Language & Ethnicity of the Mughals

[gwangju.khan]

Topic is about the Mughal empire founded post-Akbar and not the short-lived territories of Babur and Humayun.

The first answer I usually see is that Mughals were ethnic Turks. However, according to the court historian Amir Qazvini, the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan did not speak the Turki language as a child (chagatai turki, ancestor of uzbek and other turkic languages) and was only familiar with a few words of it.

According to the source: History of Shah Jahan of Dihli 1932, his upbringing by his Ruqaiyah Begum resulted in him not being interested in the study of the Turki language. But the main takeaway is that if the Mughal princes wanted to speak the Turki language, it was necessary to study it through a teacher, and it was not something naturally taught as children by their womenfolk. So, can you be a Turk without race nor language?

Also, next question is, what was the mother-tongue of the Mughals if not Turki?

Imo in the time of Akbar it was most definitely Persian, as he was not of Indian blood. However for the emperors after Akbar, there is one important detail that European travelers in India during the reign of Aurangzeb noted. Joan Josua Ketelaar Dutch Ambassador to the Grand Mogul who wrote the first Dutch dictionary of Hindustani during his time in Agra in 1696-1697, and wrote in his journal that he was chosen ambassador for "his experience and competence in the Moorish language and customs" (syne ervarentheyt en bequaemheyt in de Moorse taele en costuymen), also wrote this in his dictionary:

Joan Josua Ketelaar writes of a "degenerate Hindustani", without using the name Urdu, as being spoken as the lingua franca amongst the Muslims, and note this was during the reign of Aurangzeb(1696-1697) when he was saying that this language was used by the Muslim rulers. While Urdu developed late as a literary language during the reign of Shah Alam II, it was likely that Urdu was spoken colloquially much earlier. This description by Joan Josua Ketelaar contradicts both the nowadays-popular beliefs that 1)Urdu was spoken only in the end of the Mughal rule and 2)Urdu's Muslim identity was solely a result of the Hindu-Muslim language politics under the British

 

[SaadH]

Persian was still the language of learning and official business.

Persian was to mughal India what urdu and english are to Pakistan in modern times.

 

[gwangju.khan]

The trend of Turki no longer being spoken in India did not begin in Shah Jahan's time but in Akbar's time.

The biographer of a prominent noble in Akbar's time, Abdur-Rahim Khan-i-Khanan(who was the son of bairam khan and a native dynasty), describes below that the noble had knowledge of Turki because of his work as a linguist, however notes that most of the nobles of the same generation could not speak the language as they did not study it.

Basically, it would be required to study the language to learn it but it was not passed down among the nobles naturally

 

[gwangju.khan]

Persian was still the language of learning and official business.

Persian was to mughal India what urdu and english are to Pakistan in modern times.

Yes, especially since Urdu back then was only a spoken language and not a literary language, until the 18-19th century. Persian was the language of the state, administration and learning not only in the Mughal empire but also in the Sikh empire and native Muzaffar Shahs of Gujarat. My point was about what language was spoken at home.

 

[Pakistansdefender]

Topic is about the Mughal empire founded post-Akbar and not the short-lived territories of Babur and Humayun.

The first answer I usually see is that Mughals were ethnic Turks. However, according to the court historian Amir Qazvini, the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan did not speak the Turki language as a child (chagatai turki, ancestor of uzbek and other turkic languages) and was only familiar with a few words of it.
View attachment 813221View attachment 813222

According to the source: History of Shah Jahan of Dihli 1932, his upbringing by his Ruqaiyah Begum resulted in him not being interested in the study of the Turki language. But the main takeaway is that if the Mughal princes wanted to speak the Turki language, it was necessary to study it through a teacher, and it was not something naturally taught as children by their womenfolk. So, can you be a Turk without race nor language?

Also, next question is, what was the mother-tongue of the Mughals if not Turki?

Imo in the time of Akbar it was most definitely Persian, as he was not of Indian blood. However for the emperors after Akbar, there is one important detail that European travelers in India during the reign of Aurangzeb noted. Joan Josua Ketelaar Dutch Ambassador to the Grand Mogul who wrote the first Dutch dictionary of Hindustani during his time in Agra in 1696-1697, and wrote in his journal that he was chosen ambassador for "his experience and competence in the Moorish language and customs" (syne ervarentheyt en bequaemheyt in de Moorse taele en costuymen), also wrote this in his dictionary:
View attachment 813223

Joan Josua Ketelaar writes of a "degenerate Hindustani", without using the name Urdu, as being spoken as the lingua franca amongst the Muslims, and note this was during the reign of Aurangzeb(1696-1697) when he was saying that this language was used by the Muslim rulers. While Urdu developed late as a literary language during the reign of Shah Alam II, it was likely that Urdu was spoken colloquially much earlier. This description by Joan Josua Ketelaar contradicts both the nowadays-popular beliefs that 1)Urdu was spoken only in the end of the Mughal rule and 2)Urdu's Muslim identity was solely a result of the Hindu-Muslim language politics under the British

Dude

Topic is about the Mughal empire founded post-Akbar and not the short-lived territories of Babur and Humayun.

