Talk:Hindi

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Former good article nomineeHindi was a Language and literature good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
September 18, 2006Good article nomineeNot listed

"Hindu language" listed at Redirects for discussion[edit]

The redirect Hindu language has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 September 1 § Hindu language until a consensus is reached. Isla (talk) 18:45, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A Basic Grammar of Modern Hindi[edit]

Please add this citation in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi#Independent_India section, where the book "A Basic Grammar of Modern Hindi" is mentioned, as it shows the first edition being published in 1958: https://archive.org/details/page1-converted-compressed/page/n1/mode/2up

 Done -Lemonaka‎ 02:49, 19 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Arabic loanwords[edit]

@Word0151 for further reading on this topic: https://www.iranchamber.com/literature/articles/persian_language.php

— Rolando 1208 (talk) 20:33, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Rolando 1208 Do you still want to include the section? Word0151 (talk) 02:36, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Rolando 1208 (talk) 09:27, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Can you give your rationale? Word0151 (talk) 09:49, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
They are Arabic words used in Hindi. Loaned via Persian, as the article says. I even removed the direct borrowings part as I don't know of any sources that list them. Rolando 1208 (talk) 10:22, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
How do you like it now, i have removed the table but added a line. The table is pointless, since the words are borrowed directly from Persian. Word0151 (talk) 11:42, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
i think is should have done the edit after consensus, but i have already made it. Word0151 (talk) 11:44, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's not pointless. Even if they were borrowed from Persian they're still Arabic words. Since they're Arabic words they should be listed.
Please undo your edit, I don't agree with the change. Rolando 1208 (talk) 12:45, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
They are Hindi words, borrowed from Persian, borrowed from Arabic words. There are many french words borrowed into English and then find a way into Hindi. So are you going to create a table saying 'french words in Hindi'. Word0151 (talk) 13:24, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
People who read the English Wikipedia are more likely to know that English borrows from French and Latin. However they're less likely to know about words that Hindi and Arabic have in common, as Hindi is an unfamiliar language for non-South Asians. The Arabic table provides encyclopedic value.
I don't know why you're making a big deal out of this, the article explicitly said that they were loaned via Persian. No one has erased that important detail. Rolando 1208 (talk) 13:40, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There's two things I don't get. Why would you add a table for Arabic loanwords without having one for borrowings from Persian? And how can we mention Arabic and Chagatai in one breath as ultimate sources of Hindi–Urdu words? I have tried a tweak that might be acceptable for both of you. –Austronesier (talk) 17:09, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Good point, I actually didn't notice. I think both languages should have tables. It looks better and more organised. Such a shame to just throw away a table that someone put effort into making. It just doesn't feel right. Rolando 1208 (talk) 18:57, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Many sources actually speak of "Perso-Arabic" vocabulary in Hindi–Urdu. Maybe we can rename the section accordignly and present a table with exemplary loanwords from Persian and add a colummn which says "ultimately from Arabic" for each entry where it applies. Btw, for क़ानून qānūn, it would actually be "ultimately from Greek" :) –Austronesier (talk) 22:50, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That makes sense. Oftentimes it's hard to tell them apart. Unless you look up each individual word's etymology. It seems to me though, that words with क़ (and maybe ग़) are always Arabic.
On a sidenote, why "Modern" Standard? Was Hindi standardised before the 19th century? Rolando 1208 (talk) 11:26, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We agree that virtually all Arabic words in Hindi–Urdu were borrowed from Persian. Some of them even underwent a shift of meaning in Persian, and naturally, Hindi–Urdu uses the term with Persian semantics (a classical example is ग़ुलाम ġulām 'servant' < غُلَام 'boy'; also: 'boy-servant'). Should we really put Persian loanwords with an Arabic etymology into an independent subsection? On a fist glance, it creates the impression that Hindi got these words straight from Arabic. I'll leave the table as is, but remove the section header. You should also consider using adequate sources. This is not an obscure topic, so it is not hard to find high-quality scholarly sources for every statement that is relevant to this article. –Austronesier (talk) 10:45, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why was Modern Standard Hindi edited to just Standard Hindi ?[edit]

