Hindustani language

Hindustani (Hindi)
हिन्दुस्तानी, ہندوستانی Hindustānī
Native to	India, Fiji, Guyana, Malaysia, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Myanmar, Pakistan
Region	South Asia, Oceania, Caribbean
Native speakers	Native: 240 million (1991-1997) Second language: 165 million (1999) Total: 490 million (2006)
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Central zone Western Hindi Khariboli Hindustani (Hindi)
Standard forms	Standard Hindi Urdu
Dialects	Dakhni
Writing system	Devanagari script, Perso-Arabic script
Official status
Official language in	India (as Hindi and Urdu) Pakistan (as Urdu)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	hi,ur
ISO 639-2	hin,urd
ISO 639-3	Variously: hin – Hindi urd – Urdu hif – Fijian Hindustani hns – Caribbean Hindustani

Hindustani (Devanagari:हिन्दुस्तानी, ہندوستانی, Hindustānī, IPA: [hɪn̪d̪ʊst̪aːniː], literally: 'of Hindustan'), also known as Hindostani or more commonly Hindi, is an Indo-Aryan language, the lingua franca of India and Pakistan.

Hindustani derives from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi, and incorporates a large vocabulary taken from Persian, Arabic, Turkic, and Sanskrit. It is the basis of the two national languages, Standard Hindi and Urdu, which are standardized registers of it. Standard Hindi and Urdu are nearly identical in grammar and share a basic common vocabulary but differ in literary conventions and specialised vocabulary with Urdu retaining strong Persian, Arabic and Turkic influences, and Hindi relying heavily on Sanskrit. Before the Partition of British India, the terms Hindustani, Urdu and Hindi were synonymous; all covered what would be called Urdu and Hindi today. The term Hindustani is also used for several divergent non-Khariboli dialects of the Hindi languages spoken outside of the Subcontinent, including Fijian Hindustani and the Caribbean Hindustani of Suriname and Trinidad.

History

The phrase Zaban-e Urdu-e Mualla written in Nasta'liq calligraphy

Main article: History of Hindustani

Hindustani emerged from the Middle Indo-Aryan apabhramsha vernaculars of North India in the 7th-13th centuries CE. Amir Khusro, who lived in the 13th century CE during the Delhi Sultanate period in North India, used the Hindustani lingua franca in his writings and referred to the language as Hindavi. The Delhi Sultanate, which comprised several Turkic and Afghan dynasties that ruled from Delhi, was succeeded by the Mughal Empire in 1526.

Although, the Mughals were of Timurid (Gurkānī) Turko-Mongol descent, they were Persianized, and Persian had gradually become the state language of the Mughal empire after Babur. Towards the end of the Mughal period, with the fragmentation of the empire and the elite system, Urdu came to gradually replace Persian as the lingua franca among the educated elite in Northern India, though Persian still retained much of its pre-eminence. For socio-political reasons, though essentially a variant of Khariboli with Persian vocabulary the emerging prestige dialect became known as Urdu (properly zabān-e Urdu-e mo'alla "language of the court").

The term Hindustani ("of Hindustan") was the name given to a variant of Khariboli, the local dialect at the Mughal capital, Delhi, and nearby cities. As an emerging common dialect, Hindustani absorbed large numbers of Persian, Arabic, and Turkic words, and as Mughal conquests grew it spread as a lingua franca across much of northern India. Written in the Perso-Arabic Script, 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) and achieved the status of a literary language, alongside Persian, in Muslim courts. In time it came to be called Urdu (zabān-e Urdu Template:Rtl-lang, ज़बान-ए उर्दू, "language of the camp" in Persian, derived from Altaic Ordū "camp", cognate with English horde), and as the highly Persianized court language, Rekhta, or "mixed".

When the British colonized India from the late 1700s through to the late 1800s, they used the words 'Hindustani' 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.

In recent times, the word Hindustani has been used for the "natural" language of Bollywood films, which are popular in both India and Pakistan.

