Hindi and Urdu - THE SAME LANGUAGE? (Hindustani) 

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Funny thing is, Urdu is written in Arabic script, so When it comes to Arabic language, Urdu speakers can read Arabic but can't understand it but they can understand Hindi but can't read it. 😂

So an Urdu speaker and Hindi speaker could have a coversation, but they couldn't write a letter to the other

"Hindi and Urdu are like Purple and voilet, Both are made of Blue and red. But one has more blue and other has more red,,, Urdu has more of Persian and hindi has more of Sanskrit" - Not me

I'm Indian, and a native punjabi speaker. A Chinese friend of mine was learning Urdu, and he sent me an urdu sentence written with English script to check if he was right.... And I asked, "hey when did u start learning Hindi"... And he was like, *what is Hindi?*

A Lebanese colleague of mine and I have 2 languages in common: French and English. One day, he received a confidential letter written in Urdu - a language he did not speak. Knowing that I spoke Urdu fluently and that he could entrust me with confidential correspondence, he asked me to translate the letter for him. He was shocked (and disappointed) when I told him that, although could perfectly *understand* spoken Urdu, I could not *read* its _Arabic_ script. [It’s the same with Hindi: I can understand about 80-90% of the spoken language, but cannot read any of its _Devanagari_ script.] To resolve our problem, I asked my Arabic-speaking colleague to read out aloud the Urdu-language letter: *He could read the letter - but could not understand what he was reading.* I proceeded to simultaneously translate what he was reading aloud to me: *I could not read what was written - but could understand what was being read out aloud.* *Problem solved!*

I went to get my nails done and girls working there were from different countries, some were Indian, some Pakistani, some Iranian, some Arab. I heard two girls speaking to eachother and I asked 'what language are you speaking?'. She said 'I call it Urdu because I'm Pakistani, she calls it Hindi because she's Indian, but it's the same language'.

I was travelling back from the US to India and changed flights at the Dubai International Airport, where I met a shopkeeper speaking in Hindi. I got really excited and thought I found an Indian and said 'Oh! You are speaking in Hindi' (in Hindi). He replied 'No I am speaking in Urdu'. I said 'Same thing' and continued chatting with him. I felt so nice to meet someone from the same cultural background and language. He was a Pakistani.

I'm Pakistani and I just learned the Hindi script a few weeks ago, it was super easy since I already spoke the language. Now I can read and write both Urdu and Hindi.

I was once talking to a girl from Pakistan & speaking Hindi. Later on, I told her I was impressed w/ her Hindu skills. She sighed & told me that she was actually speaking Urdu w/ me.

i am a urdu speaker but i face no problem in communicating with a hindi speaking person.

I am Indian and I speak Hindi, I remember when I used to see many things written in streets of India in Perso- Arabic Script, I knew that it was Urdu. By seeing that strange script, I used to think that Urdu is very difficult language. One day I saw Imran Khan(Pakistan's Prime Minister) giving a speech. I was shocked, his hindi is very good, then my parents told me what was the scene😂

It's funny how Hindi and Urdu speakers can have a conversation but can't exchange letters, whereas Mandarin and Cantonese speakers can't have a conversation but can exchange letters.

This really funny incident happened back in 2006 when I was working with my Tamil Indian coworker Arunkumar. A hindi speaking friend of his forwarded him a joke in hindi. Arun could read the joke (same script) but had no idea what he was reading (hindi words). Me being of Pakistani origin I could speak and comprehend hindi-urdu but I do not know how to read the devanagri script. So Arun read the joke and I understood it and laughed at it. And then I translated it back for him in English lol.

I’m Pakistani but I’ll tell you both are the same except specific words in Urdu are derived from Persian whereas In Hindi some are derived from Sanskrit. Urdu is written in Persian type alphabet and Hindi is in Sanskrit alphabet. Both can understand each other and communicate 95% of the time.

Strangely as a South Indian from Kerala, I can very easily follow the sort of Hindi which is heavily Sanskritised. Like the news in All India Radio and Doordarshan. Because most of the Sanskrit individual words used in Sanskritised Hindi are used in Malayalam also. But it is very difficult for us South Indians to follow pristine and pure Urdu. Because it depends heavily on Persian words.

I’m native Persian speaker and some of my ever favorite poetries are from Indian “Parsi-gu” poets. It’s so amazing how they admired our language to the point of creating such masterpieces, and how talented these people were.

