Talk:Delhi/Archive 8

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Is it possible to combine Hindi and Punjabi into one like 'Hindi and Punjabi pronunciation: [ˈdɪlːiː] dillī; Urdu pronunciation: [ˈdeɦliː] dêhlī' - because it seems redundant, otherwise, having to add the transliteration and IPA twice, just for an additional language? Perhaps even a template for cases like this, which would combine Hindi and Punjabi into one?نعم البدل (talk) 23:05, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Hello Naim Abdul (or is it Abdul Naim?), I'm not a fan of top loading the lead with long pronunciation strings and making it hard for Wikipedia's ordinary global readers to reach the beginning of the first sentence. The English is fairly easy for a common English speaker to pronounce; a guide is not really needed. So why are Hindi and Punjabi even needed? "Official" reasons? (Urdu I can understand; it is a Muslim city, i.e. they founded it.) My preference would be to put both Hindi and Punjabi in a footnote. Or perhaps put all in a footnote.

I will implement it and you can tell me what you think. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:40, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Fowler&fowler:. Apologies for the very late reply. Your edit seems to be appropriate, but specifically for this article (Delhi). I was suggesting more of a template could be made which could combine multiple languages if the pronunciation is the same, like how Hindi and Punjabi often are instead of writing the same pronunciation for both languages.

As for why languages are needed, I guess that comes down to preference, but in my opinion they should be mentioned, as they show the distinction between English lemmas and local terms. نعم البدل (nemul badal) 02:34, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Hindi and Urdu do not have separate pronunciations for the city "Delhi". In actuality, dêhlī is the older and more formal pronunciation of the city, being rendered in Devanagari as देहली and the Perso-Arabic script as دہلی; dillī is a colloquial pronunciation that has become commonplace and has displaced the original pronunciation of the city, among both Hindi and Urdu speakers, who are interspersed throughout the city together. In the present-day, for everyday conversation, both Hindi and Urdu speakers residing in Delhi call the city dillī, which is rendered as दिल्ली in the Devanagari script and دلی in the Person-Arabic script. News outlets such as BBC Urdu will use both دلی and دہلی to render the name of the city. Older editions of Sarang: the Hindi Programme Journal of All India Radio rendered the city by the formal spelling देहली; of additional note is the fact that the Indian Listener: English Programme Journal of All India Radio included timings for "News in English" and "News in Hindustani"; had the pronounciations of words in Hindi and Urdu been different, this would have not been possible. The revision instated by User:Kwamikagami reflects this and should be restored. I hope this helps. With regards, Anupam^Talk 18:55, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

@Anupam and Fowler&fowler:

Fowler&fowler and I've been discussing this on their talk page, with multiple refs there. The dominant Urdu spelling currently appears to be دہلى, and the Hindi दिल्ली. But that's orthography, not necessarily pronunciation. The Rough Guide Hindi & Urdu Phrasebook has only dillī as the pronunciation, for both Hindi and Urdu. In fact, in the appendices for the scripts, the Urdu side has نئ دہلى as the spelling, but the transliteration is still nayī dillī.

My question then is: has the pronunciation changed for both Muslims and Hindus, with only Muslims retaining the old spelling? Being conservative in orthography does not require one to be conservative in speech -- in English (for a time), British gaol and American jail did not indicate a difference in pronunciation, nor British light and American lite. This is especially true with place and personal names -- in the UK, you still see gaol in place names. We've also got Urdu written in nagari, transcribing Persian ayin as अ with vowel diacritics (e.g. अि rather than ई for عي). That doesn't reflect a difference in pronunciation either, just a way to say 'this is Urdu'. I could see Muslims retaining the Persian spelling to celebrate the Muslim heritage of the city, and Hindus adopting the phonetic spelling to purge it, without any difference in speech. — kwami (talk) 19:37, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing me to that discussion, User:Kwamikagami. To answer your question, yes, in Delhi and most of northern India, most people (Hindus and Muslims--who are speaking the same lingua franca Hindustani) pronounce the word as "dillī" when speaking; see this newscast from News18 Urdu. Therein, the Urdu news anchor pronounces the city as "dillī" throughout. As I have shown you above, both Hindus and Muslims will spell the city as दिल्ली / دلی or as देहली / دہلی. The point is that Hindi and Urdu do not have separate pronunciations of the city, as the article currently claims; dillī / दिल्ली / دلی is the modern, colloquial pronunciation/spelling in Hindi-Urdu, while dêhlī / देहली / دہلی is the older, traditional pronunciation/spelling in Hindi-Urdu. I hope this helps. With regards, Anupam^Talk 00:34, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Huh? Are you listening to your own example, Anupam? In the very first sentence, the woman says, "ke khilaaf dehli meiN ..." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:35, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Please also *do not* write "I hope this helps" it sounds patronizing. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:37, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Here is Google translate Hindi dilli >>> Urdu dehli Click on the sound, both in Hindi on the left and Urdu on the right. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:38, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

From my user talk page: Here is one of the great poets of the language Iftikhar Arif, born and raised in Lucknow, India, but emigrated to Pakistan in his 20s, returning to Delhi to recite his poems in a festival in 1988. Hear him use "dehli" at the 18 to 20 second mark Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:40, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Here is the reverse, Saif Mahmood an Indian Urdu comedic writer and historian, who has written a book on the Urdu literature of Delhi from 1700 to 1900, seated on the right at a literature festival in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2019 use "dehli" several times between 5:00 and 5:20. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:41, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Anupam's example is so fast I can't hear what she's saying. (I don't have an ear for Hindustani.) And Google might be machine generated for all I know. Arif appears to be saying dehlī, and Mahmood dehalī. The latter suggests the Persian hl cluster might not come naturally to Urdu speakers. — kwami (talk) 04:36, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Arif had training in Persian. Mahmood very likely did not. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:21, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Kwami Here are some more instances from News18, the Urdu news channel Anupam has mentioned above.

• dehli hakumat (delhi government) at 33 to 35 seconds mark, July 29, 2022
• South dehli meiN in the opening sentence, May 12, 2022. Very interesting example; even when preceded by the English word South the Urdu pronunciation "dehli" is maintained, and not swapped for the English [deli]
• "kuch aham qaumi khabareN bhi, dehli meiN Muslim ..." in the very first sentence, May 29, 2022.
• This is the clincher. The banner above says, "دہلی فساد" (i.e. Delhi riots) She pronounces it dehli fasad(at) the -at being the Arabic plural, not dilli fasadat.

