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They are almost identical. Standard Urdu taught in schools might be a bit hard to follow for Hindi speakers and vice-versa but on the street level, it really is

They are almost identical. Standard Urdu taught in schools might be a bit hard to follow for Hindi speakers and vice-versa but on the street level, it really is almost exactly the same. As a native Urdu speaker, when I went to college in western India, people would often ask me if I knew Urdu and wanted to hear what it sounded like. They were always surprised when I revealed that I was speaking it all along as they assumed I was speaking Hindi which was technically correct as they really are the same language with different script and a bit of unique vocabulary. The day to day language that people of the region call Hindi or Urdu, and what you'll hear in all of the Bollywood movies is actually a mix of both. Many experts call the language Hindustani and consider Urdu and Hindi two dialects of it. A video from one of my favourite Youtube channels explains it in detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxSd7p1i_TA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxSd7p1i_TA

u801e 7y ago
I've noticed that some words have different pronunciations. For instance, the word for "definitely" is pronounced zaroor in Urdu but in Hindi, it's pronounced jaroor.
- owaislone 7y ago
  Very true, in most Hindi speaking states people have a hard time pronouncing Z and often pronounce it as J even quite often even in English. Same thing with SH vs S. That said, I've personally seen this as a common occurrence among people who didn't study any other languages other than Hindi or didn't study any at all.
  - OJFord 7y ago
    I struggle with this sort of thing a lot, as I'm learning Hindi as a native English speaker. So I suppose I should learn it as za, (sabzi is an example that comes to mind), but just understand that if I hear someone else say it it may be ja? Everyone's going to understand za, even if it's not how they personally say it right?
    - owaislone 7y ago
      Yes, pretty sure everyone will understand you perfectly irrespective of whether you say sabzi or sabji.
- lagolinguini 7y ago
  This isn't really a difference in pronunciation between Hindu and Urdu as much as it is a sound change that has occurred in some dialects of the Hindustani language. Both Hindi and Urdu have the consonant /z/. However in parts of India this consonant has shifted from /z/ to /dʒ/. It is considered colloquial or uneducated.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    TIL that it's supposed to start with a "z" sound…I've always heard it be pronounced with a "j".
- yumraj 7y ago
  Jaroor/zaroor is Urdu word. Hindi is निश्चित (nishchit). Just because zaroor is commonly used doesn't make it Hindi.
  - random314 7y ago
    Noone uses the so called text book Hindi on the street. Text book Hindi was introduced as a way to eliminate Persian words from Hindi about 100 years ago. So far text book Hindi has stayed strictly inside text books and dramas. Zaroor is indeed a Hindi word of Persian origin. Just like zeher, as opposed to Vish - which can only be found in text books.
    - yumraj 7y ago
      What's your point? I already said in a separate comment that there is colloquial Hindi, which like many other languages has words from other languages, especially from Urdu. But that does not make those words Hindi. They remain Urdu words. We similarly use several words from Latin, French and other languages in colloquial English, but from pure language standpoint I doubt that they'd be called English words. Edit: A Wikipedia page of interest [0] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi–Urdu_controversy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi–Urdu_controversy
      - smallnamespace 7y ago
        Would you consider 'similar', 'several', 'language', 'colloquial', or 'doubt' to be English words? All of them are of foreign origin.
        yumraj 7y ago
        I'm not qualified to answer that. Me personally, yes I would. A linguist, I can't say, would perhaps depend on each word and when they became part of the language. Hindi is obviously derived from Sanskrit and other languages. However, Hindi and Urdu are quiet different. Give a word and in most cases most people will be able to tell if it's a Hindi word or an Urdu word.
- z3phyr 7y ago
  It depends. For what an urdu speaking person will use "Zaroor", a hindi speaking person would use "Avashya".
  - kranner 7y ago
    Even the Hindiest of the Hindi-speaking people, e.g. in Uttarakhand say "zaroor". You will only find someone like a Hindi teacher or a priest using a word like "avashya" when they're trying to signal that they are educated and thus speaking in the 'pure' register. In the natural language of Hindi, the word used is 'zaroor'. Using 'avashya' is speaking a conlang, pretty much.
dmix 7y ago
Is there a script you find "better" between the Hindi and Urdu one?
- owaislone 7y ago
  I can't say better but I learned Urdu for 10 years in school as opposed to Hindi which was taught for just a year or so. As a result I find the Urdu (Persian) script easier to read but I don't think one is better than the other. Probably a linguist expert could compare the Arabic/Persian script to the Devanagri one and try to explain pros and cons of both. That would be an interesting read.
  - jfk13 7y ago
    The Hindi script is easier for a foreign learner to deal with, because it more accurately maps to the phonemes of the language. So it's possible to "sound out" an unknown Hindi word from the written form, and get it fairly close to correct. With the Urdu script, this is more difficult, as many of the vowels are left unwritten or under-differentiated. (For a trivial example, is اس the word /ɪs/ "this" or /ʊs/ "that"? In Devanagari, they're clearly different, इस vs उस. Urdu script can distinguish them, by adding a diacritic to the ا, but it's usually omitted, leaving the reader to infer the intended word from context. For a native speaker, that's not usually a problem, but for a learner it can be an added challenge.) On the other hand, I suspect the Urdu script might be faster for an experienced writer to use, as there's a beautiful simplicity and smoothness to its cursive forms, compared to the relatively complex shapes of many Devanagari letters.
    - owaislone 7y ago
      > Urdu script can distinguish them, by adding a diacritic to the ا, but it's usually omitted Not in my experience and certainly not as a student. I'm not an expert but at my school اس for something that sounds exactly as /ɪs/ would be considered completely invalid. Only اِس would be considered correct. Actually, I think اِز (more like iz) might be more correct phonetically.

