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Languages Most Similar to Hindi

Can you guess which languages have the highest level of similarity to Hindi? Good luck!
Includes one language that is mutually intelligible with Hindi
Source: http://elinguistics.net/Compare_Languages.aspx
Thanks to baptistegorce for allowing me to borrow this idea!
See comments for more caveats
Quiz by JWatson24
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Last updated: November 18, 2022
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First submittedNovember 18, 2022
Times taken123
Average score50.0%
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Index
Language
4.3
Urdu
7.8
Punjabi
17.4
Lahnda
17.3
Magahi
19.4
Nepali
20.0
Marwari
21.6
Bihari
22.3
Bengali
Oriya
24.8
Marathi
27.1
Assamese
JWatson24
+2
Level 71
Nov 18, 2022
Bihari shows up on the source, but I greyed it out because it's a language group, not a singular language. Also, the source for some reason included Magahi, which is a Bihari language, but not other major Bihari languages like Bhojpuri or Maithili. So there may be other languages that would be on here but are just not represented by the source data.
Mikasuomi
+3
Level 49
Nov 18, 2022
This eLinguistics application is good in showing relations between closely related languages and in differentiating distantly related languages from randomly chosen language pairs, which are not related (or their common proto-language is so far back in pre-history that reconstructing it is beyond linguistic methods). Some of the word comparisons are dubious, so this is more for fun than serious investigations, but it works very well for example my native language Finnish in Uralic language family (more precisely Finnic sub-group).

The comparison is based on consonants, which are often in cognate words of closely related languages exactly same and in distantly related languages somewhat different according to recurring sound laws, not randomly. Example word "fish": Finnish "kala", Estonian "kala", Hungarian "hal".

JWatson24
+2
Level 71
Nov 18, 2022
I don't know much about linguistics but that's a really interesting analysis. Based on what I've seen, I would agree--it's fun but not perfect, and its similarity criteria might be too narrow. I don't know if there are any other tools out there measuring language similarity, but if you find any, I'd be interested in seeing them.
Mikasuomi
+2
Level 49
Nov 18, 2022
I agree with you, it is fun. It works great for phonological similarity in modern languages, because that is what it is about. They say that it is about genetic proximity, and that is not a scientific claim. Statistically similarities co-occur in related languages, but in historical comparative linguistics also differences matter, when they are SYSTEMATICAL sound correspondences, not random.

When they notice similarity between Finnish and Estonian "kala" and Hungarian "hal", they are also historically correct, because "l" is the same and "k" corresponds to "h", like also in words meaning '3'. But when with Finnish (F) and Turkish (T) non-related words meaning '2' (F "kaksi", T "iki") they take "k" as similarity, this doesn't tell anything about genetic proximity. In similar fashion in words meaning 'water' (F "vesi", T "su") the similarity of "s" is mere coincidence (in Finnish and Estonian word "vesi" the "s" was earlier "t", as can be seen in infection, F veteen 'to water').

baptistegorce
+1
Level 54
Nov 18, 2022
Good one! Pretty different (and imo more difficult) than my own versions about romance, slavic or germanic languages. Glad to see that the idea has been greatky reused, and of course you're welcome!
JWatson24
+2
Level 71
Nov 18, 2022
Thanks Baptiste! Definitely very different, and a few of the answers are pretty obscure. Even for an Indian this is kinda hard.
TheNatureThread
+1
Level 65
Nov 19, 2022
Nice quiz!
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