Talk:Standard Hindi

Spelling of "Hindi"
The devanagari script for "hindi" is incorrect. It's too hard for me to describe the error using only the English alphabet. See the BBC languages page (http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/languages/) for an example of one way to write it correctly (there's at least one other way to write it).


 * हिन्दी is correct. हिंदी is the alternate. Both are given. Badagnani (talk) 03:19, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

My mistake. It was a problem with my system not rendering the devanagari script correctly. I fixed the problem and now can see that it is written correctly (two variations). Sorry for the trouble, you responded so quickly (before I could delete my comment!). Thanks.

Hindi-speaking people
Does anyone what the people who speak Hindi are known as? I can't find a single source saying they're an ethnic group so I'm guessing they're not. So what are they? The same applies to the Urdu-speakers (unless they're the Muhajir people?) --Maurice45 (talk) 19:00, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Hindi/Urdu is spoken by a fairly wide range of ethnic groups (Rajputs, Mongols, more indigenous peoples, even Anglo-Indians), since it's spoken over such a huge area (compared to any other Indian language, except English if it counts :-D). So I strongly doubt that there is a word for Hindi- or Urdu-speaking people (other than simply "Hindi-speakers" or "Urdu-speakers" or "Hindi- and/or Urdu-speakers"). --Kuaichik (talk) 23:50, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Hindi-speaking people are no ethnic group.  Maquahuitl talk! 06:32, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The term for a person who speaks Hindi would be हिंदी बोलनेवाला I believe. It doesn't translate to anything useful; "Hindi speaker" would be a translation of the idea. Other than that, there is no other description of a Hindi speaker other than they speak Hindi. --LaRoza

I have a rather ignorant question: Do educated people in non-Hindi official states come out of school fluent in Hindi (speaking, reading, writing) as well as their mother tongue? I suppose I'd exclude the South Indian states from this consideration, since their opposition to Hindi dominance seems well known. I guess I am curious about states like Gujarat, WB, Assam, Punjab - do educated people already know Hindi, or do they choose to pick it up along the way? My interest was piqued because it seems there are a good number of Bollywood actors who hail from non-Hindi speaking states. Thanks! 173.215.26.37 (talk) 21:55, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't know where you would find a reliable source or study on this question sorry. But if you want to trust my personal experience with educated people from these regions, I would say yes for some states and not always for others. For example in Gujurat the cultural backlash against Hindi was very little if at all because they regularly watch Bollywood while their own film industry is weak. Pop culture factors like Bollywood are in fact are a strong motivation for people even from Southern states to learn the language. It has spread the language where the government couldn't on its own. GizzaDiscuss  &#169; 23:17, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Educated people in the non-Hindi states of Punjab and Gujarat come out of school fluent (obviously not to a native extent, but yes, to a very good extent) in Hindi. The reason is that these languages are pretty close to Hindi. For other states like Bengal and Maharashtra, the answer is usually 'no' and if yes then it's an exception based on context, and not the rule.  Maquahuitl talk! 17:35, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Zabān-e-Urdū-e-Mu`allah in Devanagari
In the Hindi and Urdu section of this article, there is a sentence that says "Urdu was earlier called Zabān-e-Urdū-e-Mu`allah (زبانِ اردوِ معلہ, ज़बान-ए उर्दू), lit., the "Exalted Language of the Camp"." There's a problem here in that the Devanagari says ज़बान-ए उर्दू which is "zabān-e urdū", not "zabān-e urdū-e mu'allah" like it should.

YoshiroShin (talk) 23:01, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I changed it myself now.


 * YoshiroShin (talk) 17:51, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Very Basic Definition
The very basic definition for Urdu and Hindi should suffuce here as it was was done when a consensus was reached during the conclusion to of the controversy: Urdu is that language which contains Turkish, Farsi and Arabic loan words with sprinkling of Pashtu words here and there, and Hindi is that which contains Sanskritic loan words, even though both are based on the various dialects spoken around Dehli, Agra and their environs. Furthermore, both these languages are written in different scripts i.e. Hindi in Devanagri and Urdu in modified Farsi. The mutual intelligibility is totally due to the two factors - inter-communality and Indian cinema effect. Bombay film industry always recognised the fact that heavilly Sanskitised dialogues in their films would not bring many filmgoers so they resorted to using Hindustani, a less difficult and more colloqual form of Urdu. This is evidenced from the many Urdu writers, actors and lyricists who contributed to the industry. In fact Bombay films and songs were promoted as Hindustani in language. I still have old 75rpm/45rpm records of Indian film songs clearly labelled as Hindustani. Now let's get off the various bandwagons and agree with the conclusions the various language movements came to and not keep on defining and re-defining the two languages. I cannot understand the Mahabharat and not can many native Hindi speakers but I can comprehend Bollywood films and frequently have to translate many 'difficult' Urdu words to my Hindu/Sikh friends (from India)for them but this does not happen the otherway. Interestingly enough proper Hindi words for many everday usage such as air, congratulations, thank you etc. are rarely used. Instead hawa, Diwali mubarak, Shukriya, are the most commonlly enunciated. Even the most basic terms for common things e.g. zara, cheez etc. are derived from Urdu even though quite often they are mispronounced. There are countless examples - nouns, proper nouns, verbs, adverbs and off course adjectives are all there as evedence of the above arument.

