Story of Hindustani

The Etymology

Long time ago, the Aryans settled in the land south west of China. They called this land Sapta Sindhu (seven rivers). Persians pronounced it Hapta Hindu. Later ‘hapta’ was dropped and ‘stan’ (place) was added to Hindu. The land was now called Hindustan. The sea-faring Arabs got this name from their Persian neighbors and made their own modification. Rather than adding ‘stan’ to Hindu, they added the Arabic article ‘al’ and so called this land ‘Al-Hind’. The Latin Europeans who later visited the west banks of ‘Hindustan’ readily accepted the name they heard from their fellow Arab navigators, but graciously dropped the leading ‘h’ as customary in Latin and added the suffix ‘ia’, their linguistic signature of a noun. Thus ‘Hind’ became ‘India’.


The Mogul of languages and the language of Moguls

There was a tongue spoken in the northern part of this land known as Hindustani to the foreigners, and was written in a local script called Nagari. The variants of this script were in use for other languages of the region such as Gujrati, Sindhi and Punjabi etc. When the Persian-Afghani warlords decided to conquer and rule over Hindustan’s territories during the 11th century, they centered their rule around Delhi where Hindustani was spoken. In an attempt to communicate with local masses, they chose this language over others. When Babur, the father of Mughal (Mogul) dynasty finally defeated the Lodhis and made Delhi the capital of his empire, Hindustani was well established as a language and had already produced a wealth of poetry and prose. However it still did not have an official name.

In an attempt to facilitate its reading and writing by the Persian speaking ruling class, a modified Persian script was developed to write Hindustani. Champions of Art and literature, Moghuls enriched Hindustani with Persian vocabulary and grammar (some of which had been borrowed into Persian from Arabic.) By this time a large number of indigenous population had converted to Islam and were using Persian and Arabic names whose sounds were not available in Nagari script. The need for religious terminology and liturgical emphasis on reciting of Quran further added to the equation and gradually Muslims of India (with no Persian lineage) also came to favor the Persian script of Hindustani.

The non-Muslim who did not have much need for the Persian script continued using the Nagari script and as a result were largely unaware of the rich addition to their language by Persian. Both scripted versions of the language still lacked official identity. With time, the Persian script came to be known as Urdu and the original version was shortened from Hindustani to Hindi. In any case Hindustani or Urdu/Hindi rose above all languages during the Mughal dynasty and became the unofficial language of the state.


A Truly International Language

While the eastern tradition is to learn by observing the profundity and absorbing, the western tradition is to learn by classifying meticulously and rationalizing. There are applications for both approaches and their respective pros and cons.

A major benefit of classification and rationalization of matter being studied is its long-term survival. I mean the survival of such ‘study’. Whereas observations and absorption cannot be put down in words as explicitly as the classification and rationalization, one can write about the latter in much detail and therefore hope to recreate the study at a later time with less loss of learning.

As organic a subject as language is, it is the western tradition that made its survival possible. In order to learn and impart their learning to others of their kin, the Europeans who visited Hindustan with various intentions, compiled grammatical rules and other details about the Hindustani language as they understood it. They published these rules and their books became the basis of modern Urdu/Hindi grammar. So while the Persians were enriching and enhancing the Hindustani language, Europeans were accurately recording its mechanics and vocabulary; the locals, merely speaking the result and creating a colorful literature in it. This, and not just its multi-source vocabulary, is what makes Urdu/Hindi a truly international language. From 13th to 20th century, the Hindustani contributed an insurmountable treasure to the world’s tapestry of literature and poetry.


A Tale of Two Scripts

So this was the story of Hindustani...we all know as Hindi/Urdu, it is one language but two scripts. Script is nothing more than a code...much like a computer program code. Doesn't matter whether you write a program in BASIC or PASCAL, it is supposed to deliver what it is programmed for. Granted some codes are best suited for some applications than others but all can perform basic tasks. However this is not so true in an organic environment such as that of language/culture.

The fact that Urdu script allowed it to make use of Tarkeeb-e-Farsi while keeping all the postpositions (unlike prepositions in English) of the original Hindustani for colloquial use, made it much more versatile than Hindi which was limited to the postpositions alone. (For example "taar-e-unkaboot" would be cumbersome to write in Nagari script because it would read ' taare unkaboot ' which would be confusing because taare is also plural of taara and maynot be identified as tarkeeb of taar.) By versatile, I mean more suited for poetry. Of course this versatility came at a price. The Persian script has major flaws when it comes to coding a Sanskrit based language, which is rich in vowel sounds, and half-pronounced consonants (conjuncts). Persian script has limited vowels and no conjuncts. As a result Urdu (the Persian scripted Hindustani) dropped, or at least did not encourage Sanskrit (still pronounced by Urdu speakers as Sanskirit due to lack of conjuncts in the script) based vocabulary. Hindi did the same to Persian vocabulary because it did not have adequate consonants to pronounce Persian sounds. The two scripts caused one language to almost split in two.


What’s in a Script?

By definition Urdu and Hindi are one language due to their grammatical structure and mutual intelligibility. There is no linguistic reason to divide them into separate languages. However, unfortunately there are plenty of political reasons. When politics mixes with power it becomes dangerous and when both of them mix with religion, the result is lethal. In such an environment no value is given to cultural harmony, which is the main social goal of the common man living in a society. There is no reason why minor linguistic efforts cannot be made to bring the two scripts together by giving each of them the power and means to accurately code all the words that are in use by the larger body of speakers of this language. A decade ago, such an endeavor would be unthinkable without political blessings and corporate or organizational backup…but technology has made it possible for individuals to make fluid efforts towards equalizing the scripts in terms of their coding capability.

Muslims of India look to Persia as their religious past and Hindus of India look to Sanskrit as their religious past. Going back to the Etymology of Hindustan, it has both Sanskrit and Persian roots. In my opinion the word Hindustan, therefore, can represent the subcontinent. The word Hindustani can represent the Hindi/Urdu language.

And…such representation should be acceptable to majority of people of the subcontinent. Whatever the political and geographical divides between the countries of the subcontinent are, there is no reason to divide the culture as well. Hindustani is threatened by English in both India and Pakistan, under both Persian and Nagari script. The future of both countries’ various cultures, languages and their very existence depend on each other. Taking baby steps towards finding common grounds seems to be the best way forward. We should start by communicating in the SAME language that we already speak, and to recognize both versions of the language in either script as one…in the words of Nazeer:

har aan men har baat men har dhang men pehchaan, aashiq hai to dilbar ko har ik rang men pehchaan.