(For French version click here) One of the primary characteristics of India, linked with its vastness and the myriad influences it has experienced over the centuries, is its diversity, be it geographical, cultural, religious or linguistic. Beside the two official languages, namely English and Hindi, there are around a score of other constitutionally recognised others, such as Tamil, Punjabi or Bengali. However, this number rises to more than 400 if regional linguistic variations are also taken into account, not to mention the numerous dialects. After English and Mandarin, Hindi is the third most widely spoken language in the world. More than half the population of India speaks and understands it (mostly in the North of the country) so it can be considered to be the dominant language. However it must be noted that it is only the mother tongue of 20% of the inhabitants of India, and is recognised as the official language in only less than half of the states. Having said that, Hindi is also used outside India, notably in the large Indian communities in South Africa, in Fiji and Mauritius as well as in Pakistan, where it is known as Urdu, a language which is to all intents and purposes identical even if the written form is different. Furthermore, a large proportion of the prolific Indian cinema is filmed in Hindi, which is contributing to the growth of this language. A derivative of Sanskrit ( one of the most ancient languages documented) Hindi is an Indo-European language as are most European languages and French in particular. Even if this distant relationship is not enough to make it easily comprehensible to French speakers, they cannot help being struck by the similarity of certain Hindi words to the French equivalents. For example, ‘two’ « deux » is do, ‘you’ « tu » tum, ‘seven’ « sept » sāt, ‘nine’ « neuf » nau, and ‘ten’ « dix » das ; as for the word for ‘man’ is ādmī (homme), one is obviously immediately reminded of Adam. There are so many remains and traces of this distant relationship that it spreads into other European languages, so German speakers find it amusing that the word for ‘name’ « nom » in French, is nām et ‘realm’« royaume »in French, is rāj (Respectively « Name » and « Reich » in German), similarly, Spanish speakers are delighted to find that the word for ‘table’ « table » in French is mez and ‘orange’ « orange » in French is nārangī . (Respectively « mesa » and « naranja » in Spanish. The calligraphy involved in writing Hindi, known as ‘Devanagari’ may be a little daunting for Europeans. However, compared to other Asian languages, learning it is not particularly complicated seeing that the alphabet comprises only fifty basic characters ( without distinction between upper and lower case letters) to which, it is true can be added a few accents and consonant groups. Even without any knowledge of Hindi just leafing through a dictionary in the language reveals certain cultural characteristics concerning, for example, the importance of family relationships. So there are distinct words for different kinds of brother-in-law respectively the sister’s husband (bahanoī), the husband’s sister’s husband (nandoī), the wife’s sister’s husband (sāmū), the eldest brother of the husband (jeth) or his youngest brother (devar). Equally, specific terms for the maternal grandparents’ home (nansāl), that of the in-laws (sasurāl) as well as for other members of the family. Learning Hindi isn’t indispensable when visiting India, given that English allows the possibility of getting by in general for touring as well as in the business world. Over all, only a minority of Indians (around 5%) really have mastery over the English language and notably visitors will have trouble making themselves understood in this language in the rural areas, so it can be useful to be able to have some small notions of Hindi. Furthermore, even if this ability is limited, it will give great pleasure to those with whom you are conversing.