Hindustani (; Devanagari: , * * * * ; Perso-Arabic: , , ) is the ''

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...

'' of

Northern Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a ra ...

and

Central Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...

India and Pakistan. Hindustani is a

pluricentric language A pluricentric language or polycentric language is a language with several interacting codified standard forms, often corresponding to different countries. Many examples of such languages can be found worldwide among the most-spoken languages, inc ...

with two standard registers, known as Hindi and Urdu. Thus, the language is sometimes called Hindi–Urdu. Despite these standard registers, colloquial speech in Hindustani often exists on a spectrum between these standards. Ancestors of the language were known as ''Hindui'', ''Hindavi'', ''Zabān-e Hind'' (), ''Zabān-e Hindustan'' (), ''Hindustan ki boli'' (), Rekhta, and Hindi. Its regional dialects became known as ''Zabān-e Dakhani'' in southern India, ''Zabān-e Gujari'' () in Gujarat, and as ''Zabān-e Dehlavi'' or Urdu around Delhi. It is an Indo-Aryan language, deriving its base primarily from the Western Hindi dialect of Delhi, also known as Khariboli. Hindustani is a

, best characterised as a continuum between two

standardised Standardization or standardisation is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organizations and governments. Standardization ...

registers:

Modern Standard Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been des ...

and

Modern Standard Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Depending on the social context and geographical area, the language leans towards either side. The concept of a Hindustani language as a "unifying language" or "fusion language" was endorsed by Mahatma Gandhi. The conversion from Hindi to Urdu (or vice versa) is generally achieved just by transliteration between the two scripts, instead of translation which is generally only required for religious and literary texts. Some scholars trace the language's first written poetry, in the form of Old Hindi, to as early as 769 AD. However this view is not generally accepted. During the period of the

Delhi Sultanate The Delhi Sultanate was an Islamic empire based in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent for 320 years (1206–1526).

, which covered most of today's India, eastern Pakistan, southern Nepal and Bangladesh and which resulted in the contact of Hindu and Muslim cultures, the Sanskrit and Prakrit base of Old Hindi became enriched with loanwords from Persian, evolving into the present form of Hindustani. The Hindustani vernacular became an expression of Indian national unity during the Indian Independence movement, and continues to be spoken as the common language of the people of the northern Indian subcontinent, which is reflected in the Hindustani vocabulary of Bollywood films and songs. The language's core vocabulary is derived from Prakrit (a descendant of Sanskrit), with substantial

loanwords A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because the ...

from Persian and Arabic (via Persian).

Hindustani Hindustani may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Hindustan (another name of India) * Hindustani language, an Indo-Aryan language, whose two official norms are Hindi and Urdu * Fiji Hindi, a variety of Eastern Hindi spoken in Fiji, and ...

also borrowed Persian prefixes to create new words. Persian affixes became so assimilated that they were used with original Khari Boli words as well. The process of hybridization also led to the formation of words in which the first element of the compound was from Khari Boli and the second from Persian, such as ''rajmahal'' ‘palace’ (''raja'' ‘royal, king’ + ''mahal'' ‘house, place’) and ''rangmahal'' ‘fashion house’ (''rang'' ‘colour, dye’ + ''mahal'' ‘house, place’). As Muslim rule expanded, Hindustani speakers traveled to distant parts of India as administrators, soldiers, merchants, and artisans. As it reached new areas, Hindustani further hybridized with local languages. In the Deccan, for instance,

blended with

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

and came to be called Dakhani. In Dakhani, aspirated consonants were replaced with their unaspirated counterparts; for instance, ''dekh'' ‘see’ became ''dek'', ''ghula'' ‘dissolved’ became ''gula'', ''kuch'' ‘some’ became ''kuc'', and ''samajh'' ‘understand’ became ''samaj''. As of 2020, Hindi and Urdu together constitute the 3rd-most-spoken language in the world after English and Mandarin, with 810 million native and second-language speakers, according to ''

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensiv ...

