[1] "Hindostan" is a Persian word, and in modern Persian is
pronounced "Hindustan." It means the country of the Hindus. In
medieval Persian the word was "Hindostan," with an _o_, but in the
modern language the distinctions between _e_ and _i_ and between _o_
and _u_ have been lost. Indian languages have borrowed Persian words
in their medieval form. Thus in India we have _sher_, a tiger, as
compared with modern Persian _shir_; _go_, but modern Pers. _gu_;
_bostan_, but modern Pers. _bustan_. The word "Hindu" is in medieval
Persian "Hindo" representing the ancient Avesta _hendava_ (Sanskrit,
_saindhava_), a dweller on the _Sindhu_ or Indus. Owing to the
influence of scholars in modern Persian the word "Hindu" is now
established in English and, through English, in the Indian literary
languages; but "Hindo" is also often heard in India. "Hindostan" with
_o_ is much more common both in English and in Indian languages,
although "Hindustan" is also employed. Up to the days of Persian
supremacy inaugurated in Calcutta by Gilchrist and his friends, every
traveller in India spoke of "Indostan" or some such word, thus
bearing testimony to the current pronunciation. Gilchrist introduced
"Hindoostan," which became "Hindustan" in modern spelling. The word
is not an Indian one, and both pronunciations, with _o_ and with _u_,
are current in India at the present day, but that with _o_ is
unquestionably the one demanded by the history of the word and of the
form which other Persian words take on Indian soil. On the other hand
"Hindu" is too firmly established in English for us to suggest the
spelling "Hindo.". The word "Hindi" has another derivation, being
formed from the Persian _Hind_, India (Avesta _hindu_, Sanskrit
_sindhu_, the Indus). "Hindi" means "of or belonging to India," while
"Hindu" now means "a person of the Hindu religion." (Cf. Sir C. J.
Lyall, _A Sketch of the Hindustani Language_, p. 1).
[2] Sir C. J. Lyall, _op. cit._ p. 9.
[3] This and the preceding paragraph are partly taken from Mr
Platts's article in vol. xi. of the 9th edition of this
encyclopaedia.
[4] In some dialects of W.H. weak forms have masculines ending in u
and corresponding feminines in _i_, but these are nowadays rarely met
in the literary forms of speech. In old poetry they are common. In
Braj Bhasha they have survived in the present participle.
HINDOSTANI LITERATURE. The writings dealt with in this article are those
composed in the vernacular of that part of India which is properly
called Hindostan,--that is, the valleys of the Jumna and Ganges rivers
as far east as the river Kos, and the tract to the south including
Rajputana, Central India (Bundelkhand and Baghelkhand), the Narmada
(Nerbudda) valley as far west as Khandwa, and the northern half of the
Central Provinces. It does not include the Punjab proper (though the
town population there speak Hindostani), nor does it extend to Lower
Bengal.
In this region several different dialects prevail. The people of the
towns everywhere use chiefly the form of the language called _Urdu_ or
_Rekhta_,[1] stocked with Persian words and phrases, and ordinarily
written in a modification of the Persian character. The country folk
(who form the immense majority) speak different varieties of _Hindi_, of
which the word-stock derives from the Prakrits and literary Sanskrit,
and which are written in the Devanagari or Kaithi character. Of these
the most important from a literary point of view, proceeding from west
to east, are _Marwari_ and _Jaipuri_ (the languages of Rajputana),
_Brajbhasha_ (the language of the country about Mathura and Agra),
_Kanauji_ (the language of the lower Ganges-Jumna Doab and western
Rohilkhand), _Eastern Hindi_, also called _Awadhi_ and _Baiswari_ (the
language of Eastern Rohilkhand, Oudh and the Benares division of the
United Provinces) and _Bihari_ (the language of Bihar or Mithila,
comprising several distinct dialects). What is called _High Hindi_ is a
modern development, for literary purposes, of the dialect of Western
Hindi spoken in the neighbourhood of Delhi and thence northwards to the
Himalaya, which has formed the vernacular basis of Urdu; the Persian
words in the latter have been eliminated and replaced by words of
Sanskritic origin, and the order of words in the sentence which is
proper to the indigenous speech is more strictly adhered to than in
Urdu, which under the influence of Persian constructions has admitted
many inversions.
As in many other countries, nearly all the early vernacular literature
of Hindostan is in verse, and works in prose are a modern growth.[2]
Both Hindi and Urdu are, in their application to literary purposes, at
first intruders upon the ground already occupied by the learned
languages Sanskrit and Persian, the former representing Hindu and the
latter Musalman culture. But there is this difference between them,
that, whereas Hindi has been raised to the dignity of a literary speech
chiefly by impulses of revolt against the monopoly of the Brahmans, Urdu
has been cultivated with goodwill by authors who have themselves highly
valued and dexterously used the polished Persian. Both Sanskrit and
Persian continue to be employed occasionally for composition by Indian
writers, though much fallen from their former estate; but for popular
purposes it may be said that their vernacular rivals are now almost in
sole possession of the field.