As part of a scholarly project I’m working on (on Saadat Hasan Manto), I recently taught myself how to read the Urdu script. I had briefly learned it as part of a Hindi class in college many years ago, but then immediately forgot it.
I must admit, I’ve been finding Urdu quite difficult. Reading from right to left isn’t so hard to get used to, but there are some letters that seem to be interchangeable (i.e., two different ways of writing ‘k’/’q’), and other letters that look painfully similar to one another on the page (‘d’, ‘r’, ‘v’, etc). Also, some of the vowel markers one sees in Hindi/Devanagari, though they do exist in Urdu as diacritic marks, are frequently omitted, so you often have to guess which vowel should be used based on context. Oh, and did I mention that there often aren’t clear word breaks (depending on how the typography is done in a given book or newspaper)?
But once I got the script down (roughly), I was pleasantly surprised to find that Manto’s Urdu vocabulary isn’t that far off from standard Hindustani — but then, he’s a prose writer known for his accessible style. By contrast, the vocabulary of much Urdu poetry (i.e., Ghalib) is so full of Persian words as to be unintelligible — at least to a barbarian ABD like myself.
Via the News Tab (thanks, ViParavane), I came across a great post at the Language Log blog with a historical linguistics explanation for how the script (and language) divide came to be. I don’t have much knowledge to offer on top of what Mark Liberman says, so the following are the just the quotes in Liberman’s post I found to be most interesting.First, Liberman has several quotes from an article by linguist Bob King on the “digraphia” (Greek for “two scripts”) of Urdu and Hindi. First, we have the background:
Hindi and Urdu are variants of the same language characterized by extreme digraphia: Hindi is written in the Devanagari script from left to right, Urdu in a script derived from a Persian modification of Arabic script written from right to left. High variants of Hindi look to Sanskrit for inspiration and linguistic enrichment, high variants of Urdu to Persian and Arabic. Hindi and Urdu diverge from each other cumulatively, mostly in vocabulary, as one moves from the bazaar to the higher realms, and in their highest — and therefore most artificial — forms the two languages are mutually incomprehensible. The battle between Hindi and Urdu, the graphemic conflict in particular, was a major flash point of Hindu/Muslim animosity before the partition of British India into India and Pakistan in 1947. (link)
Then there are the social implications, which are not trivial:
One can easily imagine a condition of pacific digraphia: people who speak more or less the same language choose for perfectly benevolent reasons to write their language differently; but these people otherwise like each other, get on with one another, live together as amiable neighbors. It is a homey picture, and one wishes it were the norm. It is not. Digraphia is regularly an outer and visible sign of ethnic or religious hatred. Script tolerance, alas, is no more common than tolerance itself. In this too Hindi-Urdu is lamentably all too typical. People have died in India for the Devanagari script of Hindi or the Perso-Arabic script of Urdu. It is rare, except for scholars, for Hindi speakers to learn to read Urdu script or for Urdu speakers to learn to read Devanagari. (link)
(And yes, even those of us who pretend to be scholars struggle with “script tolerance.”)
Another scholar (Kelkar) gives some concrete examples of differences in vocabulary, with specific attention to the points of divergence:
Common words like chai ‘tea’, milna ‘to meet’, and mashin ‘machine’ are the same in either Hindi or Urdu. Vocabulary diverges sharply as we move from Low to High. The Hindi words for ‘south’ and ‘temperature’ (as in weather) are dakshin and tapman, the Urdu words junub and darja-e-hararat. The sentence “Who is the prime minister at the moment?” is ajkal pradhan mantri kaun hai? in Hindi, ajkal vazir-e azam kaun hai? in Urdu.
An Indian linguist has illustrated how far the styles deviate from each other by asking how the abstract expression “salvation’s true path” might be translated into Hindi and Urdu at different style levels and among different ethnic-social groups. Village people would render this as mukti-ki sacci sarak (Bazaar Hindustani). Pandits or educated Hindus would say mukti-ki satya upay (Highbrow Hindi). Cultured Muslims would translate the phrase as nájat-ki haqq rah (Highbrow Urdu). Indians who speak English as their second language might say salweshan-ki tru path. The only indication that these four “languages” are in some sense variants of the same language is the genitive marker -ki. Words like satya and upay in the Highbrow Hindi rendering are from Sanskrit. Every single content morpheme in the Highbrow Urdu version is from Persian or Arabic. One sees how dramatically the character of a language is changed when the sources of borrowed words for new concepts are as far apart as they are in Hindi and Urdu: we might as well be dealing with different languages. (link)
Liberman’s post ends with a reference to Gandhi, who struggled — as early as 1917! — to conceive of a “secularist” solution to the script problem, but failed to do so.