'', though this includes millions who self-reported their language as 'Hindi' on the Indian census but speak a number of other Hindi languages than Hindustani. The total number of Hindi–Urdu speakers was reported to be over 300 million in 1995, making Hindustani the third- or fourth-most spoken language in the world.

History

Early forms of present-day Hindustani developed from the

Middle Indo-Aryan The Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Middle Indic languages, sometimes conflated with the Prakrits, which are a stage of Middle Indic) are a historical group of languages of the Indo-Aryan family. They are the descendants of Old Indo-Aryan (OIA; ...

apabhraṃśa Apabhraṃśa ( sa, अपभ्रंश, , Prakrit: , ta, அவப்பிரஞ்சனம், , ) is a term used by '' vaiyākaraṇāḥ'' (native grammarians) since Patañjali to refer to languages spoken in North India before the ris ...

'' vernaculars of present-day North India in the 7th–13th centuries, chiefly the

Dehlavi Language * Kauravi dialect, also known as Dehlavi, spoken around Delhi and the basis of Hindostani language Personal names Dehlavi is a toponymic surname (Nisba (onomastics), nisba) for people from Delhi (formerly Dehli). Notable people with t ...

dialect of the Western Hindi category of Indo-Aryan languages that is known as Old Hindi. Hindustani emerged as a contact language around Delhi, a result of the increasing linguistic diversity that occurred due to Muslim rule, while the use of its southern dialect, Dakhani, was promoted by Muslim rulers in the Deccan. Amir Khusrow, who lived in the thirteenth century during the

Delhi Sultanate The Delhi Sultanate was an Islamic empire based in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent for 320 years (1206–1526).

period in North India, used these forms (which was the ''lingua franca'' of the period) in his writings and referred to it as ''Hindavi'' ( fa, ھندوی, lit=of ''Hind'' or ''India''). The Delhi Sultanate, which comprised several

Turkic Turkic may refer to: * anything related to the country of Turkey * Turkic languages, a language family of at least thirty-five documented languages ** Turkic alphabets (disambiguation) ** Turkish language, the most widely spoken Turkic language * ...

and

Afghan Afghan may refer to: *Something of or related to Afghanistan, a country in Southern-Central Asia *Afghans, people or citizens of Afghanistan, typically of any ethnicity ** Afghan (ethnonym), the historic term applied strictly to people of the Pas ...

dynasties that ruled much of the subcontinent from Delhi, was succeeded by the Mughal Empire in 1526. Although the Mughals were of

Timurid Timurid refers to those descended from Timur (Tamerlane), a 14th-century conqueror: * Timurid dynasty, a dynasty of Turco-Mongol lineage descended from Timur who established empires in Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent ** Timurid Empire of C ...

(''Gurkānī'') Turco-Mongol descent, they were

Persianised Persianization () or Persification (; fa, پارسی‌سازی), is a sociological process of cultural change in which a non-Persian society becomes "Persianate", meaning it either directly adopts or becomes strongly influenced by the Persian ...

, and Persian had gradually become the state language of the Mughal empire after

Babur Babur ( fa, , lit= tiger, translit= Bābur; ; 14 February 148326 December 1530), born Mīrzā Zahīr ud-Dīn Muhammad, was the founder of the Mughal Empire in the Indian subcontinent. He was a descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan through his ...

,B.F. Manz, ''"Tīmūr Lang"'', in

Encyclopaedia of Islam The ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'' (''EI'') is an encyclopaedia of the academic discipline of Islamic studies published by Brill. It is considered to be the standard reference work in the field of Islamic studies. The first edition was published in ...

