Editing Hindustani language

{{Short description|Indo-Aryan language spoken in India and Pakistan}}
{{Pp-semi-indef}}
{{For-multi|its official forms|Hindi|and|Urdu|other languages named Hindustani based off Bhojpuri and Awadhi|Fiji Hindi{{!}}Fijian Hindustani|and|Caribbean Hindustani}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2022}}
{{Use Indian English|date=April 2021}}
{{Infobox language
| name             = Hindustani
| nativename       = {{hlist|हिन्दुस्तानी|{{nq|ہندوستانی}}}}
| pronunciation    = {{IPA|hns|ɦɪnd̪ʊst̪ɑːniː|}}
| altname          = Hindi–Urdu
| image            = Hindustani.svg
| imagescale       = 0.7
| imagecaption     = The word ''Hindustani'' in the [[Devanagari]] and [[Perso-Arabic script]]s
| states           = [[Languages of India|India]] and [[Languages of Pakistan|Pakistan]]
| region           = [[Western Uttar Pradesh]]/[[Delhi]] ([[Hindi Belt|Hindustani Belt]])<br> and [[Deccan]]<ref>{{cite journal |editor1=Robina Kausar |editor2=Muhammad Sarwar |editor3=Muhammad Shabbir |title=The History of the Urdu Language Together with Its Origin and Geographic Distribution |journal=International Journal of Innovation and Research in Educational Sciences |volume=2 |issue=1 |url=https://www.ijires.org/administrator/components/com_jresearch/files/publications/IJIRES-154_final.pdf}}</ref>
| speakers         = [[L1 speakers]]: {{circa|250}} million
| date             = 2011 & 2017 censuses
| ref              = <ref name=ethnologue>"Hindi" L1: 322 million (2011 Indian census), including perhaps 150 million speakers of other languages that reported their language as "Hindi" on the census. L2: 274 million (2016, source unknown). Urdu L1: 67 million (2011 & 2017 censuses), L2: 102 million (1999 Pakistan, source unknown, and 2001 Indian census):  ''Ethnologue'' 21. {{e21|hin|Hindi}}. {{e21|ur|Urdu}}.</ref>
| speakers2        = [[L2 speakers]]: ~500 million (1999–2016)<!--includes the 140M subtracted from the L1 census total of 390M estimated to speak something other than Hindustani. Not all of these will be able to speak Hindustani even as an L2, another reason the numbers can be only very approximate--><ref name=ethnologue />
| speakers_label   = Speakers
| familycolor      = Indo-European
| fam2             = [[Indo-Iranian languages|Indo-Iranian]]
| fam3             = [[Indo-Aryan languages|Indo-Aryan]]
| fam4             = [[Hindi languages|Central Zone]]
| fam5             = [[Western Hindi]]
| ancestor         = [[Shauraseni Prakrit]]
| ancestor2        = [[Apabhraṃśa]]
| ancestor3        = [[Old Hindi]]
| stand1           = [[Hindi]]
| stand2           = [[Urdu]]
| dia1             = [[Deccani language|Deccani]] (incl. [[Hyderabadi Urdu|Hyderabadi]])
| dia3             = [[Dhakaiya Urdu|Dhakaiya]]
| dia4             = [[Rekhta]]
| dia5             = [[Kauravi]]
| dia6             = [[Bombay Hindi|Bambaiya Hindi]]
| dia7             = [[Bihari Hindi]]{{efn|Not to be confused with the [[Bihari languages]], a group of [[Eastern Indo-Aryan languages]].}}
| dia8             = [[Andaman Creole Hindi]]
| dia9             = [[Haflong Hindi]]
| dia10            = [[Judeo-Urdu]]
| script           = {{Unbulleted list
|[[Devanagari]] (Hindi)<ref name="Grierson"/><ref name="Ray2011"/>
|[[Perso-Arabic script|Perso-Arabic]] [[Nastaliq]] ([[Urdu alphabet]]) (Urdu)<ref name="Grierson"/><ref name="Ray2011"/>
|[[Kaithi]] (historical)
|[[Bengali–Assamese script]] (for [[Urdu]] in [[Bangladesh]])
|[[Hebrew script|Hebrew]] ([[Judeo-Urdu]])
|[[Laṇḍā scripts|Laṇḍā]] (historical)<ref>{{Cite book|last=Gangopadhyay|first=Avik|title=Glimpses of Indian Languages|publisher=Evincepub publishing|year=2020|isbn=9789390197828|pages=43}}</ref>
|[[Mahajani]] (historical, mainly [[Hindi]])
|[[Hindi Braille]]
|[[Urdu Braille]]}}
| sign             = [[Indian Signing System]] (ISS)<ref>[http://share.pdfonline.com/51071726f49f47ea858865837b25f8f9/dedse_dhh09.htm Norms & Guidelines] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140113022437/http://share.pdfonline.com/51071726f49f47ea858865837b25f8f9/dedse_dhh09.htm |date=13 January 2014 }}, 2009. D.Ed. Special Education (Deaf & Hard of Hearing), [http://www.rehabcouncil.nic.in Rehabilitation Council of India]</ref>
| nation           = {{plainlist|
*India and Fiji <br/>(as [[Hindi]]) 
*Pakistan <br/> (as [[Urdu]])
}}
| minority         = {{ublist|
| South Africa ([[Hindi]] and [[Urdu]] - protected language)<ref name="auto1">{{cite web|title=Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 – Chapter 1: Founding Provisions|url=http://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/chapter-1-founding-provisions|website=www.gov.za|access-date=6 December 2014}}</ref>
| United Arab Emirates ([[Hindi]] - third official court language)<ref name="thehindu.com">{{Cite news|url=https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/abu-dhabi-includes-hindi-as-third-official-court-language/article26229023.ece|title=Abu Dhabi includes Hindi as third official court language|newspaper=The Hindu|date=10 February 2019|via=www.thehindu.com}}</ref>}}
| agency           = {{plainlist|
*[[Central Hindi Directorate]] (Hindi, India)<ref>The Central Hindi Directorate regulates the use of [[Devanagari]] and Hindi spelling in [[India]]. Source: [http://hindinideshalaya.nic.in/hindi/introduction.html Central Hindi Directorate: Introduction] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100415010138/http://hindinideshalaya.nic.in/hindi/introduction.html |date=15 April 2010 }}</ref>
*[[National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language]] (Urdu, India)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.urducouncil.nic.in/|title=National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language|website=www.urducouncil.nic.in}}</ref>
*[[National Language Promotion Department]] (Urdu, Pakistan)<ref>Zia, K. (1999). ''[http://users.skynet.be/hugocoolens/urdu-code/standardcodetableurdu.htm Standard Code Table for Urdu] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190408004715/http://users.skynet.be/hugocoolens/urdu-code/standardcodetableurdu.htm |date=8 April 2019 }}''. 4th Symposium on Multilingual Information Processing, (MLIT-4), [[Yangon]], [[Myanmar]]. CICC, [[Japan]]. Retrieved on 28 May 2008.</ref>}}
| iso1             = hi
| iso1comment      = – Hindi<br/><code>{{ISO639-1|ur}}</code> – Urdu
| iso2             = hin
| iso2comment      = – Hindi<br/><code>{{ISO639-2|urd}}</code> – Urdu
| lc1              = hin
| ld1              = Hindi<!--name as per ISO 639-3/RA, already wiki-linked in stand1 parameter-->
| lc2              = urd
| ld2              = Urdu <!--name as per ISO 639-3/RA, already wiki-linked in stand2 parameter-->
| lingua           = 59-AAF-qa to -qf
| glotto           = hind1270
| glottorefname    = Hindustani
| map              = Hindustani map.png
| mapcaption       = Areas (red) where Hindustani (Delhlavi or [[Kauravi]]) is the native language
| map2             = 
| mapcaption2      = {{legend|#FF7F36|Provincial or state level}}
{{legend|#FFCC2E|Secondary provincial or state language}}
{{legend|#FDF72F|National level}}
| notice           = IPA
{{InterWiki|code=hi}}
{{InterWiki|code=ur}}
}}
{{Contains special characters
| special    = uncommon [[Unicode]] characters
| fix        = Help:Multilingual support#Kaithi
| image      = Replacement character.svg
| link       = Specials (Unicode block)#Replacement character
| alt        = <?>
| compact    = yes
}}
{{Hindustani_language}}

