Hindustani language

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Hindustānī (Hindī-Urdū) हिन्दुस्तानी, ہندوستانی Hindustānī
Spoken in:	India, Pakistan, Fiji, Guyana, Malaysia, Suriname
Region:	South Asia, Oceania, Caribbean
Total speakers:	541 million native, 904 million total
Ranking:	2
Language family:	Indo-European  Indo-Iranian   Indo-Aryan    Hindustānī (Hindī-Urdū)
Writing system:	Devanāgarī script, Perso-Arabic script
Official status
Official language of:	Fiji, India (called Hindī), Pakistan (called Urdū)
Regulated by:	no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	hi,ur
ISO 639-2:	hin,urd
ISO 639-3:	variously: hin — Hindi urd — Urdu hif — Fijian Hindustani hns — Caribbean Hindustani
This page contains Indic text. Without rendering support you may see irregular vowel positioning and a lack of conjuncts. More...

Hindustānī (/ hindustɑːniː /; हिन्दुस्तानी, ہندوستانی), also known as "Hindī-Urdū," is a term used by linguists to describe several closely related idioms in the northern, central and northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent and the vernacular blend between its two standardized registers in the form of the official languages of Hindī and Urdū, as well as several nonstandard dialects. These two standardized languages of Hindustānī are nearly identical in grammar and share a basic common vocabulary. In fact, before the Partition of British India, the terms Hindustani and Urdu were synonymous.^[1]

Contents 1 History of the name 1.1 Urdū 1.2 Hindī 1.3 Bāzār Hindustānī 1.4 Variants of Hindustānī 2 Hindī and Urdū: sister tongues 3 Official status 4 Hindustānī outside South Asia 5 Vocabulary 6 Writing system 7 Grammar 7.1 Genders 7.2 Interrogatives 7.3 Pronouns 7.4 Word order 7.5 Tense and aspect of Hindustānī verbs 7.6 Case 8 Common difficulties faced in learning Hindustānī 9 Hindustānī and Bollywood 10 See also 11 Footnotes 12 Bibliography 13 External links

[edit] History of the name

Originally the term Hindustānī ("of the land of the Hindus") was the name given by the Turco-Persian Mogul conquerors of India to Khaṛībolī, the local form of Hindī at their capital, Delhi, and nearby cities. As a contact language between the two cultures, Hindustānī absorbed large numbers of Persian, Arabic, and Turkic words, and with further Mughal conquest it spread as a lingua franca across northern India. It remained the primary lingua franca of India for the next four centuries, although it varied significantly in vocabulary depending on the local language, and it achieved the status of a literary language, along with Persian, in the Muslim courts. In time it came to be called Urdū (zabān-e urdū زبان اردو‎, ज़बान-ए उर्दू, "language of the camp" in Persian, derived from Altaic Ordū "camp"), and as the highly Persianized court language, Rekhta, or "mixed".

When the British conquered India in the late 1800s, they used the words 'Hindustānī' and 'Urdū' interchangeably. They developed it as the language of administration of British India, further preparing it to be the official language of modern India and Pakistan.

With the partition of India in 1947, the new states of Pakistan and India chose Persianized and Sanskritized registers of Hindustānī as their national languages. These they called "Urdū" and "Hindī" respectively. Since this time, the term "Urdū" has ceased to mean the lingua franca, although nonstandard Hindustānī dialects are often still considered dialects of Urdu.

The term has had a complex history, holding different meanings to different people. For example, in recent times, the word has been used for the intentionally neutral language of Bollywood film, which is popular in both India and Pakistan.