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:57, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

The banner above also has دہلی پولیس which she pronounces dehli police. She does say dilli high court but that is not there in script form in the banner so we don't know what she is reading. But twice she does pronounce دہلی as dehli Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:04, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Would it be safe to say Urdu has both pronunciations then? It would be interesting to know how people on the street in Dehli usually say it. — kwami (talk) 06:16, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

We don't know that yet, not for the spelling دہلی The last video is at least disproof of the statement in RG that دہلی is pronounced dilli. The newsreader is not pronouncing it so in the two instances of dehli fasadat and dehli police. The High Court does not appear in the Urdu script, so we don't know what she was reading. She may well have been reading دلی (dilli) before ہائی کورٹ (high court) But yes there are two spellings in Urdu: دہلی pronounced dehli (the more formal and the standard) and ہائی dilli, the imitation of the much more widely used Hindi, the vernacular, the rough and ready. Although its use originally was Urdu responding to the use of dilli in the local speech, today it is Urdu responding to the pressure of Hindi in India. If the court's sign has only Hindi (devanagari), dilli, and its logo is some Sanskrit shloka that no one understands, see here and if the court has, moreover, ruled in 2019 that many Urdu and Persian words cannot be used in police reports, see here, including words such as mujrim that have been used for 400 years in that city, and are the staple of Bombay Hindi movies (before they came to be called Bollywood) then the Urdu speakers in the city often have no option but to respond to the pressure. So we can say, Hindi dilli, Urdu dehli, dilli in the lead sentence, but the use of Hindustani is POV. Hindi speakers never say "dehli." There is a clear demarcation there. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:15, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

And Saif Mahmood himself says that between 8:30 and 9:00 in the video, when asked why he had written in book in English. His says, who reads Urdu in India today? The script has been killed/finished in our country.

In other words, in the Hindi/Hindu nationalist India of today, you could be jailed even beaten up for the use of too much Urdu-sounding speech. It is not common, but it has happened. Mahmood can get away with those kinds of criticism because he is a lawyer in the Supreme Court of India and he is saying that in Pakistan. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:07, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

He's exaggerating a little as there are plenty of Urdu newspapers, as we have seen! But their readership is almost entirely Muslim, despite the various disclaimers of the Urdu promoters themselves. Thus Mahmood is attempting to reach the non-Muslim readership in India among whom the use of the Perso-Arabic script is pretty much non-existent. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:21, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: - Yes in Urdu - it does have both pronunciations, but shouldn't only the official spelling and pronunciation be mentioned only? نعم البدل (talk) 13:56, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

User:Kwamikagami, with respect to the News18 Urdu example provided above, please see the timestamps of 2:26 and 7:14, where the pronunciation dillī is used by the News18 Urdu reporter. We know that what User:Fowler&fowler is stating with regard to Hindi is false since the official programme of All India Radio, uses the spelling देहली to render "Delhi". My recommendation with regard to dillī / दिल्ली / دلی being the modern, colloquial pronunciation/spelling in Hindi-Urdu, while dêhlī / देहली / دہلی is the older, traditional pronunciation/spelling in Hindi-Urdu, still stands. While the use of देहली has waned, especially in written Devanagari, it still is the original pronunciation/spelling as evidenced by the programme I provided above. To answer your question about how the word is pronounced on the street, it is almost always dillī / दिल्ली / دلی, both by Hindi and Urdu speakers; a trip to the Muslim parts of Old Delhi would easily verify this. However, both دلی and دہلی are used in Urdu regularly, with the former being used in colloquial contexts and latter being used moreso in formal contexts (though this is not a hard and fast rule). Though my recommendation still stands, I would be amenable to the suggestion of User:Fowler&fowler, since it is more accurate than the falsehood that is currently embedded in the article, which presents a false dichotomy between Hindi and Urdu. I hope this helps. With regards, Anupam^Talk 14:10, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Additionally, while I can appreciate them, I do not think that the examples of Urdu being spoken in Karachi are helpful here. The Urdu pronunciation is in this article because Urdu is an official language of Delhi, along with Hindi and Punjabi. The focus should be on how Urdu is used in Delhi and northern India at large; the way that the British pronounce the American city of Philadelphia/Philly would similarly be of little consequence for that article. In Karachi, the older pronunciation of dêhlī / देहली / دہلی remains more common since that is how it was pronounced at the time when the Muhajirs emigrated to Pakistan after the partition; this is not the case in India where the colloquial pronunciation of dillī / दिल्ली / دلی, has displaced the original (at least the way the Hindustani language is spoken on the street). Cheers, Anupam^Talk 14:28, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are talking about, Anupam. Your own first example begins with "dehli." Kwami might find it too fast for a decisive judgment, but we can post on WT:INDIA and I have no doubt the response there will be that it is indeed "dehli," not dilli. Five examples of mine from your own very website have "dehli" The last has the Urdu script up top which shows the correspondence, i.e. what spelling in Urdu the newsreader has pronounced, and you seem to call my examples "false."

Saif Mahmood, is a resident of Delhi, a lawyer of the Supreme Court of India, and author of Beloved Delhi: A Mughal City and her Greatest Poets, Speaking Tiger Books, 2018. It is he who is clearly enunciating "Dehli," between 5:00 and 5:20 marks in the literary festival in Karachi link above. He was only visiting there for a few days. He did not adopt a dated pre-Partition Karachi style for effect.

Summing up, there is Hindi which is spelled दिल्ली in every Hindi language newspaper of Delhi and pronounced, dilli, never "dehli;" there is Urdu which is spelled دہلی in the Delhi Urdu newspapers, as I've shown kwami, and its pronounced "dehli" and secondarily and informal "dilli," but then it is spelled دلی

As I've already stated, we can say: Hindi (dilli), Urdu (dehli, informally dilli). There is no room for any other formulation.

More relevantly, Hindi and Urdu are also official languages of the Union Territory of Delhi which is what the page is about, and the only reason that the Hindi and Urdu pronunciations appear in the lead sentence. Hindi is the primary official language, and Urdu a secondary official languages in addition of course to English, the associate official language of the Union. At the Delhi gate, the entrance to Old Delhi, the city officially greets a visitor with
दिल्ली गेट
Delhi Gate,
دہلی گیٹ Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:22, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

I will next give some examples of the name in Urdu and its transliteration in English from the Urdu poetry of Delhi poets from the time of Mir Taqi Mir to the 21st-century. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:29, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

User:Fowler&fowler, your comment does not address my point directly. Did you open the News18 Urdu example and listen to the timestamps at 2:26 and 7:14, where the pronunciation dillī is used by the News18 Urdu reporter? Additionally, what do you have to say about Sarang: the Hindi Programme Journal of All India Radio rendering the city by the formal spelling देहली? Please provide a succinct answer to both of these questions. Kind regards, Anupam^Talk 18:33, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Yes, the 2nd reporter at 7:14 appears to be saying dilli, but F&F has already accepted that that's an Urdu pronunciation. As for the radio program, that's from 1946! -- before independence or partition. We all know that if you go back far enough, "Hindi" is just a Hindu word for Urdu, but since then there has been a conscious attempt to differentiate the two, even if the differences tend to be grossly exaggerated. I think maybe we might add to F&F's account of Hindi "historically dehli", but I don't see any evidence that it's dehli today. — kwami (talk) 19:00, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

User:Kwamikagami, thanks for your comment and for having a look at the resources I shared. I can absolutely agree with your suggestion of adding "historically dehli" to User:Fowler&fowler's suggestion above. Feel free to make the changes as I believe we have consensus now. Your work is much appreciated! With regards, Anupam^Talk 19:05, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

[cont. -- edit-conflict] IMO we should definitely note that dilli is the colloquial pronunciation in Urdu. Given that Mahmood can't even pronounce dehli correctly, I suspect that dilli may be the usual pronunciation for him as well. But there is clearly widespread use of dehli at least in formal speech, such as by the lead announcer of a news broadcast (if not by the journalist on the street). — kwami (talk) 19:00, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

F&F, does this work for you?

