World Hindi Day, also known as Vishwa Hindi Diwas, is celebrated annually on January 10 to promote the Hindi language and its usage worldwide. Notably, Hindi is majorly spoken in states like Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, and Punjab, and also in some countries like Mauritius, Nepal, Fuji, Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago.
Hindi, which is written in the Devanagari script, is one of the 22 scheduled languages of the country. Hindi is one of the official languages of the Union Government, with the other being English.
World Hindi Day 2024: Significance
The day serves as a platform to celebrate and promote using Hindi in various spheres. Hindi is the third most spoken language in the world after Mandarin Chinese and English, spoken by 600 million people across the world.
World Hindi Day aims to raise awareness about the language, promote its use, and to celebrate the contributions of scholars and writers in this language.
World Hindi Day 2024: Theme
The theme for World Hindi Day 2024 is “Hindi – Bridging Traditional Knowledge and Artificial Intelligence.”
World Hindi Day 2024: History
The first World Hindi Conference was held in Nagpur, Maharashtra, in 1975, and was inaugurated by then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The event saw participation from 30 countries. In 2006, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced January 10 to be marked as World Hindi Day.
Another objective to celebrate World Hindi Day is to present Hindi as an international language.
World Hindi Day 2024: Celebration
World Hindi Day in India is celebrated with seminars, quizzes, and other activities in schools and other educational institutions. Extempore speech and essay writing in Hindi are also organised in an attempt to promote the language. World Hindi Day is also celebrated in Indian Embassies and government offices by organising lectures on different topics.