[edit] Urdū

Main article: Urdu

Urdū is the national language of Pakistan and an officially recognized regional language of India. It is also an official language in the Indian states of Āndhra Pradesh, Jammū and Kashmīr, National Capital Territory of Delhi, and Uttar Pradesh. The word "Urdū" derives from the more formal phrase zabān-e urdū-e mo'alla, a Persian phrase referring the "language of the camp". (The word has the same root as the English word "horde", a word that owes its existence to the armies of the Mongol ancestors of the Mughals.) The language began as the common speech of soldiers serving Mughal lords. The term became transferred to the court language of the Mughal aristocracy, whose dialect was based on the upper-class dialect of Delhi. Urdū's historical development was centered on the Urdū poets of the Mughal courts of north Indian metropolises such as Delhi, Lakhnaū, Lahore, and Āgrā. Urdū is written using a modified form of the Arabic script known as the Nasta'liq script. Before the Partition of India, the terms Hindustani and Urdu were synonymous.^[2]

[edit] Hindī

Main article: Hindi

Standard Hindī, the official language of India, is based on the Khariboli dialect of the Delhi region and differs from Urdu in that it is usually written in the indigenous Devanāgarī script of India and exhibits less Persian influence than Urdū. Many scholars today employ a Sanskritized form of Hindī developed primarily in Vārāṇasī, the Hindū holy city, which is based on the Eastern Hindī dialect of that region.

Note that, the term "Hindustānī" has generally fallen out of common usage in modern India, except to refer to a style of Indian classical music prevalent in northern India. The term used to refer to the language is "Hindī", regardless of the mix of Persian or Sanskrit words used by the speaker. One could conceive of a wide spectrum of dialects, with the highly Persianized Urdu at one end of the spectrum and a heavily Sanskrit based dialect, spoken in the region around Vārāṇasī, at the other end of the spectrum. In common usage in India, the term "Hindī" includes all dialects, except the Urdū end of the spectrum. Thus, the different meanings of the word "Hindī" include, among others:

1. standardized Hindī as taught in schools throughout India,
2. formal or official Hindī advocated by Purushottam Das Tandon and as instituted by the post-independence Indian government, heavily influenced by Sanskrit,
3. the vernacular dialects of Hindustānī/Hindī-Urdū as spoken throughout India,
4. the neutralized form of the language used in popular television and films, or
5. the more formal neutralized form of the language used in broadcast and print news reports.

The term "Hindustani" is now used in India to deliberately convey the language of unified pre-1947 India, with a wealth of words of both Persian and Sanskrit origin, without an attempt at leaning towards either as has taken place with Urdu and Hindi. The term has a secular flavour; the speaker is rising above Hindu/Muslim visions of India.

[edit] Bāzār Hindustānī

In a specific sense, "Hindustānī" may be used to refer to the dialects and varieties used in common speech, in contrast with the standardized Hindī and Urdū. This meaning is reflected in the use of the term "bāzār Hindustānī," in other words, the "language of the street or the marketplace", as opposed to the perceived refinement of formal Hindī, Urdū, or even Sanskrit. Thus, the Webster's New World Dictionary defines the term Hindustānī as the principal dialect of Hindī/Urdū, used as a trade language throughout north India and Pakistan.

[edit] Variants of Hindustānī

Hindustānī has four commonly named varieties:

• Hindī (High Hindī, Nagari Hindī, Literary Hindī, Standard Hindī);
• Urdū (Standard Urdū);
• Dakkhinī (literally, "southern"), a less Persianized dialect of Urdū spoken in the region of Hyderābād;
• Rekhta, the highly Persianized variety of Urdū spoken in the Mughul court, and used for poetry.

[edit] Hindī and Urdū: sister tongues

While, at the spoken level, Urdū and Hindī are considered dialects of a single language (or diasystem), they differ vastly in literary and formal vocabulary; where literary Urdū draws heavily on Persian and Arabic, literary Hindī draws heavily on Sanskrit and to a lesser extent Prakrit. The grammar and base vocabulary (most pronouns, verbs, adpositions, etc.) of both Urdu and Hindi, however, are the same and derive from a Prakritic base.

