Hindustani etymology

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Hindustani etymology" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (June 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Part of a series on the
Hindustani language
Hindi Urdu Regional or dialectal variants (Andaman Bihari Bombay Deccani Dhakaiya Hinglish Hyderabadi Judeo-Urdu Kauravi Rekhta Urdish)
History
Hindi–Urdu controversy Persian and Urdu Hindi literature Urdu literature Hindustani orthography
Grammar
Numerals Declension Verbs
Linguistic history
Vocabulary Kinship terms Phonological history
Accessibility
Hindi–Urdu transliteration Hindustani Braille Hindi Braille Urdu Braille Roman Hindi Roman Urdu Indo-Pakistani Sign Language
v t e

Hindustani, also known as Hindi-Urdu, is the vernacular form of two standardized registers used as official languages in India and Pakistan, namely Hindi and Urdu. It comprises several closely related dialects in the northern, central and northwestern parts of the Indian subcontinent but is mainly based on Khariboli of the Delhi region. As an Indo-Aryan language, Hindustani has a core base that traces back to Sanskrit but as a widely-spoken lingua franca, it has a large lexicon of loanwords,^[1][2] acquired through centuries of foreign rule and ethnic diversity.

Standard Hindi derives much of its formal and technical vocabulary from Sanskrit while standard Urdu derives much of its formal and technical vocabulary from Persian and Arabic. Standard Hindi and Urdu are used primarily in public addresses and radio or TV news, while the everyday spoken language is one of the several varieties of Hindustani, whose vocabulary contains words drawn from Persian, Arabic, and Sanskrit. In addition, spoken Hindustani includes words from English and the Dravidian languages, as well as several others.

Hindustani developed over several centuries throughout much of the northern subcontinent including the areas that comprise modern-day India, Pakistan, and Nepal. In the same way that the core vocabulary of English evolved from Old English (Anglo-Saxon) but assimilated many words borrowed from French and other languages (whose pronunciations often changed naturally so as to become easier for speakers of English to pronounce), what may be called Hindustani can be said to have evolved from Sanskrit while borrowing many Persian and Arabic words over the years, and changing the pronunciations (and often even the meanings) of these words to make them easier for Hindustani speakers to pronounce. Many Persian words entered the Hindustani lexicon due to the influence of the Mughal rulers of north India, who followed a very Persianised culture and also spoke Persian. Many Arabic words entered Hindustani via Persian, which had previously been assimilated into the Persian language due to the influence of Arabs in the area. The dialect of Persian spoken by the Mughal ruling elite was known as 'Dari', which is the dialect of Persian spoken in modern-day Afghanistan. Therefore, Hindustani is the naturally developed common language of north India. This article will deal with the separate categories of Hindustani words and some of the common words found in the Hindustani language.