Urdu arose in the [[language contact|contact]] situation which developed from the invasions of the [[Indian subcontinent]] by [[Persian people|Persian]] and [[Turkic peoples|Turkic]] dynasties from the 11th century onwards,[http://www.docstoc.com/docs/16006257/History-of-Urdu-language] first as [[Mahmud of Ghazni|Sultan Mahmud]] of the [[Ghaznavids|Ghaznavid empire]] conquered [[Punjab region|Punjab]] in the early 11th century, then when the [[Ghurid Dynasty|Ghurids]] invaded northern India in the 12th century, and most decisively with the establishment of the [[Delhi Sultanate]].
The official language of the [[Ghurids]], [[Delhi Sultanate]], the [[Mughal Empire]], and their successor states, as well as the cultured language of poetry and literature, was [[Persian language|Persian]], while the language of religion was [[Arabic language|Arabic]]. Most of the [[Sultan]]s and nobility in the Sultanate period were Turks from [[Central Asia]] who spoke [[Chagatai language|Turkic]] as their mother tongue. The [[Mughal Empire|Mughals]] were also Chagatai, but later adopted Persian. [[Muzaffar Alam]] asserts that Persian became the ''lingua franca'' of the empire under Akbar for various political and social factors due to its non-sectarian and fluid nature.Alam, Muzaffar. "The Pursuit of Persian: Language in Mughal Politics." In ''Modern Asian Studies'', vol. 32, no. 2. (May, 1998), pp. 317–349. However, the armies, merchants, preachers, [[Sufi]]s, and later the court, also incorporated the local people and the medieval Hindu literary language, [[Braj Bhasha]]. This new contact language soon incorporated other dialects, such as [[Haryanvi]], [[Panjabi language|Panjabi]], and in the 17th century [[Khariboli]], the dialect of the new capital at [[Delhi]]. By 1800, Khariboli had become dominant.H. Dua, 2006, "Urdu", in the ''[[Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics]]'', 2nd edition.
The language went by several names over the years: ''[[Hindawi]]'' or ''[[Hindi (disambiguation)|Hindī]]'', "[language] of India"; ''[[Dehlavi]]'' "of Delhi"; ''[[Hindustani language|Hindustani]]'', "of [[Hindustan]]"; and ''Zaban-e-Urdu'', "the language of the [army] camp", or perhaps "of the [[Urdu Bazar|market]]", from which came the current name of ''Urdu'' around the year 1800.
When [[Wali Mohammed Wali]] arrived in Delhi, he established Hindustani with a light smattering of Persian words, a [[register (sociolinguistics)|register]] called [[Rekhta]], for poetry; previously the language of poetry had been Persian. When the Delhi Sultanate expanded south to the [[Deccan Plateau]], they carried their literary language with them, and it was influenced there by more southerly languages, producing the [[Dakhini]] dialect of Urdu. During this time Hindustani was the language of both Hindus and Muslims. The communal nature of the language lasted until it replaced Persian as the official language in 1837 and was made coofficial along with English in the [[British Raj]]. This triggered a Hindu backlash in northwestern India, which argued that the language should be written in the native [[Devanagari]] script. This "Hindi" replaced traditional Urdu as the official register of [[Bihar]] in 1881, establishing a sectarian divide of "Urdu" for Muslims and "Hindi" for Hindus, a divide that was formalized with the division of India and Pakistan after independence from the British, though there are Hindu poets who continue to write in Urdu to this day.
Although there have been attempts to purge Urdu and Hindi, respectively, of their [[Sanskrit]] and Persian words, and new vocabulary draws primarily from Persian and Arabic for Urdu and Sanskrit for Hindi, this has primarily affected academic and literary vocabulary, and both national standards remain heavily influenced by both Persian and Sanskrit.[http://www.theurdulanguage.com/History.htm] English has exerted a heavy influence on both as a coofficial language.