So whatever the origins there is no doubt that Urdu gave the Indian native language it's name as well as its's vocabulary in this day and age. Urdu has remained true to it's origin i.e. a Persianised,Turkised and Arabised version of Kharri Boli, whereas Hindi, originally a Sanskritised Kharri Boli has become, in vernacular usage at least, Urduised i.e. Urdu that is spoken and written in Devanagri. This is attested to by the many rightwing Hindu scholars and organisation who would like to rename Hindi as Bharati and go back to the demand and agreement of the days of Urdu-Hindi controversy and 'purify' India and Indian language. (USER talk:Moarrikh) 19:45, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

The purpose of this page
I have removed a number of translation requests from this page as Wikipedia is not a forum, but the user continues to insert them. The purpose of talk pages is to discuss improvements of the article to which the talk page belong. Talk pages are not the place for asking questions about the language or request translations. If someone want to have Hindi translations, contact one of the many Hindi-speaking users here, ask the question in one of the hundreds of translation forums on the Internet or some other option. For Hindi versions of Wikipedia pages, the relevant place to put such a request is the talk page of that page, not this page. Please refrain from posting such requests on the talk page of Hindi.Jeppiz (talk) 04:31, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Badagnani was already directed to the Language reference desk since this isn't the place for it and that is. I guess I made a mistake in answering here to be helpful before because that gave the idea more requests would be a good idea. - Taxman Talk 13:56, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Conspiracy allegation over the origin on Hindi and Urdu
Please read what I posted at Talk:Hindi–Urdu controversy. __meco (talk) 20:03, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Scope of the article
We have Hindi languages for Hindi in the broad sense, and Standard Hindi for Hindi in the narrow sense, so this article was mostly a WP:fork of one or the other. I've revised it to concentrate on the different conceptions of the word, with links to the more specific articles. Of course, we could also merge Standard Hindi here and merge this to Hindi languages. Whichever way we go, I think we should come to some consensus as to what the scope of the various articles should be, to avoid forking, arguments over naming, and duplicated effort. — kwami (talk) 18:34, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Extent of Hindi
The very first map showing the extent of Hindi speakers is incorrect. At least Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh cannot be excluded because the majority there speak Hindi, and Hindi is an official language in both states. The map needs to be modified. Apalaria (talk) 11:00, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * They are already included. — kwami (talk) 11:10, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

They are not! I am talking of the first map on the page.Apalaria (talk) 15:44, 22 October 2010 (UTC) Since an incorrect map cannot be reported on the wikipage, I am removing that image. Plus the rank of Hindi in terms of speakers needs to be mentioned in the first paragraph. See the page on Bengali for example. Apalaria (talk) 15:52, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * They are clearly included in the image you just deleted: the provincial boundaries are even marked. Perhaps you should compare it to a political map of India.
 * An incorrect map can be reported on its page.
 * There is no single number of speakers to mention, as you would understand if you'd read the article. Unlike Bengali, which is a coherent language. — kwami (talk) 16:03, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

No! Please do not replace the image without proper discussion here. I just compared the map. I would ask you to recheck. Hindi is THE PRIMARY official language of the Indian Union according to the Indian Constitution. The only other official language is English, which is specifically mentioned as the "secondary" official language of the Union in the constitution. Also, there is a difference between the "Indian Union" and the "union government". The correct term to use there is "Indian Union" as per the Indian Constitution, and not "the union government". What varies from place to place in Hindi is the spelling or the pronunciation of the words, not the essence of the language. This is similar to the difference between British English and American English. I am from India and I know this very well. The rank of Hindi in terms of speakers needs to be mentioned in the first paragraph. See the pages on English, Spanish or Bengali for example. The numbers from different sources are inconsistent for all languages, not just Hindi. The proper method is to mention the number or rank citing the source. I have done just that. Not mentioning such an important fact given it is done for other languages can be considered a conspicuous bias. I have made these changes. Please do not revert them without proper discussion here. Apalaria (talk) 16:15, 22 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Please read WP:BOLD. When your edit is contested, you should discuss it, not engage in edit warring. If you continue, I will ask to have you blocked from editing altogether.
 * I have checked the map. It's very clear that those provinces are included.
 * Corrections to wording for the govt are welcome.
 * The differences among varieties of Hindi are not like US & UK English: they are separate languages by the standard of mutual intelligibility.
 * Which number of speakers do you propose? How can there be a number of speakers for a "language" which has no fixed number of speakers? — kwami (talk) 16:44, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

That is fine, but incorrect information on wikipedia cannot be tolerated. The facts I have mentioned are easy to verify. Go ahead and do that. Apalaria (talk) 16:46, 22 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Then mark the allegedly incorrect information for discussion. If you can convince everyone that you are right and I am wrong, then fine; otherwise, we stick to the stable form of the article. — kwami (talk) 16:49, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, if I knew how to mark that, I wouldn't be arguing with you unnecessarily. Apalaria (talk) 16:53, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Here is the map to check : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:India-states-numbered.svg The states are Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. Apalaria (talk) 16:53, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

As regards your argument about stability, wrong information that is stable just because nobody notices it is not acceptable. Apalaria (talk) 16:54, 22 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Go to the talk page of the map and discuss it there. Or continue here, but without edit warring.
 * Yes, that is the map I checked. Do we agree that you're talking about the two provinces on the northern border in the west? Which the map clearly shows to be Hindi speaking the the southern plains? (Most of the provinces are of course mountainous and not Hindi speaking; the population is almost all in the south.)
 * As for population, we currently have it at Hindi-Urdu, which is the main language article. We could add something here too, but not in the lede, because the lede is not about any particular conception of Hindi that we could cite the population for. The Indian census, for example, lists all kinds of numbers for Hindi, so it depends on what exactly you mean by Hindi: Is Bhojpuri "Hindi"? Is Rajasthani? Chhatisghari? — kwami (talk) 16:58, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Your suggestion is ridiculous! I am from the mountainous regions in one of those states! Hindi is the primary language there. If not satisfied, go and check the individual pages on the states. That map you continue to include here just cannot be allowed because that map is a mockery of wikipedia as a completely unreliable source!! Apalaria (talk) 17:11, 22 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I see one thing that is debatable: The map does include the extent of Hindustani in those provinces, but not of Pahari. Dogri and Nepali are not considered Hindi, at least not any more, but the other Pahari languages generally are. So the border could be moved further north in those provinces. I'll make a note for now that the map doesn't cover Pahari. — kwami (talk) 17:16, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Hindi and Urdu are not the same language. They are two different languages, but together they are called Hindustani. If you still do not understand, think of it like German and English, both are Germanic languages, but not the same. Hindi and Urdu are both Hindustani languages, but not the same. The data on the Encarta is clearly for Hindi and not Hindi-Urdu. (If it were for Hindi-Urdu, it would include Pakistan in the list of countries.) So I would suggest that the figure reported in Encarta should be included in the lede on this page (Hindi) and should be removed from the page on Hindi-Urdu, because it is misplaced there. Apalaria (talk) 17:11, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You still don't seem to understand that "Hindi" isn't any one thing. Which Hindi? The one with 150 million speakers? or the one with 400 million? — kwami (talk) 17:16, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