Urdu

Main article: Urdu

Urdu is the national language of Pakistan and an officially recognized regional language of India. It is also an official language in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, National Capital Territory of Delhi, and Uttar Pradesh which have significant Muslim populations in India. The word "Urdu" derives from the more formal Persian phrase zabān-e Urdu-e mo'alla, meaning the "language of the camp". The language began as the common speech of soldiers serving Mughal lords. The term became transferred to the court language of the Mughal aristocracy, whose dialect was based on the upper-class dialect of Delhi. Urdu's historical development was centered on the Urdu poets of the Mughal courts of north Indian metropolises such as Delhi, Lucknow, Lahore, and Agra. Urdu is written using a modified form of the Arabic script known as the Perso-Arabic script.

Hindi

Rigveda manuscript in Devanagari (early 19th century)

Main article: Hindi

Standard Hindi, the official language of India, is based on the Khariboli dialect of the Delhi region and differs from Urdu in that it is usually written in the indigenous Devanagari script of India and exhibits less Persian influence than Urdu. Many scholars today employ a Sanskritized form of Hindi developed primarily in Varanasi, the Hindu holy city, which is based on the Eastern Hindi dialect of that region. It has a literature of 500 years, with prose, poetry, religion & philosophy, under the Bahmani Kings and later on Khutab Shahi Adil Shahi etc. It is a living language, still prevalent all over the Deccan Plateau. Note that the term "Hindustani" has generally fallen out of common usage in modern India, except to refer to a style of Indian classical music prevalent in northern India. The term used to refer to the language is "Hindi", regardless of the mix of Persian or Sanskrit words used by the speaker. One could conceive of a wide spectrum of dialects, with the highly Persianized Urdu at one end of the spectrum and a heavily Sanskrit-based dialect, spoken in the region around Varanasi, at the other end of the spectrum. In common usage in India, the term "Hindi" includes all these dialects except those at the Urdu end of the spectrum. Thus, the different meanings of the word "Hindi" include, among others:

1. standardized Hindi as taught in schools throughout India,
2. formal or official Hindi advocated by Purushottam Das Tandon and as instituted by the post-independence Indian government, heavily influenced by Sanskrit,
3. the vernacular dialects of Hindustani/Hindi as spoken throughout India,
4. the neutralized form of the language used in popular television and films, or
5. the more formal neutralized form of the language used in broadcast and print news reports.

Bazaar Hindustani

Main article: Hindi dialects

In a specific sense, "Hindustani" may be used to refer to the dialects and varieties used in common speech, in contrast with the standardized Hindi and Urdu. This meaning is reflected in the use of the term "bazaar Hindustani", in other words, the "language of the street or the marketplace", as opposed to the perceived refinement of formal Hindi, Urdu, or even Sanskrit. Thus, the Webster's New World Dictionary defines the term Hindustani as the principal dialect of Hindi/Urdu, used as a trade language throughout north India and Pakistan.

Hindi and Urdu

While, at the spoken level, Urdu and Hindi are considered dialects of a single language (or diasystem), they differ vastly in literary and formal vocabulary; where literary Urdu draws heavily on Persian and Arabic, literary Hindi draws heavily on Sanskrit and to a lesser extent Prakrit. The grammar and base vocabulary (most pronouns, verbs, adpositions, etc.) of both Urdu and Hindi, however, are the same and derive from a Prakritic base.

The associated dialects of Urdu and Hindi are known as "Hindustani". It is perhaps the lingua franca of the west and north of the Indian subcontinent, though it is understood fairly well in other regions also, especially in the urban areas. A common vernacular sharing characteristics with Urdu, Sanskritized Hindi, and regional Hindi, Hindustani is more commonly used as a vernacular than highly Arabicized/Persianized Urdu or highly Sanskritized Hindi.

