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I'm fairly certain the word is of either Persian or Arabic origin. It probably came to the subcontinent during one of the numerous invasions by Arabic or Turco-

• smnrchrds 9y ago
  Interesting. I was aware of Persian influence on Urdu. As a Persian speaker, I can understand the entirety of the national anthem of Pakistan without even a dictionary. But Azeri and Hindi is a not a combination I have encountered before.
  • jogjayr 9y ago
    Hindi and Urdu are mutually intelligible [1][2]. They use a different script and slightly different vocabularies [3]. But because of exposure via Bollywood and other media (my personal experience) most people who speak one can understand the other. Bollywood song lyrics and especially dialogue from movies from the 70s, 80s and 90s are very heavily Urdu-influenced (and in fact the movies even had credits in English, Hindi, and Urdu). Urdu itself is also spoken widely in India. As someone who learned Hindi in school (i.e. didn't grow up speaking it at home) I'm able to understand Urdu reasonably well, but probably would do a poor job speaking it. I'd have to stop constantly and think of the Urdu equivalent for a certain word before using it. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_intelligibility#Dialects_or_registers_of_one_language_sometimes_considered_separate_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_intelligibility#Dialect... 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi#Comparison_with_Modern_Standard_Urdu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi#Comparison_with_Modern_S...