You are telling me I don't understand what Hindi is?!? Hindi is my mother tongue and the language I primarily speak from my birth. I am sorry but I find this statement highly offensive. You really need to address the issues I have raised, otherwise I might have to look for other means to get this article brought upto wikipedia standards. Apalaria (talk) 18:19, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Also, address the issue with the sentence that says "Hindi is spoken by Hindus". That is absolutely incorrect. Hindi is spoken by all religions in India, including Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis. Some Muslims and some Hindus also speak Urdu, but that is usually in addition to Hindi. Apalaria (talk) 17:11, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, it's identified with Hindus. Muslims call their language Urdu, Hindus call theirs Hindi, even if they're the same language and dialect. — kwami (talk) 17:16, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

As I said, provide the proper citation for this association if you want to state it, otherwise remove it. I consider this as a politically motivated and devised statement. Apalaria (talk) 18:23, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

By and large, those dialects you mentioned are Hindi. However, what you do not realize is that those "dialects" (for that would be the proper term for them) are spoken in addition to Hindi. I can give you my example. Pahari is a language (which differs relatively largely from Hindi compared to the other dialects) spoken a lot in the hills. However, that does not take away from Hindi. It continues to be my primary language of social communication and likewise for all people in the hills. That is why I say (and is officially supported) that all of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh should be included in the Hindi speaking region. Check out the official language in those states. You will see Hindi but you will not see Pahari for Uttarakhand. Then? And if those states are not included, then why are Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab? Even in these states a dialect (if you will) of Hindi assumes prominence. You will have to delve a bit into Indian culture (anthropology maybe?) to understand this. The bottom line is that map you (or whoever) have included is incorrect whichever way you argue. Apalaria (talk) 17:21, 22 October 2010 (UTC)


 * But it isn't a map of where Hindi is official, it's a map of where it's natively spoken as the mother tongue of the majority of the population. That's how language maps normally work; it's what we have for every other language map on WP. Consider Irish: Irish is official in Ireland, but the map doesn't show it covering the entire country, because native speakers are only found in significant numbers in a few small areas. — kwami (talk) 17:33, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Please define native speakers for me and tell me who determines it if not the person himself/ herself. I have been speaking Hindi as my first language ever since I was born and so does every other person in my state of origin (which is one of the two states in question here). How can you not call me a native speaker? Apalaria (talk) 18:15, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

YOU ARE WRONG AGAIN!! Hindi and Urdu are not the same languages, they are not the same dialect either. They are DIFFERENT LANGUAGES. There is no association of Hindi with Hindus anywhere. If you want to state that association, please provide a proper citation. Just because you feel there is an association, it cannot be stated on wikipedia. By the way, an Indian name for "India" is Hindustan (used even when India had Muslim rulers) meaning the "land of Hindus". Going by your argument of Hindi and Hindus, you would soon be telling me that only Hindus live in India. I restate- India is culturally complex society, probably the only one of its kind in the world. Please do not apply simplified analysis for India. Apalaria (talk) 17:28, 22 October 2010 (UTC)


 * You say that Muslims speak Hindi, but Muslims speak Urdu. The only way for that to be possible is if Hindi and Urdu are one and the same. But you say they're different.
 * Hindi and Urdu are different register of one language. If they were different languages, they wouldn't be able to understand each other. Yet they can't even tell their languages apart. We even have an article on the Hindi–Urdu controversy which covers these issues. — kwami (talk) 17:33, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Let me summarize this. And this should address your concern above (about Urdu-influenced Hindi). Spoken Hindi is not a very standardized language. There is a standardized version of Hindi from the government, but that remains by and large the literary version. Almost none of the spoken Hindi is standardized form. There are modifications in spellings, pronunciations and even vocabulary depending on which part of the country you are in. However, all that region shown in pink on the map, plus Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand all speak Hindi (with slight influence from the local dialect). The regional language (e.g. Pahari in Uttarakhand) often gets the secondary treatment. This is true in almost all of North and Central India. It is for this reason the same population gets counted for both Hindi and the regional language. Hence I would consider the figures that include all people who speak Hindi, even when speaking another regional language, true figures for Hindi. And if you were to count only the true standardized Hindi, the speaking population would be close to zero. I think this should make everything crystal clear. At the end, we just have to make a choice, but we have to be careful to not alienate populations that primarily speak Hindi (e.g., Uttarakhand and Himachal) Apalaria (talk) 17:41, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Regarding Urdu, it is a different language from Hindi. There is no controversy. The page you mention, "Hindi-Urdu controversy", has nothing to do with the languages; it is about their origin. And your arguments continue to be weak. Germans can understand English often. Does that make German and English the same? Hindi speaking person like myself cannot understand all of Urdu. An Urdu speaking person cannot understand all of Hindi. There is a big intersection of vocabulary, but hten by that argument one should start calling English the same as Latin. When the scripts of two langages differ completely (as they do for Hindi and Urdu), how can they be considered the same?!? Apalaria (talk) 17:46, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

You really need to address the serious issues I have raised here, otherwise I might have to look for other means to get this article brought upto wikipedia standards. Apalaria (talk) 18:24, 22 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Germans only understand English because they've studied it. There is about 0% intelligibility otherwise. "Hindi" and "Urdu" speakers, on the other hand, can have a conversation and not even realize that they're speaking different "languages". Bollywood films are made in "Hindi", yet in Pakistan "Urdu" speakers have no difficulty understanding them. They are thus not different languages the way the different varieties of Hindi (Rajasthani, Chhatisghari, etc.) are different languages. Hindi and Urdu are only different sociolinguistically and because they have different standard forms; they're a single abstand language. There is no controversy about that among people who know anything about linguistics.


