Regional Definition
Sometimes it is also used to refer to states whose official language is Hindi. Only Gujarat has Hindi as official language outside Hindi Belt, while in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, the mutually intelligible language of Urdu is official. It is not necessary that their mother tongue is Hindi or Urdu. For instance Rajasthani people speak Rajasthani language which has roots in Old Gujarati and to communicate with outsiders they use Hindi. In Bihar people speak Bhojpuri, Magahi, Maithili and Angika. In Haryana people speak both Hindi and Haryanvi. In Himachal Pradesh people know both Hindi and Pahari. In Madhya Pradesh, a large number of people speak Hindi and the second most important common language is Marathi.Other common languages include Malwi, Punjabi and Sindhi. It is also interesting to note that people from these states are mostly bilingual. For instance, there is a large population in Bihar that speaks both Hindi and Maithili and there is a significant population which is well versed in English, making them bilingual & multilingual. With the influence of English people are becoming multilingual.
Read more about this topic: Hindi Belt
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