# Hindi: commonly spoken, regional, and/or literary vocabulary?



## albondiga

OK, this is going to be a bit of a long and strange one, but I'm hoping I can get some useful input to place this set of vocabulary within the broad spectrum of Hindi dialects, contexts, etc.  I'm not asking here specifically about any particular word(s), rather the vocabulary as a whole, and I'll probably end up opening separate threads when I want to discuss certain specific words, but I _will _give a whole bunch of examples of words I found in a particular context, so if you have some input for me please use these words only as examples to illustrate, and start separate threads for any detailed discussions about any particular words themelves.  That being said, here's the context:

I just recently finished my first major (i.e., 100+ page) Hindi read.  The book was a compilation of 18 short stories, which I would guess were maybe geared towards adolescents about 12 years old (some protagonists were as old as 15, though I have a hard time imagining any kid older than 10 putting up with the type of overt moralism in most of the stories... then again, maybe I'm projecting what I know about American kids to Indian kids...  )  The book was published in Delhi, and the 18 short stories were by 18 different authors.

One thing I noticed in this book (again, my most extended exposure to _written _Hindi to date) was a higher incidence of Sanskrit-y sounding words than what I'm used to.  This was not surprising, for 2 reasons:(1) I always knew that Hindi and Urdu diverge more in "literary" contexts. 
(2) When I was in India, I had less exposure to everyday spoken Hindi than I would have liked, since most people around me spoke Gujarati to each other and English to me.  As a result, a disproportionate amount of my exposure to spoken Hindi comes from Bollywood, radio DJs, TV, and other sources that are more likely to use a "least common denominator" sort of vocabulary.​Anyway, I learned hundreds of new words from this book, and perhaps 85% of them could probably be used by me without qualms.  But there are a few categories of vocabulary that I'm wondering about: are these kinds of words in daily use (even in informal speech) over a wide swath of the Hindi-speaking world, and is the problem just my still-admittedly-very-limited exposure to spoken Hindi??  Are they essentially literary vocabulary, i.e., is the gap between the written and spoken that big, even extending to adolescent-level "literature"?  Or would these be part of the normal everyday spoken vocabulary only in a smaller part of the Hindi-speaking belt, probably towards the eastern end (eastern UP, etc.)?

Firstly, there were many cases where I was already very familiar with a way to say something in Hindi, but the authors in this book used something different (often, though not always, using a word of Sanskrit origin where the familiar word was of Persian origin.)  One of the first I noticed was the almost exclusive usage of <uttar denaa>, which must have appeared in at least 10 of the stories by different authors, while I'm not sure whether the familiar <javaab denaa> was ever used... although this arguably has a parallel in the English reply/answer so I'll give some better examples: 



<svar> was used FAR more often than the more familiar <aavaaz> (though I had encountered both before), 
<svayam> was used more often than the familiar <khud>, 
<nikaT> was generally used where I was accustomed to <paas>, 
<pratyek> was often used where I was accustomed to <har>, 
<prasanna> was often used in place of the familiar <khushii>, 
<prayatna> was often used in place of the familiar <koshish>, 
<hrdaya> was used a few times in place of the familiar <dil>, 
<aarambh> appeared various times but never <shuruaat>...
and these were all relatively frequent examples, and there are even more such examples I could give.  

Then there were the ones that only appeared once or twice, like <vrksha>/<per.>, <nrtya karnaa>/<naachnaa>, <dvitiiya>/<duusraa>, and various others.  

Finally, in addition to the instances where I already had a perfectly good Hindi word at my disposal, there were a decent number of mostly Sanskrit-sounding words that were just plain new, like arthaat, samvayask, sambodhan, vintii, yadyapi, kruddh, stabdh, samaapta, and a whole lot of words beginning with anu-, pra-, and pari-, which (at this point) I would have trouble knowing if I could use in a normal conversation.

Again, (until I manage to get back to India and do some trial and error  ) any help in placing this vocabulary in the broad spectrum of Hindi dialects, contexts, etc. would be appreciated!

Finally, just to throw it out there:
* wo sadaa pratyek vichitra vrksh ke nikaT prasannataa se nrtya karne ki prayatna svayam kartii hai. 
* 
Aside from (a) any grammatical mistakes of mine and (b) the extreme unlikelihood that anyone would ever need to say this, are there places in the Hindi-speaking world where the above sentence could theoretically be uttered in the course of a normal conversation, or would this only appear in a book?  What would someone from Mumbai or Delhi think upon hearing someone say this - would they simply think that the person comes from another part of India, or think it literary and/or overly-formal language (like the person was reading out of a book, or maybe even mocking the speech of someone like a politician or religious figure), or would they perhaps even think it perfectly normal spoken language?  And am I right that the average Urdu speaker would be quite confused about that sentence (taking into account that, for any language, the average native-speaking user of this forum probably has a broader vocabulary than the average native speaker of that language...  )?

I know this post is a bit <ajiib> (or would <vichitra> be ok? ), but thanks for any help!


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## BP.

That should be the single most longest question ever on this forum!

That sentence should be understood in its entirety by some percentage of Hindiphones, usually well-read or religiously-inclined people, and to lesser degrees by larger groups. If instead of putting in all those pure Hindi words in one sentence you dispersed them among several simpler ones, their comprehension would be easier for most people.

In the future more and more people will be able to understand those words (even strung together in one sentence). Hindi appears to be be re-Sanskritizing itself, which is a very good thing in my opinion*.

