Why study Hindi Language?
If children and students whose first language is the Hindi language can maintain that language, the development of their knowledge of and confidence in their cultural heritage and language will be enhanced. For children and students whose home language is a South Asian language, maintaining that language will enhance their learning of English. For all children there are cognitive benefits in learning two languages. There is evidence that children and students who are competent in two or more languages are cognitively advantaged. Learning Hindi language will enable children and students to reach higher levels of proficiency in second and third languages.
Children and students from a South Asian descent will be able to take part more effectively in activities within the family, house of worship, and community if they can speak Hindi language. As they become parents, they will have a special role to play in passing on to their children competence in the Hindi language. This will enable people of South Asian ancestry to affirm, through language, their sense of identity and belonging. By learning Hindi language those without kinship ties can access the language, culture, and peoples of South Asia.
Learning Hindi language will enable children and students to function more effectively in our multicultural society. Bilingual skills are required in a number of situations in the community and at work (bilingual employees are sought after by real estate, translation and law agencies, banks, hospitals, stores, such as target, Home Depot, etc.). Learning a community language like Hindi language will help both heritage and foreign language learners to function more effectively in contexts in which Hindi language are used.
Hindi language are heritage languages and, in world terms, are spoken by more than a billion people. Therefore, learning Hindi language is essential because learners can:
• broaden their understanding of people and their languages and cultures;
• develop skills, attitudes, and understandings that will help them to learn other languages;
• learn more about their own first language through becoming aware of how it resembles and differs from the Hindi language;
• become confident in communicating with native South Asian language speakers about personal and cultural issues, trade, travel, tourism, and other areas of mutual interest;
• learn to appreciate and enjoy the literatures and cultures of South Asian countries and people;
• broaden their career opportunities, both in the U.S. and internationally;
• travel with confidence not only in South Asia but also in the other countries with large South Asian communities;
• participate more fully as citizens of a multilingual world in which many different languages are spoken and many people can speak two, three, or more of them.
Moreover, knowledge is a gift; the Hindi language is a gift to all peoples.
About International Hindi Association (IHA)
The International Hindi Association, or Antarrashtriya Hindi Samiti (or Samiti) is the premier Hindi institution in the United States that strives to preserve and promote India’s culture through language and literature among Indians abroad. It is a non-profit organization established on 18 October 1980 in Roslyn, Virginia, USA by the eminent Hindi scholar late Dr Kunwar Chandra Prakash Singh. The IHA is run by volunteers and managed by a constitutionally elected Board of Directors through its numerous local chapters scattered throughout the United States. It publishes a widely acclaimed quarterly magazine Vishwa and a newly introduced electronic magazine eVishwa. In addition to the magazines, annual marathon kavi-sammelans or poetic meets around the US and Canada with famous Hindi poets has been the hallmark of IHA’s increasing popularity. Past years have seen the likes of Kaka Hathrasi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Neeraj, Hullad Muradabadi, Brajendra Awasthi, Ashok Chakradhar, Surendra Sharma, Som Thakur and Kunwar Bechain, among others. For broader community outreach, IHA continually seeks to partner with socially aware organizations, and have partnered with Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan of New York, India Society of Worcester in New England, Hindi Sahitya Sabha of Toronto in the past, to name a few. It has also collaborated with the University of Connecticut, University of California, University of Pittsburgh, Princeton University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.