The associated dialects of Urdū and Hindī are known as "Hindustānī". It is perhaps the lingua franca of the west and north of the Indian subcontinent, though it is understood fairly well in other regions also, especially in the urban areas. A common vernacular sharing characteristics with Urdū, Sanskritized Hindī, and regional Hindī, Hindustānī is more commonly used as a vernacular than highly Arabicized/Persianized Urdū or highly Sanskritized Hindī.

This can be seen in the popular culture of Bollywood or, more generally, the vernacular of Pakistanis and Indians which generally employs a lexicon common to both "Urdū" and "Hindī" speakers. Minor subtleties in region will also affect the 'brand' of Hindustānī, sometimes pushing the Hindustānī closer to Urdū or to Hindī. One might reasonably assume that the language spoken in Lakhnaū, Uttar Pradesh (known for its beautiful usage of Urdū) and Vārāṇasī (a holy city for Hindūs and thus using highly Sanskritized Hindī) is somewhat different. A humorous way of putting it would be that the Lucknow lahjā (accent in Urdū) is of a different shade than the Vārāṇasī uchchāraṇ (pronunciation in Hindī).

Hindustānī, if both Hindī and Urdū are counted, is the third or second most widely spoken language in the world after Mandarin and possibly English.^[3]

Also see Persian and Hindustani.

[edit] Official status

Hindustānī, along with Bau Fijian and English, is an official language of Fiji as prescribed by the Constitution of Fiji. Citizens of Fiji have the constitutional right to communicate with any government agency in any of the official languages, with an interpreter to be supplied on request.

Hindī, one standardized register of Hindustānī is declared by the Constitution of India as the "official language (rājabhāshā) of the Union" (Art. 343(1)). At the state level, Hindī is the official language in the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and Delhi. Some of these states have designated a "co-official language" (usually Urdū). Similarly, Hindī is accorded the status of co-official language in several Indian states and union territories: Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Daman and Diu, Gujarat, Maharastra, and Punjab.^[4] The teaching of Hindī is compulsory in all Indian states and Union Territories except the states of Tamil Nadu, Tripura, and the Karaikal region of Pondicherry.^[5]

Urdū, the other standardized register of Hindustānī is the national language of Pakistan. It shares official language status with English. Although English is used in most elite circles, and Punjabi has a plurality of native speakers, Urdū is the lingua franca and is expected to prevail. Urdū is also one of the official languages of India, and in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, and Uttar Pradesh, Urdū has official language status. While the government school system in most other states emphasises Standard Hindi, at universities in cities such as Lucknow, Aligarh and Hyderabad, Urdū is spoken and learned and is regarded as a language of prestige.

[edit] Hindustānī outside South Asia

Besides being the lingua franca of South Asia, Hindustānī is spoken among people of the South Asian diaspora and their descendants.

In Fiji, Hindustānī has official status under Fiji's Constitution. Fijian Hindustānī descends from one of the eastern forms of Hindustānī, called Avadhī, as well as the Bhojpuri dialect. It has developed some unique features that differentiate it from the Avadhī spoken on the Indian subcontinent, although not to the extent of hindering mutual understanding. It is spoken by nearly the entire Indo-Fijian community, 38.1% of Fiji's entire population, regardless of ancestry.

Hindustānī speakers have a significant number of speakers in Caribbean countries such as Suriname, Guyana, and Trinidad & Tobago. The formal name of the language spoken in this region is generally called Caribbean Hindustānī, although the Caribbean countries may add an adjective in front of the language name (i.e. Sarnami Hindustānī) even though most individuals commonly refer to it as just Hindustānī. One major country in which Hindustānī is spoken is Suriname. Sarnami Hindustānī is the second most spoken language in Suriname after Dutch. This is due to the emigration of East Indians (known locally as Hindustānīs in Suriname) from the Indian states of Bihār and Uttar Pradesh located in North India. The emigration was mainly of Bhojpuri speaking people which has led to the local Hindustānī language having various Bhojpuri words and phrases from other Bihari languages. Ethnic Indians form 37% of the population in Suriname, the largest ethnic group there. Hence, Hindustānī is spoken frequently in Suriname and Indian culture plays a major role there in general. Hindustānī is also spoken among ethnic Indians of Guyana and is popular there as South Asians make up around 45% of Guyana's total population.

