it can vary significantly with altitude, especially in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. The Hindi Heartland supports about a third of Indias population and occupies about a quarter of its geographical area, the population is concentrated along the fertile Ganges plain in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar. Over years political development in some of states are dominated by caste based politics
Hindi belt
–
The Hindi Belt, where varieties of
Hindi in the broadest sense are spoken.
3.
Hindu
–
Hindu refers to any person who regards themselves as culturally, ethnically, or religiously adhering to aspects of Hinduism. It has historically used as a geographical, cultural, or religious identifier for people indigenous to South Asia. The historical meaning of the term Hindu has evolved with time, by the 16th century, the term began to refer to residents of India who were not Turks or Muslims. The historical development of Hindu self-identity within the Indian population, in a religious or cultural sense, is unclear, competing theories state that Hindu identity developed in the British colonial era, or that it developed post-8th century CE after the Islamic invasion and medieval Hindu-Muslim wars. A sense of Hindu identity and the term Hindu appears in texts dated between the 13th and 18th century in Sanskrit and regional languages. The 14th- and 18th-century Indian poets such as Vidyapati, Kabir and Eknath used the phrase Hindu dharma, the Christian friar Sebastiao Manrique used the term Hindu in religious context in 1649. In the 18th century, the European merchants and colonists began to refer to the followers of Indian religions collectively as Hindus, in contrast to Mohamedans for Mughals, scholars state that the custom of distinguishing between Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs is a modern phenomenon. Hindoo is a spelling variant, whose use today may be considered derogatory. At more than 1.03 billion, Hindus are the third largest group after Christians. The vast majority of Hindus, approximately 966 million, live in India, according to Indias 2011 census. After India, the next 9 countries with the largest Hindu populations are, in decreasing order, Nepal, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, United States, Malaysia, United Kingdom and Myanmar. These together accounted for 99% of the worlds Hindu population, the word Hindu is derived from the Indo-Aryan and Sanskrit word Sindhu, which means a large body of water, covering river, ocean. It was used as the name of the Indus river and also referred to its tributaries, the Punjab region, called Sapta Sindhava in the Vedas, is called Hapta Hindu in Zend Avesta. The 6th-century BCE inscription of Darius I mentions the province of Hidush, the people of India were referred to as Hinduvān and hindavī was used as the adjective for Indian in the 8th century text Chachnama. The term Hindu in these ancient records is an ethno-geographical term, the Arabic equivalent Al-Hind likewise referred to the country of India. Among the earliest known records of Hindu with connotations of religion may be in the 7th-century CE Chinese text Record of the Western Regions by the Buddhist scholar Xuanzang, Xuanzang uses the transliterated term In-tu whose connotation overflows in the religious according to Arvind Sharma. The Hindu community occurs as the amorphous Other of the Muslim community in the court chronicles, wilfred Cantwell Smith notes that Hindu retained its geographical reference initially, Indian, indigenous, local, virtually native. Slowly, the Indian groups themselves started using the term, differentiating themselves, the poet Vidyapatis poem Kirtilata contrasts the cultures of Hindus and Turks in a city and concludes The Hindus and the Turks live close together, Each makes fun of the others religion
Hindu
–
A Hindu wedding ritual in India.
Hindu
–
Hindu culture in Bali,
Indonesia. The Krishna-Arjuna sculpture inspired by the
Bhagavad Gita in
Denpasar (top), and Hindu dancers in traditional dress.
Hindu
Hindu
–
Hindus at
Har Ki Pauri,
Haridwar near river
Ganges in
Uttarakhand state of India.
4.
Devanagari script
–
Devanagari, also called Nagari, is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal. It is written left to right, has a strong preference for symmetrical rounded shapes within squared outlines. The Nagari script has roots in the ancient Brāhmī script family, the Nagari script was in regular use by the 7th century CE and it was fully developed by about the end of first millennium. Nagari has been the primus inter pares of the Indic scripts, the Devanagari script is also used for classical Sanskrit texts. The Devanagari script is closely related to the Nandinagari script commonly found in ancient manuscripts of South India. Devanagari script has forty-seven primary characters, of which fourteen are vowels, the ancient Nagari script for Sanskrit had two additional consonantal characters. The script has no distinction similar to the capital and small letters of the Latin alphabet, generally the orthography of the script reflects the pronunciation of the language. Devanagari is part of the Brahmic family of scripts of India, Nepal, Tibet and it is a descendant of the Gupta script, along with Siddham and Sharada. Medieval inscriptions suggest widespread diffusion of the Nagari-related scripts, with biscripts presenting local script along with the adoption of Nagari scripts, the 7th-century Tibetan king Srong-tsan-gambo ordered that all foreign books be transcribed into the Tibetan language. Other closely related scripts such as Siddham Matrka was in use in Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan, Sharada remained in parallel use in Kashmir. Nāgarī is the Sanskrit feminine of Nāgara relating or belonging to a town or city and it is a phrasing with lipi as nāgarī lipi script relating to a city, or spoken in city. The use of the name devanāgarī is relatively recent, and the older term nāgarī is still common, the rapid spread of the term devanāgarī may be related to the almost exclusive use of this script to publish Sanskrit texts in print since the 1870s. As a Brahmic abugida, the principle of Devanagari is that each letter represents a consonant. This is usually written in Latin as a, though it is represented as in the International Phonetic Alphabet, the letter क is read ka, the two letters कन are kana, the three कनय are kanaya, etc. This cancels the inherent vowel, so that from क्नय knaya is derived क्नय् knay, the halant is often used for consonant clusters when typesetting conjunct ligatures is not feasible. Consonant clusters are written with ligatures, for example, the three consonants क्, न्, and य्, when written consecutively without virāma form कनय, as shown above. Alternatively, they may be joined as clusters to form क्नय knaya, कन्य kanya and this system was originally created for use with the Middle Indo-Aryan languages, which have a very limited number of clusters. When applied to Sanskrit, however, it added a deal of complexity to the script
Devanagari script
–
A 19th century
Rigveda manuscript in Devanagari.
Devanagari script
–
Devanagiri script (vowels top, consonants bottom) in Chandas font
Devanagari script
–
Devanagari text from Vayu Purana.
Devanagari script
–
Devanagari देवनागरी
5.
Northern India
–
North India is a loosely defined region consisting of the northern part of India. The dominant geographical features of North India are the Indus-Gangetic Plain and the Himalayas, other states sometimes included are Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Gujarat and West Bengal. North India has been the centre of the Mughal, Delhi Sultanate. The languages that have official status in one or more of the states and union territories located in North India are Hindi, Sanskrit, Urdu, Punjabi, Kashmiri/Koshur, Dogri, different authorities and sources define North India differently. The Northern Zonal Council is one of the councils, created in 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act to foster inter-state cooperation. It differs from the North Cultural Zone in its inclusion of Delhi, in contrast, the Geological Survey of India included Uttar Pradesh and Delhi in its Northern Region, but excluded Rajasthan and Chandigarh, with a regional headquarters in Lucknow. North Indian states which are entirely above the Tropic of Cancer are Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The term North Indian is sometimes used to people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, often using the term bhaiya in a derogatory sense. In Punjab, people from the region are often referred to as Purabias. Some publications of the Government of Bihar place that state in the part of India as well. Within Uttar Pradesh itself, the divide between the east and the west is considerable, with the purabiyas often being clubbed with Biharis in the perception of the westerners. One demarcation between northern and southern nations has been the Vindhya mountain range, in centuries past this sometimes formed a border during periods of imperial expansion, such as the one ruled by the Gupta emperor Samudragupta. The Vindhyas also find mention in the narrative of Rishi Agastya as a dividing feature between North and South India, the Manusmṛti also describes the southern limit of Aryavarta as being defined by the Vindhya range. North India lies mainly on continental India, north of peninsular India, towards its north are the Himalayas which define the boundary between the Indian subcontinent and the Tibetan plateau. To its west is the Thar desert, shared between North India and Pakistan and the Aravalli Range, beyond lies the state of Gujarat. The Vindhya mountains are, in some interpretations, taken to be the boundary of North India. The state of Madhya Pradesh has large areas under forest cover, as do Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, North India lies mainly in the north temperate zone of the Earth. Though cool or cold winters, hot summers and moderate monsoons are the general pattern, North India is one of the most climatically diverse regions on Earth
Northern India
–
Shilla (7026 m) above the
Spiti Valley in Himachal Pradesh
Northern India
–
States in the North and North Central Zones of India, as defined by the Indian Government.
Northern India
–
The
Thar desert near Jaisalmer, Rajasthan
Northern India
–
Chinkara in
Madhya Pradesh, India
6.
