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Hindi

Hindi is the national language of India spoken by around half a billion people in India and around the world today. It reflects the culture of India as its core is a fusion of elements from Sanskrit (the classical language of ancient India) with Persian and Arabic vocabulary, which represent the Islamic contribution to Indian culture. Hindi adds to this recipe a seasoning of borrowings from English, Portuguese and other European languages. What is more, today Hindi is the most popular language of news media in India, with more readers of Hindi papers, and more viewers of Hindi TV, than any other Indian language. On top of all of this Hindi is really quite accessible for learners with a script which is easy to learn, and beautiful to write, and a grammar which is no more complicated than that of some European languages. All of this makes Hindi the ideal language subject for students who want to study Indian culture, religion, society, media or politics.

The first two first year subjects are introductory subjects designed to teach a basic level of communicative competence in modern Hindi, emphasising learning the language in its appropriate social context. The second year subjects are intermediate level subjects, which introduce students to reading modern Hindi short stories and the registers of Hindi used in news media such as newspapers and magazines. In addition to lectures on basic Hindi grammar, there are conversation classes and translation exercises from Hindi to English and vice-versa.