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| Hindustani | |
|---|---|
| Hindi–Urdu | |
| |
 The word Hindustani in the Devanagari and Perso-Arabic scripts | |
| Pronunciation | [ɦɪnd̪ʊst̪ɑːniː] |
| Native to | India and Pakistan |
| Region | Western Uttar Pradesh/Delhi (Hindustani Belt), Deccan (South India), Pakistan[1] |
Native speakers | L1 speakers: c. 250 million (2011 & 2017 censuses)[2] L2 speakers: ~500 million (1999–2016)[2] |
Early forms | |
Standard forms | |
| Dialects | |
| |
| Indian Signing System (ISS)[6] | |
| Official status | |
Official language in | |
| Regulated by |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | hi – Hindiur – Urdu |
| ISO 639-2 | hin – Hindiurd – Urdu |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:hin – Hindiurd – Urdu |
| Glottolog | hind1270 |
| Linguasphere | to -qf 59-AAF-qa to -qf |
 Areas (red) where Hindustani (Delhlavi or Kauravi) is the native language | |
Hindustani[d] is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in North India and Pakistan, and functioning as the lingua franca of the region.[12] It is also spoken by the Deccani people. Hindustani is a pluricentric language with two standard registers, known as Hindi (written in Devanagari script and influenced by Sanskrit) and Urdu (written in Perso-Arabic script and influenced by Persian and Arabic) which serve as official languages of India and Pakistan, respectively.[13][14] Thus, it is also called Hindi–Urdu.[15][16][17] Colloquial registers of the language fall on a spectrum between these standards.[18][19] In modern times, a third variety of Hindustani with significant English influences has also appeared which is sometimes called Hinglish or Urdish.[20][21][22][23][24]
The concept of a Hindustani language as a "unifying language" or "fusion language" that could transcend communal and religious divisions across the subcontinent was endorsed by Mahatma Gandhi,[25] as it was not seen to be associated with either the Hindu or Muslim communities as was the case with Hindi and Urdu respectively, and it was also considered a simpler language for people to learn.[26][27] The conversion from Hindi to Urdu (or vice versa) is generally achieved just by transliteration between the two scripts, instead of translation which is generally only required for religious and literary texts.[28]
Scholars trace the language's first written poetry, in the form of Old Hindi, to the Delhi Sultanate era around the twelfth and thirteenth century.[29][30][31] During the period of the Delhi Sultanate, which covered most of today's India, eastern Pakistan, southern Nepal and Bangladesh[32] and which resulted in the contact of Hindu and Muslim cultures, the Sanskrit and Prakrit base of Old Hindi became enriched with loanwords from Persian, evolving into the present form of Hindustani.[33][34][35][36][37][38][excessive citations] The Hindustani vernacular became an expression of Indian national unity during the Indian Independence movement,[39][40] and continues to be spoken as the common language of the people of the northern Indian subcontinent,[41] which is reflected in the Hindustani vocabulary of Bollywood films and songs.[42][43]
The language's core vocabulary is derived from Prakrit (a descendant of Sanskrit),[19][44][45][46][47][excessive citations] with substantial loanwords from Persian and Arabic (via Persian).[48][49][44][50] It is often written in the Devanagari script or the Arabic-derived Urdu script in the case of Hindi and Urdu respectively, with romanisation increasingly employed in modern times as a neutral script.[51][52]
As of 2023, Hindi and Urdu together constitute the 3rd-most-spoken language in the world after English and Mandarin, with 843 million native and second-language speakers, according to Ethnologue,[53] though this includes millions who self-reported their language as 'Hindi' on the Indian census but speak a number of other Hindi languages than Hindustani.[54] The total number of Hindi–Urdu speakers was reported to be over 300 million in 1995, making Hindustani the third- or fourth-most spoken language in the world.[55][44]
History
Early forms of present-day Hindustani developed from the Middle Indo-Aryan apabhraṃśa vernaculars of present-day North India in the 7th–13th centuries.[56][37] Hindustani emerged as a contact language around Delhi, a result of the increasing linguistic diversity that occurred due to Muslim rule.[57] Amir Khusrow, who lived in the thirteenth century during the Delhi Sultanate period in North India, used these forms (which was the lingua franca of the period) in his writings and referred to it as Hindavi (Persian: ھندوی, lit. 'of Hind or India').[58][38] By the end of the century, the military exploits of Alauddin Khalji, introduced the language in the Deccan region, which led to the development of its southern dialect Deccani, which was promoted by Muslim rulers in the Deccan.[59][60]
The Delhi Sultanate, which comprised several Turkic and Afghan dynasties that ruled much of the subcontinent from Delhi,[61] was succeeded by the Mughal Empire in 1526 and preceded by the Ghorid dynasty and Ghaznavid Empire before that.
Ancestors of the language were known as Hindui, Hindavi, Zabān-e Hind (transl. 'Language of India'), Zabān-e