Caribbean Hindustani

Caribbean Hindustani (Devanagari: कैरेबियाई हिंदुस्तानी; Kaithi: 𑂍𑂶𑂩𑂵𑂥𑂱𑂨𑂰𑂆⸱𑂯𑂱𑂁𑂠𑂳𑂮𑂹𑂞𑂰𑂢𑂲; Nastaliq: کَیریبیائی ہندوستانی) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by Indo-Caribbean people and the Indo-Caribbean diaspora. It is a koiné language mainly based on the Bhojpuri and Awadhi languages. These were the most-spoken languages by the Indians who came as immigrants to the Caribbean from India as indentured labourers. It is closely related to Fiji Hindi and the Hindustani-Bhojpuri spoken in Mauritius and South Africa.

Because a majority of people came from the Bhojpur region in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand, and the Awadh region in Uttar Pradesh, Caribbean Hindustani is most influenced by Bhojpuri, Awadhi and other Eastern Hindi-Bihari dialects. Hindustani (Standard Hindi-Standard Urdu) has also influenced the language due to the arrival of Bollywood films, music, and other media from India. It also has a minor influence from Tamil and other South Asian languages. The language has also borrowed many words from Dutch and English in Suriname and Guyana, and English and French in Trinidad and Tobago. Many words unique to Caribbean Hindustani have been created to cater for the new environment that Indo-Caribbean people now live in. After the introduction of Standard Hindustani to the Caribbean, Caribbean Hindustani was seen by many Indo-Caribbean people as a broken version of Hindi, however due to later academic research it was seen as deriving from Bhojpuri, Awadhi, and other dialects and was in fact not a broken language, but its own unique language mainly deriving from the Magahi and Awadhi dialects, and not the Khariboli dialect like Standard Hindi and Urdu did, thus the difference.

Caribbean Hindustani is spoken as a vernacular by Indo-Caribbean people, independent of their religious background, though Hindus tend to incorporate more Sanskrit derived vocabulary and Muslims tend to incorporate more Persian, Arabic, and Turkic derived vocabulary, similar to the Standard Hindi-Urdu divide of the Hindustani language. When written, the Devanagari script following the Hindi alphabet, is used by Hindus, while some Muslims tend to use the Perso-Arabic script in the Nastaliq calligraphic hand following the Urdu alphabet; historically, the Kaithi script was also used. However, due to the decline in the language these scripts are not widely used and most often the Latin script is used due to familiarity and easiness.

From Wikipedia · Caribbean Hindustani · CC BY-SA 4.0