Before the debates begin, I'd like to point out a few things. Some words that you called Persian are actually Arabic, e.g. _'ajiib_, and at least one is a Hindi-ized Arabic word - _shuruaat_, taken from _shur'u_ (شروع). In Urdu and Persian it would be _ibtidaa_, which itself appears of Arabic origin. The word _uttar_ too has a totally different meaning in Persian - North (as in U.P.).

*susceptible to veer the debate from academic to political, but I'm sure fellow forumers will remain within the scope of WRF.


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## panjabigator

Albondiga, I'll have to reread your post later on to give you a better response.  Responding quickly to BG, can you tell us why Sanskritized Hindi is a good thing?  If this is off topic I'll make a thread.


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## BP.

That would facilitate the cause of the establishment of its distinct identity from Urdu.

As it is its quiet distinct. On your advice I tried listening to BBCHindi, and got the most spectacular shock I've recently had. I couldn't even figure out what they were talking about. I could've tuned into a Pushto or Arabic channel and understood that much.


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## Illuminatus

What you wrote didn't surprise me. Our stories have a lot of Sanskritized vocabulary. Infact, since our day to day vocabulary is very Persian/Arabic influenced, kids learn many words from those stories!

*wo sadaa pratyek vichitra vrksh ke nikaT prasannataa se nrtya karne ki prayatna svayam kartii hai.

*would sound highly unnatural to me. Depending on where it is coming from and the tone, it may sound pompous.

By the way, *prayatna* is masculine. So, it is _nritya karne *ka* prayatna_


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## panjabigator

Learned a new word.  I thought it was <prayaas> that he meant to say, but it turns out they are both equivalent.


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## panjabigator

> Depending on where it is coming from and the tone, it may sound pompous.



I was watching Aajtak, a Hindi news channel, yesterday and they had some pretty long, overblown sentences with (to me) obscure vocab. These types of sentences are atypical for the average speaker, I'd say.


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## albondiga

Thanks for the input everyone!  In truth I already have methods that I'm using for dealing with these types of vocabulary issues while in Latin America; the existence of such issues in the Spanish-speaking world are not quite as prevalent as in Hindi/Urdu (and I'd say that they are generally of a different nature, usually more purely regional differences), but my ways of dealing with it will probably be similar in India/Pakistan... and again I'll get the chance to do trial and error when I'm back in the region. I think I just wanted to write about it to organize my own thoughts... 



panjabigator said:


> Learned a new word.



That says something itself... agar is post meN dusre logoN ne ek nayaa shabd siikhaa hai, to...  I think I'll stick with koshish at this point.  I'm wondering now whether there were other words in the post that were completely unfamiliar...


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## Illuminatus

_agar is post meN dusre logoN ko ek nayaa shabd siikhaa hai, to..._

I appreciate your effort, but I'm afraid the sentence is not correct.

What meaning do you wish to convey? Try to reform it and I will help you out.


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## panjabigator

Albondiga, if you _replace_ a "ne" in there, your sentence will be correct.  And as for me learning a new word, well I'm not a *native* speaker, so I'm always encountering new words.  

Your reference to the hispanophone world is interesting and one that I've found useful myself.  After living in Spain for several months my Spanish became immutably Iberian, and so I've learned well that certain words have very regionalized meanings.  Examples: "tu" in Costa Rica is often interpretted as pretentious and less opted for than "vos."  And then of course we have the verb "coger," which is quotidian and innocuous in Spain!


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## Illuminatus

I don't see how adding a _ne_ anywhere in that sentence would make it correct.
Or, am I missing something?


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## panjabigator

_agar is post meN dusre logoN *ne* ek nayaa shabd siikhaa hai?_


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## Illuminatus

Oh, you meant _replace_

Fine, then!


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## BP.

albondiga said:


> ...
> That says something itself... agar is post meN dusre logoN ko ek nayaa shabd siikhaa hai, to...



One new word? You taught me as many as you managed to cram into that sentence!


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## albondiga

albondiga said:


> And am I right that the average Urdu speaker would be quite confused about that sentence (taking into account that, for any language, the average native-speaking user of this forum probably has a broader vocabulary than the average native speaker of that language...  )?





BelligerentPacifist said:


> One new word? You taught me as many as you managed to cram into that sentence!



There´s my answer...

Did the ¨Urdu-only¨ speakers (i.e., who don´t know ¨Hindi¨; hard to express properly but I think you know what I mean if you fall in this category) here actually recognize _any _of the words not bolded below?

*wo *sadaa pratyek vichitra vrksh *ke *nikaT prasannataa* se *nrtya *karne ki *prayatna svayam* kartii hai.*


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## BP.

The answer is yes (for these verbs and prepositions) until you widen the sample to include those that actually differ between the two languages.


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## albondiga

BelligerentPacifist said:


> The answer is yes (for these verbs and prepositions) until you widen the sample to include those that actually differ between the two languages.



For my knowledge, which of those words do not differ between the two? 

(Oh, and sorry to all about the disaster of my _nayaa shabd _sentence above; it originally had a _mainne... sikhaayaa _angle, then I started to turn it around but did not do a very good job ...  can never resist the urge to edit... anyway, I have edited it now to be correct...)


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## BP.

"For my knowledge, which of those words do not differ between the two?"

Many. The ones you highlighted for example.

Why would you ask something you seem to know already? Am I missing something?


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