Why Hindi-Urdu is One Language and Arabic is Several

[Water Car Engineer]

Prakrit is the language of the Buddhists. Today's Bengali is one of the closest descendants of Prakrit.

Wow, thanks for the info. I thought Pali was the language of Buddhist back then.

 

[edgewalker]

Wowww! superb debate! exactly what i was lookin for! Thanks a ton for sparking such lively exchange! this page is an excellent specimen of all the emotional sensitivities attached to Hindi-Urdu. Even tho there’s no argument at all and as per established linguistic standard, Hindi & Urdu are one and the same language, people will still stubbornly reject and get all emotional on the subject.

The divide is of course purely sociocultural and as such does not have any basis in the reality of the language as it is used by the speakers. The language will be much better served if we could just spare it our myopic communal attachments.

I came across this piece while researching for ‘Hamari Boli’. Literally meaning ‘Our Language’, Hamari Boli is a Language Planning and People-to-People Communication initiative aimed at eliminating the written illegibility of Hindi-Urdu by neutralizing the script using Roman alphabet and simultaneously use the opportunity to create a People-to-People communication platform for Indo-Pak.

We are of the opinion that the politically motivated division of The Hindustani Language as Hindi & Urdu was an epic injustice and disservice to the language and 900Million+ speakers.The deliberate disseverance of literary canon, forced sanskritization and persianization, super-enforced with extreme digraphia amounts to depriving the speakers of almost half of their very own linguistic heritage! We believe that the artificial Hindi-Urdu divide is detrimental to public interest as it severely limits the reach and accessibility of the language. The peculiar brands of Hindi and Urdu manufactured as national languages in India and Pakistan since partition are patently un-natural as they do not represent the language as it is held by the people but are solely based on the establishments’ ideal of the national language. The interest of the people will be much better served if the efforts and money being wasted on addressing either of the two scripts are invested in creating content accessible to all Hindi-Urdu speakers alike. Testimony to the argument is the fact that both ‘Official Hindi’ and ‘Official Urdu’ can only be found in text books and official speeches. Popular Hindi-Urdu is essentially the same (except for the script) across India & Pakistan (and among the worldwide Desi diaspora) and that is what we call Hamari Boli, the lingua franca of the Desi People!

Currently, we’re inviting Scholars, Academics and Institutions to our “Scholars’ Board” and “Academic Partners Forum”. Hope some contributors or readers would like to join. Below is the official invitation with detailed introduction. If you know anyone who would be interested in it, please forward.

———————————————————————————————————————————

Hello. This is Azad from Hamari Foundation. Am writing to introduce & invite you to “Hamari Boli Scholars’ Board”. Literally meaning ‘Our Language’, Hamari Boli is a Language Planning and People-to-People Communication initiative aimed at eliminating the written illegibility of Hindi-Urdu by neutralizing the script using Roman alphabet and simultaneously use the opportunity to create a People-to-People communication platform for Indo-Pak.

As an esteemed scholar, you’re already aware that Hindi & Urdu are actually one language divided artificially for sociocultural and politico-religious motivations. But this knowledge is not popular understanding and to this day, the divide plays a major role in communal identification in Indo-Pak. However, linguistics by and large is in agreement over their twin status. We intend to bridge the divide by bringing the whole range of Hindi-Urdu (as spoken across India & Pakistan) together using roman script and develop & promote a neutral writing style as exemplified by Bollywood and popular media.

We are of the opinion that the politically motivated division of The Hindustani Language as Hindi & Urdu was an epic injustice and disservice to the language and 900Million+ speakers.The deliberate disseverance of literary canon, forced sanskritization and persianization, super-enforced with extreme digraphia amounts to depriving the speakers of almost half of their very own linguistic heritage! We believe that the artificial Hindi-Urdu divide is detrimental to public interest as it severely limits the reach and accessibility of the language. The peculiar brands of Hindi and Urdu manufactured as national languages in India and Pakistan since partition are patently un-natural as they do not represent the language as it is held by the people but are solely based on the establishments’ ideal of the national language. The interest of the people will be much better served if the efforts and money being wasted on addressing either of the two scripts are invested in creating content accessible to all Hindi-Urdu speakers alike. Testimony to the argument is the fact that both ‘Official Hindi’ and ‘Official Urdu’ can only be found in text books and official speeches. Popular Hindi-Urdu is essentially the same (except for the script) across India & Pakistan (and among the worldwide Desi diaspora) and that is what we call Hamari Boli, the lingua franca of the Desi People!