Hindi Belt
–
The Hindi Belt or Hindi Heartland is a loosely defined linguistic region in north-central India where varieties of Hindi in the broadest sense are widely spoken. Hindi, in the sense, is that part of the Indo-Aryan dialect continuum that lies within the cultural Hindi Belt in the northern plains of India. In the words of Masica, these are the regional languages of the Hindi area. Hindi in this sense is an ethnic rather than a linguistic concept. As defined in the 1991 census, Hindi has a broad, the name Hindi is thus ambiguous. This is an area bounded on the northwest by Punjabi, on the west by Sindhi, on the south by Gujarati, Marathi and Odia, on the east by Maithili and Bengali, and on the north by Nepali. Linguistically, the varieties of this area can be considered separate languages rather than dialects of a single language, in the narrow sense, the Hindi languages proper, Hindi can be equated with the Central Zone Indic languages. These are conventionally divided into Western Hindi and Eastern Hindi, an even narrower definition of Hindi is that of the official language, Modern Standard Hindi or Manak Hindi, a standardised register of Hindustani, one of the varieties of Western Hindi. Standardised Hindustani—including both Manak Hindi and Urdu—is historically based on the Khariboli dialect of 17th-century Delhi and these figures do not count 52 million Indians who considered their mother tongue to be Urdu. Much of the Hindi spoken outside of the subcontinent is quite distinct from the Indian standard language, most Pakistani speakers, and some Muslim Indian speakers, call their version of Hindustani Urdu rather than Hindi or Hindustani. Religious proponents both of Hindi and of Urdu often contend that they are two separate languages despite their mutual intelligibility, mauritian Hindi is spoken in Mauritius. It is based on Bhojpuri and influenced by French, sarnami is a form of Bhojpuri with Awadhi influence. It spoken by Surinamese of Indian descent, fiji Hindi is a derived form of Awadhi, Bhojpuri and including many English and native Fijian words. It is spoken by Fijians of Indian descent, Trinidad Hindi is based on Bhojpuri and is spoken in Trinidad and Tobago by people of Indian descent. South African Hindi is based on Bhojpuri and is spoken in South Africa by people of Indian descent, 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 it can vary significantly with altitude, especially in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. The Hindi Heartland supports about a third of Indias population and occupies about a quarter of its geographical area, the population is concentrated along the fertile Ganges plain in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar. Over years political development in some of states are dominated by caste based politics
Hindi Belt
–
The Hindi Belt, where varieties of
Hindi in the broadest sense are spoken.
7.
L2 speakers
–
A persons second language or L2, is a language that is not the native language of the speaker, but that is used in the locale of that person. In contrast, a language is a language that is learned in an area where that language is not generally spoken. Some languages, often called auxiliary languages, are used primarily as second languages or linguas franca, more informally, a second language can be said to be any language learned in addition to ones native language, especially in the context of second language acquisition. A persons first language is not necessarily their dominant language, the one they use most or are most comfortable with and this can happen when young children move, with or without their family, to a new language environment. The distinction between acquiring and learning was made by Stephen Krashen as part of his Monitor Theory, according to Krashen, the acquisition of a language is a natural process, whereas learning a language is a conscious one. In the former, the student needs to partake in natural communicative situations, in the latter, error correction is present, as is the study of grammatical rules isolated from natural language. Not all educators in second language agree to this distinction, however, research in SLA. focuses on the developing knowledge and use of a language by children and adults who already know at least one other language. SLA has been influenced by linguistic and psychological theories. One of the dominant linguistic theories hypothesizes that a device or module of sorts in the brain contains innate knowledge, many psychological theories, on the other hand, hypothesize that cognitive mechanisms, responsible for much of human learning, process language. These theories have all influenced second-language teaching and pedagogy, there are many different methods of second-language teaching, many of which stem directly from a particular theory. Some of these approaches are more popular than others, and are viewed to be more effective, most language teachers do not use one singular style, but will use a mix in their teaching. This provides a balanced approach to teaching and helps students of a variety of learning styles succeed. The defining difference between a first language and a language is the age the person learned the language. For example, linguist Eric Lenneberg used second language to mean a language consciously acquired or used by its speaker after puberty, in most cases, people never achieve the same level of fluency and comprehension in their second languages as in their first language. These views are closely associated with the critical period hypothesis, in acquiring an L2, Hyltenstam found that around the age of six or seven seemed to be a cut-off point for bilinguals to achieve native-like proficiency. After that age, L2 learners could get near-native-like-ness but their language would, the inability of some subjects to achieve native-like proficiency must be seen in relation to the age of onset. “The age of 6 or 8 does seem to be an important period in distinguishing between near-native and native-like ultimate attainment, more specifically, it may be suggested that AO interacts with frequency and intensity of language use”. Furthermore, they discuss a number of cases where a native-like L2 was acquired during adulthood, as we are learning more and more about the brain, there is a hypothesis that when a child is going through puberty, that is the time that accents start
L2 speakers
–
Blackboard used in
class at
Harvard shows
students ' efforts at placing the
diaeresis and
acute accent diacritics used in
Spanish orthography.
L2 speakers
–
A German student learning French.
English (1.5 billion learners),
French (82 million learners) and
Chinese (30 million learners) are the three most commonly studied foreign languages.
L2 speakers
–
High school Spanish taught as a second
language to a class of native
English speakers at an
American private school in
Massachusetts.
8.
Language family
–
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestral language or parental language, called the proto-language of that family. Linguists therefore describe the languages within a language family as being genetically related. Estimates of the number of living languages vary from 5,000 to 8,000, depending on the precision of ones definition of language, the 2013 edition of Ethnologue catalogs just over 7,000 living human languages. A living language is one that is used as the primary form of communication of a group of people. There are also dead and extinct languages, as well as some that are still insufficiently studied to be classified. Membership of languages in a family is established by comparative linguistics. Sister languages are said to have a genetic or genealogical relationship, speakers of a language family belong to a common speech community. The divergence of a proto-language into daughter languages typically occurs through geographical separation, individuals belonging to other speech communities may also adopt languages from a different language family through the language shift process. Genealogically related languages present shared retentions, that is, features of the proto-language that cannot be explained by chance or borrowing, for example, Germanic languages are Germanic in that they share vocabulary and grammatical features that are not believed to have been present in the Proto-Indo-European language. These features are believed to be innovations that took place in Proto-Germanic, language families can be divided into smaller phylogenetic units, conventionally referred to as branches of the family because the history of a language family is often represented as a tree diagram. A family is a unit, all its members derive from a common ancestor. Some taxonomists restrict the term family to a level. Those who affix such labels also subdivide branches into groups, a top-level family is often called a phylum or stock. The closer the branches are to other, the closer the languages will be related. For example, the Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Romance, there is a remarkably similar pattern shown by the linguistic tree and the genetic tree of human ancestry that was verified statistically. Languages interpreted in terms of the phylogenetic tree of human languages are transmitted to a great extent vertically as opposed to horizontally. A speech variety may also be considered either a language or a dialect depending on social or political considerations, thus, different sources give sometimes wildly different accounts of the number of languages within a family. Classifications of the Japonic family, for example, range from one language to nearly twenty, most of the worlds languages are known to be related to others
Language family
–
Principal language families of the world (and in some cases geographic groups of families). For greater detail, see
Distribution of languages in the world.
9.
Indo-European languages
–
The Indo-European languages are a language family of several hundred related languages and dialects. There are about 445 living Indo-European languages, according to the estimate by Ethnologue, the most widely spoken Indo-European languages by native speakers are Spanish, English, Hindustani, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, and Punjabi, each with over 100 million speakers. Today, 46% of the population speaks an Indo-European language as a first language. The Indo-European family includes most of the languages of Europe, and parts of Western, Central. It was also predominant in ancient Anatolia, the ancient Tarim Basin and most of Central Asia until the medieval Turkic migrations, all Indo-European languages are descendants of a single prehistoric language, reconstructed as Proto-Indo-European, spoken sometime in the Neolithic era. Several disputed proposals link Indo-European to other language families. In the 16th century, European visitors to the Indian subcontinent began to notice similarities among Indo-Aryan, Iranian, in 1583, English Jesuit missionary Thomas Stephens in Goa wrote a letter to his brother in which he noted similarities between Indian languages and Greek and Latin. Another account to mention the ancient language Sanskrit came from Filippo Sassetti, a merchant born in Florence in 1540, writing in 1585, he noted some word similarities between Sanskrit and Italian. However, neither Stephens nor Sassettis observations led to further scholarly inquiry and he included in his hypothesis Dutch, Albanian, Greek, Latin, Persian, and German, later adding Slavic, Celtic, and Baltic languages. However, Van Boxhorns suggestions did not become known and did not stimulate further research. Ottoman Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi visited Vienna in 1665–1666 as part of a diplomatic mission, gaston Coeurdoux and others made observations of the same type. Coeurdoux made a comparison of Sanskrit, Latin and Greek conjugations in the late 1760s to suggest a relationship among them. Thomas Young first used the term Indo-European in 1813, deriving from the extremes of the language family. A synonym is Indo-Germanic, specifying the familys southeasternmost and northwesternmost branches, a number of other synonymous terms have also been used. Franz Bopps Comparative Grammar appeared between 1833 and 1852 and marks the beginning of Indo-European studies as an academic discipline, the classical phase of Indo-European comparative linguistics leads from this work to August Schleichers 1861 Compendium and up to Karl Brugmanns Grundriss, published in the 1880s. Brugmanns neogrammarian reevaluation of the field and Ferdinand de Saussures development of the theory may be considered the beginning of modern Indo-European studies. This led to the laryngeal theory, a major step forward in Indo-European linguistics. Isolated terms in Luwian/Hittite mentioned in Semitic Old Assyrian texts from the 20th and 19th centuries BC, Hittite texts from about 1650 BC, Armenian, writing known from the beginning of the 5th century AD
Indo-European languages
–
Franz Bopp, pioneer in the field of comparative linguistic studies.