 * As for the serious issues you raise, could you make a numbered list? I can't tell which ones are supposed to be serious, because many strike me as rather frivolous. I'll start: — kwami (talk) 19:17, 22 October 2010 (UTC)


 * 1) The Pahari languages need to be added to the map as part of the Hindi dialect continuum, along with Rajasthani etc.
 * 2) The populations of the various forms of Hindi (Hindi-Urdu minus Urdu, the Hindi belt, maybe something else as well) need to be listed in the lede.


 * It seems that our friend Apalaria does not understand the difference between a language and a register of a language. Shouting and writing in caps doesn't prove a point. Hindi and Urdu are two different registers of a language all right, but they are definitely not two different languages. The comparison between English and German is immature, as there are basic grammatical and structural differences between English and German. German has four cases and three genders, which is almost nothing like English, which has a rudimentary case system (or perhaps none at all) and no grammatical gender. There are no such basic grammatical and structural differences between Hindi and Urdu- the differences being mostly official in nature, based on the cultural loyalty of the communities involved.


 * Then, insofar as the map talks about Hindi as a dachsprache and not as different abstandsprachen, I don't see a reason why we need to show the numbers of the Hindi abstands. That could be a separate map altogether. I support Apalaria's argument that the hilly states of UK and HP have Standard Hindi as their dachsprache. We need to be clear about what we intend to show in the map.  Maquahuitl talk! 05:50, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * The map gives a link to the map used as its source. That maps the native areas of various Indic lects; our map shows the ones considered to be 'Hindi' by its author, which excludes the Pahari languages. AFAICT, it does show the extent of native non-Pahari Hindi in those provinces. We could add Pahari, but the map was never intended to follow provincial boundaries. That would need to be a new map altogether. — kwami (talk) 21:54, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah, so we need a different map perhaps. As I said, we need to be clear about what we wish to show. This article can cover everything from Hindi as a modern dachsprache to the mediaeval abstandsprachen such as Awadhi and Braj Bhasha, collectively called as Hindi by the Mughal rulers. Then Urdu itself was called Hindi in those days. This map shows nothing specific out of all the definitions of Hindi. I can think of at least two maps:
 * 1. Show the states of UK, HP, HR, DL, UP, BR, JH, CG, MP, RJ and the UT of CH having Standard Hindi as a dachsprache, or in the case of CH as an Ausbau along with Punjabi. For the state of AR it's a special case of a pidgin among different tribals groups and for other UTs, it's a special case of an ausbau. It would be a pretty simple Indian political map with these states coloured.
 * 2. Show the different Hindi linguistic areas. These would be Western Hindi (forming its innermost core), which is closest to MSH in terms of abstand, Eastern Hindi, which even though often considered East Central, is by and large considered the best candidate for the second layer of Hindi by many linguists. Then Punjabi and the Rajasthani cluster could be shown, with a disclaimer that Punjabi is an ausbau on its own. Finally Bihari and Pahari can be shown along with other languages of their groups (Eastern Indic and Northern Indic respectively) and how they straddle between two worlds. This map would be tough to construct, but it would really add to the article if made. It isn't OR, as we would just use available information to construct a map. Maquahuitl talk! 04:12, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Kwami, I deeply regret the fact that I, myself cannot actively contribute (due to some personal career constraints). I will try to oversee however, as and when the occasion arises.  Maquahuitl talk! 05:16, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Hindi and Hindus
Hindi has nothing to do with Hindus or Muslims. All religions speak Hindi in India. Urdu, spoken in Pakistan and by some people in India, and Hindi, although very similar, are two different languages, differing mostly in their script but also in their vocabulary. So the first paragraph has to be modified to reflect this correction. Apalaria (talk) 16:56, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * How can Urdu be Hindi and not Hindi at the same time? — kwami (talk) 17:00, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Let me clarify my own background first. I am a Hindu, an Indian currently residing in India and a native Standard Hindi speaker by birth. I agree with Apalaria's argument that Hindi is spoken by Indian people of all possible religious backgrounds, precisely because even the sociolectal (sociolect by religion) aspect of Hindi has died out over the decades, especially the last two ones of liberalisation. Urdu as an Ausbausprache has by and large been overwhelmed by Standard Hindi. In Pakistan however, Urdu is a dachsprache and an ausbausprache for a majority of the population.


