Talk:Hindustani language/Archive 3

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How can Hindi-Urdu be a single language?

"Hindi-Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language" this implies reference to a single language so it's sensible to name it Hindustani instead of putting two other names —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.227.68.85 (talk) 09:39, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

The name Hindustani is not neutral as previously mentioned in the discussion that it means "Indian" while India happens not to be the only major country speaking the language as well as the religious cultural bases. Hindi-Urdu would be a more neutral collective word for the two mutually intelligible languages. --lTopGunl (talk) 14:21, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Hindustani is not the old name of Urdu, rather it was Gandhi's idea to promote the two types of scripts of Hindi & Urdu as a single language to rule out the disputes to avoid this fact adding to the separatism and partition for a united Hindustan. This word still might have been used before for both the languages, but the fact remains that Urdu was a separately evolved language from Hindi. Even though so many words have merged into both languages, but so have so many words from so many other languages merged in to Urdu. Urdu it self was a naturally evolved lingua franca. Also in the current form, the modern Urdu is the national language of Pakistan. Calling it Hindustani, which actually translates to Indian is self conflicting. --lTopGunl (talk) 00:09, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

It is a single abstand language, with two standard/official/literary forms. The compound form is common for similar reasons to "Serbo-Croatian". In the vernacular, it is irrelevant whether people call the language "Hindi" or "Urdu" or "Hindustani", since they can't tell them apart.

"Hindustani" is a Persian and Urdu word. In English alone it's attested from the year 1616, perhaps a few years before Gandhi used it!

Hindustani: "The language of the Muslim conquerors of Hindustan, being a form of Hindi with a large admixture of Arabic, Persian, and other foreign elements; also called Urdū."

— kwami (talk) 01:08, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I already said that the word was not new when Gandhi used it, but the way it relates to modern day Urdu is self conflicting. People who speak can tell apart the differences in the language. Hindustani it self being a Persian/Urdu word is still a reasonable reference to the country India while the language is spoken in not only that. --lTopGunl (talk) 01:36, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand. Now you're saying it's acceptable to call it Hindustani? — kwami (talk) 01:39, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

What I am saying is that it's a reference to a single modern day country which creates a bias to the name. It is not acceptable (although it is one of the names given to "Hindi-Urdu") because of the reference or prejudice it gives. And that's what my edit pointed out, it didn't say that Hindustani is not a given word for it. The purpose of the first edit was neutrality of the article to all the Hindi-Urdu speakers in India & Pakistan. --lTopGunl (talk) 01:49, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Where are your references? Sorry, we go by references, not the contrary opinion of everyone who drops by the article. "Not acceptable" is just another way of saying WP:IDONTLIKEIT, which is not a legitimate reason for an edit.

It's not a reference to a single modern-day country. It's a reference to "Hindustan", which is as much Pakistan and Bangladesh as it is Bharat. Next you'll be telling us we can't call Undu and Sindhi "Indic languages" because that's offensive, and that we have to rename the Indo-European language family "Bengal-European".

"Neutrality" doesn't mean "what I agree with". — kwami (talk) 06:07, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Pakistan is not Hindustan, that's where you are wrong. Hindustan is just used by the Indians when they refer to the part of South Asia.

References:

India and Partition

Mainsprings of Indian and Pakistani foreign policies

Pakistan - The Problem of India

Peoples of South Asia

lTopGunl (talk) 08:42, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

That explains why the history of Pakistan article starts in 1947. — kwami (talk) 09:25, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Facts change with time. The partition did take place. History of Pakistan doesn't start with 1947, it starts with the advent of Islam to the Indo-Pak area, 1947 is the year of partition. Since India and Pakistan are two separate nations now, creation of bias is still relevant. Hindustan still does not refer to the country Pakistan in anyway. The whole area might have been called India/British India/Hindustan once, but to keep it up to date, Pakistan is a separate nation. That was the whole point of partition. I suppose my references were enough to support the point on difference of Hindustan & Pakistan. --lTopGunl (talk) 10:27, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

But it's still OR to claim that the name Hindustani is therefore "biased" or oppresses Muslims. Opinion and fact are different things. — kwami (talk) 10:32, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Should I assume that the starting of your comment from 'but' means there is an agreement on the difference of Hindustan & Pakistan?

It might have appeared to you as my opinion on the first edit (even after tagging of another article) but the current references are not outdoor research. They state facts. Oppression by just calling Hindi-Urdu as Hindustani might be an overrated word, but a significant bias is there in the obvious.

Unless you have references to any Pakistani news article/book/official website stating Hindustani as a current accepted name for the joint reference to Hindi-Urdu as lingua franca this would either be based on Indian side references (which is a bias) or based on WP:IDONTLIKEIT as you would say. --lTopGunl (talk) 11:04, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

No, Pakistan is obviously within Hindustan. A 'fact', as you like to say. And I never said Hindustani was the 'current accepted name', I only said that your opinion on 'oppression' is not fact but opinion. — kwami (talk) 13:00, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

If you would read the articles about Pakistan's independence, all of them mention that Pakistan separated from India/Bharat/Hindustan. Right, so if Hindustani is not a current accepted name (in Pakistan), and is being used from references from a single side there is a reasonable claim of bias (which is not an opinion). To prove that it was not an opinion but a fact, I gave the references about the partition, which all mention, Pakistan separated from India as a sovereign state which is not sub categorized in Hindustan. But before all the debate, I think you should decide to stick to a single point weather Pakistan is Hindustan or is it within Hindustan (both of which you have mentioned in two separate posts above without giving any reference to a single one). --lTopGunl (talk) 00:30, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

What does that have to do with anything? You claimed that your refs "prove" that the word Hindustani (the historical Muslim name for Urdu) is "biased against Muslims". Yet your sources never mention the word at all. What you're engaged in is original research and synthesis, both of which are specifically forbidden on Wikipedia. You might also want to read "Truth". — kwami (talk) 12:39, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

My references disproved your claims of Pakistan being a part of Hindustan (which you have claimed above 2-3 times). You were definitely wrong there. Now that's what my claim was, it induces a bias to name a combined two regional languages by the name of a single region. My references did not directly say that Hindustani is/is-not a language name used in history by any Muslim. I gave them to signify the bias and to show that there are no references that say that modern day Pakistan calls Urdu a part of Hindustani. Did you give any references to prove that? My references prove that the region has now been separated even in ethnic definition, How can you apply any claims that say "a muslim ruler once used the word hindustani for the languages." As yet you too have not given a single reference that says that Pakistan read National Language Authority of Pakistan says that Urdu is a part of Hindustani. So until you prove that, all you are saying are on bases of references from the once unified India or the current country India. --lTopGunl (talk) 13:09, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

You didn't disprove anything I actually said, only things you imagine I said. But that's irrelevant, as it's not the issue. Again, read original research,synthesis, and Truth, so you will know what is needed to edit a WP article. (And as for your latest claim, that if I'm tired of this stupid argument your POV is therefore correct, well, there's no polite way to put it.) — kwami (talk) 13:20, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

For reference, i quote one of the instances you claimed it (where I rest my case as far as this claim of yours is concerned):

"It's a reference to "Hindustan", which is as much Pakistan and Bangladesh as it is Bharat."

The one polite way to put it is a silent consensus since you are kind of tired of the 'nonsense' & unwilling to participate anymore (which certainly doesn't mean that you can keep on reverting and yet not be willing to comment on the talk).

I think we should resort to WP: RFC--lTopGunl (talk) 13:40, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

That's up to you. But I've waited several days for you to provide evidence supporting this "dispute", and you have provided none. So I'm removing the tag. Come back when you have something substantial to say. — kwami (talk) 03:37, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I have already provided sufficient links for any sane person to know that there is a bias when you name multiple languages spoken over a wide area on the name of a certain region and then further claim it to be one region. You on other hand have not provided a single reference that Pakistani language authority recognizes the given name. Do not remove the tag unless decided by consensus. --lTopGunl (talk) 13:58, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

This is stupid. Get a source that actually supports your claims, or go away and play with your toes. — kwami (talk) 14:09, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Unless you are interested in playing with my toes, you should not comment here if you are incapable of debating. --lTopGunl (talk) 14:14, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I read through the above dispute, in which I was not involved, and here are my conclusions from it:

lTopGunl repeatedly inserted a non-referenced claim that the name "Hindustani" is not as neutral as Hindi-Urdu. kwami deleted it, since is wasn't referenced and seemed just personal opinion. At the end of the above discussion, lTopGunl asked kwami to provide a reference that Pakistani language authority recognizes the name "Hindustani". This is turning the burden of proof on the wrong side. Hindustani is a traditional name in English for this language, so it certainly has to be mentioned in the article. If a claim of its non-neutrality is to appear in the article, it has to be referenced; the absence of such a claim does not need reference.