Isn't the movement to depersianize and de-arabize Hindustani/Urdu to standardize present-day Hindi a recent one 2 centuries ago in the modern era? https://jsis.washington.edu/southasia/publication/a-primer-of-modern-standard-hindi/

Before this attempt, Hindi colloquially referred to local languages of the northern subcontinent, as opposed to Hindustani/Urdu, the main widely adopted variety originating from Delhi's Khariboli. 115.97.61.20 (talk) 06:20, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's correct, Khariboli-based literary Hindi has a relatively recent history. This is why many of our sources cited in the article (e.g. Shapiro 2003, Kachru 2006, Masica 1991) explicitly use the term Modern Standard Hindi. The removal of "Modern" happened a few days ago because the entire phrase does not match with मानक हिन्दी ('Standard Hindi'). That's no reason however to go against common usage in reliable sources. I'll restore it. –Austronesier (talk) 10:26, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Austronesier The issue I have with this term it's that it implies that there was an "Old Standard Hindi".
It also seems inconsistent with all other languages. I've never heard or seen: Modern Standard English, Modern Standard German, Modern Standard Thai, Modern Standard Tagalog.
Are Hindi and Urdu the only languages that were standardised recently and that's why they get this special treatment? Wasn't for example English standardised relatively recently to align some meanings? Like how in international usage billion means 10^9 when before this alignment they always meant 10^12. Rolando 1208 (talk) 11:46, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You have already answered the question: I've never heard or seen: Modern Standard English, Modern Standard German, Modern Standard Thai, Modern Standard Tagalog. Whereas as multiple reliable sources (including gold standard sources for Indo-Aryan linguistics such as Masica or Cardona) do use "Modern Standard Hindi". Note also that there were earlier literary languages in the gamut of Indo-Aryan varieties commonly called "Hindi", albeit not Khariboli-based. –Austronesier (talk) 11:53, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and Urdu has a much older continious literary history. That's why you will hardly find "Modern Standard Urdu" in high-quality reliable sources, and that is also why we don't use "Modern Standard ..." in the Urdu article. –Austronesier (talk) 11:56, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't get how that's an issue today. Considering we refer to, say, Braj as Braj and not Standard Hindi.
It seems inconsistent with all the other languages. With all the other articles, the fact that they're modern is always implied. Rolando 1208 (talk) 12:12, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Austronesier consider this article, Comparison of standard Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian. None of these varieties are called "Modern Standard", even though they were standardised last century. Rolando 1208 (talk) 12:23, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As a rule, we certainly do align our articles for consistency, but only if this is supported by reliable sources. So if you find sources using the "Modern Standard" label applied to these languages with the same prevalence and frequency as in the case of Modern Standard Hindi, we might consider to add it there too. –Austronesier (talk) 14:01, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Then again, we don't have to quote the sources verbatim 100% of the time. It'd be better to just call it "Standard" so that it aligns with all the other languages. Rolando 1208 (talk) 14:17, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This not about "quoting". It's about following established terminology. –Austronesier (talk) 23:54, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Woah woah woah. I made one revert during the whole day, you're calling that edit warring, seriously? Rolando 1208 (talk) 00:32, 10 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Third opinion (from someone "with no dog in the fight"): "As a rule, we certainly do align our articles for consistency, but only if this is supported by reliable sources" is generally correct. The question really comes down to whether the attested use of "Modern Standard Hindi" in the RS on this topic is the dominant usage in quality source material (in English), or whether it's just one of two or more common terms for the modern language, including the simpler "Modern Hindi". If the shorter term is in about equal or even prevailing use, then using it would be both more concise and more consistent, plus not have the problem of perhaps implying an "Old" and "Middle" Standard Hindi. But if "Modern Standard Hindi" is usually used and the shorter "Standard Hindi" is usually avoided (for different sorts of potential ambiguity reasons Austronesier mentioned), then WP is not in a position to impose the short term here just because we like consistent naming patterns; that would be at least skirting the edge of WP:OR.
In short, this clearly just comes down to doing a survey of the appropriate source material to see what term dominates in the actually relevant and relaible sources. A really rudimentary Google Scholar search [1] is showing a lot of usage of the short phrase, but there are many false positives like "modern Hindi poetry", "modern Hindi theatre", etc., referring to the applied usage in the contemporary time period, not a language name, even when the keyword "language" is explicitly included, so it would have to be winnowed down with successive - terms, and then after that a good sampling of the works would need to be looked at for linguistics relevance, publication reputability, etc. I think that would be more productive than the two of you just arguing back and forth in an "I just know it should be this way" manner. :-) PS: This would be distinct from a WP:COMMONNAME analysis for an article title, in which all sources we'd generally consider reliable would be included, including things like newspapers, since article titles are about meeting reader expections; here, we care much more about field-specific source usage.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:46, 13 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Dogless editor #2, here. Pretty much agreeing with SMcCandlish here down the line, but he doesn't go far enough. Analyzing the result of the linked query, for example, is not *only* about looking for false positives like "modern Hindi poetry". you also need to check the context of the expressions to see if they are referring to the same thing. In result #3, what is modern referring to in this snippet:

a veritable who's who of modern Hindi authors Maithilisharan Gupta, Nirala

Are they writers of Modern Hindi, or are they contemporary authors writing in Hindi? If the latter, then this cannot be counted as one tally for the shorter name. Does the lack of a capital 'M' mean it's probably the latter? These are questions that need to be asked when evaluating search result data.
Result #9 for that query is entitled, "Introduction: The Study of Pre-Modern Hindi Literature", and if you look only at search hit counts, this will add one more to the tally for 'Modern Hindi" even though it is precisely the opposite. Finally, two- and three-word phrases for items in many fields are systematically reduced to one- and two-word phrases in books and articles about the item, once the formal, longer name has been introduced and defined. Books search result #3 for "Space shuttle" is "NASA Space Shuttle: 40th Anniversary" (#1 has no preview; #2 is for small children), and in running txt, refers mostly to the book topic as shuttle, not space shuttle:
the shuttle's resusability, the shuttle would become a one-size-fits-all..., only one objective for the shuttle program, received a boost from the shuttle, heat-resistant tiles for the shuttle's wings, the first non-US astronaut to fly on a shuttle, The shuttle program probably achieved..., searched for a shuttle configuration that could be afforded, parts that make up a shuttle, test a shuttle's ability to glide, telescope had been designed for servicing by shuttle astronauts, a shuttle based on lifting body concepts;
Need I go on? This overwhelming number of uses of shuttle rather than always having space shuttle does *not* mean that the COMMONNAME of this vehi○le is "the shuttle"; the common name is the Space shuttle, and all the other usages are shorter equivalents that are all understood in context. You can see the same thing happening at Wikipedia's article for Delta Shuttle, and even at the one-word article Shuttlecock. In all three of these articles, hits for the word shuttle outweigh those of the formal term, but are not evidence that the common name for the item in question is the shorter one, they are merely indicators that nobody wants to repeat a 2- or 3-word formal name for an object constantly throughout an article or book once the context is clear, and the superior numbers of the short phrase compared to the longer, formal name do not mean that the shorter, more frequent phrase is the common name for the item.
Long story short: like SMcC said, it's about actual usage in sources, not about consistency which plays second fiddle, and because it is a multi-word phrase, I'd pay a whole lot more attention to book, chapter, and article titles, than to mere counts in the running text, which I would predict would skew towards the abbreviated term, as seen in the Space Shuttle example, without implying that the shorter term is the common name for the language. Mathglot (talk) 00:46, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@SMcCandlish and Mathglot: Thank you for your input and especially for bringing "Modern Hindi" into the discussion as a third hitherto undiscussed option (and the one with the highest potential to yield false positives). Obviously, only a survey of the appropriate source material (as mentioned by SMcCandlish) can bring objective guidance into this matter. So far I have been content with pointing to existing reliable sources which use "Modern Standard Hindi" whereas no source for "Standard Hindi" has been brought forward. But there's one lesson I've from from similar discussions in RMs: don't rely on the OP's failure to objectively support their claim; that doesn't disprove anything and they might be right after all. I'll come back when I've done a survey. @SMcCandlish: Your help will be highly appreciated then lest I might technically misinterpret Ngram Viewer results again. –Austronesier (talk) 12:45, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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