This can be seen in the popular culture of Bollywood or, more generally, the vernacular of Pakistanis and Indians which generally employs a lexicon common to both "Urdu" and "Hindi" 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 language spoken in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh (known for its beautiful usage of Urdu) and Varanasi (a holy city for Hindus and thus using highly Sanskritized Hindi) is somewhat different.

Hindustani, if both Hindi and Urdu are counted, is the third or second most widely spoken language in the world after Mandarin and possibly English.

See also: Persian and Urdu

Names

The identity, and therefore the names, of Hindustani have long been tied up with the identities and aspirations of the people of India and Pakistan. The name "Hindustani" itself is linked in the minds of many people with the British colonial administration, and may be dis-preferred for that reason.

Amir Khusro ca. 1300 CE referred to this language of his writings as Dahlavi ('of Delhi') or Hindavi (हिन्दवी, ہندوی 'of Hindustan'). During this period, the language was used by Sufis in promulgating their message across the Indian subcontinent. After the advent of the Mughals in India, Hindustani acquired more Persian loanwords. Rekhta ('mixture') and Hindi (of 'Hindustan') became popular names for the same language until the eighteenth century. The name Urdu appeared around 1780. During the British Raj, the term Hindustani was used by British officials, from the country's former name Hindustan. In 1796, John Borthwick Gilchrist published a "A Grammar of the Hindoostanee Language". Upon partition, India and Pakistan established national standards which they called Hindi and Urdu, respectively, and attempted to make distinct, with the result that "Hindustani" commonly came to be seen as a mixture of Hindi and Urdu. More recently, Hindu nationalists have used the term Hindvi, derived from older Hindavi, as the name for the unified language.

Official status

Hindustani, in its standardized registers, is the official language of both India (Hindi) and Pakistan (Urdu).

Urdu, the original standardized register of Hindustani, is the national language of Pakistan, where it shares official language status with English. Although English is used in most elite circles, and Punjabi has a plurality of native speakers, Urdu is the lingua franca and is expected to prevail. Urdu is also one of the official languages of India, and in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, and Uttar Pradesh, Urdu has official language status. While 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 learned and is regarded as a language of prestige.

Hindi, the other standardized register of Hindustani, is declared by the Constitution of India as the "official language (rājabhāshā) of the Union" (Art. 343(1)) (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. See Official languages of India. At the state level, Hindi is an official language in ten out of the 28 Indian states and three Union Territories (namely Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Arunanchal Pradesh, and Haryana and UTs are Delhi, Chandigarh, Andaman and Nicobar Islands). In the remaining states Hindi is not an official language. In the state of Tamil Nadu 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.

In Fiji, Hindustani has official status under Fiji's Constitution, along with Bau Fijian and English; citizens of Fiji have the constitutional right to communicate with any government agency in any of the official languages, with an interpreter to be supplied on request.

Hindustani was the official language of the British Raj up until the partition of India in 1947; the term was a synonym for Urdu.

Hindustani outside South Asia

Besides being the lingua franca of South Asia of India and Pakistan, Hindustani is spoken among people of the South Asian diaspora and their descendants in North America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Hindustani is understood by most of the local Arabs in UAE.

Hindustani was also spoken widespread in Burma during British rule as the main language of the administration. Many older Burmese, particularly the Anglo-Indians and Anglo-Burmese of the country, still speak the language although it has had no official status in the country since military rule.

"Hindustani" as a term for other Hindi languages

Outside of the subcontinent, the name Hindustani is frequently used in the sense of "Indian", and may be applied to any of several other Hindi languages.

Fijian Hindustani, for example, descends not from Hindustani proper, but from one of the eastern Hindi languages called Awadhi. It has a strong Bhojpuri influence that differentiate it from the Awadhi spoken on the Indian subcontinent, though not to the extent of hindering mutual understanding. It is spoken by nearly the entire Indo-Fijian community, 38.1% of Fiji's population, regardless of ancestry.

