My dear Ranjit,
We are playing with words which could be manipulated whichever way a
person feels like. I am sure you are reading the extraneous comments in this
thread. Urdu and Hindi are essentially the same languages. As a matter of
fact, Yashwant's dear Hindi, mine too I am not denying the fact, is Urdu
introduced by the healthy mixture of Turkish, Arabic, Farsi, and bunch of
middle age north Indian languages.
How did this miracle happen? I can write a book on that fascinating of
language creation in the market place. Urdu is a Turkish word for an army
camp. Since cowbeltwallahs have been refusing the fact that Urdu is a
national language before any such Hinduttvawallahs was born and bred in steep
Hindu traditions, I have to be firm on my thesis.
What the army camp does is to fight wars. How they do is not important,
why they do is equally not important. They bring their fighting men,
machinery and put tent cities in previously peaceful country side, Urdu is
born.
Men need food, water and other supplies such as entertainment and local
help in getting from one place to other. Local people see this as manna from
heaven. Goods which would otherwise not sell in the distant markets are taken
off of their hands with gold coins passed as freely as can be possible for the
army camps.
The communications is required and slowly established, among other things,
such as trust and sense of fair play. The wars were fought as often as
possible, practically every year in one area or the other. The job of actual
fight may last for few days, perhaps weeks or month and years.
The fighting force came from foreign countries. That is to say marauding
armies were essentially speakers of foreign languages. Not college graduates
with second language Prerequisite for their getting diplomas. They could not
exist in an hostile atmosphere and needed much help in getting things done.
Enter the market language installation wizard. Automatically words were
coined or foreign words taken to be the words to be used in communications
with strangers. Army boys learn some desi words and desis learn some foreign
words. So far so good.
Objectives are accomplished and army of occupation moves away, each with
a set of vocabulary, style and new grammar, army boys and desis. Army of
occupation finds are necessary in yet another dominion territory and the
same exact process occurs, ad infinitum.
Army boys or their heirs and assignees come back to the first place and
find that they are comfortable with the native desi using some of their words
and army boys using some of the desi words. Army boys spread some new desi
words that even the local desis have not heard before. They pick those
words and their Urdu language gets stronger day by day.
At a given point and time such new language takes to writing poetry,
official commands, laws, proclamations, rules and regulations, weights,
measures, civic and commerical terms, whole set of action words which
were not needed by the local desis become part and parcle of their lives.
They don't call that invasion on their native speech. They are gung ho
about it. New opportunity to break away from village lives and make a
name and fame from this added power. Some move with army camp and bring
back prestige, power, titles and money.
Is anybody sitting and making this newfangled language or is it a case
of reality of communication puzzle solved amicably without any disregard
for the local dialect and its peculiar function, now minimized and
marginalized with Urdu doing more things than the local language ever
dream of doing.
Yashwant Malaiya's great-great-great grandfather and great as in smart
person takes things easy and uses this new thingy for his family's welfare
and progress. Yashwant benefited from all this magic. He is a product of
Urdu not Hindi. Even Jawaharlal Nehru, a pucca white skinned Kashmiri
Aryan Brahmin used Urdu rather than Sanskritized Hindi as he had to get
votes from the Urdu speaking people. There were handful of Hindi speaking
people in the rural area where green revolution was making Nehru's words
as if they came from Hindu heaven. He, however, called the language
Hindustani, another name for Urdu to mollify the Hindi speaking and
writing elite.
Bollywood became famous because they produced Urdu movies. Kardar was
a giant. Shantaram Vankudre, 'V.Santaram' being Hindu Shudra and all picked
up fast and made blockbuster movies in Urdu, not Sanskritized Hindi. Money
was poured in the Urdu camp and there were very few who do not like the
jingling of the cash registers.
The name Hindi means nothing to me. You can name a horse a donkey or
vice versa and the essential characteristics of that animal does not get
lost. Hinduttvawallahs themselves created this monster. Congress party had
a program of teaching Hindustani free of charge. Saffronites gathered their
own nitwits and started running the same program with wholesale
Sanskritization of Urdu as a backbone.
From that day the division, artificial division is made in a language of
the people and Yashwant makes a big deal about his faction not getting moola
from the state to bolster this Sanskritization malaise. How pitiful these
educated, responsible people get?
I still remember Yashwant claiming the strength and antiquity of
Deccani, a pure form of Urdu not affected by the English linguistic
incursions. I agree with him on this point.
Ranjit, I cannot fight this war with all. I have a smattering knowledge
of Malayalam and I can make a list of words in that language and show you
the Urdu terms being so common that you feel they are native Malayalam.
Happens all the time. Marathi is thirty percent Urdu and Hindi is ninty
plus percent Urdu.
Your call. Say something profound. I get barbs and I don't mind, part
of life. The answer that comes from you or Yashwant should add to the
quality of discussion being sidetracked by guys who know didly pooh about
this linguistic infighting.
Let us make a difference. Talk sense not regurgitated material.
Manu blasted your theory, though my money is on you. Sanskrit affected
many languages including Urdu. It had to. Remember my thesis noted above
in which the necessity of communication was the lightening rod to make
Urdu. Why should Sanskrit be not part of that process?
Sid Harth..."Yashwant is trying to reinvent a wheel and asking for pork
from the Delhi Badshahs, make it bad shahs."
My dear Ranjit,
As my good buddy and sparring partner, honorable Herr Professor,
Yashwant Malaiya has started this thread with a careless attitude, make
it lackadaisical attitude, make it 'devil cares' attitude and is hiding
in his ivory tower, let us get him back on the track. Get that comic,
Manu outta here, such a loser.
Yashwant, yours truly, Ranjit and Milind, tell a story that would
make Kishore Joshi cry. Mine makes him cry fowl all the time but that
is another story. Ranjit covers Malayalam, Yashwant in one of his
Sanskritized Hindi, Milind in Marathi and yours truly in any language
he so chooses.
The object is to display the best of talent in each respective
culture. The initial language version, its reasonable translation must
be in a form that is neither too short or too long. All rule must be
disregarded as to the truthfulness, that is no evidence would be presented
to support the arguments made in the story.
Whoever cries the best may be the judge. Of course, a bucketful of
tears as an evidence may prove if the said person really cried or not.
The bucketful of tears may be handed over to the Smithsonian at Washington,
DC. Go for it.
Sid Harth..."Going on a tangent is another characteristic I found among
desis where a ball could have been taken or kicked to make a goal to win."