I still remember when I used to practice speaking in urdu and people would say " Oh , you speak Hindi" 😂

Imagine UK and USA had tense relations and so decided to call their languages American and British, that's basically Hindi and Urdu for India and Pakistan

I'm from Pakistan. Urdu is our national language. It is written in Persio-Arabic script. The language of urdu literature is full of persian and Arabic influence so we use a lot of persian and Arabic vocabulary. That's why if I have to read an arabic or persian sentence , I can more or less understand it. There is a curious incident. Back then we had a lot of Afghan refugees here in Pakistan and some of them were Dari speakers which is a Persian dialect. So there I saw an afghan little girl with a book and I thought it was urdu because of the script but when I read it was in persian. I thought how similar it seemed with an urdu book. Plus , urdu literary classic works are in a language which is heavily influenced by persian and back then the urdu writers were often well acquainted with Farsi and often they wrote separate texts in persian. Persian was highly valued in literary circles that's why leading urdu poets like Ghalib and Iqbal are well known in persian speaking world. Even today the urdu has a vast persian vocabulary and phrases in urdu literary works. As for hindi I can not read their script but can understand their general conversation. Indian movies and songs are easily understood but I can not understand the Sanskrit words. Altogether, I would say your thesis is quite accurate. Pakistani national anthem is in Farsi.

I'm a URDU speaker from Pakistan.I used to watch Indian movies and dramas.I can understand HINDI very well.

6:10 says a bollywood movie *Shows a tamil video song*

Now Urdu and Hindi speakers can barely speak a sentence in their own language without including 10 English words in a 15 word sentence.

I'm a native urdu speaker from Pakistan and interestingly when i listen to hindi being spoken casually i understand that. But hindi spoken in formal settings like hindi news channels, it becomes very foreign and the intelligibility drops to 60-70 % for me. It makes me think that hindi and urdu are actually very different and their differences are often undermined.

6:07 he says Bollywood and continues to show a Tollywood Movie.....👁👄👁

I learned some Hindi language skills. 2 years in university and I've been to India 4 times. I used to converse in India with the shop keepers. When back in US I was surprised and delighted to find that I cold converse with Pakistani shop keepers in California! No problem and they are quite happy to chat with me. Also in someplace in the world I was complemented by someone "Oh what nice Urdu you speak!" )))

I am fluent in Hindi and English. With foreigners, I tend to speak in English for sake of their comfort since English is an international language. However, if they want me speak in Hindi, I will more than happy to do so! Also at 7:17, 'halaat' has been used as literary word for condition/situation in Hindi. 'halaat' is actually an Urdu word. The literary Hindi word would be 'paristithi'.

And here I am, an Assamese, learned Hindi as a subject till secondary school. Even in the Hindi textbooks we had stories written by great Indian poets and/or writers like Premchand. I learned about the differences in phonetic letters like क & क़, फ & फ़, ग & ग़, ज & ज़ etc. and that the later ones are used in writing some of the Urdu words but in Devanagari script. When we say that we can speak, read and write Hindi, it’s actually Hindustani. But it has become such a mindset among some people that they think that Urdu is only spoken by the Muslims and Hindi by the Hindus. But colloquially use most of them won’t be able to tell the difference.

I am Pakistani and live in Saudi Arabia. I can speak in my language (Urdu) with Pakistanis, Indians, Bangladeshis, Nepalis and even Sri Lankans. And this kind of hindered me from learning Arabic because even in the remotest places in Saudi Arabia, you will find someone from South Asia (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal or Sri Lanka). Urdu (or Hindi or Hindustani) is such an important language and it is safe to say that more than 1 billion people can communicate in this language.

I see Hindi and Urdu similar to how Serbian and Croatian are. I must add that Serbo-Croatian is the most common language spoken within what had once been Yugoslavia.

I am from South India, Bangalore & am one who can read, write & speak both Hindi & Urdu. I must say that your analysis is very good & very perfect. I am amazed at the accuracy of this presentation. The points you have made about Hindustani language are very valid. Also, the historical facts you have presented are also very much in line with my understanding of how these languages have developed in the geographies you have mentioned over the centuries.

واہ! آپ نے ہمیں بہت ہی دلچسپ معلومات سے آگاہ کیا

4:52 Urdu is derived from the Turkic word Ordu, which means Army.

