Today's history lesson is about our language. In Hyderabad and the Deccan, people speak in Dakhni, which today is only a spoken language. Words like Kaiku, Nakko, Hao, Manje, Hao-ki etc are imports from Marathi, Kannada and Telugu. A thread on Dakhni.
#Hyderabad #History
#Hyderabad #History
Nakko, Kaiku and Hallu (in pic) are 3 commonly used Dakhni words(also called Dakhni Urdu) that we Hyderabadis use in our speech.“Manje/Minjhe” is used by Dakhni speakers in other parts of the Deccan (like Karnataka/MH). FYI Manje in Urdu also refers to a pre-wedding ritual.
“Hyderabadi Hindi” is what north Indians wrongly call Dakhni. Please, DON'T call it Hindi. Many Urdu speakers also mistake it for a form of localized Urdu, which, again, is incorrect. Words like “Haula” (mad), “Hau” (yes) and others, are imports from Marathi, Kannada and Telugu.
The history/timeline:
Both Dakhni and modern Urdu have roots in Dehalvi (also known as Old Urdu), which existed in Delhi about a 100 years before it reached the Deccan areas in the 14th century through conquests of the Deccan by Mohd Bin Tughlaq.
Both Dakhni and modern Urdu have roots in Dehalvi (also known as Old Urdu), which existed in Delhi about a 100 years before it reached the Deccan areas in the 14th century through conquests of the Deccan by Mohd Bin Tughlaq.
Mohd Bin Tughlaq shifting his capital from Delhi to Daulatabad in Maharashtra to tackle internal rebellion brought Dehalvi down to the south, where it had contact with Marathi first in the 14th century.
Sufis had used Dehalvi freely, but that spoken idiom was unestablished.
Sufis had used Dehalvi freely, but that spoken idiom was unestablished.
Dakhni was born in the mid-14th century (post conquests by Mohd Bin Tughlaq) when that spoken idiom of dehalvi mixed with Marathi, and later with Kannada and Telugu, especially under the Bahmani empire, which was carved out of Tughlaq's territory in 1347. Attaching pic for ref
Dakhni is essentially a mix of Persian, Old Urdu(Dehlavi), Kannada, Marathi and Telugu. It was created when Dehalvi mixed with Marathi, Kannada and , especially under the Bahamani empire, which had its 1st capital at Gulbarga, where the Delhi mystic Khwaja Bande Nawaz settled.
Later at Bidar, the 2nd capital of the Bahamani empire, 'Kadam Rao Padam Rao' by Nizami was the first written literature to be recorded in 1460. According to historian HK Sherwani, that work had about 2000 couplets and was proof that Dakhni by then became sufficiently expressive
Bidar is about 30 Kms from Zaheerabad in Telangana and is close to the Maharashtra border, thereby in a location where those 3 languages are in close proximity, and mixed with Persian to create Dakhni. The Bahamani empire however began crumbling by the end of the 16th century.
The Bahamani empire dissolved by 1518, with its former governors becoming independent kings. The Golconda empire founded by Sultan Quli Qutb Shah in 1518, and the Adil Shahi dynasty at Bijapur would eventually become two major Dakhni centres in the 16th and 17th centuries
It was the main language in Hyderabad (founded in 1591) and Bijapur, where Mohd Quli Qutb Shah (Hyd's founder) and Ibrahim Adil Shah-2 patronized the language. The former in fact wrote as much as 50000 lines of poetry in his magnum opus 'Kulliyat', which is very expansive.
The creation of Dakhni in the 14-15th centuries also resulted in Dakhni/Urdu (even some Persian/Arabic) words entering vocabularies of regional languages like Telugu. For example, “roju” (day) in Telugu, comes from “roz”(day, in Persian). There are many such words #deccan
Today, in Hyd and other cities and area of the Deccan (like Mysore, Vellore, Bangalore, Gulbarga, Bidar, and parts of AP) we speak in Dakhni, but read/write in the standardised modern Urdu, which we don't speak in for most parts. This is an interesting socio-cultural situation.
Dakhni today is spoken in cities like Hyderabad, Bidar, Gulbarga, Bangalore Mysore, Vellore etc, and is prevalent in rural areas of Telangana, AP, Karnatakaa and Maharashtra. Modern Urdu, in comparison, developed on its own in the north and evolved only in the early 18th century.
Dakhni's decline correlates directly with Deccan states falling to the Mughals. Under Aurangzeb, Bijapur was conquered in 1686 and Hyderabad (Golconda empire) was the last one to fall in 1687, post which the entire Deccan region from Aurangabad to parts of Madras were annexed.
After all the Deccan states were conquered by the Mughals,poets also began shifting towards Urdu, which developed on its own in the north. Ahmed Wali Dakhni is credited with taking his poetry to the north in the early 18th century and laying base for the modern Urdu as we know it
Soon, the Nizams came as Mughal-appointed governors of the Deccan in 1724. Persian and then Urdu were made the official languages under them, and Dakhni died as a written language, but remained a spoken language, even till today. The first capital of the Nizams was Aurangabad
Currently, it is widely used across urban and rural areas of states like Maharashtra, Karnataka, AP, Telangana and Tamil Nadu (Vellore). Words and phrases vary from place to place. Adding another ref point from Sherwani's book to surmise, and give a better understanding. Ends
thenewsminute.com/article/banglo…
Article by @SandalBurn will help provide some context, about the language.
Article by @SandalBurn will help provide some context, about the language.
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