World Hindi Day is celebrated every year on 10th January. This day creates awareness about Hindi language in the world. On this day, Indian embassies abroad celebrate in special ways. This day is celebrated by delivering lectures on various subjects in all government offices. Hindi is one of the 22 scheduled languages of the Republic of India.
The World Hindi Conferences were started with the goal of developing and promoting Hindi in the world. The first World Hindi Conference was held in Nagpur on 10th January 1974. Since then, this day is celebrated as 'World Hindi Day'. The World Hindi Secretariat is located in Mauritius.
According to 2011 census, a total of 345 million people speak Hindi as their first language. This language has gone beyond the borders of India and has become a widely spoken language in several countries.
Here’s a list of countries where Hindi is widely spoken:
Nepal: As per TOI, almost around eight million people have an understanding of Hindi and as many as 80,000 Nepalese speak Hindi natively. This implies that Hindi language is widely spoken in Nepal due to cultural similarities and the influence of Indian television.
Mauritius: French and English are the country's official parliamentary languages. However, Hindi is also a widely spoken language among those of Indian origin.
United States: This country is having the third-largest group of Hindi speakers outside India and about 650,000 people in the US speak Hindi. Most of these speakers are immigrants from India.
Fiji: This country has a large population of Indian origin and around 38 percent of the population speak Hindi. Multiple Fijians of Indian ancestry speak Hindi, alongside Fijian and English.
Singapore: It is a global tourist hub. Many Indians have migrated to Singapore, and some families have lived here for generations. As per the world data info, 1.2 percent of the population speak Hindi.
United Kingdom: Hindi is one of the languages spoken by Indian-origin communities living in this country and almost around 1.53 percent people of the United Kingdom speak Hindi language.