Origins of the Urdu Language
Before Urdu
Although Islam had entered into the land of South Asia at an early time, Farsi (Persian) Language was introduced into the region by various Turkic and Afghan dynasties including. The Turko-Afghan Delhi Sultanate established Farsi as its official language, a policy continued by the Mughal Empire, which extended over most of northern South Asia from the 16th to 18th centuries and cemented Persian influence on the developing Hindustani language.
Origin of Urdu
The origin of Urdu can be traced backed to when the Ghazvanid ruled Punjab, with the Establishment of the Delhi Sultanate. The Muslims in that province spoke Farsi (Persian) in there courts , while the Non-Muslims spoke their own dialect and sub-languages in different regions. Urdu came to be evolved in Military camps and in hospitals. It became a combination of Farsi and various dialects of the common people. The word Urdu itself is derived from the Turkish word orda which means "army", from which the English word horde is also derived from. But ironically not many words are borrowed from Ottoman Turkish. But it has heavy influence from Farsi and Arabic and a little from Sanskrit. The name Urdu was first used by the poet Ghulam Hamadani Mushafi around 1780. From the 13th century until the end of the 18th century Urdu was commonly known as Hindi. The language was also known by various other names such as Hindavi and Dehlavi. The name Urdu was familiarized in Farsi by historians during the Mongol II-Khan period and adopted by the Syed Sultan Khizr Khan.
Although Urdu is based off the Perso-Arabic script it has some extra letters such as te (ٹ), de (ڈ), re (ڑ), nun-gunah (ں), bari-ye (ے).
Numerals
The numerals of Urdu are very similar looking to the Persian and Arabic numerals the only difference is of 6 and 7.
The Deccan School
Although Urdu has its it's origin in North India, it was developed in Deccan under the Bahmanids and their succession states particularly Bijapur and Golcunda. Most of the Kings of Golcunda were poets and patronized peotry. Ibn Nishati wrote a charming Mathnavi in Urdu called Phulban when means "The Garden".
Urdu vs Hindi
Historically speaking we know Urdu came before Hindi. With the advent of the British rule in India, Farsi was striped of being an official language, but the Perso-Arabic Script was still being used by Muslims and Hindus alike. Urdu was promoted by the British policies to counter the previous emphasis on Farsi. But this triggered a Hindu backlash in northwestern India, which argued that the language should be written in the native Devanagari script. Thus a new literary register, called "Hindi", replaced traditional Hindustani as the official language of Bihar in 1881, establishing a sectarian divide of "Urdu" for Muslims and "Hindi" for Hindus. So linguistically speaking Hindi
|
is just a transliteration of Urdu.
Bibliogrphy
- "Urdu Poetry." History of Islam. Vol. 2. Lahore: Islamic Publications. Print.
- "Urdu (اردو)." Urdu Alphabet, Pronunciation and Language. Web. 31 Oct. 2015.