Persian and Urdu: Difference between revisions

Persian and Urdu (Hindustani) are distinct languages. Persian is classified as [[Iranian languages|Iranian]], whereas Urdu is [[Indo-Aryan languages|Indo-Aryan]]. They fall under the larger grouping of the [[Indo-Iranian languages]], and hence share some linguistic features due to [[Proto-Indo-Iranian language|common descent]].

However, the majority of influence from Persian is direct, through a process often called Persianisation. Following the Turko-Persian [[Ghaznavid Empire|Ghaznavid]] conquest of [[South Asia]], Persian was introduced into the Indian subcontinent. The [[Delhi dialect]] of the [[Old Hindi]] language and other dialects of [[South Asia]], received a large influx of [[Persian language|Persian]], [[Chagatai language|Chagatai]] and [[Arabic]] vocabulary.<ref name="Strnad2013">{{cite book |last1=Strnad |first1=Jaroslav |title=Morphology and Syntax of Old Hindī: Edition and Analysis of One Hundred Kabīr vānī Poems from Rājasthān |date=2013 |publisher=[[Brill Academic Publishers]] |isbn=978-90-04-25489-3 |language=en |quote=Quite different group of nouns occurring with the ending ''-a'' in the dir. plural consists of words of Arabic or Persian origin borrowed by the Old Hindi with their Persian plural endings.}}</ref> The subsequent Turko-Afghan [[Delhi Sultanate]] gave way for a further continuation of this. The basis in general for the introduction of the Persian language into the subcontinent was set, from its earliest days, by various Persianised Central Asian [[Turkic peoples|Turkic]] and [[Afghanistan|Afghan]] dynasties.<ref>Sigfried J. de Laet. [https://books.google.com/books?id=PvlthkbFU1UC&pg=PA734&dq=persian+language+in+anatolia&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAWoVChMIs-fO2_aRxgIVygYsCh2NJgBM#v=onepage&q=persian%20language%20in%20anatolia&f=false ''History of Humanity: From the seventh to the sixteenth century''] UNESCO, 1994. {{ISBN|9231028138}} p 734</ref>  

This [[lexicon|lexically]] diverse register of language, emerged in the northern subcontinent, was commonly called ''Zaban-e Urdu-e Mualla'' ('language of the [[Orda (organization)|orda]] - court').

Unlike Persian, which is an [[Iranian languages|Iranian language]], Urdu is an [[Indo-Aryan languages|Indo-Aryan language]], written in the [[Urdu alphabet|Perso-Arabic]] script; Urdu has a Indic vocabulary base derived from [[Sanskrit]] and [[Prakrit]], with specialised vocabulary being borrowed from Persian.<ref name="Ahmad20022">{{cite book|title=Lineages of the Present: Ideology and Politics in Contemporary South Asia|last=Ahmad|first=Aijaz|publisher=Verso|year=2002|isbn=9781859843581|page=113|language=en|quote=On this there are far more reliable statistics than those on population. ''Farhang-e-Asafiya'' is by general agreement the most reliable Urdu dictionary. It was compiled in the late nineteenth century by an Indian scholar little exposed to British or Orientalist scholarship. The lexicographer in question, Syed Ahmed Dehlavi, had no desire to sunder Urdu's relationship with Farsi, as is evident even from the title of his dictionary. He estimates that roughly 75 per cent of the total stock of 55,000 Urdu words that he compiled in his dictionary are derived from Sanskrit and Prakrit, and that the entire stock of the base words of the language, without exception, are derived from these sources. What distinguishes Urdu from a great many other Indian languauges ... is that it draws almost a quarter of its vocabulary from language communities to the west of India, such as Farsi, Turkish, and Tajik. Most of the little it takes from Arabic has not come directly but through Farsi.}}</ref><ref name="Dalmia20172">{{cite book|title=Hindu Pasts: Women, Religion, Histories|last=Dalmia|first=Vasudha|date=31 July 2017|publisher=[[SUNY Press]]|isbn=9781438468075|page=310|language=en|quote=On the issue of vocabulary, Ahmad goes on to cite Syed Ahmad Dehlavi as he set about to compile the Farhang-e-Asafiya, an Urdu dictionary, in the late nineteenth century. Syed Ahmad 'had no desire to sunder Urdu's relationship with Farsi, as is evident from the title of his dictionary. He estimates that roughly 75 percent of the total stock of 55.000 Urdu words that he compiled in his dictionary are derived from Sanskrit and Prakrit, and that the entire stock of the base words of the language, without exception, are from these sources' (2000: 112–13). As Ahmad points out, Syed Ahmad, as a member of Delhi's aristocratic elite, had a clear bias towards Persian and Arabic. His estimate of the percentage of Prakitic words in Urdu should therefore be considered more conservative than not. The actual proportion of Prakitic words in everyday language would clearly be much higher.}}</ref><ref name="Taj1972">{{cite web|url=http://www.unc.edu/~taj/abturdu.htm|title=About Hindi-Urdu|last=Taj|first=Afroz|year=1997|publisher=[[University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill]]|language=en|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090815023328/http://sasw.chass.ncsu.edu/fl/faculty/taj/hindi/abturdu.htm|archive-date=15 August 2009|access-date=27 March 2018}}</ref><ref name="auto">{{cite book|last=Kachru|first=Yamuna|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ooH5VfLTQEQC&pg=PA2|title=Hindi|publisher=John Benjamins Publishing|year=2006|isbn=90-272-3812-X}}</ref> Some grammatical elements peculiar to Persian, such as the enclitic [[ezāfe]] and the use of [[Pen name#Persian and Urdu poetry|pen-names]], were readily absorbed into Urdu literature both in the religious and secular spheres.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Bhatia|first1=Tej K.|last2=Ritchie|first2=William C.|title=The Handbook of Bilingualism|url=https://archive.org/details/handbookbilingua00bhat_489|url-access=limited|date=2006|publisher=John Wiley and Sons|isbn=9780631227359|page=[https://archive.org/details/handbookbilingua00bhat_489/page/n797 790]}}</ref>

[[Hindustani language|Hindustani]] gained distinction in literary and cultural spheres in South Asia because of its role as a [[lingua franca]] in the subcontinent as a result of the large number of speakers the language has, both as a first and second language.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.lib.utexas.edu/etd/d/2006/munshis96677/munshis96677.pdf|title=Jammu and Kashmir Burushaski: Language, Language contact and change|work=Sadaf Munshi, Doctor of Philosophy, University of Texas|access-date=2016-08-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160921060336/https://www.lib.utexas.edu/etd/d/2006/munshis96677/munshis96677.pdf|archive-date=2016-09-21|url-status=dead}}</ref> A prominent cross-over writer was [[Amir Khusrow]], whose Persian and Urdu couplets are to this day read in [[South Asia]]. [[Muhammad Iqbal]] was also a prominent South Asian writer who wrote in both Persian and Urdu.