I'm Bangladeshi🇧🇩. And i can understand and speak both languages but i can't read or Wright none of them. As Bengali speaker, Hindi is very easy for me to understand coz both Bengali &Hindi originated from Sanskrit. As a Muslim It's easy for me to understand Urdu, coz Urdu language has lot of Arabic, Persian word. We use Arabic language for religious activities, some times Persian and Urdu word also.

when I saw Pakistani news channels on youtube for the first time ...my thought, Wow they are speaking my language !!!

This man knows what he teaches. Excellent

As someone who lives in Bhopal, I take pride in the fact that both Hindi and Urdu (and classical Sanskrit) are taught here. People in my city speak, read and write both of them, because there were a lot of poets in both languages here in 19th century. :)

Devanagari is the most fascinating script...sometimes it's hard to believe that almost every writing system used in South Asia, Middle East and Europe derived from Phoenician alphabet.

I remember after studying hindi for 6 months and then overhears some new students from Pakistan and was so confused because I could actually understand their accents better than Hindi speakers 😂😂😂

I'm a Persian speaker. I and my friend from India went to an Indian shop and I bought one almond oil. Then I surprisingly said " oh look it has Farsi on it, but it's kinda very old Farsi" my friend told me that it's not Farsi it's Urdu. I was amazed that I could understand 100 percent when it's formally written

I've just watched video with one girl from Qazaqstan traveling in Pakistan, speaking to locals and there were a lot of similar words. Same noticed with Indian people working in Qazaqstan, eg. Mirror "Aina", Friend "Dos" on both languages.

Love and respect to all Hindi and Urdu speakers❤️❤️❤️ দেখছি খুলনা, বাংলাদেশ থেকে 🇧🇩🇧🇩🇧🇩

We call india as Hindistan in Turkish.

I love Urdu, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Telegu, Kanada, and Chinese Languages. I am learning these languages. Love from Lahore and Pakistan. :-)

Very good analysis. We in Pakistan speak Urdu in every corner of the country.

Funny thing, the national anthem of India is in bengali.

If we put the vocabulary of urdu and hindi in one book, surely we have the largest dictionary in the world. Standing alone, hindi is the seventh largest language and urdu, the twentieth largest language according to the size of speakers. But when you merge the two languages and call it Hindustani/Hindvi, it becomes the second largest language after mandarin.

Impressive !! You did an excellent job of explaining the relationship between Urdu and Hindi. I speak both and of course English :)

*Two Points:* One: I speak Urdu language and I find that when I speak with Hindi speakers there is no difference in the language, except for the occasional word which can mostly be understood in context. Two: Hindustani could refer to the spoken language, which is most relevant to people in general, while Urdu or Hindi could refer to two different ways one learns to write their language. So Hindustani is the language itself while Hindi and Urdu are tools for writing the language, therefore I say that there is only one language, not two.

I live near Delhi in Western Uttar Pradesh and funny thing is it is easier to understand Pakistani people speaking Hindi-Urdu for me than native hindi dialects of people of Eastern Uttar Pradesh. But the main difference is script, I cannot read Urdu. Edit- It's been over three years and now I can read Urdu as well.

I m a Hindi L2 speaker, recently conversed in Sweden with a Urdu speaker without any problems 😊

For a native Hindi speaker, they might not have difficulty in understanding Urdu. But for me Who was from Kerala who studied Hindi in school, Urdu is difficult to understand. Mainly because if you learn Hindi as second language you are more likely to learn the literary form. When I attend Friday prayers in Bangalore where sermon is given in Urdu, It was very difficult to follow.

Ur analysis is reasonably correct. Good man....

I am Persian. I remember I met a Pakistani, he could easily understand me but I could not understand his Persian sentences. So we followed up in English ....

