What unites people from different strata, cultures and religions is language. As a country that is home to over 120 major languages, two languages in particular connect the two ends of our country, Hindi & English. The World Hindi day is celebrated every year on January 10th, also known as Vishwa Hindi Diwas, this day is marked to celebrate the popularity and use of Hindi language, scripts and literature around the world.
But do you know why and when we started celebrating World Hindi Day? In 2006, Mr.Manmohan Singh, the then Prime Minister of India, proclaimed that every year, January 10 would be honored as World Hindi Day to commemorate the first-ever World Hindi Conference held in Nagpur, Maharashtra, on January 10, 1975.
The first World Hindi Conference saw participation of 122 delegates from 30 countries to celebrate Hindi which at present is the fourth most-spoken language in the world, spoken in more than 20 countries and taught in over 176 universities across the world. About 43% of our country’s population speaks in Hindi but do you know what a mobile phone is called in Hindi? We bet you don’t. On World Hindi Day, Duolingo – the world’s most popular language learning app – brings to you a few words that we use almost daily basis but most of us would not know the Hindi translations for them.