Hindi (dilli, historically dehli), Urdu (dehli, informally dilli)

(adding in macrons and IPA, of course)

Also, I restored the intended list of languages after the cited mention of the three-language formula. — kwami (talk) 19:16, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

This page is about the Delhi = Union Territory of Delhi (established 1956) and later the National Capital Territory of Delhi (established 1992). We can't go back further than those dates in the lead. On the India page, we say, officially "Bharat Ganarajya," which is he name of the Republic of India in its official language, we don't go back to what India was called historically in the lead sentence. We mention those only in the section India#Etymology. Delhi too has such a section, Delhi#Toponym, where one could mention this, but even there it will need to be qualified. Hindi = Modern Standard Hindi goes back no further than the late 19th-century, and even then "dehli" was minority pronunciation and spelling in Hindi, the primary was "dilli." I will give examples from Premchand, the major writer of Hindi-Urdu who used dehli once for every three or four times he used dilli. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:37, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

In the Toponym section, we can add, Hindi (dilli, sometimes also dehli in the 19th and early 20th century). It already has quite a bit about the origins of the word dilli. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:47, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

This article covers the whole history of the city, not just the period since it became a union territory. It would be different if it were a dedicated article with a hat note "this article is about the union territory. For the city of Delhi, see X". Then we would move all the pronunciation info to that other article. — kwami (talk) 20:03, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

It is no different from the FA India Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:22, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

India on Wikipedia = Republic of India, although it has history going back to the first coastal migration of Homo sapiens from Africa. Similarly Delhi on Wikipedia = National Capital Territory of Delhi, although it has history going back to a mention of the city in the Mahabharata Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:27, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Premchand:

• there are 12 instances of दिल्ली and four of दिहली, देहली, or दहली, in Premchand Ki 41 Lokpriya Kahaniyan - (प्रेमचंद की 41 लोकप्रिय कहानियाँ), i.e. 41 of his popular short stories.

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:21, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

And Premchand as his WP page says, was the greatest prose writer of Hindi-Urdu in the early 20th century. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:30, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Going back to the beginnings of Modern Standard Hindi prose, we have the pioneering work of Bharatendu Harishchandra Dilli durbar darpan (1877) his prose description of the Delhi Durbar, 1877 Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:50, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

User:Fowler&fowler, User:Kwamikagami has suggested a compromise that takes into account all of what has been said here. You need to work together rather than implementing your preference alone. While, what User:Kwamikagami suggested is not exactly what I had in mind, I am accepting it based on everyone's input here. I will go ahead and make the change now suggested by User:Kwamikagami. In addition to this, I am open to adding what you suggested for the Delhi#Toponym. You can implement that change without altering my edit. Kind regards, Anupam^Talk 22:28, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Of course not. There is no evidence that dehli was anything more than occasional usage in devanagari after 1877 when Modern Standard Hindi was born and 1947. I have already given you older examples from Premchand Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:04, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

No, there is a consensus that has been formed as the result of this conversation. User:Kwamikagami suggested a revision that I have implemented. You cannot force your preferred version against the wishes of others here. I have reverted you and unless others agree with you, the information will not be removed. As a friendly reminder, note that you have two reverts on this article already and will cross WP:3RR if you continue (you have reverted both User:Kwamikagami and I). I have supplied reliable sources that show the usage of देहली in Hindi, including the official programme of All India Radio and a reputable book on Hindi grammar. Additionally, you may not WP:CANVASS users in order to breach consensus here; you will cooperate in consensus building as other users do. Your examples from Premchand only serve to show देहली has been used in the Hindi language. Thanks for your understanding, Anupam^Talk 00:50, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

That's not consensus. We have consensus to add the informal pron of Urdu. We don't have consensus to add the historical pron of Hindi. Myself, I think it's odd myself to cover the history of the city but to exclude the very recent history of the pron, but it's not critical. It's really the current pron that's important. Anyway, 2 out of 3 is more a matter of chance than a sign of consensus. — kwami (talk) 01:07, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

OK, thank you Kwami, I did not see this. I find Anupam's edit-warring very dismaying. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:22, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

User:Kwamikagami, you may find A Manual of Higher Hindi Grammar & Compostion by Shibnarayan Lala, Professor of Hindi Language and Literature, Scottish Churches College, Calcutta (1920) to be a helpful source; in its entry (number 79), we see the historical spelling देहली in the derivation of the word देहलवी (Dehlvi), meaning "an inhabitant of Delhi". With regards, Anupam^Talk 22:44, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

And let's see: the suffix -vi after a vowel ending is a Persian suffix. Thus the Takhallus, or pen-name:

• of Barabanki-->Khumar Barabankvi;
• of Ludhiana--> Sahir Ludhianvi,
• of Bareilly-->Wasim Barelvi,
• of Ali-->Seema Alavi,
• and of course, of Delhi--> Daagh Dehlvi.
• But after non-vowel endings, it is only -i
• such as Agra (non-vowel? you ask) = Akbarabad --> Nazeer Akbarabadi,
• of Badayun --> Shakeel Badayuni;
• of Pratapgarh--> Imran Pratapgarhi

What does it have to do with Hindi?

There are Iranian names:

• Houman Dehlavi (Persian: هومن دهلوی, born 1971) is an Iranian musician and composer.
• his father Hossein Dehlavi (Persian: حسین دهلوی) (September 30, 1927 – October 15, 2019) was an Iranian composer
• There are Iranian last names Sarvi--> of Sari, Iran.