Similarly, Caribbean Hindustani is actually Bhojpuri as spoken in Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Belize. Sarnami Hindustani is the second most spoken language in Suriname after Dutch. This is due to the emigration of East Indians (known locally as Hindoestanen in Suriname) from the Indian states of Bihār and Uttar Pradesh in North India. Ethnic Indians form 37% of the population in Suriname, the largest ethnic group there. Ethnic Indians speaking Hindustani (Bhojpuri) also make up around 45% of Guyana's population. In South Africa, Kenya and other parts of Africa, older descendants of 18th century sugar cane workers also speak a variety of Bhojpuri as their second language.

Vocabulary

Main article: Hindustani (Hindi) word etymology

Standard or shuddha ("pure") Hindi derives much of its formal and technical vocabulary from Sanskrit while standard Urdu derives much of its formal and technical vocabulary from Persian. Standard Hindi and Urdu are used only in public addresses and radio or TV news, while the everyday spoken language in most areas is one of several varieties of Hindustani, whose vocabulary contains words drawn from Persian and Arabic. In addition, spoken Hindustani includes words from English and other languages as well.

Vernacular Urdu and Hindi are practically indistinguishable. However, the literary registers differ; in highly formal situations, the languages are unintelligible to speakers of the other. It bears mention that in centuries past both Sanskrit and Persian have been regarded as the languages of the elite, even by those of differing ethnic and religious backgrounds.

There are four principal categories of words in Hindustani:

• tatsama (तत्सम/تتسم same as that) words: These are the words which have been directly lifted from Sanskrit to enrich the formal and technical vocabulary of Hindi. Such words (almost exclusively nouns) have been taken without any phonetic or spelling change. Among nouns, the tatsam word could be the Sanskrit uninflected word-stem, or it could be the nominative singular form in the Sanskrit nominal declension.
• tadbhav (तद्भव/تدبھو born of that) words: These are the words that might have been derived from Sanskrit or the Prakrits, but have undergone minor or major phonetic and spelling changes as they appear in modern Hindi. They also include words borrowed from the other languages.
• deshaja (देशज/دیشج local): words that are unrelated to any Sanskrit words, and of local origin.
• videshi (विदेशी foreign): Loan words from non-Indian languages that include Arabic, Persian, Turkic, Portuguese or English.

Excessive use of tatsam words sometimes creates problems for most native speakers. The educated middle class population of India may be familiar with these words due to education, but less-educated persons or people of rural backgrounds lack familiarity with more formal registers. The issue also exists with high-register vocabulary borrowed from Persian and Arabic.

Writing system

Main article: Hindustani orthography

Contemporarily, Hindustani is primarily written in the Devanagari script or the Perso-Arabic script. However, the Kaithi script was the historical popular script for the language. Hindi, one standardized register of Hindustani, utilizes the Devanagari script while Urdu, the other standardized register of Hindustani utilizes the Perso-Arabic script, with Nasta`liq being the preferred calligraphic style for Urdu.

Perso-Arabic script used to write Hindustani (Urdu):

جھ	ڄ	ج	پ	ث	ٺ	ٽ	ٿ	ت	ڀ	ٻ	ب	ا
ɟʱ	ʄ	ɟ	p	s	ʈʰ	ʈ	tʰ	t	bʱ	ɓ	b	*
ڙ	ر	ذ	ڍ	ڊ	ڏ	ڌ	د	خ	ح	ڇ	چ	ڃ
ɽ	r	z	ɖʱ	ɖ	ɗ	dʱ	d	x	h	cʰ	c	ɲ
ڪ	ق	ڦ	ف	غ	ع	ظ	ط	ض	ص	ش	س	ز
k	x	pʰ	f	ɣ	∅	z	t	z	s	?	s	z
	ي	ه	و	ڻ	ن	م	ل	ڱ	گھ	ڳ	گ	ک
	*	h	*	ɳ	n	m	l	ŋ	ɡʱ	ɠ	ɡ	kʰ

Devanagari script used to write Hindustani (Hindi):