'''Hindustani'''{{efn|{{IPAc-en|ˌ|h|ɪ|n|d|ʊ|ˈ|s|t|ɑː|n|i}}; [[Devanagari]]: {{lang|inc-Deva|हिन्दुस्तानी}},{{efn|Also written as {{lang|hi|हिंदुस्तानी}}}} [[Perso-Arabic script|Perso-Arabic]]: {{lang|inc-Aran|{{nq|ہندوستانی}}}},{{efn|This will only display in a [[Nastaliq]] font if you will have one installed, otherwise it may display in a modern [[Arabic typography|Arabic font]] in a style more common for writing [[Arabic]] and most other non-Urdu languages such as [[Naskh (script)|Naskh]]. If this {{nq|{{lang|inc-Aran|پاکستان}}}} and this {{lang|inc-Aran|{{nq|پاکستان}}}} looks like this {{lang|inc-Aran|پاکستان}}, then you are not seeing it in Nastaliq.}} [[transliteration]]: {{transliteration|inc|ISO|Hindustānī}}, {{IPA|hns|ɦɪnd̪ʊst̪ɑːniː|pron}}, {{lit|of [[Hindustan]]}}<ref name=hindustani-devn-spelling>
*{{citation|editor-last=McGregor |editor-first=R. S. |author-link=R. S. McGregor|title=The Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1993|chapter=हिंदुस्तानी |page=1071|quote=2. ''hindustani'' [P. hindustani] f Hindustani (a mixed Hindi dialect of the Delhi region which came to be used as a lingua franca widely throughout India and what is now Pakistan)}}
*{{citation|title=बृहत हिंदी कोश खंड 2 (Large Hindi Dictionary, Volume 2) |publisher=केन्द्रीय हिंदी निदेशालय, भारत सरकार (Central Hindi Directorate, Government of India)|chapter=हिंदुस्तानी|page =1458|url=http://www.chdpublication.mhrd.gov.in/ebook/b101/html5forpc.html?page=0|access-date=17 October 2021}} 
*{{citation|last=Das|first=Shyamasundar|title=Hindi Shabda Sagar (Hindi dictionary) in 11 volumes, revised edition|publisher=[[Nagari Pracharini Sabha]]|year=1975|location=Kashi (Varanasi)|page=5505|url=https://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/dasa-hindi_query.py?page=5505|quote=हिंदुस्तानी hindustānī३ संज्ञा स्त्री॰ १. हिंदुस्तान की भाषा । २. बोलचाल या व्यवहार की वह हिंदी जिसमें न तो बहुत अरबी फारसी के शब्द हों न संस्कृत के । उ॰—साहिब लोगों ने इस देश की भाषा का एक नया नाम हिंदुस्तानी रखा । Translation: Hindustani hindustānī3 noun feminine 1. The language of Hindustan. 2. That version of  Hindi employed for common speech or business in which neither many Arabic or Persian words nor Sanskrit words are present. Context: The British gave the new name Hindustani to the language of this country.}}<!-- You can't put notes inside references{{efn|cited in {{citation|editor=R. R. K. Hartman|title=Lexicography, Critical Concepts, Volume II: Reference works across time, space and languages|publisher=Routledge|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x8LpWk9sPOEC&pg=PA156|page=156|year=2003}}}}-->
*{{citation|last=Chaturvedi|first=Mahendra|title=A Practical Hindi-English Dictionary|location=Delhi|publisher=National Publishing House|year=1970|chapter=हिंदुस्तानी |quote=hindustānī hīndusta:nī:  a theoretically existent style of the Hindi language which is supposed to consist of current and simple words of any sources whatever and is neither too much biassed in favour of Perso-Arabic elements nor has any place for too much high-flown Sanskritized vocabulary}}</ref><ref name="NCSU-Hindustani">{{Cite web|url = http://sasw.chass.ncsu.edu/fl/faculty/taj/hindi/abturdu.htm|title = About Hindi-Urdu|publisher = [[North Carolina State University]]|access-date = 9 August 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090815023328/http://sasw.chass.ncsu.edu/fl/faculty/taj/hindi/abturdu.htm|archive-date = 15 August 2009|df = dmy-all}}</ref><ref name="Grierson"/><ref name="Ray2011">{{cite book|last1=Ray|first1=Aniruddha|title=The Varied Facets of History: Essays in Honour of Aniruddha Ray|date=2011|publisher=Primus Books|isbn=978-93-80607-16-0|language=en|quote=There was the ''Hindustani Dictionary'' of Fallon published in 1879; and two years later (1881), John J. Platts produced his ''Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi and English'', which implied that Hindi and Urdu  were literary forms of a single language. More recently, Christopher R. King in his ''One Language, Two Scripts'' (1994) has presented the late history of the single spoken language in two forms, with the clarity and detail that the subject deserves.}}</ref>}} is an [[Indo-Aryan language]] spoken in [[North India]] and [[Pakistan]] as the [[lingua franca]] of the region.<ref name="siddiqi1994" />  It is also spoken by the [[Deccani people|Deccani-speaking community]] in the [[Deccan plateau]]. Hindustani is a [[pluricentric language]] with two [[Standard language|standard]] [[Register (sociolinguistics)|registers]], known as [[Hindi]] ([[Sanskritisation (linguistics)|Sanskritised]] register written in the [[Devanagari script]]) and [[Urdu]] ([[Persianization|Persianized]] and [[Arabization|Arabized]] register written in the [[Perso-Arabic script]]) which serve as official languages of India and Pakistan, respectively.<ref name="britannica-2018-hindustani-language">{{cite web|title=Hindustani language|publisher=Encyclopedia Britannica|date=1 November 2018|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hindustani-language|access-date=18 October 2021|quote=(subscription required) lingua franca of northern India and Pakistan. Two variants of Hindustani, Urdu and Hindi, are official languages in Pakistan and India, respectively. Hindustani began to develop during the 13th century CE in and around the Indian cities of Delhi and Meerut in response to the increasing linguistic diversity that resulted from Muslim hegemony. In the 19th century its use was widely promoted by the British, who initiated an effort at standardization. Hindustani is widely recognized as India's most common lingua franca, but its status as a vernacular renders it difficult to measure precisely its number of speakers.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Yoon |editor1-first=Bogum |editor2-last=Pratt |editor2-first=Kristen L. |title=Primary Language Impact on Second Language and Literacy Learning |date=15 January 2023 |publisher=Lexington Books |page=198 |language=en |quote=In terms of cross-linguistic relations, Urdu's combinations of Arabic-Persian orthography and Sanskrit linguistic roots provides interesting theoretical as well as practical comparisons demonstrated in table 12.1.}}</ref> Thus, it is also called '''Hindi–Urdu'''.<ref name="trask-hclinguistics">{{citation |last=Trask |first=R. L. |title=Dictionary of Historical and Comparative Linguistics |date=8 August 2019 |pages=149&ndash;150 |chapter=Hindi-Urdu |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jacxEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA149 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=9781474473316 |quote='''Hindi-Urdu''' The most important modern Indo-Aryan language, spoken by well over 250 million people, mainly in India and Pakistan. At the spoken level ''Hindi'' and ''Urdu'' are the same language (called ''Hindustani'' before the political partition), but the two varieties are written in different alphabets and differ substantially in their abstract and technical vocabularies}}</ref><ref name="dcrystal-dict-lang">{{citation |last=Crystal |first=David |title=A Dictionary of Language |pages= |year=2001 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3GU5FWs1pBEC |location=[[Chicago]] |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |isbn=9780226122038 |quote=(p. 115) Figure: A family of languages: the Indo-European family tree, reflecting geographical distribution. Proto Indo-European>Indo-Iranian>Indo-Aryan (Sanskrit)> Midland (Rajasthani, Bihari, Hindi/Urdu); (p. 149) '''Hindi''' There is little structural difference between Hindi and Urdu, and the two are often grouped together under the single label Hindi/Urdu, sometimes abbreviated to Hirdu, and formerly often called Hindustani; (p. 160) '''India''' ... With such linguistic diversity, Hindi/Urdu has come to be widely used as a lingua franca. |author-link=David Crystal}}</ref><ref name="gandhi-hindi-urdu">{{cite book |last1=Gandhi |first1=M. K. |author-link1=Mahatma Gandhi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h5BNDwAAQBAJ |title=An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth: A Critical Edition |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |others=annotation by Suhrud, Tridip |year=2018 |isbn=9780300234077 |location=[[New Haven, Connecticut|New Haven]] and London |translator-last=Desai |translator-first=Mahadev |quote=(p. 737) I was handicapped for want of suitable Hindi or Urdu words. This was my first occasion for delivering an argumentative speech before an audience especially composed of Mussalmans of the North. I had spoken in Urdu at the Muslim League at Calcutta, but it was only for a few minutes, and the speech was intended only to be a feeling appeal to the audience. Here, on the contrary, I was faced with a critical, if not hostile, audience, to whom I had to explain and bring home my view-point. But I had cast aside all shyness. I was not there to deliver an address in the faultless, polished Urdu of the Delhi Muslims, but to place before the gathering my views in such broken Hindi as I could command. And in this I was successful. This meeting afforded me a direct proof of the fact that Hindi-Urdu alone could become the lingua franca<Footnote M8> of India. (M8: "national language" in the Gujarati original). |translator-link=Mahadev Desai}}</ref> Colloquial registers of the language fall on a spectrum between these standards.<ref name="Basu2017" /><ref name="GubeGao2019" /> In modern times, a third variety of Hindustani with significant English influences has also appeared, which is sometimes called [[Hinglish]] or [[Urdish]].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Kothari |first1=Rita |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R4tmwFFhoAEC&pg=PA37 |title=Chutnefying English: The Phenomenon of Hinglish |last2=Snell |first2=Rupert |date=2011 |publisher=Penguin Books India |isbn=978-0-14-341639-5 |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |title=Hindi, Hinglish: Head to Head |url=https://read.dukeupress.edu/world-policy-journal/article-abstract/29/2/97/78965/Hindi-Hinglish-Head-to-Head |access-date=2023-10-29 |journal=World Policy Journal|date=2012 |doi=10.1177/0740277512451519 |last1=Vajpeyi |first1=Ananya |volume=29 |issue=2 |pages=97–103 |url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name=":3">Salwathura, A. N. "[https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Anusha-Salwathura/publication/346595689_EVOLUTIONARY_DEVELOPMENT_OF_'HINGLISH'_LANGUAGE_WITHIN_THE_INDIAN_SUB-CONTINENT/links/5fc8df9aa6fdcc697bd861a3/EVOLUTIONARY-DEVELOPMENT-OF-HINGLISH-LANGUAGE-WITHIN-THE-INDIAN-SUB-CONTINENT.pdf Evolutionary development of ‘hinglish’language within the Indian sub-continent.]" ''International Journal of Research-GRANTHAALAYAH''. Vol. 8. No. 11. Granthaalayah Publications and Printers, 2020. 41-48.</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Vanita |first=Ruth |date=2009-04-01 |title=Eloquent Parrots; Mixed Language and the Examples of Hinglish and Rekhti |url=https://scholarworks.umt.edu/libstudies_pubs/2 |journal=International Institute for Asian Studies Newsletter |issue=50 |pages=16–17}}</ref><ref name=":5">{{Cite journal |last=Singh |first=Rajendra |date=1985-01-01 |title=Modern Hindustani and Formal and Social Aspects of Language Contact |url=https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/itl.70.02sin |journal=ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics |language=en |volume=70 |issue=1 |pages=33–60 |doi=10.1075/itl.70.02sin |issn=0019-0829|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

The concept of a Hindustani language as a "unifying language" or "fusion language" that could transcend communal and religious divisions across the subcontinent was endorsed by [[Mahatma Gandhi]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://thefederal.com/analysis/how-gandhi-changed-his-mind-about-the-south-after-experiments-with-hindi-as-national-language/|title=After experiments with Hindi as national language, how Gandhi changed his mind|work=Prabhu Mallikarjunan|date=3 October 2019|publisher=The Feral}}</ref> as it was not seen to be associated with either the Hindu or Muslim communities as was the case with Hindi and Urdu respectively, and it was also considered a simpler language for people to learn.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rai |first=Alok |title=The Persistence of Hindustani |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/28623900 |journal=ResearchGate}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lelyveld |first=David |date=1993-01-01 |title=Colonial knowledge and the fate of Hindustani |url=https://www.academia.edu/2252261 |journal=Comparative Studies in Society and History|volume=35 |issue=4 |pages=665–682 |doi=10.1017/S0010417500018661 |s2cid=144180838 }}</ref> The conversion from Hindi to Urdu (or vice versa) is generally achieved by merely [[Hindi–Urdu transliteration|transliterating between the two scripts]]. Translation, on the other hand, is generally only required for religious and literary texts.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bhat |first1=Riyaz Ahmad |last2=Bhat |first2=Irshad Ahmad |last3=Jain |first3=Naman |last4=Sharma |first4=Dipti Misra |title=A House United: Bridging the Script and Lexical Barrier between Hindi and Urdu |url=http://irshadbhat.github.io/papers-pdf/house-united.pdf |publisher=Proceedings of COLING 2016, the 26th International Conference on Computational Linguistics |access-date=18 October 2021 |language=en |date=2016 |quote=Hindi and Urdu transliteration has received a lot of attention from the NLP research community of South Asia (Malik et al., 2008; Lehal and Saini, 2012; Lehal and Saini, 2014). It has been seen to break the barrier that makes the two look different.}}</ref>

Scholars trace the language's first written poetry, in the form of [[Old Hindi]], to the Delhi Sultanate era around the twelfth and thirteenth century.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/648298147|title=The Indo-Aryan languages|date=2007|publisher=Routledge|editor1=Dhanesh Jain |editor2=George Cardona |isbn=978-1-135-79711-9|location=London|oclc=648298147 |quote=Such an early date for the inception of a Hindi literature, one made possible only by subsuming the large body of Apabhraṁśa literature into Hindi, has not, however, been generally accepted by scholars (p. 279).}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Kachru |first=Yamuna |author-link=Yamuna Kachru |year=2006 |title=Hindi |location=Amsterdam |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing |quote=The period '''between 1000 AD-1200/1300 AD''' is designated the Old NIA stage because it is at this stage  that  the  NIA  languages  such  as  Assamese,  Bengali,  Gujarati, '''Hindi''', Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi assumed distinct identities (p. 1, emphasis added)}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Dua |first=Hans |year=2008 |chapter=Hindustani |editor1=Keith Brown |editor2=Sarah Ogilvie |title=Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World |pages=497–500 |location=Oxford |publisher=Elsevier |quote=Hindustani as a colloquial speech developed over almost seven centuries from '''1100''' to 1800 (p. 497, emphasis added).}}
</ref> During the period of the [[Delhi Sultanate]], which covered most of today's India, eastern Pakistan, southern Nepal and Bangladesh<ref>Chapman, Graham. "Religious vs. regional determinism: India, Pakistan and Bangladesh as inheritors of empire." Shared space: Divided space. Essays on conflict and territorial organization (1990): 106-134.</ref> and which resulted in the [[Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb|contact of Hindu and Muslim cultures]], the [[Sanskrit]] and [[Prakrit]] base of Old Hindi became enriched with loanwords from [[Persian language|Persian]], evolving into the present form of Hindustani.<ref name="Brill1993"/><ref name="Rekhta2020">{{cite web |title=Women of the Indian Sub-Continent: Makings of a Culture - Rekhta Foundation |url=https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/women-of-the-indian-sub-continent-makings-of-a-culture-rekhta-foundation/dwJy7qboNi3fIg?hl=en |publisher=[[Google Arts & Culture]] |access-date=25 February 2020 |language=en |quote=The "Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb" is one such instance of the composite culture that marks various regions of the country.  Prevalent in the North, particularly in the central plains, it is born of the union between the Hindu and Muslim cultures. Most of the temples were lined along the Ganges and the Khanqah (Sufi school of thought) were situated along the Yamuna river (also called Jamuna). Thus, it came to be known as the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb, with the word "tehzeeb" meaning culture. More than communal harmony, its most beautiful by-product was "Hindustani" which later gave us the Hindi and Urdu languages.}}</ref><ref name="MatthewsShackleHusain1985">{{cite book |last1=Matthews |first1=David John |last2=Shackle |first2=C. |last3=Husain |first3=Shahanara |title=Urdu literature |date=1985 |publisher=Urdu Markaz; Third World Foundation for Social and Economic Studies |isbn=978-0-907962-30-4 |language=en |quote=But with the establishment of Muslim rule in Delhi, it was the Old Hindi of this area which came to form the major partner with Persian. This variety of Hindi is called Khari Boli, 'the upright speech'.}}</ref><ref name="Dhulipala2000">{{cite book |last1=Dhulipala |first1=Venkat |title=The Politics of Secularism: Medieval Indian Historiography and the Sufis |date=2000 |publisher=[[University of Wisconsin–Madison]] |page=27 |language=en |quote=Persian became the court language, and many Persian words crept into popular usage. The composite culture of northern India, known as the Ganga Jamuni tehzeeb was a product of the interaction between Hindu society and Islam.}}</ref><ref name="IJSW1943">{{cite book |title=Indian Journal of Social Work, Volume 4 |date=1943 |publisher=[[Tata Institute of Social Sciences]] |page=264 |language=en |quote=... more words of Sanskrit origin but 75% of the vocabulary is common. It is also admitted that while this language is known as Hindustani, ... Muslims call it Urdu and the Hindus call it Hindi. ... Urdu is a national language evolved through years of Hindu and Muslim cultural contact and, as stated by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, is essentially an Indian language and has no place outside.}}</ref><ref name="Mody2008"/><ref name="Kesavan1997">{{cite book |last1=Kesavan |first1=B. S. |title=History Of Printing And Publishing In India |date=1997 |publisher=National Book Trust, India |isbn=978-81-237-2120-0 |page=31 |language=en |quote=It might be useful to recall here that Old Hindi or Hindavi, which was a naturally Persian- mixed language in the largest measure, has played this role before, as we have seen, for five or six centuries.}}</ref> The Hindustani vernacular became an expression of Indian national unity during the [[Indian independence movement|Indian Independence movement]],<ref name="Hock1991">{{cite book |author1=Hans Henrich Hock |title=Principles of Historical Linguistics |date=1991 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-012962-5 |page=475 |language=en |quote=During the time of British rule, Hindi (in its religiously neutral, 'Hindustani' variety) increasingly came to be the symbol of national unity over against the English of the foreign oppressor. And Hindustani was learned widely throughout India, even in Bengal and the Dravidian south. ... Independence had been accompanied by the division of former British India into two countries, Pakistan and India. The former had been established as a Muslim state and had made Urdu, the Muslim variety of Hindi–Urdu or Hindustani, its national language.|author1-link=Hans Henrich Hock }}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J3RSHWePhXwC&q=masica|title=The Indo-Aryan Languages|last=Masica|first=Colin P.|date=1993|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-29944-2|pages=430 (Appendix I)|language=en|quote=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; [see Khubchandani 1983: 90-1].}}</ref> and continues to be spoken as the common language of the people of the northern [[Indian subcontinent]],<ref name="Ashmore1961">{{cite book |last1=Ashmore |first1=Harry S. |title=Encyclopaedia Britannica: a new survey of universal knowledge, Volume 11 |date=1961 |publisher=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] |page=579 |language=en |quote=The everyday speech of well over 50,000,000 persons of all communities in the north of India and in West Pakistan is the expression of a common language, Hindustani.}}</ref> which is reflected in the [[Hindustani vocabulary]] of [[Bollywood]] films and songs.<ref name="Tunstall2008">{{cite book |last1=Tunstall |first1=Jeremy |title=The media were American: U.S. mass media in decline |date=2008 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-518146-3 |page=[https://archive.org/details/mediawereamerica0000tuns/page/160 160] |language=en |quote=The Hindi film industry used the most popular street level version of Hindi, namely Hindustani, which included a lot of Urdu and Persian words. |url=https://archive.org/details/mediawereamerica0000tuns/page/160 }}</ref><ref name="Hiro2015">{{cite book |last1=Hiro |first1=Dilip |title=The Longest August: The Unflinching Rivalry Between India and Pakistan |date=2015 |publisher=[[PublicAffairs]] |isbn=978-1-56858-503-1 |page=398 |language=en|quote=Spoken Hindi is akin to spoken Urdu, and that language is often called Hindustani. Bollywood's screenplays are written in Hindustani.}}</ref>