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:14, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Well, certain Persian grammatical constructs have been loaned in Hindi, which is why it is discussed in a book about Hindi grammar. Anupam^Talk 01:30, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

F&F, even I know Persian constitutes a huge amount of Hindi. Calling it "Hindi" doesn't change the fact that it's really Urdu. — kwami (talk) 01:37, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

@RegentsPark, Vanamonde93, and Abecedare: Please tell me what I am supposed to do in the face of two people, one of whom has claimed consensus, whereas I am the one who is finding the reliable sources. Please revert the page to the last version before their dickering, per WP:ONUS and WP:BRD. You will understand why I become irritated. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:52, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

I agree the consensus is what you suggested, per my thread above. I'd prefer including the recent history of Hindi, but it's not that important. — kwami (talk) 01:09, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

But consensus takes days, sometimes weeks to evolve. You were fine, but Anupam jumped the gun. It should be reverted to your version for which I thanked you, Kwami. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:17, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

I see that the revision I instated was recently reverted by User:Kwamikagami. If both of you are fine without the historical spelling with respect to Hindi, then I would agree that you both have achieved consensus. I am willing to acknowledge if my view is in the minority. Kind regards, Anupam^Talk 01:26, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

2 out of 3 people is not a consensus, because 3 people cannot be a statistical sample of an article written by more than those 3 people. — kwami (talk) 01:34, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

User:Kwamikagami, I've offered reliable references in which the historical spelling of Delhi has been used in Devanagari. I think it's worth mentioning, but I leave it to you if you'd like to continue arguing for the same. In my view, this article is about Delhi in totality, not just about its status as the National Capital Region, and the historical pronunciation is highly relevant. Anupam^Talk 01:41, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

I agree with you, but edit-warring is not the way forward. If it were 7 editors out of 10, then probably. 70 out of 100, certainly. But 2 out of 3 is just chance, and I don't think our articles should be ruled by random chance, even when I happen to agree with what chance produces. If it were the 1 of me arguing to include both current Urdu pronunciations against the 2 of you insisting we delete them, I wouldn't accept that consensus was against me. In this case, we're not talking about a current pronunciation, so I think we can afford to wait a while to see if consensus develops to include it. — kwami (talk) 01:49, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Anupam, you've offered a 100-year-old book, not a modern scholarly source about the Hindi of early 20th century. Also, even that book suggests that the common suffix is +wala or +wal, i.e. dilli + wala = dilliwala, or dilliwal, i.e. दिल्ली + वाला = दिल्लीवाला, दिल्ली + वाल = दिल्लीवाल​

It then says, "there are instances in which the rules of

Persian grammar are used and there it offers an example दिहली. The -vi is irrelevant. In essence you have used an old grammar book to find evidence of the use of दिहली in an example. But I have already given four examples from Premchand that are older than yours. But the same Premchand uses दिल्ली 12 times. In other words, दिहली, देहली, or दहली was minority usage even in the early 20th century. We can't say, "historically dehli" as that gives the impression that it was dehli historically, when it was really only dehli once in three times, the rest of the time it was दिल्ली historically. I have given you the very first book of Hindi prose, Bharatendu Harishchandra]]'s dilli marg darpan, not dehli marg darpan. I think you are being a little unreasonable here. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:01, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

That is why I suggested that in the Toponym section one could say, "Delhi was occasionally also written दिहली, देहली, or दहली in Hindi in the late 19th-century and the early 20th. Why "occasionally?" Because Premchand was an unusual writer who used many Persian/Urdu words in his writing. The average Hindi renaissance writer or poet did not. A Maithili Sharan Gupt or Jaishankar Prasad most likely would not have, even a Suryakant Tripathi Nirala would not have. Makhanlal Chaturvedi or Subhadra Kumari Chauhan also very unlikely. I don't know that they even used दिल्ली anywhere, but they did not use Perso-Arabic words Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:18, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

And I forgot Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi who was the next Hindi literature giant after Bharatendu Harishchandra. I doubt that these writers used too many Perso-Arabic words in their writings, though they would have in their speech. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:26, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

• (responding to ping) I read the discussion above , and the related discussion at F&f's talkpage with great interest and found the subject and sources quite intriguing. But may I suggest a slight shift in focus: the historical and current pronunciation(s) of the city's name in Hindi/Urdu are primarily pertinent to the Hindi/Urdu-language wikipedia pages of the city rather than this article; also the subject easily lends itself to WP:OR and confirmation bias since the Hindustani/Hindi/Urdu borders are so fuzzy and permeable. But the pronunciations could be worth mentioning in this article in so far as they shed light on the etymology of the English-language name (i.e., "Delhi"). Currently, the subject is handled in the Toponym section but not very well. For example:
  • many possibile etymologies are listed with no indication of which, if any, are considered to be more credible/fanciful
  • what exactly is "Panjab notes and queries?" this?
  • why is the possible Tomara link mentioned twice interspersed with other hypotheses? And is the theory that the city name derived from the coin's name or vice versa?
  • where is the Bhavishya Purana claim coming from? I didn't find it in the cited source.

Perhaps the recent sources and readings can be used to improve this section and (if supported by the sources) the alternate pronounciations mentioned with proper context rather than listed as a trivial isolated fact in a footnote.

PS: I know that I was pinged in my capacity as an admin but even setting aside the fact that I would be considered involved wrt this page, I believe that the discussion overall has been at a pretty high level and we shouldn't let the recent (brief) episode of back and forth reverts turn a fruitful content discussion into a bureaucratic "conduct issue". Lets just AGF and be patient with implementing disputed changes in the article. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 03:01, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

• (point) @Fowler&fowler and Kwamikagami: - my apologies for butting in. I didn't think my discussion would expand this much.

I don't see why the informal pronunciation of Urdu has to be mentioned? In official capacity, including govt press releases, newspapers, books, news channels etc, when it comes to Urdu, is it not always just دہلی, to which the standard Urdu pronunciation would be "dehli"? On top of that "دلّی" could potentially be confused with the meaning 'whole-heartedly', and would seem out-of-place for Urdu speakers, we're more accustomed to "دہلی".

The current revision now has "[ˈdɪlːiː] dillī" written three times, which I was suggesting to be reduced to simply once? نعم البدل (talk) 14:08, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

• (pinged) I'm sorry but I'm busy in RL and can't read through the details here or follow the citations in the text so this is a general comment. I'm unsure why we need to add "historically" before a pronunciation of the city's name. I hear Dilli, Delhi, Dehli, all in use today and assume that, since Delhi has been a sort of melting pot for centuries, various pronunciations co-existed historically as well. Regardless, wouldn't we need a source that explicitly says that xyz pronunciation was, historically, the only one? Rather than us finding historical examples of use? Less, at least in my book, is more when it comes to accuracy. --RegentsPark (comment) 15:41, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

  Hello Abecedare, Něʻmaʼl-badal, and RegentsPark for weighing in. The reason for having the pronunciation in the footnote in the lead sentence is that people often ask (as they did several times at the FA Darjeeling) how the name is pronounced. There, we inevitably run into a variation of "it depends on whom you ask." On other major Indian metropolises such as Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai the English pronunciation is accompanied by the regional language's. On Delhi there are two modulating factors: (a) unlike the others, the name is not of recent vintage, so most people know the English pronunciation (b) the regional language is not so clearly defined being that of a Mughal city which during the Partition of India underwent a cataclysmic population exchange, the Urdu-speaking Muslims mostly replaced by Punjabi-speaking Hindus and Sikhs.

