Literary Hindi, written in the Devanagari script, has been strongly influenced by Sanskrit. Its standard form is based on the Khari Boli dialect, found to the north and east of Delhi. Braj Bhasha, which was an important literary medium from the 15th to the 19th century, is often treated as a dialect of Hindi, as are Awadhi, Bagheli, Bhojpuri, Bundeli, Chhattisgarhi, Garhwali, Haryanawi, Kanauji, Kumayuni, Magahi, and Marwari. However, these so-called dialects of Hindi are more accurately described as regional languages of the “Hindi zone” or “belt,” an area that approximates the region of northern India, south through the state of Madhya Pradesh.

Within this zone, the degree to which regional languages resemble standard Hindi varies considerably. Maithili—the easternmost regional language of the Hindi belt—bears more historical resemblance to Bengali than to standard Hindi. Likewise, Rajasthani, the westernmost language of the belt, in some respects resembles Gujarati more than standard Hindi. Nevertheless, the majority of speakers of these regional languages consider themselves to be speaking a Hindi dialect. Among other reasons, they note that these languages were grouped with Hindi by the British in an attempt to classify languages in the early days of British rule. Furthermore, Hindi (rather than one of the regional languages) was chosen as the medium of instruction at the elementary-school level. In large part as a result of this colonial policy, members of the urban middle class and educated villagers throughout the zone claim to be speakers of Hindi because the use of these regional languages or dialects in public venues—that is, outside the circle of family and close friends—is perceived as a sign of inadequate education. In other words, speaking standard Hindi gives as much status to people in this region as speaking English gives in the south of India; both are treated as languages of upward social mobility. Thus, people in search of new jobs, marriages, and the like must use standard Hindi in everyday in india ..