, Online Edition, 2006'' Encyclopædia Britannica'',
Timurid Dynasty
, Online Academic Edition, 2007. (Quotation: "Turkic dynasty descended from the conqueror Timur (Tamerlane), renowned for its brilliant revival of artistic and intellectual life in Iran and Central Asia. ... Trading and artistic communities were brought into the capital city of Herat, where a library was founded, and the capital became the centre of a renewed and artistically brilliant Persian culture.") a continuation since the introduction of Persian by Central Asian

rulers in the Indian Subcontinent, and the patronisation of it by the earlier Turko-Afghan Delhi Sultanate. The basis in general for the introduction of Persian into the subcontinent was set, from its earliest days, by various Persianised Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties. Hindustani began to take shape as a Persianised vernacular during the

Delhi Sultanate The Delhi Sultanate was an Islamic empire based in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent for 320 years (1206–1526).

(1206–1526 AD) and Mughal Empire (1526–1858 AD) in South Asia. Hindustani retained the grammar and

core vocabulary Core or cores may refer to: Science and technology * Core (anatomy), everything except the appendages * Core (manufacturing), used in casting and molding * Core (optical fiber), the signal-carrying portion of an optical fiber * Core, the centra ...

of the local Delhi dialect. However, as an emerging common dialect, Hindustani absorbed large numbers of Persian, Arabic, and Turkic loanwords, and as Mughal conquests grew it spread as a lingua franca across much of northern India; this was a result of the contact of Hindu and Muslim cultures in Hindustan that created a composite Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb. The language was also known as '' Rekhta'', or 'mixed', which implies that it was mixed with Persian. Written in the Perso-Arabic, Devanagari, and occasionally Kaithi or Gurmukhi scripts, it remained the primary lingua franca of northern India for the next four centuries, although it varied significantly in vocabulary depending on the local language. Alongside Persian, it achieved the status of a literary language in Muslim courts and was also used for literary purposes in various other settings such as

Sufi Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, ...

, Nirgun Sant, Krishna Bhakta circles, and Rajput Hindu courts. Its majors centres of development included the Mughal courts of Delhi, Lucknow, Agra and Lahore as well as the Rajput courts of Amber and Jaipur. In the 18th century, towards the end of the Mughal period, with the fragmentation of the empire and the elite system, a variant of Hindustani, one of the successors of

vernaculars at Delhi, and nearby cities, came to gradually replace Persian as the

among the educated elite upper class particularly in northern India, though Persian still retained much of its pre-eminence for a short period. The term ''Hindustani'' was given to that language. The Perso-Arabic script form of this language underwent a standardisation process and further Persianisation during this period (18th century) and came to be known as Urdu, a name derived from Persian: ''Zabān-e Urdū-e Mualla'' ('language of the court') or ''Zabān-e Urdū'' (, 'language of the camp'). The etymology of the word ''Urdu'' is of Chagatai origin, ''Ordū'' ('camp'), cognate with English ''

horde Horde may refer to: History * Orda (organization), a historic sociopolitical and military structure in steppe nomad cultures such as the Turks and Mongols ** Golden Horde, a Turkic-Mongol state established in the 1240s ** Wings of the Golden Hord ...

'', and known in local translation as ''Lashkari Zabān'' (), which is shorted to ''Lashkari'' (). This is all due to its origin as the common speech of the Mughal army. As a literary language, Urdu took shape in courtly, elite settings. Along with English, it became the first official language of British India in 1850. Hindi as a standardised literary register of the Delhi dialect arose in the 19th century; the Braj dialect was the dominant literary language in the Devanagari script up until and through the 19th century. While the first literary works (mostly translations of earlier works) in Sanskritised Hindustani were already written in the early 19th century as part of a literary project that included both Hindu and Muslim writers (e.g.

Lallu Lal Lallu Lal (1763–1835) was an academic, author and translator from British India. He was an instructor in the Hindustani language at Fort William College in Hastings, Calcutta. He is notable for ''Prem Sagar'', the first work in modern literary ...