So the article in its current form follows Wikipedia policies, whereas the changes proposed by lTopGunl did not. Therefore I now remove the POV tag. Marcos (talk) 09:19, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I've certainly given enough references to prove that Pakistan is not a part of Hindustan. It separated from the Hindustan/India in 1947. So any language status has to be recognized by its own language authority. Hindustani is the name given in english to hindi variants spoken in India. It is technically wrong to claim a name on a language (urdu in this case) as a part of another language (even though it might be mutually intelligible). The burden of proof always was on the side giving a name. For the reason that Pakistan is a separate country with a different (even though similar) traditions to Hindustan. (As you said you didn't see any references from me, you need to read the discussion again since you clearly missed those links above.) Also, I am still waiting for any references to prove that modern urdu is known as a sub class of Hindustani in Pakistan (there isn't any reference given that even the modern english speakers call the Pakistani urdu as Hindustani).

As for the tag removal, see Wikipedia:Consensus. Do not remove the tag from the article until there's a consensus. Let the discussion continue instead of just editing the article after giving your opinion like kwami. --lTopGunl (talk) 10:32, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Marcos judged that there was consensus. Consensus is informed by sources, and since you haven't provided any sources, your opinion is irrelevant when determining consensus. Please don't edit war. — kwami (talk) 10:41, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

While claiming a name for a language, the burden of proof lies on you. The word hindustani was never accepted by the pakistani language authority nor does it classify urdu by this name.

Ahmed, S. (1990). Library Muqtadra Qaumi Zaban: An Introduction. Pakistan Library Bulletin. Vol. 21 (3-4). Sept-Dec.

Aziz, T. (1987). Urdu type Machine kay kaleedi Takhtay, Muqtadra Qaumi Zaban, Islamabad. (in Urdu)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Language_Authority

The references given on above wikipedia page confirm that the Pakistan's National Language Authority encourages the promotion of urdu on levels distant to hindustani. Even mentioning hindustani separately makes it a different language in this context. Also I've given sufficient links in the discussion if you would scroll up, you certainly can't assume Pakistan as a part of Hindustan and imply the languages to be the same.

http://www.nla.gov.pk/ (National Language Authority website of Pakistan) has no indication of hindustani given in it.

Yes consensus is made by sources, but again.., where are your sources?

There's a purpose of the POV tag. So that more users can contribute to discussion. Marcos clearly missed my previous references as he indicated in his post. Let him read it again. Also, it would be better if we don't push a speedy consensus on just three people and not a single reference from your side. --lTopGunl (talk) 15:15, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

No, he didn't miss your references. You don't have any references that address the issue. You have failed to demonstrate a reason for tagging the article except WP:Idontlikeit, which isn't a valid reason. — kwami (talk) 20:16, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Well then you need to check the links I gave again. And you haven't given a single source by the way. The burden of proof is on the first claim (that of classifying urdu under the hindustani tag). Even then I have given the official & literary links to justify my point. You even claimed Pakistan as a part of Hindustan, which itself tells your lack of knowledge/understanding on the topic or the bias you have. --lTopGunl (talk) 07:48, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Right now the edit war is over a POV tag. What is POV? This is ridiculous, TopGun, there's nothing at all POV here. There's nothing but scientific fact that can be easily verified. The POV tag seems incredibly unwarranted. As far as I can tell from your interminable diatribe, you object to including the term "Hindustani" as one of the alternate names of this article. Really? Is that what you're wasting our time with? Well, live with it. There are sources which use "Hindustani" as an alternate name for Hindi-Urdu. If we were trying to make that the article's title, then you would have an argument to make. But fighting including it as one of the alternate names is just petty silliness. --Taivo (talk) 14:10, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

To start with, I have been asking for those 'easily verifiable' sources (from the Pakistani literature or language authority in this case as taking them just from the Indian side would be POV). If you go back to previous edits this edit war started with kwami removing my edit which indicated that this alternate name is used by Indian side only (which actually is an addition to the information given by the article). I have definately have no issues with hindustani being an alternate name (as far as it is properly referenced or indicated who uses it since the article starts with mentioning these two countries while there is no citation about Pakistan using this name), but kwami here in reply to that (other than repetitive reverts) started to claim Pakistan as a part of Hindustan as well. That is actually petty silliness. I would suggest that it should be mentioned in brackets like I did before. Because as far as Pakistan is concerned, the language is not hindustani. If that is not a POV issue, what is it? --lTopGunl (talk) 15:05, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't matter one iota what the government of Pakistan thinks. It is what the scientific linguistic community thinks. If there were some dispute within the linguistic community about whether or not "Hindustani" is a legitimate alternate name for Hindi-Urdu, then you would have a point. Governmental decrees don't affect linguistics at all. Not one bit. Sources that use "Hindustani" as an alternate name for Hindi-Urdu: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9]. While I have posted Google Books links to all but the first two of these sources, I actually own the books and use the Google Books links just for convenience. These should be quite sufficient to demonstrate that linguists recognize "Hindustani" as a legitimate alternate name for Hindi-Urdu. --Taivo (talk) 15:43, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

All of your links indicate references/books by non-Pakistani authors. If you want to take it that way, none from the Pakistani linguistic or scientific community calls it hindustani. There's no official or literary sources from Pakistan. Thats called POV. --lTopGunl (talk) 16:12, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

I can't believe that you think science is politically based. At this point, you have zero scientific evidence, only political assertions. The worldwide linguistic community accepts "Hindustani" as an alternate name for Hindi-Urdu. If you think that linguistics is politically-based, then you have no place editing any articles on language. I've provided rock-solid scientific evidence that the worldwide linguistic community accepts "Hindustani" as an alternate name for Hindi-Urdu. The case is closed, sir. --Taivo (talk) 16:17, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

The article places the language in that manner. Its first sentence being it is used in North India and Pakistan when no one in Pakistan calls it hindustani. In the same paragraph, its self contradicting to say that hindustani (literally: of hindustan) is spoken in Pakistan. It is not a political assertion. Your 'rock solid' citations have POV issue. I am still waiting for a source from a native (read Pakistani) author. Otherwise its trivial that authors from another community will have their own POV. --lTopGunl (talk) 16:25, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Only a tiny minority of English's native speakers are from England. It's where the name of the language comes from, it doesn't reflect the provenance of its speakers. Is it contradictory to say that English is spoken in the United States of America? Further, this section begins with a question about how Hindi and Urdu can be one language; discussion over the name probably belongs elsewhere. Matt Keefe (talk) 00:13, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

So you are asserting that the international scientific community is POV? That simply proves that you are not interested in science. I have nothing more to say to you, sir. You have violated WP:3RR and have been reported for edit warring. --Taivo (talk) 16:41, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Internation scientific community includes authors form Pakistan. Its POV if none of them mentioned what you claim. --lTopGunl (talk) 16:44, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

"Hindi and Urdu" Lack of Sources

Would appreciate if there were some sources cited, most of it seems like stuff that brainwashed parents tell their kids. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.31.54.16 (talk) 15:22, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Care to elaborate? Aryamanarora^{talk, contribs} 22:10, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Ronakshah1990 edit

@Ronakshah1990: You have said "Correcting number of states in India and structure of a sentence" in your edit summary [10]. And now you are talking as if you did only the first. Are you game-playing or have you genuinely forgotten? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:47, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Oh I didn't forget it, maybe you forgot how to read it. In either case, how would that tantamount to "No original research"?! - Ronakshah1990 06:52, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Where is the source for it? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 07:49, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

No such language

There is no such language called Hindustani anywhere in existence in the world. Nowhere it is spoken. There are two separate languages Hindi and Urdu and both have their respective writing systems, vocabulary, and some minor and major differences in grammar. One cannot argue that a new fake language like this is needed just because both the languages are mutually intelligible. If one is speaking in proper Hindi or Urdu it is still not so understood by the other speaker of either language. For example ask any Pakistani can he understand Hindi news and other Hindi shows on Doordsrshan and other government run channels and ask the same to an Indian whether he can properly understand Urdu news on Pakistani news channels. Hindustani is nothing but just another evil and cunning plot by cunning Anglo-American thugs to dissolve the identity of both the languages. 150.129.237.100 (talk) 04:30, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Letter झ़(झ with a dot) don't exists in Devanagari script

