BOLLYWOOD part III

Hindi

Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (also known as Manak Hindi, High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardised and sanskritised register of the Hindustani language. It is the native language of people living in Delhi, Haryana, Western Uttar Pradesh, northeastern Madhya Pradesh, and parts of eastern Rajasthan, and is one of the official languages of the Republic of India. But many non-native speakers from other parts of India, too, understand it easily because it is close to their native languages that, just like Hindi, originated from various Prakrit languages. These languages have common roots and the native speakers of several regional Indian languages find it easier to understand the more Sanskritised form of Hindi.

Hindi is the sixth most widely spoken language in the world with about 487 million speakers. It is an emerging language in the United States as well. Hindi is closely related to Urdu, the language of Pakistan. Hindi may be a great language choice for a student who is interested in learning a new alphabet; Hindi uses far less characters than other Asian languages.

The Indian constitution, in 1950, declared Hindi in Devanagari script to be the official language of the union. Unless Parliament decided otherwise, the use of English for official purposes was to cease 15 years after the constitution came into effect, i.e., on  26 January 1965.

Hindi dance songs

Hindi dance songs are now widely heard around the world. They first became popular among overseas Indians and were eventually discovered by others. Bollywood film music is called filmi music from the the Hindi language which means ‘films’.

The filmi music and dances in Bollywood films are a synthesis of formal and folk Indian traditional music and dance traditions, with the infusion of Western techniques. The dances in older Hindi movies represented supposed dances of the common people, although they involved original choreography. Bollywood dances have evolved as a unique and energetic style. Since they are group dances, they are often used as joyful exercise music.

The choreography of Bollywood dances takes inspiration from Indian folk dances, classical dances (like kathak) as well as disco and from earlier Hindi filmi dances.