Obviously, with Partition, the terms of the debate over “standard” scripts changed in the Indian subcontinent. The debate in Pakistan is essentially over, and Urdu wins. But according to the scholars Liberman cites, the split over scripts is very much alive in India (especially northern India, though I have Muslim friends from places like Hyderabad who say their families only speak Urdu at home).
The joint/hybrid spoken language spoken in much of northern India is Hindustani (mostly Hindi grammatical structures with a mix of Sanskritic and Persian vocabulary), which seems to have persisted in northern India despite attempts at Sanskritization. But even with that shared spoken language, it appears the division over scripts remains.
Because there’s nothing like Urdu, so cut them some slack. My grandmother was a total Urdu snob and I guess it rubbed off on me. The style is definitely more elegant and there’s a sort of decency (for want of a better word) about the language./i>
that’s all subjective. i think that both hindi and urdu are pretty ugly to the ear actually. i prefer to hear farsi. so what? everyone has tastes, i have mandarin speaking friends who can’t listen to cantonese because they find it ugly.
Amitabh, you make some very good points. I think the Turkish words might have started coming in from the time of the Turkish (Slave) Dynasty in the Delhi Sultanate from the 11th Century onwards.
the muslim warrior caste was generally identified turkish (though some were mughals). the persian spreakers tended to be civilian functionaries and what not. persian was a frequent court language even in the ottoman empire, and a language of culture in the turkic homelands of the mughals (remember that the mughals were timurids).
and just a note: the ruling dynasties in iran itself were of turkic provenance (safavids, qajars).
30 · Harbeer said
Yes there is a degree of formality when you use “aap”, one would use “tum” for some one equal or younger than oneself but never use “tu” in Hindi. We used to get warned by our Hindi teacher that the word “tu” is not a part of the standard Hindi. It comes into bambaiya hindi coz of its contact with marathi where “tu” is used instead of “tum” and “aap” becomes “apan”
Dude you’re wrong…’tu’ is indeed a legitimate, standard, proper Hindi word. It is grammatically what is called 2nd person singular…its use is discouraged by some people since it is considered rude in most contexts.
tu is quite commonly used both in spoken and classroom hindi, though that marathi-related story is interesting. i think it’s quite cool that there are three levels to address the second person – sometimes the equivalents in other languages of aap are too formal, and of tu too informal; tum is a nice compromise. though one thing that bugs me about the existence of the two, or three, forms of the second person is that it can be used to denote inequalities in a relationship – when it’s a parent-child, it seems a little more acceptable (to me), but e.g. husband-wife, i just don’t get that inequality. my cousin’s wife always makes a face when i address her husband in the ‘nuvvu’ (telugu’s tu) rather than in the more formal equivalent of aap, as she does; it’s kind of amusing 😉
this reminds me of my tamil teacher who told us that ‘sir’ (or ‘saar’ as we say:)) is only used in india in the military! i don’t know what it was about this teacher, but half the time i felt like i was correcting him rather than the other way around. it’s a bit frustrating at times that some desi language teachers in the US (and elsewhere?) are just not up to the mark…
And the Tamil film industry!
that is very true, the subjectivity part. i have decided (for my sanity) that ppl say something sounds better than another mainly because they kept others saying so, since my choice of what sounds good and what does not is usually pretty much opposite of what everyone else thinks :). eg? i love german, hate hearing french—to me german has a nice “beat” while french is all over the place.
I learned Hindi in Tamil Nadu, where no actual Hindi was spoken, and this was before TV deeply penetrated people’s lives. I used to find the Doordarshan Hindi news to be similar to the Hindi being taught in school and quite understandable. It had a lot of recognizable Sanskrit words that I could correlate with the other Indian languages. However, I could not actually understand Bollywood Hindi dialogues, much less the Bollywood songs. Perhaps this is true in other South Indian states too, where the exposure to Sanskrit is much more than the exposure to Persian/Arabic and hence the Sanskritized (high) Hindi is more understandable than Urdu/Hindustani.
where do you find this stuff, rahul?!
Let me try to explain the “never use tu” prohibition in Hindi. (Would this be a diversion from the original excellent article?)
