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HINDI

VS

URDU An Artificial Divide?

SUDARSH RATHI,201125172

ASIF HUSSAIN,201225086

RUDHIR SIDDHAM,201225195

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The Question The purpose of this paper or 'the problem statement' is to

analyze if Hindi and Urdu two separate languages, two varieties

of a same language or a single variety.

Some definitions before we

proceed Register: Manner of speaking or writing specific to a certain

function, that is, characteristic of a certain domain of

communication (or of an institution), for example, the language

of religious sermons, of parents with their child, or of an

employee with his/her supervisor.

Style: The characteristic use of language in a text. When

referring to the speaker, style is more or less the controlled

choice of linguistic means, whereas in referring to texts, style is

the specific form of language. For the reader or listener, style is

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the variation (or confirmation) of possible expectations, i.e. the

observation and interpretation of linguistic specifics.

Dialect Continuum: A dialect continuum, or dialect area, was

defined by Leonard Bloomfield as a range of dialects spoken

across some geographical area that differ only slightly between

neighboring areas, but as one travels in any direction, these

differences accumulate such that speakers from opposite ends of

the continuum are no longer mutually intelligible.

Standard Language: A standard language (also standard dialect

or standardized dialect) is a language variety used by a group of

people in their public discourse.

Alternatively, varieties become standard by undergoing a

process of standardization, during which it is organized for

description in grammars and dictionaries and encoded in such

reference works. Typically, varieties that become standardized

are the local dialects spoken in the centers of commerce and

government, where a need arises for a variety that will serve

more than local needs.

Pluricentric Language:A pluricentric language or polycentric

language is a language with several standard versions, both in

spoken and in written forms. This situation usually arises when

language and the national identity of its native speakers do not,

or did not, coincide.

Diagraphia: In sociolinguistics, digraphia refers to the use of

more than one writing system for the same language. Some

scholars differentiate between synchronic digraphia with the

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coexistence of two or more writing systems for the same

language and diachronic (or sequential) digraphia with the

replacement of one writing system by another for a particular

language. Diglossia: Diglossia refers to a stable situation in which two

dialects or usually closely related languages are used by a single

speech community for different functions.

The Introduction The Hindi-Urdu controversy is an age-old debate with its roots

lying in the medieval history of India and the conflict finally

taking shape in the 19th Century. While the question, are Hindi

and Urdu same languages, was officially settled by the

Government of India in 1950, when it declared Hindi as the

official language of governance, the actual dilemma lives on. It

is very much important to note that the problem does not only

have social undertones but is awash and very much shaped by

social differences.

Hindi and Urdu are literary registers are literary registers of the

Khariboli dialect of Hindi Languages, spoken by a large number

of people in the sub-continent across the Hindi dialect

continuum. It is worth noting that, a large a number of people in

the 'Hindi belt' speak their local dialects of Hindi as mother

tongue and the above-mentioned registers of Khariboli are later

acquired. A persianized variant of Khariboli is referred with

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names Hindi, Urdu & Hindustani.

In the following report we will first put forward and compare the

structural aspects of both the varieties and the similarities and

differences. We will then analyze the origin of these varieties

lying in the history of medieval India analyzing some literary

works for their linguistic features. We will understand the social

aspects of the development of the respective varieties and try to

ascertain when, how and why these they diverge. Here in we

will also try to analyze the existence of the 'Hindustani

language'. We will also see the role writing systems played in

this interesting case. Further later into the report we will take

example of some modern conversations as obsereve the

sociolinguistic peculiarities associated with it. Thus with the

help of these we will attempt to arrive at few conclusion, closing

statement and possibly and answer to the imminent question.

Here in we will also try to analyze the existence of the

Hindustani language

The Varities

Hindi Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi is a

standardised and sanskritised register of the Hindustani language

(Hindi-Urdu). It is the mother tongue of people living in Delhi,

Haryana, Western Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, northeastern Madhya

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Pradesh, and parts of eastern Rajasthan, and is one of the official

language of India though there are many non-native speakers

from other parts of India who understand it easily because it is

closely-related to their own native languages that, just like

Hindi, descended from various Prakrits. These languages have

common roots and the native speakers of several regional Indian

languages find it easier to understand the more Sanskritised

form of Hindi.