  I was of the view that only the English should be included, but then agreed to having the three official languages of the National Capital Territory (which this page really is, just as India is really Republic of India) included in a footnote. In that form it had remained until the recent edit introducing "Hindustani" and the rest you can read both on my user talk page and here. I too am leery about delving into history, especially in footnotes in the lead sentence. Contemporary evidence seems to point to Urdu-language newspapers preferring د ہ ل ی = دہلی = right to left d h l i = d(e/a)hlee

  (the diacritics for short vowels are typically not added in Urdu unless needed for children or disambiguation) and Hindi newspapers preferring दिल्ली = द + ि+ ल्+ ल + ी , i.e. d + short i + double(l) + ee, and invariantly pronounced dillee. Kwami raised the possibility that دہلی might be being pronounced dilli instead of d(e/a)hlee.

  But that did not seem to be the case in the evidence I produced (still slender) in which both the script and the newsreaders enunciation were available. I don't know that this would be considered original research (it is of the same ilk as google searches, or ngrams but for written and spoken together.) I don't think the history is notable enough for inclusion in the lead sentence. Urdu speakers do informally refer to the city as dilli (they always have), so that is why I had suggested (Hindi and Punjabi dilli; Urdu de/ahli, informally dilli) but in a footnote.

  As for the Toponym section, I have to admit that I have never really paid attention to it, except removing the most outrageous claims. So, it does need to be rewritten and cited rigorously. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:09, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

  So although I am happy with Kwami's current version in the footnote: (/ˈdɛli/; Hindi pronunciation: [ˈdɪlːiː] dillī; Punjabi pronunciation: [ˈdɪlːiː] dillī; Urdu pronunciation: [ˈdeɦliː] dêhlī, informally [ˈdɪlːiː] dillī), I would perhaps prefer:

  • the first, i.e. the English, to be outside the footnote in the main text, and the rest in the footnote.

  The reason for having a footnote is that unlike Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, here we have a longer list of other languages.

  If there is agreement on this, then Kwami could do the honors. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:28, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

  As for Něʻmaʼl-badal 's question about whether the Hindi and Punjabi could be combined I would defer to Kwami, Anupam, and Abecedare. I apologize again to Abecedare for not paying attention to Toponym. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:32, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

  We might also have something like: Hindustani and Punjabi, dillī; formal Urdu, dehlī. But that would depend on whether Urdu-speakers normally say dillī, and only use dehlī in formal contexts such as news broadcasts and lectures (which I suspect to be the case, considering one of our sources didn't pronounce dehlī properly), or whether dehlī is the norm and only becomes dillī in informal contexts or when influenced by Hindi. Actually, to my ear, both pronunciations tend to have a similar first vowel and reduce the consonant cluster, merging to dĭlī in informal contexts and rapid speech. — kwami (talk) 19:12, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

  I'm of the latter opinion, that Urdu speakers normally say 'dehli', whereas 'dilli' is influenced by Hindi, and used informally. I think, one thing we should also look at, is the pronunciation of this term in Pakistan - since Urdu is more isolated there, compared to Urdu in India. My apologies for the headlines or titles etc, but bear in mind the following videos that I've found [1] (0:09, 0:30 onwards) [2] (4:12 onwards), [3] (0:10 onwards), [4] (0:09 onwards) etc. They all pronounce it as "dehli". Perhaps that should also be considered? Edit: I also wanted to say that, like Fowler, I too diasgree that it is possible for 'dehli' to merge into 'dilli', or for it to slur into one another. نعم البدل (talk) 00:57, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

  I disagree with Kwami about dehli merging to dilli in any context fast, informal, or in response to the implicit pressure of Hindi-nationalist speech (note I did not say Hindu-nationalist) in India from the late 1950s onward.

  I have heard many Urdu speakers over the years from India and Pakistan and South Asian expats in the west, but never heard anyone carelessly or unconsciously slur dehli as dilli, even after many drinks. The two are quite different. The only influence I can guess is that the rendering of دہلی in the devanagari script of Hindi is देहली not the correct version देह्ली which most Hindi speakers of today will not even recognize let alone manage to pronounce. With the gradual decimation of the Urdu script in the Urdu heartland of the United Provinces, with state funding denied for Urdu-medium schools there, denied even for Urdu-language classes in English- or Hindi-medium schools, it would be easy for the younger Urdu speakers to pick of the lazy habits of their Hindi-speaking counterparts. Bottomline: No to Hindustani appearing in any form whatsoever. There is a Hindi pronunciation of a word which appears as दिल्ली in all Hindi language newspapers and is pronounced dilli. There is an Urdu pronunciation of a word that appears as دہلی in Urdu newspapers and is pronounced dehli. It is not for us to gauge informal speech. A large number of young Hindi speakers for example are not even able to manage dilli clearly, their rendition is more like dili. So I take back my vote for inclusion of the informal and would now prefer the clear distinction between both Hindi and Urdu spelling and pronunciation in the literate corpus of which newspapers are commonly the major part. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:02, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

  We have Urdu-speaking newscasters saying dillī, so IMO that certainly counts as an Urdu pronunciation.

  Unfortunately, the Hindi and Urdu spellings are not an option.

  I only said "to my ear, both pronunciations tend to have a similar first vowel." But then, I don't have an ear for Hindustani. The similarity of short e and short i just makes it difficult for me to distinguish the two pronunciations, so I can't make a judgement unless it's quite clear. — kwami (talk) 02:30, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

  Surely the Urdu newscasters saying 'dilli' would not only be informal, but non-standard? Plus, newscasters have to try and interact with different types of audiences, and let's be real, without prejudice, Urdu news channels in India, aren't even Urdu. There was only one true Urdu channel that I was aware of - which was News18 Urdu, but even that now has switched to using Hindi for headlines. Yes Urdu speakers (and rarely some Urdu newspapers even) do say/use دِلِّی - but the problem is that it's influenced by Hindi, so it shouldn't really be counted - for Urdu. نعم البدل (talk) 02:58, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

I am in agreement with User:Kwamikagami; the way Urdu is spoken in Pakistan is not of relevance to this article, as I noted above. In Pakistan itself, Urdu, including its pronunciation, is heavily influenced by Punjabi, the most spoken language there. In India, the Urdu media uses "Dilli" and "Delhi" and so our article should include both. Even if Hindi has influenced the informal pronunciation in Urdu, languages evolve all the time and this should be taken into account. Certainly, the pronunciation of certain words in American English and British English is different, with certain phrases existing in one, but not the other—they are both English, nonetheless. For example, the word "uni" is used in Great Britain for "university", though almost never in the United States. Kind regards, Anupam^Talk 16:50, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

At this point, even if Kwami is in complete agreement with you (which I don't see him stating), there is no consensus for the Hindustani arguments, the common POV on Wikipedia for denying the slow linguicide of Urdu in India.