Indo-European languages
10.
Indo-Iranian languages
–
The Indo-Iranian languages, or Indo-Iranic languages, constitute the largest and easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European language family. It has more than 1 billion speakers, stretching from the Caucasus and the Balkans eastward to Xinjiang and Assam, the common ancestor of all of the languages in this family is called Proto-Indo-Iranian—also known as Common Aryan—which was spoken in approximately the late 3rd millennium BC. The three branches of modern Indo-Iranian languages are Indo-Aryan, Iranian, and Nuristani, additionally, sometimes a fourth independent branch, Dardic, is posited, but recent scholarship in general places Dardic languages as archaic members of the Indo-Aryan branch. Among the Iranian branch, major languages are Persian, Pashto, Kurdish, the Indo-Iranian languages derive from a reconstructed common proto-language, called Proto-Indo-Iranian. The oldest attested Indo-Iranian languages are Vedic Sanskrit, Older and Younger Avestan, a few words from another Indo-Aryan language are attested in documents from the ancient Mitanni kingdom in northern Mesopotamia and Syria and the Hittite kingdom in Anatolia. A comparative study of Santali and Bengali, ISBN 81-7074-128-9 Nicholas Sims-Williams, ed. Indo-Iranian Languages and Peoples. Swadesh lists of Indo-Iranian basic vocabulary words
Indo-Iranian languages
11.
Indo-Aryan languages
–
The Indo-Aryan or Indic languages are the dominant language family of the Indian subcontinent. They constitute a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family, Indo-Aryan speakers form about one half of all Indo-European speakers, and more than half of all Indo-European languages recognized by Ethnologue. While the languages are spoken in South Asia, pockets of Indo-Aryan languages are found to be spoken in Europe. The largest in terms of speakers are Hindustani, Bengali, Punjabi. Proto-Indo-Aryan, or sometimes Proto-Indic, is the reconstructed proto-language of the Indo-Aryan languages and it is intended to reconstruct the language of the Proto-Indo-Aryans. Proto-Indo-Aryan is meant to be the predecessor of Old Indo-Aryan which is attested as Vedic. Despite the great archaicity of Vedic, however, the other Indo-Aryan languages preserve a number of archaic features lost in Vedic. Vedic has been used in the ancient preserved religious hymns, the canon of Hinduism known as the Vedas. Mitanni-Aryan is of age to the language of the Rigveda. The language of the Vedas – commonly referred to as Vedic Sanskrit by modern scholars – is only marginally different from Proto-Indo-Aryan the proto-language of the Indo-Aryan languages. From the Vedic, Sanskrit developed as the language of culture, science and religion, as well as the court, theatre. Sanskrit is, by convention, referred to by scholars as Classical Sanskrit in contra-distinction to the so-called Vedic Sanskrit. Outside the learned sphere of Sanskrit, vernacular dialects continued to evolve, the oldest attested Prakrits are the Buddhist and Jain canonical languages Pali and Ardha Magadhi, respectively. By medieval times, the Prakrits had diversified into various Middle Indo-Aryan dialects, Apabhramsa is the conventional cover term for transitional dialects connecting late Middle Indo-Aryan with early Modern Indo-Aryan, spanning roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. Some of these dialects showed considerable literary production, the Sravakachar of Devasena is now considered to be the first Hindi book, the next major milestone occurred with the Muslim conquests on the Indian subcontinent in the 13th–16th centuries. Under the flourishing Turco-Mongol Mughal empire, Persian became very influential as the language of prestige of the Islamic courts due to adoptation of the language by the Mughal emperors. However, Persian was soon displaced by Hindustani and this Indo-Aryan language is a combination with Persian, Arabic, and Turkic elements in its vocabulary, with the grammar of the local dialects. The two largest languages that formed from Apabhramsa were Bengali and Hindustani, others include Sindhi, Gujarati, Odia, Marathi, the Indo-Aryan languages of Northern India and Pakistan form a dialect continuum
Indo-Aryan languages
–
Dogri–Kangri region
Indo-Aryan languages
–
1978 map showing Geographical distribution of the major Indo-Aryan languages. (
Urdu is included under Hindi.
Romani,
Domari, and
Lomavren are outside the scope of the map.)
12.
Hindi languages
–
The Central Zone or Madhya languages are the central varieties of the Hindi Belt, spoken across northern India, of the Indo-Aryan languages. It is a continuum that descends from the Madhya Prakrits. The Western Hindi languages include Hindustani, of which Modern Standard Hindi and Urdu, are mutually intelligible standardizations of the Khariboli dialect, the coherence of this group depends on the classification being used, here only Eastern and Western Hindi will be considered. If there can be considered a consensus within the dialectology of Hindi proper, Western Hindi evolved from the Apabhramsa form of Shauraseni Prakrit, Eastern Hindi from Ardhamagadhi. Western HindiBraj Bhasha, spoken in western Uttar Pradesh and adjacent districts of Rajasthan and Haryana Haryanvi, spoken in the states of Haryana, bundeli, spoken in south-western Uttar Pradesh and west-central Madhya Pradesh. Kannauji, spoken in west-central Uttar Pradesh, Hindustani, including the standard vernacular dialect Khariboli, spoken in western Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. Eastern Hindi Awadhi, spoken in north and north-central Uttar Pradesh as well as Fiji, bagheli, spoken in north-central Madhya Pradesh and south-eastern Uttar Pradesh. Bihari Hindi, spoken in Bihar and Jharkhand Chhattisgarhi, spoken in southeast Madhya Pradesh and northern, romani, Domari, Lomavren, and Seb Seliyer appear to be Central Zone languages that migrated to the Middle East and Europe ca. 500–1000 CE in three distinct waves, parya is a Central Zone language of Central Asia. To Western Hindi Ethnologue adds Sansi, Powari, Chamari, Bhaya, Gowli and this analysis excludes varieties sometimes claimed for Hindi for cultural reasons, such as Bihari, Rajasthani, and Pahari. Urdu is the language of Pakistan. Although only the language of 7% of the population, it is nearly universal as a second language among the literate. Bombay Hindi, the dialect of the city of Mumbai, it is based on Hindustani, technically it is a pidgin, i. e. neither is it a native language of any people nor is it used in formal settings by the educated and upper social strata. However, it is used in the movies of Hindi cinema because Mumbai is the base of the Bollywood film industry. Dakhini, including Hyderabadi Urdu, and Bangalori Urdu, a dialect of Urdu spoken in the present areas of the erstwhile Hyderabad State, there is a small but distinct difference between Dakhini and standard Hindi-Urdu, which is bigger the further south it is spoken. Andaman Creole Hindi is a language of the Andaman Islands. Fiji Hindi is an Eastern Hindi lingua-franca that developed among Indo-Fijians, caribbean Hindustani is an Eastern Hindi lingua-franca that developed among Indo-Caribbeans, it is very similar to the Bhojpuri and Awadhi dialect of Hindi and to Fiji Hindi. There are also vowel clusters /əiː/ and /əuː/, Hindi, in Cardona, George, Jain, Dhanesh, The Indo-Aryan Languages, Routledge, pp. 250–285, ISBN 978-0-415-77294-5
Hindi languages
–
Hindi (Central Zone)
13.