अ	आ	इ	ई	उ	ऊ	ए	ऐ	ओ	औ
a	ā	i	ī	u	ū	e	ai	o	au
क	ख	ख़	ग	ॻ	ग़		घ		ङ
k	kʰ	x	ɡ	ɠ	ɣ		ɡʱ		ŋ
च	छ		ज	ॼ	ज़		झ		ञ
c	cʰ		ɟ	ʄ	z		ɟʱ		ɲ
ट	ठ		ड	ॾ	ड़		ढ	ढ़	ण
ʈ	ʈʰ		ɖ	ɗ	ɽ		ɖʱ	ɽʱ	ɳ
त	थ		द				ध		न
t	tʰ		d				dʱ		n
प	फ	फ़	ब	ॿ			भ		म
p	pʰ	f	b	ɓ			bʱ		m
य	र	ल	व
j	r	l	ʋ
श	ष	स	ह
sh	ʂ	s	h

Because of Anglicization and international use of the Roman script, Hindustani is also sometimes written in the Roman alphabet. This adaptation is called Roman Urdu. Despite opposition from Devanagari and Perso-Arabic script lovers, Roman Urdu is gaining popularity especially among the youth, who use the Internet or are "cyber-citizens."

See also: Devanagari alphabet and Perso-Arabic script

Sample text

Following is a sample text, Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the two official registers of Hindustani, Hindi and Urdu. As this is a formal legal text, differences in formal vocabulary are maximized.

High Hindi

अनुच्छेद 1 — सभी मनुष्यों को गौरव और अधिकारों के मामले में जन्मजात स्वतन्त्रता प्राप्त है। उन्हें बुद्धि और अन्तरात्मा की देन प्राप्त है और परस्पर उन्हें भाईचारे के भाव से बर्ताव करना चाहिये।

Transliteration (IAST):

Anucched 1 — Sabhī manuṣyoṃ ko gaurav aur adhikāroṃ ke māmle meṃ janmajāt svatantratā prāpt hai. Unheṃ buddhi aur antarātmā kī den prāpt hai aur paraspar unheṃ bhāīcāre ke bhāv se bartāv karnā cāhiye.

Transcription (IPA):

ənʊtʃʰːeːd̪ eːk — səbʱiː mənʊʃjõː koː ɡɔːɾəʋ ɔːr əd̪ʱɪkaːɾõ keː maːmleː mẽː dʒənmədʒaːt̪ sʋət̪ənt̪ɾət̪aː pɾaːpt̪ hɛː. ʊnʱẽ bʊd̪ʱːɪ ɔːɾ ənt̪əɾaːt̪maː kiː d̪eːn pɾaːpt̪ hɛː ɔːɾ pəɾəspəɾ ʊnʱẽː bʱaːiːtʃaːɾeː keː bʱaːʋ seː bəɾt̪aːʋ kəɾnə tʃaːhɪeː.

Gloss (word-to-word):

Article 1 — All human-beings to dignity and rights' matter in from-birth freedom acquired is. Them to reason and conscience's endowment acquired is and always them to brotherhood's spirit with behaviour to do should.

Translation (grammatical):

Article 1 — All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

formal Urdu (zabān-e urdū-e muʻallā):

ur

Devanagari transcription (used in India only)

दफ़ा 1: तमाम इनसान आज़ाद और हुकू़क़ और इज़्ज़त के इतिबार से बराबर पैदा हुए हैं। इन्हें ज़मीर और अक़ल वदीयत हुई हैं। इसलिए इन्हें एक दूसरे के साथ भाई चारे का सुलूक करना चाहीए।

Transliteration (ALA-LC)

Dafʻah 1: Tamām insān āzād aur ḥuqūq o ʻizzat ke iʻtibār se barābar paidā hu’e haiṇ. Unheṇ zamīr aur ʻaql wadīʻat hu’ī he. Isli’e unheṇ ek dūsre ke sāth bhā’ī chāre kā sulūk karnā chāhi’e.

