What's new

Why Hindi-Urdu is One Language and Arabic is Several

Having said that, the number of persian/arabic words in spoken hindi is much less than that in urdu. If hindi derived from urdu, it wont have so few arabic/persian words.

The Shudh Hindi taught in Indian schools has less Arabic/Persian words than Urdu, & hardly anyone speaks this. The language spoken by the masses is Urdu, but they call it Hindi. Simple.
 
.
Urdu is the language of the Indian subcontinent, not Pakistan or India. It was started in North Delhi, & developed in Lucknow, Lahore & many other cities. The birthplace of Guru Nanak is Nankina Sahib in present day Pakistan, does that mean Sikhism is a Pakistani religion? No, it doesn't. Just like that, Urdu is not an Indian or Pakistani language either.

Urdu is not the language of any province of Pakistan, nor of Bangladesh.

You made it a "national language" but that doesn't change things. If you had made Arabic or Persian your national language, they won't become your native languages.

Hindi/Urdu/Hindustani is a North Indian language.
 
.
The Shudh Hindi taught in Indian schools has less Arabic/Persian words than Urdu, & hardly anyone speaks this. The language spoken by the masses is Urdu, but they call it Hindi. Simple.

It is Hindustani that we chose to call Hindi. Any problems?
 
.
Urdu is not the language of any province of Pakistan, nor of Bangladesh.

You made it a "national language" but that doesn't change things. If you had made Arabic or Persian your national language, they won't become your native languages.

Hindi/Urdu/Hindustani is a North Indian language.

So Sikhism is a Pakistani religion?
 
. .
My dear fellow, you are wrong in your understanding of the concept of loan words. Do you know that almost 100% of the verbs in Urdu are from Sanskrit. Which means that it is almost impossible to speak in Urdu without using Sanskrit words. On the other hand one can speak for hours in modern Hindi without using any foreign words.

Khadi Boli, which is a pre-Islamic language, has two descendants. One of them, Urdu, has borrowed a large number of foreign words. The other, modern Hindi, retains much more of the original vocabulary. It's as simple as that.

Urdu hasn't borrowed any foreign words my friend, Sanskrit derived words & Persian/Arabic derived words are a huge part of Urdu's identity. Khari Boli is a huge part of Urdu, as are Persian & Arabic. Sanskrit based words are not foreign to Urdu, & this is what you don't seem to, or want to understand. I've explained that to you in quite some detail, when the Muslim invaders came into the Indian subcontinent, how the language developed. There is no such language as colloquial Hindi/Hindustani today, it is simply Urdu. Shudh Hindi, which you are referring to (when you refer to not using any foreign words) is a creation of the Indian government post 1947. No one in India talked like that prior to 1947. Essentially, there is no such thing as Hindi, from both a cultural & historic point of view.

There is no history for Hindi separate from Urdu, it is all Urdu. Average Hindi speakers cannot understand works from Khusro, Ghalib, Iqbal, Bahadur Shah Zafar, average Urdu speakers can. The language used from centuries ago resembles Urdu in all ways, not Hindi, even if was called 'Hindwi' or 'Rekhta' (not 'Hindi' or 'Urdu'). Even Khari Boli (before the Muslim invasion of the Indian subcontinent) is very similar to present day Urdu, just as similar to present day Hindi. Hindus converted all the Urdu literary work from Nastaliq to Devanagari script in 1867 (Hindi-Urdu controversy) & called it Hindi. Then they manufactured Shudh Hindi in 1947, by removing the Arabic/Persian based words, to make it sound different from Urdu to make it 'pure', although no one talked like that in the Indian subcontinent prior to 1947. Don't make me repeat everything that I've said before. Peace.
 
.
Urdu hasn't borrowed any foreign words my friend

Persia, Arabia and Turkestan are not a part of India. Persian, Arabic and Turkish words are therefore foreign words.

Sanskrit based words are not foreign to Urdu, & this is what you don't seem to, or want to understand.

I never disagreed with this!


That I can agree with. Peace.
 
