MANGALURU: The linguistic research by Jayanti Prasad Nautiyal , deputy general manager, Corporation Bank, shows that Hindi beats Mandarin comfortably as the most spoken language globally. According to Nautiyal's findings, the number of people speaking Hindi is 1,200 million, while Mandarin is second at 1,050 million. "The number of people speaking Hindi has increased steadily, while there is slow growth in the number of people speaking Mandarin," said Nautiyal, who is also member secretary, Town Official Language Implementation Committee (TOLIC). He also shed light on some interesting facts. He pointed out that while the world population is 7,02,88,91,239, the total people who know Hindi is 1,20,73,93,250, which means one in six persons in the world knows Hindi. This work was released by Rajan Kumar, economic advisor, ministry of finance, in a national seminar organised by the finance ministry on World Hindi Day at Lucknow, recently. On reasons why Mandarin was pushed to the second spot, Nautiyal elaborates: "English is fast becoming the most preferred language in China, while Hindi in its simplicity is endearing itself not just to people of India, but all over the world. "The data regarding the number of people conversant with Mandarin has been clubbed with the population, and its increase is proportional to the increase in population whereas only those people who knew Khadi Boli (Hindi) were brought under the purview of people knowing Hindi.My research report has brought a substantial change in these statistics," he said. Nautiyal's study sheds light on the influence of movies and electronic media, observing that Hindi is the favourite of Indian cinema. It is the preferred language of the advertising world on electronic media. On some linguists raising objections over the treatment of Hindi and Urdu as one language, Nautiyal emphasises that the grammatical structure and syntax of Urdu is identical as that of Hindi. "We can safely say that it is one and the same," he said. Then why was Hindi relegated to the third and fourth positions? "The linguistic data regarding Hindi by International linguistic organizations and linguistic websites is based on people using Khadi boli (Hindi) only. The data regarding the associate languages of Hindi, such as Rajasthani, Awadhi, Braj, Bihari, Maithili, Bhojpuri, Hariyanavi etc, are not counted as Hindi. Therefore, the data pertaining to those conversant with Hindi is shown as just 500 million, whereas realistically, the number of people conversant with Hindi is 1,200 million,'' he said. According to his data, only 50% of the Karnataka population speak Hindi. The penetration of Hindi in Tamil Nadu and Nagaland is abysmally low at 20%. Overall, 78% of the population in India speak Hindi. The percentage is just 4.45% when it comes to countries, excluding India, and globally, 17.17% of the population speaks Hindi. Outside India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal top in speaking Hindi, he said. "The linguistic data regarding Hindi by International linguistic organizations and linguistic websites is based on people using Khadi boli (Hindi) only. The data regarding the associate languages of Hindi, such as Rajasthani, Awadhi, Braj, Bihari, Maithili, Bhojpuri, Hariyanavi etc, are not counted as Hindi. Therefore, the data pertaining to those conversant with Hindi is shown as just 500 million, whereas realistically, the number of people conversant with Hindi is 1,200 million,'' he said. According to linguistic research by Jayanti Prasad Nautiyal, deputy general manager, Corporation Bank, only 50% of the Karnataka population speak Hindi. The penetration of Hindi in Tamil Nadu and Nagaland is abysmally low at 20%. Overall, 78% of the population in India speak Hindi. Globally, 17.17% of the population speaks Hindi.