Talk:Hindi

Arabic loanwords

@Word0151 for further reading on this topic: https://www.iranchamber.com/literature/articles/persian_language.php

— Rolando 1208 (talk) 20:33, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

@Rolando 1208 Do you still want to include the section? Word0151 (talk) 02:36, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes. Rolando 1208 (talk) 09:27, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Can you give your rationale? Word0151 (talk) 09:49, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

They are Arabic words used in Hindi. Loaned via Persian, as the article says. I even removed the direct borrowings part as I don't know of any sources that list them. Rolando 1208 (talk) 10:22, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

How do you like it now, i have removed the table but added a line. The table is pointless, since the words are borrowed directly from Persian. Word0151 (talk) 11:42, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

i think is should have done the edit after consensus, but i have already made it. Word0151 (talk) 11:44, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

It's not pointless. Even if they were borrowed from Persian they're still Arabic words. Since they're Arabic words they should be listed.

Please undo your edit, I don't agree with the change. Rolando 1208 (talk) 12:45, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

They are Hindi words, borrowed from Persian, borrowed from Arabic words. There are many french words borrowed into English and then find a way into Hindi. So are you going to create a table saying 'french words in Hindi'. Word0151 (talk) 13:24, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

People who read the English Wikipedia are more likely to know that English borrows from French and Latin. However they're less likely to know about words that Hindi and Arabic have in common, as Hindi is an unfamiliar language for non-South Asians. The Arabic table provides encyclopedic value.

I don't know why you're making a big deal out of this, the article explicitly said that they were loaned via Persian. No one has erased that important detail. Rolando 1208 (talk) 13:40, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

There's two things I don't get. Why would you add a table for Arabic loanwords without having one for borrowings from Persian? And how can we mention Arabic and Chagatai in one breath as ultimate sources of Hindi–Urdu words? I have tried a tweak that might be acceptable for both of you. –Austronesier (talk) 17:09, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Good point, I actually didn't notice. I think both languages should have tables. It looks better and more organised. Such a shame to just throw away a table that someone put effort into making. It just doesn't feel right. Rolando 1208 (talk) 18:57, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Many sources actually speak of "Perso-Arabic" vocabulary in Hindi–Urdu. Maybe we can rename the section accordignly and present a table with exemplary loanwords from Persian and add a colummn which says "ultimately from Arabic" for each entry where it applies. Btw, for क़ानून qānūn, it would actually be "ultimately from Greek" :) –Austronesier (talk) 22:50, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

That makes sense. Oftentimes it's hard to tell them apart. Unless you look up each individual word's etymology. It seems to me though, that words with क़ (and maybe ग़) are always Arabic.

On a sidenote, why "Modern" Standard? Was Hindi standardised before the 19th century? Rolando 1208 (talk) 11:26, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

We agree that virtually all Arabic words in Hindi–Urdu were borrowed from Persian. Some of them even underwent a shift of meaning in Persian, and naturally, Hindi–Urdu uses the term with Persian semantics (a classical example is ग़ुलाम ġulām 'servant' < غُلَام 'boy'; also: 'boy-servant'). Should we really put Persian loanwords with an Arabic etymology into an independent subsection? On a fist glance, it creates the impression that Hindi got these words straight from Arabic. I'll leave the table as is, but remove the section header. You should also consider using adequate sources. This is not an obscure topic, so it is not hard to find high-quality scholarly sources for every statement that is relevant to this article. –Austronesier (talk) 10:45, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Why was Modern Standard Hindi edited to just Standard Hindi ?

Isn't the movement to depersianize and de-arabize Hindustani/Urdu to standardize present-day Hindi a recent one 2 centuries ago in the modern era? https://jsis.washington.edu/southasia/publication/a-primer-of-modern-standard-hindi/

Before this attempt, Hindi colloquially referred to local languages of the northern subcontinent, as opposed to Hindustani/Urdu, the main widely adopted variety originating from Delhi's Khariboli. 115.97.61.20 (talk) 06:20, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that's correct, Khariboli-based literary Hindi has a relatively recent history. This is why many of our sources cited in the article (e.g. Shapiro 2003, Kachru 2006, Masica 1991) explicitly use the term Modern Standard Hindi. The removal of "Modern" happened a few days ago because the entire phrase does not match with मानक हिन्दी ('Standard Hindi'). That's no reason however to go against common usage in reliable sources. I'll restore it. –Austronesier (talk) 10:26, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

@Austronesier The issue I have with this term it's that it implies that there was an "Old Standard Hindi".

It also seems inconsistent with all other languages. I've never heard or seen: Modern Standard English, Modern Standard German, Modern Standard Thai, Modern Standard Tagalog.

