persianised

Updated: July 7, 2025

Then from that centre, the Hindustani language spread a central, imperial, Persianised language not necessarily superseding the other vernaculars wherever the authority of the empire went. Thus throughout India, Hindustani became a lingua franca, the imperial language.

John Morrison - New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century: A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments

In the Moghul Empire of Northern India it was exactly what "King's English" was in the Anglo-Norman kingdom in England in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. French was the language of the Anglo-Norman court of London, as Persian of the court of Delhi or Agra; the Frenchified King's English was the court form of the vernacular in England, as the Persianised Hindustani in North India.

John Morrison - New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century: A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments

It was this lingua franca that Europeans in India set themselves to acquire. Continuing the English parallel the Hindustani of Delhi, the capital, Persianised as the English of London was Frenchified, became the recognised literary medium for North India. The special name Urdu, however, has now superseded the term Hindustani, when we think of the language as a literary medium.

John Morrison - New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century: A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments