In the beginning the difference between Hindi and Urdu literature was not great. If I had time at my disposal I would give you quotations and authorities from the 19th century. The writers of Urdu in the 19th century made it a law or an article of faith that not a single literary word shall be derived from Indian sources. While they took the grammar and construction of the language from India, the literary inspiration and other factors were taken from Arabic and Persian. In the 19th century it was felt that the loss which people had sustained from the disappearance of. Persian had to be made up by rearing up, Urdu. There are quotations without number from European writers in the 19th century who have made it clear beyond a shadow of doubt that the loss of Persian was a loss to the Muslim conquerors, a loss to the language of the Emperors. So that loss had to be made up. It was said that the streets of Lucknow should be transformed into the streets of Ispahan in Persia.
