Language I (Hindi)
Language I (Hindi) carries 30 marks in Paper 1. Roughly half is content - वर्ण, शब्द, संधि, समास, अलंकार, गद्यांश and पद्यांश - and half is Hindi pedagogy: how children acquire and learn language and how the four skills are taught and assessed.
वर्ण और शब्द
- 11 स्वर and 33 व्यंजन, plus अनुस्वार (ं), अनुनासिक (ँ) and विसर्ग (ः).
- शब्द भेद: संज्ञा, सर्वनाम, विशेषण, क्रिया, अव्यय, with लिंग, वचन, कारक and काल.
संधि vs समास
संधि joins sounds; समास joins words into one compound. स्वर संधि types: दीर्घ, गुण, वृद्धि, यण, अयादि. समास भेद: तत्पुरुष, कर्मधारय, द्विगु, द्वंद्व, बहुव्रीहि, अव्ययीभाव.
भाषा शिक्षण-शास्त्र
भाषा अर्जन is natural and unconscious; भाषा अधिगम is deliberate and schooled. The order is श्रवण → वाचन → पठन → लेखन, so oral work comes before writing. NCF 2005 treats the child's home language and बहुभाषिकता as a resource, not a defect. Errors are developmental evidence, so use them diagnostically instead of marking every one.
Worked example
विद्या + आलय = विद्यालय. Reasoning: the final आ of विद्या and the initial आ of आलय combine, and आ + आ = आ, which is दीर्घ संधि. Contrast देव + इंद्र = देवेंद्र, where अ + इ = ए, that is गुण संधि. The procedure is always the same: check the last vowel of the first word against the first vowel of the second.
Traps
- द्वंद्व vs बहुव्रीहि: in द्वंद्व both members count (राम-लक्ष्मण); in बहुव्रीहि neither is the head (दशानन = the ten-faced one).
- Forgetting that ऋ, ए, ऐ, ओ, औ are counted among the स्वर.
- Stopping a child mid-sentence to correct pronunciation while fluency is still being built.