 * Clearly in terms of abstand, the two are not different languages. They are just two different registers of the same language. This common language is called "Hindi-Urdu" by linguists. So going by this, while "Hindi-Urdu" might not have an existence as an ausbau, it is still one language it terms of abstand. It does not have a social existence but it does have a linguistic existence. This fact must be made clear in the Hindi-Urdu article.  Maquahuitl talk! 05:31, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I've tried making that clear; if it isn't, please suggest improvements here or over there, either in the article itself or on the talk page.
 * This article is an attempt to clarify the different uses of the term "Hindi". I'm sure it could also be improved substantially.
 * Currently Hindi-Urdu is the main language article, Standard Hindi the article on the official standard, and Hindi languages the main family article. This page is more of a redirect with clarification. We could, of course, decide on moving one of those other articles here, but if we only promote one of those topics on this article, we create a content fork which would lead it its deletion and redirection to the primary article.
 * The reason Hindi is not a primary article is that it had a long history of confusion over its topic. Editors would commonly describe the ausbausprache here, but then give it a population of 500M speakers, confusing it with the dachsprache. With none of the primary articles being called just "Hindi", there has been much less confusion and mixing of topics.
 * When you say that Urdu has largely been overwhelmed by MSH, what does that mean re. the 50M self-indentified Urdu speaker per the Indian census? Are children no longer taught Urdu much in schools? Does it mean they use MSH written in the Urdu alphabet? We now have Urdu written in Devanagari—how does that fit in? — kwami (talk) 21:40, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * We need the following articles:
 * 1. Hindi : This would be a high-level summary of all the aspects of Hindi:
 * (i) MSH as an ausbau, which currently has its own article. This would again be a summary of Hindi-Urdu grammar, Hindi-Urdu phonology and Hindi vocabulary and Hindi literature etc., i.e. clubbing with Urdu where relevant but treating separately where the subject is social/subjective.
 * (ii)The different abstandsprachen of the states of India which consider MSH as their dachsprache. This again would be a summary of pages like Awadhi language, Bhojpuri language etc. which further would be summaries of their own grammars and phonologies, etc. This article should have the title Hindi (macrolanguage) rather than "Hindi languages" as currently the case, which is a confusing term since it is used by linguists to refer to the Western Hindi and Eastern Hindi (clubbed) specifically. This can be discussed in the article, but it cannot be its title, for the reason that we are talking about the Hindi dachsprache here, and not a linguistic group. If one reads the article it is clear that the primary purpose of the article is to serve the cause of the Hindi dachsprache and not the linguist's group of "Hindi languages" which is a very clean subset of the former.
 * (iii)We've discussed in (i) and (ii) the contemporary usages, and now we should come to the historical usages. For this, we need to talk about how the term has been associated with what can be called as the Urdu standard currently, besides being used by the Mughal rulers to simultaneously refer to languages like Braj bhasha and Awadhi, which were dachsprachen and ausbausprachen (ausbaus according to the standards of their times) of those times, and even Sanskrit. This can perhaps be the introductory 'Historical usage' paragraph, which traces the usage of the term to modern times. When treated in detail, it can be a separate article.
 * (iv)Finally we would come to the modern pidgins and creoles. We would talk about Hinglish, Arunachali Hindi, Bambaiyya Hindi etc. These could have their own articles.
 * 2. Urdu : This would only talk about Urdu as an ausbau, both historically, in India, and contemporarily, in Pakistan and India. This would have its own articles on phonology, etc. on the lines of MSH. It also needs to discuss about Dakkhini. I have no clue on whether Urdu is a dachsprache even for speakers of "Dakkhini" (though I suspect that it is) which are nothing but the Muslims of MH, AP and to some extent KA, nor on whether the ausbau "Urdu" of AP is Dakkhini or Urdu. Here, there is a flurry of articles such as Bangalori Urdu, Hyderabadi Urdu, etc. with editors having no clue as to how much they actually differ from Dakkhini.
 * 3. A Hindi-Urdu page is not needed, imo. You can't treat the two together for the reason that while Hindi is both a dachsprache and an ausbausprache, Urdu is by and large only an ausbau. When we use the joint term 'Hindi-Urdu' we refer to MSH without doubt. Then, the only meeting points between them are grammar and phonology and since we already have single articles in these cases, we should not treat the two together again, at a higher level.


 * The reason for the confusion is that editors have taken a top-down approach towards editing. It's simply not possible. We need to have the articles Modern Standard Hindi, Hindi languages, Urdu and perhaps even History of Hindi or Historical usage of the term Hindi in good condition before you can attempt to write on Hindi.


 * When I say that Urdu as an ausbau is being overwhelmed by MSH, it means that Urdu as an academic instruction has been yielding ground to MSH. The 5M self-proclaimed Urdu speakers would be a mix of people who actually had their instruction in Urdu in their schooling plus people who claim their mother tongue to be Urdu just by virtue of them being Muslims but otherwise had nothing to distinguish themselves from a Hindu in terms of schooling or otherwise. MSH is definitely not being written in the Urdu script, but the reverse (pieces of literature which have historically been identified as Urdu, esp. Ghalib, being written in Devanagari) is definitely true. Maquahuitl talk! 05:11, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

We'd need some pretty good sources before stating that Urdu is being replaced by MSH in India, esp. given the 54M (not 5M) who claim Urdu as their tongue. If the claim is challenged, we need to be able to unambiguously defend it.

I don't see any "flurry" of minor Urdu variant articles. The only one I can find is Hyderabadi Urdu, which I've tagged for merger to Dakhini.

I'm not aware of "Hindi" being used for Urdu by the Muslim rulers of India, unless maybe you mean Hindvi and Hindustani? Please clarify. (Ah wait, I see: Hindi, Hindui, Hindawi etc. were all used.)

Hindi-Urdu is the name of the abstand language article. It was previously titled Hindustani, but I moved it because I thought that term was dated. If you don't like either of those, which name would you suggest for it? (You seem to be using "MSH" in that sense, but of course that is just as much an ausbausprache as MS Urdu.)

(ELL2 uses "Hindustani", so maybe we could move back to that.)

Likewise, "macrolanguage" isn't a normal linguistic term. It's an in-house coinage by SIL for ISO coding, and as such not appropriate for an encyclopedia title. Dachsprache is too obscure, and isn't really English. I agree that "Hindi languages" is ambiguous, but unless you can suggest a better name, I think we'll simply need to cover both concepts at that article. AFAIK, East + West Hindi is no more a valid clade than the Hindi dachsprache, so I'm not clear on what would be gained by the distinction.