Colloquial Hindi is mutually intelligible with another register of

Hindustani called (Modern Standard) Urdu. Mutual

intelligibility decreases in literary and specialized contexts

which rely on educated vocabulary. The number of native

speakers of Standard Hindi is unclear. According to the 2001

Indian census, 258 million people in India reported their native

language to be "Hindi". However, this includes large numbers of

speakers of Hindi languages other than Standard Hindi; as of

2009, the best figure Ethnologue could find for Khariboli dialect

(the basis of Hindustani) was a 1991 citation of 180 million.

Urdu

Urdu, or more precisely Standard Urdu, standardised and

persianized register of the Hindustani language (Hindi-Urdu). It

is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also

an official language of five Indian states and one of the 22

scheduled languages in the Constitution of India.

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Based on the Khariboli dialect of Delhi, Urdu developed under

the influence of Persian, Arabic, and Turkic languages over the

course of almost 900 years.It originated in the region of Uttar

Pradesh in the Indian subcontinent during the Delhi Sultanate

(1206–1527), and continued to develop under the Mughal

Empire (1526–1858). Urdu is mutually intelligible with

Standard Hindi spoken in India. Both languages share the same

Indo-Aryan base, and are similar in basic structure, grammar

and to a large extent vocabulary and phonology. The combined

population of Urdu and Standard Hindi speakers is the fourth

largest in the world. Phonology Hindi and Urdu still retains the original Indo-European

distinction between aspirated and unaspirated voiced plosives

(cf. Indo-European *ghrdho and Hindi ghar (‘house’’). It retains

the distinction between aspirated and unaspirated voiceless

plosives that emerged in Indo-Aryan, that is, the distinction

between kal (‘‘time’’) and khal (‘‘skin’’). Another Indo-Aryan

feature, that of retroflexion, is also their in Hindi and Urdu, cf.

tota (‘‘parrot’’) and ṭoṭa (‘‘lack’’). These two features, that is

those of aspiration and retroflexion, are mainly responsible for

why Hindi–Urdu sounds so different from its European cousins.

Stress is not distinctive in both Hindi & Urdu; words are not

distinguished on the basis of stress alone. The tense vowels are

phonetically long; in pronunciation the vowel quality as well as

length is maintained irrespective of the

position of the vowel or stress in the word. Hindi sounds a

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represented with Devanagari script while Urdu sounds in Perso-

Arabic script

Hindi sounds

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9

Urdu sounds

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Morphology

Rules regarding both derivational and inflectional morphology

are identical in both Hindi and Urdu. Interestingly both the

languages uses affixes in ways consistent with the Indo-Aryan

and also affixes borrowed from Persian and Arabic. Example,

Urdu:

Sing. Plur.

/vālid/ /vālidõ/

(Parents,oblique case)

/vālid/ /vālid/

/vālid/ /vālidain/

(Parent) (Parents)

Clearly in first case the affix is from Khariboli,the second case is

similar to /pitā/ while the third one has affix borrowed from

persian.

Similarly in Hindi,

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Hindi:

/likhanā/ ----------------------->/likhāī/

/likhanā/ ----------------------->/likhāvaṭa/

(write,verb) (handwriting,noun)

The first case is a common form in Hindi while the second one

is persianized.

In Hindi,a sanskritized register, and Urdu,a persianized register,

comparative and superlative adjectival forms using suffixes

derived from those languages can be found indicating a

divergence in the fact that from where the variety are drawing

upon.

Hindi/Sans. Urdu/Pers.

Comparative -tar -tar

Superlative -tam -tarin

The varying forms for the 3rd pn. dir. constitute one of the small

number of grammatical differences between Hindi and Urdu.

yah "this" / ye "these" / vah "that" / ve "those" is the literary set

for Hindi while ye "this, these" / vo "that, those" is the set for

Urdu and spoken (and also often written) Hindi. Many nouns

which are masculine in Urdu are feminine in Hindi, the opposite

also being true.

An interesting observation is that higher use of compound verbs

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in Urdu compared to Hindi. For example look at the same

utterance in the two varieties,

Hindi:

उन्हें बदु्धि और अन्तरात्मा की दने प्राप्त ह ै|

Urdu:

उन्हें ज़मीर और अक़्ल वदीयत हुई हैं |

English:

They are endowed with reason and conscience.

