# Hindi & Urdu: Comparisons - Why are they so similar? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 2, 2004, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hindi-urdu-comparisons-why-are-they-so-similar/272607 "2004-11-02T20:53:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hindi-urdu-comparisons-why-are-they-so-similar/272607/1 "2004-11-02T20:53:11Z")
I speak Hindi. All my life I’ve been able to understand someone who spoke Urdu and they me. The vocabulary is different, but not to such a great extent that you can’t pick it up from context. Now I am pretty sure that Urdu is a dialect of Arabic and Hindi is not a dialect, but a language descended from Sanskrit. Arabic and Hindi are not similar, and I can’t read written Urdu but I can read written Sanskrit even if I don’t understand 9 words out of 10. So how can this be? How come these two languages are so similar spoken but become radically different when written? Where do they descend from? Does anyone know? ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hindi-urdu-comparisons-why-are-they-so-similar/272607/2 "2004-11-02T21:12:46Z")
> [@](#): > > Urdu is by origin a dialect of Hindi spoken for centuries in the neighborhood of Delhi. In the 16th century, when India fell under Moslem [sic] domination, a large number of Persian, Arabic, and Turkish words entered the language via the military camps and the marketplaces of Delhi. Eventually a separate dialect evolved, written in Arabic characters with additional letters supplied for sounds peculiar to Indian and Persian words. In time it came to be called “Urdu” (“camp language”), and after further Moslem [sic] conquest became the lingua franca over much of the Indian subcontinent. –The Languages of the World, Kenneth Katzner ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hindi-urdu-comparisons-why-are-they-so-similar/272607/3 "2004-11-02T21:36:48Z")
You are confusing alphabets with language origins. Many languages spoken by moslem populations use the Arabic alphabet, even though the ;anguages have no relation to Arabic. Persian, like Urdu, uses the Arabic alphabet. A noteable exception is Turkish, although it was written in that alphabet before the country switched to the Roman alphabet early in the 20th century. Arabic is in the Semitic language family. Urdu, like Hindi and Persian, is Indo-European. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hindi-urdu-comparisons-why-are-they-so-similar/272607/4 "2004-11-02T21:39:32Z")
> [@Elenia28](#): > > Now I am pretty sure that Urdu is a dialect of Arabic and Hindi is not a dialect, but a language descended from Sanskrit. Arabic and Hindi are not similar, and I can’t read written Urdu but I can read written Sanskrit even if I don’t understand 9 words out of 10. **Earl** nailed this above. Here’s how I’d look at Arabic’s influence on Urdu – Arabic was to Urdu what French was to English. > [@Elenia28](#): > > So how can this be? How come these two languages are so similar spoken but become radically different when written? Think of it this way – spoken language is “true”, living, and evolving language. Any writing system is window dressing, which can be foisted upon a given spoken language by more or less artificial means – by cultural exchange (Urdu), by conquest (Navajo, Quechua), and by fiat (Turkish). Examples of related languages using different scripts – in a manner situationally similar to Urdu/Hindi – are Yiddish/German and Arabic/Maltese. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hindi-urdu-comparisons-why-are-they-so-similar/272607/5 "2004-11-02T21:45:42Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > Examples of related languages using different scripts – in a manner situationally similar to Urdu/Hindi – are Yiddish/German and Arabic/Maltese. The best is Sebian/Croatian. Not even really different dialects, Orthodox Serbian uses a modified Cyrillic alphabet while Catholic Croatian uses Roman letters. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hindi-urdu-comparisons-why-are-they-so-similar/272607/6 "2004-11-02T22:01:58Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > The best is Sebian/Croatian. Not even really different dialects, Orthodox Serbian uses a modified Cyrillic alphabet while Catholic Croatian uses Roman letters. Yup … I didn’t use that example for exactly that reason – because _Srpsko-hrvatski_ is really a single language. But on second thought … that example does well demonstrate the arbitrariness of the relationship between written and spoke language. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hindi-urdu-comparisons-why-are-they-so-similar/272607/7 "2004-11-02T22:32:45Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > … that example does well demonstrate the arbitrariness of the relationship between written and spoke language. Not arbitrary. Writing often follows religion. And this makes sense, since it’s usually the relgious class that brings writing in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hindi-urdu-comparisons-why-are-they-so-similar/272607/8 "2004-11-02T22:38:42Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > Yup … I didn’t use that example for exactly that reason – because _Srpsko-hrvatski_ is really a single language. > > But on second thought … that example does well demonstrate the arbitrariness of the relationship between written and spoke language. It’s very arbitrary. Lots of languages have switched from one writing system to another - Korean and Vietnamese used to be written with Chinese characters, while Korean uses an alphabet of its own invention now, and Vietnamese uses Roman letters. Romanian used to be written in Cyrillic letters, now it uses Roman. And there are various Jewish languages written with Hebrew characters - Yiddish (which is Germanic and fairly similar to German), Ladino or Djudeo-Espanyol (which is, obviously, descended from Spanish - and it preserves some interesting archaic aspects of it), Judeo-Italian (I think) and no doubt others. So the writing system and the origin of the language are two separate things altogether. Urdu is the same language as Hindi, though it’s certainly got its own dialectual differences. On the other hand, different Chinese “dialects” are often completely incomprehensible to other Chinese, and as different (or more) than the Romance “languages”. Dialect versus language is arbitrary to a very great degree. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hindi-urdu-comparisons-why-are-they-so-similar/272607/9 "2004-11-02T23:11:25Z")
