S5E3: Whatever happened to the Hindustani language?

Once the British conquered India, they invested in learning Indian languages. Initially, they searched for one common language for the whole subcontinent. The search for a common vernacular in India made an adventurer called John Gilchrist virtually invent a new language called Hindustani.

The language was common enough in north India but its rise to the status of a pan-Indian lingua franca was a British colonial project. Yet, by the late nineteenth century, Hindustani was virtually divided down the middle into Hindi and Urdu.
By the 1940s, the language, like the subcontinent, was literally partitioned and made to disappear.

No one admits to speaking Hindustani in India today even when they use it in practice.

 

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