In the writing system section झ़ is being shows (झ with a dot below the letter), such letter don't exists in Devanagari alphabet used for Hindi. Please remove it from the chart. Ashok4himself (talk) 19:30, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Dear User:Ashok4himself, झ़ certainly exists in the Hindi alphabet and is used in words like अझ़दहा (azhadha), meaning dragon. I hope this helps. With regards, Anupam^Talk 05:51, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

No, in Hindi the word is अजदहा/अज़दहा (azdahaa). Here is a reference. You have listed the Urdu form, which is azhdahaa. Searching Google books provides a good indication of Hindi usage, and अझ़दहा shows zero results. In Hindi, the characters झ़ or श़ (with dots) exist in theory to represent English loanwords like "television". However, they are rarely if ever used, with ज almost always used instead. --Foreverknowledge (talk) 10:19, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

References

Yes I agree. There is no such word अजदहा/अज़दहा in the Hindi language but some evil plot to somehow prove that they are not separate languages but dialects of a fake language called Hindustani. There is so many words in Hindi and Urdu both which don't exist in each other language and this is just one example. If anything Hindustani is not a separate language but a mixture of many South Asian languages but primarily Hindi and Urdu but also contains words from many other languages. There is no such thing as Hindustani language anywhere in existence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.129.237.100 (talk) 06:00, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Name

Nt appropriate for Pakistanis who will mind being called Indian 43.245.8.160 (talk) 06:53, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

If you read the link to Hindustan is NOT an synonym for India.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 20:31, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Considering Category: Non-ethnic languages

Historically, Hindustani is not been associated with any ethnic group. It was formed as a result of the Mughals interacting with the local population. The language does not represent any ethnic group as it's name suggests and the phenomenon of non-ethnic linguistic communities has started to be discovered [11]--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 20:41, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Hindustani? Never heard of it.

Absolutely nobody in Pakistan/Bangladesh/Afghanistan calls Urdu, Hindustani. This is blatant POV/Original research. The term was popularized by Ghandi as an attempt to bridge communities. Its not the formal name for the language. Should we perhaps accept that there is no bridge between Hindi and Urdu? It might be very hard for certain people to accept this but Hindu-Urdu differences are based on religion.--Xinjao (talk) 13:23, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Everybody accepts that, and that is of course the bridge: One language, divided by religion, like Serbian and Croatian. Which name would you prefer, "Urdu"? I think that would be even more problematic, though it's technically correct. — kwami (talk) 20:27, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps we can use "Hindavi" instead of the rarely used name Hindustani that was apparently never used before Gandhi and the British Raj? Because "Hindavi" is definitely more common -- it has been in use by BOTH Muslims and Hindus since the birth of the language in North India, and recorded by Amir Khusrow in the 13th century CE. Khestwol (talk) 22:06, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

But is it widely used in English sources? That is the criterion for naming articles in en.wikipedia (see WP:MOSNAME), not what somebody else calls it, even the people who speak it. --ColinFine (talk) 23:06, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

"Hindustani" is extremely common, and has been since the Moghul Empire. — kwami (talk) 07:10, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

I like the idea about changing the article's name to Hindi-Urdu and also change all other references to Hindustani language on Wikipedia to Hindi-Urdu. Hindi-Urdu is the usual term used by scholars. The article on Serbo-Croatian is called Serbo-Croatian not Yugoslavian, so why should the Hindi-Urdu article have an outdated title? There are articles already on other types of Hindustani such as Caribbean Hindustani so those topics would be addressed in their respective articles. --ShahDuniya (talk) 21:23, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

It used to be at Hindi-Urdu, but we moved it here as this is the more accurate name. Hindi-Urdu is the standard form of Hindustani. — kwami (talk) 23:28, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't see why "Hindustani" is the more accurate name. The standard forms are Hindi and Urdu, each of which has separate articles. So an article called "Hindi-Urdu" can collectively discuss Hindi and Urdu historically in both their standard and nonstandard forms such as bazar speech. "Hindustani" in the forms of Fiji Hindustani or Caribbean Hindustani are not based on Khari Boli so they are distinct, and they also have their own articles. The use of "Hindustani" as the article name also makes the blurb at the top look very clumsy. It requires the mentioning of Standard Hindi, Standard Urdu, Fiji Hindustani, and I don't see it right now but also Caribbean Hindustani. Otherwise it could be confusing to first time readers what is meant by "Hindustani". This problem would be solved by renaming the article "Hindi-Urdu" because it would be crystal clear to everyone that the article is about the two languages as a whole. And you wouldn't have so many people on this talk page wondering why the article is called Hindustani and raising objections to it. In addition if you visit language forums where professional linguists and other experts post, they ridicule Wikipedia for using words like Hindustani for the language when it fell into disuse after the partition of India, more than 65 years ago. I would think that respectability of articles should be important to Wikipedia editors and contributors. --ShahDuniya (talk) 02:09, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind if the article is renamed to Hindi-Urdu. It depends on the consensus, though. From a quick glance it does seem like most people are in favor of renaming the article. --Foreverknowledge (talk) 06:03, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

It was at Hindi-Urdu. We had a discussion and agreed to move it to Hindustani as being more accurate. — kwami (talk) 18:06, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Hello. The term Hindustani is the older name for Urdu. Hindustani is an adjective derived from "Hindustan" name region of the rivers and did not have a religious meaning to it. You are right Hindi and Urdu are 2 different dialects. Both languages have independent articles on wikipedia. However, urdu retains much of the Perso-Arabic vocabulary whereas Hindi came out of reducing the Perso-Arabic influence and instead adopted Sanskrit words, most which technically did not exist in the language. Although Hindustani's syntax, morphology is based on Sanskrit it's vocab is mostly persian, arabic, sanskrit and possibly chagatai turkic. Hope that helps. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.165.246.181 (talk) 01:49, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Fiji Hindi or Fiji Hindustani is based on Khariboli with Awadhi, Bhojpuri influence, you can listen to some videos of Fiji Hindi on youtube. Ashok4himself (talk) 19:33, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: you are correct here, plus Hindi-Urdu would be excluding the minor registers of Hindustani such as Caribbean Hindustani and what an above user says Fiji Hindustani as well, so this covers all of them, technically.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 20:44, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

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chaotic and confusing basic info

The article says there are more than 300 million native speakers of Hindustani whereas the map shows a very small area where it is the native language. And is it a lingua franca or a koine language? That's what it is described as in Wikipedias in other languages. --Espoo (talk) 16:54, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Quite late to respond but that map is almost definitely very wrong. It should be changed to something more accurate as long as we can find references. Cepiolot (talk) 21:45, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't know of any evidence it's a koine, but not my area. Certainly a lingua franca. As for the number of speakers, unfortunately no-one really knows, since the census results conflate much of the Hindi belt under 'Hindi'. Declerk gives a 1995 figure of 180M Hindi + 48M Urdu, which is 23% of the then pop of 1G,, in 2019 (pop 1.4G) that would be equivalent to 320M -- assuming the %age hasn't grown. Declerk distinguishes Awadhi, Chhattisgarhi etc. from Hindi, so that's a ref that there should be more than 300M speakers.

As for the map, that's the dialectal basis for MSH. It would be a somewhat larger area corresponding to all the varieties that would be considered dialects of Hindustani. But trying to coordinate the two is difficult. — kwami (talk) 22:19, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Dawn article

If you want to re-add the dawn article, put it in the Urdu article, although I think it's a bit inaccurate.--Vishnu Sahib (talk) 00:27, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Should there not be a reference to Ghaznavid Urdu?