In sentences in which a conjunctive participle is used to refer to

the first act in a series of two, if the first act is in some sense a

'cause' for the second act, Hindi prefers the conjunctive suffix -

kar be dropped and only the root of the first verb used. In Urdu,

on the other hand, the use of conjunctive suffix is always

required.For example,

Hindi:

uṅko dekh ham ro paṛe

Urdu:

uṅko dekhkar ham ro paṛe

English:

On seeing him we burst into tears.

Despite few subtle differences in rules the grammar is consistent

across the two varieties.

The Lexicon

It is generally accepted that Hindi and Urdu differ mainly in the

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lexicon and vocabulary though the nature and degree of lexical

differences present complex problems when viewed under the

light of other integral linguistic aspects. Thus it becomes

extremely difficult to draw a clear boundary line between Hindi

and Urdu. Emperically you can ascertain if a word-form has

been borrowed from Sanskrit or Perso-Arabic but that does not

necessarily infer that the sample observed is Hindi or Urdu. This

is because both Perso-Arabic and Sanskrit words are common in

both Hindi and Urdu. For example we could take some work of

a writer like Premchand and try to ascertain whether it belongs

to Hindi or Urdu but the use of the writer's lexicon would be

affected heavily by his linguistic and educational background

thus blurring the differences if any.

The History and Origin

The history of Hindi, Urdu and Hindustani is so entwined that it

may point towards a conclusive answer to our 'the question'.

Most of the grammar and basic vocabulary of these variety

descends directly from the medieval language of central India,

known as Sauraseni,a dramatic prakrit in which msot medieval

dramas were written. After the tenth century, several Sauraseni

dialects gave rise to varieties including Braj Bhasha, Awadhi

and Khari Boli, the latter being prevalent in Delhi and

surrounding rural areas.

After the Islamic invasion of India, in the Delhi Sultanate

period, Delhi become a seat of power and centre of commerce

under various Arabic, Persian and Turkic dynasties. These made

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Persian the language of the imperial court and thus began a

variety of interaction of between the Muslim and Hindu cultures

and their languages. During this formative period of the

language it was referred as Hindi, Hindavi, or Dehlvi, a

language under the influence of Persian as well as many regional

varieties. Though this period saw most literary works in either

Persian or other dialects of Hindi like Awadhi and Braj-bhasha

by bhakti saints many sufis of North India, Nath-Panthis, local

poets, Kabir and Amir Khusrao.

Amir Khusrao

The following is the work of Amir Khusrao Delhavi who is said

to write Hindavi, the first recorded poet in Khariboli,

Khusro dariya prem ka, ulṭī vā kī dhār,

Jo ubhrā so ḍūb gayā, jo ḍūbā so pār.

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(Khusro! the river of love has a reverse flow

He who floats up will drown (will be lost), and he who drowns

will get across.)

Sej vo sūnī dekh ke rovun main din rain,

Piyā piyā main karat hūn pahron, pal bhar sukh nā chain.

(Seeing the empty bed I cry night and day

Calling for my beloved all day, not a moment's happiness or

rest.)

Kabir

while the following are the few works of Kabir in Khariboli

affected by other dialects of Hindi,

Jab Tun Aaya Jagat Mein, Log Hanse Tu Roye

Aise Karni Na Kari, Pache Hanse Sab Koye

(When you were born in this world

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Everyone laughed while you cried

Conduct NOT yourself in manner such

That they laugh when you are gone)

Chinta Aisee Dakini, Kat Kaleja Khaye

Vaid Bichara Kya Kare, Kahan Tak Dawa Lagaye

(Worry is the bandit that eats into one's heart

What the doctor can do, what remedy to impart?)

The former may be identifiable with Urdu today while the later

with Hindi though the works are inherently written in the same

languages with borrowings from little Perso-Arabic or Sanskrit.

From here on, this emergent language Hindavi travelled to south

with spread of Muslim rule towards the Deccan giving rise to a

variety there which was in turn influenced by local languages

and eventually emerged as Dakhani. With the consolidation of

power at Delhi from the period of 12th to 17th century, the

language developed at centres like Delhi,Agra and Lucknow

influenced by local Awadhi and displaced others to emerge as

the prestige dialect. During this period the language was also

reffered to as Rekhta (literally "mixed language") though the use

of the name is though to have extended into the 19th century as

evident in this quote of Galib,

Rexte ke tum hī ustād nahīṅ ho ğālib,

Kihte haiṅ agle zamāne me ṅ ko ī mīr bh ī th ā.