There are two separate forms of 2nd person (you) in Hindi:
Regular form: singular = tu, plural = tum.
Respectful form: singular = tum, plural = aap.
Also, there is a general RULE that to make a form more respectful, you turn singular to plural. (You can see an example of this rule above with ‘tum’).
This worked perfectly well, but people wanted to be really, REALLY polite and respectful. Carrying this to ridiculous extremes, they started to apply the RULE to the Respectful form. The singular 2nd person, therefore, became “aap”. And this ridiculous form is now standardized:
Ridiculous form: singular = aap, plural = aap.
The consequence? The Ridiculous has become the new Respectful. The word “aap” has become ambiguous, forcing people to say “aap sub” or “aap log” when they mean the plural. And poor “tu” has been, well, dissed.
The “tu” form is now used only to refer to God, just like the English “thou” is, and for the same reason: to indicate intimacy with the Maker.
3 · Amitabh said
What are you talking about? Check out the word “diasystem” on Wikipedia. Urdu/Hindi, Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian, Romanian/Moldovian, and Farsi/Dari are all linguistic diasystems – the same dialect of a language, but they were regarded as being different due to political reasons.
Urdu and Hindi were regarded as the same language up until the 1800s or so. They were collectively called “Hindustani.” The development of Zanziban-e-Urdu built upon Hindi language starting around the 1200s. Even though Urdu is a polished language, ‘urdu’ is cognate with the word ‘horde’. Even though it borrows heavily from the Dari dialect of Farsi (spoken in Afghanistan and NOT in Persia), the word ‘urdu’ is Turkic. Note: Hindi doesn’t borrow from Farsi, Turkic, or Arabic, like Urdu, but Hindi has incorporated many loan words (via Muslims who created the Urdu diasystem) such as “shaadi” (marriage) and “duniya” (world).
So Urdu and Hindi are the same language, but due to politicalization and an attempt to distinguish/differentiate from the other community, it can be hard for one to understand the other (especially in written form).
Thank you Amardeep for posting this! Interesting topic, I’ll tackle it in point form:
On learning the script: – What book/website are you using? To anyone wishing to learn, I would recommend Teach Yourself Beginner’s Urdu Script, as that is what I’m using. I’m having the same problems as Amardeep in differentiating some characters. I can read, but I can’t spell correctly because you just have to know spellings of borrowed words, even if the phonemes they delineate don’t exist in Urdu anymore.
On Ramzan/Ramadhan: – True, I hadn’t heard of Ramadhan before coming here either. Read this Languagehat post, which explains the difference. I prefer the /z/ version. When someone tries to ‘correct’ me, I say “FU, I’m an Indian Muslim!”. Besides, they’re not pronouncing it using the ‘correct’ Arabic pronunciation, whatever that is.
On Hindi and Urdu being the same language, Ausbausprache, Abstandsprache:
This (the German words) is a criteria to determine whether one variety of speech is a separate language from another variety. Abstand means distance. If two languages are not mutually-intelligible, there is enough abstand for them to be considered separate languages. Ausbau literally means “building away”. In most general terms, a speech variety is a language by this criteria, even if it has zero abstand with another variety, if it has official language status. Urdu and hindi in the most popular forms have very little abstand but are considered separate languages by the criteria of ausbau.
I agree with Amitabh that both are basically the same languages. I think that both are part of the same language continuum with variations in class, religion, geography, purpose of communication, participants in conversation etc. I would recommend Google Books: Status and Function of Languages pp. 592-604, to anyone with the slightest interest in this topic. Or, just search for “hindi urdu ausbau” on Google Book Search.
Official language planning sucks. I don’t like the increased Arabization/Persianization of Pakistani Urdu, and increased Sanskritization of Indian Hindi (e.g. compare PTV Urdu, with Doordarshan Hindi). I’m more of an advocate of einbau, or building towards, and that can only happen with increased media and arts exchange between the two countries (e.g. Pakistani singers in Indian movies, language on private cable channels).
On aap/tum/tu These have varying acceptability depending on where you are or who you’re talking to. e.g. in Delhi, tu is considered friendly, whereas in other areas, it’s considered extremely rude.
Let’s finish with a sher by Daag Dehlvi:
Transileration ranj kii jab guftaguu hone lagii aap se tum tum se tuu hone lagii
Gloss Grief/distress of when conversation started happening You(formal) to you(informal), you(informal) to you(intimate) started happening
30 · Harbeer said
Camisa, chamois, and kameez are all cognates with one another, mutaal!
