HINDLEY

hindley, an urban district in the ince parliamentary division of lancashire, england, 2 m. e.s.e. of wigan, on the lancashire & yorkshire and great central railways. pop. (1901) 23,504. cotton spinning and the manufacture of cotton goods are the principal industries, and there are extensive coal-mines in the neighbourhood. it is recorded that in the time of the puritan revolution hindley church was entered by the cavaliers, who played at cards in the pews, pulled down the pulpit and tore the bible in pieces. hindostani (properly _hindostani_, of or belonging to hindostan[1]), the name given by europeans to an indo-aryan dialect (whose home is in the upper gangetic doab and near the city of delhi), which, owing to political causes, has become the great _lingua franca_ of modern india. the name is not employed by natives of india, except as an imitation of the english nomenclature. hindostani is by origin a dialect of western hindi, and it is first of all necessary to explain what we mean by the term "hindi" as applied to language. modern indo-aryan languages fall into three groups,--an outer band, the language of the midland and an intermediate band. the midland consists of the gangetic doab and of the country to its immediate north and south, extending, roughly speaking, from the eastern punjab on the west, to cawnpore on its east. the language of this tract is called "western hindi"; to its west we have panjabi (of the central punjab), and to the east, reaching as far as benares, eastern hindi, both intermediate languages. these three will all be dealt with in the present article. panjabi and western hindi are derived from sauraseni, and eastern hindi from ardham gadha prakrit, through the corresponding apabhramsas (see prakrit). eastern hindi differs in many respects from the two others, but it is customary to consider it together with the language of the midland, and this will be followed on the present occasion. in 1901 the speakers of these three languages numbered: panjabi, 17,070,961; western hindi, 40,714,925; eastern hindi, 22,136,358. _linguistic boundaries._--taking the tract covered by these three forms of speech, it has to its west, in the western punjab, lannda (see sindhi), a language of the outer band. the parent of lahnda once no doubt covered the whole of the punjab, but, in the process of expansion of the tribes of the midland described in the article indo-aryan