In 1776, the word Urdu was first time used to describe this

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language by poet Mashafi(1750-1824). It comes from 'Zaban-e-

Urdu' or language of the camp as it was called during the

mughal period as Urdu was the word for a barack.For example,

Shahajahan named the market near the royal fort 'Urdu-Bazaar'.

At this period we observe the emergence of different bases of

the two varieties of Hindi and Urdu mainly for three reasons.

1. Firstly, a large body of Dakhani literature had been and was

being written in Perso-Arabic script and this affected the

northern variety which adopted that script to develop a

separate identity thus limiting the access to a large literary

strata.

2. Secondly, some conscious efforts were made by stalwarts

like Khan Arzu, Shah Hatim and Mazhar Janejanan who

laid out principles for weeding out the indigenous Hindi

words and incorporating their Arabic and Persian

counterparts in 18th century.

3. Finally, by the end of 18th century and the beginning of 19th

century prose was being written widely in Khariboli by

Hindu writers who wrote in Devanagari or Kathi script and

drew upon Sanskrit vocabulary.

The British at the Fort William College at Calcutta encouraged

writing in both styles and by 1800 Hindi and Urdu emerged as

pluricentric varieties with a flurry of works in both of them. The

divergence was further consolidated by the polarization of

literateurs in favour of one variety or the other. This was

followed by many colonial events that contributed to the

development of antagonistic attitudes between them. First,

Persian was replaced by Urdu written in Perso-Arabic script as

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the official and court language with English in British-ruled

provinces in north India. Not only this helped the transfer from

Muslim to British rule but also caused uproar in the Hindu

community drawing resistence along communal lines. It was

argued that the Persian script something alien to the Indian

people and gave rise to the Hindi Movement flooding north

India with pamphlets and critiques written in Devanagari

supplimenting linguistic chauvinism. When, in 1881, Urdu in

Persian script was replaced by Hindi in Devanagari script, the

Muslim community saw this as a offensive against Urdu and

retaliated with Urdu Movement. This heightened the cultural

inclinations of the two communities towards different languages.

Hindi and Urdu started to be considered essetial to the identity

of Hindus and Muslims respectively.

During the national movement revolved around the issue of

selecting vernacular of people,'a vernacular Hindi' as the

language in which the citizens of the future nation could speak

to each other. It had the support of Gandhi who deplored as

linguistic antagonism and debated in favour of re-merging the

varieties as Hindustani. Although it was not clear what exactly

this Hindustani would be, it was unquestionably the people's

vernacular that had the appeal and support for becoming the

centerpiece of national struggle. But over the period of time, the

discursive space of the people's vernacular was progressively

usurped by Sanskrit 'Hindi' and Persianized 'Urdu'. What

remained common in this transformation is only the continuity

in the name from Hindustani to Hindi (literally still meaning

Indian). The internal linguistic forms underwent radical change.

With the partition, 'Sanskritized Hindi' and 'Persianized Urdu'

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came into existence.

Such linguistic engineering is often undertaken at the behest of a

select social elite either to appropriate political power or to

maintain the status quo. In such cases, a premium is always

placed on the language of the social elite. The emergence of

separatist tendencies in linguistic engineering not only created

the 'Hindi-Urdu' equation, but also set into motion forces of

Sanskritization and Persianization within the secular Hindustan.

Here we observed that political motivations drove both

communities to champion for a pristine Urdu or pristine Hindi

which possessed aspects of power which were trying to create

speech communities speaking a language that mimic and

glorifies cultural history. This provides the means by which

people construct ideological representations of differences in

linguistic practices and focus on linguistic differences for

defining 'self' against some imagined 'other' in the identity

formation.

Can script effect language?

In sociolinguistics, digraphia refers to the use of more than one

writing system for the same language. An case of digraphia is

Hindi-Urdu, which is written, as mentioned above, in the

Devanagari script or the Perso-Arabic script is considered a

typical and extreme example of it. In such cases of 'typical'

digraphia the difference in script can create profound differences

both linguistic and societal- in grammar and lexicon, in culture and religion, in way of life and

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sensibility.