Hamari Boli is a full scale Language Planning endeavor with following Corpus Planning objectives;

1. Graphization (Romanization using Uddin & Begum scheme)

2. Lexical expansion & modernization (combining Hindi-Urdu vocabulary and unifying literary canon, technical vocab modernization)

3. Style reform (simplified language accessible to widest possible audience as exemplified by Bollywood)

Roman Hindi-Urdu is already in vogue and the newer generations are all comfortable using it. However, the problem is that there’s no standardization and for any standard to be widely agreed upon, there needs to be significant content in it. what better than a Dictionary? Google Trends reports 36Million+ ‘Dictionary’ related searches yearly from Indo-Pak! Who wouldn’t just love a quality free dictionary

So, our first undertaking is an “English-to-Hamari Boli Dictionary”. Conceptualized as a not-for-profit social venture, implementation and operation is planned as a web-based collaborative to which any one with net access can contribute. the idea is to compile Hamari Boli Dictionaries and publish in collaboration with Wikimedia Foundation at hb.Wikitionary.org under Creative Commons! it will have meanings of English words from both modern Hindi and Urdu in roman script so that readers of both Devanagari/Perso-Arabic scripts will benefit equally. for ex. part entry for ‘Knowledge’ will be;

Knowledge = Ilm
= Vidya
= Gyan
= Idrak
= Danish

The beauty of the Wiki format is that it turns the web into a global volunteer recruiting platform and also turns the website into a constant content creation engine, thus enabling the site to constantly grow in content. Being perpetually online means that it will be available online to everyone, anytime, anywhere in the world, absolutely free! Just like Wikipedia!

With over 100 million net users in the region (and 30 million diaspora), the web setting will also be an ideal People-to-People communication platform for Indo-Pak confidence building, where Hindi & Urdu speakers worldwide will be enabled to interact freely, contribute to and cooperate on a mutually beneficial endeavor, creating invaluable resources of lasting value for the benefit of all. Broad social objectives are;

1. Create a perpetual apolitical People-to-People communication platform.

2. Eliminate language communalization (Hindi for Hindus, Urdu for Muslims) by neutralizing the script

3. Make Indians and Pakistanis consciously register the shared Desi heritage, easing feelings of alienation.

4. Provide an apolitical environment to scholars and researchers to observe & study people interaction, analyze sentiments toward each other, identify best practices, report problem areas and suggest solutions.

5. Create a lasting, freely available resource that Indians and Pakistanis both own, contribute to & share equally.

Version 1.0 is being compiled. Target is 100k English words. Will be published at hb.wikitionary.org when complete and then turned over to community for Version 2.0 (guided and aided by our full-time editors and technical staff). The Scholars’ board and Review committees will maintain oversight to ensure content quality.

Dictionary is the first project for the obvious reason that it has the most popular appeal. Being Roman, will be accessible to almost every desi alike. Several other concepts are in line and will be floated soon, most significant being a Hamari Boli Wikipedia (translation of English Wikipedia). Please see HamariBoli.com for details.

Being a bonafide scholarly endeavor, with a very wide popular appeal, we’re confident that Hamari Boli will be hailed as an ingenuous innovation in Language Planning, creating globally accessible Hindi-Urdu resources for the benefit of all i.e. speakers, learners, academics, scholars and researchers alike. Currently, we’re inviting scholars and academic institutions to our Academic Partners Forum and Scholars’ Board and will be most honored if you would like to join us.

