My footprints in India (10)

 

The scenario in India is different. The Indian languages use phonetic writing system (e.g. alphabet in the case of English or syllabary in the case of Hindi), just like any other languages in the world. As the pronunciation defers, it is natural to expect that the words would be written differently. (Let’s imagine what happen if the Chinese dialects are written in alphabets.) Adding more complexity, different Indian languages use a (slightly) different script. So for example, the script of Gujarati is different from that of Hindi. However, the most striking aspect I find is that the same language can be written in two scripts! Hindi (the official language of India) and Urdu (the official language of Pakistan) are effectively the same language—Hindustani. When it is written in Devanagari script and from left to right, this is Hindi. When it is written in Perso-Arabic script and from right to left, this is Urdu. However, in daily life conversation, there is no difference whether you speak Hindi or Urdu, except the choice of some vocabulary. They are effectively the same! Due to the Partition of the Subcontinent, Hindi and Urdu are now official languages of two sovereign states. As people like to distinguish themselves from their neighbours, some Urdu-speakers today use more loan words from Arabic and Persian while some Hindi-speakers prefer the Sanskrit-derived words. As a consequence of the nationalistic feelings of both sides, these two languages are moving apart from each other.

 

Finally, the majority of Indian languages have their roots in Sanskrit, just like many European languages have their roots in Latin and Greek. Exceptions are the four Dravidian languages in the south: Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam, which are the state languages of the States of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala respectively. You can find examples of the diversity of Indian languages on the Indian banknotes.

 

Written on 27th July 2005.

 

***End of Part I***

 

Go back to Table of Contents

 

雪泥鴻爪在天竺（十）

 

印度的處境不同於中國。印度語言一如世界其他語言，使用拼音文字（如英語用字母alphabet，印地語用音節字母syllabry）。音不同而字各異也。（試想，如果我們用字母來拼寫漢語方言的話會怎樣。）更複雜的是，不同的印度語言用不同的字母來拼寫。例如古吉拉特語的字母就與印地語不同。然而，最令我吃驚的是同一種語言可以用兩種字母來拼寫！印地語（Hindi, 印度的官方語言）和烏爾都語（Urdu, 巴基斯坦的官方語言）實際上來說是同一種語言──印度斯坦語(Hindustani)。當人從左到右用德梵那卡瑞（或譯迪瓦那格里）（Devanagari）字母寫，那是印地語；當人從右到左用波斯──阿拉伯字母寫，那是烏爾都語。但在日常生活的對話中，除了在某些詞彙的選擇上有差異外，基本上你說印地語或烏都語都沒有分別。基本上，它們是一樣的！由於南亞次大陸的分割，印地語和烏爾都語成為兩個主權國的官方語言。畢竟人總愛突出自己與他們的鄰舍不同，今天有些說烏爾都語的人比較愛用從阿拉伯語和波斯語借來的字，而有些說印地語的人則愛用從梵文衍生出來的字。由於雙方的民族主義情緒，這兩種語言就愈分愈開了。

 

最後，大部分的印度語言根源於梵文，一如眾歐洲語言之於拉丁文和希臘文。例外的是南部的四種達羅毗荼語言（又作德拉威語言）(Dravidian languages)：泰米爾語(Tamil)、泰盧固語(Telugu)、坎納達語（又稱加拿拉語）(Kannada)和馬拉亞拉姆語(Malayalam)，它們分別是泰米爾納德邦(Tamil Nadu)、安德拉邦(Andhra Pradesh)、坎納他卡邦(Karnataka)和喀拉拉邦(Kerala)的官方語言。你可以在印度的紙幣上找到多姿多彩的印度語言的例子。

 

於2005年8月7日翻譯成中文

 

＊＊＊第一部分完＊＊＊

 

Reference:

Rupert Snell. Teach Yourself Beginner’s Hindi script: an introduction to reading and writing Hindi. 2000. London. Hodder Headline Plc.

 

The website of Central Institute of Indian languages provide a lot of useful information on Indian languages. The following is a map of proportion of speakers of different languages in India.

http://www.ciil.org/languages/map4.html

 

Examples of some Indian languages can be found on the following websites:

http://www.worldlanguage.com/ChineseTraditional/Languages/Malayalam.htm

http://www.worldlanguage.com/ChineseTraditional/Languages/Tamil.htm

http://www.worldlanguage.com/ChineseTraditional/Languages/Telugu.htm

http://www.worldlanguage.com/ChineseTraditional/Languages/Gujarati.htm

http://www.worldlanguage.com/ChineseTraditional/Languages/Hindi.htm

 

 

回到目錄