Hindustani language

Indo-Aryan language spoken in South Asia, comprising the two normative forms of Hindi and Urdu

Hindustani is a language. It is made up of the common parts of Hindi and Urdu. Hindi and Urdu have similar grammar, but slightly different vocabulary and very different scripts.

Hindustani
Hindi-Urdu
ہندوستانی‎   •   हिन्दुस्तानी
The word Hindustani in Devanagari, Nastaliq and Kaithi scripts
Native toPakistan, India. Various based on religion.
Native speakers
(240 million[1] cited 1991–1997)
Second language: 165 million (1999)[2]
Total: 490 million (2006)[3]
Standard forms
Dialects
Perso-Arabic (Urdu alphabet)
Devanagari (Hindi and Urdu alphabets)
Bharati Braille (Hindi and Urdu)
Kaithi (historical)
Official status
Official language in
 Pakistan (as Urdu)
 India (as Hindi and Urdu)
Regulated byCentral Hindi Directorate (Hindi, India),[4]
National Language Authority, (Urdu, Pakistan);
National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language (Urdu, India)[5]
Language codes
ISO 639-1hi, ur
ISO 639-2hin, urd
ISO 639-3Either:
hin – Standard Hindi
urd – Urdu
Linguasphere59-AAF-qa to -qf

Hindustani was born in Punjab during the Ghaznavid Empire (Lahore as its capital) in the early decades of the eleventh century AD.[6]

References change

  1. Standard Hindi: 180 million India (1991). Urdu: 48 million India (1997), 11 million Pakistan (1993). Ethnologue 16.
  2. 120 million Standard Hindi (1999), 45 million Urdu (1999). Ethnologue 16.
  3. "BBC: A Guide to Urdu". Archived from the original on 2012-05-25. Retrieved 2013-03-08.
  4. The Central Hindi Directorate regulates the use of Devanagari script and Hindi spelling in India. Source: Central Hindi Directorate: Introduction Archived 2010-04-15 at the Wayback Machine
  5. National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language
  6. "Excerpt: How Urdu began". Dawn News. 29 November 2008.