Urdu is the same as Hindi [SPLIT FROM: Making Arabic our National Language]

[LastOfTheDinosaurs]

Re: Urdu is the same as Hindi [SPLIT FROM: Making Arabic our National Language]

@ravage

:).. common masses? how many urdu speakers here have agreed with you? The only people who have so far agreed to your stance arents urdu speakers to begin with, neither are you for that matter..

The reason Urdu speakers haven’t agreed with me are both psychological and political. Pychological because they want to deny that they are actually Hindustanis having a common race, culture, and language with Hindus/Muslims of India. I am of firm opinion that underlying the emphasis on religious and the artificial Urdu-Hindi difference is a quest for an identity different from Hindustani.

The political reason is, the more privileged the status of Urdu is, the more privileged the Urdu-speaking minority of Pakistan is. And this privileged position can only be ensured by obstinately denying that Urdu is actually Low Hindi.

**Imagine if Pakistani masess percieve that their national language is the same as that of the national language of India and not a native language but an importation from a foreign land, what will be their reaction to it? **

make up your mind. “more like” or equivalent?

Based on the consensus among linguists and all the people, including myself, who have visited India and/or interacted with Indians and have watched Hindi T.V. channels and movies, I can say with 100% certainty that both are the same language-sane script and some vocabulary in their standard or literary forms (called High Hindi and High Urdu).

I wonder how can you deny this fact?

If you trace the origin of English, it basically goes back about seven centuries with the Norman invasion of England, and the need for a new language to mediate between the saxons and the normans. Whereby the structure of english resembles french, and many words are shared. However, the two languages have evolved very differently since then, as have Urdu and Hindi.

Don’t draw a conclusion based on this. New English evolved over an era of 1000 years, very long time for a language to develop into something radically changed from its older version. Moreover, the circumstances that caused the evolution of English from old to new don’t apply to Urdu.

This would never happen in case of Urdu-Hindi. We are living in different times–the powerful media would never let happen what you think.

What would you say about American, Australian, British, etc. English the same despite spoken in different countires?

Perhaps the debate on what should be the vernacular for the whole country had some relevance at the time of partition. However, as it stands, there is no single language that is more widely spoken in Pakistan than Urdu. There is no language in which there are more publications, from all parts of the country, including NWFP, than Urdu.

You’re too late

The sooner the error is rectified, the better for Pakistan. Look how language issue was one of the main causes of the dismemberment of Pakistan. Linguistic chauvinism is very dangerous…moreover, it will cause the re-unification of Pakistan with India.

“One foreign observer” has no relevance here, I can quote 15 different ones if you wish :). There is a fairly strong anti-Urdu lobby too, why didnt any of these outlets choose to go with the ideology that would be anathemic to Pakistanis? We havent been in favour with the powers that be for a good part of this half century, it shouldnt be so hard for you to cite international communications broadcasts that tailors its services for a Pakistani audience in Hindi.

Don’t link acceptance of Urdu with Pakistani patriotism. Urdu is not even Pakistani…is a foreign (Hindustani) language just like English is.

Just imagine if BBC stops merge its Urdu and Hindi services, how would the political elite of Pakistan and Hindustan respond to it? BBC doesn’t agree with the dictatorship of Musharaf but still calls him “president of Pakistan”.

The way universities function isnt apolitical either. Depending on which university you look at, and what the faculty makeup thereat is, you will find dedicated centers for Urdu or those that teach it together with Hindi.

Institutions take political considerations into account, individuals usually don’t. That is why linguists agree that Urdu and Hindi are the two forms of the same language. Nevertheless, universities have started having one department for Urdu and Hindi i.e. Urdu-Hindi.

I know of several exchange students who came to Pakistan to learn Urdu. Their university did not send them to Hindustan to learn “low Hindi”

Some people go to Britian to get degrees in English and some to America.

simple, because Zee News and Zee Cinema present their news in “Low Hindi” which is intelligible to Urdu speakers too, amongst Punjabi speakers, and Gujrati speakers and Bengali speakers and Tamil speakers..

Mutual intelligibility (100%) means the equivalence of Low Hindi and Urdu.

why didnt any Urdu-Hindi speakers pick it up then? Why is Hindi and Urdu differentiated with even in Urdu speaking provinces in India? There is no question there of political expediency, its the same country.

Because there are some people in Hindustan wanting to write Urdu-Hindi (Hindustani) in Quranic (Perso-Arabic ) script.

And the very fact that there exists a bulk of vocabulary that is mutually unintelligible to the speakers of the two languages would indicate that they’re not the same language

Only in the highly Sanskritized/Persianized-Arabized forms of Urdu-Hindi…As for as language on DD (except they use for news), Star Gold, PTV, ZOOM, B4U, etc. there is absolutely no difference.

We can argue back and forth saying the same things over and over, what matters my friend, is that inspite of your desire to paint it as a language “artificially” imposed on the masses, Urdu remains the lingua franca in Pakistan, enabling cosmopolitan cities like Karachi to grow, Urdu remains the most published language in the country, and Urdu will continue to evolve as Pakistan evolves inshallah, regardless of rapidly outdated biases against it.

Lingua Franca come and go…Arabic which was one the lingua-franca has now shrunk to where it is the native language…same is the case of Persian, Russian, and other languages which were imperially imposed…You haven’t sudied history thoroughly…otherwise you wouldn’t have overlooked the transience of imperial structures and tools…

Urdu-Hindi had been enforced by British…