Member Scholars, Students and faculty from partner institutes will be formally acknowledged on the website and foundation’s records and publications. Each and every contributor will have personal lifetime page at HamariBoli.com with details of all contributions. Member scholars / Institutions will have full access to our entire content libraries, other data and usage statistics which will be an exhaustive resource of immense value for academic research, teaching & learning. Partner Institutes and Scholars will also get the opportunity to interact and collaborate with policy researchers over the roles and implications of languages for public policy.

We hope that you’ll find Hamari Boli an invaluable undertaking and will oblige us with your kind patronage.

Looking forward to working with you..

–
Best regards
–
Azad Qalamdar
Coordinator, Hamari Foundation

92300-2235062
azad@hamariboli.com

HamariBoli.com

twitter.com/hamariboli
Facebook.com/pages/Hamari-Boli/143636665673657

 

[JonAsad]

^^ interesting read ..

 

[BelligerentPacifist]

...Even tho there’s no argument at all and as per established linguistic standard, Hindi & Urdu are one and the same language....

Would you care to introduce yourself? Are you one of the leading linguistics dealing with these languages? A student of one perhaps? Because that's one bold claim you make. And you do it so emphatically and leave no door for uncertainty ("no argument at all"), AND without no reference to either what constitutes the "established linguistic standard" or to the works of scholars dealing with the uniglossity of Hindi and Urdu, that however much you write or say, it will have zero academic value.

Learn the aadaab of science if you wish to dabble in literary problems, or learn to scarper when you see them. And no, a facebook page does not constitute an academic reference.

Of course I'm saying this to us all, myself included!

 

[LaBong]

Wow, thanks for the info. I thought Pali was the language of Buddhist back then.

You're indeed right. Pali was the language of Budhhist and is believed to be the language of Gotama Budhha. Another name of Pali is Magadhi Prakrit(named after Magadh) from which Eastern Indo Arayn languages ie. Bengali, Assamese, Oriya and number of Bihari languages(Magahi, Maithili, Bhojpuri etc) were originated. The edicts of Ashoka are written in Magdhi Prakrit, it was also the language of Mauryan court.

Prakrit can be classified in three types collectively called Dramatic Prakrit.

Maharashtri Prakrit

Maharashtri was used in the southwestern regions of Ancient India, later evolving into the Southern Indo-Aryan languages, including Marathi and Konkani.

Sauraseni Prakrit

Sauraseni was used in north-central India, later evolving into the Central Indo-Aryan languages,viz. Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi.

Magadhi Prakrit

Magadhi was used in eastern India, later evolving into the Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, including Bengali, Assamese, Oriya, and the Bihari languages (Bhojpuri, modern Magadhi, Maithili, etc.), among others.

As far as Urdu/Hindi is concerned, strictly linguistically they are not even different language but two different dialect of a same language - Hindusthani or Khariboli. Sadly, after partition both India and Pakistan started painting the languages in religious colour. There were many non-Muslims contributed heavily towards Urdu literature, Munshi Premchand being one. Not sure if they are recognized in Pakistan.

 

[The Clarifier]

Urdu and Hindi are different languages. When spoken on the street, they are interchangeable (differences are noticeable if you concentrate very hard). I was once talking to a [non Indian] hindi speaker and she told me Urdu is quite classic in its speech...

I am just learning Urdu right now (dont ask me why I don't know it!) and I had much difficulty understanding Allama Iqbal's poetry. He used a lot of Dari (Farsi) words that are also used in Urdu.

Besides that, the difference in writing is apparent.

Give it 500 years and Urdu and Hindi would probably be quite different.

PS. How is arabic different languages? Urdu and Hindi are definitely different but I fail to see how Arabic has many different languages. Sure, accents are different...

 

[Kambojaric]

Urdu and Hindi are different languages. When spoken on the street, they are interchangeable (differences are noticeable if you concentrate very hard). I was once talking to a [non Indian] hindi speaker and she told me Urdu is quite classic in its speech...