, Insha Allah Khan), the call for a distinct Sanskritised standard of the Delhi dialect written in Devanagari under the name of Hindi became increasingly politicised in the course of the century and gained pace around 1880 in an effort to displace Urdu's official position.

John Fletcher Hurst John Fletcher Hurst (August 17, 1834 – May 4, 1903) was an American bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church and the first Chancellor of the American University in Washington, D.C. Biography Born on August 17, 1834, in Salem, Dorchester County ...

in his book published in 1891 mentioned that the Hindustani or camp language of the Mughal Empire's courts at Delhi was not regarded by philologists as a distinct language but only as a dialect of Hindi with admixture of Persian. He continued: "But it has all the magnitude and importance of separate language. It is linguistic result of Muslim rule of eleventh & twelfth centuries and is spoken (except in rural Bengal) by many

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

s in North India and by

Musalman Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abraham ...

population in all parts of India." Next to English it was the official language of British Raj, was commonly written in Arabic or Persian characters, and was spoken by approximately 100,000,000 people. When the British colonised the Indian subcontinent from the late 18th through to the late 19th century, they used the words 'Hindustani', 'Hindi', and 'Urdu' interchangeably. They developed it as the language of administration of British India, further preparing it to be the official language of modern India and Pakistan. However, with independence, use of the word 'Hindustani' declined, being largely replaced by 'Hindi' and 'Urdu', or 'Hindi-Urdu' when either of those was too specific. More recently, the word 'Hindustani' has been used for the colloquial language of Bollywood films, which are popular in both India and Pakistan and which cannot be unambiguously identified as either Hindi or Urdu.

Registers

Although, at the spoken level, Hindi and Urdu are considered registers of a single language, Hindustani or Hindi-Urdu, as they share a common grammar and core vocabulary, they differ in literary and formal vocabulary; where literary Hindi draws heavily on Sanskrit and to a lesser extent Prakrit, literary Urdu draws heavily on Persian and Arabic loanwords. The grammar and base vocabulary (most pronouns, verbs, adpositions, etc.) of both Hindi and Urdu, however, are the same and derive from a Prakritic base, and both have Persian/Arabic influence. New testament cover page in Hindustani language

New testament cover page in Hindustani language

First page of new testament in Hindustani language

The standardised registers Hindi and Urdu are collectively known as ''Hindi-Urdu''. Hindustani is perhaps the ''

'' of the north and west of the Indian subcontinent, though it is understood fairly well in other regions also, especially in the urban areas. This has led it to be characterised as a continuum that ranges between Hindi and Urdu. A common vernacular sharing characteristics with Sanskritised Hindi, regional Hindi and Urdu, Hindustani is more commonly used as a vernacular than highly Sanskritised Hindi or highly Persianised Urdu. This can be seen in the popular culture of Bollywood or, more generally, the vernacular of North Indians and Pakistanis, which generally employs a lexicon common to both ''Hindi'' and ''Urdu'' speakers. Minor subtleties in region will also affect the 'brand' of Hindustani, sometimes pushing the Hindustani closer to Urdu or to Hindi. One might reasonably assume that the Hindustani spoken in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh (known for its usage of Urdu) and Varanasi (a holy city for Hindus and thus using highly Sanskritised Hindi) is somewhat different.

Modern Standard Hindi

Standard Hindi, one of the 22 officially recognized languages of India and the official language of the Union, is usually written in the indigenous Devanagari script of India and exhibits less Persian and Arabic influence than Urdu. It has a literature of 500 years, with prose, poetry, religion and philosophy. One could conceive of a wide spectrum of dialects and registers, with the highly Persianised Urdu at one end of the spectrum and a heavily Sanskritised variety spoken in the region around Varanasi, at the other end. In common usage in India, the term ''Hindi'' includes all these dialects except those at the Urdu spectrum. Thus, the different meanings of the word ''Hindi'' include, among others: # standardized Hindi as taught in schools throughout India (except some states such as Tamil Nadu), # formal or official Hindi advocated by

Purushottam Das Tandon Purushottam Das Tandon (; 1 August 1882 – 1 July 1962) was a freedom fighter from Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India. He is widely remembered for his opposition to the partition of India, as well as efforts in achieving the ''Official Langu ...

and as instituted by the post-independence Indian government, heavily influenced by Sanskrit, # the vernacular dialects of Hindustani as spoken throughout India, # the neutralized form of Hindustani used in popular television and films (which is nearly identical to colloquial Urdu), or # the more formal neutralized form of Hindustani used in television and print news reports.