48 · Amitabh said
Which begs the question, what makes artificial unnecessary borrowing of Dravidian language words more acceptable?
*Remove one of the two words before ‘borrowing’ (I really wish this site had an edit feature)
Also, I think you misunderstood Amitabh. I think he’s talking about borrowing words from a language-planning point of view, where I think you’re talking about people using foreign words to sound snooty.
66 · SSK said
I believe that when a language borrows words/syntax from another language, that this has an enrichening effect. I believe that Hindi has borrowed a lot from Daari Farsi, Turkic, Arabic, and even English. But why not take what’s already there from your southie siblings?
If you oppose the unnecessary borrowing of dravidian loan words, then you should consider, or at least ponder, your usage of Turkic, Farsi, and Arabic words.
This is something very natural. You yourself must have a manner of speaking that you consider more desirable (superior/classier) than others. This does not have to be conscious. To me it’s just a reflection of these 21st century memes that it’s somewhat taboo to express any idea that some cultural facet may be preferable to some other comparable one.
Of course it’s a matter of taste but it also depends on the kind of exposure people have. Most people are not in a position to even make a comparison. A Delhi-ite may understand or even manage to speak some Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Bhojpuri, local Rajasthani or Pahari dialects, etc. There’s bound to develop an appreciation of some languages over the others. From some of the comments it appears that this attitude is wrong. If people consider Urdu a “superior” language, this just means they’re snobs. I agree there’s some level of snobbery but there’s a great deal of genuine appreciation. Urdu is a very formal language, full of airs and graces, and has this whole demeanor which sets it apart from other similar languages. If you like formality and fuss then you’ve got to love it.
I’m not talking about how a language sounds to those who don’t know it. This is about knowing the regional languages and then saying (as a matter of taste) what is preferable. Language is a symbol of culture and cultivation. Why is it so troubling to grant that some languages just may be more cultivated and hence considered superior? In any case, I find it equally objectionable that the only acceptable outlook seems to be one that relegates this to being a matter of taste without any consideration of the actual sophistication of a language or its literature.
On the issue of “borrowing” of words from other languages, I don’t think there is a language committee that sits and decides what words to borrow from which language. Mostly, language of the “dominating” or “ruling” class percolates down to the other not so fortunate languages. The reason why we find the abundance of “persian/farsi/arabic” root words in Hindi is because the “ruling class” was using those as official languages for centuries. Later, English took the role and it is now mostly spreading through cultural and technological dominance. In India, “Hindi” is seeping into other language domains through official patronage and cultural and media organs like the Bollywood/Doordarshan etc..
“But why not take what’s already there from your southie siblings?”
What words exist in Dravidian languages than do not exist in Hindi?
Language and to some extent other social features generally move from rulers to the ruled. When the ruling class used words like zameen, mohabbath, ishq and so on its natural for the general populace to emulate that.
Analysing the etymology of “common words” is fascinating. I used to read one column in a “pakistani newspaper”, forgot the name of the writer and the paper.
Do you folks know where “firangi” of Hindi/Urdu comes from?. It has a fascinating etymology.
I think it’s worth making the point that most Indian languages have some words from Persian and Arabic – Urdu may represent an extreme case, but Tamil and Malayalam do too, as do Bengali, Marathi etc. And within these linguistic communities, there are subcultures where the influence is substantially stronger than in the ‘mainstream’ – with not just a larger Arabic-derived vocabulary, but also influences in the script, even when the Arabic script is not directly used.
There seems to be a sense among some commenters that Arabic influences arrived only by land in ‘North India’. They also arrived by sea in ‘South India’, and at times that was just as strong an influence, or occasionally stronger.
And let us remember that Arabic-derived words do exist in English also, but also especially in many languages of Mediterranean Europe – especially Portuguese, Italian and Spanish. It is a real fact of the historical interaction between Arabs and the rest of the world. And that is why the ‘kameez’ in Punjabi and the ‘camisa’ in Spanish (or chemise in French) are all related. The commercial aspect is also important – Brazil and Saudi Arabia use the same word for their currencies, for example – real and riyal.