Western Hindi
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The Central Zone or Madhya languages are the central varieties of the Hindi Belt, spoken across northern India, of the Indo-Aryan languages. It is a continuum that descends from the Madhya Prakrits. The Western Hindi languages include Hindustani, of which Modern Standard Hindi and Urdu, are mutually intelligible standardizations of the Khariboli dialect, the coherence of this group depends on the classification being used, here only Eastern and Western Hindi will be considered. If there can be considered a consensus within the dialectology of Hindi proper, Western Hindi evolved from the Apabhramsa form of Shauraseni Prakrit, Eastern Hindi from Ardhamagadhi. Western HindiBraj Bhasha, spoken in western Uttar Pradesh and adjacent districts of Rajasthan and Haryana Haryanvi, spoken in the states of Haryana, bundeli, spoken in south-western Uttar Pradesh and west-central Madhya Pradesh. Kannauji, spoken in west-central Uttar Pradesh, Hindustani, including the standard vernacular dialect Khariboli, spoken in western Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. Eastern Hindi Awadhi, spoken in north and north-central Uttar Pradesh as well as Fiji, bagheli, spoken in north-central Madhya Pradesh and south-eastern Uttar Pradesh. Bihari Hindi, spoken in Bihar and Jharkhand Chhattisgarhi, spoken in southeast Madhya Pradesh and northern, romani, Domari, Lomavren, and Seb Seliyer appear to be Central Zone languages that migrated to the Middle East and Europe ca. 500–1000 CE in three distinct waves, parya is a Central Zone language of Central Asia. To Western Hindi Ethnologue adds Sansi, Powari, Chamari, Bhaya, Gowli and this analysis excludes varieties sometimes claimed for Hindi for cultural reasons, such as Bihari, Rajasthani, and Pahari. Urdu is the language of Pakistan. Although only the language of 7% of the population, it is nearly universal as a second language among the literate. Bombay Hindi, the dialect of the city of Mumbai, it is based on Hindustani, technically it is a pidgin, i. e. neither is it a native language of any people nor is it used in formal settings by the educated and upper social strata. However, it is used in the movies of Hindi cinema because Mumbai is the base of the Bollywood film industry. Dakhini, including Hyderabadi Urdu, and Bangalori Urdu, a dialect of Urdu spoken in the present areas of the erstwhile Hyderabad State, there is a small but distinct difference between Dakhini and standard Hindi-Urdu, which is bigger the further south it is spoken. Andaman Creole Hindi is a language of the Andaman Islands. Fiji Hindi is an Eastern Hindi lingua-franca that developed among Indo-Fijians, caribbean Hindustani is an Eastern Hindi lingua-franca that developed among Indo-Caribbeans, it is very similar to the Bhojpuri and Awadhi dialect of Hindi and to Fiji Hindi. There are also vowel clusters /əiː/ and /əuː/, Hindi, in Cardona, George, Jain, Dhanesh, The Indo-Aryan Languages, Routledge, pp. 250–285, ISBN 978-0-415-77294-5
Western Hindi
–
Hindi (Central Zone)
14.
Hindustani language
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Hindustani, historically also known as Hindavi, Dehlvi and Rekhta, is the lingua franca of North India and Pakistan. It is an Indo-Aryan language, deriving primarily from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi, before the Partition of the British Indian Empire, the terms Hindustani, Urdu, and Hindi were synonymous, all covered what would be called Urdu and Hindi today. Hindustani is also spoken by a number of people in Mauritius. Early forms of present-day Hindustani developed from the Middle Indo-Aryan apabhramsha vernaculars of present-day North India in the 7th–13th centuries. Amir Khusro, who lived in the 13th century CE during the Delhi Sultanate period in North India, used these forms in his writings, the Delhi Sultanate, which comprised several Turkic and Afghan dynasties that ruled from Delhi, was succeeded by the Mughal Empire in 1526. The basis in general for the introduction of Persian language into the subcontinent was set, from its earliest days, by various Persianised Central Asian Turkic, the term Hindustani was the name given to that variant of Khariboli. For socio-political reasons, though essentially the variant of Khariboli with Persian vocabulary, the more highly Persianised version later established as a language of the court was called Rekhta, or mixed. As an emerging common dialect, Hindustani absorbed large numbers of Persian, Arabic, and Turkic words and its development was centred on the poets of the Mughal courts of cities in Uttar Pradesh such as Delhi, Lucknow, and Agra. He continued, But it has all the magnitude and importance of separate language and it is linguistic result of Mohammedan invasions of eleventh & twelfth centuries and is spoken by many Hindus in North India and by Musalman population in all parts of India. Next to English it was the language of British Indian Empire, was commonly written in Arabic or Persian characters. When the British colonised the Indian subcontinent from the late 18th through to the late 19th century, they used the words Hindustani, Hindi and they developed it as the language of administration of British India, further preparing it to be the official language of modern India and Pakistan. However, with independence, use of the word Hindustani declined, being replaced by Hindi and Urdu. It has a literature of 500 years, with prose, poetry, religion & philosophy, under the Bahmani Kings and it is a living language, still prevalent all over the Deccan Plateau. Note that the term Hindustani has generally fallen out of usage in modern India, except to refer to Indian as a nationality. The term used to refer to it is Hindi or Urdu, depending on the religion of the speaker, in common usage in India, the term Hindi includes all these dialects except those at the Urdu end of the spectrum. Urdu is the language of Pakistan and an officially recognised regional language of India. It is also a language in the Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir, National Capital Territory of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar. In a specific sense, Hindustani may be used to refer to the dialects and varieties used in speech, in contrast with the standardised Hindi
Hindustani language
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Rigveda manuscript in Devanagari (early 19th century)
Hindustani language
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Hindustani
Hindustani language
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Hindustani, in its standardised registers, is one of the official languages of both India (Hindi) and Pakistan (Urdu).
15.
Khariboli dialect
–
The term Khariboli has, however, been used for any literary dialect, including Braj Bhasa and Awadhi. As a dialect of Hindustani, Khariboli is a part of the Western group of the Central Zone of Indo-Aryan languages and it is spoken mainly in India in the rural area surrounding Delhi, Western Uttar Pradesh, and southern Uttarakhand. In academic literature, the term Kauravi is sometimes applied to the specific Khari dialect spoken in the parts of the Khari-speaking zone. Although Khariboli and Standard Hindustani differ dialectically, Standard Hindustani is sometimes referred to as Khariboli. Khariboli is believed to have initially developed contemporaneously with the neighboring Awadhi, Khari contains some features, such as gemination, which give it a distinctive sound and differentiates it from standard Hindustani, Braj and Awadhi. Khariboli is spoken in the surroundings of Delhi and northwestern Uttar Pradesh, as well as in some neighboring areas of Haryana. The geography of part of North India is traditionally described doabs. As the two main Hindustani dialects of Western Uttar Pradesh and the areas surrounding Delhi, Khariboli and Braj Bhasha are often compared, on the other hand, Khariboli supporters sometimes pejoratively referred to Braj Bhasha and other dialects as Pariboli. Although most linguists acknowledge that Modern Standard Hindustani descended from Khariboli, there are also variations within Khari itself across the area in which it is spoken. In the mid-twentieth century, Indian scholar and nationalist, Rahul Sankrityayan, Sankrityayan postulated that this Kaurvi dialect was the parent of Delhis specific Khari dialect. Sankrityayan had also advocated that all Hindustani be standardised on the Devanagari script, Khariboli is related to four standardised registers of Hindustani, Standard Hindi, Urdu, Dakhini and Rekhta. These standard registers together with Sansiboli form the Hindustani dialect group and this group together with Haryanvi, Kauravi, Braj Bhasha, Kanauji and Bundeli forms the Western Hindi dialect group. This view gradually gained ground over the 19th century, before that period, other such as Avadhi, Braj Bhasha. Hindvi later developed into Hindustani—which further diverged as Hindi and Urdu, although, as a dialect Khari boli belongs to upper Doab, however, Allahabad in lower Doab and Varanasi have been the literary centres of Khari boli in the form of standard Hindi. The earliest examples of Khariboli can be seen in the compositions of Amir Khusro, before the rise of Khariboli, the literary dialects of Hindi were the ones adopted by the Bhakti saints, Braj Bhasha, Awadhi and Maithili. However, after the Bhakti movement degenerated into ritualistic cults, these came to be regarded as rural. Khariboli, on the hand, was spoken in the urban area surrounding the Mughal courts. The Persian-influenced Khariboli thus gradually came to be regarded as a prestige dialect, the British administrators of India and the Christian missionaries played an important role in creation and promotion of the Khariboli-based Modern Standard Hindustani
Khariboli dialect
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Areas (red) where Khariboli/Kauravi is the native language
16.