Modern Standard Urdu

Urdu is the national language and state language of Pakistan and one of the 22 officially recognised languages of India. It is written, except in some parts of India, in the

Nastaliq ''Nastaliq'' (; fa, , ), also romanized as ''Nastaʿlīq'', is one of the main calligraphic hands used to write the Perso-Arabic script in the Persian and Urdu languages, often used also for Ottoman Turkish poetry, rarely for Arabic. ''Nast ...

style of the Urdu alphabet, an extended Perso-Arabic script incorporating Indic phonemes. It is heavily influenced by Persian vocabulary and was historically also known as Rekhta. Lashkari Zaban calligraphy

As Dakhini (or Deccani) where it also draws words from local languages, it survives and enjoys a rich history in the Deccan and other parts of South India, with the prestige dialect being Hyderabadi Urdu spoken in and around the capital of the

Nizams The Nizams were the rulers of Hyderabad from the 18th through the 20th century. Nizam of Hyderabad (Niẓām ul-Mulk, also known as Asaf Jah) was the title of the monarch of the Hyderabad State ( divided between the state of Telangana, M ...

and the

Deccan Sultanates The Deccan sultanates were five Islamic late-medieval Indian kingdoms—on the Deccan Plateau between the Krishna River and the Vindhya Range—that were ruled by Muslim dynasties: namely Ahmadnagar, Berar, Bidar, Bijapur, and Golconda. Th ...

. Earliest forms of the language's literature may be traced back to the 13th-14th century works of Amīr Khusrau Dehlavī, often called the "father of Urdu literature" while Walī Deccani is seen as the progenitor of Urdu poetry.

Bazaar Hindustani

The term ''

bazaar A bazaar () or souk (; also transliterated as souq) is a marketplace consisting of multiple small Market stall, stalls or shops, especially in the Middle East, the Balkans, North Africa and India. However, temporary open markets elsewhere, suc ...

Hindustani'', in other words, the 'street talk' or literally 'marketplace Hindustani', has arisen to denote a colloquial register of the language that uses vocabulary common to both Hindi and Urdu while eschewing high-register and specialized Arabic or Sanskrit derived words. It has emerged in various South Asian cities where Hindustani is not the main language, in order to facilitate communication across language barriers. It is characterized by loanwords from local languages.

Names

Amir Khusro referred to this language of his writings as ''Dehlavi'' ( / , 'of Delhi') or ''Hindavi'' ( / ). During this period, Hindustani was used by Sufis in promulgating their message across the Indian subcontinent. After the advent of the Mughals in the subcontinent, Hindustani acquired more Persian loanwords. '' Rekhta'' ('mixture'), ''Hindi'' ('Indian'), Hindustani, Hindvi,

Lahori Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city ...

, and

Dakni Deccani (also known as Deccani Urdu and Deccani Hindi). https://knowledgehubadda.blogspot.com/2022/02/blog-post_74.html? m=1 or Dakni, Dakhni, Dakhini, Dakkhani and Dakkani (, ''dekanī'' or , ''dakhanī''), is a variety of Hindustani spoken ...

