Old Hindi

Old Hindi (Old Hindi: ڐھلّی Ḍhillaī) was the earliest formstage of Hindustani language, and so the ancestor of Modern Standard Hindi and Modern Standard Urdu.^[1]

Old Hindi
ڐهِلَّی
Region	Delhi
Era	10th–13th centuries[2]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indic Central Old Hindi
Early forms	Shauraseni Prakrit Shuraseni Apabhraṃśa
Writing system	Devanagari, Nastaliq
Language codes
ISO 639-3	hiw
Glottolog	None

It was spoken by the peoples of the Hindi belt, especially around Delhi, in roughly the 13th–15th centuries. It is attested in only a handful of literature, including some works by the poet Amir Khusrau, verses by the poet-saint Namdev, and some verses by the Sufi saint Baba Farid in the Adi Granth.^[3][4] The works of Kabir also may be included, as they use a Khariboli-like dialect. Old Hindi was originally written in Devanagari and later in Nastaliq as well.^[5]

Old Hindi poetry can be found as early as 769 AD.