I am just learning Urdu right now (dont ask me why I don't know it!) and I had much difficulty understanding Allama Iqbal's poetry. He used a lot of Dari (Farsi) words that are also used in Urdu.

Besides that, the difference in writing is apparent.

Give it 500 years and Urdu and Hindi would probably be quite different.

PS. How is arabic different languages? Urdu and Hindi are definitely different but I fail to see how Arabic has many different languages. Sure, accents are different...

I suppose that some dialects of arabic differ so much from each other that some people consider them different languages. e.g. i have many syrian, palestinian friends who have difficulty understanding another tunisian guys arabic. Maybe some arabic speaker could shed some light on this.

 

[The Clarifier]

I suppose that some dialects of arabic differ so much from each other that some people consider them different languages. e.g. i have many syrian, palestinian friends who have difficulty understanding another tunisian guys arabic. Maybe some arabic speaker could shed some light on this.

Well, I'm not an arabic speaker (though there are several here; they'll respond better) but I do live in UAE so I am familiar with arabic dialects. I think the biggest difference is the accent. Arabic is understandable whether a Egyptian speaks it or a Emarati speaks it, but both their accents and their slang are slightly different. As for your example, I am assuming (only assuming) that the difference between Tunisian arabic and 'normal' arabic is perhaps the difference between Dari and Farsi.

Its like Pakistanis trying to understand how bengalis speak hindi or bengalis trying to understand how Pakistanis speak Urdu here in UAE

 

[edgewalker]

Would you care to introduce yourself? Are you one of the leading linguistics dealing with these languages? A student of one perhaps? Because that's one bold claim you make. And you do it so emphatically and leave no door for uncertainty ("no argument at all"), AND without no reference to either what constitutes the "established linguistic standard" or to the works of scholars dealing with the uniglossity of Hindi and Urdu, that however much you write or say, it will have zero academic value.

Learn the aadaab of science if you wish to dabble in literary problems, or learn to scarper when you see them. And no, a facebook page does not constitute an academic reference.

Of course I'm saying this to us all, myself included!

precisely the reason i dont bother getting into debates over already settled issues. the so-called scholastic gymnastics are just so damn annoying! its like evolution, the debates never end!

had you took the time to check HamariBoli.com, you'd have found all the references dost. here, check the Ethnologue report for Hindustani;
ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=1326-16

more? see Christopher King's "One Language, two scripts";
amazon.com/One-Language-Two-Scripts-Nineteenth/dp/019565112X

and;
languageinindia.com/march2003/hindustani.html

i dont believe in wasting time over non-issues, and i cant be bullied by uber-scholastic antics. What i was interested in knowing is what members here think of the utility of Hamari Boli i.e. the sum total of the whole range of Hindi-Urdu (as spoken across India & Pakistan) in roman script? Will it be of benefit to the 500Million+ speakers?

what about the open source Hamari Boli dictionary available 24/7, absolutely free, equally accessible to 100Million+ internet users in the region?

what's 'Uniglossity' by the way?

 

[53fd]

A lot of Indians say they speak Hindi but not Urdu. Let’s assume for a second that the common everyday words they use, words such as khaas, zabaan, dimagh, baaqi, phir, pareshaan are common hindi words, & not Urdu. We know they are Arabic & Farsi derived words, & not Sanskrit derived. Hence, the Hindi speaker should be pronouncing these words the way an Arabic or Farsi speaker would. But they can’t, because many sounds in these words are not present in Hindi, but they are in Urdu.

For example: instead of saying zabaan, most hindi speakers say J-abaan; they can’t pronounce the KH sound in khaas properly; they can’t pronounce the GH sound in dimagh properly; they can’t pronounce the hard Q sound in baaqi properly; they can’t pronounce the PH in phir properly, replacing the PH with “F”, they can’t pronounce the SH sound in pareshaan properly, replacing it with “S”. So, that just proves that even these common words are not in Hindi, but they are in Urdu. It just shows Hindi is an artificial language.