The language's core vocabulary is derived from [[Prakrit]] (a descendant of [[Sanskrit]]),<ref name="GubeGao2019">{{cite book |last1=Gube |first1=Jan |last2=Gao |first2=Fang |title=Education, Ethnicity and Equity in the Multilingual Asian Context |date=2019 |publisher=[[Springer Publishing]] |isbn=978-981-13-3125-1 |language=en |quote=The national language of India and Pakistan 'Standard Urdu' is mutually intelligible with 'Standard Hindi' because both languages share the same Indic base and are all but indistinguishable in phonology and grammar (Lust et al. 2000).}}</ref><ref name="DelacyAhmed2005"/><ref name="Ahmed2024">{{cite web |title=Ties between Urdu & Sanskrit deeply rooted: Scholar |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/ties-between-urdu-sanskrit-deeply-rooted-scholar/articleshow/108415962.cms |work=[[The Times of India]] |access-date=8 May 2024 |date=12 March 2024 |quote=The linguistic and cultural ties between Sanskrit and Urdu are deeply rooted and significant, said Ishtiaque Ahmed, registrar, Maula Azad National Urdu University during a two-day workshop titled "Introduction to Sanskrit for Urdu medium students". Ahmed said a substantial portion of Urdu's vocabulary and cultural capital, as well as its syntactic structure, is derived from Sanskrit.}}</ref><ref name="Kuiper2010">{{cite book |last1=Kuiper |first1=Kathleen |title=The Culture of India |date=2010 |publisher=[[Rosen Publishing]] |isbn=978-1-61530-149-2 |language=en |quote=Urdu is closely related to Hindi, a language that originated and developed in the Indian subcontinent. They share the same Indic base and are so similar in phonology and grammar that they appear to be one language.}}</ref><ref name="ChatterjiSiṃhaPadikkal1997">{{cite book |last1=Chatterji |first1=Suniti Kumar |last2=Siṃha |first2=Udaẏa Nārāẏana |last3=Padikkal |first3=Shivarama |title=Suniti Kumar Chatterji: a centenary tribute |date=1997 |publisher=Sahitya Akademi |isbn=978-81-260-0353-2 |language=en |quote=High Hindi written in Devanagari, having identical grammar with Urdu, employing the native Hindi or Hindustani (Prakrit) elements to the fullest, but for words of high culture, going to Sanskrit. Hindustani proper that represents the basic Khari Boli with vocabulary holding a balance between Urdu and High Hindi.}}</ref> with substantial [[Hindustani etymology|loanwords]] from Persian and [[Arabic]] (via Persian).<ref name="Brill1993"/><ref name="Draper2003">{{cite book |last1=Draper |first1=Allison Stark |title=India: A Primary Source Cultural Guide |date=2003 |publisher=[[Rosen Publishing Group]] |isbn=978-0-8239-3838-4 |language=en |quote=People in Delhi spoke Khari Boli, a language the British called Hindustani. It used an Indo-Aryan grammatical structure and numerous Persian "loan-words."}}</ref><ref name="Ahmad2002">{{cite book|last=Ahmad|first=Aijaz|title=Lineages of the Present: Ideology and Politics in Contemporary South Asia|year=2002|publisher=Verso|language=en|isbn=9781859843581|page=113|quote=On this there are far more reliable statistics than those on population. ''Farhang-e-Asafiya'' is by general agreement the most reliable Urdu dictionary. It twas compiled in the late nineteenth century by an Indian scholar little exposed to British or Orientalist scholarship. The lexicographer in question, Syed Ahmed Dehlavi, had no desire to sunder Urdu's relationship with Farsi, as is evident even from the title of his dictionary. He estimates that roughly 75 per cent of the total stock of 55,000 Urdu words that he compiled in his dictionary are derived from Sanskrit and Prakrit, and that the entire stock of the base words of the language, without exception, are derived from these sources. What distinguishes Urdu from a great many other Indian languauges ... is that is draws almost a quarter of its vocabulary from language communities to the west of India, such as Farsi, Turkish, and Tajik. Most of the little it takes from Arabic has not come directly but through Farsi.}}</ref><ref name="DelacyAhmed2005"/><ref name="Dalmia2017">{{cite book|last=Dalmia|first=Vasudha|title=Hindu Pasts: Women, Religion, Histories|date=31 July 2017|publisher=[[SUNY Press]]|language=en|isbn=9781438468075|page=310|quote=On the issue of vocabulary, Ahmad goes on to cite Syed Ahmad Dehlavi as he set about to compile the Farhang-e-Asafiya, an Urdu dictionary, in the late nineteenth century. Syed Ahmad 'had no desire to sunder Urdu's relationship with Farsi, as is evident from the title of his dictionary. He estimates that roughly 75 per cent of the total stock of 55.000 Urdu words that he compiled in his dictionary are derived from Sanskrit and Prakrit, and that the entire stock of the base words of the language, without exception, are from these sources' (2000: 112-13). As Ahmad points out, Syed Ahmad, as a member of Delhi's aristocratic elite, had a clear bias towards Persian and Arabic. His estimate of the percentage of Prakitic words in Urdu should therefore be considered more conservative than not. The actual proportion of Prakitic words in everyday language would clearly be much higher.}}</ref> It is often written in the [[Devanagari|Devanagari script]] or the Arabic-derived [[Urdu script]] in the case of Hindi and Urdu respectively, with [[Hindi–Urdu transliteration|romanization]] increasingly employed in modern times as a neutral script.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Brandt |first1=Carmen |last2=Sohoni |first2=Pushkar |date=2018-01-02 |title=Script and identity – the politics of writing in South Asia: an introduction |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19472498.2017.1411048 |journal=South Asian History and Culture |language=en |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=1–15 |doi=10.1080/19472498.2017.1411048 |s2cid=148802248 |issn=1947-2498|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brandt |first=Carmen |date=2020-01-01 |title=From a Symbol of Colonial Conquest to the Scripta Franca: The Roman Script for South Asian Languages |url=https://www.academia.edu/44049525 |journal=Academia}}</ref>

As of 2025, [[Hindi]] and [[Urdu]] together constitute the [[List of languages by total number of speakers|3rd-most-spoken language in the world]] after [[English language|English]] and [[Mandarin Chinese|Mandarin]], with 855 million native and second-language speakers, according to ''[[Ethnologue]]'',<ref>Not considering whether speakers may be bilingual in Hindi and Urdu. {{Cite web|url=https://www.ethnologue.com/insights/ethnologue200/|title=What are the top 200 most spoken languages?|website=Ethnologue|date=2025|access-date=2025-05-11}}</ref> though this includes millions who self-reported their language as 'Hindi' on the Indian census but speak a number of other [[Hindi languages]] than Hindustani.<ref>{{cite web|title=Scheduled Languages in descending order of speaker's strength - 2011|url=http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011Census/Language-2011/Statement-1.pdf|publisher=[[Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India]]|date=29 June 2018}}</ref> The total number of Hindi–Urdu speakers was reported to be over 300 million in 1995, making Hindustani the third- or fourth-most spoken language in the world.<ref name="Gambhir1995">{{cite book |last1=Gambhir |first1=Vijay |title=The Teaching and Acquisition of South Asian Languages |date=1995 |publisher=[[University of Pennsylvania Press]]|isbn=978-0-8122-3328-5 |language=en |quote=The position of Hindi–Urdu among the languages of the world is anomalous. The number of its proficient speakers, over three hundred million, places it in third of fourth place after Mandarin, English, and perhaps Spanish.}}</ref><ref name="DelacyAhmed2005">{{cite book |last1=Delacy |first1=Richard |last2=Ahmed |first2=Shahara |title=Hindi, Urdu & Bengali |date=2005 |publisher=Lonely Planet |pages=11–12 |quote=Hindi and Urdu are generally considered to be one spoken language with two different literary traditions. That means that Hindi and Urdu speakers who shop in the same markets (and watch the same Bollywood films) have no problems understanding each other.}}</ref>

==History==
{{Main|History of Hindustani}}{{See also|Persian language in the Indian subcontinent}}
Early forms of present-day Hindustani developed from the [[Middle Indo-Aryan languages|Middle Indo-Aryan]] ''[[apabhraṃśa]]'' [[vernacular]]s of present-day [[North India]] in the 7th–13th centuries.<ref name="Brill1993">{{cite book|title=First Encyclopaedia of Islam: 1913-1936|year=1993|publisher=[[Brill Academic Publishers]]|language=en|isbn=9789004097964|page=1024|quote=Whilst the Muhammadan rulers of India spoke Persian, which enjoyed the prestige of being their court language, the common language of the country continued to be Hindi, derived through Prakrit from Sanskrit. On this dialect of the common people was grafted the Persian language, which brought a new language, Urdu, into existence. Sir George Grierson, in the Linguistic Survey of India, assigns no distinct place to Urdu, but treats it as an offshoot of Western Hindi.}}</ref><ref name="Mody2008">{{cite book |last1=Mody |first1=Sujata Sudhakar |title=Literature, Language, and Nation Formation: The Story of a Modern Hindi Journal 1900-1920 |date=2008 |publisher=University of California, Berkeley |page=7 |language=en |quote=...Hindustani, Rekhta, and Urdu as later names of the old Hindi (a.k.a. Hindavi).}}</ref> Hindustani emerged as a contact language around the [[Western Uttar Pradesh|Ganges-Yamuna Doab]] ([[Delhi]], [[Meerut]] and [[Saharanpur]]), a result of the increasing linguistic diversity that occurred during the [[Muslim period in the Indian subcontinent]].<ref name="Britannica2000"/><ref>{{cite book|editor=Kathleen Kuiper|year=2011 |title=The Culture of India|publisher=[[Rosen Publishing]]|language=en|isbn=9781615301492|page=80|quote=Hindustani began to develop during the 13th century AD in and around the Indian cities of Dehli and Meerut in response to the increasing linguistic diversity that resulted from Muslim hegemony.}}</ref> [[Amir Khusrow]], who lived in the thirteenth century during the [[Delhi Sultanate]] period in North India, used these forms (which was the ''lingua franca'' of the period) in his writings and referred to it as ''Hindavi'' ({{langx|fa|ھندوی|lit=of ''Hindus'' or Indians}}).<ref name="brown2008">{{Citation |title=Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World |author1=Keith Brown |author2=Sarah Ogilvie |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-08-087774-7 |publisher=Elsevier |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=F2SRqDzB50wC |quote=Apabhramsha seemed to be in a state of transition from Middle Indo-Aryan to the New Indo-Aryan stage. Some elements of Hindustani appear ... the distinct form of the lingua franca Hindustani appears in the writings of Amir Khusro (1253–1325), who called it Hindwi[.]}}</ref><ref name="Kesavan1997"/> By the end of the century, the military exploits of [[Alauddin Khalji]], introduced the language in the [[Deccan Plateau|Deccan]] region, which led to the development of its southern dialect [[Deccani language|Deccani]], which was promoted by Muslim rulers in the Deccan.<ref name="Prakāśaṃ">{{cite book|last1=Prakāśaṃ|first1=Vennelakaṇṭi|title=Encyclopaedia of the Linguistic Sciences: Issues and Theories|date=2008|publisher=Allied Publishers|isbn=9788184242799|page=186|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9WroLC__7EUC&pg=PA185|quote=In Deccan the dialect developed and flourished independently. It is here that it received, among others, the name Dakkhni. The kings of many independent kingdoms such as Bahmani, Ādil Shahi and Qutb Shahi that came into being in Deccan patronized the dialect. It was elevated as the official language.}}</ref>{{Sfn|Mustafa|2008|p=185}} The Delhi Sultanate, which comprised several [[Turkic peoples|Turkic]] and [[demographics of Afghanistan|Afghan]] dynasties that ruled much of the subcontinent from Delhi,<ref name=Gat>{{cite book|last1=Gat|first1=Azar|author-link1=Azar Gat|last2=Yakobson|first2=Alexander|author-link2=Alexander Yakobson|title=Nations: The Long History and Deep Roots of Political Ethnicity and Nationalism|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=HK8TulTJpGAC&pg=PA126|year=2013|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-00785-7|page=126}}</ref> was succeeded by the [[Mughal Empire]] in 1526 and preceded by the [[Ghorid dynasty]] and [[Ghaznavid Empire]] before that.

