(b) For the separate languages, see C. J. Lyall, A Sketch of the Hindustani Language (Edinburgh, 1880); S. H. Kellogg, A Grammar of the Hindi Language (for both Western and Eastern Hindi), (2nd ed., London, 1893); J. T. Platts, A Grammar of the Hindūstānī or Urdū Language (London, 1874); and A Dictionary of Urdū, Classical Hindi and English (London, 1884); E. P. Newton, Panjābī Grammar: with Exercises and Vocabulary (Ludhiana, 1898); and Bhai Maya Singh, The Panjabi Dictionary (Lahore, 1895). The Linguistic Survey of India, vol. vi., describes Eastern Hindi, and vol. ix., Hindostani and Panjabi, in each instance in great detail.
(G. A. Gr.)
[1] “Hindōstān” is a Persian word, and in modern Persian is pronounced “Hindūstān.” It means the country of the Hindūs. In medieval Persian the word was “Hindōstān,” with an ō, but in the modern language the distinctions between ē and ī and between ō and ū have been lost. Indian languages have borrowed Persian words in their medieval form. Thus in India we have shēr, a tiger, as compared with modern Persian shīr; gō, but modern Pers. gū; bōstān, but modern Pers. būstān. The word “Hindu” is in medieval Persian “Hindō” representing the ancient Avesta hendava (Sanskrit, saindhava), a dweller on the Sindhu or Indus. Owing to the influence of scholars in modern Persian the word “Hindū” is now established in English and, through English, in the Indian literary languages; but “Hindō” is also often heard in India. “Hindostan” with o is much more common both in English and in Indian languages, although “Hindustan” is also employed. Up to the days of Persian supremacy inaugurated in Calcutta by Gilchrist and his friends, every traveller in India spoke of “Indostan” or some such word, thus bearing testimony to the current pronunciation. Gilchrist introduced “Hindoostan,” which became “Hindustan” in modern spelling. The word is not an Indian one, and both pronunciations, with ō and with ū, are current in India at the present day, but that with ō is unquestionably the one demanded by the history of the word and of the form which other Persian words take on Indian soil. On the other hand “Hindu” is too firmly established in English for us to suggest the spelling “Hindo.”. The word “Hindī” has another derivation, being formed from the Persian Hind, India (Avesta hindu, Sanskrit sindhu, the Indus). “Hindi” means “of or belonging to India,” while “Hindu” now means “a person of the Hindu religion.” (Cf. Sir C. J. Lyall, A Sketch of the Hindustani Language, p. 1).
[2] Sir C. J. Lyall, op. cit. p. 9.
[3] This and the preceding paragraph are partly taken from Mr Platts’s article in vol. xi. of the 9th edition of this encyclopaedia.
[4] In some dialects of W.H. weak forms have masculines ending in u and corresponding feminines in i, but these are nowadays rarely met in the literary forms of speech. In old poetry they are common. In Braj Bhasha they have survived in the present participle.
HINDŌSTĀNĪ LITERATURE. The writings dealt with in this article are those composed in the vernacular of that part of India which is properly called Hindōstān,—that is, the valleys of the Jumna and Ganges rivers as far east as the river Kōs, and the tract to the south including Rajpūtānā, Central India (Bundēlkhaṇḍ and Baghēlkhaṇḍ), the Narmadā (Nerbudda) valley as far west as Khandwā, and the northern half of the Central Provinces. It does not include the Punjab proper (though the town population there speak Hindōstānī), nor does it extend to Lower Bengal.
In this region several different dialects prevail. The people of the towns everywhere use chiefly the form of the language called Urdū or Rēkhta,[1] stocked with Persian words and phrases, and ordinarily written in a modification of the Persian character. The country folk (who form the immense majority) speak different varieties of Hindī, of which the word-stock derives from the Prākrits and literary Sanskrit, and which are written in the Dēvanāgari or Kaithī character. Of these the most important from a literary point of view, proceeding from west to east, are Mārwāṛī and Jaipurī (the languages of Rajpūtānā), Brajbhāshā (the language of the country about Mathurā and Agra), Kanaujī (the language of the lower Ganges-Jumna Doāb and western Rohilkhaṇḍ), Eastern Hindī, also called Awadhī and Baiswārī (the language of Eastern Rohilkhaṇḍ, Oudh and the Benares division of the United Provinces) and Bihārī (the language of Bihār or Mithilā, comprising several distinct dialects). What is called High Hindī is a modern development, for literary purposes, of the dialect of Western Hindi spoken in the neighbourhood of Delhi and thence northwards to the Himālaya, which has formed the vernacular basis of Urdū; the Persian words in the latter have been eliminated and replaced by words of Sanskritic origin, and the order of words in the sentence which is proper to the indigenous speech is more strictly adhered to than in Urdū, which under the influence of Persian constructions has admitted many inversions.