हिन्दी संवैधानिक रूप से भारत की प्रथम राजभाषा है और भारत की सबसे अधिक बोली और समझी जानेवाली भाषा है। चीनी के बाद यह विश्व में सबसे अधिक बोली जाने वाली भाषा भी है। हिन्दी और इसकी बोलियाँ उत्तर एवँ मध्य भारत के विविध राज्यों में बोली जाती हैं । भारत और अन्य देशों में में ६० करोड़ से अधिक लोग हिन्दी बोलते, पढ़ते और लिखते हैं। फ़िजी, मॉरिशस, गयाना, सूरीनाम की अधिकतर और नेपाल की कुछ जनता हिन्दी बोलती है।

Hindi (हिन्दी Hindi) also known as Manak Hindi (Devanagari: मानक हिन्दी; meaning "Standard Hindi"), High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardised and sanskritised register of the Hindi-Urdu language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi and Western Uttar Pradesh. It is one of the official languages of the Republic of India.

Spoken In : India, Significant communities in Mauritius, South Africa, United States, Canada, Nepal

Native Speakers: Standard Hindi: 180 million (1991), Total: 490 million, including Urdu)

Language family: Indo-European > Indo-Iranian > Indo-Aryan > Central zone > Western Hindi > Khariboli > Hindustani > Standard Hindi

Writing system: Devanagari.

Official language in: India

Regulated by: Central Hindi Directorate (India)

Language codes: hi (ISO 639-1), hin (ISO 639-2, ISO 639-3)

Colloquial Standard Hindi is mutually intelligible with another register of Hindustani language called Urdu. Mutual intelligibility decreases in literary and specialized contexts which rely on educated vocabulary. Due to religious nationalism and communal tensions, speakers of both Hindi and Urdu frequently assert that they are distinct languages, despite the fact that native speakers generally cannot tell the colloquial languages apart. The combined population of Hindi-Urdu speakers is the fourth largest in the world. However, the number of native speakers of Standard Hindi is unclear. According to the 2001 Indian census, 258 million people in India reported their native language to be "Hindi". However, this includes large numbers of speakers of Hindi dialects besides Standard Hindi; as of 2009, the best figure Ethnologue could find for Khariboli dialect was a 1991 citation of 180 million.

References :
• Government: National Portal of India : india.gov.in
• Official Unicode Chart for Devanagari : http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0900.pdf
• Technology Development for Indian Languages (TDIL) : http://tdil.mit.gov.in/
• Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi_language
• Himmat Singh Gill (2000-01-23). "Books: Indian male is dissected and found wanting". The Tribune Spectrum. Retrieved 2007-03-24.
• McGregor, R.S. (1993), Oxford Hindi–English Dictionary (2004 ed.), Oxford University Press, USA.
• John Thompson Platts (1884). A dictionary of Urdū, classical Hindī, and English (reprint ed.). LONDON: H. Milford. pp. 1259. Retrieved 2011-07-06.Oxford University.
• the Constitution of India.
• Ethnologue, "Statistical Summaries: by language size
• Central Hindi Directorate regulates the use of Devanagari script and Hindi spelling in India. Source: Central Hindi Directorate: Introduction.
• Ethnologue, "Hindi"
• The Union: Official Language.