HINDI/URDU HISTORY
a few especially useful background sources

=Dudney, Arthur, "Keeping the Magic Alive: How Devakanandan Khatri's Chandrakanta, the First Hindi Best-seller, Navigates Modernity and the Fantastical" (2009): [on this site]

=Dudney, Arthur, A Desire for Meaning: Khan-i Arzu's Philology and the Place of India in the Eighteenth-Century Persianate World. Columbia University dissertation, 2013: [site]

=Farooqi, Mehr Afshan, "Language of Whose Camp?", Outlook India, Feb. 21, 2008: [site]

=Faruqi, Shamsur Rahman. Early Urdu Literary Culture and History. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001: [on this site]

=Fort William College: one of its famous texts, and a great deal of background information: [on this site]

=Gilchrist, John Borthwick, A Grammar of the Hindoostanee Language and other works: [site]

=Grierson, G. A., "Languages." The Imperial Gazetteer of India. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1908-1931. Vol. 1, pp. 349-401: [site]. Discussion of Hindi-Urdu by the greatest linguist of the colonial period: [site]

=King, Christopher. One Language, Two Scripts: the Hindi Movement in Nineteenth Century North India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994: [on this site]

=King, Christopher. "Forging a New Linguistic Identity: The Hindi Movement in Banaras, 1868–1914," in Culture and Power in Banaras: Community, Performance, and Environment, 1800-1980. ed. by Sandria B. Freitag (Berkeley: University of California Press,  1989): [site]

=Lelyveld, David. "Zuban-e Urdu-e Mu'alla and the Idol of Linguistic Origins." Annual of Urdu Studies 9 (1994): [site]

=Orsini, Francesca. The Hindi Public Sphere 1920-1940: Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002. [amazon]

=Orsini, Francesca, ed. Before the Divide: Hindi and Urdu Literary Culture. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan Pvt. Ltd., 2010.  [amazon]

=Pollock, Sheldon, guest editor, "Forms of Knowledge in Early Modern South Asia." Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East 24,2 (2004): [site]

=Premchand. "The Pharaohs of Urdu." Trans. by C. M. Naim. Annual of Urdu Studies 18 (2003): [site]

=Rai, Alok. "Making a Difference: Hindi, 1880-1930." Annual of Urdu Studies 10 (1995): [site]

=Rai, Alok. Hindi Nationalism. New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2001. [site]

=Rai, Alok, a discussion of his book Hindi Nationalism with Shahid Amin: "I'm trying to counter the Babhani takeover of the Hindi belt," on Tehelka, October 16, 2001: [on this site]; and "The day Hindi died," part two of the discussion, in which Palash Krishna Mehrotra joins them (October 17, 2001): [on this site]

=Rai, Alok. "The Persistence of Hindustani." Annual of Urdu Studies 20 (2005): [site]. Also in that issue: "A Debate Between Alok Rai and Shahid Amin Regarding Hindi."

=Safadi, Alison. The Colonial Construction of Hindustani 1800-1947 (2012): [site]

=Shackle, Christopher, and Rupert Snell. Hindi and Urdu Since 1800: A Common Reader. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1990: [on this site]

=Tara Chand, "The Problem of Hindustani" (1944), a set of four articles: [on this site]

="Urdu: Whence and Whither?", a special section in Annual of Urdu Studies 10 (1995), with articles by C. M. Naim, Ajmal Kamal, Alok Rai, and S. R. Faruqi: [site]