Some more fun facts about this language(s): 1) There is no verb for "have". (I have a book --> A book is near me. I have two kids --> My two kids are.) 2) There is very complex verb conjugation, but less than 10 irregular verbs. Verbs are conjugated based on tense, aspect, mood, 1/2/3rd person, as well as gender and number of the subject (or sometimes object). There are 6 possible imperative forms (2 of which are not important). 3) There are not that many actual verbs. Verbs from other languages are borrowed as nouns, which can be combined with the verb "karnaa" (to do) to make a verb phrase. For example, the English verb "to order (food)" becomes "order karnaa". 4) Hindi has "postpositions" instead of prepositions (i.e. they appear after the object). 5) Nouns have two genders, and about 50% of them don't change in the plural (at least for the direct case). 6) Nouns have 3 cases (direct, indrect, vocative), but pronouns have 5 (direct, indirect, dative, genitive, ergative). 7) Consonants have a 4-way distinction based on voicing and aspiration (k, kh, g, gh). It's hard enough to find a foreigner who can distinguish 3 of them, let alone all 4. 8) There are two sets of (t, th, d, dh). In one of them, the consonant is pronounced with the tip of the tongue, and in the other it's pronounced with the flat part of the tongue. 9) Just about every vowel can be nasalized. Nasalization is sometimes the only difference between singular and plural, and it's the only difference between indirect plural and vocative plural. 10) The presence of velar fricatives in a few words in Urdu is the only difference in pronunciation between Hindi and Urdu. e.g. in "vagairah" (et cetera), the 'g' is a fricative in Urdu, but not in Hindi. 11) The words for "tomorrow" and "yesterday" are the same (kal). This isn't a huge problem because there is a past tense and a future tense. 12) Most systems for romanizing Hindi (none of which are common knowledge) are either extremely ambiguous or make heavy use of uncommon diacritics.

You explained good. Hindi and Urdu are same, but Religiously and culturally different. That is why we Indians can understand Pakistanis very easily.

Your research work is commendable.

Many people claim serbian and croation are not the same language the same way people would say urdu and hindi are completely different. Of couse, the reason is political. I wonder if there are any other cases like this.

As a persian speaker,I found this video really interesting 👍👍

This is a superb analysis. Truly impressive.

بہترین! شکریہ۔

I see Hindi and Urdu similar to how Malay and Indonesian language are. When you can understand 90% of what peoples speaks in their language, there is no way we can't call it as same language..

Hindi is also an official language in Fiji, but they usually write it with the Latin alphabet. I only speak a little bit of Hindustani but I can understand Urdu just as well as I can understand Hindi.

Beautiful. Very nicely explained. Thanks

Very insightful, thanks!

precisely made. couldn't have gone better. keep it up.

There are 2 guys at my uni who were having a conversation, and I said, "wait, you're from India, and you're from Pakistan what is going on here?" They explained to me that the languages are very close, but some words are different, so they can usually understand what is being said.

Great video. Thank you for making it. I learnt a lot.

Your explanation is super.. I enjoyed alot this video

I am an Indian And I am Urdu speaker but We have our own Accent of which called DECCANI URDU Urdu of Deccan region of India Deccan belt Aurangabad To Hyderabad

Ordu ~ Urdu means "army" in Turkish and the other Turkic languages. I think because of that they called it "zaban e camp". Also the word is a loanword in Persian , from Turkish.

Your videos are informative, exhaustive, interesting etc. , I like it.

Great examples. Thank you for the objective video. 😊

as a pakistani i really like india i have many indian friends and it never felt like they are from different country it's like they live next to my home it kinda feel good

as a native urdu speaker, literary hindi is still understandable but not completely.

A very interesting video. Thanks for posting!

Both languages are derived from the Hindustani language and are mutual intelligible to the extent that they are sometimes considered as dialects of Hindustani. Hindi tends to draw words from Sanskrit while Urdu tends to draw words from Persian and Arabic. In written form, Hindi uses Nagari script while Urdu uses Perso-Arabic script.

Urdu was a language made for communication for soldiers from different backgrounds and languages in camps. It has words from Fench, English, Turkish, Persian, Sanskrit, Hindi etc

I'm a native Urdu speaker. And must say that the analysis was so perfect, to the point, and comprehensive. Marvelous job bro. Thumbs up

Thank your for this Video. This Video of yours actually describes the relation between both languages & the examples shared by you are apt. Any person who wants to understand the relationship between both these languages can be show this Video & he will understand very easily.

Out of thess 520 million speakers of hindustani ,only 0.7 percent of people know both hindi (devanagri) and urdu(nasta'liq) script And I am one of these 0.7 percent peoples😎😎

I read on Quora that no one speaks “High Hindi” with most foreign words removed. People speak dialects and in some areas they tend to use more Sanskrit words instead of Arabic and Persian words. “Jeevan” instead of “Zindagi”. I imagine that the Delhi dialect, on which the Hindi and Urdu standards are based on, is more mixed (Rekhta) than in the inner most country. Anyway, hindustani is a diverse and beautiful language. So many cultural facets.

