The modern version of the Hindi language did not emerge until the end of the 18th century, and it wasn’t officially made the language of India until 1950. After receiving official status, the Government of India started standardising grammar and orthography to improve uniformity in Hindi writing. The number of people learning Hindi also increased as the language was used for official publications.

Before the Hindi language gained official status, the official language used in British India was Urdu. The Urdu language is another descendant of the Delhi dialect, but it is written using a Persian script and was mainly used by the elite and the courts. However, there was a push against Urdu after the War of Independence in 1857 against the British East India Company to replace it with the Hindus’ own language: Hindi.

In 1900, the Government of India granted both the Hindi language and Urdu languages equal status. Hindi soon became the primary source for formal vocabulary, but there was still a divide. Gandhi proposed combining languages using the Persian and Devanagari scripts as Hindustani. However, the formation of the Indian Constitution in 1950 saw Modern Hindi replace Urdu.