Hindi and Urdu are essentially the same language, derived (as **Earl** pointed out) from a merger (sometimes called “Hindustani”) of (1) Indo-Aryan vernacular descended from Sanskrit and (2) a dialect of Persian. Especially starting in the 19th century, Hindi speakers began to stress the language’s relationship to Sanskrit and to include more Sanskrit-derived vocabulary in the formal version of the language, while Urdu speakers did the same with Persian. AFAIK the writing system never actually “switched”—from the beginning, Hindi, like other Indo-Aryan dialects of the time, was written in a variant of nagari (the alphabet of Sanskrit), while Urdu was written in nast’aliq (the script of Persian). So it was a single language, or later two very closely related languages, that were mutually intelligible to the two types of users in its **spoken** form but not in its **written** form. (Of course, many literate Hindi-speakers in the late second millennium could also write Urdu, and vice versa.) ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2004, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hindi-urdu-comparisons-why-are-they-so-similar/272607/10 "2004-11-02T23:15:50Z")
**bordelond:** _Here’s how I’d look at Arabic’s influence on Urdu – Arabic was to Urdu what French was to English._ Nitpick: I’d say rather that Arabic was to **Persian** what French was to English; Urdu just inherited most of its Arabized forms from Persian. IIRC, Thackston’s introductory Persian textbook quotes somebody or other as saying “Greek and Persian are brother and sister, but Arabic and Persian are husband and wife”—very closely linked but not related by descent. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2004, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hindi-urdu-comparisons-why-are-they-so-similar/272607/11 "2004-11-03T00:55:33Z")
**Elenia** : You can learn to read Arabic script in a day or so. Discounting the fact tha vowels are not written, I think you’d find it quite easy to read Urdu. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2004, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hindi-urdu-comparisons-why-are-they-so-similar/272607/12 "2004-11-03T01:05:58Z")
[Urdu alphabet page](http://sun1.rrzn-user.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/urdu-alphabet.html) with comparison to Devanagari. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2004, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hindi-urdu-comparisons-why-are-they-so-similar/272607/13 "2004-11-03T14:23:30Z")
Very interesting. Thank you, everyone. **John Mace** , that sounds like a fascinating project, except wouldn’t I need someone to teach me the rules? There are unusual rules in Hindi, such as the placement of vowels. But how I do love languages. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2004, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hindi-urdu-comparisons-why-are-they-so-similar/272607/14 "2004-11-03T14:32:23Z")
Yeah, I was a little startled by **John** ’s estimate of “a day or so” to learn Arabic/Persian script! It took me about two months of part-time self-study when I began learning Arabic fifteen years ago; maybe that’s particularly slow, or maybe **John** is just a script whiz. And I had already had a year of Hebrew, whose alphabet is closely related to that of Arabic—although the letters don’t look similar—in terms of writing direction, names of the letters, voweling, and so forth. **Elenia** , if you do feel like working on Arabic script on your own, I recommend the textbook _Elementary Modern Standard Arabic_ (EMSA), which includes a nice workbook for practicing your _khatt_. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2004, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hindi-urdu-comparisons-why-are-they-so-similar/272607/15 "2004-11-03T15:51:33Z")
Thank you, **Kimstu**. I may do that. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2004, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hindi-urdu-comparisons-why-are-they-so-similar/272607/16 "2004-11-03T16:22:33Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Yeah, I was a little startled by **John** ’s estimate of “a day or so” to learn Arabic/Persian script! It took me about two months of part-time self-study when I began learning Arabic fifteen years ago; maybe that’s particularly slow, or maybe **John** is just a script whiz. Well, I do “collect” alphabets and have learned quite a few over the years. But I was talking about being able to read, which is a lot easier than writing. Given that the OP understands spoken Urdu, I bet that after sitting down with the Urud alphabet over a weekend, she’d be able to read it fairly well on Monday. It might take a few months before she publishes her first novel, witten in longhand. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hindi-urdu-comparisons-why-are-they-so-similar/272607/18 "2016-04-11T03:43:30Z")
> [@nickholas](#): > > I wish i could speak urdu or even hindi ☹ it seems hard to learn it…:dubious: **nickholas** , we ask that old threads in General Questions only be raised to contribute new factual information. Since this thread dates to 2004, I’m going to close it. Colibri General Questions Moderator