I had always wondered how come Urdu and Hindi are considered separate languages when they are so similar. The story of Urdu emerging as a hybrid language of Persian speaking muslim settlers didn’t make sense. After all, an equally large number , perhaps even more, of muslims settled in Punjab as in UP. Yet Punjabi remains one language. There are tons of Perso-Arabic words used in everyday Punjabi and it is even written 2 different scripts. Yet nobody claims that there are 2 separate Punjabi languages.
Separation of Urdu and Hindi was essentially a political act by Indian Nationalists who created a language called Hindi and claimed that it was the original language of the region and separated Urdu as a foreign influenced hybrid.
Ironically, Indo-Muslim Nationalists, who started 50 years later, enthusiastically embraced this myth to emphasize their own distinctiveness.
Here is a short summary of the above article (which is worth reading in full)
Zaban_e_urdu meant ‘language of the encampment’
It was the term used to describe the language of the court of Delhi and Shahjahanabad
In texts upto 1750 the phrase zaban_e_urdu referred to Persian
The local lingua franca was called variously, Hindvi, Hindi, Dehlvi, Rekhtah, Hindustani etc.
It was an urbanized standard version of local dialects like Khari boli, Braj Bhasha etc.
During 11th-17th centuries Perso-Arabic words had organically seeped into this language as well as the local dialects
These words were commonly understood and used (irrespective of the speaker’s religion)
Other local languages like Punjabi, Sindhi, Gujerati and even Bengali had also absorbed Perso-Arabic words
Shah Alam II (1759-1806) popularized Hindvi in the Delhi court and wrote extensivley in it (though official language remained Persian)
From then onwards zaban_e_urdu started meaning the local lingua franca
Urdu, Hindi, Hindvi, Hindustani, Rekhtah etc. all referred to the same language - the lingua franca of North India
There was no universally popular script for this language
Kaithi script was commonly used. Devnagari was used mainly by religious scholars. Persian script was modified and popularized for this language
First British at Fort Williams College and then Hindu nationalists started making the distinction between Urdu and Hindi in the 1800s
This was a part of the overall cultural and political awakening of Hindus in the 1800s inspired, of course, by British introduction of modern ideas of nationalism
The name Hindi was appropriated for a new construct in which PersoArabic words were artificially replaced by archaic Sanskrit words
This was declared to be the original language of the region and Urdu was declared to be a hybrid language created by muslim invaders
(It should be noted that there was no corresponding movement to Persianize urdu. In fact, there was a movement to write simpler Urdu)
Muslim nationalist came later and found it convenient to adopt this myth too
After being promoted for over a century Hindi now stands on its own as a separate language, taught in schools and used in formal settings and having its own literature
Commonly spoken language of the people remains virtually indistinguishable from Urdu
But the story of Hindi’s origin and that of Urdu has been obscured by the myth created at the time of the invention of Hindi
Idk about Urdu but how can we claim Punjabi is one language when there exist so many different dialects? For example I consider Pothwari a Punjabi dialect, unless you think it’s a separate language on it’s own. But then let’s say Hindko would be seen a separate language too but it’s similar to Pothwari. So, can we claim Punjabi language is one language?
Good to know people are beginning to understand Hindi is a borrowed language from Urdu written in DevNagiri alphabets that was developed out of desire by Hindu nationalists and religious freaks to distinguish themselves from Muslims speaking a Turko-Persian language in mid 19th century. They could not speak their own Sankirit as it was only taught to the higher echelons of society and the priests and the common men were left speaking the common language i.e Urdu.
Sadly these nationalists are still running India and inflicting all sorts of heinous atrocities against Muslims.
Certainly not the Hindi that is spoken today which is full of Persian, Turkic and Arabic words (as its a *hindified *version of Urdu) unless Paundavas were expert in Middle-Eastern languages
The beauty of Urdu is that it absorbs words from other languages.
Predominantly Persian words .
Persian writing scripts.
There is no such thing as Hindi language. It’s a made up language merely to differentiated from Urdu with it’s own specific background and history.
I have written long time ago on this forum that Hindi is basically Urdu, with additional words taken from Sanskrit language to make it sound different.
In Pakistan, Urdu serves as ‘superglue’ to united other language speaking people. A must factor to keep the bond.
It;s spoken or understood in many parts of world.