The first answer I usually see is that Mughals were ethnic Turks. However, according to the court historian Amir Qazvini, the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan did not speak the Turki language as a child (chagatai turki, ancestor of uzbek and other turkic languages) and was only familiar with a few words of it.
View attachment 813221View attachment 813222

According to the source: History of Shah Jahan of Dihli 1932, his upbringing by his Ruqaiyah Begum resulted in him not being interested in the study of the Turki language. But the main takeaway is that if the Mughal princes wanted to speak the Turki language, it was necessary to study it through a teacher, and it was not something naturally taught as children by their womenfolk. So, can you be a Turk without race nor language?

Also, next question is, what was the mother-tongue of the Mughals if not Turki?

Imo in the time of Akbar it was most definitely Persian, as he was not of Indian blood. However for the emperors after Akbar, there is one important detail that European travelers in India during the reign of Aurangzeb noted. Joan Josua Ketelaar Dutch Ambassador to the Grand Mogul who wrote the first Dutch dictionary of Hindustani during his time in Agra in 1696-1697, and wrote in his journal that he was chosen ambassador for "his experience and competence in the Moorish language and customs" (syne ervarentheyt en bequaemheyt in de Moorse taele en costuymen), also wrote this in his dictionary:
View attachment 813223

Joan Josua Ketelaar writes of a "degenerate Hindustani", without using the name Urdu, as being spoken as the lingua franca amongst the Muslims, and note this was during the reign of Aurangzeb(1696-1697) when he was saying that this language was used by the Muslim rulers. While Urdu developed late as a literary language during the reign of Shah Alam II, it was likely that Urdu was spoken colloquially much earlier. This description by Joan Josua Ketelaar contradicts both the nowadays-popular beliefs that 1)Urdu was spoken only in the end of the Mughal rule and 2)Urdu's Muslim identity was solely a result of the Hindu-Muslim language politics under the British

You even lack the basic understanding of things.
Turki is no language, its called turkce.
Plus all turks and mughals originate from mangolia and central asia.
Turks living in central asia dont speak turkce. They speak persian.turkce was moatly spoken by turkey and azerbycan along with some other countries.
Still the language of aome central asian countries is persian.
Baber was a persian speaking turk from Uzbekistan. His army consists of persian speaking people.
All his decendants are persian speaking. It was mentatory to learn.
Most of their wives are persian. Orangzeb wife was safavaid dynasty princess. Nur jehan was persian speaking turk Afghan.
And all their life stories are written in persian. Along with the language of the court remained persian until British changed it to urdu. Not hindi.
But the language of the army Changed. They mingle with locals. As urdu or ordu means lashkar in turkce or persian. The language was named because mughal army speaks it.
They start to mix with locals. Learn their cultures.
And hence a new language is formed. With hindi structures but persian, arabic and turkce words.
It was very poetic language. Poets loved it and spread it. Even hindus love it. Mughal rulers have sort of adopted it. Bahahdur shah zafar does poetry is persian.

 

[gwangju.khan]

Dude

You even lack the basic understanding of things.
Turki is no language, its called turkce.

"Turki" was the word Babur used to describe his mother-tongue, Chagatai Turkic. The Mughals continued this description to describe Chagatai Turkic.

Plus all turks and mughals originate from mangolia and central asia.
Turks living in central asia dont speak turkce. They speak persian.turkce was moatly spoken by turkey and azerbycan along with some other countries.

Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Turkmenistan all speak various Turkic languages and dialects. Babur spoke Chatagai Turki which is the ancestor of modern-day Uzbek language.

Baber was a persian speaking turk from Uzbekistan.

No, Babur wrote the Baburnama in Chagatai Turkic. It was translated to Persian by above-mentioned Abdur Rahim Khan-i-Khanan in the reign of Akbar, because like mentioned-above, most of the nobles in his generation had forgotten Turkic.

And hence a new language is formed. With hindi structures but persian, arabic and turkce words.
It was very poetic language. Poets loved it and spread it. Even hindus love it. Mughal rulers have sort of adopted it. Bahahdur shah zafar does poetry is persian.

My point was that Urdu was spoken long before Bahadur Shah Zafar, and according to Joan Josua Ketelaar it was widespread in the reign of Aurangzeb.

However, back then it was not called Urdu, but the Europeans called it the "Moorish language".

John Orvington, who visited India in 1698(again in the reign of Aurangzeb), uses the word "Moors Dialect" to describe Urdu, while also mentioning Persian as the court language. They were spoken alongside each other in this time, during the reign of Aurangzeb, and was not merely adopted during the reign of Bahadur Shah II.

