Just to sort it out. All material taken from Wikipedia, nothing fancy. Let me know if this is incorrect:  the purpose of this post is to eliminate the confusion.

(Please don’ t try to kill me in the process of reading this.)

There is a vast spectrum of dialects spoken in Northern India,  called Hindi.

One of the dialects is a Khariboli dialect, formed around 10th century. It used to be a (prestige) local dialect of the north-western part of India and of what now is Pakistan – roughly.

During the reign of Mughals, Khariboli absorbed a lot of Persian and Arabic words. Around the 12th century the word ‘Urdu’ came into use:  Zabaan-e-Urdu-e-Mu’Allah – `Exalted language of the Camp`. Khariboli was initially the language of the soldiers serving Mughal lords, and after absorbing Mughal vocabulary, it became the court language of Delhi aristocracy.

Before 1850 the words Hindi, Urdu and Hindustani were interchangeable. From 1850, two official registers develop:  Standard Hindi - a sanskritised register, and Urdu – a persianised one. This is called a diasystem: a system of two standardised forms of one language.

Differences between Hindi and Urdu:

1) script (Devanagari for Hindi, Nastaliq Arabic for Urdu),

2) source of borrowed vocabulary (Sanskrit for Hindi, Arabic/Turcic/Persian for Urdu).

Everyday (native) vocabulary, and grammar are essentially the same (Khariboli). When spoken, and without using loan words, the languages would sound almost the same, to the extent that, when spoken in Delhi, it is impossble to say which language it is unless the speaker choses to write it down ; ) (kidding)

5 definitions of Hindi:

1. Standard Hindi as taught at school          2. official heavily sanskritised Hindi used by the governemnt etc         3. local dialects of India and Pakistan, often very different from (1)      4. neutral language of film industry and          5. neutral language of broadcast and print.

India has 23 official languages. Hindi (together with English) is the official language of the Federal Government (the Union) and 9 states. Urdu is the official language of 8 states, including Delhi (National Capital Territory). Urdu is the official language of Pakistan (together with English). 

Hindu and Muslim nationalists claim that Hindi and Urdu have always been different languages. This is linguistically incorrect.

NB: the term Hindustani implies ‘a wealth of words of both Persian and Sanskrit origin… the term has a secular flavour, the speaker is rising above Hindu/Muslim visions of India’.

---

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• We aren’t exactly wolves, but…what do you think?
• Urdu Like Mine: A Reflection on White Privilege and Language Learning