Writing system
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A writing system is any conventional method of visually representing verbal communication. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a form of information storage. The processes of encoding and decoding writing systems involve shared understanding between writers and readers of the meaning behind the sets of characters that make up a script, the general attributes of writing systems can be placed into broad categories such as alphabets, syllabaries, or logographies. Any particular system can have attributes of more than one category, in the alphabetic category, there is a standard set of letters of consonants and vowels that encode based on the general principle that the letters represent speech sounds. In a syllabary, each symbol correlates to a syllable or mora, in a logography, each character represents a word, morpheme, or other semantic units. Other categories include abjads, which differ from alphabets in that vowels are not indicated, alphabets typically use a set of 20-to-35 symbols to fully express a language, whereas syllabaries can have 80-to-100, and logographies can have several hundreds of symbols. Systems will also enable the stringing together of these groupings in order to enable a full expression of the language. The reading step can be accomplished purely in the mind as an internal process, writing systems were preceded by proto-writing, which used pictograms, ideograms and other mnemonic symbols. Proto-writing lacked the ability to capture and express a range of thoughts. Soon after, writing provided a form of long distance communication. With the advent of publishing, it provided the medium for a form of mass communication. Writing systems are distinguished from other possible symbolic communication systems in that a system is always associated with at least one spoken language. In contrast, visual representations such as drawings, paintings, and non-verbal items on maps, such as contour lines, are not language-related. Some other symbols, such as numerals and the ampersand, are not directly linked to any specific language, every human community possesses language, which many regard as an innate and defining condition of humanity. However, the development of writing systems, and the process by which they have supplanted traditional oral systems of communication, have been sporadic, uneven, once established, writing systems generally change more slowly than their spoken counterparts. Thus they often preserve features and expressions which are no current in the spoken language. One of the benefits of writing systems is that they can preserve a permanent record of information expressed in a language. In the examination of individual scripts, the study of writing systems has developed along partially independent lines, thus, the terminology employed differs somewhat from field to field
Writing system
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Writing systems
Writing system
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Predominant national and selected regional or minority scripts
Writing system
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Chinese characters (漢字) are morpho-syllabic. Each one represents a syllable with a distinct meaning, but some characters may have multiple meanings or pronunciations
Writing system
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A Specimen of typefaces and styles, by
William Caslon, letter founder; from the 1728
Cyclopaedia
17.
Devanagari
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Devanagari, also called Nagari, is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal. It is written left to right, has a strong preference for symmetrical rounded shapes within squared outlines. The Nagari script has roots in the ancient Brāhmī script family, the Nagari script was in regular use by the 7th century CE and it was fully developed by about the end of first millennium. Nagari has been the primus inter pares of the Indic scripts, the Devanagari script is also used for classical Sanskrit texts. The Devanagari script is closely related to the Nandinagari script commonly found in ancient manuscripts of South India. Devanagari script has forty-seven primary characters, of which fourteen are vowels, the ancient Nagari script for Sanskrit had two additional consonantal characters. The script has no distinction similar to the capital and small letters of the Latin alphabet, generally the orthography of the script reflects the pronunciation of the language. Devanagari is part of the Brahmic family of scripts of India, Nepal, Tibet and it is a descendant of the Gupta script, along with Siddham and Sharada. Medieval inscriptions suggest widespread diffusion of the Nagari-related scripts, with biscripts presenting local script along with the adoption of Nagari scripts, the 7th-century Tibetan king Srong-tsan-gambo ordered that all foreign books be transcribed into the Tibetan language. Other closely related scripts such as Siddham Matrka was in use in Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan, Sharada remained in parallel use in Kashmir. Nāgarī is the Sanskrit feminine of Nāgara relating or belonging to a town or city and it is a phrasing with lipi as nāgarī lipi script relating to a city, or spoken in city. The use of the name devanāgarī is relatively recent, and the older term nāgarī is still common, the rapid spread of the term devanāgarī may be related to the almost exclusive use of this script to publish Sanskrit texts in print since the 1870s. As a Brahmic abugida, the principle of Devanagari is that each letter represents a consonant. This is usually written in Latin as a, though it is represented as in the International Phonetic Alphabet, the letter क is read ka, the two letters कन are kana, the three कनय are kanaya, etc. This cancels the inherent vowel, so that from क्नय knaya is derived क्नय् knay, the halant is often used for consonant clusters when typesetting conjunct ligatures is not feasible. Consonant clusters are written with ligatures, for example, the three consonants क्, न्, and य्, when written consecutively without virāma form कनय, as shown above. Alternatively, they may be joined as clusters to form क्नय knaya, कन्य kanya and this system was originally created for use with the Middle Indo-Aryan languages, which have a very limited number of clusters. When applied to Sanskrit, however, it added a deal of complexity to the script
Devanagari
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A 19th century
Rigveda manuscript in Devanagari.
Devanagari
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Devanagiri script (vowels top, consonants bottom) in Chandas font
Devanagari
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Devanagari text from Vayu Purana.
Devanagari
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Devanagari देवनागरी
18.
India
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India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
India
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Flag
India
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The granite
tower of
Brihadeeswarar Temple in
Thanjavur was completed in 1010 CE by
Raja Raja Chola I.
India
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Writing the will and testament of the Mughal king court in Persian, 1590–1595
19.
Fiji
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Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about 1,100 nautical miles northeast of New Zealands North Island. Fiji is an archipelago of more than 330 islands, of which 110 are permanently inhabited, the two major islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, account for 87% of the population of almost 860,000. The capital, Suva on Viti Levu, serves as Fijis principal cruise port, about three-quarters of Fijians live on Viti Levus coasts, either in Suva or in smaller urban centres like Nadi or Lautoka. Viti Levus interior is sparsely inhabited due to its terrain, Fiji has one of the most developed economies in the Pacific due to an abundance of forest, mineral, and fish resources. Today, the sources of foreign exchange are its tourist industry. The countrys currency is the Fijian dollar, Fijis local government, in the form of city and town councils, is supervised by the Ministry of Local Government and Urban Development. The majority of Fijis islands were formed through volcanic activity starting around 150 million years ago, today, some geothermal activity still occurs on the islands of Vanua Levu and Taveuni. Fiji has been inhabited since the second millennium BC, and was settled first by Austronesians and later by Melanesians, Europeans visited Fiji from the 17th century, and, after a brief period as an independent kingdom, the British established the Colony of Fiji in 1874. Fiji was a Crown colony until 1970, when it gained independence as a Commonwealth realm, a republic was declared in 1987, following a series of coups détat. In a coup in 2006, Commodore Frank Bainimarama seized power, later in 2009, Iloilo was replaced as President by Ratu Epeli Nailatikau. After years of delays, an election was held on 17 September 2014. Bainimaramas FijiFirst party won with 59. 2% of the vote, Fijis main island is known as Viti Levu and it is from this that the name Fiji is derived, though the common English pronunciation is based on that of their island neighbours in Tonga. Its emergence can be described as follows, Fijians first impressed themselves on European consciousness through the writings of the members of the expeditions of Cook who met them in Tonga. They were described as warriors and ferocious cannibals, builders of the finest vessels in the Pacific. They inspired awe amongst the Tongans, and all their Manufactures, especially bark cloth and clubs, were highly valued and much in demand. They called their home Viti, but the Tongans called it Fisi, and it was by this foreign pronunciation, Fiji, first promulgated by Captain James Cook, that these islands are now known. Feejee, the Anglicised spelling of the Tongan pronunciation, was used in accounts and other writings until the late 19th century, by missionaries and other travellers visiting Fiji. Pottery art from Fijian towns shows that Fiji was settled before or around 3500 to 1000 BC, the first settlements in Fiji were started by voyaging traders and settlers from the west about 5000 years ago
Fiji
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Ratu
Tanoa Visawaqa
Fiji
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Flag
Fiji
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A Fijian mountain warrior, photograph by
Francis Herbert Dufty, 1870s.
Fiji
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Levuka, 1842.
20.