I agree that even though no one used to call the language ‘Urdu’ till a recently (a couple hundred years ago), that does not mean ‘Urdu’ is more recent than Hindi. Urdu used to be called ‘Rekhta’ by Amir Khusro, which is now recognized as 1 of the 4 recognized forms of Urdu. The term ‘Urdu’ was coined much later. In fact, as my previous examples in this post have shown, Hindi is an artificial language but Urdu is not. Urdu is a complete, developed language. Hindi does not have the alphabets that Farsi, Arabic and Urdu have; so when they are using Arabic-Farsi derived words, Hindi speakers cannot these words properly.

Even the Nastaliq script is much older than the Devanagari script. The PM of India Manmohan Singh, born before partition of 1947 (born in 1932), reads his speeches in Nastaliq because that's what he was educated in, he's not fluent in Devanagari at all. If you read the "shaira-mushaira" from renowned poets before 1947, all of it is written in Nastaliq. Before partition of India in 1947, all the media publications, newspapers etc was dominated by Nastaliq. Any Indians out there, show me literary work written in Devanagari script FOR HINDI (NOT SANSKRIT) before 1947.

 

[Desert Fox]

The soken Urdu of Pakistan and the spoken Hindi of India are esentially the same language ie. Hindustani. After partition, Indians named it Hindi and official hindi was heavily Sanskritized and in Pakistan they Persianized the same language.

and sir where the hell did you learn this from? Urdu and hindi have been different from the beginning!

You wouldn't understand a single word i say in Urdu (though i can't read or write in Urdu)!

I can give you the list of the basic Urdu vocab and you wouldn't have a clue of what it means!

Also the hindi words spoken in india have a completely different pronunciation than the ones in Urdu, for example you can't pronounce Ph, Z, Sh, Gh and many other Arabic/Farsi letters and words that start with these letters.

 

[jayron]

and sir where the hell did you learn this from? Urdu and hindi have been different from the beginning!

You wouldn't understand a single word i say in Urdu (though i can't read or write in Urdu)!

I can give you the list of the basic Urdu vocab and you wouldn't have a clue of what it means!

Also the hindi words spoken in india have a completely different pronunciation than the ones in Urdu, for example you can't pronounce Ph, Z, Sh, Gh and many other Arabic/Farsi letters and words that start with these letters.

I am not talking about lone words that you borrow to modify a language but the structure of the language. The lone words have the unique Arabic and Persian sounds while the spoken Urdu usually doesn't. Or at least that's what I get from listening to both the native speakers .

 

[53fd]

jayron:

How can one even argue about comparing the Devanagari script to the Nastaliq one? Farsi, Arabic words are written from right to left, the way Urdu is. The spellings for Arabic-Farsi derived words such as “khaas, zabaan, dimagh, baaqi, phir, pareshaan” is the same in the Nastaliq script. Urdu is written in exactly the same alphabets as Persian and Arabic (Urdu has the extra alphabets found in Persian but not in Arabic, and Urdu has the extra alphabets found in Arabic but not in Persian), Hindi is not written in the same alphabet. I think you are underestimating the importance of the alphabet in the general Muslim culture. These are the alphabets used for writing the Quran, the alphabet itself has a significant importance deeply uprooted in Muslim past history and culture. That is why when the Muslims were ruling India, Urdu went in excellent development but Hindi did not. Once the British took over the Mughal rule, the Hindus saw this as a great opportunity to promote the Sanskritized Devanagari script (because the Sanskritized Devanagari is their sacred script for their Holy Hindu mythologies). Unfortunately, because of the deep Muslim culture rooted in India because of Muslim rule, the spoken and the written language for poetry that had mostly Arabic/Persian derived words, was translated into the Devanagari script. This resulted in the Hindi-Urdu controversy. The Hindus tried to make the Devanagari more prominent, when initially it was only confined to the Hindu mythologies.