Ancestors of the language were known as ''Hindui'', ''Hindavi'', ''Zabān-e [[Hindustan|Hind]]'' ({{Translation|'Language of India'}}), ''Zabān-e [[Hindustan]]'' ({{Translation|'Language of Hindustan'}}), ''Hindustan ki boli'' ({{Translation|'Language of Hindustan'}}), [[Rekhta]], and Hindi.<ref name="siddiqi1994">{{Citation | title=Hindustani-English code-mixing in modern literary texts | author=Mohammad Tahsin Siddiqi | year=1994 | publisher=University of Wisconsin | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vnrTAAAAMAAJ | quote=... Hindustani is the lingua franca of both India and Pakistan ...}}</ref><ref name="pulsipher2005">{{Citation | title=World Regional Geography: Global Patterns, Local Lives |author1=Lydia Mihelič Pulsipher |author2=Alex Pulsipher |author3=Holly M. Hapke | year=2005 | isbn=978-0-7167-1904-5 | publisher=Macmillan | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WfNaSNNAppQC | quote=... By the time of British colonialism, Hindustani was the ''lingua franca'' of all of northern India and what is today Pakistan ...}}</ref> Its regional dialects became known as ''Zabān-e Dakhani'' in southern India, ''Zabān-e Gujari'' ({{Translation|'Language of Gujars'}}) in Gujarat, and as ''Zabān-e Dehlavi'' or Urdu around Delhi. It is an [[Indo-Aryan languages|Indo-Aryan language]], deriving its base from the [[Central Indo-Aryan languages#Languages|Western Hindi]] dialect of the [[Western Uttar Pradesh|Ganges-Yamuna Doab]] ([[Delhi]], [[Meerut]] and [[Saharanpur]]) known as [[Kauravi dialect|Khariboli]]—the contemporary form being classed under the umbrella of [[Old Hindi]].<ref name="Elsevier2010">{{cite book |title=Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World |date=2010 |publisher=Elsevier |isbn=978-0-08-087775-4 |page=497 |language=en |quote=Hindustani is a Central Indo-Aryan language based on Khari Boli (Khaṛi Boli). Its origin, development, and function reflect the dynamics of the sociolinguistic contact situation from which it emerged as a colloquial speech. It is inextricably linked with the emergence and standardisation of Urdu and Hindi.}}</ref><ref name="WilliamsMalhotraHawley2018">{{cite book |last1=Williams |first1=Tyler |last2=Malhotra |first2=Anshu |last3=Hawley |first3=John S. |title=Text and Tradition in Early Modern North India |date=3 January 2018 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-909167-6 |language=en|quote=These traditions intensively fed into each other and can be perceived as forming a 'super-tradition', which with a modern, heuristic term is called Old Hindi.}}</ref><ref name="Britannica2000"/>

Although the Mughals were of [[Timurid dynasty|Timurid]] (''Gurkānī'') [[Turco-Mongol tradition|Turco-Mongol]] descent,<ref name="Thackston">{{Citation |title=The Baburnama: Memoirs of Babur, Prince and Emperor |publisher=Modern Library Classics |isbn=978-0-375-76137-9 |date=10 September 2002 |author=Zahir ud-Din Mohammad |editor=Thackston, Wheeler M. |quote=Note: ''Gurkānī'' is the Persianized form of the Mongolian word "kürügän" ("son-in-law"), the title given to the dynasty's founder after his marriage into [[Genghis Khan]]'s family. |url= https://archive.org/details/babarinizam00babu }}</ref> they were [[Persianization|Persianised]], and Persian had gradually become the state language of the Mughal empire after [[Babur]].<ref name="EI">B.F. Manz, ''"Tīmūr Lang"'', in [[Encyclopaedia of Islam]], Online Edition, 2006</ref><ref name="Britannica">''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'', "[https://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9072546/Timurid-Dynasty Timurid Dynasty]", Online Academic Edition, 2007. (Quotation: "Turkic dynasty descended from the conqueror Timur (Tamerlane), renowned for its brilliant revival of artistic and intellectual life in Iran and Central Asia. ... Trading and artistic communities were brought into the capital city of Herat, where a library was founded, and the capital became the centre of a renewed and artistically brilliant Persian culture.")</ref><ref name="Columbia">{{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia = The Columbia Encyclopedia |title = Timurids |url = http://www.bartleby.com/65/ti/Timurids.html |edition = Sixth |publisher = [[Columbia University]] |location = New York City |access-date = 8 November 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20061205073939/http://bartleby.com/65/ti/Timurids.html |archive-date = 5 December 2006 |df = dmy-all }}</ref><ref>''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'' article: [https://www.britannica.com/eb/article-26937/Islamic-world Consolidation & expansion of the Indo-Timurids], Online Edition, 2007.</ref> Mughal patronage led to a continuation and reinforcement of Persian by Central Asian [[Turkic peoples|Turkic]] rulers in the Indian Subcontinent,<ref>{{cite book|last1=Bennett|first1=Clinton|author-link1=Clinton Bennett|last2=Ramsey|first2=Charles M.|title=South Asian Sufis: Devotion, Deviation, and Destiny|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=EQJHAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA18|year=2012|publisher=A&C Black|isbn=978-1-4411-5127-8|page=18}}</ref> since Persian was also patronized by the earlier Turko-Afghan Delhi Sultanate who laid the basis for the introduction and use of Persian in the subcontinent.<ref>{{cite book|last=Laet|first=Sigfried J. de Laet|author-link=Sigfried J. de Laet|title=History of Humanity: From the seventh to the sixteenth century|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=PvlthkbFU1UC&pg=PA734|year=1994|publisher=UNESCO|isbn=978-92-3-102813-7|page=734}}</ref>

Hindustani began to take shape as a Persianised vernacular during the [[Delhi Sultanate]] (1206–1526 AD) and [[Mughal Empire]] (1526–1858 AD) in [[South Asia]].<ref name="Taj"/> Hindustani retained the [[Hindustani grammar|grammar]], as well as the [[Hindustani vocabulary|core Sanskritic and Prakritic vocabulary]], of the local Indian language of the Ganges-Yamuna Doab called [[Kauravi dialect|Khariboli]].<ref name="Britannica2000">{{cite book |title=Students' Britannica India |date=2000 |publisher=[[Encyclopaedia Britannica]] |page=299 |language=en |quote=Hindustani developed as lingua franca in the medieval ages in and around Delhi, Meerut and Saharanpur because of the interaction between the speakers of ''Khariboli'' (a dialect developed in this region out of Shauraseni Prakrit) and the speakers of Persian , Turkish , and various dialects of Arabic who migrated to North India. Initially it was known by various names such as ''Rekhta'' (mixed), ''Urdu'' (language of the camp) and ''Hindvi'' or ''Hindustani'' (language of Hindustan). Though ''Khariboli'' supplied its basic vocabulary and grammar, it borrowed quite a lot of words from Persian and Arabic}}</ref><ref name="Brill1993"/><ref name="Taj">{{cite web |last1=Taj |first1=Afroz |title=About Hindi-Urdu |url=http://www.unc.edu/~taj/abturdu.htm |publisher=[[The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill]] |access-date=30 June 2019 |language=en |date=1997 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100419162950/http://www.unc.edu/~taj/abturdu.htm |archive-date=19 April 2010 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Strnad2013">{{cite book |last1=Strnad |first1=Jaroslav |title=Morphology and Syntax of Old Hindī: Edition and Analysis of One Hundred Kabīr vānī Poems from Rājasthān |date=2013 |publisher=[[Brill Academic Publishers]] |isbn=978-90-04-25489-3 |language=en |quote=Quite different group of nouns occurring with the ending ''-a'' in the dir. plural consists of words of Arabic or Persian origin borrowed by the Old Hindi with their Persian plural endings.}}</ref><ref name="Grajcar2024">{{cite web |last1=Grajcar |first1=Rhône |title=In Delhi, an Urdu Wala, and a 'Dying' Language's Quiet, Vibrant Life |url=https://mangoprism.com/in-delhi-an-urdu-wala-and-a-dying-languages-quiet-vibrant-life/ |publisher=Mangoprism |access-date=15 October 2024 |language=en |date=6 February 2024 |quote=But those who make this claim focus more on the fate of Urdu in its place of origin, the Doab plains between the Ganga and Jamuna rivers of Northern India.}}</ref> However, as an emerging common dialect, Hindustani absorbed large numbers of Persian, Arabic, and Turkic loanwords, and as Mughal conquests grew it spread as a lingua franca across much of northern India; this was a result of the [[Hindu-Muslim unity|contact of Hindu and Muslim cultures]] in Hindustan that created a composite [[Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb]].<ref name="Dhulipala2000"/><ref name="Rekhta2020"/><ref name="IJSW1943"/><ref name="Farooqi2012">{{cite book |last1=Farooqi |first1=M. |title=Urdu Literary Culture: Vernacular Modernity in the Writing of Muhammad Hasan Askari |date=2012 |publisher=[[Springer Publishing|Springer]]|isbn=978-1-137-02692-7 |language=en |quote=Historically speaking, Urdu grew out of interaction between Hindus and Muslims.}}</ref> The language was also known as ''[[Rekhta]]'', or 'mixed', which implies that the Sanskritic and Prakritic vocabulary base of Old Hindi was mixed with Persian loanwords.<ref name="Strnad2013"/><ref name="Brill1993"/><ref name="MatthewsShackleHusain1985"/><ref name="Britannica2000"/><ref>{{ELL2|Hindustani}}</ref><ref name="Ayres2009">{{cite book|author=Alyssa Ayres|title=Speaking Like a State: Language and Nationalism in Pakistan|url=https://archive.org/details/speakinglikestat00ayre|url-access=limited|date=23 July 2009|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-51931-1|pages=[https://archive.org/details/speakinglikestat00ayre/page/n32 19]–}}</ref> Written in the [[Urdu alphabet|Perso-Arabic]], [[Devanagari]],<ref name="mcgregor_912">{{cite book|last=Pollock|first=Sheldon|author-link=Sheldon Pollock|title=Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=xowUxYhv0QgC&pg=RA1-PA912|year=2003|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-22821-4|page=912}}</ref> and occasionally [[Kaithi]] or [[Gurmukhi]] scripts,<ref name="Wayback Machine">{{cite web|url=http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00urduhindilinks/workshop2012/bangha_rekhta.pdf|title=Rekhta: Poetry in Mixed Language, The Emergence of Khari Boli Literature in North India|publisher=[[Columbia University]]|access-date=23 April 2018|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160328003510/http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00urduhindilinks/workshop2012/bangha_rekhta.pdf|archive-date=28 March 2016}}</ref> it remained the primary lingua franca of northern India for the next four centuries, although it varied significantly in vocabulary depending on the local language. Alongside Persian, it achieved the status of a literary language in Muslim courts and was also used for literary purposes in various other settings such as [[Sufi]], [[sant (religion)|Nirgun Sant]], [[bhakti|Krishna Bhakta]] circles, and [[Rajput]] Hindu courts. Its majors centres of development included the Mughal courts of Delhi, [[Lucknow]], [[Agra]] and [[Lahore]] as well as the Rajput courts of [[Kingdom of Amber|Amber]] and [[Jaipur]].<ref name="Wayback Machine" />

