Dakhini

Dakhini
Deccan
Spoken in	Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Andra Pradesh
Region	Deccan Plateau
Native speakers	12.8 million  (2000)
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Aryan Urdu Dakhini
Writing system	Urdu alphabet (Nastaʿlīq script), other
Official status
Language codes
ISO 639-3	dcc
Linguist List	hin-dak

Dakhini (Urdu: دکنی) also spelled Dakkhani and Deccani, arose as a Muslim court language of the Deccan Plateau ca. 1300 AD in ways similar to Urdu. It is similar to Urdu in its mixture of Persian with a Hindi base, but differs in its strong influence from Marathi and Konkani. There is an extensive literature.

Overview

Dakhini is spoken in the Deccan plateau region of India. Just as Urdu developed in Lucknow, Dakhini developed in Deccan plateau quite surprisingly not from Urdu but parallel to it, due to the mixing of various Indian based languages, Arabic and Persian based languages. The term Dakhini is perhaps an umbrella for a group of dialects spoken by certain communities of Muslims in the Deccan region.

Dakhini was the lingua franca of the Muslims of Deccan, chiefly living in Hyderabad state, Mysore state and the Hyderabad - Karnataka Region, covering most of Deccan plateau except for Moplah Muslims of Kerala and the Labbewaar Muslims in Tamil Nadu in the south, to the Beary Bhashe language and Konkani speaking muslims along the western coast of Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra. Though, a minor Segment of Kerala Muslims do speak the Dakhini dialect and identify themself as Dakhini Muslims who follows Hanafi Mazhab(Hanafi School).

Though it is considered as a dialect of Urdu, it constitutes the traits of a different language in its own sense. Dakhini was widely spoken across the Deccan plateau peninsula with subtle changes in the dialect as you go down south away from Hyderabad, ending as a heavily Tamilized version around the middle of Tamil Nadu.

Dakhini Urdu mainly spoken by the Muslims living in these areas can also be divided into 2 dialects:

North Dakhini - Spoken in areas of Former Hyderabad State: Mainly Hyderabad City, Telangana Region, Marathwada, Hyderabad-Karnataka, Gulbarga, Bidar & Raichur in Present day Karnataka and minority native Goan Konkani Muslims in North Kanara District of Karnataka with some variation.

South Dakhini - Spoken along Central Karnataka, Bangalore, North Tamil Nadu, Southern Andhra Pradesh extending up-til Chennai and Nellore in Andhra Pradesh . These were the areas under the Mysore and Carnatic sultanates and a Minor Dakhini Muslim community of Kerala.

North Dakhini is spoken with an added influence of purer Urdu and while South Dakhini draws slightly more influences from Marathi, Kannada and Tamil, it has quite a number of original words not to be found in Urdu or Northern Dakhini, with even a slightly varied grammar and sentence structuring. This particularly points towards possible signs that Dakhini as a language in its own sense could have evolved from the Southern parts much more than the Northern variation.

This tongue is used extensively in the spoken form; when it comes to writing and literary work, standard Urdu is used.

History

The Urdu language from Delhi was introduced in the Deccan region during Alauddin Khilji invasion inbetween 1295 AD to 1316 AD. It became more popular in deccan during and after Muhammad bin Tughluq shifted the Sultanate capital from Delhi and made the kingdom capital to the city of Daulatabad in 1327 AD. Revolting against the Sultanate was formed Bahmani Sultanate in 1347 AD making Daulatabad as its sultanate capital which was later shifted to Gulbargah and in 1430 the capital atlast moved to Bidar, Bahmani Sultanate existed for around 150 years, and expanded almost into the entire Deccan Plateau (which was then named as Deccan). All these circumstances of shifting of power, moving of capitals and expansion of sultanate created a growing atmosphere for the Urdu language of Delhi, which was then came to be known as Deccani and received patronage from its rulers, though it was known with other names such as Hinduastani, Zaban Hinduastani, Dehalvi and Hindawi. The sufi's during those periods were the earliest to use Deccani in written form. The earliest available manuscript record is Kadam Rao Padam Rao a Masnavi of Fakhruddin Nizami, written during 1421-1434 AD.

When Mughals took over Deccan many notable personalities, secular and religious settled in the Deccan, have caused the language to spread through the borders that now form parts of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Goa. One such poet of Mughal region was Wali Deccani (1667–1707), the first established poet to have composed Ghazals and compiled a divan (a collection of ghazals where the entire alphabet is used at least once as the last letter to define the rhyme pattern).

Classification

Dakhini is part of the Indo-Aryan grouping of the Indo-European languages. South Dakhini Urdu is widely spoken by the Muslim in all parts of Tamil Nadu except may be the southern part and also in parts of Pondicherry. A minor segment of Muslims in Kerala also speak Dakhini Urdu.

Geographic distribution

Most speakers of Dakhini live in the Indian region known as the Deccan. They inhabit the regions comprising the erstwhile Muslim kingdoms in Deccan Plateau viz. portions of the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Goa

Dialects

Dialects of Dakhini include Savji bhasha i.e. the language of the Savji community in the Hubli-Dharwad-Gadag-Bijapur-Belgaum region.

See also

• Hyderabadi Urdu
• Bangalori Urdu
• Urdu in Aurangabad
• Goan Urdu (Kumta, Honnavar, Bhatkal)