So, why should the Sanskrit Devanagari script (written from the left to right) even claim that these words are a part of Hindi, when they are not written or pronounced (the Hindi Devanagari addition of the dots came much later) the same way an Arabic or a Persian person does? There seems to be something fundamentally wrong with this argument.

The ‘common Hindi’ (not Shudh Hindi) that you talk about contains a majority of Persian/Arabic derived words, and very few Sanskrit-derived words. So if Hindi is trying to claim that these Persian/Arabic derived words are theirs, they have to write them the same way or pronounced the same way as an Arabic/Persian person does. They do not.

This is where the contradiction arises in India: even though the common Hindi speak is influenced by words from Persian/Arabic Muslim culture, because of India’s dominant Hindu culture, India tried to make the Sanskrit Devanagari script of more importance as compared to the Nastaliq script, even though the Nastaliq script is deeply rooted into the Muslim culture of not only the Indian subcontinent, but also of the whole Middle East, Africa, Afghanistan, Iran: where ever Arabic and Persian is spoken. Sanskritized Devanagari is only deeply rooted in the Hinduism religious texts, but it has nothing to do with the Arabic/Persian derived words.

When you start writing the Quran, or deep Persian, Arabic, Urdu poetry into Sanskritized Devanagari script and claim all of those to be SOLELY YOURS, you forget the historical, cultural, linguistic ties that poetry/Quran had with the Persian/Arabic/Islamic culture of its time. It’s almost like when you translate Holy Scriptures of a religious book into a completely different language and script.

The problem arose when they tried to “translate” the works these prominent Urdu poets such as Ghalib, Amir Khusro, Mir Taqi Mir, Bulle Shah etc written in Nastaliq script to the Sanskritized Devanagari script. As you know the limitations of the Sanskritized Devanagari script, the Urdu-lovers of India protested that the Urdu works were getting butchered by the Sanskritized Devanagari script, which is why the Hindi-Urdu controversy took place. This is also the reason why you see most Indians today speak Hindi from the Sanskritized Devanagari script, and butchering the beautiful lanaguage. The Hindi Devanagari script (made by adding dots to certain alphabets of the Sanskritized Devanagari script) was nothing but an artificial creation, predominantly for the Urdu lovers in the state of UP. Unfortunately, even know the Hindi Devanagari script “is more gramatically correct” than the Sanskritized Devanagari script, because of the love of Indians for Hinduism, as well as the development of the Hindi Devanagari script was only a recent phenomena, most Indians still speak words using the Sanskritized Devanagari script. Even Hindus in Delhi, which has a huge Muslim population, say J-or for zor, F-ir for phir, pare-S-aan for pareshaan etc. The words people from Delhi use are mostly Arabic/Persian derived words, but they still pronounce them from the Sanskritized Devanagari script. This is what one calls the butchering of a beautiful language.

The elderly Indian Muslim relatives I have in Bihar constantly feel their heritage and culture is in danger in India. That is why Urdu (because of its Nastaliq script) is considered a Muslim language in India, while Hindi (Devanagari script) is considered a language for all Indians. However, other states like Tamil Nadu have fought the Indian government, and refused to make it part of the mandatory state curriculum.

 

[amigo]

many outside india believes that typical hindi is the lang. of indians, but it is only used in teaching & paper work, generally ppl speak hinustani which is a mix of hindi & urdu. most indian find pure hindi difficult to apeak & understand.
i have also faced that while filling diff. forms in hindi, it is terrible most words are like any puzzle. most indians will agree on that.

