Deccani language

Deccani is spoken in the Deccan region of India. In the early 14th century, the north Indian language spoken in Delhi and its neighbourhood, then called Hindavi or Dehlavi, travelled south along with the Muslim governors, soldiers and common people that went to settle in Deccan. It flourished there, not only as a spoken language, but also a literary language up to the end of the 17th century. It was called Deccani by the northerners even though there were no major differences from the north Indian variety except for the influences and borrowings from the local vernaculars.[6]

Being a literary language Deccani adopted the Perso-Arabic script for writing the language. After the Aurangzeb's conquest of Deccan, the northerners came into contact with Deccani, and imported the practice of writing in the Perso-Arabic script, which eventually became the standard practice for Urdu all over the Indian subcontinent.[7]

Deccani was the lingua franca of the Muslims of Deccan, chiefly living in Hyderabad state (including the regions ceded to the British by Nizams), and the Mysore state. Deccani, mainly spoken by the native Muslims living in these areas, can be divided into 2 classes:

Areas where Hindustani (Khariboli) are spoken vs. Deccani

North Deccani is spoken in Andhra Pradesh, areas of former Hyderabad State, mainly Hyderabad City, Telangana (mainly present Telangana state, Telangana|Nizamabad]] city), Marathwada [[cities of Maharashtra Aurangabad,NANDED,Parbhani,Beed,Osmanabad ,Latur Hingoli,till Manmad Junction of Nasik district,Maharashtra|Aurangabad]] and Nanded), Hyderabad-Karnataka (Kalaburagi, Bidar and Raichur in present day Karnataka), minority native Goan Konkani Muslims in the Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka with some variation of Nawayath, and Goan Muslim dialect in Goa.

South Deccani is spoken along Central Karnataka, Bangalore, Southern and Central Andhra Pradesh (Vijayawada, Kurnool, Kadapa, Guntur, Nellore, etc.), and also spoken by a few muslims in North and Central Tamil Nadu (Chennai, Vellore, Ambur, Salem, Trichy, Krishnagiri, Dharmapuri, Villupuram, Thiruvannamalai) and scattered also in South Tamil Nadu. However, it is important to keep in mind that the majority of the muslims in Tamil Nadu speak only Tamil as their mother tongue. This form of Deccani is interlaced with the native language words of the respective regions. These were the areas under the Mysore and Carnatic sultanates. This is also the form of Deccani spoken by the minor Deccani Muslim community of Kerala.

Furthermore there is more prevalent Deccani version of Urdu in the Coastal region of Karnataka. This dialect which is very closely related to Deccani Urdu is spoken by largely Muslims in South Canara (from Mangalore up till Kumta in Uttara karnataka). They call it simply Urdu because there hasn't been a categorisation yet. This takes the number of languages spoken by Muslims in this region to 3 i.e. Deccani Urdu, Beary bashe and Nawayathi.

The Khariboli Hindavi from Delhi was introduced in the Deccan region during Alauddin Khalji invasion in between 1295 AD to 1316 AD. It became more popular in the Deccan plateau during and after Muhammad bin Tughluq shifted the Sultanate capital from Delhi, making the city of Daulatabad the new capital in 1327 AD. As a revolt against the Sultanate, the Bahmani Sultanate was formed in 1347 AD with Daulatabad as its sultanate capital. This was later moved to Gulbargah and once again, in 1430, to Bidar, The Bahmani Sultanate lasted for about 150 years, expanding to almost the entire Deccan Plateau (which was then named as Deccan). This shifting of power, moving of capitals, expansion of sultanate collectively propagated the Delhi Hindavi, which came to be known as Deccani and received patronage from its rulers. It was also known through other names like Hinduastani, Zaban Hinduastani, Dehalvi and Hindawi. The Sufis were the earliest to use Deccani in its written form. The earliest available manuscript on record is Kadam Rao Padam Rao a Masnavi of Fakhruddin Nizami, written during 1421–1434 AD.[8]

When the Mughals took over Deccan, many notable personalities, both secular and religious, settled in the Deccan and spread the language across borders that now form parts of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Goa. One such poet of Mughal region was Wali Deccani (1667–1707), the first established poet to have composed Ghazals and compiled a divan (a collection of ghazals where the entire alphabet is used at least once as the last letter to define the rhyme pattern).

Deccani Urdu speaking areas by concentration

Deccani has plenty of Turkish evolved loanwords,[9] due to the fact that the ancestors of its people were of Mamluk origin, although most of the Deccani population of Karnataka has above 90 percentage of Indian genes.[10] It is similar to Dehlavi dialect in the influence from Persian, but differs because of the strong influence of Marathi, Telugu and Kannada spoken in the states of Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Deccani Urdu has a rich and extensive literary heritage, the most important being Kitab-E-Navras - revered for its transcendence beyond secularism, and Kadam Rao Padam Rao.

Deccani and Hindi

Deccani in the Indo-European languages' family tree, is represented under Urdu, and is a Hindustani language.

Suniti Kumar Chattopadhyay also maintained that it was Deccani that established the use of Khari Boli replacing Braj in the North. In fact, even the name Hindi for the language originated in the South. A Tamil, Kazi Mahamud Bahari, used the word Hindi for Deccani in the 17th century in his Sufi poem Man Lagan. Renaming Deccani as Hindi was probably a symbolic gesture by him to extend the geographical reach of this language.[11]

Deccani is part of the Indo-Aryan grouping of the Indo-European languages. The Deccani language has puzzled linguists for years, and its specific classification is a confusing subject, it could be a direct descendant, or sister language of Urdu, or be a Persianization of the Marathi language. It was also declared as the National language of the former defunct Hyderabad State.

Most speakers of Deccani live in the Indian region known as the Deccan. They inhabit the regions comprising the erstwhile Muslim kingdoms in Deccan Plateau viz. portions of the states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu. In Tamil Nadu, few muslims speak the Tamilized Deccani dialect as their language (though all are fluent in Tamil). They can be collectively be known as Deccani Muslims, and include subgroups like the Hyderabadi Muslims. In Tamil Nadu, the Urdu speakers are a not a subset of the Tamil Muslim community.

The Deccani Film Industry is based in Hyderabad, India, and its movies are produced in Hyderabadi Urdu, a dialect of Deccani.[12]

• Hyderabadi Urdu
• Urdu in Aurangabad
• Nawayathi (Kumta, Honnavar, Bhatkal)
• Deccani Muslims
• Deccani Film Industry
• Deccani Marathi, which goes by the same names

• Dua, Hans R. (2012), "Hindi-Urdu as a pluricentric language", in Michael Clyne (ed.), Pluricentric Languages: Differing Norms in Different Nations, Walter de Gruyter, ISBN 978-3-11-088814-0
• Rahman, Tariq (2001), From Hindi to Urdu: A Social and Political History (PDF), Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-906313-0, archived from the original (PDF) on 10 October 2014

• Gricourt, Marguerite (2015). "Dakhinī Urdū". In Fleet, Kate; Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John; Rowson, Everett (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE. Brill Online. ISSN 1873-9830.