The entire origin of the Urdu name and Ghaznavid dynasty role in the development of Urdu/Hindustani has been left out. I recall there being a section on this but now I cannot find it. Comment? KamranHassanUK (talk) 00:46, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

KamranHassanUK, Look in the history of the article and you'll find it. But you probably won't be allowed to put it there unless you have any reliable sources.--Vishnu Sahib (talk) 00:33, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Indic Script

@Fowler&fowler: Regarding recent edits of yours, including this. According to WP:INDICSCRIPT, "Exceptions are articles on the script itself, articles on a language that uses the script, and articles on texts originally written in a particular script..." Since this is a language article, we should be keeping the scripts as per the guideline, isn't it? - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 18:09, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: My interpretation of that is that examples can be given, but that the naming of the page name should continue to be in English; otherwise, the same problems will arise. Here for example, we have a mixed language that arose in response to the Muslim conquest of North India. There were efforts to standardize it by the British in the 19th century when it was identified with what today is Urdu, but essentially it referred to a spoken language. Here is David Lelyveld in his seminal article, "Colonial knowledge and the fate of Hindustani:"

"The earlier grammars and dictionaries made it possible for the British government to replace Persian with vernacular languages at the lower levels of judicial and revenue administration in 1837, that is, to standardize and index terminology for official use and provide for its translation to the language of the ultimate ruling authority, English. For such purposes, Hindustani was equated with Urdu, as opposed to any geographically defined dialect of Hindi and was given official status through large parts of north India. Written in the Persian script with a largely Persian and, via Persian, an Arabic vocabulary, Urdu stood at the shortest distance from the previous situation and was easily attainable by the same personnel. In the wake of this official transformation, the British government began to make its first significant efforts on behalf of vernacular education. The earliest controversies over Hindi versus Urdu apparently took place among the British because some officials were anxious to uproot the Mughal gentry by replacing Urdu with a still unformulated standard of Hindi."

The official languages of British India were English and Persian from 1773 until 1837, and English and Hindustani, meaning Urdu, from 1837 until the Company's dissolution in 1858. How then are some editors, citing obscure sources, putting Devanagari first for a spoken language, or for a language whose script was Perso-Arabic? These are the kinds of issues that arise if you allow Indic-scripts. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:45, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: While I'm at it, let me make a general observation about the POV behind using "Hindustani" or "Hindi-Urdu" today, i.e. for a living language, not a historical one. It is usually one of claiming that Hindi and Urdu are the same languages and consequently Urdu is spoken in India. The fact that Muslims in the former Urdu heartland in India still write Urdu for their mother tongue in the decadal census often takes away from the fact that in the same Urdu heartland, Urdu is no longer taught in government schools, and therefore, many Muslims, whose grandparents could write Urdu, are unable to write the Urdu script, unless they can afford private schools. In India, therefore, it is often said that Hindustani is alive as a cover-up for the slow decline of Urdu as a spoken and written language. That is not just obvious in comparison with Pakistan, but also with the level of Urdu use in speech and writing in Northern India before 1947 Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:48, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: I won't have any problem if you keep only the "Perso-Arabic" script. But then again, it is probably better not to have any script in the lead and infobox in this scenario. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 18:55, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

@Fylindfotberserk: OK, I'll take a stab at it. Will cite to Britannica, the Oxford English Dictionary, and David Lelyveld. Let's see how long it lasts.  :) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:23, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: Nice. Thanks for taking care of those original researches. I typically enforce WP:NOR in articles, but chose not to delve in this one. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 08:31, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

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A "mixed" language?

This is hilarious! All modern languages spoken in a civilization, including English, are 'mixed' languages as they all have loanwords, lexical borrowings etc., though each to a different degree. There is an absolute dearth of sources mentioning Hindustani as a 'mixed' language, anywhere. The sources cited too mention 'mixed speech' in a altogether different context: "All these labels denote a mixed speech spoken around areas of Delhi, North India, which gained currency during the twelfth and thirteen centuries as a contact language between Arabs, Afghans, Persian, Turks, and native residents. Hindi and Urdu have a common form known as Hindustani." [Ref: Strazny Phillip, p 456, 2013].

The opening statement must be : "Hindustani is a central Indo-Aryan Language spoken in India..<insert your content>" - Sattvic7 (talk) 18:31, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Hidustani does not exist now; it did once upon a time. In modern parlance, in India, it is incorrectly used for the broken Urdu that the average North Indian Hindi speaker is able to manage in speech, but, of course, not in writing. In British times from 1837 (under Company rule) to 1947 (the end of the Raj) is was written in the Perso-Arabic script, and broadly identified with Urdu, see David Llelyveld's article cited. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:49, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: You didn't answer my original query i.e the use of 'mixed language' in the opening sentence. I have no doubt over it being a historical language. As suggested before, the article can begin with saying "Hindustani refers to a <historical> Central Indo-Aryan language..." rather than mixed. Edit: I went through Britannica once more but couldn't find any line that say "mixed language'. In-fact, the term "mixed" nowhere to be found in the entire article. I humbly request you to not revert the edits with wrong explanations.—Sattvic7 (talk) 04:33, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

• Responding to the ping from the following section with an apology that this is not my area of competence and that I don't have the time to dig in here. However, can I note two things? g) the direct characterisation of Hindustani as a "mixed language" has to go: the word might be used rather liberally by some of the less than perfectly rigorous publications on Indo-Aryan languages, but the term generally carries a much stronger claim, which is definitely not in evidence here: Michif is a mixed language, Hindustani is not; h) Do we have any sources at all for Hindustani not being Central Indo-Aryan? – Uanfala (talk) 16:57, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

@Uanfala: Exactly, there's no source mentioning Hindustani as mixed language, I cross checked multiple times with cited sources in the line (Britannica, David, Strazny) but none mention it as particularly being a mixed language. Now, loanwords and lexical borrowing are extremely common in most languages around the world, including English French etc. If we assume that Hindustani is mixed, like Michif combines Cree and Meltis French, it would mean that Persian and Arabic were combined with Hindavi to form a new language called "Hindustani" (which is absolutely funny claim!). Taking loanword, some rarely used lexical borrowings don't make a mixed language. Persian and other languages did have a "influence" though on Hindustani - Sattvic7 (talk) 17:56, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

I reverted to the last good version of the article, from before Fowler&fowler changed it to claim that the national language of India and Pakistan does not exist. Modern Standard Hindi and Modern Standard Urdu are standardized forms of the same language, often called Hindi-Urdu but for a decade now on WP called Hindustani. — kwami (talk) 21:52, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Disputable definition of Hindustani: A language of "Muslim Conquerors"?

The present scholarship, doesn't agree with the Oxford's definition and identification of Hindustani with conquerors. Both S R Faruqi and Alok Rai are critical of such whimsical identification of Hindustani:

The OED, Second Edition, identifies Hindustani as 'the language of Muslims coquerors of Hindustan, being a form of Hindi with a large...called Urdu' S.R. Faruqi, op.cit., is rightly critical of this identification with the 'Muslim conquerors'– after all, they came from different places, and used different languages – but the association of Hindustani with urbanity and contiguity to feudal power structure is less easily dispelled.

— Rai, Alok. “The Persistence of Hindustani.” India International Centre Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 3/4, 2002, p 77.

I suggest, let us agree to include a much more neutral definition. Also see Talk:Hindustani language#A "mixed" language? where I have questioned the term 'mixed' which is very ambiguous, as all civilizational languages can be regarded as mixed.—— Sattvic7 (talk) 05:40, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

India International Center Quarterly the pseudo journal of the retired intellectuals in India with governmental connections, or retired government officials with intellectual pretensions, is peer-reviewed? Like I have already said, the Indians have an ax to grind. Urdu is dead or dying there, so the claim that Hindustani is a living language in India, using the subterfuge that Hindi speakers are pro forma Hindustani speakers, is given furtherance as a form of denial. Per WP:BRD, please discuss this here first instead of edit-warring, unless you are looking to be blocked. Please note that discretionary sanctions are in place for this article. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 09:36, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Okay! I too want no edit wars! Now let us address the issue, which is what matters by the way. The journal is listed on JSTOR which makes it reliable. Now, assuming you cared to read the quote, S.R Faruqi and Alok Rai both are reputable names in their respective domains and both have raised the objection on such an identification of Hindustani! And that's what matters the most. Further, it was not merely Persian or other foreign languages that influenced Hindustani but the neighboring vernaculars such as Braj Bhasha and Awadhi too had an influence in the development of Hindustani. So the Persian predominance wasn't the only factor influencing Hindustani. Now coming to less important part: first, I don't give a damn about what you think about Indians. Secondly, it's merely a play on nomenclature, as Masica(1993, pg 30) says:

Linguistic nomenclature in the Indo-Aryan field, on the other hand, still constitutes a boulder-strewn path over which one must pick, one's way carefully. Nomenclature complicates the Hindi-Urdu situation, as we have seen.