Tadj-Uzbeki, a term coined by Tiwari, refers to the Hindustānī dialect spoken by Indian immigrants from the 13th century onwards in the border region of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, specifically in the towns of Hisar, Shehr-e-nau, Regar, Surchi, etc. It is based on the Braj, Hariyani and Rajasthani dialects, and is highly influenced by Uzbek, Tajik and Russian languages.

Hindustānī also has a significant number of speakers in North America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East due to immigration by the people of India and Pakistan to these continents and regions.

Also see: Fiji Hindi

[edit] Vocabulary

Main article: Hindustānī (Hindī-Urdū) word etymology

Standard or shuddha ("pure") Hindī derives much of its formal and technical vocabulary from Sanskrit while standard Urdū derives much of its formal and technical vocabulary from Persian. Standard Hindī and Urdū are used only in public addresses and radio or TV news, while the everyday spoken language in most areas is one of several varieties of Hindustānī, whose vocabulary contains words drawn from Persian and Arabic. In addition, spoken Hindustānī includes words from English and other languages as well.

Vernacular Urdū and Hindī are practically indistinguishable. However, the literary registers differ substantially; in highly formal situations, the languages are barely intelligible to speakers of the other. It bears mention that in centuries past both Sanskrit and Persian have been regarded as the languages of the elite, even by those of differing ethnic and religious backgrounds.

There are four principal categories of words in Hindustānī:

• tatsam (तत्सम्/تتسم same as that) words: These are the words which have been directly lifted from Sanskrit to enrich the formal and technical vocabulary of Hindī. Such words (almost exclusively nouns) have been taken without any phonetic or spelling change. Among nouns, the tatsam word could be the Sanskrit uninflected word-stem, or it could be the nominative singular form in the Sanskrit nominal declension.
• tadbhav (तद्भव/تدبھو born of that) words: These are the words that might have been derived from Sanskrit or the Prakrits, but have undergone minor or major phonetic and spelling changes as they appear in modern Hindī. They also include words borrowed from the other languages.
• deshaja (देशज/دیشج local): words that are unrelated to any Sanskrit words, and of local origin.
• Loan words from non-Indian languages that include Arabic, Persian, Turkic, Portuguese or English.

Excessive use of tatsam words sometimes creates problems for most native speakers. The educated middle class population of India may be familiar with these words due to education, but less-educated persons or people of rural backgrounds lack familiarity with more formal registers. The issue also exists with high-register vocabulary borrowed from Persian and Arabic.

[edit] Writing system

Main article: Hindustani orthography

Contemporarily, Hindustānī is primarily written in the Devanāgarī script or the Perso-Arabic script. However, the Kaithi script was the historical popular script for the language. Hindī, one standardized register of Hindustānī, utilizes the Devanāgarī script while Urdū, the other standardized register of Hindustānī utilizes the Perso-Arabic script, with Nasta'līq being the preferred calligraphic style for Urdū.

Perso-Arabic script used to write Hindustānī (Urdū):

جھ	ڄ	ج	پ	ث	ٺ	ٽ	ٿ	ت	ڀ	ٻ	ب	ا
ɟʰ	ʄ	ɟ	p	s	ʈʰ	ʈ	tʰ	t	bʰ	ɓ	b	*
ڙ	ر	ذ	ڍ	ڊ	ڏ	ڌ	د	خ	ح	ڇ	چ	ڃ
ɽ	r	z	ɖʰ	ɖ	ɗ	dʰ	d	x	h	cʰ	c	ɲ
ڪ	ق	ڦ	ف	غ	ع	ظ	ط	ض	ص	ش	س	ز
k	x	pʰ	f	ɣ	∅	z	t	z	s	?	s	z
	ي	ه	و	ڻ	ن	م	ل	ڱ	گھ	ڳ	گ	ک
	*	h	*	ɳ	n	m	l	ŋ	ɡʰ	ɠ	ɡ	kʰ

