Urdu is a part of Indo-European language and its origin in the Indian
sub-continent can be traced to the advent of Muslims
in India. The word “Urdu” has a Turkish origin and it literally means ‘army’,
‘camp’ or ‘horde’. The Turkish army stationed in Delhi, from the time of the
Ghorids (1193 A.D onwards), was known as Urdu or Urdu-i-Mualla, the
exalted army. It is generally believed that while this army spoke Persian, the
inhabitants of the city spoke an early form of Hindi known as Khari Boli. The interaction of the
foreign army with the local communities led to the amalgamation of indigenous
and Persian language spoken in these military establishments. This process
was not confined to the military establishment alone but extended to a larger
cultural level interaction between the indigenous population and other Muslim
immigrants such as traders, travelers, Sufi mystics
and other settlers. This interaction led to the evolution of Urdu as the common
language with its distinct characteristics.
Although
Urdu is said to have originated in Delhi, scholars like T. Grahame Bailey point
out that the earliest Turkish armies first entered and settled in Punjab and
Lahore and frequently inter-married with the indigenous people. In the due
course of time, as a result of this cultural synthesis, must have spoken the
language of the country, modified of course by their own Persian mother tongue.
The basis of early Urdu was thus, old Punjabi, which must not have differed a
great deal with the Khari Boli Hindi. The points of divergence between Khari
Boli and Urdu are very few, the main distinction lying in the fact that
while Khari Boli uses few, Urdu many Persian and Arabic words. In north
India, the word ‘Urdu’ came to be applied to this common language primarily to
distinguish it from Khari Boli and Persian. Here it was called Zaban-i-Urdu,
the language of the army or Zaban-i-Urdu-i-Mualla, the language of the
exalted army. In course of time, the word Zaban was dropped and Urdu
came to be used alone.
Besides
north India, another area of significance in the early as well as later growth
of Urdu was Deccan. Few important historical events have been associated with
the early growth of Urdu in the Deccan. One of these is the imperialistic
designs of Sultan Alauddin Khalji (1290-1320 A.D) which led to a series of
imperial military expeditions in few parts of the Deccan led by his military
commander, Malik Kafur. Another being, the Deccan campaigns of Sultan Muhammad
Bin Tughlaq and transfer of his capital from Delhi to Daulatabad, during
1326-1327 A.D. These historical developments helped in the transportation of
Urdu to Deccan by the Turkish army, scholars, Sufi mystics, traders etc. But
more important perhaps, was the foundation of the independent Deccan kingdom of
Bahmani, in opposition to the Delhi Sultanat in mid 14th century.
Rulers of the Bahmani kingdom, though Muslims, discarded many of the
conventions of the north and remained intent on developing their own culture.
Thus, despite their strong affiliation with Persian, the cultural language of
the Muslims in India, they nevertheless, decided to cultivate their own
language in preference to it. They thus adopted Urdu which was influenced by
local vernaculars especially Gujarati and Marathi and subsequently managed to
impose them in large part of the Deccan. However, the language here was not called
Urdu but Dakhni or Dakni. Thus spoken Urdu has two variants; i) Dakhni
(spoken in the Deccan) and ii) Northern Urdu spoken in north India originating
from Delhi.
Thus, one
of the unique features of Urdu language was its capacity to absorb words and expressions
of other popular languages which in turn, enriched its own vocabulary and
expressions. Besides, Urdu also incorporated historical events, myths and
symbols as well as the poetic meter and verse forms of various Indian
languages. All these elements were woven in to a unified medium of expression
giving Urdu language its true Indian foundation. The languages known from its
beginning as Hindavi, Hindi, Gujari, Dakhni etc and
which later came to be known as Rekhta, Urdu, Urdu-i-Mualla or Hindustani
has been a common denomination of all the tongues spoken in the sub-continent.
After having absorbed various regional characteristics and styles in the
process of its spread from one corner of the country to another, Urdu
established its own identity through a script of its own, containing features
of both Arabian and Persian scripts.
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