How old is the Urdu Language?

Hasnain · May 24th, 1999, 07:04 AM

Salaam,

Umm ... well, i was just wondering, because if i recall correctly, Urdu has been spoken for a long time. Even before the reign of Tipu Sultan.

Wassalaam,
kind regards

Asif · May 24th, 1999, 09:51 AM

Hi!

As far as my meagre knowledge goes Urdu is at least about 500 years old..iti s used to be called Rekhta and also is verily similar to Brij Bhasha as well....aur Hazrat Amir Khusro alayhirahmat were in the 13th century and certainly some of what they wrote was similar to Urdu. But dont quote me on this.

The first deewaan is by Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah...

Hasnain · May 25th, 1999, 01:10 AM

Salaam Asif jee,

Thanks for the info. Quite a while back i was told that Urdu was actually older than Hindi. At the time i was surprised, but naturally being Pakistani, liked what i heard. But is this really true?

kind regards

Asif · May 25th, 1999, 03:58 AM

Hasnain ji

I think that Hindi is MUCH older than Urdu...lekin what is spoken in India today--eg in indian movies--is really Urdu, thay call it Hindi for political resons.

At Uni I did a course on Indian Cinema and the enlish lecturer told us this as well. Proper Hindi is very old and has links with sanksrit...

ZZ · May 25th, 1999, 05:08 AM

Hindi, as of today is not old. Maybe same age as Urdu. Urdu and Hindi are rather sisters, both of which evolved from khari boli, awadhi, maithili and other dilects with Urdu taking more words from Persian and Arabic while Hindi did not. Both have the same grammer. Since the grammer and majority words are same (hum, tum, chacha, mama, bhai, bhen, hath, paanv, aankh whatever) it is very difficut to say if a given sentence is Urdu or Hindi. The grammer that is used is same in Marathi too. I donno how.

Hasnain · May 26th, 1999, 03:02 AM

Asif & ZZ,

thanks for the info chaps. It was appreciated.

kind regards