Are Hindi and Urdu the only languages that were standardised recently and that's why they get this special treatment? Wasn't for example English standardised relatively recently to align some meanings? Like how in international usage billion means 10^9 when before this alignment they always meant 10^12. Rolando 1208 (talk) 11:46, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

You have already answered the question: I've never heard or seen: Modern Standard English, Modern Standard German, Modern Standard Thai, Modern Standard Tagalog. Whereas as multiple reliable sources (including gold standard sources for Indo-Aryan linguistics such as Masica or Cardona) do use "Modern Standard Hindi". Note also that there were earlier literary languages in the gamut of Indo-Aryan varieties commonly called "Hindi", albeit not Khariboli-based. –Austronesier (talk) 11:53, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Oh, and Urdu has a much older continious literary history. That's why you will hardly find "Modern Standard Urdu" in high-quality reliable sources, and that is also why we don't use "Modern Standard ..." in the Urdu article. –Austronesier (talk) 11:56, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't get how that's an issue today. Considering we refer to, say, Braj as Braj and not Standard Hindi.

It seems inconsistent with all the other languages. With all the other articles, the fact that they're modern is always implied. Rolando 1208 (talk) 12:12, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

@Austronesier consider this article, Comparison of standard Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian. None of these varieties are called "Modern Standard", even though they were standardised last century. Rolando 1208 (talk) 12:23, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

As a rule, we certainly do align our articles for consistency, but only if this is supported by reliable sources. So if you find sources using the "Modern Standard" label applied to these languages with the same prevalence and frequency as in the case of Modern Standard Hindi, we might consider to add it there too. –Austronesier (talk) 14:01, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Then again, we don't have to quote the sources verbatim 100% of the time. It'd be better to just call it "Standard" so that it aligns with all the other languages. Rolando 1208 (talk) 14:17, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

This not about "quoting". It's about following established terminology. –Austronesier (talk) 23:54, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Woah woah woah. I made one revert during the whole day, you're calling that edit warring, seriously? Rolando 1208 (talk) 00:32, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Third opinion (from someone "with no dog in the fight"): "As a rule, we certainly do align our articles for consistency, but only if this is supported by reliable sources" is generally correct. The question really comes down to whether the attested use of "Modern Standard Hindi" in the RS on this topic is the dominant usage in quality source material (in English), or whether it's just one of two or more common terms for the modern language, including the simpler "Modern Hindi". If the shorter term is in about equal or even prevailing use, then using it would be both more concise and more consistent, plus not have the problem of perhaps implying an "Old" and "Middle" Standard Hindi. But if "Modern Standard Hindi" is usually used and the shorter "Standard Hindi" is usually avoided (for different sorts of potential ambiguity reasons Austronesier mentioned), then WP is not in a position to impose the short term here just because we like consistent naming patterns; that would be at least skirting the edge of WP:OR.

In short, this clearly just comes down to doing a survey of the appropriate source material to see what term dominates in the actually relevant and relaible sources. A really rudimentary Google Scholar search [1] is showing a lot of usage of the short phrase, but there are many false positives like "modern Hindi poetry", "modern Hindi theatre", etc., referring to the applied usage in the contemporary time period, not a language name, even when the keyword "language" is explicitly included, so it would have to be winnowed down with successive - terms, and then after that a good sampling of the works would need to be looked at for linguistics relevance, publication reputability, etc. I think that would be more productive than the two of you just arguing back and forth in an "I just know it should be this way" manner. :-) PS: This would be distinct from a WP:COMMONNAME analysis for an article title, in which all sources we'd generally consider reliable would be included, including things like newspapers, since article titles are about meeting reader expections; here, we care much more about field-specific source usage.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:46, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Dogless editor #2, here. Pretty much agreeing with SMcCandlish here down the line, but he doesn't go far enough. Analyzing the result of the linked query, for example, is not *only* about looking for false positives like "modern Hindi poetry". you also need to check the context of the expressions to see if they are referring to the same thing. In result #3, what is modern referring to in this snippet:

a veritable who's who of modern Hindi authors Maithilisharan Gupta, Nirala

Are they writers of Modern Hindi, or are they contemporary authors writing in Hindi? If the latter, then this cannot be counted as one tally for the shorter name. Does the lack of a capital 'M' mean it's probably the latter? These are questions that need to be asked when evaluating search result data.

