Okay, some clarifications. Devanagari
is not a language
, but a way of writing, an alphabet
was written in the Devanagari
script, as is Hindi
and a few other languages. The Urdu
language is grammatically identical (ok, nearly) to Hindi
, but is written in the Persian
script (modified to include sounds not in Persian
but in Hindi
). Both languages are so similar grammatically and in vocabulary that together they are called Hindustani
. My family (Hindi
-speaking) regularly watches Pakistani TV
and no one needs translation. It sounds different, but it makes sense. The real reason they are considered different languages, in my opinion, is political.
Hindi comes from Sanskrit, sort of. Actually it comes from "vulgar Sanskrit" like the Romance languages come from vulgar Latin.
The difference between Hindi and Urdu is mostly lexical. Hindi, especially in the coinage of new words, looks to Sanskrit (and English of course). Urdu, besides English, looks to Persian and lately Arabic.