(Hmm, maybe "Hindi dialects"?) — kwami (talk) 06:33, 24 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I am sorry about the typo of 54M/5M, but it's a fact that Urdu as an ausbau is losing popularity in India, and that is why many politicians lament over it. Anyway, this is certainly not the focus of my concern. My concerns are more about the layout and the treatment of the entire set of articles rather than these specifics.
 * The article 'Bangalori Urdu' has been redirected now, but earlier it was there. Yet there is another article Urdu in Aurangabad. Now why should we have an article specifically about a city?
 * Then, Hindi being used by the Muslim rulers is a very commonly known fact among the academic circles. In fact it was used by the Muslim poet Allama Iqbal himself, in the 19th century.
 * About the Hindi-Urdu article, I don't really understand why it is needed. Hindi and Urdu are two separate entities, if not languages, and their meeting points are in the grammar, phonology etc. If at all anything, we can have the title as 'Hindi-Urdu diasystem' if we wish to go academic, but 'Hindi-Urdu' as the title is confusing if academically intended and socially, it is irrelevant. Whether or not a separate article Hindustani be created is a separate issue. I personally believe that Hindustani has no contemporary reality and historically, it was nothing but the same as Urdu. Therefore, at the most it can be a disambiguation page.
 * I still support 'macrolanguage'. If not then, another possible title is 'Hindi (group of languages)' rather than just 'Hindi languages' which, as I said earlier, is confusing. I don't support 'dachsprache' too, but it can be talked about in the introductory paragraph itself. I doubt if (Western Hindi + Eastern Hindi) isn't referred to as 'Hindi languages' at all. As a linguistic phylum, I agree that it's a minority view (But it's there. In this scheme, Western Hindi = WC zone, Eastern Hindi = EC zone, combined as C.zone, and (Rajasthani cluster+Gujarati) as the W.zone and Punjabi goes with Lahnda in the NW.zone. I would concede that it's indeed a less popular view.), but still some linguists refer to the two collectively for the sake of convenience because historically these two zones have shared a lot, the three important languages in this group being Awadhi(E), Braj Bhasha and Khadiboli (both W). I am sure that some references should be available.  Maquahuitl talk! 15:44, 24 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Okay, I still don't understand what you want to call the basic language article. Hindi and Urdu are not separate languages, they're registers of a single language. (Or, Standard Hindi and Standard Urdu are separate standards of a single language.) "Hindi-Urdu" is what I've generally seen, though Hindustani is still used. "Diasystem" would be more correct for what's now Hindi languages, since Hindi and Urdu are not different dialects. Historically I suppose the language is Urdu, of which MSH is a standardized form, though I imagine that a lot of Indians would throw a fit it we said the main language of India was "Urdu", and anyway that's certainly not common usage. — kwami (talk) 16:57, 24 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I am sorry of not being sure about the definition of a diasystem. The last time I read the article on the same, it gave Hindi and Urdu as a case. Now I feel that even though "Hindi-Urdu" is not very clear as a title, but yeah it's the best choice that we have. It's certainly better than 'Hindustani', which went out of use in the 60s. But we need to be assured that there would be a lot of repetitive material across the articles 'Modern Standard Hindi','Urdu' and 'Hindi-Urdu'.
 * Therefore the basic articles are, finally: "Hindi", "Modern Standard Hindi", "Urdu", "Hindi-Urdu" and "Hindi (macrolanguage)" or "Varieties of Hindi" or "Hindi (group of languages)". 'Macrolanguage' might not be a linguistic term but why is it so necessary to have a linguistic term? 'Hindi languages' in fact conflicts with the linguistic term used for Western Hindi and Eastern Hindi, as I said.
 * Finally, what do you have to say about the two missing terms: 'Rekhta' and 'Hindavi'. Out of the five terms associated with this language, two are in use, one (Hindustani), can be treated under "Hindi-Urdu", but these two are still left. How and where do we treat them?  Maquahuitl talk! 15:52, 26 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure about 'diasystem'. The article has changed because the editors writing it are confused too. It has very limited use in the field: in the 12,000-page Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, it's used only twice! And then not with enough context to make sense of it. AFAIK, it's used for languages where there are clearly dialects, but where these have no consistent distinctions between them, so that if you go by different criteria, you end up with different dialects. For example, in Serbo-Croatian, the dialects are commonly divided into 3 according to the word for "what", but also into 3 according to the pronunciation of the sound *ije; the results are completely at odds with each other, so that there are 7 possibilities, but no-one considers them to be 7 different dialects. Hindi and Urdu are nothing like that: they're the same dialect, or at least their standard versions are both based on the same dialect. Serbo-Croatian has this situation in addition to its diasystematic distinctions, and in that case we speak of it as having a pluricentric standard.
 * The problem with "macrolanguage" is that it's coding jargon. It's only used for cases where SIL had problems deciding how to assign ISO codes to various language varieties. It has no life, and no definition, outside of ISO encoding.
 * Rekhta has its own article (a stub), and Hindavi redirects here. Do we need separate articles? I thought they were pretty much just alternate terms. BTW, isn't Hindavi being brought back by Hindu nationalists as a term for Hindi-Urdu? If you have refs for how these are distinct, even if they only have distinct histories of use rather than distinct standards, we could create stubs for them.
 * "Varieties of Hindi" might be the way to go for ethnically rather than linguistically Hindi. Either that, or simply cover both topics (Hindi-belt lects and Eastern/Western Hindi lects) under different sections of Hindi languages. I suppose either way would work. — kwami (talk) 16:23, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I split the article. There is now Varieties of Hindi for the ethnic conception and Hindi languages for the Central Zone. I hope I got all the redirects squared away.
 * So the main article is Hindi-Urdu.
 * Cladistically we have Hindi languages, Western Hindi languages, Khariboli dialect
 * Culturally, we have Varieties of Hindi, Urdu
 * For standardization, Standard Hindi, Rekhta
 * — kwami (talk) 17:58, 26 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah, perhaps the best approach is to get rid of any separate articles titled Hindavi or Rekhta. Both the terms are dated. Redirect both to Hindi-Urdu. However, I do believe that the amount of Persian superstrate in Rekhta was far more than that in either modern or early modern(late Mughal era) Urdu.
 * BTW, isn't Hindavi being brought back by Hindu nationalists as a term for Hindi-Urdu?
 * It's the first time that I am hearing anything like this. Any references if available?
 * The article structure seems fine.  Maquahuitl talk! 03:52, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Rekhta is currently a stub; I won't object if s.o. wants to merge it.
 * Yeah, I always thought Rekhta was highly Persianized, but in the refs I've read recently they said the Persian influence was very light. Maybe it got heavier over time? — kwami (talk) 05:43, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