Guyana
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Guyana, officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, is a sovereign state on the northern mainland of South America. It is, however, included in the Caribbean Region due to its cultural, historical. Guyana is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north, Brazil to the south and southwest, Suriname to the east, with 215,000 square kilometres, Guyana is the fourth-smallest country on mainland South America after Uruguay, Suriname and French Guiana. The region known as the Guianas consists of the large landmass north of the Amazon River. Originally inhabited by indigenous groups, Guyana was settled by the Dutch before coming under British control in the late 18th century. It was governed as British Guiana, with mostly a plantation style economy until the 1950s and it gained independence in 1966, and officially became a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations in 1970. The legacy of British rule is reflected in the political administration and diverse population, which includes Indian, African, Amerindian. Guyana is the only South American nation in which English is the official language, the majority of the population, however, speak Guyanese Creole, an English-based creole language, as a first language. In addition to being part of the Anglophone Caribbean, Guyana is one of the few Caribbean countries that is not an island in the West Indies, CARICOM, of which Guyana is a member, is headquartered in Guyanas capital and largest city, Georgetown. In 2008, the joined the Union of South American Nations as a founding member. The name Guyana is derived from Guiana, the name for the region that formerly included Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Guyana is derived from an Indigenous Amerindian language, there are nine indigenous tribes residing in Guyana, the Wai Wai, Macushi, Patamona, Lokono, Kalina, Wapishana, Pemon, Akawaio and Warao. Historically the Lokono and Kalina tribes dominated Guyana, although Christopher Columbus sighted Guyana during his third voyage, the Dutch were the first to establish colonies, Essequibo, Berbice, and Demerara. After the British assumed control in 1796, the Dutch formally ceded the area in 1814, in 1831 the three separate colonies became a single British colony known as British Guiana. Since its Independence in 1824 Venezuela has claimed the area of land to the west of the Essequibo River, in 1899 an international tribunal ruled the land belonged to Great Britain. Guyana achieved independence from the United Kingdom on 26 May 1966 and became a republic on 23 February 1970, the US State Department and the US Central Intelligence Agency, along with the British government, played a strong role in influencing political control in Guyana during this time. The American government supported Forbes Burnham during the years of independence because Cheddi Jagan was identified as a Marxist. In 1978, Guyana received international notice when 918 members of the American cult, Peoples Temple, however, most of the suicides were by Americans and not Guyanese
Guyana
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Map of British Guiana.
Guyana
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Flag
Guyana
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Rupununi Savannah.
Guyana
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Anomaloglossus beebei (Kaieteur), specific to the Guianas.
21.
Mauritius
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Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about 2,000 kilometres off the southeast coast of the African continent. The country includes the islands of Mauritius and Rodrigues, and the outer islands, the islands of Mauritius and Rodrigues form part of the Mascarene Islands, along with nearby Réunion, a French overseas department. The area of the country is 2,040 km², the capital and largest city is Port Louis. Mauritius was a British colonial possession from 1810 to 1968, the year of its independence, the government uses English as the main language. The sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago is disputed between Mauritius and the United Kingdom, the UK excised the archipelago from Mauritian territory in 1965, three years prior to Mauritian independence. The UK gradually depopulated the archipelagos indigenous population and leased its biggest island, Diego Garcia, access to the archipelago is prohibited to casual tourists, the media, and its former inhabitants. Mauritius also claims sovereignty over Tromelin Island from France, the people of Mauritius are multiethnic, multi-religious, multicultural and multilingual. The islands government is modelled on the Westminster parliamentary system. Along with the other Mascarene Islands, Mauritius is known for its flora and fauna. The island is known as the only known home of the dodo. Mauritius is the country in Africa where Hinduism is the largest religion. The first historical evidence of the existence of an island now known as Mauritius is on a map produced by the Italian cartographer Alberto Cantino in 1502. From this, it appears that Mauritius was first named Dina Arobi around 975 by Arab sailors, in 1507 Portuguese sailors visited the uninhabited island. The island appears with a Portuguese name Cirne on early Portuguese maps, another Portuguese sailor, Dom Pedro Mascarenhas, gave the name Mascarenes to the Archipelago. In 1598 a Dutch squadron under Admiral Wybrand van Warwyck landed at Grand Port and named the island Mauritius, in honour of Prince Maurice van Nassau, later the island became a French colony and was renamed Isle de France. On 3 December 1810 the French surrendered the island to Great Britain during the Napoleonic Wars, under British rule, the islands name reverted to Mauritius /məˈrɪʃəs/. Mauritius is also known as Maurice and Île Maurice in French. The island of Mauritius was uninhabited before its first recorded visit during the Middle Ages by Arab sailors, in 1507 Portuguese sailors came to the uninhabited island and established a visiting base
Mauritius
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The
Battle of Grand Port between the French and British navies, 1810.
Mauritius
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Flag
Mauritius
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Champ de Mars, Port Louis, 1880.
Mauritius
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Postage stamp with portrait of
Queen Elizabeth II, 1954
22.
Suriname
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Suriname, officially known as the Republic of Suriname, is a sovereign state on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by French Guiana to the east, Guyana to the west, at just under 165,000 square kilometers, it is the smallest country in South America. Suriname has a population of approximately 566,000, most of live on the countrys north coast, in and around the capital and largest city. Long inhabited by cultures of indigenous tribes, Suriname was explored and contested by European powers before coming under Dutch rule in the late 17th century. In 1954, the country one of the constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Its indigenous peoples have been active in claiming land rights and working to preserve their traditional lands. Suriname is considered to be a culturally Caribbean country, and is a member of the Caribbean Community, while Dutch is the official language of government, business, media, and education, Sranan, an English-based creole language, is a widely used lingua franca. Suriname is the territory outside Europe where Dutch is spoken by a majority of the population. The people of Suriname are among the most diverse in the world, spanning a multitude of ethnic, religious, and linguistic groups. This area was occupied by cultures of indigenous peoples long before European contact, remnants of which can be found in petroglyph sites at Werehpai. The name Suriname may derive from a Taino indigenous people called Surinen, British settlers, who founded the first European colony at Marshalls Creek along the Suriname River, spelled the name as Surinam. When the territory was taken over by the Dutch, it part of a group of colonies known as Dutch Guiana. The official spelling of the countrys English name was changed from Surinam to Suriname in January 1978, a notable example is Surinames national airline, Surinam Airways. The older English name is reflected in the English pronunciation, /ˈsʊrᵻnæm/ or /ˈsʊrᵻnɑːm/, in Dutch, the official language of Suriname, the pronunciation is, with the main stress on the third syllable and a schwa terminal vowel. Indigenous settlement of Suriname dates back to 3,000 BC, the largest tribes were the Arawak, a nomadic coastal tribe that lived from hunting and fishing. They were the first inhabitants in the area, the Carib also settled in the area and conquered the Arawak by using their superior sailing ships. They settled in Galibi at the mouth of the Marowijne River, while the larger Arawak and Carib tribes lived along the coast and savanna, smaller groups of indigenous peoples lived in the inland rainforest, such as the Akurio, Trió, Warrau, and Wayana. Beginning in the 16th century, French, Spanish, and English explorers visited the area, a century later, Dutch and English settlers established plantation colonies along the many rivers in the fertile Guiana plains
Suriname
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Maroon village,
Suriname River, 1955
Suriname
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Flag
Suriname
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Presidential Palace of Suriname
Suriname
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Waterfront houses in
Paramaribo, 1955
23.
Trinidad and Tobago
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During the same period, the island of Tobago changed hands among Spanish, British, French, Dutch and Courlander colonizers, more times than any other island in the Caribbean. Trinidad and Tobago were ceded to Britain in 1802 under the Treaty of Amiens, the country Trinidad and Tobago obtained independence in 1962, becoming a republic in 1976. Trinidad and Tobago is the third richest country by GDP per capita in the Americas after the United States, furthermore, it is recognised as a high-income economy by the World Bank. Unlike most of the English-speaking Caribbean, the economy is primarily industrial, with an emphasis on petroleum. The countrys wealth is attributed to its reserves and exploitation of oil. Historian E. L. Joseph claimed that Trinidads Amerindian name was Iere or Land of the Humming Bird, derived from the Arawak name for hummingbird, however, Boomert claims that neither cairi nor caeri means hummingbird and tukusi or tucuchi does. Others have reported that kairi and iere simply mean island, christopher Columbus renamed it La Isla de la Trinidad, fulfilling a vow made before setting out on his third voyage of exploration. Trinidad and Tobago are islands situated between 10°2 and 11°12 N latitude and 60°30 and 61°56 W longitude, at the closest point, Trinidad is just 11 kilometres from Venezuelan territory. Trinidad is 4,768 km2 in area with a length of 80 km. Tobago has an area of about 300 km2, or 5. 8% of the area, is 41 km long and 12 km at its greatest width. Trinidad and Tobago lie on the shelf of South America. The terrain of the islands is a mixture of mountains and plains, the highest point in the country is found on the Northern Range at El Cerro del Aripo, which is 940 metres above sea level. As the majority of the live in the island of Trinidad. There are four municipalities in Trinidad, Port of Spain. The main town in Tobago is Scarborough, Trinidad is made up of a variety of soil types, the majority being fine sands and heavy clays. The alluvial valleys of the Northern Range and the soils of the East-West Corridor are the most fertile, the Northern Range consists mainly of Upper Jurassic and Cretaceous metamorphic rocks. The Northern Lowlands consist of shallow marine clastic sediments. South of this, the Central Range fold and thrust belt consists of Cretaceous and Eocene sedimentary rocks, the Naparima Plains and the Nariva Swamp form the southern shoulder of this uplift
Trinidad and Tobago
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Mayaro Beach in the south-eastern area of Trinidad.
