Your comments

salman from Lahore
i feel lucky being a speeker of urdu -containg dictions derived from all parts of the region (including sansikrit) ,and the beauty ;its still absorbing a lotof english vocabulary .hindi supporters need to trace the origin of 'Hindi'(what they claim to the language of pre mughal india),seperatley from SANSIKRIT, plus beleive it or not ...'HIND' and 'hindustan' comes from arabic !!! its acually cool

sufia from Pakistan
it is right that these two languages offer mutual intelligibilty to its speakers and they do not need translators to decode the message or information most of the time but its a sheer blunder to claim that urdu is not different from hindi .... urdu has its own identity as hindi does have...and to relate urdu and hindi with religions respectively islam and hinduism is a step towards liguistic riot ... language is something secular

Nitin, India
As spoken English is different from the litrary form, so is the language widely spoken in the Indian subcontinent (call it Hindi, Urdu or Hindustani). It is just what the govts. of the two countries decided to take upon as a language - Urdu with nastaa'liq and Hindi with devnaagri scrip. Further, the respective govts emphasized using Arabic/Persian and Sanskrit respectively to include new terms in the language. But the people are much wiser, instead the use the commonly used words. For instance, scholars (or even common people) cannot deny the fact that the word - 'chaapal' (slipper/fip-flop) is a desi term and not something derived from Sanskrit,Arabic or Persian. Its neither 'shibshib'(Arabic) or 'paadukaa' (sanskrit), or anywhere near to them. It is immaterial to fight over the source, when the number of desi words are overwhelmingly large and make Sanskrit/Arabic/Persian words as 'loanwords'. I'm quite conversant with Khadi boli, Haryanvi, Kumaouni,Garhwali,Pahari, Braj, Marwari, Mewati, Bihari, Bhojpuri, Deccani, Hyderabadi, Mumbaiyya,Urdu,Punjabi. This doesnot makes me a polyglot - it is simply that I know the various dilects of the same language. Changing the stress, intonation or even the script doesnot renders all these 'dialects' incomprehensible to me or most of us. Saying that hindi/urdu is difficult or not depends upon how the tutor wishes to teach (that is; to say that he/she is emphasizing on the litrary aspect or the day-to-day usage)and this true for learners of the 'desi' language. The flavor of the language is that 'har paanch kos par pani aur boli badaltee hai' - Water and dialect changes after every five miles.

Ravindra Mehta from Chandler's Ford
Most of the population of India speak and understand 'Hindustani'. This is because their major source of exposure to the language is our Hindi (Hindustani) films. The film industry was crowded with muslim singers who brought richness to our language, with sprinkling of arabic,persian words, which were romantic and poetic in nature. Just like English language, Hindustani has become rich and expressive language by absorbing whatever came its way. Hindustani is more popular, Hindi is more acadamic.

Arif Mohmd. from India
Guys, No matter what you say but if you look into deep you will findthat Hindi and all other langauages in ancient India came from Sanskrit. Basically Hindia came from Sanskrit and Pali. During mugal Samrajya, Urdu was invented with the mixture of Hindi (around 60%), Arabic (30%) and persian/Afgani. this language was invented in Lucknow the a great Mughal city in Northern India. If you speak Urdu, can be treated as Hindi because Hindi is the mother of Urdu.

Kartik Rathnam from New Delhi
Urdu does not stand any way near the great language of our country which is "HINDI". Hindi is a very ancient language derived from sanskrit and the language evolved in INDIA. Urdu is a mixture of few languages ie.. Hindi, Persian & Arabic.

Rodriguez spain
Hindi is ancient urdu use hindi grammar en vocabulary of arabic, farsi en turkish. If they are saying that urdu is the most beautiful language a composition of 4 languages without any notice that India have any more than 200 languages with have its unique pattern and beauty.I am wondering why are the muslims not speaking arabic when they are saying that islam en arabic is the best on this planet. Arabic is pure without pollution of other languages. Be proud on your own cultural heritage. But sankrit is the mother of all languages is the most scientific language of this world. Adios

Aidan Work from Wellington,New Zealand.
It is true that Urdu is spoken in India.In fact,Urdu was once the official language of the Princely State of Hyderabad (whose ruler was called the Nizam).The Moghul Emperors also spoke Urdu as well,even though their empire was in northern India,not southern India,where Hyderabad is.

nadir ,pakistan
i think urdu and hindi are diffrent from each other but urdu is language understand in allmost all south ashia but local or tipical hindi not in indian flim called hindi flim almost 95%urdu ues in songs 100%urdu use thats y i saied urdu is best from hindi

K.A.Samad
Urdu has developed as an independent language and should not ne misunderstood / called as Hindi. In urdu pronunciation is very important where as most hindi speakers can not even pronounce hindi words correctly. In short Urdu is more sophisticated language and is mostly spoken in urban areas while hindi is more common with rural areas and less pronunciation conscious people.

