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Hindustani is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in North India, Pakistan and the Deccan, and used as a lingua franca in both countries. Hindustani is a pluricentric language with two standard registers, known as Hindi (written in Devanagari script and influenced by Sanskrit) and Urdu (written in Perso-Arabic script and influenced by Persian and Arabic).
Hindustani orthography. Hindustani (standardized Hindi and standardized Urdu) has been written in several different scripts. Most Hindi texts are written in the Devanagari script, which is derived from the Brāhmī script of Ancient India. Most Urdu texts are written in the Urdu alphabet, which comes from the Persian alphabet.
Modern Standard Hindi, [a] commonly referred to as Hindi, is the standardised variety of the Hindustani language used as the official language of India alongside English. It is written in Devanagari script and is the lingua franca of North India.
During this time Hindustani was the language of both Hindus and Muslims. The non-communal nature of the language lasted until the British Raj in India, when in 1837 Hindustani in the Persian script (i.e. Urdu) replaced Persian as the official language and was made co-official along with English.
The Kharoṣṭhī script, also known as the Gāndhārī script, is an ancient abugida (a kind of alphabetic script) used by the Gandhara culture of ancient northwest India to write the Gāndhārī and Sanskrit languages. It was in use from the 4th century BCE until it died out in its homeland around the 3rd century CE.
In time, Hindustani written in Perso-Arabic script also became a literary language with an increasing body of literature written in the 18th and 19th century. A division developed gradually between Hindus, who chose to write Hindustani in Devanagari script, and Muslims and some Hindus who chose to write the same in Urdu script.
After independence, Modern Standard Urdu, the Persianised register of Hindustani became the national language of Pakistan. During British colonial times, knowledge of Hindustani or Urdu was a must for officials. Hindustani was made the second language of British Indian Empire after English and considered as the language of administration.
Another important practitioner of the script was Abd al-Rashid Daylami (d. 1671), nephew and student of Mir Emad, who after his arrival in India became court calligrapher of Shah Jahan (1628–1658). During this era Nastaliq became the common script for writing the Hindustani language, especially Standard Urdu.