Trinidad and Tobago
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Flag
Trinidad and Tobago
–
Pigeon Point in
Tobago, one of the top tourist destinations in the country.
Trinidad and Tobago
–
Parlatuvier Bay, a popular tourist destination in
Tobago.
24.
Central Hindi Directorate
–
The Central Hindi Directorate, New Delhi is the department, under the Ministry of Human Resource Development, responsible for promotion of Standard Hindi. It also regulates the use of Devanagari script and Hindi spelling in India, in keeping with the instructions of Article 351 of the Constitution of India, the Central Hindi Directorate of 1 March 1960 was established. There are four regional offices situated at Chennai, Hyderabad, Guwahati, grammar of Modern Standard Hindi Vemuri Anjaneya Sarma Official website
Central Hindi Directorate
–
Central Hindi Directorate
25.
Khariboli
–
The term Khariboli has, however, been used for any literary dialect, including Braj Bhasa and Awadhi. As a dialect of Hindustani, Khariboli is a part of the Western group of the Central Zone of Indo-Aryan languages and it is spoken mainly in India in the rural area surrounding Delhi, Western Uttar Pradesh, and southern Uttarakhand. In academic literature, the term Kauravi is sometimes applied to the specific Khari dialect spoken in the parts of the Khari-speaking zone. Although Khariboli and Standard Hindustani differ dialectically, Standard Hindustani is sometimes referred to as Khariboli. Khariboli is believed to have initially developed contemporaneously with the neighboring Awadhi, Khari contains some features, such as gemination, which give it a distinctive sound and differentiates it from standard Hindustani, Braj and Awadhi. Khariboli is spoken in the surroundings of Delhi and northwestern Uttar Pradesh, as well as in some neighboring areas of Haryana. The geography of part of North India is traditionally described doabs. As the two main Hindustani dialects of Western Uttar Pradesh and the areas surrounding Delhi, Khariboli and Braj Bhasha are often compared, on the other hand, Khariboli supporters sometimes pejoratively referred to Braj Bhasha and other dialects as Pariboli. Although most linguists acknowledge that Modern Standard Hindustani descended from Khariboli, there are also variations within Khari itself across the area in which it is spoken. In the mid-twentieth century, Indian scholar and nationalist, Rahul Sankrityayan, Sankrityayan postulated that this Kaurvi dialect was the parent of Delhis specific Khari dialect. Sankrityayan had also advocated that all Hindustani be standardised on the Devanagari script, Khariboli is related to four standardised registers of Hindustani, Standard Hindi, Urdu, Dakhini and Rekhta. These standard registers together with Sansiboli form the Hindustani dialect group and this group together with Haryanvi, Kauravi, Braj Bhasha, Kanauji and Bundeli forms the Western Hindi dialect group. This view gradually gained ground over the 19th century, before that period, other such as Avadhi, Braj Bhasha. Hindvi later developed into Hindustani—which further diverged as Hindi and Urdu, although, as a dialect Khari boli belongs to upper Doab, however, Allahabad in lower Doab and Varanasi have been the literary centres of Khari boli in the form of standard Hindi. The earliest examples of Khariboli can be seen in the compositions of Amir Khusro, before the rise of Khariboli, the literary dialects of Hindi were the ones adopted by the Bhakti saints, Braj Bhasha, Awadhi and Maithili. However, after the Bhakti movement degenerated into ritualistic cults, these came to be regarded as rural. Khariboli, on the hand, was spoken in the urban area surrounding the Mughal courts. The Persian-influenced Khariboli thus gradually came to be regarded as a prestige dialect, the British administrators of India and the Christian missionaries played an important role in creation and promotion of the Khariboli-based Modern Standard Hindustani
Khariboli
–
Areas (red) where Khariboli/Kauravi is the native language
26.
Standard language
–
A standard language or standard variety may be defined either as a language variety used by a population for public purposes or as a variety that has undergone standardization. Typically, varieties that become standardized are the dialects spoken in the centers of commerce and government. Standardization typically involves a fixed orthography, codification in authoritative grammars and dictionaries, a standard written language is sometimes termed by the German word Schriftsprache. A pluricentric language has multiple interacting standard varieties, examples include English, French, Portuguese, German, Korean, Spanish, Swedish, Armenian and Chinese. Monocentric languages, such as Russian and Japanese, have only one standardized version, a standard variety is developed from a group of related varieties. This may be done by elevating a single variety, such as the variety of a center of government or culture. Alternatively, a new variety may be defined as a selection of features from existing varieties, a fixed orthography is typically created for writing the variety. It may be codified in normative dictionaries and grammars, or by a collection of exemplary texts. Whether these dictionaries and grammars are created by individuals or by state institutions. A fixed written form and subsequent codification make the standard variety more stable than purely spoken varieties and this variety becomes the norm for writing, is used in broadcasting and for official purposes, and is the form taught to non-native learners. Through this process, the standard variety acquires prestige and a greater importance than local varieties. In some cases, such as Standard English, this process may take place over a period without government intervention. In others it may be directed by official institutions, such as the Académie française or Real Academia Española. Language standardization is often linked to the formation, or attempted formation, of nation states, different national standards derived from a dialect continuum may be regarded as different languages, even if they are mutually intelligible. The Scandinavian languages, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, are cited as examples. In other cases governments or neighbouring populations may seek to deny a standard independent status, in response, developers of a standard may base it on more divergent varieties. Now known as Macedonian, it is the standard of the independent Republic of Macedonia. Arabic comprises many varieties which are considered a single language because the register of Arabic
Standard language
–
Language distribution: The official form of written Norwegian by municipality in Norway. Red: Bokmål. Blue: Nynorsk. Grey: Neutral (neither form is official, usually because of a fairly even number of users or lack of political decisions over the matter).
27.
Sanskrit
–
Sanskrit is the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, a philosophical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and a literary language and lingua franca of ancient and medieval South Asia. As a result of transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia and parts of Central Asia, as one of the oldest Indo-European languages for which substantial written documentation exists, Sanskrit holds a prominent position in Indo-European studies. The body of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and drama as well as scientific, technical, philosophical, the compositions of Sanskrit were orally transmitted for much of its early history by methods of memorization of exceptional complexity, rigor, and fidelity. Thereafter, variants and derivatives of the Brahmi script came to be used, Sanskrit is today one of the 22 languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India, which mandates the Indian government to develop the language. It continues to be used as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals and Buddhist practice in the form of hymns. The Sanskrit verbal adjective sáṃskṛta- may be translated as refined, elaborated, as a term for refined or elaborated speech, the adjective appears only in Epic and Classical Sanskrit in the Manusmṛti and the Mahabharata. The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit, with the language of the Rigveda being the oldest and most archaic stage preserved, Classical Sanskrit is the standard register as laid out in the grammar of Pāṇini, around the fourth century BCE. Sanskrit, as defined by Pāṇini, evolved out of the earlier Vedic form, the present form of Vedic Sanskrit can be traced back to as early as the second millennium BCE. Scholars often distinguish Vedic Sanskrit and Classical or Pāṇinian Sanskrit as separate dialects, although they are quite similar, they differ in a number of essential points of phonology, vocabulary, grammar and syntax. Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas, a collection of hymns, incantations and theological and religio-philosophical discussions in the Brahmanas. Modern linguists consider the metrical hymns of the Rigveda Samhita to be the earliest, for nearly 2000 years, Sanskrit was the language of a cultural order that exerted influence across South Asia, Inner Asia, Southeast Asia, and to a certain extent East Asia. A significant form of post-Vedic Sanskrit is found in the Sanskrit of Indian epic poetry—the Ramayana, the deviations from Pāṇini in the epics are generally considered to be on account of interference from Prakrits, or innovations, and not because they are pre-Paninian. Traditional Sanskrit scholars call such deviations ārṣa, meaning of the ṛṣis, in some contexts, there are also more prakritisms than in Classical Sanskrit proper. There were four principal dialects of classical Sanskrit, paścimottarī, madhyadeśī, pūrvi, the predecessors of the first three dialects are attested in Vedic Brāhmaṇas, of which the first one was regarded as the purest. In the 2001 Census of India,14,035 Indians reported Sanskrit to be their first language, in India, Sanskrit is among the 14 original languages of the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution. The state of Uttarakhand in India has ruled Sanskrit as its official language. In October 2012 social activist Hemant Goswami filed a petition in the Punjab. More than 3,000 Sanskrit works have been composed since Indias independence in 1947, much of this work has been judged of high quality, in comparison to both classical Sanskrit literature and modern literature in other Indian languages
Sanskrit
–
Rigveda (
padapatha) manuscript in
Devanagari, early 19th century
Sanskrit
–
Devi Mahatmya palm-leaf manuscript in an early
Bhujimol script,
Bihar or
Nepal, 11th century
Sanskrit
–
A poem by the ancient Indian poet Vallana (ca. 900 – 1100 CE) on the side wall of a building at the Haagweg 14 in Leiden, Netherlands
Sanskrit
–
Kashmir Shaiva manuscript in the
Śāradā script (c. 17th century)
28.