Of course, as far as conscious adoption of words from other languages goes – relative power between groups within a society, and between different societies – does matter, as do elite tastes and prejudices etc. But that said, the actual use to which a language is put changes (or enhances) the vocabulary and stylistics. To come back to Urdu and Hindi, Divya correctly points out that some of the formal speaking styles of Urdu do not exist in Hindi, and also, I would add the vocabulary of love, longing, desire, etc is considerably smaller. The legal vocabulary of even Sanskritized Hindi is limited, as I noted upthread. These are not matters merely of ‘taste’, they are real differences in the range and expressive power of the languages. The formal styles of address, for example, also change the frequency with which different grammatical tenses and moods appear in the language – and also the verb/noun and subject/object placements, verb declensions, etc in a sentence. Perhaps Amardeep can address this in more detail! These differences are hardly unique to Hindi vs Urdu – some of these exist in French vs English also (for example). So we note the reality of the power issue, but also acknowledge the reality of the differences in the language that it can create.
One could make the claim (although I don’t know for sure) that Sanskrit may have a vocabulary of love, longing, desire etc. that rivals or surpasses Urdu’s. And the fact remains that all those fancy terms they have for love, etc. in Urdu are essentially words from another language (Persian, Arabic, Turkish whatever) that have been grafted on to an Indic/Hindi base. It’s a highly artificial language. That being said, so is Sanskritised Hindi.
Chachaji, is it your opinion that French is more expressive or powerful than English? I have found the opposite…that often English conveys things in a very simple, concise, straightforward manner, while French does so in a rather more cumbersome way. And this is due to differences in grammar more than anything. The best examples are if you have a booklet of instructions (how to set up a stereo system or something) and it gives you the directions in English as well as French…next time, compare the two languages sentence for sentence and you’ll see what I mean. Or if you buy an electronic product for example…look at the box it comes in…the French renderings of English descriptions of the product’s features always seem long-winded. Although that last sentence of mine was also quite long-winded.
I absolutely agree with this, Amitabh. I also find French quite formal, in a way I don’t much care for. In general, English is a very practical and “to the point” language, one of its many advantages as a modern day lingua franca. My mother tongue (from the Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian continuum) also happens to be extremely long-winded in comparison to English.
Thanks boondi. I have a love-hate relationship with English…I think it’s a great language, very expressive, very powerful, very open to new words and to adapting new ideas…very beautiful at times…I love all that. And I certainly appreciate the fact that knowledge of it (along with other factors) has enabled me (and my family) to do well in the current world situation.
But…when I think of the damage English is doing to Indian languages (which ultimately is the fault of the Indian people) it’s hard for me not to resent it. I’ll put it this way…when I hear English in most contexts, I love it. When I’m in India and I see people who are perfectly fluent in Punjabi or Hindi or other languages opt to speak English instead, or parents talking to their children in it instead of their mothertongue, I hate it.
Ponniyan Selvan:
Depends on the language. English is not regulated, which is partly why it has a wide variety of dialects to suit local needs. Hindi is regulated (within India) by the Central Hindi Directorate. Urdu is regulated in both India and Pakistan (not sure about other countries).
Regulation of a language does not have to be rigid: it may be any or all of the following: promotion of the language, purely technical standards (like Unicode), spelling reform (Tamil and German come to mind), grammar reform, script reform (German, from Gothic style to Latin style), and even the vocabulary (French). French in particular is micromanaged so much so that they would not let “CD-ROM” be used until they officially inaugurated a new French word “cédérom” and its gender (masculine). It is acceptable to use “cd-rom” in small letters, to indicate that it is not considered an abbreviation of English origin.
At the larger level, whether or how much a language is regulated depends on whether the descriptivists are more powerful than the prescriptivists.
I should just add that I did study French from 7th grade to 12th grade. Was fairly good at it by the time I graduated high school. Never really liked it though. Of course now I’ve forgotten a lot of it, but I think I could get it back quickly if I tried.
France’s language policies have been barbaric, cruel, and brutal. PLEASE READ THIS.
pingpong:
I know that there are different councils set up for promotion of languages and “Hindi” gets a lot of federal government funding and there are “Hindi prachar sabhas” established in all corners of the non-Hindi speaking states. I was talking about the ‘borrowing’ of words.
But…when I think of the damage English is doing to Indian languages (which ultimately is the fault of the Indian people) it’s hard for me not to resent it. I’ll put it this way…when I hear English in most contexts, I love it. When I’m in India and I see people who are perfectly fluent in Punjabi or Hindi or other languages opt to speak English instead, or parents talking to their children in it instead of their mothertongue, I hate it.
it can be argued that english now is and indian language.
Amitabh:
Yes, I remember you making this point some months back, that you got annoyed with someone in Punjab saying “water drink karo, ji”.