(amongst others) became popular names for the same language until the 18th century. The name ''Urdu'' (from ''Zabān-i-Ordu'', or ''Orda'') appeared around 1780. It is believed to have been coined by the poet

Mashafi Ghulam Hamdani (1751–1844), known by the takhallus (nom de plume) of Mas'hafi (مصحفی ''maṣḥafi''), was an Urdu ghazal poet. Works Before his time, the language known as Hindi, Hindavi, Dehlavi, Dakhini, Lahori or Rekhta was commo ...

. In local literature and speech, it was also known as the ''Lashkari Zabān'' (military language) or ''Lashkari''. Mashafi was the first person to simply modify the name ''Zabān-i-Ordu'' to '' Urdu''. During the British Raj, the term ''Hindustani'' was used by British officials. In 1796,

John Borthwick Gilchrist John Borthwick Gilchrist (19 June 1759 – 9 January 1841) was a Scottish surgeon, linguist, philologist and Indologist. Born and educated in Edinburgh, he spent most of his early career in India, where he made a study of the local languages. ...

published a "A Grammar of the Hindoostanee Language". Upon

partition Partition may refer to: Computing Hardware * Disk partitioning, the division of a hard disk drive * Memory partition, a subdivision of a computer's memory, usually for use by a single job Software * Partition (database), the division of a ...

, India and Pakistan established national standards that they called ''Hindi'' and ''Urdu,'' respectively, and attempted to make distinct, with the result that ''Hindustani'' commonly, but mistakenly, came to be seen as a "mixture" of Hindi and Urdu. Grierson, in his highly influential '' Linguistic Survey of India'', proposed that the names ''Hindustani, Urdu,'' and ''Hindi'' be separated in use for different varieties of the Hindustani language, rather than as the overlapping synonyms they frequently were:

Literature

Official status

Prior to 1947, Hindustani was officially recognised by the British Raj. In the post-independence period however, the term Hindustani has lost currency and is not given any official recognition by the Indian or Pakistani governments. The language is instead recognised by its standard forms, Hindi and Urdu.

Hindi

Hindi is declared by Article 343(1), Part 17 of the Indian Constitution as the "official language (, ) of the Union." (In this context, "Union" means the Federal Government and not the entire country—India has 23 official languages.) At the same time, however, the definitive text of federal laws is officially the English text and proceedings in the higher appellate courts must be conducted in English. At the state level, Hindi is one of the official languages in 10 of the 29 Indian states and three Union Territories, respectively: Bihar,

Chhattisgarh Chhattisgarh (, ) is a landlocked state in Central India. It is the ninth largest state by area, and with a population of roughly 30 million, the seventeenth most populous. It borders seven states – Uttar Pradesh to the north, Madhya Prade ...

, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal; Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Delhi. In the remaining states, Hindi is not an official language. In states like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, studying Hindi is not compulsory in the state curriculum. However, an option to take the same as second or third language does exist. In many other states, studying Hindi is usually compulsory in the school curriculum as a third language (the first two languages being the state's official language and English), though the intensiveness of Hindi in the curriculum varies.

Urdu

Urdu is the national language (, ''qaumi zabān'') of Pakistan, where it shares official language status with English. Although English is spoken by many, and

Punjabi Punjabi, or Panjabi, most often refers to: * Something of, from, or related to Punjab, a region in India and Pakistan * Punjabi language * Punjabi people * Punjabi dialects and languages Punjabi may also refer to: * Punjabi (horse), a British Th ...

is the native language of the majority of the population, Urdu is the ''lingua franca''. In India, Urdu is one of the languages recognised in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India and is an official language of the Indian states of Bihar, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and also the Union Territories of Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir. Although the government school system in most other states emphasises Modern Standard Hindi, at universities in cities such as Lucknow, Aligarh and Hyderabad, Urdu is spoken and learnt, and ''Saaf'' or ''Khaalis'' Urdu is treated with just as much respect as ''Shuddha'' Hindi.