.
And Khari Boli is not Hindi or Urdu, its Khari Boli. The colloquial 'Hindi'/Hindustani spoken by most Indian people today & by all Indian people prior to 1947 was actually Urdu. The Indian government made a deliberate effort to purify the 'Hindi' to make it 'Shudh Hindi' in 1947 by removing Persian/Arabic derived words, even though no one talked like that & hardly anyone talks like that today. The 'Shudh Hindi creation' is what you are talking about when you say you can go on and on for sentences without using Arabic/Persian derived words in it. Sure, you can use a few odd sentences without using Persian/Arabic derived words in your 'Shudh Hindi', the same way you can do in English without using Latin derived words, but there is a huge influence of Persian/Arabic derived words in Hindustani & Shudh Hindi.
 
.
Persia, Arabia and Turkestan are not a part of India. Persian, Arabic and Turkish words are therefore foreign words.



That I can agree with. Peace.

The people who came into the Indian subcontinent were from there, & they were part of the Indian subcontinent. Hence, the amalgamation of Persian, Arabic. Turkish words with Khari Boli is not foreign; as it has been going on for centuries. It's like saying there is no such thing as being 'naturalized', because I became a US citizen, not because I was born here, but because I immigrated here to the US 9 years ago. Just like the Muslim rulers who immigrated to the Indian subcontinent, & lived there for hundreds of years. Just like India itself has no right to the Indus Valley Civilization (except a few Western parts of India, including Srinagar), because besides Srinagar, the Indus river does not flow through India. But some people from present day Pakistan migrated to present day India & formed their civilization there, which is why we give Indians some right to the IVC as well. Immigration is a part of life, deal with it.
 
.
^^ Influence still remain that. Influence!

It doesn't mean the language is not ours and was not always yours. We can remove the influence if we feel the need.

It is reducing substantially anyway and will reduce further in future as we reject the foreign words more and more.

You are no one to say what we call our language and how we should speak it. That is foolish.
 
.
bilalhaider

Script does not define the language, it is just a skin. It doesn't matter what script was used. Until independence only 9% could actual read or write, if you go back to the 12th century, probably even less.

And afaik Amr Khusrao used to refer to the language he used to write in Hindvi which later got to be known as Hindustani and Hindi/Urdu. Check out Amir Khusrow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The word Urdu was not used to describe his poetry even though he wrote in the Nastaliq script.

Similarly Arab traders that came to Kerala wrote Malayalam in the Arabic script as they were more comfortable with it. They also incorporated some Arabic language words. But the language was still Malayalam. It did'nt become Arabic because it was written in Arabic script.

A language grows as its absorbs words from different cultures. English language is the most widely spoken language in the world and has borrowed 1000s of words from French to Arabic, to Hindi. It makes it more rich. The bigger the vocabulary the more effective the language becomes in communication and connecting cultures. Just as adding a Persian or Arabic word improves the vocabulary in Hindi/Urdu.
 
.
^^ Influence still remain that. Influence!

It doesn't mean the language is not ours and was not always yours. We can remove the influence if we feel the need.

It is reducing substantially anyway and will reduce further in future as we reject the foreign words more and more.

You are no one to say what we call our language and how we should speak it. That is foolish.

The language which you say is colloquial Hindi/Hindustani, that almost everyone in India speaks is Urdu my friend. Just because you wanted to 'purify' it by removing the Arabic/Persian derived words in 1947, & making Shudh Hindi sound different from Urdu/Hindustani does not mean Shudh Hindi is purer than Urdu. By rejecting the Persian/Arabic component in 'modern colloquial Hindi', you are making your language sound like Shudh Hindi, which is a recent creation of the Indian government.

The same thing which you did when you converted all Urdu literary work in Nastaliq script into Devanagari script in 1867, & called it Hindi. In fact, Shudh Hindi is nothing but manufactured creation by the Indian government post 1947, & hardly anyone in India talks like that. It is sad how much Indians are willing to distort their history to satisfy their Anti-Muslim bias.
 
.
bilalhaider

Script does not define the language, it is just a skin. It doesn't matter what script was used. Until independence only 9% could actual read or write, if you go back to the 12th century, probably even less.

