Indian Languages in The Netherlands
India has 18 officially recognised languages. Out of the 18 languages only Kashmiri, Sindhi & Sanskrit are not an official state language in one of the provinces. In Kashmir Urdu is the official language and in Nagaland it is English.Hindi is the Rashtrabhasa - the official language of India. During its evolution through the ages it has been influenced and enriched by Dravidian, Turkish, Farsi, Arabic, Portugese and English. Hindi has several dialects and is written in the Devanagri script.
In India about 460 million people speaks Hindi. About 75% (350 million) of them regard Hindi as their first language. Hindi is spoken not only in India but also outside India.
Hindi speaking population is found in countries like Australia, Fiji, Germany, Guyana, Mauritius, Nepal, The Middle Eastern Countries, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Suriname, Trinidad, UAE, Yemen, Uganda, UK, USA, Zambia etc.
In The Netherlands one can follow a language course in Hindi, Urdu, Sanskrit, Tamil and Malayalam. In the following pages the names of a few institutions, organisations and individuals are mentioned who give lessons in Hindi and other Indian languages.