Ajay from New York
I think it would be most accurate to describe Hindi/Urdu (Hindustani) as a single language with two separate literary cultures utilizing two distinct scripts. It would be incorrect to say that 'hindi is from sanskrit and urdu is from arabic/persian,' because both use a grammatical structure that is fundamentally indo-iranian, not semetic (arabic). urdu does emphasize arabo-farsic vocabulary, but hindi (especially spoken) includes many, many words from a arabic and farsi. an oft sighted example is the many words we use to express love, e.g., pyaar, prem, ishq, mohabbat etc...of which, only one (prem) is derived from sanskrit. i challenge any shud hindi speaker to speak for a day without using any words from arabic and farsi, it is nearly impossible (even for Uma Bharati), as even the most common words (e.g. Kitaab) have an arabic root. that being said, written hindi does tend to emphasize sanskit-derived words, as written urdu emphasizes words having an arabic/farsi root.

Wajdan,Pakistan
Urdu n hindi are very much identical with each other. The major difference is that of script where urdu is written in persio-arabic script while hindi in devnagari. Both were almost similar languages in oral form 250 years back but now are different from each other due to persianization of urdu n sanskritization of hindi. Also hindi is the mother tongue of less than 50% of indians. There are hundreds of millions of tamil,telugu,bengali,punjabi,marathi,etc etc whose languages r entirely different from hindi.

Harish fm Dubai
Hindi started to emerge in the 7th century and by the 10 century became stable. Several dialects of Hindi have been used in literature. Braj was the popular literary dialect until it was replaced by khari boli in the 19th century.Urdu developed under persian influence(mughal empire 1200-1800).Hindi is the oldest and ancient language.

Susanna from Helsinki, Finland
Indeed Urdu is the national language of Pakistan but still widely spoken in India. People speak Urdu in India but as both the languages are mixed up so it is difficult to identify. I learn Urdu language in Helsinki University of Technology because if I can use Urdu anywhere but typical Hindi is not widely spoken. This is true that sripts of both the languages are different but dialect is almost the same and Urdu dialect is wdiely understandable.

Malhotra from London
Please Please Please Hindi and Urdu are not same. They are two different languages with Arabic Script for Urdu & Devnagiri Script for Hindi. Devnagiri Script is one of the oldest known Script. I would advise BBC to research this matter as they have confused Hindi (Hindustani) with Urdu.. Even I read one book called Tales of British Raj In India, even there the author has identified Urdu as Hindustani but go in details and you will find Hindi is what is called Hindustani and not Urdu. Urdu came to India (In Hindi known as Bharat or Hindustan) when mughals invaded but Hindi was there before than. Hindi is National Language of India. So please do research before anything like this is written. And for records, Hindi speaking people are more than Urdu Speaking as Urdu is spoken only in few parts of India and is national language of Pakistan. Indian population is world's second largest population and atleast 90% speak Hindi. Please do a statistical check before claiming anything

Arora from London
I agree with Vibha & Pankaj that linking these two language is erraneous. Also A message for Wavi. Hindi is spoken as well as written language. Urdu was created using words from Hindi along with persian and arabic. Hindi is originated from Sanskril and uses Devnagiri Script, which I am sure Urdu doe not follow. Please add Hindi as separate language with alittle bit of research.

Wavi from Malaysia
urdu and hindi are different languages.. the real hindi is different and is not spoken as a language.. recently indian movies usually use the terms & words of URDU.. but they are deem as hindi.. where it is not exactly hindi.. my indian friends they don't know hindi at all when they learn in their school.. it would be nice for us to consider urdu as a completely different langauge.

Vibha Pankaj from Edinburgh
Linking naming systems to a language is perhaps erroneous. For example the names cited under the Urdu naming system are typical Muslim names and not necessarily associated with the entire Urdu speaking community (significant number of Hindus in India write and speak Urdu and would not follow this naming system). I believe names and naming systems are more closely linked to religion and to geographical regions from which people originate. For example many South Indian Hindus would include their father's first name as their surname. Similarly many Muslims (may or may not be Urdu speakers) would follow the system of first name followed by a family name (e.g. father- Ashraf Malik, son- Mujib Malik.