The Académie française does manage the French language rigidly, but I had no idea that linguistic discrimination was involved. Oy vey! It made for some sad reading.
What you said about French not being as concise as English is true, and not just for technical instructions. It’s even for advertising slogans like what’s written on my DVD player carton: “Vous l’avez? À nous de jouer!”, which is much more snappy in English: “You have it? We play it!”.
German sometimes goes the other way, with detailed or subtle concepts being written as one word. “Schadenfreude” and “Weltanschauung” come to mind.
Amitabh, I certainly agree that English often enables a more concise and to-the-point communication, in fewer words or sentences than French (but there are some exceptions, when French expressions are more concise. Usually they are more cumbersome). That’s just the point. French and English, having somewhat different histories of evolution, and even though sharing a large vocabulary (though you will quickly find that words identically spelt in both are pronounced differently, often have different senses, and sometimes have altogether different meanings) – are suited to doing different things.
French enables circumlocution and double-entendre somewhat more easily, and a different combination of voice, mood, and tense altogether, that can, among other things, be more languid in effect. And that is more suited to things like poetry and romance, courtly affectation, politesse, etc where conveying a bit of ambiguity, languor, faux sincerity, or even, dare I say it, nuance – rather than a complete or exact meaning, may actually be, er, desired. To a large extent, this is also true of Urdu vis-a-vis Hindi.
As for Sanskrit having a similarly large vocabulary, that may be true (after all there is Kalidasa and the Kama Sutra, and so much else). Still, Urdu has a much larger contemporary oeuvre. If you look back far enough, older forms of Persian and Sanskrit have quite a lot in common – though it is the Arabicized Persian that, as you pointed out, influences Urdu most.
I think it is time to move beyond the communalization of the identity of Urdu. A more whole-hearted embrace of the language, facilitated by an internet-assisted de-facto Romanization of the script, is currently under way. Purists and scholars can learn the Perso-Arabic script, others, like myself, can derive joy from the poetry, wit and repartee, and the sound and flow of the language in audio and video.
Not to give Google ideas, or maybe they’ve already thought it and implemented it, but it would be great to have a tool that lets you paste in Perso-Arabic, and get back Romanized, er, renditions.
69 · Divya said
Divya, a lot of people are taking a political stand when they refuse to recognize a language as more “sophisticated” or having more “refined” literature. From the 18th century onwards, when post-Enlightenment thinkers considered the world and came up with reasons why Europeans were more cultured than other peoples of the world (sometimes as a justification for slavery and/or imperialism), they claimed that African, Aboriginal, and Asian languages sounded coarse (for instance, they found the ‘clicking’ sounds made in certain African languages to be “primitive”). Moreover, the prevalence of oral histories, or the traditions of storytelling in these cultures was also considered inferior to the print culture of Europe. The lack of European style history-writing in these languages was also considered a sign of the inferior intellect of non-European people; they had no conception of linear progress, and did not conceive themselves to be different from generations past (James Mill brings up all these criticisms as a justification for imperialism in ‘History of India’, and also see Walter Ong’s ‘Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word’ for a discussion of oral culture and the transition to print). Now, many refuse to take a stand on the relative superiority certain languages over others (eg in terms of the mellifluousness or literary achievement) because these metrics depend on one’s cultural preferences and socialization and look too much like the judgments 18th-19th century imperial sympathizers. Moreover, such measures of ‘judging’ a language de-value languages which orally transmit literary works such as myths, epics, folk songs, poetry, and stories (many native American, adivasi, and regional dialects of India, African American Vernacular English (AAVE) would be examples of this). Interestingly, Urdu (too ‘mongrel’) and Braj style Hindi which many modern critics consider very poetic and refined, in their time, were considered pretty declasse and coarse. At the time, the nobility preferred their poetry in Persian.
84 · chachaji said
Agree completely. I want to be able to properly appreciate Urdu poetry, so I’m learning some words from this word-of-the-day list.
Great idea! I’m not Google, but I might just do it.