Devanāgarī script used to write Hindustānī (Hindī):

अ	आ	इ	ई	उ	ऊ	ए	ऐ	ओ	औ
a	ā	i	ī	u	ū	e	ai	o	au
क	ख	ख़	ग	ॻ	ग़		घ		ङ
k	kʰ	x	ɡ	ɠ	ɣ		ɡʰ		ŋ
च	छ		ज	ॼ	ज़		झ		ञ
c	cʰ		ɟ	ʄ	z		ɟʰ		ɲ
ट	ठ		ड	ॾ	ड़		ढ	ढ़	ण
ʈ	ʈʰ		ɖ	ɗ	ɽ		ɖʰ	ɽʰ	ɳ
त	थ		द				ध		न
t	tʰ		d				dʰ		n
प	फ	फ़	ब	ॿ			भ		म
p	pʰ	f	b	ɓ			bʰ		m
य	र	ल	व
j	r	l	ʋ
श	ष	स	ह
?	ʂ	s	h

Because of Anglicization and international use of the Roman script, Hindustānī is also sometimes written in the Roman alphabet. This adaptation is called Roman Urdū. Despite opposition from Devanāgarī and Perso-Arabic script script lovers, Roman Urdū is gaining popularity especially among the youth, who use the Internet or are "cyber-citizens." Another romanisation scheme, proposed by Syed Fasih Uddin and Quader Unissa Begum is known as the Uddin and Begum Urdu-Hindustani Romanization system. It was adopted in 1992 by The First International Urdu Conference held in Chicago, entitled " The Modern International Standard Letters of Alphabet for URDU - (HINDUSTANI) - The INDIAN Language, script for the purposes of hand written communication, dictionary references, published material and Computerized Linguistic Communications (CLC)".

Also see: Devanāgarī alphabet and Perso-Arabic script

[edit] Grammar

Main article: Hindustānī grammar (Hindī-Urdu) Grammar

Despite Hindustānī and English both being Indo-European languages, Hindustānī grammar can be very complex and is different in many ways from what English speakers are used to. Most notably, Hindustānī is a subject-object-verb language, meaning that verbs usually fall at the end of the sentence rather than before the object (as in English). Hindustānī also shows mixed ergativity so that, in some cases, verbs agree with the object of a sentence rather than the subject. Unlike English, Hindustānī has no definite article (the). The numeral ek (एक, ایک) might be used as the indefinite singular article (a/an) if this needs to be stressed.

In addition, Hindustānī uses postpositions (so called because they are placed after nouns) where English uses prepositions. Other differences include gender, honorifics, interrogatives, use of cases, and different tenses. While being complicated, Hindustānī grammar is fairly regular, with irregularities being relatively limited. Despite differences in vocabulary and writing, Hindī grammar is nearly identical with Urdū. As a result, a Hindustānī grammar article is appropriate for both Hindī and Urdū. The concept of punctuation having been entirely unknown before the advent of the Europeans, Hindustānī punctuation uses Western conventions for commas, exclamation points, and question marks. Periods are sometimes used to end a sentence, though the traditional "full stop" (a vertical line in Devanāgarī script (।), short horizontal line in the Perso-Arabic script (-) is more generally used.

[edit] Genders

In Hindustānī, there are only two genders for nouns. All male human beings and male animals (or those animals and plants which are perceived to be "masculine") are masculine. All female human beings and female animals (or those animals and plants which are perceived to be "feminine") are feminine. Things, inanimate articles and abstract nouns are also either masculine or feminine according to convention, which must be memorised by non-Hindustānī speakers if they wish to learn correct Hindustānī. While this is similar to Sanskrit and most other Indo-European languages such as French, it is a very challenging learning requirement for many people in South India who are native speakers of languages which do not feature such inflection, but are expected by the Government to learn standard Hindi or standard Urdu. It is also a challenge for those who are used to only the English language, which although an Indo-European language, has dropped nearly all of its gender inflection.