 

[Desert Fox]

jayron:

How can one even argue about comparing the Devanagari script to the Nastaliq one? Farsi, Arabic words are written from right to left, the way Urdu is. The spellings for Arabic-Farsi derived words such as “khaas, zabaan, dimagh, baaqi, phir, pareshaan” is the same in the Nastaliq script. Urdu is written in exactly the same alphabets as Persian and Arabic (Urdu has the extra alphabets found in Persian but not in Arabic, and Urdu has the extra alphabets found in Arabic but not in Persian), Hindi is not written in the same alphabet. I think you are underestimating the importance of the alphabet in the general Muslim culture. These are the alphabets used for writing the Quran, the alphabet itself has a significant importance deeply uprooted in Muslim past history and culture. That is why when the Muslims were ruling India, Urdu went in excellent development but Hindi did not. Once the British took over the Mughal rule, the Hindus saw this as a great opportunity to promote the Sanskritized Devanagari script (because the Sanskritized Devanagari is their sacred script for their Holy Hindu mythologies). Unfortunately, because of the deep Muslim culture rooted in India because of Muslim rule, the spoken and the written language for poetry that had mostly Arabic/Persian derived words, was translated into the Devanagari script. This resulted in the Hindi-Urdu controversy. The Hindus tried to make the Devanagari more prominent, when initially it was only confined to the Hindu mythologies.

So, why should the Sanskrit Devanagari script (written from the left to right) even claim that these words are a part of Hindi, when they are not written or pronounced (the Hindi Devanagari addition of the dots came much later) the same way an Arabic or a Persian person does? There seems to be something fundamentally wrong with this argument.

The ‘common Hindi’ (not Shudh Hindi) that you talk about contains a majority of Persian/Arabic derived words, and very few Sanskrit-derived words. So if Hindi is trying to claim that these Persian/Arabic derived words are theirs, they have to write them the same way or pronounced the same way as an Arabic/Persian person does. They do not.

This is where the contradiction arises in India: even though the common Hindi speak is influenced by words from Persian/Arabic Muslim culture, because of India’s dominant Hindu culture, India tried to make the Sanskrit Devanagari script of more importance as compared to the Nastaliq script, even though the Nastaliq script is deeply rooted into the Muslim culture of not only the Indian subcontinent, but also of the whole Middle East, Africa, Afghanistan, Iran: where ever Arabic and Persian is spoken. Sanskritized Devanagari is only deeply rooted in the Hinduism religious texts, but it has nothing to do with the Arabic/Persian derived words.

When you start writing the Quran, or deep Persian, Arabic, Urdu poetry into Sanskritized Devanagari script and claim all of those to be SOLELY YOURS, you forget the historical, cultural, linguistic ties that poetry/Quran had with the Persian/Arabic/Islamic culture of its time. It’s almost like when you translate Holy Scriptures of a religious book into a completely different language and script.

The problem arose when they tried to “translate” the works these prominent Urdu poets such as Ghalib, Amir Khusro, Mir Taqi Mir, Bulle Shah etc into the Sanskritized Devanagari script. As you know the limitations of the Sanskritized Devanagari script, the Urdu-lovers of India protested that the Urdu works were getting butchered by the Sanskritized Devanagari script, which is why the Hindi-Urdu controversy took place. This is also the reason why you see most Indians today speak Hindi from the Sanskritized Devanagari script, and butchering the beautiful lanaguage. The Hindi Devanagari script was nothing but an artificial creation, predominantly for the Urdu lovers in the state of UP. Unfortunately, even know the Hindi Devanagari script “is more gramatically correct” than the Sanskritized Devanagari script, because of the love of Indians for Hinduism, as well as the development of the Hindi Devanagari script only a recent phenomena, most Indians still speak words using the Sanskritized Devanagari script. Even Hindus in Delhi, which has a huge Muslim population, say J-or for zor, F-ir for phir, pare-S-aan for pareshaan etc. The words people from Delhi use are mostly Arabic/Persian derived words, but they still pronounce them from the Sanskritized Devanagari script. This is what one calls the butchering of a beautiful language.

The elderly Indian Muslim relatives I have in Bihar constantly feel their heritage and culture is in danger in India. That is why Urdu (because of its Nastaliq script) is considered a Muslim language in India, while Hindi (Devanagari script) is considered a language for all Indians. However, other states like Tamil Nadu have fought the Indian government, and refused to make it part of the mandatory state curriculum.

i could not have said it any better!