# What's the most common language ever? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 30, 2008, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-common-language-ever/443252 "2008-03-30T04:48:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Omi\_no\_Kami](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a88e4f/32.png) [@Omi\_no\_Kami](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omi_no_Kami)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2008, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-common-language-ever/443252/41 "2008-03-31T19:57:48Z")
As everyone in this discussion has already noticed, linguistic taxonomy can be an extremely contentious issue, and a lot of language families tend to have multiple organizational schemes depending on which scholar you talk to. Now I don’t have background in Indian linguistics, but off the top of my head I seem to recall that Hindi and Urdu are usually considered to be a diasystem: essentially they started off as a single language, but due to cultural differences and a growing set of dialect-specific vocabulary, it eventually became the case that the language was partitioned on cultural borders. One of the best-known examples from recent times is probably Bosnian: it’s my understanding that fifty years ago, there was a single language called Serbo-Croatian, but today, for various reasons, nobody speaks Serbo-Croatian: they speak Bosnian, Serbian, or Croatian. Despite being mutually intelligible (in general), the speaker population divides itself into distinct languages. Since it’s my understanding that diasystems are often created and sustained by schisms that stem from a single speaker population that self-divides itself along cultural lines, each dialect (or language) typically begins to pick up an increasing amount of unique vocabulary. In the case of Hindi and Urdu, I’m looking at Ethnologue, which is usually a pretty reliable source for linguistic taxonomy, and it indicates that they are two registers of a single umbrella language called Khariboli. (Khariboli also encompasses Dakhini and Rekhta, but this is my first time hearing of either register.) Apparently literary Hindi tends to feature unique vocabulary drawn largely from Persian and Arabic, while literary Urdu favors Sanskrit terms. ED: And I see \*\*John Mace \*\*already covered this. :smack: My mistake. ---
**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:** [March 31, 2008, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-common-language-ever/443252/42 "2008-03-31T20:23:13Z")
From Columbia University’s Dept of [Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures:](http://www.columbia.edu/cu/mealac/languages/hindiurdu/faq.html) > [@](#): > > Why is the basic two-year sequence called “Hindi/Urdu”? > > Hindi and “Urdu” share an entirely common grammar, so from a linguistic point of view they are one language. Our program teaches the Hindi (Devanagari) script at the beginning of the elementary class, and the Urdu script during the intermediate class, so everybody ends up having two “languages” for almost the price of one. In vocabulary terms, we try to emphasize common core vocabulary rather than extremely Sanskritized or Persianized words. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2008, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-common-language-ever/443252/43 "2008-03-31T20:31:52Z")
[QUOTE=Omi no Kami] Apparently literary Hindi tends to feature unique vocabulary drawn largely from Persian and Arabic, while literary Urdu favors Sanskrit terms.. [/QUOTE] You have that backwards, BTW. **John** , you win this round… for now. _we need an evil smiley_ ---
**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:** [March 31, 2008, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-common-language-ever/443252/44 "2008-03-31T20:39:55Z")
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright] You have that backwards, BTW [/quote] That’s right (and obvious, on the face of it)! > [@](#): > > **John** , you win this round… for now. _we need an evil smiley_ Well, it’s really not about winning or losing, but thanks for at least letting it drop. I’d be glad to debate you on the subject in GD, but for this forum it’s really not appropriate. For the record, I tend to be a lumper when it comes to languages, although I’ve become much more of a splitter when it comes to biological species. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-common-language-ever/443252.md?page=2)