And afaik Amr Khusrao used to refer to the language he used to write in Hindvi which later got to be known as Hindustani and Hindi/Urdu. Check out Amir Khusrow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The word Urdu was not used to describe his poetry even though he wrote in the Nastaliq script.

Similarly Arab traders that came to Kerala wrote Malayalam in the Arabic script as they were more comfortable with it. They also incorporated some Arabic language words. But the language was still Malayalam. It did'nt become Arabic because it was written in Arabic script.

Call it 'Hindwi' or any other term, it resembles present day Rekhta Urdu today, not colloquial Hindi or Shudh Hindi. The works of Khusro, Ghalib, Shah Zafar, Iqbal are not comprehensible to the average Hindustani speaker today, but they are to most Urdu speakers. The language used at that time was Hindwi, not Hindi; but the language used at that time has nothing in common with the Hindi spoken today, which is why the language spoken then was not 'Hindi', even though it was called 'Hindwi'. I wasn't talking about the scripts per se, I was talking about the innovations of the Indian Hindus of trying to distance themselves from the Muslim heritage, by trying to remove the Arabic/Persian derived words from colloquial Hindi post 1947, and another example of their insecurity against the Muslims was converting the literary Urdu works in Nastaliq (Muslim) script into Devanagari, and calling it Hindi. Nastaliq script is Muslim script, as it is a derivation of the Arabic script, the script in which the Quran was written. Just like that, Persian/Arabic words have a special Muslim significance. Hindi has no independent history from Urdu in the past few centuries, & it doesn't resemble the language spoken during that time.
 
.
The language which you say is colloquial Hindi/Hindustani, that almost everyone in India speaks is Urdu my friend. Just because you wanted to 'purify' it by removing the Arabic/Persian derived words in 1947, & making Shudh Hindi sound different from Urdu/Hindustani does not mean Shudh Hindi is purer than Urdu. By rejecting the Persian/Arabic component in 'modern colloquial Hindi', you are making your language sound like Shudh Hindi, which is a recent creation of the Indian government.

The same thing which you did when you converted all Urdu literary work in Nastaliq script into Devanagari script in 1867, & called it Hindi. In fact, Shudh Hindi is nothing but manufactured creation by the Indian government post 1947, & hardly anyone in India talks like that. It is sad how much Indians are willing to distort their history to satisfy their Anti-Muslim bias.

Don't Include all Indians into this discussion, i am keeping out of this discussion for the only reason that i am not a native speaker of Hindi. Only 35% of Indians speak Hindi as their first language and in that 40% of people speak hindi-urdu, others speak dialects like Bhojpuri, Maithili, Bihari which has no connection with Urdu, i am proud that my mother tongue is classified as classical langugage which Urdu can achieve only in its dreams.
 
.
The language which you say is colloquial Hindi/Hindustani, that almost everyone in India speaks is Urdu my friend. Just because you wanted to 'purify' it by removing the Arabic/Persian derived words in 1947, & making Shudh Hindi sound different from Urdu/Hindustani does not mean Shudh Hindi is purer than Urdu. By rejecting the Persian/Arabic component in 'modern colloquial Hindi', you are making your language sound like Shudh Hindi, which is a recent creation of the Indian government.

The same thing which you did when you converted all Urdu literary work in Nastaliq script into Devanagari script in 1867, & called it Hindi. In fact, Shudh Hindi is nothing but manufactured creation by the Indian government post 1947, & hardly anyone in India talks like that. It is sad how much Indians are willing to distort their history to satisfy their Anti-Muslim bias.

I am not sure why you are so stuck in labeling our language. Urdu is nothing but Hindustani written in a foreign script and tries to use more Persian words.

It used to be called Hindustani and it had a fair number of foreign words.

We chose to make Hindi our official language after partition. The state decided to get rid of foreign words from the official curricula. It was still the same Hindustani language that has been part of the North India much before the invaders came, only removing the words that the invaders mixed in our language. It is our choice. None of Pakistan's business. None of your business.

I would suggest you worry more about Tajiks and Uzbeks. After all you are supposed to be Central Asians now and related to them.
 
.

Pakistan Defence Latest Posts

Pakistan Affairs Latest Posts

Back
Top Bottom