My two pennys:

I don't know how many of the people here at this talk page are native of India and have really hered locals speking all these languages/dialects. I'm from Barabanki city which is located at heart of Awadh region of Uttar Pradesh state of India. Since birth I have grown speking three things (are thse same language, dialects of same language or different language altogetehr), Urdu at home and local community (even few of my Hindu & Sikh friend can read write Urdu), Hindi at school and urban community, Awadhi with country men and at village. I can speak all three of them fluently(and mind it they are three different things even grammar for all three is little different). Guess what, Ramcharitmananas written in Awadhi (supposedely a Hindi dialect) is unitelligible to maximum of Hindi speakers. And when I speak Awadhi maximum of people from other places find it hard to track the conversation and they are quite fluent in Hindi (& you know why because Hindi is their mother tongue but it seems everybody's Hindi is different). Infact when I talk in MSH (standard version of GOI) with all Sanskri words many native Hindi speakers find it sort of alien thing and same is the case with MSU with all those Persian words.

Perso-Arabic and Sanskrit words are even used in Dravidian languages atleast in Telugu & Kannada (just like English words).

Actually Modern Hindi is 135 years old which was invented by Lallu Lal and Dr. Gilchrist. Infact almost all Modern Indo-Iranian languages of Indic (Indo-Aryan) branch are considered as dialect of Hindi with few exceptions like, languages from extreme West (e.g. Gujarati), extreme North (e.g. Nepali), extreme East (e.g. Bengali), extreme South (e.g. Marathi). Lambadi · Gujari · Nimadi · Mewati · Marwari ( Dialects: Godwari · Dhatki) · Mewari · Dhundhari · Harauti · Bagri · Malvi · Braj Bhasha · Hariyanvi · Bundeli · Kannauji · Awadhi (includes Fijian Hindi) · Bagheli · Chattisgarhi · Bhojpuri (includes Caribbean Hindustani) · Garhwali · Kumaoni · Nepali (Palpa) · Potwari  etc. are still counted under umbrella of Hindi although most of them have literature older than so called Modern Hindi. It has tried to eat all local dialects from east to west but thankfully that has not happened and locales still remember their languages. Maithali till recent(until 2003, when it was was included in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution) times was treated as dialect of Hindi but now it is a diffrent language. Although there is no Urdu cinema but Bhojpuri exists. If all these are same language then how can you explain such phenamenon.

One more thing that Urdu = Muslims is incorrect both historically and contemporary. Poets/writers like Atish, Mir Hasan, Nazir, Ghalib, Isma'i1, Hali, Igbal, and others) are Muslims, but the contribution by Daya Shankar Nasim, Shafiq Aurangabadi, Chakbast, Suriu, Mabrnm, Firaq, Anand Narain Mulla, and others who are Hindus is equally creditable and cannot be ignored in any history of Urdu poetry. Here are links which show that there are still many Non-Muslim Urdu poets and writers: Urdu is not being taken over by Hindi(or MSH) in India, there have been few events in last two decades which indicate that on contrary Urdu is coming back (after its exclusion by state in initial four decades of independent India), Urdu is both ausbau & dachsprache, I come back to my initial point i.e.I don't know how many of the people here at this talk page are native of India and have really hered locals speking all these languages/dialects I have spent couple of years in South in cities if Bangalore & Hyderabad. You hear the language being reffred to as Urdu (which is actually Dakhini) is quite different from Urdu that we speak in North. In fact Urdu of Bangalore, Hyderabad, Hubli, etc is different and not 100% mutually intelligible(forget Urdu dpeakers from North understanding them), They use different words for things e.g. for cloud any North Indian Urdu speaker will use badal but a person from South India will use Abr, in case of hadkerchief it is rumal for NI but it is dasti for SI, banana is kela' for NI but mauz'' for SI, etc.
 * Non-Muslim Urdu poets and writers,
 * Hindu Writers of Urdu Literature,
 * Encyclopaedic dictionary of Urdu literature By Abida Samiuddin,
 * GALAXY OF HINDU WRITERS IN URDU.
 * Urdu being recognised as state language in Uttar Pradesh & Bihar it had been so in Andhra Pradesh
 * Formation of Urdu acdemies and centres
 * Hindu students learning Urdu by taking Adeeb courses of AMU (UP govt. has special opening for Urdu teachers, translators, etc)