Sattvic7 (talk) 12:04, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

This is a broad-field topic. As such, broad sources are appropriate for it. As for those sources, I do have a few, including a copy of the above-mentioned book by Masica. I also have Cardano's edited Indo-Aryan Languages, Routledge, 2003. It is inappropriate to give Hindustani the labels of a normative language variety (Central Indo-Aryan). The lead of the article is pretty precise: a) Hindustani had its origins as facilitating, or contact speech in the upper Ganges-Jumna doab in the wake of the Muslim conquest beginning in the 13th century, b) employing the Perso-Arabic script, it became a language of literature in the 16th century, c) it was standardized by the British (as Urdu) starting in the 18th, d) an attempt was made by Indian nationalists (most notably Gandhi) to promote a simplified version of its lexicon for a proposed national language of Independent India, however, e) two normative varieties Hindi and Urdu had arisen by then and eventually became the national/official languages of India and Pakistan. f) It is used loosely for the common syntactical and lexical denominator of vernaculars of the upper Ganges-Jumna doab. It is most emphatically not a Central Indo-Aryan Language. (As for Mr Rai: he is a retired English professor, who has written a book on the linguistic nationalism associated with the promotion of Modern Standard Hindi. Unlike Masica or Cardano, he is not a comparative linguist. The same with Faruqi, he is a retired civil servant who is dashing about being a man for all seasons in popular venues (of speech and writing) on Urdu in India, and has even published a novel in English. He has a Master's in English. I wasn't too far off the mark in my description of the India International Center publications.) I'm happy to cite chapter and verse from Masica, Cardano, Lelyveld, and other broad-field books and references when I have some more time. On second reading, the lead may need to be tweaked, but not in the fashion you are suggesting. I will propose the changes here. (I have rewritten only the lead, not the highly POV sections that follow, which will need to be removed in their entirety. My informal thesis, mentioned above, though not relevant to the lead, speaks to the POV at the root of these additions: that in incarnation f) Hindustani is being conflated with a normative variety, and being used defensively in India to deny the attrition of the Urdu-literate population (i.e. those who can employ its common vocabulary (for kinship, weather, landscape, etc.) and write in the Perso-Arabic script.) Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:30, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

My take

• a) is false. In Delhi itself, Persian was the court language and Hindustani (Hindavi) was the common man's language. It was mostly a vernacular language. It absorbed small amounts of Persian, as you would expect, just as it absorbs small amounts of English today. This is nothing like a so-called 'contact language'.
• b) The employment of the Perso-Arabic script happened in Deccan, not in Delhi. After Aurangzeb's Deccan campaigns (i.e., towards the end of the Mughal empire), this practice made its way back to Delhi. This is probably where the zaban-e-Ordu term comes from. The Deccan campaigns last decades, and many soldiers spent half their lives in camps, along with families and kids, and these kids grew up learning the Hindavi written in Perso-Arabic script. So, this a rather late development in the history of the language.
• c) Standardisation by the British as Urdu might be true, but by then Urdu became heavily Persianised in the late stage Mughal courts (post-Aurangzeb), and it wasn't going to turn back from its Persian turn. So the British language had no takers really, except what the British could enforce by fiat. With their departure, their language died its natural death.
• d) It is true that Gandhi made an enormous effort to promote Hindustani, but by this time both Hindi and Urdu were going their own way. Hindustani would have brought north Indian Hindus and Muslims together, but it would not have served the cultural needs of India or helped Indian integration. Sanskrit words are understood all over India by Hindus. Persian words are not.
• e-f) No contest. But the whole slant of the lead is wrong because it conflates the British standard language with the historical language. The historical language is very much alive as part of modern Hindi. The idea that the historical language is more Urdu than Hindi is just a hallucination.

Pinging Uanfala and Anupam to validate what I just said. I can dig up sources too, but not at this time because there are more pressing issues at the moment. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:35, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: (i) Here's the thing: I am in no way trying to undermine the entire Intro/lead section. I think, the opening, which as mentioned above by me, has some serious issues that many authors have brought under question (Alok Rai & S R Faruqi being just two examples). Now, isn't it contradictory that the same article (correctly) mentions Hindustani as a Central Indo-Aryan language (see in the Infobox of article under 'language family') while here you are arguing how it is emphatically not so!? There are innumerable sources and it is undisputed census among linguists to classify Hindustani as a Central Indo-Aryan language. I can't imagine why you may have problem with it! (ii) Secondly, I don't share the same bias as you seem to have for the journal or authors that you have questioned (FYI, Alok Rai's "Hindi Nationalism" has been cited over 200+ times). The fact that I am citing through JSTOR should be enough to settle any reservation; I must say your reservation is unfounded and shocking! Further, I have skimmed through both Cardona and Masica's published works and it would be extremely helpful if you too refer to the works. I'll just quote what both authors have to say about Hindustani.

Further complicating the discourse concerning the relations among various styles or registers of Hindi/Urdu (or Hindi and Urdu) is the use of the term ‘Hindustani’ in any of a number of separate senses. Frequently the term has been used as a synonym for Urdu (C. R. King 1994:198). In addition, the term has been used with regard to stylistically neutral speech variety of H/U, shorn of either the strongly Persian or Arabic linguistic correlates of literary Urdu or heavily Sanskritized features of śuddh ‘pure’ Hindi. This was the sense of the term used by Gandhi and Nehru with regard to a national language for independent India. To advocates of a view that sees Hindi, Urdu and Hindustani as stylistic variants of a common language, matters of script and literary history are of less importance than the shared grammatical, lexical features of the vernacular languages of the upper Gangetic valley, not to mention the unifying aspects of shared cultural traditions
— Cardona, The Indo-Aryan Languages, page 279

Meanwhile, although for the British administration and many others the terms Urdu and Hindustani were essentially equivalent, Urdu in the eyes of some of its protagonists took on a special connotation of stylistic refinement and could not refer to "plain" Khari Bali/Colloquial Hindustani
— Masica, The Indo-Aryan Languages, page 30

.

Further, I'd also like to suggest Amrit Rai's (who has been cited by Masica in his work, in case you have any reservation) "A House Divided" and Alok Rai's "The Persistence of Hindustani" beside going through Masica and Cardona. I hope to see the tweaking soon! Kind Regards,- Sattvic7 (talk) 17:33, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

@Kautilya3:@Sattvic7: You are both making the same error. You think that Hindustani refers to a language. The point of this page is that Hindustani is not one language, but a term that has been applied to different speech/language formations. The lead needs to be tweaked as I have said. It needs to be emphasized that (1) it is a historical term, (Masica says in Section 2.4 ("Nomenclature"), page 30, "The once ubiquitous Hindustani (now seldom used)" See Colin Masica (Google Scholar Citation Index 1,122) (the beginning of its usage dating to period 1700–1750) (2) The term "Hindustani" was applied to speech whose posited provenance and place of general origin itself evolved during the period 1700 to 1850, but by 1850 it had come to mean (3) the language that had evolved many centuries earlier as a result of Muslim contact, and in 1850 was identified with Urdu. The sources from the mid-19th century say that. e.g. all the dictionaries such as Platts, say that. The British standardization is pretty well-known. Standardization does not refer to greater literary use, greater nuances in speech, but rather to the appearance of grammars and dictionaries that described the rules associated with the language. I have already referred to it above, and will quote again from David Lelyveld's article:

"The earlier grammars and dictionaries made it possible for the British government to replace Persian with vernacular languages at the lower levels of judicial and revenue administration in 1837, that is, to standardize and index terminology for official use and provide for its translation to the language of the ultimate ruling authority, English. For such purposes, Hindustani was equated with Urdu, as opposed to any geographically defined dialect of Hindi and was given official status through large parts of north India. Written in the Persian script with a largely Persian and, via Persian, an Arabic vocabulary, Urdu stood at the shortest distance from the previous situation and was easily attainable by the same personnel. In the wake of this official transformation, the British government began to make its first significant efforts on behalf of vernacular education. The earliest controversies over Hindi versus Urdu apparently took place among the British because some officials were anxious to uproot the Mughal gentry by replacing Urdu with a still unformulated standard of Hindi." (""Colonial Knowledge and the Fate of Hindustani, David Lelyveld, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Oct., 1993), pp. 665-682) Google scholar citation index 58