In the 18th century, towards the end of the Mughal period, with the fragmentation of the empire and the elite system, a variant of Hindustani, one of the successors of [[apabhraṃśa]] vernaculars at Delhi, and nearby cities, came to gradually replace Persian as the [[lingua franca]] among the educated elite [[upper class]] particularly in northern India, though Persian still retained much of its pre-eminence for a short period. The term ''Hindustani'' was given to that language.<ref>
Nijhawan, S. 2016. "Hindi, Urdu or Hindustani? Revisiting 'National Language' Debates through Radio Broadcasting in Late Colonial India." ''[[South Asia Research]]'' 36(1):80–97. {{doi|10.1177/0262728015615486}}.</ref> The Perso-Arabic script form of this language underwent a standardisation process and further Persianisation during this period (18th century) and came to be known as Urdu, a name derived from Persian: ''Zabān-e Urdū-e Mualla'' ('language of the court') or ''Zabān-e Urdū'' ({{lang|fa|زبان اردو}}, 'language of the camp'). The etymology of the word ''Urdu'' is of [[Chagatai language|Chagatai]] origin, ''Ordū'' ('camp'), cognate with English ''[[wikt:horde|horde]]'', and known in local translation as ''Lashkari Zabān'' ({{lang|inc-Aran|{{nq|لشکری زبان}}|rtl=yes}}),<ref>Khalid, Kanwal. "Lahore During the Ghanavid Period".</ref> which is shortened to ''Lashkari'' ({{Lang|ur|{{nq|لشکری}}|rtl=yes}}).<ref name="Ahmad2009">{{cite book|author=Aijazuddin Ahmad|title=Geography of the South Asian Subcontinent: A Critical Approach|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I2QmPHeIowoC&pg=PA120|year=2009|publisher=Concept Publishing Company|isbn=978-81-8069-568-1|pages=120–}}</ref> This is all due to its origin as the common speech of the Mughal army. As a literary language, Urdu took shape in courtly, elite settings. Along with English, it became an official language of northern parts of [[British India]] in 1837.<ref name="Coatsworth2015">{{Cite book|url=http://www.overstock.com/Books-Movies-Music-Games/Global-Connections-Politics-Exchange-and-Social-Life-in-World-History-Hardcover/9911619/product.html#more|title=Global Connections: Politics, Exchange, and Social Life in World History|last=Coatsworth|first=John|publisher=Cambridge Univ Pr|year=2015|isbn=9780521761062|location=United States|pages=159}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|author=Tariq Rahman|author-link=Tariq Rahman|date=2011|title=Urdu as the Language of Education in British India|url=http://www.nihcr.edu.pk/Latest_English_Journal/1.%20URDU%20AS%20THE%20LANGUAGE,%20Tariq%20Rahman%20FINAL.pdf|journal=Pakistan Journal of History and Culture|publisher=NIHCR|volume=32|issue=2|pages=1–42}}</ref>

Hindi as a standardised literary [[register (sociolinguistics)|register]] of the Hindustani arose in the 19th century. While the first literary works (mostly translations of earlier works) in Sanskritised Hindustani were already written in the early 19th century as part of a literary project that included both Hindu and Muslim writers (e.g. [[Lallu Lal]], [[Insha Allah Khan]]), the call for a distinct Sanskritised standard of Hindustani written in Devanagari under the name of Hindi became increasingly politicised in the course of the century and gained pace around 1880 in an effort to displace Urdu's official position.<ref>{{cite book| last=King |first=Christopher R. |year=1994 |title=One Language, Two Scripts: The Hindi Movement in Nineteenth Century North India |location=New Delhi |publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref>

[[John Fletcher Hurst]] in his book published in 1891 mentioned that the Hindustani or camp language of the [[Mughal Empire]]'s courts at Delhi was not regarded by philologists as a distinct language but only as a dialect of [[Central Zone (Hindi)|Hindi]] with admixture of Persian. He continued: "But it has all the magnitude and importance of separate language. It is linguistic result of Muslim rule of eleventh & twelfth centuries and is spoken by many [[Hindu]]s in [[North India]] and by [[Muslim|Musalman]] population in all parts of India." Next to English it was the official language of [[British Raj|British Indian Empire]], was commonly written in Arabic or Persian characters, and was spoken by approximately 100,000,000 people.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hurst|first=John Fletcher|author-link=John Fletcher Hurst|title=Indika, The country and People of India and Ceylon|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=j_1ykl3ZHXcC&pg=PA344|year=1992|publisher=Concept Publishing Company|page=344|id=GGKEY:P8ZHWWKEKAJ}}</ref> The process of hybridization also led to the formation of words in which the first element of the compound was from Khari Boli and the second from [[Persian language|Persian]], such as ''rajmahal'' 'palace' (''raja'' 'royal, king' + ''mahal'' 'house, place') and ''rangmahal'' 'fashion house' (''rang'' 'colour, dye' + ''mahal'' 'house, place').<ref name="Britannica2022">{{Cite web |date=2022-04-01 |title=Hindustani language: Origins & Vocabulary |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hindustani-language |archive-url=https://archive.today/20220401050423/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hindustani-language |url-status=dead |archive-date=2022-04-01 |access-date=2022-04-17 |website=archive.ph}}</ref> As [[Islamic rulers in the Indian subcontinent|Muslim rule]] expanded, Hindustani speakers traveled to distant parts of India as administrators, soldiers, merchants, and artisans. As it reached new areas, Hindustani further hybridized with local languages. In the [[Deccan Plateau|Deccan]], for instance, [[Hindustani grammar|Hindustani]] blended with [[Telugu language|Telugu]] and came to be called [[Deccani language|Dakhani]]. In Dakhani, aspirated consonants were replaced with their unaspirated counterparts; for instance, ''dekh'' 'see' became ''dek'', ''ghula'' 'dissolved' became ''gula'', ''kuch'' 'some' became ''kuc'', and ''samajh'' 'understand' became ''samaj''.<ref name="Britannica2022"/>

When the British colonised the [[Indian subcontinent]] from the late 18th through to the late 19th century, they used the words 'Hindustani', 'Hindi', and 'Urdu' interchangeably. They developed it as the language of administration of [[British India]],<ref name="books.google.co.uk">{{cite book|last=Coulmas|first=Florian|author-link=Florian Coulmas|title=Writing Systems: An Introduction to Their Linguistic Analysis|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=kmKLxzTnL9IC&pg=PA232|year=2003|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-78737-6|page=232}}</ref> further preparing it to be the official language of modern India and Pakistan. However, with independence, use of the word 'Hindustani' declined, being largely replaced by 'Hindi' and 'Urdu', or 'Hindi–Urdu' when either of those was too specific.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Masica |first=Colin |title=The Indo-Aryan Languages |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1991 |pages=430 |quote=after Partition in 1947 and subsequent linguistic polarization it [Hindustani] fell into disfavor; census of 1951 registered an enormous decline (86-98 per cent) in no. of persons declaring it as their mother language}}</ref> More recently, the word 'Hindustani' has been used for the colloquial language of [[Bollywood]] films, which are popular in both India and Pakistan and which cannot be unambiguously identified as either Hindi or Urdu.

British rule over India also introduced some English words into Hindustani, with these [[Englishization|influences]] increasing with the later spread of English as a world language. This has created a new variant of Hindustani known as [[Hinglish]] or [[Urdish]].<ref name="Coleman2014">{{cite book |last1=Coleman |first1=Julie |title=Global English Slang: Methodologies and Perspectives |date=10 January 2014 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-93476-9 |page=130 |language=en |quote=Within India, however, other regional forms exist, all denoting a mixing of English with indigenous languages. ''Bonglish'' (derived from the slang term ''Bong'' 'a Bengali') or ''Benglish'' refers to 'a mixture of Bengali and English', ''Gunglish'' or ''Gujlish'' 'Gujarati + English', ''Kanglish'' 'Kannada + English', ''Manglish'' 'Malayalam + English', ''Marlish'' 'Marathi + English', ''Tamlish'' or ''Tanglish'' 'Tamil + English' and ''Urdish'' 'Urdu + English'. These terms are found in texts on regional variations of Indian English, usually in complaint-tradition discussions of failing standards of language purity.}}</ref><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4" /><ref name=":5" />

==Registers==
{{See also|Hindi–Urdu controversy|Register (sociolinguistics)|digraphia}}
At the spoken level, Hindi and Urdu are considered [[register (sociolinguistics)|registers]] of a single language, Hindustani or Hindi–Urdu, as they share a common [[Hindustani grammar|grammar]] and core vocabulary,<ref name="Basu2017">{{cite book|last1=Basu|first1=Manisha|title=The Rhetoric of Hindutva|date=2017|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|isbn=978-1-107-14987-8|language=en|quote=Urdu, like Hindi, was a standardized register of the Hindustani language deriving from the Dehlavi dialect and emerged in the eighteenth century under the rule of the late Mughals.}}</ref><ref name="GubeGao2019"/><ref name="PeterDass2019">{{cite book|last1=Peter-Dass|first1=Rakesh|title=Hindi Christian Literature in Contemporary India|date=2019|publisher=[[Routledge]]|isbn=978-1-00-070224-8|language=en|quote=Two forms of the same language, Nagarai Hindi and Persianized Hindi (Urdu) had identical grammar, shared common words and roots, and employed different scripts.}}</ref><ref name="Kuiper2010"/><ref name="DelacyAhmed2005"/> they differ in literary and formal vocabulary; where literary Hindi draws heavily on Sanskrit and to a lesser extent [[Prakrit]], literary Urdu draws heavily on Persian and Arabic loanwords.<ref name="JainCardona2007">{{cite book |last1=Jain |first1=Danesh |last2=Cardona |first2=George |title=The Indo-Aryan Languages |date=2007 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-79711-9 |language=en |quote=The primary sources of non-IA loans into MSH are Arabic, Persian, Portuguese, Turkic and English. Conversational registers of Hindi/Urdu (not to mentioned formal registers of Urdu) employ large numbers of Persian and Arabic loanwords, although in Sanskritized registers many of these words are replaced by ''tatsama'' forms from Sanskrit. The Persian and Arabic lexical elements in Hindi result from the effects of centuries of Islamic administrative rule over much of north India in the centuries before the establishment of British rule in India. Although it is conventional to differentiate among Persian and Arabic loan elements into Hindi/Urdu, in practice it is often difficult to separate these strands from one another. The Arabic (and also Turkic) lexemes borrowed into Hindi frequently were mediated through Persian, as a result of which a throrough intertwining of Persian and Arabic elements took place, as manifest by such phenomena as hybrid compounds and compound words. Moreover, although the dominant trajectory of lexical borrowing was from Arabic into Persian, and thence into Hindi/Urdu, examples can be found of words that in origin are actually Persian loanwords into both Arabic and Hindi/Urdu.}}</ref> The grammar and base vocabulary (most pronouns, verbs, adpositions, etc.) of both Hindi and Urdu, however, are the same and derive from a Prakritic base, and both have Persian/Arabic influence.<ref name="PeterDass2019"/>
[[File:A grammar of the Hindustani language (IA dli.csl.7322).pdf|thumb|A grammar of the Hindustani language, published 1843]]
[[File:Trilingual road sign in India.png|thumb|A road sign using Hindi, Urdu, and English.]]
The standardised registers Hindi and Urdu are collectively known as ''Hindi–Urdu''.<ref name="NCSU-Hindustani"/> Hindustani is the ''[[lingua franca]]'' of the north and west of the [[Indian subcontinent]], though it is understood fairly well in other regions also, especially in the urban areas.<ref name="siddiqi1994"/> This has led it to be characterised as a continuum that ranges between Hindi and Urdu.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Rahman|first=Tariq|url=http://www.tariqrahman.net/content/hindiurdu1.pdf|title=From Hindi to Urdu: A Social and Political History|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2011|pages=99|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141010094507/http://www.tariqrahman.net/content/hindiurdu1.pdf|archive-date=10 October 2014}}</ref> A common vernacular sharing characteristics with Sanskritised Hindi, regional Hindi and Urdu, Hindustani is more commonly used as a vernacular than highly Sanskritised Hindi or highly Persianised Urdu.<ref name="Ashmore1961"/>

This can be seen in the popular culture of [[Bollywood]] or, more generally, the vernacular of North Indians and Pakistanis, which generally employs a lexicon common to both Hindi and Urdu speakers.<ref name="Hiro2015"/> Minor subtleties in region will also affect the 'brand' of Hindustani, sometimes pushing the Hindustani closer to Urdu or to Hindi. One might reasonably assume that the Hindustani spoken in [[Lucknow]], [[Uttar Pradesh]] (known for its usage of Urdu) and [[Varanasi]] (a holy city for Hindus and thus using highly Sanskritised Hindi) is somewhat different.<ref name="NCSU-Hindustani"/>

===Standard Hindi===
{{Main|Hindi}}
Standard Hindi, one of the [[official languages of India|22 officially recognized languages of India]] and the [[official language]] of the Union, is usually written in the indigenous [[Devanagari]] script of India and exhibits less Persian and Arabic influence than Urdu. It has a literature of 500 years, with prose, poetry, religion and philosophy. One could conceive of a wide spectrum of dialects and registers, with the highly Persianised Urdu at one end of the spectrum and a heavily Sanskritised variety spoken in the region around [[Varanasi]], at the other end. In common usage in India, the term ''Hindi'' includes all these dialects except those at the Urdu spectrum. Thus, the different meanings of the word ''Hindi'' include, among others:{{Citation needed|date=May 2022}}
# standardized Hindi as taught in schools throughout India (except some states such as Tamil Nadu),
# formal or official Hindi advocated by [[Purushottam Das Tandon]] and as instituted by the post-independence Indian government, heavily influenced by Sanskrit,
# the vernacular dialects of Hindustani as spoken throughout India,
# the neutralized form of Hindustani used in popular television and films (which is nearly identical to colloquial Urdu), or
# the more formal neutralized form of Hindustani used in television and print news reports.

