British politician Rishi Sunak
Credit: ©ComposedPix/Shutterstock

Today, Tuesday, October 25, 2022, Rishi Sunak, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, has become the 57th prime minister of the United Kingdom. Sunak was the only candidate for the Conservative party following former Prime Minister Liz Truss’ resignation after only seven weeks in office. Sunak pushed for the removal of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson from office this past summer. Sunak made history as the first prime minister of color for the United Kingdom. As a son of Indian parents who moved to the United Kingdom from East Africa in the 1960’s, Sunak is also the first Hindu and first British Indian to serve in the role. At 42 years old, he is also the youngest person to become prime minister since 1812.

Sunak is tasked with cleaning up the British economy after the plan proposed by Truss sparked panic across the country. Sunak is experienced in finance as former Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Exchequer is a department in the Treasury of the United Kingdom. It collects, manages, and spends government funds. The department is controlled by the Treasury Board, which is composed of the prime minister (called the first lord of the treasury), the chancellor of the exchequer, and five junior lords. The chancellor is the minister of finance, and is always a Cabinet member. The chancellor prepares the annual budget. The budget contains proposed government expenditures and a program for raising money to meet these expenditures.

Britain is currently in a financial whirlwind after former Prime Minister Liz Truss reversed plans to cut taxes by 45 billion pounds, after the proposal upset lawmakers and caused the British pound to plummet. Sunak addressed the instability and proposed spending cuts to battle the highest inflation Britain has seen in 40 years.

After meeting with King Charles III at Buckingham Palace, Sunak formally became Britain’s fifth prime minister in six years. He vowed to bring economic stability and confidence to the British government. Since Sunak became prime minister after the resignation, he did not detail his policy plans in campaigns. He secured the premier position without formally addressing his stance on the war in Ukraine, Britain’s relationship with the European Union after Brexit, immigration, or climate change.

April 16, 2018

Hindi <<HIHN dee,>>, also called Modern Standard Hindi, is spoken by more than 500 million people. It is the principal official language of India. More than two-fifths of India’s people speak one or more of the dialects (language variations) of Hindi. There are many regional and local dialects in India, and each state has its own official language. Hindi is the official language of the capital, Delhi, and seven states. Hindi speakers live mostly in northern India, but Hindi is commonly heard in other parts of the country. Hindi speakers are also found in Nepal, Singapore, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States, and many other countries.

The flag of India flies over hundreds of millions of Hindi speakers in India. Credit: © T. Lesia, Shutterstock

Urdu is a sister language of Hindi. The languages are similar in grammar and pronunciation. When written, however, they use different alphabets and scripts. Cultural differences further separate the languages. Indian Hindus, people who practice Hinduism, often speak Hindi. Indian Muslims, people who practice Islam, often speak Urdu. Urdu is also spoken in Pakistan and Kashmir. Scholars sometimes speak of the two languages collectively as Hindi-Urdu. The spoken form is sometimes called Hindustani. Hindi-Urdu is the main language used in Indian films (Bollywood) and in much Indian popular music.

The Indian film industry produces hundreds of motion pictures every year. Most films are in Hindi (or Hindustani), but some are made in regional languages. Credit: WORLD BOOK photo by David R. Frazier

Hindi is an Indo-Aryan language of the Indo-European family. It is part of the New Indo-Aryan (NIA) group. Hindi uses the Devanagari alphabet, which has roots in Sanskrit, the oldest formal written language of India. Devanagari is a phonetic alphabet, so each letter represents a sound. It has 44 letters, with 33 consonants and 11 vowels. Smaller marks called matras represent vowels preceded by a consonant. Matras are written on the symbol of the preceding consonant. The letters are formed by markings that hang down from a horizontal line (see the red script in the movie poster above).

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Hindi is spoken in Delhi and the northern states of India. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

Hindi nouns have gender, number, and case. They can be masculine or feminine, singular or plural, and direct or oblique. Most adjectives agree with the gender, number, and case of the nouns they modify. Hindi has four simple tenses and three aspects. Word order for the Hindi language is subject-object-verb. Hindi is written from left to right, and Urdu is written from right to left. Urdu uses the Persian-Arabic alphabet. English words with Hindi origins include bungalow, shampoo, bandana, and jungle.

Hindi and Urdu are based of the spoken dialect of Delhi, Khari Boli, which means standard speech. The modern literary language is based on Khari Boli, which was written in the Devanagari alphabet. Written Hindi can be traced back to poetry of the 1300′s. Hindi prose became prominent in the early 1900’s.