There is no reason to quote Alok Rai's "Persistance of Hindustani" Google Scholar Citation Index 7; it is not DUE. The main thing is that you are all conflating Hindustani with the common base of grammar, and to a lesser extent lexicon. That the language that was called Hindustani and Hindi had similar regions of origin does not make them the same. If you want to describe Hindi's origins then do so on the Hindi page. It does not help to create content forks for Hindi and Urdu in this page. This is essentially a kind of historical dab page, which leans more toward Urdu, not because Urdu and Hindustani had the same origin and Hindi did not, but because at the high point of the term's use, Hindustani was identified with Urdu. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:50, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

PS See Platts: "ب ब be (p. 116) H ب be; ब ba ; The second letter of the Urdū or Hindūstānī (and of the Persian and Arabic) alphabet, and the twenty-third consonant of the Nāgarī alphabet," Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:55, 8 January 2020 (UTC) PPS I am not using a primary source; I'm saying Lelyveld and others refer to this notion of Hindustani, during the heyday of the use of the term "Hindustani." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:02, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

As far as names go, Tariq Rahman's book, page 22, gives the following chronology:

• Hindvi/Hindui (13-19th centuries)
• Dakkani/Dakhni (15-18th centuries)
• Hindustani (18-20th centuries)
• Urdu (18th century)

Rahman himself treats "Hindvi" and "Hindi" as the same word (hence his book title "Hindi to Urdu"). I avoid that because it confuses things. But the word "Hindi" has been around to mean "Indians" or "Indian", inclusively, since the 14th century. Whether it was also used for the language, I can't say. Amir Khusro wrote, way back in the 13th century,

Delhi and in its environs/it is Hind(v)i since ancient times/which is used ordinarily for all kinds of conversation

So, Hindvi was the language of Delhi (which it was even before there was any "Muslim contact") and then got exported to all over India with the expansion of the Delhi Sultanate. But it flourished as a literary language only in Deccan. This literary language got reimported to Delhi and got "Muslimised", acquiring the name Urdu (Chapter 5). So, the first three rows of the above list are basically the same language. (Urdu is the only one that is different.) Modern Standard Hindi is an evolution of that language. People say some Persian words were purged. I don't know. For those of us that get our Hindi from Bollywood, it doesn't make any difference.

Regarding the identification of Hindustani and Urdu, Masica actually says:

although for the British administration and many others the terms Urdu and Hindustani were essentially equivalent, Urdu in the eyes of some of its protagonists took on a special connotation of stylistic refinement and could not refer to "plain" Khari Bali/Colloquial Hindustani. (p.30)

So, you might be right that Urdu is dying in India (though I doubt it), but "Hindustani" is perfectly alive. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 00:46, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

References

Some sources and quotes

• Das Gupta, Jyotirindra (1970), Language Conflict and National Development: Group Politics and National Language Policy in India, University of California Press, pp. 52–, ISBN 978-0-520-01590-6

The emergence of Hindi is usually traced from the Apabhramsa works appearing between the eighth and twelfth centuries A.D. (p.51)

About the twelfth century A.D. Muslim settlers in North India tried to adopt this Hindi for some of their commercial and social communications. (p.51)

[In the 17th century] Conscious attempts to write literature in Persianized Delhi Hindustani—"the speech of the exalted Court"—led to the emergence of Rekhta, which may be said to be the earliest form of the present-day Urdu-Hindustani poetical speech. (p.51)

• Dua, Hans R. (2012), "Hindi-Urdu as a pluricentric language", in Michael Clyne (ed.), Pluricentric Languages: Differing Norms in Different Nations, Walter de Gruyter, ISBN 978-3-11-088814-0

The formative period may be considered to begin roughly from 1100 AD with the invasion of Muslims and their settlement in India. It marks the beginning of a variety for communication between the rulers and the local population. The early form of Hindi-Urdu had a wide dialect base which, though derived basically from the Western Apabhramsa, included Braj-Bhasha, Harayani or Bangru, "vernacular Hindustani" and even sometimes Panjabi and Rajasthani, besides the Perso-Arabic element as a result of interaction between the Muslim and Hindu cultures. (p.382)

During the formative period the most commonly used names were Hindi, or Hindawi or Dehlvi. The other name, Zabān-e-Urdū or "The language of the Camp" arose as late as the end of 17th century. (p.382)

The emergent language Hindawi had travelled in the south with the Muslim [rulers] and common people who settled there in the early fourteenth century due to historical and political reasons. (p.383)

In the emergence of the different bases of Hindi-Urdu, three facts seem to have played a major role. First, the Dakani literature was written in Perso-Arabic scripto and thus it "fixed the orientation of the language' (Chatterji 1960: 207). ... Second, some conscious efforts were made by such stalwarts as Khan Arzu, Shah Hatim and Mazhar Janejanan who laid out principles for weeding out the Braj Bhasha or indigenous Hindi words and incorporating Arabic and Persian words during the middle of eighteenth century (Khan 1958: 211, Jain 1973: 184). Finally, by the end of eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century, prose began to be written in the emergent Khari Bol≠i. The Hindu writers who turned their attention to this variety, wrote prose using Devanagari characters and inclined towards Sanskrit vocabulary, while the Muslim writers wrote in Perso-Arabic script and depended more on the words of Perso-Arabic origin. (p.383-384)

1. Persian was replaced by Urdu written in the Perso-Arabic script as an official and court language along with English in the British-ruled provinces in north India. While this helped in the transition from Muslim to British rule, it gave rise to what is popularly known as Hindi movement. (p.384-385)

2. .. in the last quarter of the nineteenth century Hindi poetry made its advent in the Sanskritized Khari Boli and thus both in poetry and prose Hindi began to take lead over Urdu. This further reinforced the Hindi-Urdu divergence. (p.385)

3. ... the end of the nineteenth century saw the beginning of the development of Hindu and Muslim revivalism and communal antagonism partly because of Hindi and Urdu controversy and partly as a response to meet the challenge of the Western culture. (p.385)

• Shaheen, Shagufta; Shahid, Sajjad (2017), "The Unique Literary Traditions of Dakhni", in Kousar.J. Azam (ed.), Languages and Literary Cultures in Hyderabad, Taylor & Francis, pp. 60–, ISBN 978-1-351-39399-7

The two, till-then distinct spheres of development of the Urdu language in the Deccan and Delhi, were brought together by the visit of the Dakhni poet Wali (1665/7-1707/8) to Delhi in 1700. It is said that his spiritual mentor ... advised Wali to introduce Persian traditions of stylistics and imagery into his creations.... a short time later his divan (collected poetical works) in the new style took north India by storm.[52] It convinced Delhi poets that Urdu could rival and surpass Persian (as used in India—Sabak-é-Hindi) in almost all aspects of literary expression. (pt.82-83)

Unfortunately, the decision of Wali to give up the Dakhni tradition proved disastrous for Urdu... Even though a loss of patronage for Dakhni was undoubtedly the reason for Wali seeking an audience for his work at Delhi, his meek surrender does make him the prime agent of an unwelcome change. (pt.83)

The remission of Dakhni poetic traditions and an increasing reliance on Persian in post-Wali Urdu poetry alienated a large section of society from the language. (pt.83)

So, here we see the Urdu scholars themselves noticing that the elitism of the Muslim scholars alienated their language from the masses. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 03:15, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

What the heck is your problem. You can't read or write the Perso-Arabic script. None of you can. Here is C. M. Naim writing in the Britannica, "Urdu literature began to develop in the 16th century, in and around the courts of the Quṭb Shāhī and ʿĀdil Shāhī, kings of Golconda and Bījāpur in the Deccan (central India). In the later part of the 17th century, Aurangābād became the centre of Urdu literary activities. There was much movement of the literati and the elite between Delhi and Aurangābād, and it needed only the genius of Walī Aurangābādí, in the early 18th century, to bridge the linguistic gap between Delhi and the Deccan and to persuade the poets of Delhi to take writing in Urdu seriously. In the 18th century, with the migration of poets from Delhi, Lucknow became another important centre of Urdu poetry, though Delhi never lost its prominence." Why are you guys wasting my time with nonsense. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:58, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

