Hindustani
Hindi-Urdu ہندوستانی‎   •   हिन्दुस्तानी
150px The word Hindustani in Devanagari, Nastaliq and Kaithi scripts
Native to	Pakistan, India. Various based on religion.
Native speakers	(240 million cited 1991–1997) Second language: 165 million (1999) Total: 490 million (2006)
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Central Zone Western Hindi Hindustani
Standard forms	Standard Hindi Standard Urdu
Dialects	Khariboli (Dehlavi) Kauravi Dakhini?
Writing system	Perso-Arabic (Urdu alphabet) Devanagari (Hindi and Urdu alphabets) Bharati Braille (Hindi and Urdu) Kaithi (historical)
Official status
Official language in	Pakistan (as Urdu)  India (as Hindi and Urdu)
Regulated by	Central Hindi Directorate (Hindi, India), National Language Authority, (Urdu, Pakistan); National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language (Urdu, India)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	hi, ur
ISO 639-2	hin, urd
ISO 639-3	Either: hin – Standard Hindi urd – Urdu
Linguasphere	59-AAF-qa to -qf

Hindustani is a language. It is made up of the common parts of Hindi and Urdu. Hindi and Urdu have similar grammar, but slightly different vocabulary and very different scripts.

Hindustani was born in Punjab during the Ghaznavid Empire (Lahore as its capital) in the early decades of the eleventh century AD. view more...