Geographical distribution

Besides being the ''

'' of North India and Pakistan in South Asia, Hindustani is also spoken by many in the South Asian diaspora and their descendants around the world, including

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

(e.g., in Canada, Hindustani is one of the fastest growing languages), Europe, and the Middle East. * A sizeable population in Afghanistan, especially in Kabul, can also speak and understand Hindi-Urdu due to the popularity and influence of Bollywood films and songs in the region, as well as the fact that many Afghan refugees spent time in Pakistan in the 1980s and 1990s. *

Fiji Hindi Fiji Hindi (Devanagari: ) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by Indo-Fijians. It is an Eastern Hindi language, considered to be a dialect of Awadhi that has also been subject to considerable influence by Bhojpuri, other Bihari dialects, and H ...

was derived from the Hindustani linguistic group and is spoken widely by Fijians of Indian origin. * Hindustani was also one of the languages that was spoken widely during

British rule in Burma ( Burmese) , conventional_long_name = Colony of Burma , common_name = Burma , era = Colonial era , event_start = First Anglo-Burmese War , year_start = 1824 , date_start = ...

. Many older citizens of

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

, particularly Anglo-Indians and the

Anglo-Burmese The Anglo-Burmese people, also known as the Anglo-Burmans, are a community of Eurasians of Burmese and European descent, who emerged as a distinct community through mixed relationships (sometimes permanent, sometimes temporary) between the Brit ...

, still know it, although it has had no official status in the country since

military rule Military rule may mean: * Military justice, the legal system applying to members of the armed forces * Martial law, where military authority takes over normal administration of law * Militarism or militarist ideology, the ideology of government as b ...

began. * Hindustani is also spoken in the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, where migrant workers from various countries live and work for several years.

Phonology

Grammar

Vocabulary

Hindi-Urdu's

has an Indic base, being derived from Prakrit, which in turn derives from Sanskrit, as well as a substantial amount of

from Persian and Arabic (via Persian). Hindustani contains around 5,500 words of Persian and Arabic origin.

Writing system

Historically, Hindustani was written in the Kaithi, Devanagari, and Urdu alphabets. Kaithi and Devanagari are two of the Brahmic scripts native to India, whereas the Urdu alphabet is a derivation of the Perso-Arabic script written in

Nastaʿlīq ''Nastaliq'' (; fa, , ), also romanized as ''Nastaʿlīq'', is one of the main calligraphic hands used to write the Perso-Arabic script in the Persian and Urdu languages, often used also for Ottoman Turkish poetry, rarely for Arabic. ''Nasta ...

, which is the preferred calligraphic style for Urdu. Today, Hindustani continues to be written in the Urdu alphabet in Pakistan. In India, the Hindi register is officially written in Devanagari, and Urdu in the Urdu alphabet, to the extent that these standards are partly defined by their script. However, in popular publications in India, Urdu is also written in Devanagari, with slight variations to establish a Devanagari Urdu alphabet alongside the Devanagari Hindi alphabet. Because of

anglicisation Anglicisation is the process by which a place or person becomes influenced by English culture or British culture, or a process of cultural and/or linguistic change in which something non-English becomes English. It can also refer to the influen ...

in South Asia and the international use of the Latin script, Hindustani is occasionally written in the Latin script. This adaptation is called

Roman Urdu Roman Urdu ( ur, ) is the name used for the Urdu language written with the Latin script, also known as the Roman script. According to the Urdu scholar Habib R. Sulemani: "Roman Urdu is strongly opposed by the traditional Arabic script lovers. ...

or Romanised Hindi, depending upon the register used. Since Urdu and Hindi are

mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...

when spoken, Romanised Hindi and Roman Urdu (unlike Devanagari Hindi and Urdu in the Urdu alphabet) are mostly mutually intelligible as well.

Sample text

Colloquial Hindustani

An example of colloquial Hindustani: *Devanagari: *Urdu: *Romanisation: *English: How much is this? The following is a sample text, Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the two official registers of Hindustani, Hindi and Urdu. Because this is a formal legal text, differences in vocabulary are most pronounced.

