LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Hindi
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Hindi is the national language of India. Although 90% Indians can speak and understand Hindi, surprisingly over 70% can't read or write in Hindi. These include many college graduates from non-Hindi regions of India. BharatVani has been teaching Hindi using resources of the internet since 1996. Over 4000 students have so far completed this course either online or off-line through our Hindi Teacher on CD-R . The medium of instructions is English and the courses have been designed to meet needs of Indians and non-Indians of all age groups.
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The name Hindi is of Persian origin. The Persians used it to refer to the Indian people and to the languages they spoke. Scholars postulate that Hindi developed in the 8th-10th centuries during the period of Islamic invasions of northern India from khari boli , the speech around Dehli which was adopted by the Moslem invaders to communicate with the local population. Eventually, it developed into a variety called Urd(from Turkish ordu 'camp'), characterized by numerous borrowings from Persian and Arabic, which became a literary language. In the meantime, the language of the indigenous population remained relatively free of borrowings from Persian and Arabic, and instead borrowed words and literary conventions from Sanskrit. This language became Hindi.
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Hindi has pronouns in the first, second and third person for one gender only. Thus, unlike English, there is no difference between he or she. More strictly speaking, the third person of the pronoun is actually the same as the demonstrative pronoun (this / that). The verb, upon conjugation, usually indicates the difference in the gender. The pronouns have additional cases of accusative and genitive, but no vocative. There may ... be binary ways of inflecting the pronoun in the accusative case.
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Hindi and Urd have a common colloquial form, called Hindustani. Hindustani never achieved the status of a literary language, although Mahatma Ghandi used it as a symbol of national unity during Indias struggle for independence from England.
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Hindi, especially in the less highly Sanskritized form used in everyday speech, is barely distinct from everyday Urdu, which before independence was called Hindustani. However, Hindi has long had pan-Indian uses extending beyond the regions where it is the majority language. Hindi is the lingua franca at pilgrimage sites in all regions and is used to deal with devotees from all parts of the country. It is ... the common means of communication of wandering Hindu holy men in their discussions with each other and is used frequently in preaching. Many publishers issue Sanskrit classics on religion, astrology, medicine, and other subjects with Hindi translations, cribs, or commentaries to help purchasers who may not be confident of their Sanskrit ability. Purchasers appear to find those aids useful, even though Hindi may not be their primary spoken or written language.
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The role of radio and television in propagating Hindi beyond its native audience cannot be overstated. Television in India was controlled by the central government until the proliferation of satellite TV rendered regulation redundant. During the era of control, Hindi predominated on both radio and TV, enjoying more air-time than local languages. After the advent of satellite TV, several private channels emerged to compete with the government's official TV channel. Today, a large number of satellite channels provide viewers with much variety in entertainment. These include soap operas, detective serials, horror shows, dramas, cartoons, comedies, host shows for Hindi songs, Hindu mythology and documentaries.
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