SV: SV: interesting experience/Urdu/hindi

[Lars Martin Fosse]

Samar Abbas [SMTP:abbas at IOPB.RES.IN] skrev 2. september 2000 13:54:
> On Thu, 31 Aug 2000, Lars Martin Fosse wrote:
> > I am afraid that your critique of Bharat Gupt's Urdu history is not
well
> > founded so far.
>
>  The purpose of my posts are to alert European indologists to the dangers
> of unconciously accepting official propaganda as `history'. All I can do
> is urge you to keep an open mind when dealing with these questions.

I know it is a trend in Urdu-speaking circles to dissociate Urdu from Hindi
and other Indian languages. Like the Hindutva attempt to deny the fact that
the Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages belong to separate families, this
trend among Urdu-speakers is in crass violation of all sound linguistic
knowledge. The arguments against the "alternative" theory you propose are
overwhelming, and no amount of "open-mindedness" will convince Western
linguists (or for that matter any competent linguist Western or otherwise)
that Urdu is not an Indian language derived from a Prakrit, filled up with
loan-words from Arabic and Persian. What you are presenting is essentially
another politicized academic non-starter.

Many
> Europeans specialising in Indus Valley, Sanskrit etc. unconciously accept
> official propaganda on areas in which they do not specialise: Saka,
> Mughal, Buddhist history etc. Please remember that `official' history in
> South Asia reflects 50 years of dominance by a particular race - under
the
> veneer of `respectability' is a very chauvinist and racist ideology.

It should have been quite clear by now that Western scholars are not that
eager to "take orders" from governments, Indian and otherwise. (Scholars
working inside dictatorship have a different situation.) Our views are
based on scholarly work, and we don't like to be told by politicians what
we should think and say. Nor are we that naive. We do not normally
"subconsciously" accept "official versions" of this or that. The arguments
concerning the Indianness of Urdu are chrystal clear, based on grammatical
structure, vocabulary etc. No competent linguist needs to be told what to
think.

>   So we now have a contorted babu-style theory: Urdu supposedly
originated
> from a hypothetically existing Khari Boli (itself only attested by the
> 19th century), but this development itself must be `assumed' as it is not
> attested in the literary record.

Noone on this list has mentioned such a theory. What we say, is that Urdu
has its roots in a Prakrit (not in Kharhi Boli). Are you responding to some
other hair-brained politicized theory with origins in the Hindutva
movement, or are you responding to what you perceive to be the standard
academic version of Urdu history?

>  Also, it could well be the other way around. It is always the invaders
> who imposed their langauge on others; only rarely was it vice verse.

This is positively wrong. Invaders do not always impose their language on
the conquered. They do so occasionally, but very often they "get lost" in
the masses of the conquered people. This happened to the Mongols that
conquered China - Kublai Khan spoke Chinese, not Mongol. This also happened
to the Norsemen who conquered Normandy: there French, not Norwegian is
spoken. What usually happens is that conquerors contribute with vocabulary
to the existing local language: just look at all the French in English,
vocabulary dumped by an invading French army that took control of England.
The same thing happened to that particular Prakrit that became Urdu.

To
> assume that the likes of Mahmud Ghaznavi and Muhamad Ghori smashed dozens
> of Hindu temples but somehow adopted Prakrits stretches the imagination.

Noone assumes that. Their soldiers did.

> > The term "Urdu", BTW, comes from the Turkish word "Hordu" (ever heard
> > of the Golden Hord?), meaning military camp.
>
>   The question then becomes: which military camp ? The camps at Ghazni
> have been identified by Prof. Sachau as the home of Urdu and not camps in
> the Deccan or in Khari-Bolisthan. No Prakrits in Afghanistan in 900
> AD either.

I have not seen Prof. Sachau's work, but this would only be correct if we
assume that there was a large contingent of Prakrit speakers in Ghazni. The
point is that the history of Urdu is judged on the basis of linguistic
criteria. Other criteria are secondary. There were no Prakrits in
Afghanistan as you say, consequently Urdu must have arisen in India where
related dialects are found. I will therefore assume that Prof. Sachau has
no case until I have seen a few nifty arguments from him in support of his
theory.

>  Also, court language in Delhi was not always Persian: under Babar it was
> Chagatai Turkic, Arabic was also widely used, and perhaps the Lodis and
> Suris spoke Pashto. The development of a common link language would thus
> become more likely under such circumstances.

It is true that the first Moghuls that arrived in India, used Turkic, but
Persian was the language used by most of the Moghul courts. In a Muslim
court milieu, it is self-evident that Arabic was in use to some extent, but
Persian was the main language of culture.

Best regards,

Lars Martin

Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse
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