Transcription

d̪əfa ek: t̪əmam ɪnsan azad̪ ɔɾ hʊquq o ʔizət̪ ke ɪʔt̪ɪbaɾ se bəɾabəɾ pɛda hʊe hẽ. ʊnʱẽ zəmiɾ ɔɾ ʔəqəl ʋədiət̪ hʊi he. ɪslɪe ʊnʱẽ ek d̪usɾe ke sat̪ʰ bʱai tʃaɾe ka sʊluk kəɾna tʃahɪe.

Gloss

Article 1: All humans free[,] and rights and dignity's consideration from equal born are. To them conscience and intellect endowed is. Therefore, they one another's with brotherhood's treatment do must.

Translation

Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience. Therefore, they should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Grammar

Main article: Hindi grammar

Phonology

Main article: Hindi phonology

Hindustani and Bollywood

The Indian film industry, Bollywood, located in Mumbai (Bombay), Maharashtra, uses dialects of Khariboli of Hindi, Awadhi, Rajasthani, Bhojpuri, Punjabi, and quite often Bambaiya Hindi (along with many English words) for the dialogues and songs in the movies produced. These movies are full of songs and dances—songs, some of them in the Urdu Shayari style.

Generally the name of the movie is shown in three scripts Roman script, Devanagari (used for Hindi) and Perso-Arabic (script of Urdu). Many lyrics are in Urdu for songs. Movies based on Delhi Sultanate period or on the Mughal Empire are full of Urdu words. Movies like Mughal-e-Azam have used purely Urdu dialogues. Hindu mythological movies generally contain more Sankskrit vocabulary which does not exist in Urdu.

Urdu films and Lollywood

The Pakistani film industry, centred historically in Lahore has seen a rise in Punjabi movies lately. Urdu languages have seen a surge throughout Pakistan specifically Karachi, with new age films and to a lesser extent in Islamabad and Lahore.

See also

Alphabetically arranged

• Languages of India
• Languages of Pakistan
• List of Hindi authors
• List of Urdu writers
• Macrolanguage
• Mutually intelligible languages

Bibliography

• Asher, R. E. (1994). Hindi. In Asher (Ed.) (pp. 1547–1549).
• Asher, R. E. (Ed.). (1994). The Encyclopedia of language and linguistics. Oxford: Pergamon Press. ISBN 0-08-035943-4.
• 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 as a pluricentric language. In M. G. Clyne (Ed.), Pluricentric languages: Differing norms in different nations. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-012855-1.
• Dua, Hans R. (1994a). Hindustani. In Asher (Ed.) (pp. 1554).
• Dua, Hans R. (1994b). Urdu. In Asher (Ed.) (pp. 4863–4864).
• Rai, Amrit. (1984). A house divided: The origin and development of Hindi-Hindustani. Delhi: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-561643-X.

External links

• Shakespear, John. A Dictionary, Hindustani and English. 3rd ed., much enl. London: Printed for the author by J.L. Cox and Son: Sold by Parbury, Allen, & Co., 1834.
• Janmaanas Ek Hindi Manch(Hindi Language Forum)
• Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition: Hindostani
• Hindi, Urdu, Hindustani, khaRî bolî
• Hindi FAQ
• Hindustani as an anxiety between Hindi Commitment
• Hindi? Urdu? Hindustani? Hindi?
• Interview with a Hindustani Language Teacher
• History of Hindustani
• Hindi/Urdu-English-Kalasha-Khowar-Nuristani-Pashtu Comparative Word List
• Ethnologue Report for Hindustani
• GRN Report for Hindustani
• Hindustani Poetry
• Hindi-Urdu online resources
• Biggest Hindustani-Indian poetry forum
• Hindi-Urdu Wikitravel Hindi-Urdu Phrasebook
• National Language Authority (Urdu), Pakistan (muqtadera qaumi zaban)