So, in this POV, the songs of Bollywood songwriters such as Javed Akhtar and Gulzar are literary, syntactical and lexical equivalents of the works of the living post-Partition Pakistani poets such as Kishwar Naheed, Iftikhar Arif, Zehra Nigah, Harris Khalique, and Ali Akbar Natiq, not to mention the deceased post-Partition Pakistani Urdu poets such as Ada Jafri, Nasir Kazmi, Sara Shagufta, Parveen Shakir, Munir Niazi, Fahmida Riaz, or Ahmad Faraz.

So also in this POV, the adolescent boys who populate the Urdu mushairas of Javed Akhtar in northern Indian cities clapping at every turn of stereotyped romantic innuendo in simplified Urdu, are the valid demographic equivalents of the discerning audiences of all ages and both genders of the same Javed Akhtar in Pakistan. Watch that video after the 5:45 mark. It is an entirely different gene pool of language there. Or watch for a minute after the 14:30 mark, where they request an old poem he has never recited in public, because the demand for those sentiments was not there among the audiences in India. He expresses his amazement twice and then says he will need to read it aloud instead of reciting it from memory as is the custom in Urdu poetry.

Of course, Pakistani Urdu is relevant.

• It is recognized to be the benchmark: Pakistan is the only country in which Oxford University Press publishes its vast Urdu-language publications, including its over 100 Urdu courses from elementary school to Cambridge O levels. See here.
• it is the only country in which Oxford University Press organizes Urdu-based literary festivals; see here.
• it is the country in South Asia to which and to whose expats in Britain BBC Urdu broadcasts its programs, and received the plurality of its correspondence and comments.

• "In 2009, approximately 30 per cent of the BBC Urdu Online traffic was from Pakistan, 21 per cent from North America, 10–11 per cent from the Middle East and 4–10 per cent from the UK. Indian traffic remained small at 2 per cent, probably reflecting the decline of the Urdu script in that country. (Waheed Mirza, Editor of the BBC Urdu website, 21 July 2009)" (see here) quoted in Diasporas and Diplomacy: Cosmopolitan Contact Zones at the BBC World Service (1932–2012), Routledge, 2013.

• Note that of the post partition Pakistani poets listed above half are women. There is not a single post-Partition Indian female Urdu poet of that notability. (The prevalence of female writers and poets in any language and literature signals the beginning of a critical level of literacy among females of some economic classes, e.g. Fanny Burney, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, George Eliot, Harriet Beecher Stowe, or Louisa May Alcott.)
• Of Urdu poets born after 1930, i.e. that came of age after the Partition of India, only the Pakistanis have been published in the Intekhab-e-Kalam (Selections of Poetry) of the Oxford University Press. (See here)
• It was one thing to push this equivalence between Urdu in Pakistan and India during the early days of Wikipedia, but to do it in 2022, is WP:FALSEBALANCE, one of the most egregious examples on Wikipedia I know of.

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:06, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, but I have to strongly disagree here. On one hand, you stated that in Pakistan Urdu is heavily influenced by Punjabi - but in Punjabi, the term 'dilli' is used, not 'dehli'. Yet in Pakistan, 'dilli' is rarely used for Urdu, as 'dehli' is determined to be the standard, not even considering the fact that despite Punjabi being the most widely spoken language, Urdu is still the official and national language - Punjabi is not.

You then stated that in Indian Urdu Media 'dilli' is used, which is true to an extent, but 'dehli' is still much more used and preferred - that's according to the Official Govt press releases (in fact 6x as much - as shown on Google) and newspapers (about 20x more than 'dilli'), not even mentioning non-Indian sources.

Then you gave the example of 'uni' - which is just a wrong comparison. 'Uni' is a regional term, a clipping on university, 'dehli' is not. A more appropriate comparison would be Dunkirk, where all the different forms are written, where I'm sure the speakers of those languages would occasionaly use the term/pronunciation of the other dialect/language, yet it doesn't mention the 'informal pronunciation' of any language (and come to think of it, I've not really seen this being done in any other major articles). It's about drawing a distinction between Hindi and Urdu here, like there is at Dunkirk. نعم البدل (talk) 20:51, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

User:Fowler&fowler, we have discussed this before and I still disagree with you. Besides, this is irrelevant to what is being discussed here and amounts to WP:OR. The fact of the matter is that in India, Urdu speakers (including newscasters and anchors) use دہلی (Delhi) and دلی (Dilli); as such, both should be mentioned here, with the disclaimer that the latter is informal. I have provided evidence of this, and there are thousands of other examples that prove the wide usage of دلی in the Urdu media. I am almost certain that User:Kwamikagami is in agreement with this. If you are not, let us wait and see what others have to say. Thanks, Anupam^Talk 21:32, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

There are tens of thousands of examples of Urdu newspapers, some of great lineage, which use only دہلی which Kwami agreed is the modern Urdu standard of prose. So, it is not clear at all that Kwami has agreed with you. He reverted an edit of yours about Hindi's historical claim. The version he reverted to was: Hindi dilli; Punjabi dilli; Urdu:dehli, informally dilli. There was nothing said about Hindustani in that version. I'm sure نعم البدل will agree with some version of that. But no one says anything about Hindustani. For the adolescent boys of Delhi who frequent the "Urdu" mushairas don't even understand what was Hindustani in the decade leading up to the partition.

Hindustani died in India in the 1950s. The adolescent boy demographic of fantasy Hindustani speakers of today will not understand this Hindustani speech of Nehru of 1951 in which he says dilli several times, or this by Abul Kalam Azad in 1949 or very likely not even this song sung by the INA when they welcomed Subhas Bose and Abid Hasan to Singapore from Germany in the summer of 1943. It is that level of linguicide.

Summing up: the 2/3 plurality (which is not a consensus) and broadly 3/4 (if one includes ne'm ul, which is still not a consensus) is Hindi dilli; Punjabi dilli; Urdu: dehli, informally dilli.