I believe that the understanding of the history of the languages has progressed further since C. M. Naim. In the current understanding, as documented by Tariq Rahman, the use of the label "Urdu" should be limited to post-Wali language of Delhi. Wali has introduced major innovations in the language that changed its character, to the extent of alienating the language from the commonfolk. Naim's historicisation is now out of date. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:07, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

More sources and quotes

• Robinson, Francis (2007), Separatism Among Indian Muslims: The Politics of the United Provinces' Muslims, 1860-1923, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-04826-2

[In the view of Macdonnel, the Governor of United Provinces], Muslims were a danger to security and their strong position in government service had to be reduced as far as was politically expedient. (p.42-43)

[The Nagari resolution] declared that 'no person shall be appointed, except in a purely English offce, to any ministerial [clerical] appointment henceforward unless he can read and write both the Nagri and Persian characters fluently'. No more effective method could have been devised of purging government offces of 'natives bred up in the old ways' and in preventing their future appointment. Moreover, because Muslims did not come across the Nagri script in the normal course of their education, and would not read it for pleasure, the resolution threatened them more than any other vested interest in government service. (p.43-44)

[Table V] shows that, between 1886—7 and 1913, the position of Muslims, and to a lesser extent Kayasths and Rajputs, deteriorated, while that of Brahmins, Banias and other Hindus improved. It also shows that from the Mutiny to 1913 Muslims lost their dominant position and Hindus gained a much larger share of appointments. ... it does suggest that by and large reforms in the bureaucracy were putting pressure on the traditional government service groups, a pressure which under Macdonnell was concentrated almost entirely on the Muslims. (p.44-45)

• John Hutchinson; Anthony D. Smith, eds. (2000), "Ethnic identity among Muslims of South Asia", Nationalism: Critical Concepts in Political Science, Taylor & Francis, ISBN 978-0-415-20112-4

In the nineteenth century in north India, before the extension of the British system of government schools, Urdu was not used in its written form as a medium of instruction in traditional Islamic schools, where Muslim children were taught Persian and Arabic, the traditional languages of Islam and Muslim culture. It was only when the Muslim elites of north India and the British decided that Muslims were backward in education in relation to Hindus and should be encouraged to attend government schools that it was felt necessary to offer Urdu in the Persian-Arabic script as an inducement to Muslims to attend the schools.(p.890)

It is well known that ordinary Muslims and Hindus alike spoke the same language in the United Provinces in the nineteenth century, namely Hindustani, whether called by that name or whether called Hindi, Urdu, or one of the regional dialects such as Braj or Awadhi. (p.890-891)

When the Urdu-speaking elite divided politically on the question of script, however, that the division was communicated and transmitted to the mass of the people. As more and more government schools were set up, it became a critical question, therefore, for Urdu and Hindi spokesmen to insist that Hindus had the right to be taught through the medium of Hindi in Devanagari script and that Muslims had the right to be taught through the medium of Urdu in Persian script because their languages and cultures were inseparable. (p.890-891)

-- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:25, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

topic of article

This article is about the national language of India and Pakistan, commonly known as 'Hindi-Urdu'. It is not about the word 'Hindustani'. If this is not the proper location for the language article, we can discuss moving it, though it's been here for 15 years and ties into several other articles on the topic that use the same name, which is pretty good evidence for consensus.

There has been some confusion on this article as to what a 'language' is. Hindi and Urdu are not languages, they are competing standardized registers of a language, much the way that Serbian and Croatian, or ÷Malaysian and Indonesian, (or RP and GA) are standardized forms of their languages. Colloquial usage has it that all of these terms refer to 'languages', but we go by linguistic usage on linguistic articles. Colloquial usage also has it that the akshara are 'alphabets', but that doesn't mean we should say here that MSH is written with fifty 'alphabets'. For any WP article, the distinction between the topic of the article and the title used for it need to be kept in mind. The topic has primacy. — kwami (talk) 23:48, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

I rewrote the article a month ago, on December 8. You have reverted it on January 8, and are claiming BRD, when there is a perfectly polite discussion going on in the section above. There is no national language of India and Pakistan. Please self-revert and advance the kind of sources everyone else is. I have cited the lead to the best references, including to Colin P. Masica's Indo Aryan Languages, Cambridge University Press. @RegentsPark: @Vanamonde93:, @Doug Weller:. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:56, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

The fact that I didn't notice your edits until now is not an argument that they're valid. I'm not very active any more. You can't just delete one of the major languages of the world because you don't believe it exists. You're operating on a political POV, whereas this is a language article and so needs to follow a linguistic POV. There has been plenty of discussion in the past on this topic, based not just on Masica but on other RS's, and consensus has been established for over a decade that Hindi and Urdu are a single language. You're welcome to continue your polite discussion. Also, if you wish to make Urdu script primary, as it has historical if not numerical primacy, I have no problem with that. But claiming that the national language of India and Pakistan is extinct or doesn't exist is a bit much, and claiming that language is defined by orthography or religion shows a lack of understanding of what language is. — kwami (talk) 00:03, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

You have to join the discussion and self-revert.  ::Why is it that in the chapter on "Urdu" in Cardona and Jain's, Indo Aryan Languages, Routledge, 2003, Ruth Laila Schmidt makes no mention of Hindi-Urdu, nor of Hindustani except in reference to the British standardization? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:13, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Anyone can see the high-quality broad-field sources being used in my version with the random cherry-picking of narrow-field sources in yours. Why is it that neither India nor Pakistan make any official menton of Hindustani is it truly is the national language of both. See the quote from Cardona and Jain. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:20, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Again, you're confusing politics with linguistics. Different sources may use different names for the same thing. This was all decided over a decade ago. This article is about the "Hindi–Urdu" / "Hindi and Urdu" language summarized in §2.3 of Masica. You're welcome to bring it up for a new discussion, but no, I don't "have to" self-revert -- you're the one making the new claim, so you're the one that needs to convince the rest of us. — kwami (talk) 00:46, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

I support the revert. Fowler&fowler, I think you need to read more sources and understand what is going on, and stop trusting Britannica and OED blindly. They are embarrassingly wrong. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 01:19, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: I have used Colin P. Masica's The Indo-Aryan Languages, Cambridge, 1993; I have used the two articles on Hindi and Urdu in Cardona and Jain's (edited) Indo Aryan Languages, Routledge, 2003; David Lelyveld's seminal piece on "Colonial Knowledge and the Fate of Hindustani" As for Britannica, here is the beginning of one article on Urdu:

Earlier varieties of Urdu, variously known as Gujari, Hindawi, and Dakhani, show more affinity with eastern Punjabi and Haryani than with Khari Boli, which provides the grammatical structure of standard modern Urdu. The reasons for putting together the literary products of these dialects, forming a continuous tradition with those in Urdu, are as follows: first, they share a common milieu, consisting of Ṣūfī and Muslim court culture, increasingly dominated by the life and values of the urban elite; second, they display wholesale acceptance of Perso-Arabic literary traditions, including genres, metres, and rhetoric; third, they show an increasing acceptance of Perso-Arabic grammatical devices and vocabulary; and fourth, they tend to prefer Perso-Arabic forms over indigenous forms for learned usage.

