How Urdu Came into Being?

अर्ज़-ए-दकन में जान तो दिल्ली में दिल बनी

और शहर-ए-लखनऊ में हिना बन गई ग़ज़ल

ارض دکن میں جان تو دلی میں دل بنی

اور شہر لکھنؤ میں حنا بن گئی غزل

(Life in the land of Deccan, heart in Delhi

And henna became ghazal in the city of Lucknow)

This sher of Ganesh Bihari Tarz rightly represents the pan-Indian character of the Urdu

language. Urdu has a long history spanning for a little less than a millennium now. The

process of evolution from which it went through is what makes it genuinely native to this land.

The study of this process lays forward us a shared history of two modern languages, viz.,

Urdu and Hindi.

Faint Beginnings

An eminent Urdu scholar Shamsur Rahman Faruqui points out that the “Early names for the

language now called Urdu were Hindvi, Hindi, Dihlavi, Dakani and Rekhta.” Amir Khursau

(1259-1325) called it ‘Hindavi’, for Abul Fazl (1551-1602), it was ‘Dehalvi’. People of Deccan

embraced it as a language of their own, ‘Dakhani’.

Amir Khusrau has the lines:

बहुत कठिन है डगर पनघट की

बहुत दिन बीते पिया को देखे

بهت کاتهین های دگر پانغاٹ کی

بهت دین بطه پیا کو دکهه

(For the path to the river is arduous

I haven’t seen my beloved since long)

Amir Khusrau (Source: Goodreads)

Yakta, an eighteenth-century writer from Lucknow, maybe rightly describes the evolution of

the language as:

“[people]....came from all sides and all shores of the world….And most of them adopted this

paradise….as their own native place….mixed each other’s vocabulary….for neither the

Arabic remained Arabic, nor Persian, Persian; nor did the….vernaculars retain their original

form.”

Thus, a language was born which was truly Indian in nature. It would not be incorrect to

argue that Urdu was actually born in military camps of Delhi Sultanate inhabiting the people

of Turkish, Iranian, Indian origin etc. or in the bazaars of Delhi. Thus, Shah Hatim (1699-1783)

in the preface of his Divanzada called Urdu as “rozmarra-i-Dihli’’ or the daily speech of Delhi

which was born out of the mixing of Khari Boli of Delhi and Persian and Turkish.

What about Military Camps

Babur in his memoir Turuk-i-Baburi mentions the word ‘Urdu’ or ‘Ordo’ repeatedly. However,

the word ‘Urdu’ in Turkish means a ‘military camp’ or ‘cantonment’. T. Grahame Bailey, thus,

concludes that Urdu came to signify the military language (lashkari zaban) over time. 

Eventually, it became the common tongue and began to be known as

zaban-i-Urdu-i-mu’alla-i-Shahjahanabad (the language of the city of Shahjahanabad),

later shortened to zaban-i-Urdu-i-mu’alla and further to zaban-i-Urdu. By the

eighteenth-century, the language of Delhi and the area around it, came to be called Urdu. 

Persian Influence

Persian enjoyed the status of the official language of the court from the times of Delhi

Sultanate to the demise of the Mughal empire in the eighteenth century. Therefore, when

Urdu came to flourish, its poets, writers, lexicographers etc. naturally inclined towards the

Persian traditions. They imitated the themes of Persian poetry, its idioms, phrases, meters etc.

Not only that, but they also adopted different forms such as ghazal, qasida, tazkira, etc. 

However, this does not mean that the Indians did not infuse something of their own. In fact, they

started to explore the vast potentiality that Rekhta presented them. Many like Mirza Sauda

(1713-1781), who started as a Persian poet switched to Rekhta.

Mirza Rafi Sauda (Source; Rekhta.org)

Transition to Rekhta

As for the influence of Persian faded, the poets of Rekhta and Hindavi came to be recognised

and patronised from royals as well as the public. They introduced new forms and traditions into

the language such as that of satirical verse (hijv) and speaking a fresh (taza goi). 

One important figure in this respect, who can not be ignored, is Jafar Zatalli (d.1713). He was

the first major Urdu literary figure- the first Urdu prose writer, satirist and humorist. His most

important contribution is the inventive use of languages and words. There is a traceable

influence of Hindavi on Zatalli’s Persian poetry. In his verses, one can find the fading of

Persian and the emergence of a new language, i.e, Urdu.

Jafar Zatalli has the lines:

अगरची सभी कूड़ा ओ करकट अस्त

बा हिंदी ओ रिंदी ज़बां लटपट अस्त 

اگارچی صبحی کودا و کرکٹ است

با هندی و رندی زبان لٹ پٹ است 

(Although everything is rubbish and sweepings,

The language is lively with Hindi and licentiousness)

Reference should also be made of Khan-i-Arzu (1689-1765), under whose influence and

mentorship, the upstart poets like Abru, Mazmun, Yakrang, Khushgo, Sauda and Mir, started

to explore the possibility of writing in their own tongue, i.e, Rekhta.

Urdu as a Name of Language

But when does the word Urdu first occur as the name of a language? Perhaps the first

example of the word bearing the sense as we know it today comes in the writing of Mus’hafi

(1750-1824). He wrote this sher sometime after 1776, though it is not clear when:

ख़ुदा रक्खे ज़बाँ हम ने सुनी है 'मीर' ओ 'मिर्ज़ा' की

कहें किस मुँह से हम ऐ 'मुसहफ़ी' उर्दू हमारी है

خدا رکھے زباں ہم نے سنی ہے میرؔ و مرزاؔ ک

کہیں کس منہ سے ہم اے مصحفیؔ اردو ہماری ہے

(I have heard the language of Mir and Mirza Sauda,

How can I dare to say that Urdu is my language?)

Mir Taqi Mir (Source; The Print)

From here we find numerous evidence of the word Urdu bearing the sense of a language.

It became common in Lucknow after 1846 and in Delhi after 1857.

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