===Standard Urdu===
{{Main|Urdu}}
[[File:Zaban urdu mualla.png|thumb|The phrase ''Zabān-e Urdu-ye Mualla'' in [[Nastaʿlīq]]]]
Urdu is the [[national language]] and [[state language]] of Pakistan and one of the [[official languages of India|22 officially recognised languages of India]]. It is written, except in some parts of India, in the [[Nastaliq]] style of the [[Urdu alphabet]], an extended Perso-Arabic script incorporating Indic phonemes. It is heavily influenced by [[Dari Persian|Persian]] vocabulary and was historically also known as [[Rekhta]].
[[File:Lashkari Zaban calligraphy.png|thumb|''Lashkari Zabān'' title in the Perso-Arabic script]]
As [[Dakhini]] (or Deccani) where it also draws words from local languages, it survives and enjoys a rich history in the [[Deccan]] and other parts of [[South India]], with the prestige dialect being [[Hyderabadi Urdu]] spoken in and around the capital of the [[Nizams of Hyderabad|Nizams]] and the [[Deccan Sultanates]].

Earliest forms of the language's literature may be traced back to the 13th-14th century works of [[Amir Khusrau|Amīr Khusrau Dehlavī]], often called the "father of [[Urdu literature]]" while [[Wali Dakhni|Walī Deccani]] is seen as the progenitor of [[Urdu poetry]].

===Bazaar Hindustani===
The term ''[[bazaar]] Hindustani'', in other words, the 'street talk' or literally 'marketplace Hindustani', also known as ''Colloquial Hindi''{{efn|<ref>{{Cite book |last=Agnihotri |first=Rama Kant |title=Hindi: an essential grammar |date=2007 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-35671-8 |edition=1. publ |series=Essential grammars |location=London |pages=05 |language=en}}</ref> ([[Hindi]]: बोलचाल हिन्दी, [[Urdu]]: بول چال ہندی)}} or ''Simplified Urdu'',{{efn|<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Shackle |first1=C. |title=Hindi and Urdu since 1800: a common reader |last2=Snell |first2=Rupert |publisher=Heritage Publishers |year=1990 |isbn=978-81-7026-162-9 |location=New Delhi, India |pages=09 |language=en, hi, ur}}</ref> ([[Hindi]]: आसान उर्दू, [[Urdu]]: آسان اردو)}} has arisen to denote a colloquial register of the language that uses vocabulary common to both Hindi and Urdu while eschewing high-register and specialized Arabic or Sanskrit derived words.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=King |first=Robert D. |date=2001-01-10 |title=The poisonous potency of script: Hindi and Urdu |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/ijsl.2001.035 |journal=International Journal of the Sociology of Language |issue=150 |doi=10.1515/ijsl.2001.035 |issn=0165-2516|url-access=subscription }}</ref> It has emerged in various South Asian cities where Hindustani is not the main language, in order to facilitate communication across language barriers. It is characterized by loanwords from local languages.<ref>Smith, Ian (2008). "Pidgins, Creoles, and Bazaar Hindi". In Kachru, Braj B; Kachru, Yamuna; Sridhar, S.N (eds.). ''Language in South Asia''. Cambridge University Press. pp. 254. {{ISBN|1139465503}}</ref>

==Names==
[[Amir Khusro]] {{circa|1300}} referred to this language of his writings as ''Dehlavi'' ({{lang|inc-Deva|देहलवी}} / {{lang|inc-Aran|{{nq|دہلوی}}}}, 'of Delhi') or ''Hindavi'' ({{lang|inc-Deva|हिन्दवी}} / {{lang|inc-Aran|{{nq|ہندوی}}}}). During this period, Hindustani was used by [[Sufis]] in promulgating their message across the [[Indian subcontinent]].{{citation needed|date=January 2023}} After the advent of the [[Mughal Empire|Mughals]] in the subcontinent, Hindustani acquired more Persian loanwords. ''[[Rekhta]]'' ('mixture'), ''Hindi'' ('Indian'), Hindustani, Hindvi, [[Lahori]], and [[Dakni]] (amongst others) became popular names for the same language until the 18th century.<ref name="mcgregor_912"/><ref name="faruqi_806">{{citation|last=Faruqi|first=Shamsur Rahman|title=Literary cultures in history: reconstructions from South Asia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xowUxYhv0QgC&q=0520228219&pg=PA806|page=806|year=2003|publisher=University of California Press |editor-last=Pollock|contribution=A Long History of Urdu Literarature, Part 1|isbn=978-0-520-22821-4}}</ref> The name ''Urdu'' (from ''Zabān-i-Ordu'', or ''Orda'') appeared around 1780.<ref name="faruqi_806" /> It is believed to have been coined by the poet [[Mashafi]].<ref>Garcia, Maria Isabel Maldonado. 2011. "The Urdu language reforms." ''[[Studies (journal)|Studies]]'' 26(97).</ref> In local literature and speech, it was also known as the ''Lashkari Zabān'' (military language) or ''Lashkari''.<ref>{{cite book|author=Alyssa Ayres|url=https://archive.org/details/speakinglikestat00ayre|title=Speaking Like a State: Language and Nationalism in Pakistan|date=23 July 2009|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|isbn=9780521519311|page=[https://archive.org/details/speakinglikestat00ayre/page/n32 19]|url-access=registration}}</ref> Mashafi was the first person to simply modify the name ''Zabān-i-Ordu'' to ''[[Urdu]]''.<ref>{{cite book|title=Marathwada Under the Nizams|author=P.V.Kate|page=136|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=tjndiykddsIC&q=Ghulam+Hamdani+Mushafi&pg=PA136|isbn=9788170990178|year=1987|publisher=Mittal Publications }}</ref>

During the [[British Raj]], the term ''Hindustani'' was used by British officials.<ref name="faruqi_806"/> In 1796, [[John Borthwick Gilchrist]] published "A Grammar of the Hindoostanee Language".<ref name="faruqi_806"/><ref name="Gilchrist">{{Citation|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=_rwIAAAAQAAJ&q=hindoostanee+language| title = A Grammar of the Hindoostanee Language|publisher = Chronicle Press|access-date = 8 January 2007|year = 1796}}</ref> Upon [[partition of India|partition]], India and Pakistan established national standards that they called ''Hindi'' and ''Urdu,'' respectively, and attempted to make distinct, with the result that ''Hindustani'' commonly, but mistakenly, came to be seen as a "mixture" of Hindi and Urdu.

[[George Abraham Grierson|Grierson]], in his highly influential ''[[Linguistic Survey of India]]'', proposed that the names ''Hindustani, Urdu,'' and ''Hindi'' be separated in use for different varieties of the Hindustani language, rather than as the overlapping synonyms they frequently were:

{{blockquote|text=We may now define the three main varieties of Hindōstānī as follows:—Hindōstānī is primarily the language of the Upper Gangetic Doab, and is also the ''lingua franca'' of India, capable of being written in both Persian and Dēva-nāgarī characters, and without purism, avoiding alike the excessive use of either Persian or Sanskrit words when employed for literature. The name 'Urdū' can then be confined to that special variety of Hindōstānī in which Persian words are of frequent occurrence, and which hence can only be written in the Persian character, and, similarly, 'Hindī' can be confined to the form of Hindōstānī in which Sanskrit words abound, and which hence can only be written in the Dēva-nāgarī character.<ref name="Grierson">Grierson, vol. 9–1, p. 47. ''We may now define the three main varieties of Hindōstānī as follows:—Hindōstānī is primarily the language of the Upper Gangetic Doab, and is also the ''lingua franca'' of India, capable of being written in both Persian and Dēva-nāgarī characters, and without purism, avoiding alike the excessive use of either Persian or Sanskrit words when employed for literature. The name 'Urdū' can then be confined to that special variety of Hindōstānī in which Persian words are of frequent occurrence, and which hence can only be written in the Persian character, and, similarly, 'Hindī' can be confined to the form of Hindōstānī in which Sanskrit words abound, and which hence can only be written in the Dēva-nāgarī character.''</ref>}}

==Official status==
[[File:South asia.jpg|thumb|Hindustani, in its standardised registers, is one of the official languages of both India (Hindi) and Pakistan (Urdu).]]
Before 1947, Hindustani was officially recognised by the British Raj. In the post-independence period however, the term Hindustani has lost currency and is not given any official recognition by the Indian or Pakistani governments. The language is instead recognised by its standard forms, Hindi and Urdu.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Schmidt|first=Ruth L|title=Urdu|work=The Indo-Aryan Languages|publisher=Routledge|year=2003|isbn=9780700711307|editor-last=Cardona|editor-first=George|pages=318–319|editor-last2=Jain|editor-first2=Dhanesh}}</ref>

=== Hindi ===
Hindi is declared by Article 343(1), [[Part XVII of the Constitution of India|Part 17]] of the [[Constitution of India|Indian Constitution]] as the "official language ({{lang|inc-Deva|राजभाषा}}, {{transliteration|inc|ISO|rājabhāṣā}}) of the Union." (In this context, "Union" means the Federal Government and not the entire country{{citation needed|date=April 2021}}—India has [[languages with official status in India|23 official languages]].) At the same time, however, the definitive text of federal laws is officially the English text and proceedings in the higher appellate courts must be conducted in English.

At the state level, Hindi is one of the official languages in 10 of the 29 Indian states and three [[Union territory|Union Territories]], respectively: [[Bihar]], [[Chhattisgarh]], [[Haryana]], [[Himachal Pradesh]], [[Jharkhand]], [[Madhya Pradesh]], [[Rajasthan]], [[Uttarakhand]], [[Uttar Pradesh]] and [[West Bengal]]; [[Andaman and Nicobar Islands]], [[Dadra and Nagar Haveli]], and Delhi.

In the remaining states, Hindi is not an official language. In states like [[Tamil Nadu]] and [[Karnataka]], studying Hindi is not compulsory in the state curriculum. However, an option to take the same as second or third language does exist. In many other states, studying Hindi is usually compulsory in the school curriculum as a third language (the first two languages being the state's official language and English), though the intensiveness of Hindi in the curriculum varies.<ref>[http://education.nic.in/natpol_new.asp Government of India: National Policy on Education] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060620100111/http://education.nic.in/natpol_new.asp |date=20 June 2006 }}.</ref>

=== Urdu ===
Urdu is the national language ({{Lang|ur|{{nq|قومی زبان}}|rtl=yes}}, ''qaumi zabān'') of Pakistan, where it shares [[official language]] status with [[Pakistani English|English]]. Although English is spoken by many, and [[Punjabi language|Punjabi]] is the native language of the majority of the population, Urdu is the ''lingua franca''. In India, Urdu is one of the languages recognised in the [[Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India]] and is an official language of the Indian states of [[Jharkhand]], [[Bihar]], [[Telangana]], [[Uttar Pradesh]], [[West Bengal]], and also the Union Territories of Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir. Although the government school system in most other states emphasises Standard Hindi, at universities in cities such as [[Lucknow]], [[Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh|Aligarh]] and [[Hyderabad]], Urdu is spoken and learnt, and ''Saaf'' or ''Khaalis'' Urdu is treated with just as much respect as ''Shuddh'' Hindi.

==Geographical distribution==
{{Main|Hindustani-speaking world}}
[[File:Hindustani-speaking world nations.png|thumb|300x300px|Spread of Hindustani across the world{{legenda|#084081|Majority/Official}}{{legenda|#0868ac|Significant Minority/Recognized}}{{legenda|#74a9cf|Minority}}]]
Besides being the ''[[lingua franca]]'' of North India and Pakistan in South Asia,<ref name="siddiqi1994"/><ref name="Ashmore1961"/> Hindustani is also spoken by many in the South Asian diaspora and their descendants around the world, including [[North America]] (e.g., in Canada, Hindustani is one of the fastest growing languages),<ref>{{cite web|title=Census data shows Canada increasingly bilingual, linguistically diverse|url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/census-wednesday-language-1.4231213}}</ref> [[Europe]], and the [[Middle East]].