 

[Imad.Khan]

Dude

You even lack the basic understanding of things.
Turki is no language, its called turkce.
Plus all turks and mughals originate from mangolia and central asia.
Turks living in central asia dont speak turkce. They speak persian.turkce was moatly spoken by turkey and azerbycan along with some other countries.
Still the language of aome central asian countries is persian.
Baber was a persian speaking turk from Uzbekistan. His army consists of persian speaking people.
All his decendants are persian speaking. It was mentatory to learn.
Most of their wives are persian. Orangzeb wife was safavaid dynasty princess. Nur jehan was persian speaking turk Afghan.
And all their life stories are written in persian. Along with the language of the court remained persian until British changed it to urdu. Not hindi.
But the language of the army Changed. They mingle with locals. As urdu or ordu means lashkar in turkce or persian. The language was named because mughal army speaks it.
They start to mix with locals. Learn their cultures.
And hence a new language is formed. With hindi structures but persian, arabic and turkce words.
It was very poetic language. Poets loved it and spread it. Even hindus love it. Mughal rulers have sort of adopted it. Bahahdur shah zafar does poetry is persian.

I am sorry but that is not completely true.

1. (Turkce) is how its spelled in the new Turkish script. Its like Urdu & (اردو) is the same word just different scripts.
2. Turkish/Azeri are one of the "Turkic" languages. Similarly Uzbek, Kazakh, Uyghur, Tatars, Qashqai (people in Iran) are also one of Turkic languages and there are many more.
3. Its widely believed that Turkic and Mongolian people both originated from Siberia. There are still Turkic & Mongolian people found there. As they moved down they displaced the orignal inhabitants that were the Iranic people (Persians, Kurds, Pashtuns, Baloch, Tajiks).
4. All the countries of Central Asia except Tajikistan are native Turkic speakers. Only Tajiks speak Persian.
5. After all these Turkic people converted to Islam, Persian became the court language while Turkic was still there day to day language. for example in Pakistan we have Pashto, Punjabi, Sindhi, but Urdu/English are the official languages. Just how today if you want to succeed in life you need to learn English, similarly at that time you had to learn Persian to be considered civilized or noble.

Adding to what i wrote above, the reason i think that the Mughals went from speaking Turkic & Persian to Persian & Hindustani (Urdu) was the sheer amount of the non-Turkic speaking people in their empire. Also Akbar wanted to unite the people under his rule and so he came up with a new religion and selected a new language. I also have a feeling that all of this was done to appease his Hindu wife. Had he not done that instead of speaking Urdu, today we would have been speaking Persian or Turkish.

Another interesting fact, the son that succeeded him (Jahangir) was born to this Hindu wife. Same thing happened with Jahangir who was succeeded by the son (Shah-Jahan) who was also born to a Hindu wife.

 

[Talwar e Pakistan]

Had he not done that instead of speaking Urdu, today we would have been speaking Persian or Turkish.

Urdu is spoken in Pakistan today because of the British, not Akbar.

Prior to the British; Urdu, mainly known as Hindustani or Hindi back then was primarily concentrated in the Hindustan (UP and Delhi) region. Early British agents that travelled to modern-day Pakistan (then principally comprised of the Sikh Empire and the Emirates of Sindh) keenly observed how "none could speak the language of Hindustan", how Farsi was the official language and even noted local Farsi dialects spoken by the common people, which the British agents referred to as "Sindho-Persian".

In the late 1800s, the British began to aggressively promote Urdu/Hindustani as a part of an effort to unite their ethno-linguistically diverse subjects of the British Raj under a more central identity and language. To achieve this in modern-day Pakistan; Farsi and local languages were vigorously repressed. One method was to offer locals to trade in literature for money, as an example, there is a British poster in the Lahore museum that states "Two annas for a sword and six annas for a Punjabi qaida", the confiscated literature were then publicly burnt. Local languages were expounded as uncouth and vulgar compared to "civilized and refined" Urdu. This pro-Urdu propaganda article from 1930 Peshawar for example describes Pashto as a 'bullock cart' while Urdu as a 'motor car':

However the most successful method of promoting Urdu was propagating Urdu as an "Islamic language". Urdu was popularized as a language integral to the Muslim identity and with the rise of Muslim nationalism and the 1867 Urdu-Hindi controversy, this belief was strengthened. The Ulema and the Muslim intellectual elite (Aligarh movement) of Hindustan also strongly publicized Urdu as a "Muslim language". These initial inroads of Urdu into modern-day Pakistan consequently saw the rapid rise of the Indian Deobandi and Barelvi sects, whose madrassas and sermons helped bring Urdu to the common masses.

We speak Urdu today because of the British.

 

[SaadH]

Founding fathers made a huge blunder not instituting Farsi and/or Arabic as the national language.

 

[saltranger]

The trend of Turki no longer being spoken in India did not begin in Shah Jahan's time but in Akbar's time.

The biographer of a prominent noble in Akbar's time, Abdur-Rahim Khan-i-Khanan(who was the son of bairam khan and a native dynasty), describes below that the noble had knowledge of Turki because of his work as a linguist, however notes that most of the nobles of the same generation could not speak the language as they did not study it.

Basically, it would be required to study the language to learn it but it was not passed down among the nobles naturally

View attachment 813234

Persians had had cultural ascendancy since Turkish hegemony, being a literary language of the East since ancient times.. Turks at various times adopted it once they started establishing empires. Humayun was reinstated by Persians and he accepted Persian influence in his court. Later Nur Jehan , a Persian herself, strengthened the Persian ascendancy as a court language.