Result #9 for that query is entitled, "Introduction: The Study of Pre-Modern Hindi Literature", and if you look only at search hit counts, this will add one more to the tally for 'Modern Hindi" even though it is precisely the opposite. Finally, two- and three-word phrases for items in many fields are systematically reduced to one- and two-word phrases in books and articles about the item, once the formal, longer name has been introduced and defined. Books search result #3 for "Space shuttle" is "NASA Space Shuttle: 40th Anniversary" (#1 has no preview; #2 is for small children), and in running txt, refers mostly to the book topic as shuttle, not space shuttle:

the shuttle's resusability, the shuttle would become a one-size-fits-all..., only one objective for the shuttle program, received a boost from the shuttle, heat-resistant tiles for the shuttle's wings, the first non-US astronaut to fly on a shuttle, The shuttle program probably achieved..., searched for a shuttle configuration that could be afforded, parts that make up a shuttle, test a shuttle's ability to glide, telescope had been designed for servicing by shuttle astronauts, a shuttle based on lifting body concepts;

Need I go on? This overwhelming number of uses of shuttle rather than always having space shuttle does *not* mean that the COMMONNAME of this vehi○le is "the shuttle"; the common name is the Space shuttle, and all the other usages are shorter equivalents that are all understood in context. You can see the same thing happening at Wikipedia's article for Delta Shuttle, and even at the one-word article Shuttlecock. In all three of these articles, hits for the word shuttle outweigh those of the formal term, but are not evidence that the common name for the item in question is the shorter one, they are merely indicators that nobody wants to repeat a 2- or 3-word formal name for an object constantly throughout an article or book once the context is clear, and the superior numbers of the short phrase compared to the longer, formal name do not mean that the shorter, more frequent phrase is the common name for the item.

Long story short: like SMcC said, it's about actual usage in sources, not about consistency which plays second fiddle, and because it is a multi-word phrase, I'd pay a whole lot more attention to book, chapter, and article titles, than to mere counts in the running text, which I would predict would skew towards the abbreviated term, as seen in the Space Shuttle example, without implying that the shorter term is the common name for the language. Mathglot (talk) 00:46, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish and Mathglot: Thank you for your input and especially for bringing "Modern Hindi" into the discussion as a third hitherto undiscussed option (and the one with the highest potential to yield false positives). Obviously, only a survey of the appropriate source material (as mentioned by SMcCandlish) can bring objective guidance into this matter. So far I have been content with pointing to existing reliable sources which use "Modern Standard Hindi" whereas no source for "Standard Hindi" has been brought forward. But there's one lesson I've from from similar discussions in RMs: don't rely on the OP's failure to objectively support their claim; that doesn't disprove anything and they might be right after all. I'll come back when I've done a survey. @SMcCandlish: Your help will be highly appreciated then lest I might technically misinterpret Ngram Viewer results again. –Austronesier (talk) 12:45, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Why are you so stubborn in hiding देवनागरी?

@PadFoot2008 your last argument doesn't even hold any weight. Urdu is not an exonym either but it does show its native script. Rolando 1208 (talk) 14:50, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

@Rolando 1208, then you or I can fix it at Urdu as well. And I am not trying to hide the Devanagari script. It is there in the infobox. Per convention and there is no need to clutter the lead. PadFoot2008 16:33, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

A convention that you made up bhai. Btw it's not cluttered. Almost every language article shows the native script without hiding it. Don't change things unnecessarily. Rolando 1208 (talk) 17:31, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, this convention you refer to doesn't seem to exist, PadFood2008. I just looked at Tamil language, Gujarati language, Assamese language, Konkani language, Dogri language, Korean language, Georgian language, Armenian language, Serbian language, and Greek language, and they all show the native names, in the native scripts and with transliterations, in the first sentence, not embedded in a footnote. I have seen an extended footnote when the treatment of the subject's name in other languages goes on at length and becomes a distraction, but that isn't the case here. Largoplazo (talk) 22:59, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Alright, maybe you're correct. I had thought that as it is a convention on most articles, it would also be a convention on language-related articles. PadFoot2008 02:27, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Proposal for concensus

Hindi was written in Nastaliq script. Can we add this infobox. Abirtel (talk) 11:58, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Do you have a source for this? The article body doesn't say this; without that, it would be inappropriate to have it in the infobox. Largoplazo (talk) 12:54, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

This page already held this portion

///Major Hindustani writers continued to refer to their tongue as Hindi or Hindavi till the early of 19th century.

As Mirza Galib says in his Qādir Nāma written in Nastaliq script:

नेवला रासू है और ताऊस मोर,

कब्क को हिन्दी में कहते हैं चकोर

Nevla is rasu (mongoose) and Taus is mor (peacock),

Kabk is uttered as Chakor (Ptarmigan) in Hindi////

If it does not satisfy you then

///From the 13th century until ::the end of the 18th century; the ::language now known as Urdu was ::called Hindi,[28] Hindavi, ::Hindustani,[33] ///

This portion surely meet that ::criterion.

So it is quite clear that,Hindi ::was written in Nastaliq till the ::beginning of the 20th century.

We can surely add this. Abirtel (talk) 13:01, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Mirza Ghalib wrote in Urdu.

The Hindi that this article is about is the language variety that's called "Hindi" today. The article about the greater language that encompasses both of what today are known as "Hindi" and "Urdu" is Hindustani language.