Many sharing their personal life experience with all the respect to the otherside is so cool to see. Salute to the great attitude 👍

Excellent Research by some one who is not a Native. Great Work, Unbiased, thoughtful and Informative. Hope people from this region appreciate your work and become harmonious towards each other. Hindi is taught in Indian Schools till 12th grade just like Urdu in Pakistani Schools

Please stop fighting brothers and sisters both the languages (Urdu) and (Hindi) are same but pure urdu is similar to the persian language and pure hindi is similar to the sanskrit language just a little bit difference please don't fight over a language both languages are beautiful 😊😊😊😊salam and respect to all ✋✋✋

So... If I learn Hindhi, does that make that I can speak 2 languages, or I should count it as 1 ?

Very informative video. As a Pakistani Urdu speaker I learned many new things.

Very good job with explanation.!!

Great Video Paul. I was born and raised in the city of Hyderabad in Southern India. As you go further south of India, Hindi/Urdu speakers get less and less. Hyderabad has a huge number of Urdu speaking population. It was ruled by Islamic Kings for more than 400 years. The Kings were very tolerant for the most part and they also embraced the local language Telugu which had an impact in shaping both languages. In Hyderabad, Muslims speak Urdu as their native tongue. And it's a pretty peculiar dialect. It's called as Deccani Urdu. The casual language has lots of different slang words and generally seen as cool and funny kind of Hindustani. Local Hindus speak Telugu (majority) and hindus who settled in here long back from the north speak Hindi or another language depending on which part of India they came from. Hindi and urdu are mutually intelligible and as you said the causal language is the same. I grew up speaking Telugu as my native tongue and learned English at school (English is the language of education). I learnt Hindi as L2 at school. But as a local of Hyderabad, my spoken Hindustani probably falls on the Urdu side of the spectrum.

Paul! please do a video on the Britannic languages: Irish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic, Welsh, Cornish, Breton, and Manx! This would be really cool!!!

Superbly explained 👏 👍

It's very helpful video for me because I'll present on this topic next week in my classroom. Your way of talking is fabulous.

Cover the Sanskrit language next.

I really love when you club Urdu & Hindi into one language i.e. Hindustani. Many people don't want it to be said open & loud but truth is that they are same language.That reminds me of real life incident, recently I joined a new company and was amazed one day when one of my colleagues who is Tamil (they don't have Hindi in their school curriculum so most of them don't understand it much) responded to my question in Hindustani (which I was asking to someone else). And I asked, how do you know Hindi? Reply was the most unexpected, it was 'I learnt when I was in Dubai, there 90% of colleagues were Pakistani and they were amazed that being an Indian I didn't know Hindi so they thought me Urdu', so a Tamil Indian learned a language (the Tamil thought it was Hindi) by bunch of Pakistanis (who thought it was Urdu) and in result was able to answer the question on a North Indian (me, who knew it was Hindustani).I being from Awadh region of Uttar Pradesh always knew that two languages were one and same (by personal experience), as my mother tongue is Urdu (i.e. Hindustani written in Perso-Arabic script i.e. Nastaliq) but I'm also native speaker of Hindi (i.e. Hindustani written in Nagari script i.e. Devnagari). The divergence occurs in their Standard/High forms when you start borrowing from classical languages like Persian-Arabic or Sanskrit and due to socio-cultural-religious reasons especially due to mishap of partition of India. But again, it is good to see you in your videos time and again you refer to them as one and the same.

thank you for sharing .... very interesting .

Very well explained.

I'm indian but i dont know hindi and urdu.....coz im south indian i know tamil and english ....and i can understand malayalam ...telugu ang kannada..... Dravidian lang

Sanskrit was a language for books . Prakrit was a day to day use language .Sanskrit was a language of Pundits.for scriptures .

Quite Insightful!

I'm an Indian who lived in Frankfurt for a while. There, I had a Pakistani neighbour, with whom I had absolutely no problem while communicating. His mother tongue was Punjabi, the most widely spoken language in Pakistan and mine is Bengali. We spoke Hindi and Urdu, respectively, as second languages. But, in our spoken communication, there was very little perceptible difference. But, when we needed to text, we had to use the English script, because of the difference in the scripts used to write Hindi and Urdu!!