u801e 7y ago

I've noticed that some words have different pronunciations. For instance, the word for "definitely" is pronounced zaroor in Urdu but in Hindi, it's pronounced jaroor.

owaislone 7y ago
Very true, in most Hindi speaking states people have a hard time pronouncing Z and often pronounce it as J even quite often even in English. Same thing with SH vs S. That said, I've personally seen this as a common occurrence among people who didn't study any other languages other than Hindi or didn't study any at all.
- OJFord 7y ago
  I struggle with this sort of thing a lot, as I'm learning Hindi as a native English speaker. So I suppose I should learn it as za, (sabzi is an example that comes to mind), but just understand that if I hear someone else say it it may be ja? Everyone's going to understand za, even if it's not how they personally say it right?
  - owaislone 7y ago
    Yes, pretty sure everyone will understand you perfectly irrespective of whether you say sabzi or sabji.
lagolinguini 7y ago
This isn't really a difference in pronunciation between Hindu and Urdu as much as it is a sound change that has occurred in some dialects of the Hindustani language. Both Hindi and Urdu have the consonant /z/. However in parts of India this consonant has shifted from /z/ to /dʒ/. It is considered colloquial or uneducated.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  TIL that it's supposed to start with a "z" sound…I've always heard it be pronounced with a "j".
yumraj 7y ago
Jaroor/zaroor is Urdu word. Hindi is निश्चित (nishchit). Just because zaroor is commonly used doesn't make it Hindi.
- random314 7y ago
  Noone uses the so called text book Hindi on the street. Text book Hindi was introduced as a way to eliminate Persian words from Hindi about 100 years ago. So far text book Hindi has stayed strictly inside text books and dramas. Zaroor is indeed a Hindi word of Persian origin. Just like zeher, as opposed to Vish - which can only be found in text books.
  - yumraj 7y ago
    What's your point? I already said in a separate comment that there is colloquial Hindi, which like many other languages has words from other languages, especially from Urdu. But that does not make those words Hindi. They remain Urdu words. We similarly use several words from Latin, French and other languages in colloquial English, but from pure language standpoint I doubt that they'd be called English words. Edit: A Wikipedia page of interest [0] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi–Urdu_controversy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi–Urdu_controversy
    - smallnamespace 7y ago
      Would you consider 'similar', 'several', 'language', 'colloquial', or 'doubt' to be English words? All of them are of foreign origin.
      - yumraj 7y ago
        I'm not qualified to answer that. Me personally, yes I would. A linguist, I can't say, would perhaps depend on each word and when they became part of the language. Hindi is obviously derived from Sanskrit and other languages. However, Hindi and Urdu are quiet different. Give a word and in most cases most people will be able to tell if it's a Hindi word or an Urdu word.
z3phyr 7y ago
It depends. For what an urdu speaking person will use "Zaroor", a hindi speaking person would use "Avashya".
- kranner 7y ago
  Even the Hindiest of the Hindi-speaking people, e.g. in Uttarakhand say "zaroor". You will only find someone like a Hindi teacher or a priest using a word like "avashya" when they're trying to signal that they are educated and thus speaking in the 'pure' register. In the natural language of Hindi, the word used is 'zaroor'. Using 'avashya' is speaking a conlang, pretty much.

dmix 7y ago

Is there a script you find "better" between the Hindi and Urdu one?

owaislone 7y ago
I can't say better but I learned Urdu for 10 years in school as opposed to Hindi which was taught for just a year or so. As a result I find the Urdu (Persian) script easier to read but I don't think one is better than the other. Probably a linguist expert could compare the Arabic/Persian script to the Devanagri one and try to explain pros and cons of both. That would be an interesting read.
- jfk13 7y ago
  The Hindi script is easier for a foreign learner to deal with, because it more accurately maps to the phonemes of the language. So it's possible to "sound out" an unknown Hindi word from the written form, and get it fairly close to correct. With the Urdu script, this is more difficult, as many of the vowels are left unwritten or under-differentiated. (For a trivial example, is اس the word /ɪs/ "this" or /ʊs/ "that"? In Devanagari, they're clearly different, इस vs उस. Urdu script can distinguish them, by adding a diacritic to the ا, but it's usually omitted, leaving the reader to infer the intended word from context. For a native speaker, that's not usually a problem, but for a learner it can be an added challenge.) On the other hand, I suspect the Urdu script might be faster for an experienced writer to use, as there's a beautiful simplicity and smoothness to its cursive forms, compared to the relatively complex shapes of many Devanagari letters.
  - owaislone 7y ago
    > Urdu script can distinguish them, by adding a diacritic to the ا, but it's usually omitted Not in my experience and certainly not as a student. I'm not an expert but at my school اس for something that sounds exactly as /ɪs/ would be considered completely invalid. Only اِس would be considered correct. Actually, I think اِز (more like iz) might be more correct phonetically.