HINDI

You might have heard about Hindi and Urdu and wondered, what the difference between the two languages? Are they same?

Hindi is originated from 9^th to 11^th century. Thereafter, the Islamic invaders have promoted and forced the use of their own tongue to the Indians, be it Turkish, Persian as well as Pashto. Because of that, many words of these languages  entered into the vocabulary of people. Arabic words also came along because of their prominence in Persian and its importance because of religion of Islam. An entirely new language like Urdu is made from Hindi and promoted for the Islamic courts just like British rule favored the use of English from 18th century onward.

There are some striking differences between Hindi and Urdu. First, Hindi uses Devanagari script which is used by Sanskrit while Urdu uses script from Persian. Second, Hindi uses more words derived from Sanskrit and lesser words which are loaned from Urdu while Urdu uses more words which are derived from Arabic, Turkish and Persian.

The biggest similarity between the two is, both use the same grammatical structure which is derived from Sanskrit including verbs. Hence, both of the languages, be it Hindi and Urdu originated indirectly from Sanskrit. For example,

वो काम करता है? – Wo kaam karta  hai? – Does he works?

Where काम  (kaam – work) comes from कर्म  (karm) from Sanskrit.

Both of the languages use the same verbs like “kaam karna” (काम करना – to work). However, the vocabulary is different because of the origin of their derived words.

हृदय (Hardaya) and दिल (Dil) is used for Heart in Hindi and Urdu respectively. Other words like धन्यवाद (dhanyavad – thanks) of Hindi धन्य Dhanya) and शुक्रिया Shukriya  (Arabic, Shukran)

Many don’t realize this fact because they have been conditioned by popular media such as films. Those films are labeled as Hindi films but mixture of Hindi and Urdu. Many films as well as media such as daily soaps, magazine etc are using more and more words from Urdu without even realizing it.

List is long but I would like to point to some of Urdu words which are infrequently used by the native Hindi speakers:

Urdu	Hindi	English Translation
दोस्त – Dost	मित्र – Mitr	Friend
शुक्रिया – Shukriya	धन्यवाद – Dhanyavad	Thank/Thank you
दिल – Dil	हृदय – Hardiya	Heart
औरत – Aurat	स्त्री – Stri	Woman
आज़ादी – Azadi	स्वतन्त्रता – Svatantrata	Independence
कानून – Kanoon	नियम – Niyam	Rule/Law
साहब – Sahab	श्रीमान – Shrimaan	Mister
खून – Khoon	रक्त – Rakt	Blood
इमारत – Imaarat	भवन – Bhavan	Building
दिन – Din	दिवस – Divas	Day
हालत – Halat	स्थिति – Sthithi	Condition
कमरा – Kamara	कक्ष – Kaksh	Room
दरवाजा – Darwaza	द्वार – Dwar	Door

Shar