Lara
Differences between Hindi and Urdu There are some obvious differences between Hindi and Urdu that I am seeing, such as saying "humara" in urdu and "main" in hindi, and I know that certain Urdu nouns and adjectives are cognate with arabic, whereas Hindi has more sanscrit cognate nouns and adjectives... Mostly what I am understanding is that Urdu is a very formal version of Hindi, and Hindi has a lot of slang from other languages mixed into it depending on where in India one is speaking When I am researching definitions of words in Hindi on the internet, it seems that a lot of what's there is actually Urdu but Its very hard to tell until it's pointed out to me. one of my friends posted a question in Hindi, and it recieved a comment saying that the post was actually in Urdu and not Hindi. How is one able to tell the difference? Does it matter for those of us who want to be fluent in the most recognized Indian language?
Sep 13, 2014 4:16 PM
Answers · 9
3
The difference is very subtle and self evident only to a native speaker of either Hindi or Urdu. 90 percent of the vocab is used interchangeably by speakers of both languages. Grammar rules are also very similar(as far as communication goes). Does it matter for those of us who want to be fluent in the most recognized Indian language? It doesn't matter per se, but for some of us purity of language is very important. e.g. Urdu (Original lines from poem) तेरी उम्मीद तेरा इंतज़ार जब से है न शब को दिन से शिकायत न दिन को शब से है Hindi (literal Hindi Translation) तेरी आशा तेरी प्रतीक्षा तब से है। न रात को दिन से उपालम्भ न दिन को रात से है | English (Again literal) Hoping and waiting for you since then. Neither day or night has complains for each other.
September 13, 2014
1
Actually if you research on the two languages you will see that the difference is easily detectable by non native speakers as well and that they are the same language base but treated in different ways. First of all, not all know (even in India) that Urdu was originated in India (the Indo-Persian court in Lucknow was where the most beautiful Urdu was spoken) and that Pakistan after the partition adopted it as an official language, but most Pakistanis have Punjabi as a first language because Pakistan is a part of the Punjab reagion. Urdu is now also adopted by all Indian Muslims. Virtually there is no difference between Hindi and Urdu especially in the colloquial form (also known as Hindustani) that you will mostry hear in big cities and in Hindi movies. In the conversational language especially in big cities you will be expected to speak Hindustani. This language is actually Hindi with a preference for Persian and Arabic loanwords (such as ummid instead of the Sanskrit aashaa for example). Formally, Urdu is written in Arabic script and also has some Persian derived grammar structures. Nowadays the purists will prefer to use heavy loanwords from Arabic in Urdu and from Sanskrit in Hindi so that they can keep the two languages distinct, but that's not a conversational langauge. You will learn to tell Hindi words from Urdu words by some basic features. For example, words with 'za' or underdotted kha and ka are always Urdu, while words with consonant conjuncts are usually Sanskrit derived (but a good dictionaty can also tell you the origin of a Hindi word). Another difference in the two languages is literature, Urdu has a tradition of ghazals and Persian derived poetry, whilst Hindi has other forms.
September 14, 2014
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