Hindi is one official language of the union government of India. It is an Indo-European language that is spoken mainly in northern and central India.
Hindi syntax is distinctive because it relies on incorporation, a process in which verbs and direct objects fuse into a single unit. This structure is common to almost all of the world's languages; however, it is very rare in the Indo-European family. Its presence in Hindi is probably due to the influence of neighboring Dravidian languages.
Hindi phonology is more typical for Indo-European languages. The most distinctive characteristics for English speakers are the presence of aspirated voiced stops (bh, dh, gh) and contrastive lexical tones.
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Categories: [Indo-Iranian languages] [India]