Central Indo-Aryan languages


The Central Indo-Aryan languages or Hindi languages are a group of related language varieties spoken across northern and central India. These language varieties form the central part of the Indo-Aryan language family, itself a part of the Indo-European language family. They historically form a dialect continuum that descends from the Madhya Prakrits. Located in the Hindi Belt, the Central Zone includes the Dehlavi dialect of the Hindustani language, the lingua franca of Northern India that is the basis of the Modern Standard Hindi and Modern Standard Urdu literary standards. In regards to the Indo-Aryan language family, the coherence of this language group depends on the classification being used; here only Eastern and Western Hindi will be considered.

Languages

If there can be considered a consensus within the dialectology of Hindi proper, it is that it can be split into two sets of dialects: Western and Eastern Hindi. Western Hindi evolved from the Apabhramsa form of Shauraseni Prakrit, Eastern Hindi from Ardhamagadhi.
  1. Western Hindi
  2. *Braj, spoken in western Uttar Pradesh and adjacent districts of Rajasthan and Haryana.
  3. * Haryanvi, spoken in Chandigarh, Haryana, and as a minority in Punjab and Delhi.
  4. * Bundeli, spoken in south-western Uttar Pradesh and west-central Madhya Pradesh.
  5. * Kannauji, spoken in west-central Uttar Pradesh.
  6. * Hindustani, with its standardised forms High Hindi and Urdu, spoken in western Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, and after partition in Pakistan.
  7. Eastern Hindi
  8. * Awadhi, spoken in north and north-central Uttar Pradesh as well as the Caribbean, Fiji, Mauritius and South Africa.
  9. **Caribbean Hindustani
  10. **Fiji Hindi
  11. * Bagheli, spoken in north-central Madhya Pradesh and south-eastern Uttar Pradesh.
  12. * Chhattisgarhi, spoken in southeast Madhya Pradesh and northern and central Chhattisgarh.
This analysis excludes varieties sometimes claimed for Hindi for cultural reasons, such as Bihari, Rajasthani, and Pahari. Bhojpuri is classified under the Bihari languages though it has long been considered a Hindi language.
Romani, Domari, Lomavren, and Seb Seliyer appear to be Central Zone languages that migrated to the Middle East and Europe ca. 500–1000 CE in three distinct waves. Parya is a Central Zone language of Central Asia.
To Western Hindi Ethnologue adds Sansi, Powari, Chamari, Bhaya, Gowli, and Ghera.

Use in culturally non-Hindi regions

The standard educated Delhi Hindustani pronunciations commonly have diphthongal realizations, ranging from to and from to, respectively, in Eastern Hindi varieties and many non-standard Western varieties. There are also vowel clusters and.