* A sizeable population in [[Afghanistan]], especially in [[Kabul]], can also speak and understand Hindi–Urdu due to the popularity and influence of [[Bollywood]] films and songs in the region, as well as the fact that many Afghan refugees spent time in Pakistan in the 1980s and 1990s.<ref name="Hakala2012">{{cite web|url=http://media.nationalgeographic.org/assets/file/asia_8.pdf|title=Languages as a Key to Understanding Afghanistan's Cultures|last=Hakala|first=Walter N.|year=2012|publisher=[[National Geographic]]|language=en|access-date=13 March 2018|quote=In the 1980s and '90s, at least three million Afghans--mostly Pashtun--fled to Pakistan, where a substantial number spent several years being exposed to Hindi- and Urdu-language media, especially Bollywood films and songs, and being educated in Urdu-language schools, both of which contributed to the decline of Dari, even among urban Pashtuns.}}</ref><ref name="Krishnamurthy2013">{{cite web|url=http://www.gatewayhouse.in/kabul-diary-discovering-the-indian-connection/|title=Kabul Diary: Discovering the Indian connection|last=Krishnamurthy|first=Rajeshwari|date=28 June 2013|publisher=Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations|language=en|access-date=13 March 2018|quote=Most Afghans in Kabul understand and/or speak Hindi, thanks to the popularity of Indian cinema in the country.}}</ref>
* [[Fiji Hindi]] was derived from the Hindustani linguistic group and is spoken widely by Fijians of [[Indian people|Indian]] origin.
* Hindustani was also one of the languages that was spoken widely during [[British rule in Burma]]. Many older citizens of [[Myanmar]], particularly [[Anglo-Indian]]s and the [[Anglo-Burmese people|Anglo-Burmese]], still know it, although it has had no official status in the country since [[Myanmar#Military rule (1962–2011)|military rule]] began.
* Hindustani is also spoken in the countries of the [[Gulf Cooperation Council]], where [[migrant worker]]s from various countries live and work for several years.

==Phonology==
{{Main|Hindustani phonology}}
Hindustani phonology, shared by both Hindi and Urdu, is characterized by a symmetrical ten-vowel system, where vowels are distinguished by length, with long vowels typically being tense and short vowels lax. The language also includes [[Nasalization|nasalized]] vowels, as well as a wide array of consonants, including [[Aspirated consonant|aspirated]] and murmured sounds. Hindustani maintains a four-way phonation distinction among plosives, unlike the two-way distinction in English.

==Grammar==
{{Main|Hindustani grammar}}

==Vocabulary==
{{see also|Hindustani etymology|Hindustani vocabulary}}
Hindi–Urdu's core vocabulary has an Indic base, being derived from [[Prakrit]], which in turn derives from [[Sanskrit]],<ref name="DelacyAhmed2005"/><ref name="GubeGao2019"/><ref name="Kuiper2010"/><ref name="ChatterjiSiṃhaPadikkal1997"/> as well as a substantial number of [[Hindustani etymology|loanwords]] from [[Persian language|Persian]] and [[Arabic]] (via Persian).<ref name="JainCardona2007"/><ref name="Draper2003"/> Hindustani contains around 5,500 words of Persian and Arabic origin.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Kuczkiewicz-Fraś|first1=Agnieszka|title=Perso-Arabic Loanwords in Hindustani|date=2008|location=Kraków|publisher=Księgarnia Akademicka|isbn=978-83-7188-161-9|page=x}}</ref> There are also quite a few words borrowed from English, as well as some words from other European languages such as [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]] and [[Dutch language|Dutch]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Chandola |first=Anoop Chandra |date=1963 |title=Some Linguistic Influences of English on Hindi |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30022405 |journal=Anthropological Linguistics |volume=5 |issue=2 |pages=9–13 |jstor=30022405 |issn=0003-5483}}</ref>

[[Hindustani grammar|Hindustani]] also borrowed Persian prefixes to create new words. [[Persian language|Persian]] affixes became so assimilated that they were used with original [[Kauravi dialect|Khari Boli]] words as well.

==Writing system==
{{Main|Hindustani orthography|Devanagari Braille|Urdu Braille}}
[[File:Surahi in samrup rachna calligraphy.jpg|thumb|right|"Surahi" in [[Samrup Rachna]] calligraphy]]
Historically, Hindustani was written in the [[Kaithi]], Devanagari, and Urdu alphabets.<ref name="mcgregor_912"/> Kaithi and Devanagari are two of the [[Brahmic scripts]] native to India, whereas the Urdu alphabet is a derivation of the Perso-Arabic script written in [[Nastaʿlīq]], which is the preferred calligraphic style for Urdu.

Today, Hindustani continues to be written in the Urdu alphabet in Pakistan. In India, the Hindi register is officially written in Devanagari, and Urdu in the Urdu alphabet, to the extent that these standards are partly defined by their script.

However, in popular publications in India, Urdu is also written in Devanagari, with slight variations to establish a Devanagari Urdu alphabet alongside the Devanagari Hindi alphabet.

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
|+ Devanagari
! {{lang|hi|अ}}
! {{lang|hi|आ}}
! {{lang|hi|इ}}
! {{lang|hi|ई}}
! {{lang|hi|उ}}
! {{lang|hi|ऊ}}
! {{lang|hi|ए}}
! {{lang|hi|ऐ}}
! {{lang|hi|ओ}}
! {{lang|hi|औ}}
|-
| {{IPA link|ə}}
| {{IPA link|aː}}
| {{IPA link|ɪ}}
| {{IPA link|iː}}
| {{IPA link|ʊ}}
| {{IPA link|uː}}
| {{IPA link|eː}}
| {{IPA link|ɛː}}
| {{IPA link|oː}}
| {{IPA link|ɔː}}
|-
! {{lang|hi|क}}
! {{lang|hi|क़}}
! {{lang|hi|ख}}
! {{lang|hi|ख़}}
! {{lang|hi|ग}}
! {{lang|hi|ग़}}
! {{lang|hi|घ}}
! {{lang|hi|ङ}}
|-
| {{IPA link|k}}
| {{IPA link|q}}
| {{IPA|kʰ}}
| {{IPA link|x}}
| {{IPA link|ɡ}}
| {{IPA link|ɣ}}
| {{IPA|ɡʱ}}
| {{IPA link|ŋ}}
|-
! {{lang|hi|च}}
! {{lang|hi|छ}}
! {{lang|hi|ज}}
! {{lang|hi|ज़}}
! {{lang|hi|झ}}
! {{lang|hi|झ़}}
! {{lang|hi|ञ}}
|-
| {{IPA link|t͡ʃ}}
| {{IPA|t͡ʃʰ}}
| {{IPA link|d͡ʒ}}
| {{IPA link|z}}
| {{IPA|d͡ʒʱ}}
| {{IPA link|ʒ}}
| {{IPA link|ɲ}}<ref>{{citation |last=Kachru |first=Yamuna |author-link=Yamuna Kachru |year=2006 |title=Hindi |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing |page=17 |isbn=90-272-3812-X}}</ref>
|-
! {{lang|hi|ट}}
! {{lang|hi|ठ}}
! {{lang|hi|ड}}
! {{lang|hi|ड़}}
! {{lang|hi|ढ}}
! {{lang|hi|ढ़}}
! {{lang|hi|ण}}
|-
| {{IPA link|ʈ}}
| {{IPA|ʈʰ}}
| {{IPA link|ɖ}}
| {{IPA link|ɽ}}
| {{IPA|ɖʱ}}
| {{IPA|ɽʱ}}
| {{IPA link|ɳ}}
|-
! {{lang|hi|त}}
! {{lang|hi|थ}}
! {{lang|hi|द}}
! {{lang|hi|ध}}
! {{lang|hi|न}}
|-
| {{IPA link|t̪|t}}
| {{IPA|tʰ}}
| {{IPA link|d̪|d}}
| {{IPA|dʱ}}
| {{IPA link|n}}
|-
! {{lang|hi|प}}
! {{lang|hi|फ}}
! {{lang|hi|फ़}}
! {{lang|hi|ब}}
! {{lang|hi|भ}}
! {{lang|hi|म}}
|-
| {{IPA link|p}}
| {{IPA|pʰ}}
| {{IPA link|f}}
| {{IPA link|b}}
| {{IPA|bʱ}}
| {{IPA link|m}}
|-
! {{lang|hi|य}}
! {{lang|hi|र}}
! {{lang|hi|ल}}
! {{lang|hi|व}}
! {{lang|hi|श}}
! {{lang|hi|ष}}
! {{lang|hi|स}}
! {{lang|hi|ह}}
|-
| {{IPA link|j}}
| {{IPA link|ɾ}}
| {{IPA link|l}}
| {{IPA link|ʋ}}
| {{IPA link|ʃ}}
| {{IPA link|ʂ}}
| {{IPA link|s}}
| {{IPA link|ɦ}}
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|+Urdu alphabet
! Letter !! Name of letter !! Transliteration !! [[International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA]]
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ا}}}} || ''alif'' || a, ā, i, or u || {{IPAslink|ə}}, {{IPAslink|aː}}, {{IPAslink|ɪ}}, or {{IPAslink|ʊ}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ب}}}} || ''be'' || b || {{IPAslink|b}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|پ}}}} || ''pe'' || p || {{IPAslink|p}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ت}}}} || ''te'' || t || {{IPAslink|t̪|t}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ٹ}}}} || ''ṭe'' || ṭ || {{IPAslink|ʈ}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ث}}}} || ''se'' || s || {{IPAslink|s}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ج}}}} || ''jīm'' || j || {{IPAslink|d͡ʒ}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|چ}}}} || ''che'' || c || {{IPAslink|t͡ʃ}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ح}}}} || ''baṛī he'' || h̤ || /{{IPA link|h}} ~ {{IPA link|ɦ}}/
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|خ}}}} || khe || k͟h ||{{IPAslink|x}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|د}}}} || ''dāl'' || d || {{IPAslink|d̪|d}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ڈ}}}} || ''ḍāl'' || ḍ || {{IPAslink|ɖ}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ذ}}}} || ''zāl'' || z ||{{IPAslink|z}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ر}}}} || ''re'' || r || /{{IPA link|r}} ~ {{IPA link|ɾ}}/
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ڑ}}}} || ''ṛe'' || ṛ || {{IPAslink|ɽ}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ز}}}} || ''ze'' || z || {{IPAslink|z}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ژ}}}} || ''zhe'' || ž || {{IPAslink|ʒ}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|س}}}} || ''sīn'' || s || {{IPAslink|s}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ش}}}} || ''shīn'' || sh || {{IPAslink|ʃ}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ص}}}} || ''su'ād'' || s̤ ||{{IPAslink|s}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ض}}}} || ''zu'ād'' || ż ||{{IPAslink|z}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ط}}}} || ''to'e'' || t̤ || {{IPAslink|t}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ظ}}}} || ''zo'e'' || ẓ ||{{IPAslink|z}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ع}}}} || ''‘ain'' || ‘ || –
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|غ}}}} || ''ghain'' || ġ ||{{IPAslink|ɣ}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ف}}}} || ''fe'' || f || {{IPAslink|f}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ق}}}} || ''qāf'' || q || {{IPAslink|q}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ک}}}} || ''kāf'' || k || {{IPAslink|k}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|گ}}}} || ''gāf'' || g || {{IPAslink|ɡ}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ل}}}} || ''lām'' || l || {{IPAslink|l}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|م}}}} || ''mīm'' || m || {{IPAslink|m}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ن}}}} || ''nūn'' || n || {{IPAslink|n}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ں}}}} ||''nūn ghunna'' || ṁ or m̐ || {{IPAslink|◌̃}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|و}}}} || ''wā'o'' || w, v, ō, or ū || {{IPAslink|ʋ}}, {{IPAslink|oː}}, {{IPAslink|ɔ}} or {{IPAslink|uː}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ہ}}}} || ''choṭī he'' || h || /{{IPA link|h}} ~ {{IPA link|ɦ}}/
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ھ}}}} || ''do chashmī he'' || h || {{IPAslink|ʰ}} or {{IPAslink|ʱ}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ء}}}} || ''hamza'' || ' || {{IPAslink|ʔ}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ی}}}} || ''ye'' || y or ī || {{IPAslink|j}} or {{IPAslink|iː}}
|-
| {{lang|ur|{{nq|ے}}}} || ''baṛī ye'' || ai or ē || {{IPAslink|ɛː}}, or {{IPAslink|eː}}
|}

Because of [[Indian English|anglicisation]] in South Asia and the international use of the [[Latin script]], Hindustani is occasionally written in the Latin script. This adaptation is called [[Roman Urdu]] or Romanised Hindi, depending upon the register used. Since Urdu and Hindi are [[mutual intelligibility|mutually intelligible]] when spoken, Romanised Hindi and Roman Urdu (unlike Devanagari Hindi and Urdu in the Urdu alphabet) are mostly mutually intelligible as well.

==Sample text==
===Colloquial Hindustani===
An example of colloquial Hindustani:<ref name="DelacyAhmed2005" />
*'''Devanagari''': {{lang|inc-Deva|ये कितने का है?}}
*'''Urdu''': {{lang|inc-Aran|{{nq|یہ کتنے کا ہے؟}}}}
*'''Romanisation''': {{transliteration|inc|ISO|Ye kitnē kā hai?}}
*'''English''': How much is this?

The following is a sample text, Article 1 of the [[Universal Declaration of Human Rights]], in the two official registers of Hindustani, Hindi and Urdu. Because this is a formal legal text, differences in vocabulary are most pronounced.