As mentioned above one of the main reason for the divergence

of Hindi and Urdu was the use of Perso-Arabic Script in Urdu

literary and official practices. Towards the second quarter of the

nineteenth century, the British

government decided to replace Persian with Urdu in Perso-

Arabic script as the official language so that the people could

freely approach the government with their petitions. This gave

rise of oppostion of the Urdu variety from the Hindu community

who considered that the script was an alien script and was

inaccessible giving rise to institutions like 'Arya Samaj' and 'The

Hindi Movement' favouring sanskritization of the language.This

situation continued till 1870. In the 1880s, the governments of

Bihar and the Central Provinces decided to allow official work

to be conducted in Hindi written in the Nagari script. The

Devanagari script was allowed to replace the two scripts—

Perso-Arabic and Kaithi then extensively in use. It was also

introduced in the schools throughout these provinces, but no one

wanted it, because it was of no practical use to anyone. Instead,

people continued to use the Kaithi script. Attendance in schools

using the Devanagari script for instruction continued to be low

and the government was forced to reconsider the issue of the

scripts. At this time, criticism of the Kaithi script gained

momentum. Supporters of the Nagari script aggressively pointed

out that Kaithi was not just hard to read but was also

phonetically inadequate . In the wake of these criticisms, the

government decided to improve the Kaithi script. In some areas,

particularly in Avadh, significant improvements were

introduced. Consequently, Kaithi became a more functional

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script. However, the efforts to improve the Kaithi script did not

go far in either effect or duration, as the government policy

suddenly veered in favor of Nagari-script Hindi as the official

language of U.P. By 1900, “Khari Boli” Hindi written in the

Nagari script had received official recognition in Bihar, the

Central Provinces, and the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh.

The supremacy of the Devanagari script over the other prevalent

scripts was sealed by government.

Such events drived a wedge between the communites. An

extraordinarily large amount of political energy was expended

on Hindi-Urdu digraphia as communal tensions between Hindus

and Muslims increased. There was fear among Muslims that

Urdu and in particular its script were in danger of being

supplanted altogether by Hindi. Such fear had been driving them

towards persianization of the language. Gandhi an advocate of

'Hindustani' rather Hindi or Urdu believed that the question of

script was irrelevant.Those who favored the traditional Perso-

Arabic script of Urdu were free to write in that; those who

preferred the traditional Devanagari script of Hindi were free to

use that. But as similar to the idea of Hindustani, this idea lost

momentum as India approached partition.

It would be going too far to blame Hindi-Urdu digraphia for the

partition of British India into the separate nations India and

Pakistan; but it would not be going too far in the least to reify

Hindi-Urdu digraphia as a metaphor for communal conflict

between Hindus and Muslims on the subcontinent.

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The Present

An interesting account,

A student from the United States makes her first trip to Delhi,

India after spending four semesters at the University of

Michigan studying Hindi. In desperate need of a guidebook, she

steps into a small, Hindu-owned store and asks,“Namaste.

Mujhe ek achhii kitaab kii zaruurat hai. Kyaa aap merii madad

kar sakte hain?” (Namaste. I’m in need of a good book. Can you

help me?). The storekeeper is stunned and compliments the

student on her exceptional Hindi. However, the store does not

stock the appropriate book. The student notices another store

across the street. As she steps in, she notices the storekeeper is

Muslim. Replacing a Namaste with a Salaam, she inquires about

the book, employing the same word choice. Again, the

storekeeper is surprised, and with a big smile on his face tells

her, “Masha’Allah. Your Urdu is perfect.” The puzzled student

picks up her book and leaves the store.

This student had elected Hindi for the past four semesters, not

Urdu! Yet, she is being complimented for her conversational

skills in this language. This paints a very familiar picture in

today's India and highlights that the Hindi-Urdu debate hasn't

died down. While notions of the two languages have diverged

since independence, colloquial varieties of Hindi and Urdu are

almost indistinguishable from one another.As we remeber, the

broader basis of vocabulary and syntax from which both Hindi

and Urdu had developed called Hindustani is considered the

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lingua franca across North India and Pakistan by many experts.

After partition, newly independent India made its Hindi more

Sanskritized and Pakistanis made their Urdu more Persianized.

The outcome is a diglossia in society. Indians and Pakistanis

speak relatively the same lingua franca of Hindustani on the

streets – while notions of standard Hindi and standard Urdu have

become polarized. Therefore, in an effort to avoid common

Hindustani words, their media use a strict, artificial, stilted form

of Hindi or Urdu. As Singh puts it most realistically, the result

that it is difficult for a common man to understand either Hindi

or Urdu in the 'pure' form.

