Hindi and Urdu are two Hindustani Languages; spoken mostly in the northern and Central India and in Pakistan.
Hindi and Urdu are two different languages but these languages have many common things. Both Hindi and Urdu are developed in a similar phase and adopted many changes.
We will discuss about the development of both the languages one by one.
Development of Hindi:
Hindi in Khariboli form has been accepted as official language of India. It is written in Devnagari script. It is listed in the 22 scheduled languages of India in our Constitution.
Hindi is one of the youngest languages of India which come in literary only before 2-3 centuries back.
Hindi is 4th the most speaking languages of the world after Mandarin, Spanish and English.
Now we will dig deep to find the foundation of Hindi language. Hindi is an Indo-Aryan Language which find its root in various Prakrit languages in India. There were various Prakrit was being spoken in various regions of like Magadhi, Ardha Magadhi, Himalayan Prakrit, Shaurseni Prakrit etc.
This was around 500-600 century than these Prakrit were developed in their regions under the patron of their rulers. Although Sanskrit was used as official communication and for literary works, yet regional languages were the languages of the masses.
Hindi language was originally called Hindvi. It started taking shape around 10th century. It was mostly spoken in the present day Delhi. It was highly influenced by the Shaurseni Aprabhansha.
The vocabulary is derived mostly from the Sanskrit Language.
We can divide the development of Hindi language in 3 stages for our understanding:
- Early Stages
- Middle Stage
- Modern Stage
- Early Stage: This was the making time of Hindi when it was finding its root in regional Prakrit. The time can be considered form 5th century to 1300 AD. In this time
- Middle Stage: We can mark this time from 14th century to 1800 Century. In this stage various saints and other poet wrote which was the basis of Modern day Hindi. Kabir, Ramananda, Tulsidas, Gurunanak, Meerabai , Amir Khusrau had much impact on this.
- Modern Stage: This was the time when Hindi language developed fully. A lot of development happened during this time from grammar to modern novel writing. A lot of writers and scholars have done a lot for the development of Hindi. Bharatendu Harishchandra also known as father of Modern Hindi Literature; did a lot for the development of Hindi and to shape it in standardized form.
Development of Urdu:
The early history of Hindi and Urdu is almost same. The invasion of foreigner from western part of India from Middle East brought many changes in the Indian people. The changes was not only in culture, lifestyle but was in the language as well. The invaders patronized Persian and Arabic form of languages; which influenced the local languages and vice-versa.
Urdu is also a Hindustani language which found its origin in various other languages. Urdu is mostly spoken in the northern parts of India and is official language of some states of India. After the partition of India, Urdu was accepted as national language of Pakistan.
Urdu is developed from the medieval Apabhramsa of Shaurseni.
Shaurseni is an Indo-Aryan language that is also the ancestor of other modern languages, including the Punjabi and Hindi dialects.
Around 99% of Urdu verbs have their roots in Sanskrit and Prakrit.
Urdu developed under the influence of the Persian and Arabic languages, both of which have contributed a significant amount of vocabulary to formal speech.
The development of Urdu can be summarized in three stages:
- Early Stage
- Middle Stage
- Modern Stage
- Early Stage: The early stage of Hindi and Urdu is almost same where it was finding its source in regional Prakrit languages. Invaders of Muslim rulers from West also brought development to initial stages. This period can be marked from 500-1300 AD.
- Middle Stage: With the upcoming of Muslims rulers from west in India Persian language become prominent. Persian language itself has its roots in Arabic language. Urdu was influenced by the Perso-Arabic language duo and marked its tremendous development. Period: 1400AD -1800 AD
- Modern stage: British had played important role in developing Modern day Urdu language. Persian was the official language of many ruler’s court, British were not happy with this and they tried developing Urdu to counter Persian language. Modern writers also played an important role in development of Urdu language.