English and Hindi are part of the Indo-European language family. They are distantly related languages that share a common ancestor language.
This ancestor language—called Proto-Indo-European— disappeared over 4000 years ago, leaving no written traces. Much linguistics work has gone into reconstructing it by analyzing patterns in other languages.
Scholars believe that this ancestor language originated in a region located north of the Black Sea, which incidentally is roughly halfway between England and Northern India.
Due to population migrations, this language spread both westward, reaching across most of Europe, and eastward, extending into the Indian subcontinent.
However, English and Hindi have limited similarities because they belong to separate branches within the vast Indo-European language family.
Within the Indo-European language family, English is classified as a Germanic language, whereas Hindi is classified as an Indo-Iranian language.
The table below provides some examples of English-Hindi cognates. These are pairs of words that have a common etymological ancestor, meaning that they descend from a common parent language.
| English | Hindi |
|---|---|
| mother | माता (mātā) |
| brother | भ्राता (bhrātā) |
| name | नाम (nām) |
| new | नया (nayā) |
| sun | सूरज (sūraj) |
| serpent | सर्प (sarp) |
| mind | मन (man) |
| three | तीन (tīn) |
| eight | आठ (āṭh) |
| nine | नौ (nau) |
When languages come into contact, they frequently borrow words from each other, particularly when a new concept lacks a term in one language.
English and Hindi have had a long history of close contact. A significant period of contact occurred during the British colonial rule in India (from 1858 to 1947) when English served as the language of the government.
After India gained its independence, Hindi and English became the languages of the Indian government.
English has borrowed words from Hindi, especially in fields like spirituality and cuisine. Examples of words that English borrowed from Hindi are provided in the table below.
| English Word | Hindi Word |
|---|---|
| guru | गुरु |
| chai | चाय |
| bungalow | बंगला |
| shampoo | चाँपना |
Hindi has incorporated loanwords from English, especially in areas like technology and administration.
| English | Hindi |
|---|---|
| Computer | कंप्यूटर (kampyūṭar) |
| Telephone | टेलीफ़ोन (ṭelīfon) |
| Internet | इंटरनेट (iṇṭarneṭ) |
English and Hindi use different writing systems. The Devanagari script used for writing Hindi is recognizable by its horizontal line which connects the top of adjacent characters in a word.
The use of the Devanagari script is not limited to Hindi. It is also used for several other languages including Nepali—the official language of Nepal—as well as Marathi—a language spoken in India.
In fact, the Devanagari script is the fourth most widely used writing system in the world, after the Latin script, Chinese characters, and the Arabic script.
The English alphabet is a form of the Latin script, which is also known as the Roman script because it originated in Ancient Rome. The English alphabet has 26 letters whereas the Devanagari script has 47 characters.
Unlike English which distinguishes between uppercase and lowercase letters, the Devanagari script used for Hindi does not have a distinction between lowercase and capital letters.
Romanization is the process of transliterating a text from a non-Latin script language (like Hindi, Japanese, or Korean) into the Latin alphabet. This allows English speakers who haven't yet learned the Devanagari script to read Hindi words.
The Devanagari script used for writing Hindi has many more letters than the Latin alphabet. As a result, the Latin alphabet cannot cover the entire phonetic range of Hindi.
To accurately represent these sounds using the Latin alphabet, additional diacritical marks are used to distinguish the different Hindi letters. Here are some examples:
| Devanagari | Transliteration |
|---|---|
| न | na |
| ङ | ṅa |
| ञ | ña |
| ण | ṇa |
| Devanagari | Transliteration |
|---|---|
| द | da |
| ड | ḍa |
| ढ | ḍha |
| ध | dha |
In English, individual consonants and vowels are represented by separate letters, and they are combined to form syllables. The Hindi language works differently: consonants have an inherent vowel which by default is a short “a” sound.
Diacritics (additional marks) are added to the consonant symbol to change the inherent vowel.
| Devanagari | Transliteration |
|---|---|
| क | ka |
| का | kā |
| कि | ki |
| की | kī |
| कु | ku |
| कू | kū |
| के | ke |
| कै | kai |
| को | ko |
| कौ | kau |
Note that Hindi also has standalone vowel symbols, which are used for example when a word starts with a vowel sound. For instance, the Hindi word “अहिंसा” (ahinsā) which means “nonviolence” starts with the character 'अ' which is the short 'a' vowel symbol.
The Norman Conquest of England in 1066 led to an influx of French words into English. In the same way, the Mughal Empire in India (1526–1857) produced an influx of Persian words into Hindi.
In both cases, the new ruling class brought their native language to the lands they conquered. The common people continued to use their own languages, but these local languages were influenced by an influx of vocabulary from the languages spoken by the rulers.
After the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, Old Norman—a dialect of French—became the language of the Anglo-Norman government in England. This lasted for several centuries and led to an influx of French words into the English language.
As a Germanic language, English does not descend from Latin. And yet, it has been estimated that 69% of the words in an English dictionary come from Latin or Greek [1]. The reason is that many of the French words which entered the English language came from Latin—because French is a Romance language that evolved from Latin.
During the Mughal Empire, Hindi saw an influx of Persian loanwords. The Mughals, who came from Central Asia, controlled the Indian subcontinent from the 16th to the 19th century and introduced the Persian language to the region.
Persian served as the language of the Mughal court and administration, and it influenced local languages such as Hindi. In addition to its linguistic influence, the Mughal empire left some impressive architectural marvels such as the Taj Mahal which they built in the city of Agra, as well as the Red Fort in Delhi.
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