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Society and Business: Session 16 Salamah Ansari

This document discusses the politics of language in India over several centuries. It describes how Hindustani evolved from Prakrit, Persian, and Sanskrit to become Hindi and Urdu. In the 19th-20th centuries, Hindi was standardized while other medieval languages like Awadhi and Bhojpuri declined. The selection of official languages fabricated histories and ignored Islamic communities' languages for political reasons. This led to internal conflicts and contrived relationships between languages like Sanskrit, Persian, and their rival Urdu. Now Hinglish, a hybrid of Hindi and English, has emerged.

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Kathiravan Rajendran
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20 views

Society and Business: Session 16 Salamah Ansari

This document discusses the politics of language in India over several centuries. It describes how Hindustani evolved from Prakrit, Persian, and Sanskrit to become Hindi and Urdu. In the 19th-20th centuries, Hindi was standardized while other medieval languages like Awadhi and Bhojpuri declined. The selection of official languages fabricated histories and ignored Islamic communities' languages for political reasons. This led to internal conflicts and contrived relationships between languages like Sanskrit, Persian, and their rival Urdu. Now Hinglish, a hybrid of Hindi and English, has emerged.

Uploaded by

Kathiravan Rajendran
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Society and Business

Session 16

Salamah Ansari
Module
The Politics of Language in India

• The evolution of Indian languages and the role of the State.

2
History…
• Prakrit + Persian = Hindustani = Hindi + Urdu (Orientalism)
Nagari- Nastaliq, Sanskrit- Persio-Arabic, Hindus- Muslims

• Modern Hindi: 19th – 20th century

• Medieval L. : Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Brajbhasha

• Grammar and Syntax of Hindi and Sanskrit are different

Violence done to language is violence done to literature.


3
Erasing Centuries of History….
• Hindustani- Almost extinct

• Orientalist Discovery- Sanskrit:

a)Mother of all Indo-European L.


b)Linkages to Greek and Latin
c)Aryan – Dravidian L. are antithetical

• Demotion of dialects and vernaculars

• Removal of Persio- Arabic Vocabulary, pronunciation

• Infusion of Sanskrit Vocabulary


4
Official Languages: Fabricated Histories
• Linguistic issues are metaphors for ethnic divides
• National Languages
• History of origin, purity, evolution, and uniformity
• Prestige of history
• Accommodative of new vocabulary
• Cobble a nation out of diverse and heterogeneous communities
• Refusal to recognize the L. of Islamic communities
• Status over substance
• Rush for Classical L.- from scholarly endeavor to political
contestation 5
Conflict

• Internal fragmentation

• Contrived relationship with two classical L.


– Artificial addition of Sanskrit
– Artificial subtraction of Persian

• Intimate enmity with Urdu- older sister, fraternal


twin, bitter rival

6
Hinglish

• Hindi in Roman letters

• Hybrid words native to neither Hindi nor English

• End of India’s resistance to colonialism

Embracing the very language that was once the embodiment of


subjugation.
7

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