GUAGE AND LITERATURE. The lingua franca of Northern India. This is in structure an Indian language, descended from a sister dialect of the ancient Sanskrit through medieval Prakrit vernaculars. Hindustani is divided into nearly sixty subdialects, which in the east ern portion of its district are approximate Ben gali, and in the south and west closely resemble Marathi and Gujarati. The territory of Hindu stani, which is the vernacular of nearly 100,000, 000 people, covers some 248,000 square miles. The standard dialect is the Brij Bhasha, spoken in the districts of Delhi, Agra, and \latltura. Hin dustani abounds in Turkish, Arabic, and Per sian words, as well as in numerous borrowings from Dravidian and Kolarian dialects. In this form it is called Urdu, which in Turkish signi fies 'camp.' This term is a relic of the Moham medan invasions of the country around Delhi in the twelfth century, when conquerors and con quered sought to find a speech which they might each understand. During the nineteenth century the vocabulary of the language was purified to a great extent of the foreign element, and the wage of native word; as far as possible has since been preferred. Hindustani without these non-Indian importations is called Hindi or High Hindi.
In structure the language is analytic. In this it resembles the other modern Indian languages. as well as Persian, and in many respects Eng lish. It forms eases. tenses. etc.. by postpositions. periphrases. and the like. Thus from ghar, 'house' ( Sanskrit grha), is formed the genitive Oar 61. ablative ghar se, instrumental ghar ne, while the plural of the same eases is gharcin ka. gharrin gharcin Plc. There are two genders, two numbers, two voices, and nine tenses in common use, e.g.
main dckhta see,' main dekhta hfin am see ing,' main dckhanga 'I am going to see,' main ne dekha liai 1 have (lit, 'by me it has been and so forth. Hindi is written in the Devanagari alphabet, like Sanskrit and .Nlaratlii, while Iltlu employs the Perso-.1rabie script with three additional characters to represent specifi cally Italian sounds.
Hindustani literature is very abundant, al though for the most part it rises little above nicdHerity in character. It begins with the i'rith•irrij Basalt, by Chand Bardai (alma A.u. 12001, related in his long poem the history of Pritliviraja 11., the last Hindu I:ing of Delhi. :Much of the literature consists t ralFla from the Sanskrit. as well as from Persian and Arable. The most noteworthy specimens of this particular class of work are the llama/Ian of Tulsdas, begun .‘.p. 1575. and the itagh u and :spring." which _kinnian of Delhi translated from the Persian collection of stories called the "History of the Four at the beginning of the nineteenth century. History and the drama also find their place in this litera ture. Which is the most important in modern India.
Dlnuot,RA I'll Y. Green, I'ractiral Hindustani ((1xford. 1895): Creaves, Grammar of en Hindi I.S9(I): Vinson, Manucl de la IIindoastani (Pori-, 1899 ; Hoernle, Compacatire Grammar of the aundiun 1ti8f11 : Fallon, IlintInstani-Enalish Ltic tifitta•a (itenar•s. Is79) : f:arein de Tassy, Ibs(uige de hi litti‘ra hire hindoue et Itiinloustanie (3 vols., Paris, 1870-711 : I;rierson, Modern rmicular Literature of Hindustan (Calcutta,