The Farce that is HINDI

[Samar Abbas]

On Wed, 31 Jan 2001, Rohit Chopra wrote:
> In fact, Hindustani - the language with words with Sanskrit, and Urdu
> roots as well as Persian and Arabic etymological connections is a more
> representative North Indian language than the completely artifical
> Sanskritized Doordarshan Hindi which unfortunately has become the only
> 'authentic' version of Hindi that the Indian state endorses.

  Hindee was basically invented by the British: "the term `Hindustani' was
put into circulation by the British," the language is hence nowadays known
as `Hinglish'. Hindee in general has had a debilitating impact on other
regional languages. See the following article :

  `The Farce That Is Hindi,' Sushil Srivastava, EPW,
  http://www.epw.org.in/35-4344/disc.htm

  It is the East India Co. and Gilchrist which invented `Hindi' and
`Hindustani' as a Sanskritised form of Urdu. They and the pundits referred
to these as `Hindee' and `Hindoostanee'. Thus, Hindee is basically derived
from the much older Urdu, but most of its speakers attempt to deny this.
They hence live in a state of confusion, a state so well displayed in the
present thread.

   Hindee was spread by the Brits in order to establish a new `lingua
franca' for their empire. It is for this reason that this language is so
dependant on English for its development (as noted by the above article).
Indeed, the modern Hindee is almost fifty percent English; the modern
generation hence refers to Hindi as `Hinglish' - a jocular reference to
Gilchrist's invention. `When one is speaking something half-English, one
might as well speak full English,' goes the usual logic, and the younger
crowd has indeed largely discarded Hindi ie. Hinglish. Its heavy
dependance on English is slowly becoming its nemesis. Indeed, two years
back an English film (Titanic) beat all Hindee films at the box office for
the first time in history. Last year, Mollywood had its worst year, mostly
losing out to English films. Now, its funding (ie. the Mafia) has been
exposed. So more bad news for Hindee. Also, a Boycott Bollywood website
has been set up :
       http://members.tripod.com/~boycottB/
So still more bad news for Hindeee.

 Info on how the English invented Hindi and Hindustani also known as
Hinglish :
http://www.rc.umd.edu/praxis/containment/raley/raley.html

  Later, the Mahatma eagerly adopted this new dialect in order to forge an
artificial Hindu-Muslim unity. However, he could never explain as to how
his new `secular' creation was the only language in the world which
somehow possessed two scripts. So most Hindus and Muslims rejected his
pseudo-secular conspiracies aimed at creating a confused multi-racial
Marxist-style melting-pot. In actual fact, Hindeee is an artificial
p-sec language spoken by nobody.

Regards,
Samar