Urdu

[Robert Zydenbos]

Am Sa, 03 Feb 2001 schrieb Shailendra Raj Mehta:

> Robert Zydenbos wrote:
> 
> "Muslims in Kerala speak Malayalam, those in Tamilnadu speak
> Tamil; (b) what is 'local'? Urdu is basically northwest Indian and
> well rooted there, as Rohit Chopra already mentioned. "
> 
> What about the Muslims in Karanataka and Andhra Pradesh? They all speak a
> (very gracious) Deccani Urdu.

Not even all the Muslims in Karnataka: in the coastal region they speak
a variety of Malayalam.

(I merely wished to point out that the stereotype of Urdu as a 'Muslim
language', and that 'all Muslims speak Urdu, also when it is not
locally rooted' is mistaken - I had the impression, itself perhaps
mistaken, that this was still being believed here.)

On another note: we should not forget the Karnatakan contribution to
the development of Urdu (i.e., the Dakkani form) in the Bijapur-Gulbarga
area, where it was cultivated at royal courts before it became
fashionable to do so in the north.

Robert Zydenbos
Institut für Indologie und Iranistik
Universität München