Langauge of the Mughals (Hindi)

[Samar Abbas]

On Tue, 13 Feb 2001, Yashwant Malaiya wrote:
> The court language of the Moghuls was always farsi, right to the end.
> The family language of the Moghuls was Turkic.

  Urdu remained as the language of the masses, while the elite spoke their
ancestral Turkic/Persian/Pashto/Arabic. Having originated at the camps of
Mahmud-e-Ghazni (whence the name `Urdu' or camp) at Ghazna, Urdu spread
across the Indus-Ganges plains from the 11th century onwards.

> Many in Pakistan question use of Urdu as the national language,
> and suggest the Arabic or Farsi be the national language there.

 Likewise many in India question the use of Hindi as national language,
and suggest Tamil or Sanskrit be the national language. Since Tamil is far
older and has a much richer literature than Hindee, and is the language of
the IT-literate state of India, its use as national language is far more
rational than Hindee.

> The last emperor did compose verses in Urdu, but Urdu never had
> any official position during the Moghul rule.

 If an emperor could compose verses, surely what more does one need in the
way of "official" encouragement ?

Samar