English language
–
English /ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ/ is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and is now the global lingua franca. Named after the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes that migrated to England, English is either the official language or one of the official languages in almost 60 sovereign states. It is the third most common language in the world, after Mandarin. It is the most widely learned second language and a language of the United Nations, of the European Union. It is the most widely spoken Germanic language, accounting for at least 70% of speakers of this Indo-European branch, English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the century, are called Old English. Middle English began in the late 11th century with the Norman conquest of England, Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the introduction of the printing press to London and the King James Bible, and the start of the Great Vowel Shift. Through the worldwide influence of the British Empire, modern English spread around the world from the 17th to mid-20th centuries, English is an Indo-European language, and belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages. Most closely related to English are the Frisian languages, and English, Old Saxon and its descendent Low German languages are also closely related, and sometimes Low German, English, and Frisian are grouped together as the Ingvaeonic or North Sea Germanic languages. Modern English descends from Middle English, which in turn descends from Old English, particular dialects of Old and Middle English also developed into a number of other English languages, including Scots and the extinct Fingallian and Forth and Bargy dialects of Ireland. English is classified as a Germanic language because it shares new language features with other Germanic languages such as Dutch, German and these shared innovations show that the languages have descended from a single common ancestor, which linguists call Proto-Germanic. Through Grimms law, the word for foot begins with /f/ in Germanic languages, English is classified as an Anglo-Frisian language because Frisian and English share other features, such as the palatalisation of consonants that were velar consonants in Proto-Germanic. The earliest form of English is called Old English or Anglo-Saxon, in the fifth century, the Anglo-Saxons settled Britain and the Romans withdrew from Britain. England and English are named after the Angles, Old English was divided into four dialects, the Anglian dialects, Mercian and Northumbrian, and the Saxon dialects, Kentish and West Saxon. Through the educational reforms of King Alfred in the century and the influence of the kingdom of Wessex. The epic poem Beowulf is written in West Saxon, and the earliest English poem, Modern English developed mainly from Mercian, but the Scots language developed from Northumbrian. A few short inscriptions from the period of Old English were written using a runic script. By the sixth century, a Latin alphabet was adopted, written with half-uncial letterforms and it included the runic letters wynn ⟨ƿ⟩ and thorn ⟨þ⟩, and the modified Latin letters eth ⟨ð⟩, and ash ⟨æ⟩
English language
–
The opening to the Old English epic poem
Beowulf,
handwritten in
half-uncial script: Hƿæt ƿē Gārde/na ingēar dagum þēod cyninga / þrym ge frunon... "Listen! We of the Spear-Danes from days of yore have heard of the glory of the folk-kings..."
English language
–
Countries of the world where English is a majority native language
English language
–
Title page of Geoffrey Chaucer's
Canterbury Tales c.1400
29.
Government of India
–
It is located in New Delhi, the capital of India. There is a bicameral Parliament with the Lok Sabha as a lower house, the judicial branch systematically contains an apex Supreme Court,24 high courts, and several district courts, all inferior to the Supreme Court. Similar to the government, individual state governments each consist of executive, legislative. The legal system as applicable to the federal and individual state governments is based on the English Common, the full name of the country is the Republic of India. No other name appears in the Constitution, and this is the name appears on legal banknotes, in treaties. The Union Government, Central Government or Government of India are often used in an official and unofficial capacity to refer to the Government of India, because the seat of government is in New Delhi, New Delhi is commonly used as a metonym for the Central Government. Legislative branch in India is exercised by the Parliament and a legislature consisting of the Rajya Sabha. The latter is considered the house or the House of the people. The Parliament does not have control and sovereignty, as its laws are subject to judicial review by the Supreme Court of India. However, it does exercise some control over the executive branch, the members of the cabinet, including the prime minister and the Council of Ministers, are either chosen from parliament or elected there to within six months of assuming office. The cabinet as a whole is responsible to the Lok Sabha, the Lok Sabha is a temporary house and can only be dissolved when the party in power loses the support of the majority of the house. Whereas the Rajya Sabha is a permanent house which can never be dissolved though the members of the Rajya Sabha who are elected for a six-year term, the Executive Branch of government is the one that has sole authority and responsibility for the daily administration of the state bureaucracy. The division of power into separate branches of government is central to the idea of the separation of powers. The executive power is vested mainly in the President of India, the President has all constitutional powers and exercises them directly or through officers subordinate to him as per the aforesaid Article 53. The President is to act in accordance with aid and advice tendered by the Prime Minister, the Council of Ministers remains in power during the pleasure of the President. However, in practice, the Council of Ministers must retain the support of the Lok Sabha, if a President were to dismiss the Council of Ministers on his or her own initiative, it might trigger a constitutional crisis. Thus, in practice, the Council of Ministers cannot be dismissed as long as it holds the support of a majority in the Lok Sabha, the President is responsible for making a wide variety of appointments. His/Her work is to facilitate smooth transaction of business in Ministries/ Departments of the Government, the President is de jure the Commander in Chief of the Indian Armed Forces
Government of India
–
The
Parliament of India in the background.
Government of India
–
The
Rashtrapati Bhawan, residence of the
President of India.
Government of India
–
The
Red Fort in
New Delhi. The
Prime Minister of India addresses the nation on the occasion of
Independence Day, from the
ramparts of this fort.
Government of India
–
The
Cabinet Secretariat of India.
30.
Constituent Assembly of India
–
An idea for a Constituent Assembly of India was proposed in 1934 by M. N. Roy, a pioneer of the Communist movement in India and an advocate of radical democracy. It became a demand of the Indian National Congress in 1935. On 8 August 1940, a statement was made by Viceroy Lord Linlithgow about the expansion of the Governor-Generals Executive Council and this offer, known as the August Offer, included giving full weight to minority opinions and allowing Indians to draft their own constitution. Under the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946, elections were held for the first time for the Constituent Assembly, the Constitution of India was drafted by the Constituent Assembly, and it was implemented under the Cabinet Mission Plan on 16 May 1946. The members of the Constituent Assembly were elected by the assemblies by a single. The elections for the 296 seats assigned to the British Indian provinces were completed by August 1946, Congress won 208 seats, and the Muslim League 73. After this election, the Muslim League refused to cooperate with the Congress, hindu-Muslim riots began, and the Muslim League demanded a separate constituent assembly for Muslims in India. The Indian Independence Act was passed on 18 July 1947 and, although it was declared that India would become independent in June 1948. The Constituent Assembly met for the first time on 9 December 1946, reassembling on 14 August 1947 as a sovereign body, as a result of the partition, under the Mountbatten plan a separate constituent assembly was established in Pakistan on 3 June 1947. The representatives of the areas incorporated into Pakistan ceased to be members of the Constituent Assembly of India, New elections were held for the West Punjab and East Bengal, the membership of the Constituent Assembly was 299 after the reorganization, and it met on 31 December 1947. The Constituent Assembly, consisting of elected representatives, was established to draft a constitution for India. It existed for almost three years, the first parliament of India after independence in 1947, the Assembly was not elected on the basis of universal adult suffrage, and Muslims and Sikhs received special representation as minorities. The Muslim League boycotted the Assembly after failing to prevent its creation, the Assembly met for the first time in New Delhi on 9 December 1946, and its last session was held on 24 January 1950. During this period the Assembly held eleven sessions, sitting for a total of 166 days and this is certainly a great task. We, are sitting here and there in despair in many places, the atmosphere is surcharged with these quarrels and feuds which are called communal disturbances, and unfortunately we sometimes cannot avoid them. But at present the greatest and most important question in India is how to solve the problem of the poor, wherever we turn, we are confronted with this problem. If we cannot solve this problem soon, all our paper constitutions will become useless and purposeless, keeping this aspect in view, who could suggest to us to postpone and wait. The Constituent Assembly was established while India was under British rule, Provincial assembly elections were held early in 1946
Constituent Assembly of India
Constituent Assembly of India
–
Seal of the Constituent Assembly.
Constituent Assembly of India
–
A reproduction of a historical telegram from the Constituent Assembly, which included a message of goodwill from the US government to the assembly.
India
Fiji (as Fiji Hindi)
