Hindustani etymology
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Hindustani, also known as Hindi-Urdu, is the vernacular form of two standardized registers used as official languages in India and Pakistan, namely Hindi and Urdu. It comprises several closely related dialects in the northern, central and northwestern parts of the Indian subcontinent but is mainly based on Khariboli of the Delhi region. As an Indo-Aryan language, Hindustani has a core base that traces back to Sanskrit but as a widely-spoken lingua franca, it has a large lexicon of loanwords,[1][2] acquired through centuries of foreign rule and ethnic diversity.
Standard Hindi derives much of its formal and technical vocabulary from Sanskrit while standard Urdu derives much of its formal and technical vocabulary from Persian and Arabic. Standard Hindi and Urdu are used primarily in public addresses and radio or TV news, while the everyday spoken language is one of the several varieties of Hindustani, whose vocabulary contains words drawn from Persian, Arabic, and Sanskrit. In addition, spoken Hindustani includes words from English and the Dravidian languages, as well as several others.
Hindustani developed over several centuries throughout much of the northern subcontinent including the areas that comprise modern-day India, Pakistan, and Nepal. In the same way that the core vocabulary of English evolved from Old English (Anglo-Saxon) but assimilated many words borrowed from French and other languages (whose pronunciations often changed naturally so as to become easier for speakers of English to pronounce), what may be called Hindustani can be said to have evolved from Sanskrit while borrowing many Persian and Arabic words over the years, and changing the pronunciations (and often even the meanings) of these words to make them easier for Hindustani speakers to pronounce. Many Persian words entered the Hindustani lexicon due to the influence of the Turco-Mongol Mughal rulers of north India, who followed a very Persianised culture and also spoke Persian. Many Arabic words entered Hindustani via Persian, which had previously been assimilated into the Persian language due to the influence of Arabs in the area. The dialect of Persian spoken by the Mughal ruling elite was known as 'Dari', which is the dialect of Persian spoken in modern-day Afghanistan. Therefore, Hindustani is the naturally developed common language of north India. This article will deal with the separate categories of Hindustani words and some of the common words found in the Hindustani language.
Categorization[]
Hindustani words, apart from loans, basically derive from two linguistic categories:
- Indo-Aryan (words classified by grammarians as tadbhava, or "inherited"): Sauraseni Prakrit and its apabhraṃśa, or "corrupted", vernaculars[3][4]
- Non-Indo-Aryan (words classified by grammarians as deśaja, or "indigenous"): Austroasiatic (Munda) languages, as well as Dravidian and Tibeto-Burman languages[3]
According to the traditional categorization in Hindi (also found in other Indo-Aryan languages except Urdu) the loanwords are classed as tatsam (Hindi: तत्सम "as it is, same as therein") for Sanskrit loans and vides͟hī (Hindi: विदेशी "foreign, non-native") for non-Sanskrit loans,[5] such as those from Persian or English, respectively contrasting with tadbhava and deśaja words.
The most common words in Hindustani are tadbhavas.[citation needed]
Examples of derivations[]
Second person pronouns[]
In Hindustani, the pronoun āp (आप آپ) "[one]self", originally used as a third person honorific plural, denotes respect or formality (politeness) and originates from Prakrit