Hindi/Urdu

[Ros' Haruo]

As the old sociolinguistic saying has it, "A language is a dialect with an
army". No absolute definition exists of the boundary between the terms, but
in geopolitical terms the old saw has merit. There used to be "a language"
in the Balkans called "Serbo-Croatian", which was written in either the
Latin or the Cyrillic alphabet; "Croatian" was more likely to be written in
Latin letters and/or by Roman Catholics, while "Serbian" was more likely to
be written in Cyrillic and/or by Eastern Orthodox. Now, in the absence of a
Yugoslav state, there are (at least) "three languages" covering the same
linguistic ground: Croatian, Serbian, and *Bosnian*. I'm not sure which
alphabet the Bosnians favor, but they are more likely to be Muslims than are
the Croatians or Serbians.

An intriguing side issue is, how did American English manage to remain
"English" in the eyes of most of its speakers, notwithstanding two wars
*against* the "English" and the hyperamericanism of our most influential
lexicographer, Noah Webster?

A number of language-forms are spoken in China (and by people of Han
ethnicity outside China) - Cantonese, Wu, Hakka, Min, etc. - which on normal
linguistic grounds are at least as different from each other as are the
major Romance languages, yet because of the language-and-ethnicity policies
of the People's Republic of China (in which, incidentally, Taiwan more or
less concurs), all of these are routinely lumped together as "Chinese" along
with the largest Chinese language, Mandarin.

> >I think we may need to consult Britannica for this.    Hindi and Urdu
> >are spoken the same way but Urdu borrows more from Persian and Arabic
> >while Hindi gets more Sanskrit.

That's true. Although both languages (or dialects) borrow heavily from
English for new technologically or mass-culturally necessitated terms, the
official technical terminology (the same sort of words for which English
would borrow Latin and especially Greek etyma [i.e. etymological
root-words]) in Urdu is mostly created from Arabic/Persian/Turkish - in
other words, Islamic - etyma, while in Hindi the same sort of terminology is
generally created from Sanskrit - in other words, Hindu - etyma. Also, since
Urdu-speakers tend to be Muslims (or at least of Islamic heritage), and
Hindi-speakers tend to be correspondingly Hindus (or grandchildren of
Hindus), the standard *greetings* (even though they are not exactly
technical or philosophical terminology) are from the corresponding religious
sources: in Urdu one says "As-salaam u-alaikum", in Hindi "Namaste"... (It's
worth noting that in East Africa among Swahili speakers the greetings vary
quite a bit depending on the speakers' religious affiliations, but they
don't claim to be speaking *different languages* on that account.)

> >On the same lines, Urdu script is
> >similar to the Arabic/Persian script and the Hindi script is derived
> >from Sanskrit.     I remember learning that the two languages developed
> >as more and more Muslim conquerors made their way to Central Asia.  They
> >needed a way to talk to each other so a mixture of two was born.  It
> >used to be called Hindustani.  I think the terms Urdu and Hindi might
> >have existed in the pre-partition days but they weren't officially used
> >until after Pakistan was created.   I suspect they maintained separate
> >scripts because of religious reasons - as in neither party wanted to
> >rewrite the religious texts in a new script.  Although I am sure that is
> >only one tiny aspect of why a common script was never developed.  I've
> >noticed that when Hindi and Urdu differ it is usually because the Hindi
> >word came from Sanskrit and the Urdu word from Arabic/Persion.

I'm not sure it has anything to do with rewriting religious texts (except if
one regards *all* written texts as religious texts, and there are religious
people who take that view). Rather, I think it has to do with the
traditional route to literacy in the cultures. Indian Muslims tended to
learn to read and write first in the context of Koranic instruction, in
other words reading the Quran in Arabic. Using the letters thus acquired to
write and read their own language would be a secondary development. And
Hindus would tend to learn to read Sanskrit first, and then naturally use
the Devanagari alphabet to write their own tongue (which incidentally, being
closely related to Sanskrit, is much better served by the Devanagari
alphabet than it is by the Arabic alphabet). And when they wrote, their
target readers would be predominantly members of their own religio-ethnic
group.

How all this compares to the Gitxsan / Nisgaa situation I'm not at all sure.
Sorry to have gone on at such length. I'm tired and it's very snowy out. ;-)

lilEnd

> >>Maybe someone would knows why we would talk about these very closely
> >>related ways of speaking as "languages" and not "dialects."
> >
> >Because *downgrading* something to a dialect would most likely lead to a
> >bloodbath.  And not upgrading a dialect to the status of a language may
> >have the same effect.   Human beings are so stupid.
> >
> >Linda Fink wrote:
> >
> >>This came over my Chinook jargon list. Are Hindi and Urdu basically the
>same??
> >>
> >>Date:    Mon, 22 Dec 2003 13:46:38 -0800
> >>From:    "Bruce, Colin" <Colin.Bruce at FRASERHEALTH.CA>
> >>Subject: Re: FN Language
> >>MIME-Version: 1.0
> >>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> >>
> >>I'd like to know how much closer.  Is it like the difference between the
> >>Canadian and Australian Englishes.  I've been studying learning Gitxsan
>and
> >>Nisgaa for a few years now and haven't found much more than a few
> >>differences in word choice and accent.  I concluded that people chose to
> >>call them different languages for political reasons much like Urdu and
> >>Hindi.  Maybe someone would knows why we would talk about these very
>closely
> >>related ways of speaking as "languages" and not "dialects."
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >

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