The ending of a word, if a vowel, usually helps in this gender classification. Among tatsam words, the masculine words of Sanskrit remain masculine in Hindustānī, and same is the case for the feminine. Sanskrit neuter nouns usually become masculine in Hindustānī. Among the tadbʰav words, if a word ends in long /αː/, it is normally masculine. If a word ends in /iː/ or /in/, it is normally feminine. The gender of words borrowed from Arabic and Persian is determined either by phonology (usually the last vowel in the word) or by the gender of the nearest Hindustānī equivalent. The gender assignment of Hindustānī words directly borrowed from English (which are numerous) is also usually determined by the gender of the nearest Hindustānī "synonym" or by the ending. Most adjectives ending in a vowel are inflected to agree with the gender of the noun: /meriː beʈiː/ (मेरी बेटी, میری بیٹی) 'my daughter' vs. /merαː beʈαː/ (मेरा बेटा, میرا بیٹا) 'my son'.

[edit] Interrogatives

Besides the standard interrogative terms of who (कौन کؤن kaun), what (क्या کیا kyā), why (कयों کیوں kyoⁿ), when (कब کب kab), where (कहाँ کہاںkahāⁿ), how and what type (कैसा کیسا kaisā), how many (कितना کِتنا kitnā), etc., the Hindustānī word kyā (क्या کیا) can be used as a generic interrogative often placed at the beginning of a sentence to turn a statement into a Yes/No question. This makes it clear when a question is being asked. Questions can also be formed simply by modifying intonation, exactly as some questions are in English.

[edit] Pronouns

Hindustānī has pronouns in the first, second and third person for one gender only. Thus, unlike English, there is no difference between he or she. More strictly speaking, the third person of the pronoun is actually the same as the demonstrative pronoun (this / that). The verb, upon conjugation, usually indicates the difference in the gender. The pronouns have additional cases of accusative and genitive. There may also be multiple ways of inflecting the pronoun, which are given in parentheses. Note that for the second person of the pronoun (you), Hindustānī has three levels of honorifics:

• आप آپ (/αːp/): Formal and respectable form for you. Has no difference between the singular and the plural. Used in all formal settings and speaking to persons who are senior in job or age. Plural could be stressed by saying आप लोग آپ لوگ (/αːp log/ you people) or आप सब آپ سب (/αːp səb/) you all).
• तुम تُم (/tum/): Informal form of you. Has no difference between the singular and the plural. Used in all informal settings and speaking to persons who are junior in job or age. Plural could be stressed by saying तुम लोग تُم لوگ (/tum log/ you people) or तुम सब تُم سب (/tum səb/) you all).
• तु تُو (/tuː/): Extremely informal form of you, as thou. Strictly singular, its plural form being /tum/. Except for very close friends or poetic language involving God, it could be perceived as offensive in India and Pakistan.

Imperatives (requests and commands) correspond in form to the level of honorific being used, and the verb inflects to show the level of respect and politeness desired. Because imperatives can already include politeness, the word "kripayā" (कृपया کرپیا) or "meharbānī" (महरबानी, مہربانی) which can be translated as "please", is much less common than in spoken English; it is generally only used in writing or announcements, and its use in common speech is usually intended as mockery.

[edit] Word order

The standard word order in Hindustānī is, in general, Subject Object Verb, but where different emphasis or more complex structure is needed, this rule is very easily set aside (provided that the nouns/pronouns are always followed by their postpositions or case markers). More specifically, the standard order is 1. Subject 2. Adverbs (in their standard order) 3. Indirect object and any of its adjectives 4. Direct object and any of its adjectives 5. Negation term or interrogative, if any, and finally the 6. Verb and any auxiliary verbs. (Snell, p 93) The standard order can be modified in various ways to impart emphasis on particular parts of the sentence. Negation is formed by adding the word नहीं نہیں (nahīⁿ, "no"), in the appropriate place in the sentence, or by utilizing न ن (na) or मत مت (mat) in some cases. Note that in Hindustani, the adjectives precede the nouns they qualify. The auxiliaries always follow the main verb. Also, Hindustani speakers or writers enjoy considerable freedom in placing words to achieve stylistic and other socio-psychological effects, though not as much freedom as in heavily inflected languages.^[6]