===Literary Hindi===
{{lang|hi|अनुच्छेद १ — सभी मनुष्यों को गौरव और अधिकारों के विषय में जन्मजात स्वतन्त्रता और समानता प्राप्त हैं। उन्हें बुद्धि और अन्तरात्मा की देन प्राप्त है और परस्पर उन्हें भाईचारे के भाव से बर्ताव करना चाहिए।}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=UDHR - Hindi |url=https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/UDHR/Documents/UDHR_Translations/hnd.pdf |website=UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner}}</ref>
{| class="wikitable"
!Urdu transliteration
|-
|{{lang|hi-Aran|{{Nq|انُچھید ١ : سبھی منُشیوں کو گورو اور ادھکاروں کے وِشئے میں جنمجات سوَتنتْرتا پراپت ہیں۔ اُنہیں بدھی اور انتراتما کی دین پراپت ہے اور پرسپر اُنہیں بھائی چارے کے بھاؤ سے برتاؤ کرنا چاہئے۔}}|rtl=yes}}
|-
!Transliteration (ISO 15919)
|-
|{{transliteration|hi|ISO|Anucchēd 1: Sabhī manuṣyō̃ kō gaurav aur adhikārō̃ kē viṣay mē̃ janmajāt svatantratā aur samāntā prāpt haĩ. Unhē̃ buddhi aur antarātmā kī dēn prāpt hai aur paraspar unhē̃ bhāīcārē kē bhāv sē bartāv karnā cāhiē.}}
|-
!Transcription ([[International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA]])
|-
|{{IPA|[ənʊtːʃʰeːd eːk {{!}} səbʰiː mənʊʂjõː koː ɡɔːɾəʋ ɔːɾ ədʰɪkɑːɾõː keː ʋɪʂəj mẽː dʒənmədʒɑːt sʋətəntɾətɑː ɔːɾ səmɑːntɑː pɾɑːpt ɦɛ̃ː ‖ ʊnʰẽː bʊdːʰɪ ɔːɾ əntəɾɑːtmɑː kiː deːn pɾɑːpt ɦɛː ɔːɾ pəɾəspəɾ ʊnʰẽː bʰɑːiːtʃɑːɾeː keː bʰɑːʋ seː bəɾtɑːʋ kəɾnɑː tʃɑːɦɪeː ‖]}}
|-
!Gloss (word-to-word)
|-
|Article 1—''All'' human-beings to dignity and rights' matter in from-birth freedom acquired is. Them to reason and conscience's endowment acquired is and always them to brotherhood's spirit with behaviour to do should.
|-
!Translation (grammatical)
|-
|Article 1—All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
|}

===Literary Urdu===
{{lang|ur-Aran|{{Nq|:دفعہ ١: تمام اِنسان آزاد اور حُقوق و عِزت کے اعتبار سے برابر پَیدا ہُوئے ہَیں۔ انہیں ضمِیر اور عقل ودِیعت ہوئی ہَیں۔ اِس لئے انہیں ایک دُوسرے کے ساتھ بھائی چارے کا سُلُوک کرنا چاہئے۔}}|rtl=yes}}
{| class="wikitable"
!Devanagari transliteration
|-
|{{lang|ur-Deva|दफ़ा १ — तमाम इनसान आज़ाद और हुक़ूक़ ओ इज़्ज़त के ऐतबार से बराबर पैदा हुए हैं। उन्हें ज़मीर और अक़्ल वदीयत हुई हैं। इसलिए उन्हें एक दूसरे के साथ भाई चारे का सुलूक करना चाहीए।}}
|-
!Transliteration (ISO 15919)
|-
|{{transliteration|ur|ISO|Dafʻah 1: Tamām insān āzād aur ḥuqūq ō ʻizzat kē iʻtibār sē barābar paidā hu’ē haĩ. Unhē̃ żamīr aur ʻaql wadīʻat hu’ī haĩ. Isli’ē unhē̃ ēk dūsrē kē sāth bhā’ī cārē kā sulūk karnā cāhi’ē.}}
|-
!Transcription ([[International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA]])
|-
|{{IPA|dəfaː eːk təmaːm ɪnsaːn aːzaːd ɔːɾ hʊquːq oː izːət keː ɛːtəbaːɾ seː bəɾaːbəɾ pɛːdaː hʊeː hɛ̃ː ʊnʱẽː zəmiːɾ ɔːɾ əql ʋədiːət hʊiː hɛ̃ː ɪs lɪeː ʊnʱẽː eːk duːsɾeː keː saːtʰ bʱaːiː tʃaːɾeː kaː sʊluːk kəɾnaː tʃaːhɪeː}}
|-
!Gloss (word-to-word)
|-
|Article 1: All humans free[,] and rights and dignity's consideration from equal born are. To them conscience and intellect endowed is. Therefore, they one another's with brotherhood's treatment do must.
|-
!Translation (grammatical)
|-
|Article 1—All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience. Therefore, they should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
|}

==Hindustani and Bollywood==
The predominant Indian film industry [[Bollywood]], located in [[Mumbai]], [[Maharashtra]] uses Standard Hindi, colloquial Hindustani, [[Bombay Hindi]], [[Urdu]],<ref name="scienceandmediamuseum">{{cite web|title=Decoding the Bollywood poster|url=https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/decoding-the-bollywood-poster/|website=[[National Science and Media Museum]]|date=28 February 2013}}</ref> [[Awadhi language|Awadhi]], [[Rajasthani language|Rajasthani]], [[Bhojpuri language|Bhojpuri]], and [[Braj Bhasha]], along with [[Punjabi language|Punjabi]] and with the liberal use of [[English language|English]] or [[Hinglish]] in scripts and soundtrack lyrics.

Film titles are often screened in three scripts: Latin, Devanagari and occasionally Perso-Arabic. The use of Urdu or Hindi in films depends on the film's context: historical films set in the [[Delhi Sultanate]] or [[Mughal Empire]] are almost entirely in Urdu, whereas films based on [[Hindu mythology]] or [[Middle kingdoms of India|ancient India]] make heavy use of Hindi with Sanskrit vocabulary.

In recent years, [[Hindutva boycott of Bollywood films|boycotts]] have been launched against Bollywood films by [[Hindutva|Hindu nationalists]] partially on the basis that the films feature too much Urdu, with some critics employing the epithet "Urduwood".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Is the Hindu Nationalist 'Boycott Bollywood' Campaign Impacting the Box Office? |url=https://thediplomat.com/2022/09/is-hindu-nationalists-boycott-bollywood-campaign-impacting-the-box-office/ |access-date=2023-10-31 |website=thediplomat.com |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last1=Raj |first1=Kaushik |last2=Gurmat |first2=Sabah |date=2022-09-30 |title=Bollywood under siege as rightwing social media boycotts start to bite |language=en-GB |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/sep/30/bollywood-under-siege-as-rightwing-social-media-boycotts-start-to-bite |access-date=2023-10-31 |issn=0261-3077}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=The siege of Bollywood |newspaper=The Economist |url=https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2021/02/25/the-siege-of-bollywood |access-date=2023-10-31 |issn=0013-0613}}</ref>

==See also==
{{Portal|India|Pakistan|Language}}
* [[Caribbean Hindustani]]
* [[Hindustan|Hindustan (Indian subcontinent)]]
* [[Languages of India]]
* [[Languages of Pakistan]]
* [[List of Hindi authors]]
* [[List of Urdu authors]]
* [[Hindi–Urdu transliteration]]
* [[Uddin and Begum Hindustani Romanisation]]

==Notes==
{{notelist|30em}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==
{{Refbegin|30em}}
* Asher, R. E. 1994. "Hindi." Pp.&nbsp;1547–49 in ''The Encyclopedia of language and linguistics'', edited by R. E. Asher. Oxford: Pergamon Press. {{ISBN|0-08-035943-4|}}.
* Bailey, Thomas G. 1950. ''Teach yourself Hindustani''. London: English Universities Press.
* Chatterji, Suniti K. 1960. ''Indo-Aryan and Hindi'' (rev. 2nd ed.). Calcutta: Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay.
* Dua, Hans R. 1992. "Hindi-Urdu as a pluricentric language." In ''Pluricentric languages: Differing norms in different nations'', edited by M. G. Clyne. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. {{ISBN|3-11-012855-1|}}.
* Dua, Hans R. 1994a. "Hindustani." Pp.&nbsp;1554 in ''The Encyclopedia of language and linguistics'', edited by R. E. Asher. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
*{{Citation|last=Mustafa|first=K.S|title=Dakkhni|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9WroLC__7EUC|encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia of the Linguistic Sciences: Issues and Theories|pages=185–186|year=2008|editor-last=Prakāśaṃ|editor-first=Vennelakaṇṭi|publisher=Allied Publishers|isbn=978-1139465502}}
* —— 1994b. "Urdu." Pp.&nbsp;4863–64 in ''The Encyclopedia of language and linguistics'', edited by R. E. Asher. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
* Rai, Amrit. 1984. ''A house divided: The origin and development of Hindi-Hindustani''. Delhi: Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0-19-561643-X|}}{{Refend}}

== Further reading ==
{{Refbegin|30em}}
*{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xY8xAAAAMAAJ|title=English and Urdu dictionary, romanized|author=Henry Blochmann|year=1877|publisher=Printed at the Baptist mission press for the Calcutta school-book society|edition=8|location=Calcutta|page=215|access-date=6 July 2011|author-link=Henry Blochmann}}the University of Michigan
* {{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/grammarofurduorh00dowsiala|title=A grammar of the Urdū or Hindūstānī language|author=John Dowson|year=1908|publisher=K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., ltd.|edition=3|location=London|page=[https://archive.org/details/grammarofurduorh00dowsiala/page/264 264]|access-date=6 July 2011}}the University of Michigan
* {{cite book|author=Duncan Forbes|url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryhindus00forb/page/n5|title=A dictionary, Hindustani and English, accompanied by a reversed dictionary, English and Hindustani.|access-date=18 October 2018|publisher=Sampson Low, Marston & Company|location=London|year=1857|edition=2nd|page=1144|oclc=1043011501|archive-url=https://archive.today/20181019223400/https://archive.org/stream/dictionaryhindus00forb/dictionaryhindus00forb_djvu.txt|archive-date=19 October 2018|url-status=live|author-link=Duncan Forbes (linguist)}}
* {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cFIIAAAAQAAJ|title=A grammar of the Hindūstānī or Urdū language|author=John Thompson Platts|year=1874|publisher=W.H. Allen|location=London|page=399|volume=6423 of Harvard College Library preservation microfilm program|access-date=6 July 2011}}Oxford University
* {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JBoYAAAAYAAJ|title=A grammar of the Hindūstānī or Urdū language|author=John Thompson Platts|year=1892|publisher=W.H. Allen|location=London|page=399|author-mask=2|access-date=6 July 2011}}the New York Public Library
* {{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iDtbAAAAQAAJ|title=A dictionary of Urdū, classical Hindī, and English|author=John Thompson Platts|year=1884|publisher=H. Milford|edition=reprint|location=London|page=1259|author-mask=2|access-date=6 July 2011}}Oxford University
* Shakespear, John. [https://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/shakespear/ A Dictionary, Hindustani and English.] 3rd ed., much enl. London: Printed for the author by J.L. Cox and Son: Sold by Parbury, Allen, & Co., 1834.
* Taylor, Joseph. ''[http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nnc1.cu58965823;view=1up;seq=1 A dictionary, Hindoostanee and English]''. Available at [[Hathi Trust]]. (A dictionary, Hindoostanee and English / abridged from the quarto edition of Major Joseph Taylor; as edited by the late W. Hunter; by William Carmichael Smyth.)
{{Refend}}

==External links==
{{Wikivoyage|Hindi-Urdu_phrasebook}}
{{EB1911 poster|Hindostani}}
* [http://boltidictionary.com/en/ Bolti Dictionary (Hindustani)]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20130601231148/http://www.hamariboli.com/ Hamari Boli (Hindustani)]
* [http://www.languageinindia.com/march2003/hindustani.html Hindustani as an anxiety between Hindi–Urdu Commitment]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060923205724/http://www.uiowa.edu/~incinema/Hindinote.html Hindi? Urdu? Hindustani? Hindi-Urdu?]
* [http://www.lexicool.com/dlink.asp?ID=0FW3HU5663&L1=34&L2=44 Hindi/Urdu-English-Kalasha-Khowar-Nuristani-Pashtu Comparative Word List]
* [http://globalrecordings.net/language/747 GRN Report for Hindustani]
* {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20060615203847/http://indolink.com/Poetry/ Hindustani Poetry]}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060827233430/http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/lss/staff/erica/CALL/hindi.html Hindustani online resources]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070804053902/http://www.nla.gov.pk/ National Language Authority (Urdu), Pakistan (muqtadera qaumi zaban)]

{{Hindi topics}}
{{Urdu topics}}
{{Central Indo-Aryan languages}}
{{Languages of South Asia}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hindustani Language}}
[[Category:Hindustani language| ]]
[[Category:Languages attested from the 13th century]]
[[Category:Lingua francas]]
[[Category:Indo-Aryan languages]]
[[Category:Languages written in Devanagari]]