Rekhta

Not to be confused with Rekhta (website).

Rekhta
The poem of Ghalib, the notable poet of the 'Rekhta' dialect
RegionAround Delhi
Era13th-18th centuries[1]
Perso-Arabic (Urdu alphabet)
Devanagari
Language codes
ISO 639-3–
Glottologrekh1239

Rekhta (Urdu: ریختہ [ˈreːxtaː]; Hindi: रेख़्ता [ˈreːxtaː]) was an early form of the Hindustani language. This style evolved in both the Perso-Arabic and Devanagari scripts and is considered an early form of Modern Standard Urdu and Modern Standard Hindi.[2] According to the Pakistani linguist and historian Tariq Rehman, Rekhta was a highly Persianized register of Hindustani, exclusively used by poets. It was not only the vocabulary that was Persianized, but also the poetic metaphors, inspired by Indian landscapes and seasons, were abandoned in favor of the Persian ones i.e. bahaar (spring) replacing barsaat (rainy season).[3]

The 13th century Indo-Persian Muslim poet Amir Khusrau used the term "Hindavi" (Persian: ھندوی, lit. 'of Hind or India') for the 'Rekhta' dialect (the ancestor of Modern Urdu), the Persianized offshoot of the Apabharamsa vernacular Old Hindi, towards its emergence during the era of Delhi Sultanate,[4][5][6][7] and gave shape to it in the Islamic literature, thus called "the father of Urdu literature".[8] Other early Muslim poets, includes Baba Farid, who contributed in the development of the language.[9] Later from the 18th century, the dialect became the literary language and was further developed by the poets Mir and Ghalib in the late Mughal period, and the term eventually fallen out and came to be known as "Urdu", by the end of the century.[6][10]

  1. ^ "Frequently Asked Questions". rekhta.org. Rekhta is the old name of Urdu. Amir Khusrau, the late 13th Century poet wrote in Rekhta. It changed its name many times and came to be known as Dakkani, Gujari, Hindavi, etc at various points of time. Mir and Ghalib also wrote in Rekhta, which later came to be known as Urdu in the late 19th Century.
  2. ^ "Rekhta: Poetry in Mixed Language, The Emergence of Khari Boli Literature in North India" (PDF). Columbia University. Archived (PDF) from the original on 28 March 2016. Retrieved 23 April 2018.
  3. ^ Rahman, Tariq (2011). From Hindi to Urdu: A Social and Political History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-906313-0.
  4. ^ Kathleen Kuiper, ed. (2011). The Culture of India. Rosen Publishing. p. 80. ISBN 9781615301492. 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.
  5. ^ Keith Brown; Sarah Ogilvie (2008). Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World. Elsevier. ISBN 978-0-08-087774-7. 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[.]
  6. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference tariqrahman was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ "All writings of Amir Khusraw". rekhta.org.
  8. ^ Bhattacharya, Vivek Ranjan (1982). Famous Indian sages: their immortal messages. Sagar Publications.
  9. ^ Masica, Colin P. (1993). The Indo-Aryan Languages. Cambridge University Press. p. 54. ISBN 9780521299442.
  10. ^ Sweta Kaushal (20 September 2015). "Meer Taqi Meer: 10 couplets we can use in our conversations". Hindustan Times (newspaper). Retrieved 18 July 2020.