Deccani language

Deccani (دکنی dakanī or دکھنی dakhanī; also known as Deccani Urdu, Deccani Hindi, and Deccani Hindustani) is an Indo-Aryan language variety based on a form of Hindustani spoken in the Deccan region of south-central India and is the native language variety of the Deccani people. The historical form of Deccani sparked the development of Urdu literature during the late-Mughal period. Deccani arose as a lingua franca under the Delhi Sultanate and Bahmani Sultanates, as trade and migration from the north introduced Hindustani to the Deccan. It later developed a literary tradition under the patronage of the Deccan Sultanates. Deccani itself came to influence modern standard Urdu and later Hindi.

The Deccani language has an Indo-Aryan core vocabulary, though it incorporated loanwords from Persian, which was the official language of the Deccan Sultanates. Additionally, Deccani differs from northern Hindustani sociolects due to archaisms retained from the medieval era, as well as a convergence with and loanwords from the Deccan's regional languages like Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Marathi spoken in the states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and some parts of Maharashtra. Deccani has been increasingly influenced by Standard Urdu, especially noticed in Hyderabadi Urdu, which serves as its formal register. In the modern era, it has mostly survived as a spoken lect and is not a literary language.

There are three primary dialects of Deccani spoken today: Hyderabadi Urdu, Mysore Urdu, and Madrasi Urdu. Hyderabadi Urdu is the closest of these dialects to Standard Urdu and the most spoken.

The term "Deccani" and its variants are often used in two different contexts: a historical, obsolete one, referring to the medieval-era literary predecessor of Hindi-Urdu; and an oral one, referring to the Urdu dialects spoken in many areas of the Deccan today. Both contexts have intricate historical ties.