Further, if Salman Rushdie were to write a novel in English but with using the Devanagari script, that wouldn't justify asserting in the article on English language that English "is written in" or "has been written in" Devanagari. An acceptable source would have to actually say that English is/has been written using Devanagari. It wouldn't suffice for you to show one example of someone doing it. Largoplazo (talk) 15:06, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

If mirza galib said he is writing in Hindi in nastaliq then we have no right today to say that Galib is a Urdu poet!

As Urdu was identified as Hindi, Hindavi, Hindustani simultaneously till the starting of the 20th century

So we can surely say that Hindi was written in nastaliq till the starting of 20th century.

Now what will be your position if anyone says that Urdu was written in devanagari before 1900s.

See this https://books.google.com.bd/books?id=jVx6EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA139&dq=hindi+writing+in.nastaliq&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&ovdme=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiX5ITz9PGGAxVBSWwGHS5_AFgQ6AF6BAgOEAM#v=onepage&q=hindi%20writing%20in.nastaliq&f=false Abirtel (talk) 15:24, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Reiterating what Austronesier said below, but indented: That name may have been used at the time for the variety in which Ghalib wrote, but that isn't what the term is used to mean today, and this article is about the variety that the term is used for today. Just as we aren't going to write here about turkeys in Anatolia even though Turks call the turkey "hindi". Largoplazo (talk) 16:54, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

////Just as we aren't going to write here about turkeys in Anatolia even though Turks call the turkey "hindi".////

Turks now call turkey turkiye. Before that during initial ottoman time turkey was called "Rome".

Why Hindi was called Hindi?

Hindi means people of Hindiyyah/Hindia/India which was an official name of Mughal empire in Arabic.

Persian speaking world knew that empire as Hindustan.

So the language Hindi and oHindustani happened to be the same tongue.

Urdu means royal camp, court of Delhi. Initially Urdu aka Royal camp was run by persian tongue. Slowly Hindi replaced the persian. After 1837, Hindi became the only Urdu Zuban as the use of Persian come to an end. hence hindi was called Urdu Zuban.

During 1780, Hindi was being used as official tongue along with Persian.

Technically Before 1780, Urdu means Persian only.

///but that isn't what the term is used to mean today///

Yea that is why Nastaliq now happens to be historical script. Abirtel (talk) 17:15, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

You're confusing "script used historically for what's called 'Hindi' today", which is false, with "script used for something that historically was called 'Hindi'", which is true but "something that historically was called 'Hindi'" is not what this article's about. Largoplazo (talk) 19:13, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Then why the page have shown the infos of kaithi, mahajani and landa as historic script of use? Abirtel (talk) 16:14, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

A quote from Mirza Ghalib shouldn't even be used here. It's deceptive to say "in the Nastaliq script", when actually it's not Hindi in Nastaliq, it's Urdu. نعم البدل (talk) 19:03, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

First of all, Nastaʿlīq isn't a script, it's a calligraphic style of the Perso-Arabic script. Also, you need to distinguish between words and things. The language commonly known as "Urdu" since the 18th century, was known by several other names before, including "Hindi". But that's not Hindi as understood since the 19th century. This article is about the modern standard language that was consciously developed as a literary alternative of Urdu which saw its roots in the literary tradition of the sister languages of Khariboli (such as Awadhi and Braj) and which from the beginning was designed to be written in a Brahmic script (Devanagari, also Kaithi). –Austronesier (talk) 15:47, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Even in 1757,

Hindi was written in Nastaliq.

"Tarikh e gharabi تاریخِ غاریبی

Logo ko jab khul batave,

Hindi main keh kar samjhave."

So it is clear that Hindi is historically written in Nastaliq style of Perso-Arabic writing system. Abirtel (talk) 16:36, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

@Austronesier

///

But that's not Hindi as understood since the 19th century.///

Galib's Qadir Nama was written in 1862. So ....

But the title of the page is about Hindi, not Modern Standered Hindi. So this info must be added.

You are requested to procede for consensus as you have mentioned earlier.

Greetings. Abirtel (talk) 16:26, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Means I have to agree with you by all means even if you haven't even presented one single secondary source which says that Modern Standard Hindi was written in Urdu, nor a secondary source which says that Ghalib's work were written in "Hindi"? No. –Austronesier (talk) 17:49, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Well, MSH does not deny the historic legacy of Hindi.

let me provide a secondary source about Ghalib's Hindi.

Ghalib wrote in Perso-Arabic script which is used to write modern Urdu, but often called his language "Hindi"; one of his works was titled Ode-e-Hindi (Urdu: عود هندی, lit. 'Perfume of Hindi').

Greetings. Abirtel (talk) 18:38, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Because Hindi was one of the earlier names for Urdu, like Hindustani. Hindi, in that context, doesn't actually refer to the modern, Sanskritanised register of Hindustani. نعم البدل (talk) 19:04, 24 June 2024 (UTC)