The word Hindu, its name given by Arabs to the community living beyond river Sindhu (particulary NIs), you know iin Arab world al NIs are call ed Hindi/Hindu(irrespective of their religion) while people from SI are called Malabari. Guess what here on this page the Muslims & Hindus from NI who are fighting over Hindi/Hindu are both Hindi/Hindu for the people who coined the term Hindi/Hindu ;). I think somewhere we need to mention timeline that when was this language called what. -- Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider t c s 13:05, 29 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you for that. I think we have most of it covered, don't we? Awadhi language has it's own article, as does Dakhni.
 * Historically, of course, Urdu is what we now call "Hindi" in the narrow sense. Or, Hindi consisted of various languages such as Urdu (Delhi), Awadhi, etc. So Hindu poets writing in Urdu were not distinguished from anything. But these days usage is more restricted, so writing in Urdu would mean not writing in Hindi. How many of those poets postdate the division of India? — kwami (talk) 15:43, 29 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Faiz sahab, thanks for your inputs. I don't think that we're doing anything here that is against anything in whatever you've said.
 * By the way, I am an Indian from UP. My hometown is Allahabad; I was born at Rae Bareilly and I was brought up at Meerut and Lucknow. My village is Awadhi speaking, and I speak Hindustani (tilted more towards MSH because of my education) natively. But I would doubt your argument about the background of people here. People who are actually Hindi speaking believe in an illusion which is far from the reality (in terms of relations between Hindi and Urdu, and Hindi and its so-called dialects). Therefore, I don't really feel that having native Hindi-speaking people here is a big advantage unless they are aware of the subject in an academic setting.  Maquahuitl talk! 15:52, 29 October 2010 (UTC)


 * LOL at all this - ایک دو تین، چار اور پانچ، چھے اور سات، ﺁﮢﮭ اور نو، ایک جگه سب رہتے تهے، جهگڑے تهے پر اُن میں سو; एक दो तीन, चार और पाँच, छह और सात, आठ और नौ, एक जगह सब रहते थे, झगड़े थे पर उन में सौ. Sorry, couldn't resist. My modest proposal, about which I feel not at all strongly is: one article on MSH, one on MSU, one on Hindi-Urdu, and independent articles on the dialects (Awadhi, Braj, Kannauji, Khari, Kaurvi, etc). Having one article on Hindi and another on MSH, makes little sense to me, because significant duplication is inevitable. That is the organization which would take me to the best gestalt understanding of all of this and specific understanding of specific pieces of this if I were non-HU (I mean non-HU speaking - Northern Indo-Paks understand this regardless of language ties). That said, it's ultimately kind of irrelevant what happens here. I agree with Maquahuitl in this one respect. Native-HUs will be supremely indifferent to Wikipedia, jumping in almost exclusively on the HU issue when it conflicts with their ideological upbringing. The speaker of every dialect insists he is speaking Hindi or Urdu: there is basic unconsciousness about the dialect itself. Muslim speakers of Awadhi say they're speaking Urdu, Hindu speakers of Awadhi say they're speaking Hindi. Ditto for Muslim vs Hindu speakers of Braj or anything else. The census clearly shows this. With education and urbanization, the dialects will die or become showpieces over time - that's a prediction and you could disagree. The vast majority of HU people are totally unconcerned with dialect issues. If you aren't talking about the Hindi-Urdu issue, discussion about dialects to most of them feels like you're discussing plumbing. The touchstone for linguistic boundaries seems to be "if I understand you completely, we are speaking the same thing." Dialects are viewed as a matter of style (lehja). In the popular understanding, people of Awadh have a lehja of speaking. Awadh has a nawabi lehja, Braj has a sweet lehja, Khari has a rude lehja, Saharanpuri/Kaurvi has a Jat lehja. This is by no means unique to HU. Punjabi, Sindhi, Kashmiri all share this attitude. The only exceptions are when there are partial intelligibility issues. So, Maithili or Nepali are viewed as distinct and not a matter of style. Pashto stands out in this regard, there is greater awareness - especially of Pakhtoon/Pashtoon divisions. Happy new year! --Hunnjazal (talk) 16:42, 2 January 2011 (UTC)


 * This article is currently more about the word Hindi than the language. I thought it was important to have a dab page, because of the confusion of usage, but I wouldn't object to turning it into a redirect to MSH. I like the idea of a MSU article dealing specifically with the modern standard; a Hindustani/Urdu article (for political and pages-linking reasons perhaps better placed at 'Hindustani' than at 'Urdu', or just merge much of the Urdu article into History of Hindustani) would then be about historical Urdu, and Hindi-Urdu would be about the modern language of Hindustani that MSU and MSH are styles of.


 * Is that s.t. that everyone here can live with?: Hindi-Urdu (the main language article), Modern Standard Hindi, Modern Standard Urdu (both dealing specifically with the literary standards), and History of Hindustani? This article would then be a redirect to MSH; part of Urdu would be moved to MSU, and part merged with the history article. Or perhaps "Hindi" could be converted into a true dab: "Hindi can mean (a) MSH (b) Hindi languages (c) Fijian Hindi, etc. Then of course we would have articles of larger scope (Hindi languages, Indic languages) and narrower scope (Awadhi language, Braj Bhasa). — kwami (talk) 22:04, 2 January 2011 (UTC)


 * No, don't make it a disambiguation page. This should be a redirect to MSH because that's what most people would be interested in.  Maquahuitl talk! 17:25, 4 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Done. Didn't move Urdu, as that hasn't had much discussion. — kwami (talk) 01:28, 5 January 2011 (UTC)


 * IMO, we need to mention timeline that when was this language called what at History of Hindustani article or somewhere. That will address the confusion to some degree. We may also specify evolution of the explanation of evolution of H-U, remember George Abraham Grierson and his book Western Hindi, Linguistic Survey of India where he is not using the term Khari Boli at all, but just calling it Hindustani.-- Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider t c s 03:50, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Standard Hindi
I see this page was redirected to Hindi page on objections of some Urdu speakers. The Hindi page is neither like Standard Hindi or Modern Standard Hindi. We should use this page only about Standard Hindi.PradeepBoston (talk) 14:11, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 06:53, 30 April 2016 (UTC)