Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi is a standardised register of Hindustani identified with Hindus. It is one of the 22 official languages of India and is used as the primary official language of the Republic of India along with English. Standard Hindi is a sanskritised register derived from the khariboli dialect.
The number of speakers of Standard Hindi is ambiguous. According to the 2001 Indian census, 258 million people in India regarded their native language to be "Hindi". However, this includes large numbers of speakers of Hindi dialects besides Standard Hindi.
The dialect upon which Standard Hindi is based is khariboli, the common language of the Delhi region. This dialect acquired linguistic prestige in the Mughal Empire and became known as Urdu, "the language of the court." After independence, the Government of India set about standardizing Hindi as a separate language from Urdu.
Come back tomorrow for English as a foreign language
Showing posts with label native speaker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label native speaker. Show all posts
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
Its all in the accent
When attempting to perfect a new language, the pinnacle achievement is that of acquiring a genuine accent to go with it. Some accents, like the Australian for example, stand out quite significantly where as other accents, like a softly flowing Irish accent- are more subtle and harder to detect by those who do not know how. In truth, there are a vast amount of different accents, in every language. I can think of at least 9 different types of French accent, just of the top of my head.
Let us take a quick look at the British and American accents. Both are English (although there are those that disagree) but they sound drastically different. The reason for this is that they are spoken using different areas of the mouth. Americans don’t distinguish so much between different sounds and speak with the back of the mouth and the nose, where as the Brits speak with the front part of the mouth and the tongue, carefully articulating each sound.
It is really very normal to have an accent, as an accent is merely the way in which we use our mouths to pronounce words. The best way to pick up an accent is to “reverse engineer” it. Listen to a native speaker speaking your language and listen to the accent they have. For example- When English is your native language and you wish to learn how to speak German- listen to how a German person speaks English. You will notice that they speak very much with their breath- paying particular attention to letters “s” and “z”- When next speaking German, do the same and you shall find your accent improved.
The best way to pick up a genuine accent is to learn from a native speaker. Get in touch with Just Languages and give it a try.
Let us take a quick look at the British and American accents. Both are English (although there are those that disagree) but they sound drastically different. The reason for this is that they are spoken using different areas of the mouth. Americans don’t distinguish so much between different sounds and speak with the back of the mouth and the nose, where as the Brits speak with the front part of the mouth and the tongue, carefully articulating each sound.
It is really very normal to have an accent, as an accent is merely the way in which we use our mouths to pronounce words. The best way to pick up an accent is to “reverse engineer” it. Listen to a native speaker speaking your language and listen to the accent they have. For example- When English is your native language and you wish to learn how to speak German- listen to how a German person speaks English. You will notice that they speak very much with their breath- paying particular attention to letters “s” and “z”- When next speaking German, do the same and you shall find your accent improved.
The best way to pick up a genuine accent is to learn from a native speaker. Get in touch with Just Languages and give it a try.
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