History of Hindustani

Hindustani (Hindi: हिंदुस्तानी, Urdu: ہندوستانی) is one of the predominant languages of South Asia, with federal status in India and Pakistan in its standardized forms of Hindi and Urdu. It is widely spoken and understood as a second language in Nepal, Bangladesh, and the Persian Gulf and as such is considered a lingua franca in the Indian subcontinent.[1] It is also one of the most widely spoken languages in the world by total number of speakers.[2] Rekhta, or "mixed" speech, which came to be known as Hindustani, Hindi, Hindavi, and Urdu (derived from Zabaan-i-Ordu by Mashafi meaning "language of the Horde".), also locally known as Lashkari or Lashkari Zaban in long form[3][4], was thus created. This form was elevated to the status of a literary language, and after the partition of colonial India and independence this collection of dialects became the basis for modern standard Hindi and Urdu. Although these official languages are distinct registers with regards to their formal aspects, such as modern technical vocabulary, they continue to be all but indistinguishable in their vernacular forms.

This article is about the history and evolution of the Hindustani language. For the history of the Hindustani people, see Indian people. For the history of the Hindustani culture, see culture of India.

Formation

The term Hindustani is derived from Hindustan, the Persian-origin name for the Indus river bed of the northwestern Indian subcontinent. The works of the 13th century scholar Amir Khusro are typical of the Hindustani language of the time:

सेज वो सूनी देख के रोवुँ मैं दिन रैन ।
पिया पिया मैं करत हूँ पहरों, पल भर सुख ना चैन ॥

.سیج وو سونی دیکھ کے رووں میں دن رہیں
.پیا پیا میں کرت ہوں پہروں، پل بھر سکھ نہ چین

sej vo sūnī dekh ke rovũ ma͠i din rain,
piyā piyā ma͠i karat hū̃ pahrõ, pal bhar sukh nā cain.

Seeing the empty bed I cry day and night
Calling for my beloved all day, not a moment of happiness or peace.

Ghaznavid forces captured the Punjab in the eleventh century AD as their earlier conquest of the subcontinent. Punjab was also known as "Hind" or the land east on the Indus.[5] A local pre-Punjabi dialect spoken in Lahore and much of the Punjab began to assimilate words from the Persian variety brought there by the incoming Ghaznavids.[6] Possibly newly derived from Prakrit at the time, this pre-Punjabi dialect or language retained it's Indo-Aryan grammatical classification but incorporated significant lexicon from Ghzanvid Persian, an Iranic language.[7]

This led to the evolution of a Persianized Indo-Aryan language attained by the locals and the Ghaznavids as their main language. It is claimed to have been known as Lashkari or Lashkari Zaban in reference to the battalions of the Ghaznavid Empire; hence the language of the battalions. Other predominant names for this language include Hindui and Hindavi, pertaining to the region encompassing the river Indus which was known as Hind to Persian and later Arabic speakers. These names for centuries existed before the name Urdu. Approximately a hundred and seventy-seven years after conquering modern Punjab, the Ghazanvids managed to push further east of the subcontinent, eventually capturing Delhi and it's surrounding districts, bringing this new Persian-influenced Indo-Aryan language with them to Delhi. This language brought from Punjab then fell under the influence of Khariboli spoken in Delhi and it's surroundings. For centuries it became the official language of various Muslim dynasties in the subcontinent and written in both Nastaliq and Devanagari scripts. It also continued to be a common lingua-franca of the bazaars and the locals of today's North India. By the time of the Mughal Empire, it commonly became known as the 'Zaban-o-Ordu mohteda' or the language of the royal camp. Ordu is a word from Chagatai, the Turkic language of the Mughals. In approximate local translation, it was known as Lashkari Zaban or Lashkari, a name possibly dating back to Ghaznavid rule.[8]

By the approximate year of 1780, the name 'Urdu' began to appear in the poems of Ghulam Mashafi, a Muslim poet and resident of the greater Delhi area. He derived the name from 'Zaban-i-Ordu.'[9] Prior to him, the names Dehlavi, Hindui, Lahori, Rakhta and Hindavi were commonly in use. It was also ambiguously known as Hindustani and Hindi, or Hindustani written in Devanagari script.[10] It eventually replaced Persian or Farsi/Parsi as the language of the courts. By the time of the British Empire, it became a lingua franca of the subcontinent and was also commonly known as Hindustani, Hindi and Urdu. By the end of British rule and the formation of India and Pakistan, it became the official lingua franca of both countries as Hindi and Urdu as it's most common names and less commonly as Hindustani, Lashkari, Hindui and Dakhani.

Poetry

The poet Wali Deccani (1667–1707) visited Delhi in 1700.[11] His Rekhta or Hindavi ghazals established Hindustani as a medium of poetic expression in the imperial city. Hindustani soon gained distinction as the preferred language in courts of India and eventually replaced Persian among the nobles. To this day, Rekhta retains an important place in literary and cultural spheres. Many distinctly Persian forms of literature, such as ghazals and nazms, came to both influence and be affected by Indian culture, producing a distinct melding of Middle Eastern and South Asian heritages. A famous cross-over writer was Amir Khusro, whose Persian and Hindavi couplets are read to this day in the subcontinent. Persian has sometimes been termed an adopted classical language of South Asia alongside Sanskrit due to this role.

See also

References
  1. "Jammu and Kashmir Burushaski: Language, Language contact and change" (PDF). Sadaf Munshi, Doctor of Philosophy, University of Texas. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 September 2016. Retrieved 24 August 2016.
  2. "Hindustani". Columbia University press. encyclopedia.com.
  3. Dar, Kamran Shaukat, Ahmad Bin Shafat, and Muhammad Umair Hassan. "An efficient stop word elimination algorithm for Urdu language." 2017 14th International Conference on Electrical Engineering/Electronics, Computer, Telecommunications and Information Technology (ECTI-CON). IEEE, 2017.
  4. Khalid, Kanwal. "LAHORE DURING THE GHAZNAVID PERIOD."
  5. Brard, Gurnam Singh Sidhu. "East of Indus: My memories of old Punjab." (2007).
  6. Muhammed Tahir. Islamic Studies in India: A Survey of Human, Institutional and Documentary Source. Concept Publishing Company, 1991. p. 22. ISBN 8170223598.
  7. Muhammed Tahir. Islamic Studies in India: A Survey of Human, Institutional and Documentary Source. Concept Publishing Company, 1991. p. 22. ISBN 8170223598.
  8. Khalid, Kanwal. "LAHORE DURING THE GHAZNAVID PERIOD".
  9. P.V.Kate (1987). Marathwada Under the Nizams. p. 136. ISBN 9788170990178
  10. Garcia, Maria Isabel Maldonado. "The Urdu language reforms." Studies 26 (2011): 97.
  11. Pain and Grace: A Study of Two Mystical Writers of Eighteenth-century Muslim India, By Annemarie Schimmel, BRILL, 1976
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