There is no mention of Hindustani, as there are no speakers of Hindustani; there are Hindi speakers and there are speakers of Urdu who also use certain words informally, but the Hindi speakers don't speak informal Urdu. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:16, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

The Hindi speakers despite their use of many words of Persian and Arabic origin, are speaking a language that is a far cry from informal Urdu, the kind that Nehru or Azad were speaking, and that constituted Hindustani. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:21, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

User:Fowler&fowler, for now, I am fine with the version that you highlighted: Hindi dilli; Punjabi dilli; Urdu: dehli, informally dilli. I favor the version that I introduced, but I understand that it does not have consensus now and I respect that. I do reject your opinions, but I think we both realize that; though you have read this article by Professor Afroz Taj at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill multiple times, I will leave it here for the record in case bystanders wish to understand the relationship between Hindi and Urdu. Kind regards, Anupam^Talk 00:24, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

I thank you. I will leave you and others with this unprepared speech of informal Banarasi Urdu or Hindustani by Bismillah Khan. Although we disagree about whether that spoken language is extant, we nonetheless appreciate it. I have no doubt. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:40, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

From my perspective, MSHindi and MSUrdu are standardized registers of the same language, for which "Hindustani" is a convenient label (though "Urdu" would be better IMO if it weren't impractical). From what I understand, speakers of "Hindi" and "Urdu" in typical situations can't tell whether they're speaking the same or different "languages", which makes calling them languages rather than registers problematic. Of course, formal, technical and poetic speech is going to be more divergent, but the situation isn't much different than other pluricentric languages like Shtokavian and Malay, which many speakers insist are not single languages despite being unable to identify which "language" someone else is speaking outside of formal contexts. I'd rather us not pretend these registers are distinct languages unless there's actually a difference to focus on, as here. — kwami (talk) 20:04, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

It is about the same level of difference as Scots and American English. Speakers of Scots will understand AmE, but AmE speakers will not understand Scots. If they read R. L. Stevenson's Kidnapped, they will need to lookup the glossary. Urdu speakers are like Scots speakers; they know a lot about Hindi, it being the language of the larger culture; they can easily tailor their speech to blend or be polite. But Hindi speakers will not understand a commonplace conversation between two literate Urdu speakers, let alone tailor their speech to sound like Urdu speakers. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:43, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

As someone who regularly speaks Hindi-Urdu and enjoys the social company of Indians and Pakistanis, I respectfully disagree with the assessment provided by User:Fowler&fowler. Hindi and Urdu, when spoken on a day-to-day basis are almost identical. A Hindi speaker and an Urdu speaker will have no problem communicating with one another about life, love, movies, songs, and everyday affairs--L1 Hindi and L1 Urdu speakers would not even get the impression that they are speaking one or the other in a different language unless very close attention is paid--for example in India, for the word "problem", people will use dikkat, where in Pakistan, people will use masla. Hindi and Urdu only diverge in the script they are written in and in formal speech, for example, vocabulary used in courts or government-related broadcasts. I have added a link to this video before, but more important than the content of the video are the comments on it (I would encourage anyone to thoroughly read through all of the comments); I will focus on these ones:

• "I was travelling back from the US to India and changed flights at the Dubai International Airport, where I met a shopkeeper speaking in Hindi. I got really excited and thought I found an Indian and said 'Oh! You are speaking in Hindi' (in Hindi). He replied 'No I am speaking in Urdu'. I said 'Same thing' and continued chatting with him. I felt so nice to meet someone from the same cultural background and language. He was a Pakistani."
• "I’m Pakistani but I’ll tell you both are the same except specific words in Urdu are derived from Persian whereas In Hindi some are derived from Sanskrit. Urdu is written in Persian type alphabet and Hindi is in Sanskrit alphabet. Both can understand each other and communicate 95% of the time."
• "I went to get my nails done and girls working there were from different countries, some were Indian, some Pakistani, some Iranian, some Arab. I heard two girls speaking to eachother and I asked 'what language are you speaking?'. She said 'I call it Urdu because I'm Pakistani, she calls it Hindi because she's Indian, but it's the same language'."

The experience of people from the Indian subcontinent is prima facie evidence that Hindi and Urdu are registers of the same language, Hindi-Urdu or Hindustani. It is more akin to British English and American English, though the accent is not even that different; an Urdu speaker from Karachi will have the same accent as a Hindi speaker from Delhi, while an Urdu speaker from Lahore would have a similar accent to a Hindi speaker from Jalandhar (Lahore and Jalandhar are both in the Punjab region). Anupam^Talk 00:10, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

There is no need to go to Karachi. When transliterated into the Roman script, Delhi Urdu newspapers are unintelligible to someone raised on reading Delhi Hindi newspapers. One way to test that hypothesis is to look for 100 commonly used English words used in the English-language newspapers of Delhi, e.g. mayor, responsibility, duties, politician, infighting, leader, speech, fiery, address, incite, government, opposition, parliament, religion, riot, prayer, murder, violence, ministry, foreign, domestic, weather, temperature, humidity, street, traffic, and then look for their versions in the Urdu and Hindi newspapers. There is a large disconnect. Newspapers are a common source for a language's standard corpus. No Urdu newspaper in Delhi describes itself as a Hindustani newspaper; no Hindi newspaper in Delhi describes itself as a Hindustani newspapers. No Hindi newspaper in Delhi describes itself as a Hindi-Urdu newspaper. Hindustani in Hindi means Indian, nothing more nothing less. Bottom line: there is no consensus for Hindustani on this page. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 07:53, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

And as for what the Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi pronunciations are, we already have a rough consensus, or at least a plurality of opinion: Hindi dilli; Punjabi dilli; Urdu dehli, informally dilli. You have yourself acknowledged that. Why are we wasting time over more of the same tired conversations, on all sides? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 07:59, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

In regards to the pronunciation, I would prefer if "informally 'dilli'" was also removed, but if not, that's fine I suppose. نعم البدل (talk) 15:07, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. It is not my preference either, but the concession made to reach a consensus. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:29, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, the written standards are quite different, even when read aloud so the script isn't an issue, but from what I can tell, as typically spoken they are nearly indistinguishable, especially if the two speakers come from the same city. This isn't all that different than Serbian vs Croatian, or Malaysian vs Indonesian: technical vocab comes from different sources (Greek vs Latin, English vs Dutch), and when speaking about politics, religion or science, people are going to use words that the other won't be familiar with. Serbian and Croatian, for example, even have different names for the days of the week. But in speech, you're likely not to notice the difference -- differences in pronunciation depend on regional accent, not the different standards.

A Croat linguist I met told me he'd met a visiting scholar at his uni, and they talked for two hours before he realized that the other was speaking Serbian. And I learned Malay in rural Malaysia and then used the same language in Indonesia, where all I changed was a contraction for the word 'not' (tak for tidak) and a few terms of address (uncle and auntie), and as a result I was speaking "Indonesian". Yet people insist that all four are different languages, and I suppose if you're reading a textbook or even a newspaper, it may seem that way. But when it comes to daily conversation, they're obviously the same language. I would think it's similar to Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland: for most things, they speak the same way, but when it comes to religion they have differing vocabulary. Yet no-one claims that "Protestant" and "Catholic" are different languages.

And yes, because "Hindustani" just means "Indian", it's not a perfect name for the language. But then, Indian Hindus are likely to object to calling it "Urdu". — kwami (talk) 17:51, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Lead - Talbot/Singh religious nature of the city

Two recent edits have modified a sentence in the lead which previously talked about how Delhi changed from a Mughal city to a Punjabi one due to the partition. This had been edited to insert religious markers - Islamic and Hindu. I don't have access to the book that was cited for that sentence so I'm not sure if this is a correction or not (the quote in the citation was also changed). Ujwal.Xankill3r (talk) 12:19, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. There are not in the source and I've reverted them. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:50, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Request to change India 🇮🇳 map .

