The Indian embassy in Washington is beginning Hindi language course for the students of the prestigious George Washington University to promote Hindi in the United States.  

Beginning August 28, the six-week non-credit course will be conducted by Dr. Moxraj, an educator of Indian Culture at the embassy.

In the Introductory Hindi Language course, apart from teaching students to speak in Hindi, they will be trained in the various basic aspects of the language, including alphabets.

“As the Sigur Centre has in the past and continues to support language learning and engagement, we were quite excited to be able to offer an opportunity for students to be introduced to Hindi, a critical language and one that is less commonly taught,” Hopkins and Ollapally said.

They hope that the course will help lay the foundation for full credit Hindi classes at the university.

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Last year too, the embassy had conducted free weekly Hindi classes of one-hour duration in its premises with almost 87 candidates from seven countries getting enrolled for the classes in short span.

“This indicates that there is a strong interest in Hindi language learning... and encourages us to build on the successful introductory course,” said Benjamin D Hopkins, Director, Sigur Centre for Asian Studies and Deepa M Ollapally, Associate Director, Sigur Centre for Asian Studies at the University in a recent letter to the Indian Ambassador to the United States.

Hindi is one of the most commonly spoken and official and languages in India. As per 2015 Census data, Hindi came out as the largest Indian language spoken in the United States.

By Sowmya Sangam