An English?Hindustani Vocabulary: For Higher Standard And Proficiency Candidates Or ?The Right Word In The Right Place?

The British considered Hindustani, an urban language of north India, the lingua franca of the whole country. They associated it with (easy) Urdu and not modern, or Sanskritized, Hindi. They learned it to exercise power and, because of that, were not careful of mastering the polite usages of the language or its grammar. The British perceptions of the language spread it widely throughout India, especially the urban areas, making it much more widespread than it was when they had arrived. In India, extensive as it is, and peopled by many different races of men, variety of dialect must be expected to occur in the most prevalent colloquial language, whether denominated zabaniurdu, rekhla, hindi, Hindustani, or Dakhani ; and words of common use in some parts may appear strange, or be even unintelligible, to the inhabitants of others. Thus, though the language here treated of, and which most generally prevails in Hindustan proper or in the Dakhan, at Delhi, Agra, Hyderabad, or in the Carnatic, is essentially one and the same; yet, through so wide a range of country differences will present themselves in various particulars of speech. With a view, therefore, to extend the utility of the work, many words, gathered from Dakhani compositions in manuscript or in print, old or modern, are now inserted; and, when they are supposed to be peculiar to that dialect, they are marked as such, for the purpose of distinction.