Our project aims to produce a documentary film on the blossoming of a cosmopolitan language in one of the most vibrant cities in pre-colonial Asia around 1700 and its codification. We will illustrate how two pathbreaking linguistic endeavours emerged in Surat, namely the grammars and dictionaries of Hindustani authored by J.J. Ketelaar, officer of the Dutch East India Company, and Fr. François-Marie de Tours, a Capuchin missionary. Born as a contact language, Hindustani was an Indo-Aryan language primarily based on the Khariboli dialect of Delhi but borrowing freely from many other languages, mainly Persian, Sanskrit and Arabic. In colonial times Hindustani split into Hindi and Urdu, spoken in India, Pakistan and the worldwide Southasian diaspora, and often being associated with Hindu and Muslim identity politics. The works by Ketelaar and François-Marie de Tours remained obscure to this day. Now, our team of researchers is working at producing digital editions and at analysing the two grammars and accompanying dictionaries (written in 4 European languages), so as to reconstruct the language before its bifurcation, as it was spoken around 1700 and to fathom the cultural identity of the speakers. The documentary will be filmed in Uppsala, Pistoia (Tuscany), Paris, Utrecht, Surat and Delhi, showing unique manuscripts, presented by scholars, as well as the cities where they were produced, studied and conserved.