Literary Hindi

Literary Urdu

Hindustani and Bollywood

The predominant Indian film industry Bollywood, located in Mumbai,

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...

uses

, colloquial Hindustani, Bombay Hindi, Urdu, Awadhi,

Rajasthani Rajasthani may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Rajasthan, a state of India * Rajasthani languages, a group of languages spoken there * Rajasthani people, the native inhabitants of the region * Rajasthani architecture * Rajasthani art ...

Bhojpuri Bhojpuri (;Bhojpuri entry, Oxford Dictionaries
, Oxford U ...

, and

Braj Bhasha The Braj language, ''Braj Bhasha'', also known as Vraj Bhasha or Vrij Bhasha or Braj Bhāṣā or Braji or Brij Bhasha or Braj Boli, is a Western Hindi language. Along with Awadhi (a variety of Eastern Hindi), it was one of the two predominant ...

, along with

and with the liberal use of English or

Hinglish Hinglish, a portmanteau of Hindi and English, is the macaronic hybrid use of English and languages of the Indian subcontinent, and especially Hindi. It involves code-switching or translanguaging between these languages whereby they are freely i ...

in scripts and soundtrack lyrics. Film titles are often screened in three scripts: Latin, Devanagari and occasionally Perso-Arabic. The use of Urdu or Hindi in films depends on the film's context: historical films set in the

Delhi Sultanate The Delhi Sultanate was an Islamic empire based in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent for 320 years (1206–1526).

or Mughal Empire are almost entirely in Urdu, whereas films based on

Hindu mythology Hindu mythology is the body of myths and literature attributed to, and espoused by, the adherents of the Hindu religion, found in Hindu texts such as the Vedic literature, epics like ''Mahabharata'' and ''Ramayana'', the Puranas, and reg ...

or ancient India make heavy use of Hindi with Sanskrit vocabulary.

Notes

References

Bibliography

* Asher, R. E. 1994. "Hindi." Pp. 1547–49 in ''The Encyclopedia of language and linguistics'', edited by R. E. Asher. Oxford: Pergamon Press. . * Bailey, Thomas G. 1950. ''Teach yourself Hindustani''. London: English Universities Press. * Chatterji, Suniti K. 1960. ''Indo-Aryan and Hindi'' (rev. 2nd ed.). Calcutta: Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay. * Dua, Hans R. 1992. "Hindi-Urdu as a pluricentric language." In ''Pluricentric languages: Differing norms in different nations'', edited by M. G. Clyne. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. . * Dua, Hans R. 1994a. "Hindustani." Pp. 1554 in ''The Encyclopedia of language and linguistics'', edited by R. E. Asher. Oxford: Pergamon Press. * —— 1994b. "Urdu." Pp. 4863–64 in ''The Encyclopedia of language and linguistics'', edited by R. E. Asher. Oxford: Pergamon Press. * Rai, Amrit. 1984. ''A house divided: The origin and development of Hindi-Hindustani''. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

External links

Bolti Dictionary (Hindustani)

Hamari Boli (Hindustani)

Khan Academy (Hindi-Urdu):
academic lessons taught in Hindi-Urdu

*

Hindi/Urdu-English-Kalasha-Khowar-Nuristani-Pashtu Comparative Word List

GRN Report for Hindustani

Hindustani Poetry

National Language Authority (Urdu), Pakistan (muqtadera qaumi zaban)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hindustani Language Languages attested from the 8th century Lingua francas Indo-Aryan languages

History

Registers

Modern Standard Hindi

Modern Standard Urdu

Bazaar Hindustani

Names

Literature

Official status

Hindi

Urdu

Geographical distribution

Phonology

Grammar

Vocabulary

Writing system

Sample text

Colloquial Hindustani

Literary Hindi

Literary Urdu

Hindustani and Bollywood

See also

Notes

References

Bibliography

Further reading

External links