Modern Standard Hindi, commonly referred to as Hindi, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in North India, and serves as the lingua franca of the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been described as a standardised and Sanskritised register of the Hindustani language, which itself is based primarily on the Khariboli dialect of Delhi and neighbouring areas of North India. Hindi, written in the Devanagari script, is one of the two official languages of the Government of India, along with English. It is an official language in nine states and three union territories and an additional official language in three other states. Hindi is also one of the 22 scheduled languages of the Republic of India.
Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan, where it is also an official language alongside English. In India, Urdu is an Eighth Schedule language whose status and cultural heritage is recognised by the Constitution of India; and it also has an official status in several Indian states. In Nepal, Urdu is a registered regional dialect and in South Africa it is a protected language in the constitution. It is also spoken as a minority language in Afghanistan and Bangladesh, with no official status.
Hindustani is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Deccan, Northern India and Pakistan, and used as a lingua franca in both countries. Hindustani is a pluricentric language with two standard registers, known as Hindi and Urdu. Thus, it is also called Hindi–Urdu. Colloquial registers of the language fall on a spectrum between these standards. In modern times, a third variety of Hindustani with significant English influences has also appeared which is sometimes called Hinglish.
Pashto is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family, natively spoken in northwestern Pakistan, southern and eastern Afghanistan, and some isolated pockets of far eastern Iran near the Afghan border. It has official status in Afghanistan and the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani.
Pakistan is a multilingual country with over 70 languages spoken as first languages. The majority of Pakistan's languages belong to the Indo-Iranian group of the Indo-European language family.
Deccani also known as Deccani Urdu or Deccani Hindi is a language spoken in the Deccan region of south-central India and the native language of the Deccani people. Related with Urdu, the historical form of Deccani sparked the development of Urdu literature during the late-Mughal period. Deccani arose as a lingua franca under the Delhi and Bahmani Sultanates, as trade and migration from the north introduced Hindustani to southern India. It later developed a literary tradition under the patronage of the Deccan Sultanates.
Balti is a Tibetic language natively spoken by the ethnic Balti people in the Baltistan region of Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, Nubra Valley of the Leh district and in the Kargil district of Ladakh, India. The language differs from Standard Tibetan; many sounds of Old Tibetan that were lost in Standard Tibetan are retained in the Balti language. It also has a simple pitch accent system only in multi-syllabic words while Standard Tibetan has a complex and distinct pitch system that includes tone contour. Due to effects of dominant languages in Pakistani media like Urdu, Punjabi and English and religious impact of Arabic and Persian languages, Balti, like other regional languages of Pakistan, is continuously expanding its vocabulary base with loanwords.
Shahmukhi is the right-to-left abjad-based script developed from the Perso-Arabic alphabet used for the Punjabi language varieties, predominantly in Punjab, Pakistan. It originated in the 12th century medieval Punjab through Sufi literature. It is generally written in the Nastaʿlīq calligraphic hand, which is also used for Persian and Urdu. Shahmukhi is one of the two standard scripts used for Punjabi, the other being Gurmukhi used mainly in Punjab, India.
Peshawar District is a district in the Peshawar Division of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. It is located about 160 km west of the Pakistan's capital Islamabad. The district headquarter is the city of Peshawar, which is also the capital of Khyber Paktunkhwa.
Hindustani is one of the predominant languages of South Asia, with federal status in the republics of India and Pakistan in its standardized forms of Hindi and Urdu respectively. It is widely spoken and understood as a second language in Nepal, Bangladesh, and the Persian Gulf and as such is considered a lingua franca in the northern Indian subcontinent. It is also one of the most widely spoken languages in the world by total number of speakers. It developed in north India, principally during the Mughal Empire, when the Persian language exerted a strong influence on the Western Hindi languages of central India; this contact between the Hindu and Muslim cultures resulted in the core Indo-Aryan vocabulary of the Indian dialect of Hindi spoken in Delhi, whose earliest form is known as Old Hindi, being enriched with Persian loanwords. Rekhta, or "mixed" speech, which came to be known as Hindustani, Hindi, Hindavi, and Urdu, also locally known as Lashkari or Lashkari Zaban in long form, was thus created. This form was elevated to the status of a literary language, and after the partition of colonial India and independence this collection of dialects became the basis for modern standard Hindi and Urdu. Although these official languages are distinct registers with regards to their formal aspects, such as modern technical vocabulary, they continue to be all but indistinguishable in their vernacular form. From the colonial era onwards, Hindustani has also taken in many words from English, with an urban English-influenced variety emerging known as Hinglish.
Syed Ahmad Shah, better known by his pen name Ahmed Faraz, was a Pakistani Urdu poet, scriptwriter and became the founding Director General of Pakistan Academy of Letters. He wrote his poetry under the pseudonym Faraz. He criticised military rule and coup d'état in the country and was displaced by the military dictators.
The University of Central Punjab or UCP is a private university located on Khayaban-e-Jinnah Road, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan.
Peshawar Nights is a written firsthand account by Sultan al-Wa'izin Shirazi, recalling ten days of dialogues between two Sunni scholars and a Shia author about major topics relating to Shia Islam, which took place in Peshawar beginning on 27 January 1927. The book was originally written in Persian and published in Tehran and has subsequently been translated into several languages, the first English edition was published in 1977 in Pakistan.
Waheed Qureshi was a Pakistani noted linguist, literary critic, writer, researcher, educationalist and scholar of Urdu literature and oriental languages. Waheed Qureshi was one of the foremost scholars who helped shape the mood and colour of research on oriental languages and literature.
Pashto Academy is a language regulatory institution based at the University of Peshawar in Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan responsible for the standardisation, advancement, and promotion of the Pashto language in Pakistan. It was established in 1955 with the support of the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, with Maulana Abdul Qadir serving as its first director. It was created following the precedent the Pashto Tolana in Kabul having been set up in 1937. It is a research and publication institution with a focus on Pashto linguistic development and research. Areas studied and researched by the academy include Pashtun culture, literature, history, and the arts.
Rehana Khatoon is an Indian scholar, teacher of Persian language, former Head of the Department of Persian, University of Delhi and the author of Encyclopaedia of Persian Language and Literature . She was honoured by the Government of India, in 2014, by bestowing on her the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award, for her contributions to the propagation of Persian language and literature. Rehana Khatoon is the first woman alumni of the Aligarh Muslim University to be awarded the Padma Shri.
Nazir Ahmed (1915-2008) was an Indian scholar, writer, and teacher of the Persian language. He was honoured by the Indian Government in 1987 with the Padma Shri. He received this award for his contributions to the propagation of Persian Language and literature.
Muhammad Parvesh Shaheen is a Pakistani historian and author from Manglawar, Swat. Shaheen is the author of more than 45 books in Pashto, Urdu and English. He has a library of over 30,000 preserved texts.
Syed Ainul Hasan is former professor of Persian & Central Asian Studies School of Language, Literature & Culture Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has had experience with teaching and research for a period of over thirty-two years, and he has designed courses for University of Kashmir, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Cotton College State University. He played a key role in enhancing Indo Afghan relation by introducing Afghan Resource Centre in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He was awarded President of India certificate of honor award in 2017
Mohammad Ibrahim Baig, known by his pen name Khatir Ghaznavi; romanized: K̲h̲āt̤ir G̲h̲aznavī, was a Pakistani multilingual writer, poet, playwright, research scholar, and director of Pakistan Academy of Letters. He wrote about forty-five to fifty books, including poems and children's books in Urdu, Hindko and Pashto languages throughout his life, though most of his literary work appears published in Urdu and Hindko.
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