Rekhta (Urdu: ریختہ [ˈɾeːxtaː]; Hindi: रेख़्ता [ˈɾeːxtaː]) was the Hindustani language as its dialectal basis shifted to the Delhi dialect. This style evolved in both the Perso-Arabic and Devanagari scripts and is considered an early form of Urdu and Hindi.[2]
| Rekhta | |
|---|---|
| Region | South Asia |
| Era | 13th century[1] |
Language family | Indo-European
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | rekh1239 |
The 13th century Sufi Muslim poet Amir Khusraw used the term "Hindavi" (meaning "of Hind or India") for the 'Rekhta' dialect (the ancestor of Modern Urdu), the Persianized offshoot of the Apabharamsa vernacular Old Hindi, towards it's emergence during the era of Delhi Sultanate,[3][4][5][6] and gave shape to it in a handful Islamic literature, thus called "the father of Urdu literature".[7] Other early Sufi poets includes Baba Farid.[8] later from the 18th century, the dialect was became the literary language and was further developed by the poets Mir and Ghalib in the late Mughal period, and the term eventually fallen out and came to be known as "Urdu", by the end of the century.[9][5]
Rekhtā (from Persian verb ریختن [ɾeːxˈtan]) means "scattered" but also "mixed".[10] The name was given to an early form of courtly literature in Delhi, where poems were made by combining Persian and early Hindustani (referred to as Hindavi or Dehlavi). Sometimes this was done by writing some lines of the poem in Persian, and others in Hindavi. Alternatively, both Persian and Hindavi could feature in a single line.[5]
As Hindavi began to evolve into a literary language in the 18th century, the term Rekhta carried over to describe this new form. It denoted the Persianised, "high" form of Hindavi used in poetry, as opposed to the speech of the common population. The word was used alongside names like Urdu and Hindi. Its usage in this sense lasted into the 19th century, as evidenced by a sher of Mirza Ghalib:[5]
ريختہ کے تُم ہی اُستاد نہیں ہو غالِبؔ
کہتے ہیں اگلے زمانے میں کوئی مِیرؔ بھی تھا
Rēk͟htʻah kē tum hī ustād nahī̃ hō ġālib, |
You are not the sole grandmaster of Rekhta, Ghalib |
By the end of the 19th century however, the term Rekhta had largely fallen out of use, and terms like Hindi, Urdu, and Hindustani were favoured.[5]
The grammatically feminine counterpart of Rekhta is Rekhti, a term first popularised by the eighteenth-century poet Sa'adat Yar Khan 'Rangin' to designate verses written from the perspective of women. The Lucknow poet Insha Allah Khan was another well-known poet who composed rekhtis, according to Urdu scholar C M Naim.
Rekhta is the old name of Urdu. Amir Khusrau, the late 13th Century poet wrote in Rekhta. It changed its name many times and came to be known as Dakkani, Gujari, Hindavi, etc at various points of time. Mir and Ghalib also wrote in Rekhta, which later came to be known as Urdu in the late 19th Century.
{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)Hindustani began to develop during the 13th century AD in and around the Indian cities of Dehli and Meerut in response to the increasing linguistic diversity that resulted from Muslim hegemony.
Apabhramsha seemed to be in a state of transition from Middle Indo-Aryan to the New Indo-Aryan stage. Some elements of Hindustani appear ... the distinct form of the lingua franca Hindustani appears in the writings of Amir Khusro (1253–1325), who called it Hindwi[.]