Map of india is not correct pls change this map with our official map with (*pok) and (*akshi chin). Pls change this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2405:204:1304:AF56:9436:D3E0:FC03:2CDE (talk) 13:38, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Which one is better?

Humayun's Tomb

Qutub Minar

Jama Masjid

Red Fort

India Gate

Digambar Jain Mandir

St. James' Church

Hyderabad House

Lotus Temple

From top, left to right: Humayun's Tomb; Qutub Minar; Jama Masjid; Red Fort's Lahori gate; India Gate; Digambar Jain Mandir with Gauri Shankar temple in the background; St. James' Church; Hyderabad House; Lotus Temple, a Baháʼí House of Worship

CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 13:42, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

I reverted an edit by user:CactiStaccingCrane which had attempted to move the image captions to immediately below the images. While their effort is commendable and arguably reduces confusion, it is not the convention on Wikipedia geography pages. (See, for example, WP:FA Geography.) The edit produces uneven image borders, the lowermost of which took a lot of work to arrange. In order to fit the captions below the images, they needed to be reduced in some instances, thereby reducing information. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:47, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Their image needed to be blown up from total width 250 to 275 otherwise one caption spills into a second line. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:54, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

I do agree that you would lose a lot of contextual information doing it my way, but users can always click on the link to understand more about the topic. Also, it is a pain for mobile users to scroll up and down trying to match captions to the image. FAs are not a definitive guide to writing great articles – common sense is. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 13:57, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

• Visually, the grouped caption looks better but I get the mobile issue. Perhaps there are just too many images in this montage and they can be reduced to 3 or 4? --RegentsPark (comment) 17:12, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

  We did have fewer pictures but people protested that they weren't enough, that they didn't give the visual nod to all of Delhi's landmarks. We had two RfCs, the first lasting several weeks, and the second over a month, and arrived at this. Also, I'm not sure what issues they are talking about in reference to mobile phones. I just examined the page on my mobile phone (iPhone). It has the lead paragraph, and then the infobox in the same format: The images; the grouped captions; the map; and the rest of the information. I don't see that anyone would need to scroll up and down, for the pictures and the grouped caption fit on one screen, and if they don't it is a short flick, nothing enervating. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:41, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  >>>FAs are not a definitive guide to writing great articles – common sense is.

  Sadly, everyone doesn't have the same notion of what common sense is. Also, great articles are typically not written with infobox pictures. Kolkata, Chennai, Dhaka, Colombo none of which are FAs have quite a few pictures and have the grouped caption format. Mumbai does not, but only because you changed it recently. There can't be such a dearth of common sense in South Asia. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:55, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  I had suggested once that we might consider removing the Red Fort and the Qutb Minar as they also appear in the individual sections in more or less the same view, but there was no sympathy for that argument either, such is the pressure to have the touristy pictures in the infobox. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:01, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  Agree. Let's see how the discussion goes. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 02:13, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  What about adding wikilinks to the images themselves? Works well with the hover tool. See right. CMD (talk) 03:55, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  That is highly discouraged, as the readers may want to get the high res pic. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 04:15, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  We have a guideline on image link discouragement? CMD (talk) 05:01, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  I would like to suggest to place the image of Swaminarayan Akshardham Temple in Delhi in the picture section. The Swaminarayan Akshardham temple is a unique temple constructed in Delhi and a major destination for travellers to Delhi. Jay8014 (talk) 12:56, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Lifeless infobox pictures

Hello! Sorry in advance for this odd critique but I happened to stumble on this article after a long while and I was a bit surprised to see the new selection of infobox pictures. They look somewhat lifeless, static, and overly-saturated to me. The pictures of India Gate, Digambar Jain Mandir, St. James' Church (random choice), and Hyderabad House (the picture is lopsided and poorly cropped) especially leave much to be desired. The previous selection of pictures was far better I think. I think having a picture of Lodhi Gardens and the Rashtrapati Bhavan/Secretariat buildings would also be a good idea, since both are strongly associated with Delhi (and not just New Delhi specifically). Just my two cents! 2620:6E:6000:3100:1D4C:C695:C947:31A2 (talk) 20:55, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

What can I say? It is what I had put in place, but people objected to this and that ... Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:17, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly support going back to that. I would perhaps replace that picture of the corridor at Qutub Complex with a picture of the Minar itself and the Sun God at the Indira Gandhi International Airport with India Gate (or the Red Fort)? I think having a picture of the Metro is fantastic because the Delhi Metro has truly become emblematic of the city. Every person I've ever met from Delhi is very proud of it. --100.40.62.139 (talk) 00:45, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

There needs to be a replacement of Hyderabad House picture with Rashtrapati Bhavan and St. James' Church with Swaminarayan Akshardham temple or another Hindu temple. Rashtrapati Bhavan is much more important than Hyderabad House as it is the residence of the President of India. Also, having a Hindu temple would better reflect the demographics of Delhi instead of St. James' Church. Jay8014 (talk) 13:01, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Images (and content) are less about demographics and more about history. This is especially true for cities with a long and varied history (like Delhi). A demographic rebalancing is not a good idea. --RegentsPark (comment) 01:37, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Delhi has many famous monuments, but there are three Mughal era monuments (Humayun's Tomb, Jama Masjid, Red Fort) that are prominently shown on the page, which leaves out monuments from other eras, including the modern era. You can't be biased in favour of one era and not the other. Jay8014 (talk) 15:44, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Agree with RP. The demographic rebalancing is post-partition, when, Delhi changed from a Mughal city to a Punjabi one; lately, the largest immigrant group has been from Bihar. Besides, there is another page, New Delhi which already has these less historic monuments. Delhi is much bigger, and older. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:20, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Picture of Swaminarayan Akshardham in Delhi

I would like to formally suggest to place the image of Swaminarayan Akshardham Temple in Delhi in the picture section. The Swaminarayan Akshardham temple is a unique temple constructed in Delhi and a major destination for travellers to Delhi. Jay8014 (talk) 12:54, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

I disagree. The oldest Hindu temple in the city, some 400 years old, already appears in the infobox together with the Jain temple. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:25, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Infobox Replacement

The {{Infobox settlement}} used on this page is going to be replaced with {{Infobox Indian state or territory}} as per the Proposal and consensus of RFC. Any questions/suggestions? Discuss Here.

You can also contribute by replacing Infobox settlement with Infobox Indian state or territory on other pages , or by improving this one. Tojoroy20 (talk) 17:05, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

 Done Replaced — Tojoroy20 (talk) 20:25, 26 March 2023 (UTC)