Hindi has been described as a standardised and Sanskritised register of the Hindustani language, which itself is based primarily on the Khariboli dialect of Delhi and neighbouring areas of North India. Modern Standard Hindi (Hindi: आधुनिक मानक हिन्दी, Ādhunika Mānaka Hindī), commonly referred to as Hindi (Hindi: हिन्दी, Hindī), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in North India, and serves as the lingua franca of the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Distribution of L1 self-reported speakers of Hindi in India as per the 2011 Census