[edit] Tense and aspect of Hindustānī verbs

Hindustānī verbal structure is focused on aspect with distinctions based on tense usually shown through use of the verb honā (होना/ہونا) (to be) as an auxiliary. There are three aspects: habitual (imperfect), progressive (also known as continuous) and perfective. Verbs in each aspect are marked for tense in almost all cases with the proper inflected form of honā. Hindustānī has four simple tenses, present, past, future (presumptive), and subjunctive (referred to as a mood by many linguists).^[7] Verbs are conjugated not only to show the number and person (1st, 2nd, 3rd) of their subject, but also its gender. Additionally, Hindustānī has imperative and conditional moods. The verbs must agree with the person, number and gender of the subject if and only if the subject is not followed by any postposition. If this condition is not met, the verb must agree with the number and gender of the object (provided the object does not have any postposition). If this condition is also not met, the verb agrees with neither. It is this kind of phenomenon that is called mixed ergativity.

[edit] Case

Hindustānī is a weakly inflected language for case; the relationship of a noun in a sentence is usually shown by postpositions (i.e., prepositions that follow the noun). Hindustānī has three cases for nouns. The Direct case is used for nouns not followed by any postpositions, typically for the subject case. The Oblique case is used for any nouns that is followed by a postposition. Adjectives modifying nouns in the oblique case will inflect that same way. Some nouns have a separate Vocative case. Hindustānī has two numbers: singular and plural — but they may not be shown distinctly in all declinations.

[edit] Common difficulties faced in learning Hindustānī

• the phonetic mechanism of some sounds peculiar to Hindustānī (eg. ṛ (retroflex "r"), ḍ (retroflex "d") etc.) The distinction between aspirated and unaspirated consonants will be difficult for English speakers. In addition, the distinction between dental and alveoloar (or retroflex) consonants will also pose problems. English speakers will find that they need to carefully distinguish between four different d-sounds and four different t-sounds.
• pronunciation of vowels: In English, unstressed vowels tend to have a "schwa" quality. The pronunciation of such vowels in English is changed to an "uh" sound; this is called reducing a vowel sound. The second syllable of "unify" is pronounced /ə/, not "ee." The same for the unstressed second syllable of "person" which is also pronounced /ə/ rather than "oh." In Hindustānī, English-speakers must constantly be careful not to reduce these vowels.
  • In this respect, probably the most important mistake would be for English speakers to reduce final "ah" sounds to "uh." This can be especially important because an English pronunciation will lead to misunderstandings about grammar and gender. In Hindustānī, "vo boltā hai" (वह बोलता है/وہ بولتا ہے) is "he talks" whereas "vo boltī hai" (वह बोलती ह/وہ بولتی ہے) is "she talks." A typical English pronunciation in the first sentence would be "vo boltuh hai," which will be understood as "she talks" by most Hindustānī-native speakers.
• The 'a' ending of many Sanskrit and Sanskrit borrowed gender-masculine words, due to Romanization, is highly confused by non-native speakers, because the short 'a' is dropped in Hindustānī. There are exceptions, of course, if the devanāgarī script (used to write Sanskrit and Hindī among other languages) itself dictates the additional diacritical mark for the vowel "ā" at the end of certain masculine words, like honā.
• the Verbal concordance; Hindustānī exhibits split ergativity; see Ergative-absolutive language for an example.
• Relative-correlative constructions. In English interrogative and relative pronouns are the same word. In "Who are you?" the word "who" is an interrogative, or question, pronoun. In "My friend who lives in Sydney can speak Hindustānī," the word "who" is not an interrogative, or question-pronoun. It is a relative, or linking, pronoun. In Hindustānī, there are different words for each. The interrogative pronoun tends to start with the "k" sound:" kab = when?, kahāⁿ = where?, kitnā = how much? The relative pronouns are usually very similar but start with "j" sounds: jab = when, jahāⁿ = where, jitnā = how much.