Following partition, the Pakistani governement favoured the

'Islamization of Urdu' had words from Sanskrit and local dialects

were 'purged out' in favor of Persian and Arabic words. In

addition, allusions to a common Hindustani culture and land

were replaced by references to Persian and Islamic culture and

an Iranian landscape. Though the elite embraced this hyper-

Persian form of speech, many others were alienated by this new,

foreign understanding of Urdu. The vast majority of Urdu

speakers were a product of the Hindustani culture not Iranian.

Similarly, the newly-formed Republic of India was engaged in

the translation of official documents from English to Hindi. The

outcome of this project was the creation of thousands of

neologisms of Sanskrit origin describing administrative terms

and practices. But, what is important to mention here is that

mere familiarity with Sanskrit lexicons may not necessarily

guarantee any comprehensibility of these neologisms. This also

gave rise to absurd terms like dur purviya deshon 'Far East

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countries'. These countries may be 'far' for the English speakers

but not for us. Such 'pure' registers are highly artificial and

ideologically motivated.

The 'Hindi' Film Industry (Bollywood) has contributed in large

part to the propagation of Hindustani as a reflection of the type

of colloquial speech used by millions of Indians and Pakistanis.

As a commercial institution, the Industry seeks to become

accessible to as broad an audience as it can, and therefore

employs Hindustani. This decision allows audiences from across

India as well as Pakistan to freely understand the films in a

manner which Sanskritized Hindi would not have. Use of

pristine Hindi in the telecast serials such as Ramayana,

Mahabharata, etc., while use of Urdu for movies like Mughal-e-

azam, Jodhaa Akbar etc. are an interesting phenomenon.

Ashok Kelkar(1968) explains the situation of Hindi-Urdu as

follows,

As a linguistic system Hindi-Urdu has no marked dialect

variations; but it has the full gamut of styles :

formalized highbrow (poetry, learned discourse, ratory,

religious sermons and the like in the "great tradition'' of urban

centers of power, commerce, and

religion); formalized middlebrow (popular printed literature,

songs, mass propaganda); casual middlebrow (everyday

educated talk especially in

linguistically mixed groups and within the regionally uprooted

upper or middle class family; private letter writing and

newspapers waver between this and the

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previous styles; out of the four styles this is the most receptive to

borrowings from English); and casual lowbrow (this is defnitely

substandard and outside the

"Great Tradition''; everyday talk in lower-class, uneducated,

urban milieus; this style, often called "Bazaar Hindustani'' , is

sometimes resorted to even by educated speakers and even in

printed literature destined for the uneducated lower classes) The

polarization between "Hindi'' and "Urdu'' reaches its maximum

in the formalized highbrow style. Hindi is associated with the

Devanagari script (called Nagari for short) and the drawing

upon Sanskrit for "higher vocabulary'' and metrics, with secular

nationalism and Hindu revivalism, and with what

anthropologists have called ``Sanskritization'' (the spread of

Vedantic and Brahmanical culture). Urdu is associated with a

modi®ed form of the Perso-Arabic script and the drawing upon

classical Persian (and through it, upon classical Arabic and

upon Turkish) for "higher vocabulary'' and metrics and with

Muslim renascence and the courts of the Muslim princes.

It can be pointed out that this act of Sanskritizing and

Persianizing the pople's vernacular was carried out with political

objectives. At one hand, Pakistani Government used it

effectively as an important tactic in the regional power struggle,

and, on the other hand for Indian Goverment, it helped

'Sanskritized Hindi' or the rashtrabhasha catapult to national

level.

As A.Rai (2000) states in 'Hindi Nationalism'

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In Urdu, the love for the pristine is of a vanishing tribe who

simply uses Perso-Arabic expressions for defence. In Hindi, the

love for the pristine is of an emerging culture, which harks back

on the Golden Age of revivalism, a sense of nostagia and false

sense of linguistic identity.

Reality Check

In the following section we will analyze a little data on the

colloquial Hindi-Urdu and try to arrive at some conclusion with

the help of some statistics. The content analyzed is dually

attached. ( Please refer to Data Folder)

Conversation I:

A foreigner and a priest, Benaras. The priest can be observed to

speak a literary style common to Brahmins, especially in

Benaras, Allahabad etc. called 'shudh hindi'. It can be observed

that this style has many words of Sanskrit origin such as

praaciin,adhik and the use of singular yah and wah and plural ye

and we.

