Queen Victoria was learning Hindustani from Indian servant

LONDON: Queen Victoria's early diaries, including brief notes written in Hindustani, are to be displayed this week, 113 years after her death.

The then princess Victoria was given her first journal by her mother, the Duchess of Kent, in August 1832, when she was 13 and about to be taken on an educational tour of the country. It was the start of a passion for writing that would span a lifetime for Queen Victoria, who is Britain's longest serving monarch. The diaries are to be displayed at an exhibition from May 17, marking the centenary of the royal archives housed at the Round Tower at Windsor in the English county of Berkshire.

Brief diaries were also kept in Hindustani, which she began to learn in 1887, ten years after being made the empress of India, the BBC reported. Only 13 of her diaries which were written in Hindustani have survived. She was taught by one of her Indian servants, Abdul Karim, who later became her secretary and Munshi.

Queen Victoria continued to writing a diary until her death at the age of 81 on January 22, 1901. Only 13 of the original volumes survive, dating from 1832 to 1836.