Would you like to judge again that the piece is embarrassingly wrong? Do you know who has written it? It is C. M. Naim, who wrote that for Britannica in 1979. Faruqi's 1999 piece on Early Urdu Literature is based on Naim's Britannica piece, though it pursues it further. Given that Britannica was published by the University of Chicago for decades, it is unlikely that its articles on Urdu would not have have been vetted by both Colin Masica and C M Naim, but also by other scholars of Indo-Aryan languages such as Edward Dimock, Ralph Nicholas. Naim's student and Columbia University Urdu professor Frances Pritchett, as well as the late Muhammad Umar Memon at Wisconsin. Please don't knock Britannica. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:51, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Can any of you read and write the Perso Arabic script? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:33, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

What does that have to do with anything? Languages have histories. Standardizations have histories. So what? You can make all the irrelevant comments you like, but that only suggests that you have nothing relevant to say. — kwami (talk) 04:54, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm saying that you guys are clueless about the languages; without even middle school knowledge of the Perso Arabic script, only cherry-picking sources. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:04, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: The fact that younger Croats can't read Serbian Cyrillic doesn't suddenly make Croatian a language separate from Serbian (yes, I know that Serbs use both alphabets - but when they write in Cyrillic it makes the written variant unintelligible to younger Croats). Let's not confuse science with politics. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 09:37, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

In response to the ping by User:Kautilya3 to offer my thoughts here, I agree with both User:Kwamikagami and User:Kautilya3 that this article is about Hindustani/Hindi-Urdu in the linguistic sense of the term, not antiquated political theories. Hindustani, the lingua franca of the northern Indian subcontinent, has two standardized registers, Modern Standard Hindi and Modern Standard Urdu. It is very much alive today as the common speech of the people, as well as in Bollywood movies and songs. The text Bollywood: Gods, Glamour, and Gossip, authored Kush Varia and published by Columbia University Press, states: "Bollywood films largely use Hindustani..." I have added sources to the lede to reflect this. I hope this helps. With regards, Anupam^Talk 04:35, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

If the language is the same (a) can I give you a poem of Mir on his cat, and you can explain it to me? Assuming you won't be able to read the old Perso-Arabic script, can I give you the Romanized English version. The languages are the same. You should have no problem. Right? (b) I'll give you a Romanized Urdu version of a Shahar Ashob of Nazir Akbarabadi on the famine of my Wikipedia article Agra famine of 1837–38. Which one of you will explain it to me? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:41, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

So, if a non-native English speaker can't explain a Shakespearean sonnet, that means they don't speak English in England? Come on, be serious. The fact that native 'Hindi' and 'Urdu' speakers can't tell their languages apart demonstrates that they are the same language, and we have plenty of RS's to back that up. — kwami (talk) 04:48, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

No no. This is not a sonnet of Shakespeare. Urdu literate people, even those who have studied up to middle school are able to read these poems. So wide is the gap. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:02, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

No-one here has claimed that the literary standards are the same. They're obviously quite different. That's why we have separate articles for Urdu and Modern Standard Hindi, just as we have separate articles for Serbian and Croatian (though those aren't nearly as distinct). — kwami (talk) 05:18, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

This video does a good job of explaining Hindustani and its registers. I hope this helps. With regards, Anupam^Talk 04:58, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

The comments are interesting. — kwami (talk) 05:18, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

User:Kwamikagami and User:Kautilya3, I have added many references from academic sources to buttress the content in the lede. I note that it was recently reverted by User:Fowler&fowler. Could you kindly review these? I do not wish to edit war. Thanks, Anupam^Talk 05:25, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

No worriies. Please go ahead and create a nonsensical article on a language whose script you cannot read. Congratulations. Ño wonder the Pakistanis stay away from this kind of nonsense. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:39, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

I though we'd cite Masica and Cardona but I don't see that happening yet! - Sattvic7 (talk) 09:10, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

I add two quotes from Shapiro's "Hindi" chapter in Cardona & Jain (2003), since is it addresses many aspects of the Hindi/Urdu/Hindustani question relevant to this discussion, and repeat a third one already quoted by Sattvic7 above (but attributed to the editor Cardona).

1. "For some, Hindi and Urdu are two stylistic poles of a single language, Hindi-Urdu." (p.278)
2. "Countering this view is a opinion, which has gained an increasing number of adherents after the partition of India and Pakistan, that Hindi and Urdu, as bearers of distinct literary and cultural traditions, should be considered fully separate languages." (p.278-279)
3. "Further complicating the discourse concerning the relations among various styles or registers of Hindi/Urdu (or Hindi and Urdu) is the use of the term ‘Hindustani’ in any of a number of separate senses. Frequently the term has been used as a synonym for Urdu (C. R. King 1994:198). In addition, the term has been used with regard to stylistically neutral speech variety of H/U, shorn of either the strongly Persian or Arabic linguistic correlates of literary Urdu or heavily Sanskritized features of śuddh ‘pure’ Hindi. This was the sense of the term used by Gandhi and Nehru with regard to a national language for independent India. To advocates of a view that sees Hindi, Urdu and Hindustani as stylistic variants of a common language, matters of script and literary history are of less importance than the shared grammatical, lexical features of the vernacular languages of the upper Gangetic valley, not to mention the unifying aspects of shared cultural traditions."(p.279)

The quotes 1 and 2 define the two POVs about the term "language". The first is the strictly linguistic POV (called "Sense A" by Masica 1993; Masica describes some pitfalls of this definition, but these are not relevant for our discussion). Based on this POV, the language is called Hindu-Urdu (or Hindi/Urdu), a term also employed by Masica (1993). The second is the sociocultural POV (called "Sense B" by Masica 1993; essentially equalling the Weinreich definition). The current article structure of WP gives room for both POVs in several cases (Serbo-Croatian vs. Serbian/Croatian/etc.; Malay vs. Indonesian/Malaysian etc.), with appropriate discussion of context in the respective articles.

The third quote describes the ambiguity of the term "Hindustani", including its use as a synonym for Hindu-Urdu. The latter is also mentioned by Masica (1993), but it is clearly not his term of choice ("the once ubiquitous Hindustani (now seldom used)" p.30).

So even the sources cited by Fowler&fowler do treat "Hindi-Urdu" or "Hindustani" as a language – with all due qualifications – in the way it has been described in the long-standing version (or let's better say, the long-standing range of versions) of this article. Whether "Hindustani" is the best choice as title for this article is IMO open to debate, but we should start a new debate only when we're done with this discussion.

Narrower definitions of "Hindustani" are definitely worth a mention in this article; maybe even notable enough for a standalone (but not a POV-fork). But the fallacy starts when an editor cherry-picks one definition of "Hindustani" in complete disregard of the topic of this article ("Hindustani" in the widest sense), and completely reworks it to make it fit to this single one out of serveral possible understandings of this ambiguous term. This overruns the collective of all editors who have contributed to shape this article, and looks like an attempt to own this article. The editor's numerous challenges like "Can any of you read and write the Perso Arabic script", and the qualification of disagreeing views as "nonsense" unfortunately fits into this picture. –Austronesier (talk) 11:11, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

I too share the view that "Hindustani' has been used in multiple senses which means a lot of confusion for people, instead of "cherry-picking one definition we must allow several understandings of the same to exist" through proper discussion ! I had already edited the lead section and quoted Masica ("Hindustani" under Appendix I, pp. 430)) before Austronesier's comment. I I am quoting Masica here:

• "Hindustani - term referring to common colloquial base of HINDI and URDU and to its function as lingua franca over much of India, much in vogue during Independence movement as expression of national unity; after Partition in 1947 and subsequent linguistic polarization it fell into disfavor; census of 1951 registered an enormous decline (86-98 per cent) in no. of persons declaring it their mother tongue (the majority of HINDI speakers and many URDU speakers had done so in previous censuses); trend continued in subsequent censuses: only 11,053 returned it in 1971...mostly from S India" (p. 430)

This is the widest accepted definition that Masica and other scholars hold. Further in addition to your citations of "Hindi" under Cardona. I'd like to quote from "Urdu" under Cardona's

"In the early 1800s, the British chose the Khari-Bolī lingua franca, which they called Hindustani, as their medium for administration, and sponsored the composition of Hindustani prose texts in both the Persian and Dēvanāgarī scripts." (p. 318)

So clearly, "Hindustani" was a term employed by British and was hardly popular with the masses. I'd also like to add another quote:

• "Hindustani officially disappeared after 1947; neither Schedule VIII of the Constitution of India, which enumerates the languages of India, nor the official documents of Pakistan make even a cursory mention of it (G. C. Narang, personal communication). Unofficially, the Hindustani lingua franca is a fully functioning vernacular link language in India, Pakistan and among the South Asian diaspora." (p. 319) which basically means after the independence the term 'Hindustani' ceased to be used, and was replaced by "Hindi" and "Urdu" in India and Pakistan respectively, not that "Hindustani" ceased to exist but it just that people stopped using that term. - Sattvic7 (talk) 13:23, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

@Sattvic7: Context counts when a term is ambiguous, so I highly welcome your addition that goes "In modern context, Hindustani refers to...". I was in the middle of writing my earlier comment when you added it. Hopefully, this phrasing will last through future c/e- and bolder edits.

Btw, I am relatively new here (since 2017), so I have only now made myself familiar with the page move history of this article, since kwami mentioned it. Cf. Talk:Hindustani language/Archive 2. I have striked out my remark about a page title discussion, not really being eager to (re-)open Pandora's box. –Austronesier (talk) 15:11, 9 January 2020 (UTC)