Now as an exercise we will replace these few of these 'Hindi'

constructions with 'Urdu' alternates like

Hindi Urdu

prasiddh mashur

27

wastu saaman

adhik zyaada

and so on. We observe that the conversation is still quite legible

to us and may stay as we go one replacing indicating that these

varieties are highly entwined in our society. It is interesting to

observe how the priest uses 'Sanskritized' hindi though he

understand the colloquial variety of the foreigner. It shows an

intent of showing his identity as Hindu, a common thought in

temple town like Benaras.

Conversation II

The foreigner among friends, Lucknow. The use of lexicon here

appears starkly different from the previous language of

Brahmin. This is a more urban setting and the language here is

somewhat more 'Persianized'. Remember, we can recall

Lucknow was one of the centre of development of both Hindi

and Urdu and thus the sitaution prevails here. Also, since Urdu

was historically the language of nobility in Awadh, it enjoys

great prestige here.

Conversation III

The foreigner with counterpart and local traveller, Patna. The

local dialects of Hindi has large native speakers here. Standard

Hindi is artificially aqcuired as shown by the pure nature of his

language. It is worth noting here that though the variety spoken

28

by the foreigner and his counterpart is colloquial, local who has

artificially learnt Hindi is overjoyed at the prospect of Hindi

from a foreigner's mouth. He regards standard variety with

prestige compared to his local mother tongue.

Conversation IV & V

This is a comparson between two situation a guest to a Hindu

home in Allahabad, and to a Muslim home is Aligarh. Notice the

overall similarity in the pattern of polite-ness in both cases.

Differences tend to appear only in vocabulary mainly. Many

expression are almost interchangeable like

C.IV

padhaariyee, andar cal-kee baiThaa jaaee.

C.V

aaiyee, andar tasrif laaiyee, tasrif rakhiye

also inviation for food or drinks. Both the case show how the

choice of language corresponds with their identity though both

may be as comfortable switching to colloquial.

We now try to derive some statistics using these conversations

based on the functions used in them. Also we observe some

videos, a hindi news telecast, a urdu news telecast and a movie

29

scene. We observe the difference between standard registers

used in news broadcast compared to the colliqual variety in the

movie scene. We will observe the presence of Tadbhava derived

from Sanskrit & Tatsama words borrowed from Sanskrit vs

Perso-Arabic borrowings.

30

31

32

33

34

Closing Statement

We viewed are question from various point of views to ascertain

the distinction between Hindi & Urdu,

Structurally, they show very little variation and that in

lexicon which is common among dialects or even within

the same dialect as synonyms. We can structurally

conclude them to be a same variety.

Historically, they developed together and the divergence

that emerges is merely socio-political and weak on

linguistic grounds.

Analytically, we observed that though Standard registers

(like the ones used in news media) are highly 'Sanskritized'

35

or 'Persianized' but the colloquial variety exhibits almost

equal influence of both phenomena.

The efforts by the authorities to standardize the language in

different directions was driven by the political motivations

and introduced diglossia in the society where there was

none.

We observed how digraphia can have social and linguistic

effects even to mobilization along communal lines and

motivating efforts to force artificial variation in the

language.

The difference in the Hindi and Urdu is that of style not

much else.

Thus we can arrive at this result that Hindi and Urdu are

essentially same variety of pluricentric language Hindustani. We

also observe that like representing a social, religious, or cultural

group as a homogeneous entity, even a language may be

imagined as homogeneous. Under political motivations, the

internal linguistic variations of a language may be ignored, and

there may be a conscious selection of those expressions which

only exaggerate and increase already existing differentiation.

There is a totalizing vision in such linguistic ideology.

36

Bibliography

Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics, Hadumod

Bussmann

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urdu

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindustani_language

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amir_Khusrow

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabir

King, C. R. 1994. One Language, Two Scripts : The Hindi

movement in Nineteenth Century North India, Bombay : Oxford

University Press.

Rai, A. 2000. Hindi Nationalism, Orient Longman .

Kelkar, Ashok (1968). Studies in Hindi-Urdu. Poona: Deccan

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Michael Clyne (1992),Pluricentric Languages: Differing Norms

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