For those with Macs, if you want to type in either script, try this: Go to System Preferences>International>Input Menu> and then select Devanagari QWERTY and/or Persian QWERTY (Gurmukhi and Gujarati are also available) and check ‘Show input menu in menu bar’. Now, to type, click on the little flag in your menu-bar, and select the options you added and टाईप करो / طایپ کرو (if this shows up fine, excuse my bad spelling)
SSK, thank you for the links to the Urdu word-of-the-day, and your fine contributions upthread!
amitabh, do you speak exclusively/mostly in hindi or punjabi with your parents? just curious…
sam, there are thousands, at a minimum, of words in south indian languages that are not influenced by sanskrit. although there is some controversy as to how truly ‘separate’ the dravidian languages are, malayalam and tamil probably have the least sanskrit influence, though that is not to say that there is any. when i learned hindi formally, i was amazed to see how many words i thought were natively tamil probably came from sanskrit (could be the other way around, i guess) – and it revealed just how far spoken hindi has veered from unchi hindi. it also seems odd that a language that prides itself on being so dravidian is, in its modern form, maybe not so much, after all. on the other hand, if you look through e.g. the millennia-old tamil literature, there would be drastically fewer, sanskrit-based words. also, i doubt that modern-day sri lankan tamil, which has remained more analogous to literary tamil, has such a heavy sanskrit influence.
portmanteau, I am aware of most of the points you raise in #85. I don’t believe those issues are valid in this argument if you consider that the entire Indian culture was (is) considered inferior to the west. Those factors would come into play if we were to compare English with Sanskrit/Hindi/Urdu or some such thing. Then a political stance would be justified and the cultural preference argument can also be raised. But since we’re talking about the same broad culture that exists within a 500 mile radius I think it is valid to compare one language with another and pronounce upon the relative merits and refinements of one over the other.
Now about the “superiority” thing. The only thing I can agree with you on is that this stance is reminiscent of cultural imperialism, doesn‘t sound good, or some such thing. But, in actual fact, there are ways of judging these things which do not have much to do with taste or socialization. All that is needed is knowledge about what we’re comparing. For example, folk literature, songs, poetry, dances etc. usually use very limited scales and do not have very well developed techniques . Everyone can do a folk dance and sing a folk song. But in classical music, dance and literature the techniques have been honed and developed to such an extent that it takes an enormous amount of effort to acquire these skills. Similarly, people who speak or understand a certain cluster of languages, are able to see the differences in the development or refinement of one language over the other. Generally, those who’re interested in languages and literature make an effort to go beyond the limits of their specific culture. If they come to appreciate something else more this should not be seen as devaluing their original culture. I think such hyper-sensitivity can only come from those who don’t actually care about these things (or those Gen-Y memes since I see this pattern of thinking no matter what is being discussed).
Not sure if this has already been mentioned or not. Growing up in Amreeka, I learned to read Quranic Arabic and all and I found it to be fairly similar to Urdu. I managed to read some if not most of what I picked up, albeit at a painstakingly slow pace.My grandfather always used to teach us grandkids words in formal Urdu, most of which was borrowed from Farsi. Just my two cents.
ak – agree with you on Tamil. However classy Malayalam is heavily sankritized. I learnt Hindi as an adult by correlating it with Malayalam. Even today if I need to use high sounding words in Hindi I ll switch to Malayalam – 9/10 times it ll sound very similar in Hindi. eg Shaleena soundaryam – natural beauty. I used it as a pick up line several years ago when I could barely put together a sentence in Hindi.
89 · Divya said
I do not think so. Even within a small geographic radius, you can have people comparing the vernacular with the ‘refined/formal,’ and automatically denigrating the ‘dialect,’ precisely because it does not conform to the metrics that the traditional literary criticism uses to evaluate sophistication or maturity. Say, if you applied traditional Sanskrit theories of literary criticism to judge the merits of local bardic performance or folklore, and then deemed the local canon to be inferior that would be problematic. Each language has its own organic evolution based on local politics and the needs of who speaks it (eg Rulers in Russia did not speak Russian in court to appear more cosmopolitan, since they deemed Russian to be more “provinicial;” such tactical judgments have their own place in realpolitik, but it would be mistaken on the part of neutral observers to conclude that Russian is an inferior language, just because its literary production occurred in manner that was different from French). You can respect cultural production originating from a variety of sources, without making a global commitment to the superiority/inferiority of one language/genre/method of cultural production (A certain French play may be better than a certain Russian play; or the English modern poets may be fantastic; all those conclusions do not/should not lead to the strange conclusion that just because English has aa amazing (but typical) literary production over a few centuries, it must be superior to Kutcchi, or Bengali regional press is successful, surely it must be a richer literary traditional than Punjabi).