[edit] Hindustānī and Bollywood

No mention of Hindustānī may be deemed complete without mentioning the Bollywood films. The mighty Hindī/Urdū film industry Bollywood is located at Mumbai (Bombay), in the Marāṭhī-speaking state Maharashtra in India. The dialogues and the songs use the dialects of Khaṛībolī of Hindī-Urdū, Awadhī, Rājasthānī, Bhojpūrī, Punjābī and quite often Bambaiya Hindi (along with many English words). These movies are full of songs and dances—songs which are almost always upon the lips of any Indian or Pakistani (and often many Afghans, Bangladeshis, Iranians, etc.), whether a native Hindī-Urdū speaker or not. Most of the songs are in Urdū shāyarī style. See List of popular Bollywood films.

[edit] See also

Alphabetically arranged

• Fiji
• Hindi
• Hindi-Urdu controversy
• Hindustani alphabet
• Hindustānī classical music
• India
• Indian literature
• Languages of India
• Languages of Pakistan
• List of Hindi authors
• List of Urdu writers
• Mutually intelligible languages
• Pakistan
• Urdu

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^ The Oxford English Dictionary
2. ^ The Oxford English Dictionary
3. ^ The World's Most Widely Spoken Languages
4. ^ LANGUAGE IN INDIA: Volume 4 : 11 November 2004
5. ^ Government of India: National Policy on Education
6. ^ Bhatia 1996: 32-33.
7. ^ Shapiro, M: "Hindi"

[edit] Bibliography

• Asher, R. E. (1994). Hindi. In Asher (Ed.) (pp. 1547-1549).
• Asher, R. E. (Ed.). (1994). The Encyclopedia of language and linguistics. Oxford: Pergamon Press. ISBN 0-08-035943-4.
• Bailey, Thomas G. (1950). Teach yourself Hindustani. London: English Universities Press.
• Chatterji, Suniti K. (1960). Indo-Aryan and Hindi (rev. 2nd ed.). Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay.
• Dua, Hans R. (1992). Hindi-Urdu as a pluricentric language. In M. G. Clyne (Ed.), Pluricentric languages: Differing norms in different nations. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-012855-1.
• Dua, Hans R. (1994a). Hindustani. In Asher (Ed.) (pp. 1554).
• Dua, Hans R. (1994b). Urdu. In Asher (Ed.) (pp. 4863-4864).
• Rai, Amrit. (1984). A house divided: The origin and development of Hindi-Hindustani. Delhi: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-561643-X.

[edit] External links

• Shakespear, John. A Dictionary, Hindustani and English. 3rd ed., much enl. London: Printed for the author by J.L. Cox and Son: Sold by Parbury, Allen, & Co., 1834.
• Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition: Hindostani
• Hindi, Urdu, Hindustani, khaRî bolî
• Hindi-Urdu FAQ
• Hindustani as an anxiety between Hindi-Urdu Commitment
• Hindi? Urdu? Hindustani? Hindi-Urdu?
• History of Hindustani
• World's Largest Hindi-Urdu-English Dictionary
• Hindi/Urdu-English-Kalasha-Khowar-Nuristani-Pashtu Comparative Word List
• Ethnologue Report for Hindustani
• GRN Report for Hindustani
• Vinay's Hindi/Urdu Poetry Page
• Hindustani Poetry
• Hindi-Urdu online resources
• UK INDIA: Learn to read Hindi, Urdu, and many other Indian languages
• Hindi Wiktionary
• Urdu Wiktionary
• Hindi-Urdu Wikitravel Hindi-Urdu Phrasebook

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