For almost 200 years, the media has been working to expand Hindi on a global scale. The name of the first Hindi newspaper was “Udant Martand”, which was published in Calcutta in 1826. Even before independence, businessmen from all over the world used to learn Hindi, because for doing business in India, they were needed to know Hindi. Owing to having a big size of the market, the Indian market was the source of earning much more profit for businessmen from all over the world.
India was therefore the centre of attraction for many countries of the world. Today’s media is also drenched in the colour of Hindi. In general, the medium of its communication is Hindi, because, in India, most people speak Hindi & also understand Hindi. Hindi is the language of communication for all in print, electronic, social or web media.
Radio in India started in the third decade of the twentieth century, while Doordarshan started in the sixth decade of the twentieth century. Private TV channels also came to India in the nineties of the twentieth century. The Internet also came in this decade, but social media and web media came to India in the first decade of the twenty-first century. With the arrival of these new faces of the media, there was an unprecedented speed in the spread of Hindi in the country and abroad. Hindi was heard and learned even in the states where Hindi was not spoken.
Dainik Bhaskar, a Hindi daily, is today the most circulated newspaper in the country. The total circulation of Dainik Bhaskar Group newspapers in the period of January to June 2019 was more than 54 lakhs. It is noteworthy that this number is even more than one million from the second-ranked Times of India group.
Today, most Hindi news, advertisements and programs are being broadcast on TV. Hindi is also dominated by social and web media. Hindi newspapers are also being published from abroad. For example, the newspaper “Hum Hindustani” is being published in America. Many Hindi portals are also being operated from abroad. For example, the Hindi literary portal “Setu” is being operated from America.
According to the 22nd edition of the World Language Database, “Ethno-Lodge”, English is the most spoken language in the world, with Mandarin in second place and Hindi in third place. About 113 crore people speak English, while 62 crore people speak Hindi. Today Hindi is spoken and understood prominently in more than 3 dozen countries. Hindi is even the second most popular language in America after English.
Hindi literature is very rich. It is full of emotions of heroism, devotion, spiritualism etc. It is compared with the best literature in the world. Hindi literature has been continuously enriching for the last 1200 years. The Hindi language has inherited a rich vocabulary of many languages and dialects. Hindi has openly accepted words from Arabic-Persian, Urdu, English, Sanskrit, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya and dialects of Awadhi, Magahi, Bhojpuri, Brajbhasha, Bundelkhandi etc. People of the country and abroad are also learning Hindi to read Hindi writers and poets. Many people have learned Hindi for reading the novel “Chandrakanta-Santati” which was written by Devaki Nandan Khatri.
The Hindi language is also technically flexible, as it can be easily used on computers, the internet, social and web media. Today, many books, newspapers and magazines are being published in the Hindi language on topics related to technology and business. Hindi has become internet and computer friendly. Hindi is also the language of email, social media, and web media. Hindi has become the vehicle of the development of science and technology and business. Today, books related to science and business are being translated into Hindi. Business newspapers are being published in Hindi, in which the names of “Business Standard”, “Financial Express” and “Economic Times” can be taken prominently.
Social media originated in the first decade of the 21st century. Social media is conducted through the Internet. Social media like Orkut was very popular during the year 2007. Later came Facebook. At present, Instagram, Twitter, Google, WhatsApp etc. are popular social media. The Hindi language is being used the most in all these social media.
Hindi is the language of the people and because of the media, today Hindi is being spoken and understood the most in India. Although faulty Hindi or Hinglish is also being used in electronic, social and web media, it cannot be considered as a hindrance in the development of Hindi. Due to this, Hindi is getting rich continuously. Most of the films are being made in Hindi because the film is the most popular medium of entertainment and partly education. Films of desi and foreign languages are being dubbed in Hindi and served to Hindi speaking and understanding audience, due to which its popularity is increasing rapidly.
The first condition for becoming a global language is that more and more people communicate in that language, it has the ability to assimilate the words of other languages, its literature should be rich etc. If seen, Hindi meets all these criteria. This is the reason why it is expanding rapidly in the world.
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