Seems to be consistent with my position – you can be a good critic as long as you acknowledge which milieu in which cultural production takes place. I just don’t endorse comparisons which might compare a classic rendition of the Mahabharata with some folk recension and conclude that just because the classic version is a ‘high-culture’ production, it is superior. That’s just circular.
Do not agree with this generalization. One, folk culture often includes regionally differentiated and creatively adapted/subverted versions of high forms (often over many generations). Two, lots of folk production has lots of its own formal constraints (why this should be ultra-important in judging quality is where you and I seem to diverge; often formal constraints are devised and emphasized to keep the hoi-polloi out. Third, a lot of what is folk/low culture/subverting classic at one point often evolves into a subculture, and then into a full blown cultural phenomenon with its own specialized conventions. Then these conventions demarcated develop into a classic canon (eg oral epic recitation, evolution of kathak, american arts and crafts movement, cubism, jazz, the novel as a genre, PoCo literature such as Rushdie, so much modern literature and art…..)
Simply deeming a language because it conforms to a certain conception of ‘high-culture’ literary production seems to be snobbish 🙂
I agree. I’ve had to have my French pardoned many times, if you know what I mean.
There are also regional variations in how the Dravidian languages are spoken, e.g. the Telangana dialect is almost totally foreign to me as a Telugu-speaker.
I have a general question for DBDs- I went to school in India (Hyderabad) until 3rd grade, and we learned Telugu, English, and Hindi at my ‘English medium’ school. But do a lot of other ‘English medium’ schools in the south mean that you only learn English in school and never learn how to read or write the local language? (How do you read the billboards for Rajnikanth’s or Chiranjeevi’s latest otherwise??)
My experience could be atypical but here goes. Basically, according to the Indian curriculum, you have to learn three languages. Mine was English, Hindi and Sanskrit so I never learned how to write Tamil despite being a Tamil speaker. Many speakers of their respective language learn their language in english medium school as a third language but the third language category was very flexible – French was an especially popular option where I studied. Hindi, I can read and write well so you had to be functionally bilingual in the Indian system, at least according to my understand.
Pondicherry?
I’ve studied in several different schools, and generally they offered a choice of Hindi or Tamil or sometimes Sanskrit as second language, and Tamil or Hindi or Sanskrit or sometimes French as third language. (Replace Tamil with local language as needed). Some schools (especially some CBSE ones) may insist on your learning Hindi at some level, others don’t insist on it. There will be a mix of skills in adults – some like me never learned Tamil in school, though I speak it like a native. (Movie posters are about the only thing I can read, and maybe the headlines in Tamil newspapers, but not the full articles). Some of my childhood friends can speak/read/write Tamil (I catch hold of some to provide Senthamizh-to-Kodunthamizh/Tanglish translations of political speeches). Some don’t follow Hindi (including Bollywood movies). Some can carry on a whole damned conversation in Sanskrit, which I’m sure would be really useful the next time they meet Panini in a bar.
Some of the ads in Chennai are half-English, half-Tamil sentences written completely in English. (Like “konjam fruity, konjam chewy, romba jolly”, especially if it’s aimed at the demographic which is likely to understand Tamil language but not read Tamil script. I don’t see a major problem living in Chennai without knowing Tamil – it would probably be a different story in other parts of Tamil Nadu.
Oh, not necessary. Many Tamil Nadu State Board schools in Chennai did the same thing. Many students took it as an easier option to learning Hindi (mainly to get around learning a new script and all that).
I can talk about my state (Tamilnadu). It is true that you can complete you entire schooling without learning to read or write Tamil in English medium schools. Tamilnadu follows a two language policy, English + one other language, and quite a few in urban centres skip Tamil and take some other language. It doesn’t help that the Dravidian movement alienated the Brahmins so much that they end up taking Hindi as a revenge (i think). It is a pity since Tamil Brahmins were in the forefront of Tamil revival in the early 1900s and now we have many people growing up in Tamilnadu without knowing to read / write Tamil.
All of this is problematic only if you assume that those who express a value judgment automatically denigrate the rest. People who are capable of appreciating one art form generally appreciate other forms too. Also, I feel you’re not leaving any room for recognition of any particular merits. This is a form of excellence that we’re talking about so it makes no sense if this concept cannot be accommodated.
Believe it or not, this is more or less what I wanted to say (or thought I did say). But aside from that, among all of the above artists in their respective genres there most definitely will be this recognition of who’s good and in fact exactly how good. I don’t think theories from the social sciences need to problematize this. It’s part of the fun of life, imo 🙂