The Hindi and Arabic languages are two of the most commonly spoken languages in the world. While they share some similarities, there are also many differences between them. In this blog post, we will outline some of the key differences between Hindi and Arabic. Keep in mind that these are just generalizations, and there may be exceptions to these rules depending on the particular dialects of each language. Let’s get started!
What is Hindi?
Hindi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by about 487 million people in India, Fiji, and Suriname. Hindi is the official language of the Government of India and is one of the 22 scheduled languages of the Republic of India.
- Hindi is also one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Hindi developed from the central dialects of the Ganga and Yamuna kin areas. Modern Hindi has been influenced by Persian, Arabic, Portuguese, English, and Dravidian languages.
- Hindi is written in the Devanagari script and uses more Sanskrit words than any other modern Indo-Aryan language. Hindi literature dates back to the 13th century CE. The Bhakti movement popularized many devotional songs which led to the development of Hindi film music.
- Hindi films often incorporate musical numbers into the script, typically featuring catchy songs that are sung by the protagonists as well as professional playback singers.
- Hindi has also been adopted as a linguistic standard by several non-native speakers of Hindustani or other languages who are living in Hindi-speaking areas such as Mauritius, Trinidad & Tobago, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and South Africa. Hindi is also spoken among overseas Indian diaspora communities in countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and Australia.
What is Arabic?
- Arabic is a Central Semitic language that first emerged in the 1st to 4th centuries CE. It is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. It is named after the Arabs, a term initially used to describe peoples living from Mesopotamia in the east to the Anti-Lebanon mountains in the west, in northwestern Arabia, and in the Sinai peninsula.
- Arabic is classified as a macrolanguage comprising 30 modern varieties, including its standard form, Modern Standard Arabic, which is derived from Classical Arabic. Arabic has lent many words to other languages of the Islamic world, like Turkish, Persian, Urdu, Hindi, Malay, and Indonesian.
- Arabic has also borrowed words from other languages, including Greek and Persian in medieval times, and contemporary European languages such as English and French in modern times. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet, which is an abjad script and is written from right to left, although the spoken varieties are sometimes written in ASCII Latin from left to right with no standardized orthography.
Differences between Hindi and Arabic
Hindi and Arabic are two of the world’s most spoken languages. Hindi is the main language of India, with over 180 million native speakers, while Arabic is the official language of 26 countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Despite their ubiquity, Hindi and Arabic are quite different languages. Hindi is a member of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family, while Arabic belongs to the Semitic branch of Afro-Asiatic.
As a result, Hindi has many loanwords from Persian and Sanskrit, while Arabic has borrowed heavily from other Semitic languages like Aramaic and Hebrew. Hindi also uses a decimal place value system, whereas Arabic uses a sexagesimal system. These are just some of the ways in which Hindi and Arabic differ from one another.
Conclusion
While Hindi and Arabic share some similarities, there are also key differences between the two languages.
