It is widely spoken and understood as a second language in Nepal, Bangladesh, and the Persian Gulf and as such is considered a lingua franca in the northern Indian subcontinent.
[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] Rekhta, or "mixed" speech, which came to be known as Hindustani, Hindi, Hindavi, and Urdu (derived from Zabaan-i-Ordu by Mashafi meaning "language of the Horde".
[13] This form was elevated to the status of a literary language, and after the partition of colonial India and independence this collection of dialects became the basis for modern standard Hindi and Urdu.
[14][15][16][17][18] Most of the grammar and basic vocabulary of Hindustani descends directly from the medieval Indo-Aryan language of central India, known as Shauraseni Prakrit.
[27][21] While Urdu retained the grammar and core vocabulary of the local Hindi dialect, it adopted the Nastaleeq writing system from Persian.
The works of the 13th century scholar Amir Khusro are typical of the Hindustani language of the time: سیج وہ سُونی دیکھ کے روؤں میں دن رَین پِیا پِیا مَیں کَرَت ہُوں پہروں، پَل بھر سُکھ نہ چَین
[31] Muzaffar Alam asserts that Persian became the lingua franca of the empire under Akbar for various political and social factors due to its non-sectarian and fluid nature.
[32] However, the armies, merchants, preachers, Sufis, and later the court, also incorporated the local people and elements of the medieval Hindu literary language, Braj Bhasha.
[34] In the middle of the 18th century, a movement among Urdu poets advocating the further Persianisation of Hindustani occurred, in which certain native Sanskritic words were supplanted with Persian loanwords.
[35] On the other hand, organizations such as the Nagari Prachar Sabha (1893) and Hindi Sahitya Sammeland (1910) "advocated a style that incorporated Sanskrit vocabulary while consciously removing Persian and Arabic words.
"[36] Despite these movements to Persianize or Sanskritize the Hindustani language, Professor Afroz Taj states that "the distinction between Hindi and Urdu was chiefly a question of style.
A poet could draw upon Urdu's lexical richness to create an aura of elegant sophistication, or could use the simple rustic vocabulary of dialect Hindi to evoke the folk life of the village.