The Farce that is HINDI

[Yashwant Malaiya]

Samar Abbas <abbas at IOPB.RES.IN> wrote:

> Hindee was basically invented by the British:

What about Kabir (1398-?):

"hIrA parA bajAr maiN
rahA chhAr lapaTAy"

Raidas (1398-1448)?

"prabhujI tum chandan ham pAnI,
jAkI a.ng a.ng bAs samAni"

Amir Khosrow (1283-)?

"raajaa pyaasaa kyo.n?
gadahaa udaasaa kyo.n?"  (loTaa na thaa)

What about Ibrahim Adil Shah (-1618)?

"bujhaauu diipak ko, tarAsuu diinkar aavegaa."

The word "Hindavi" was used by Khusrow, "Hindi" was used by
Sharfuddin Yazdi (1424). The word Urdu did not come into
use until 1645, and even then what is now called Urdu
continued to be often called Hindi well until 1850.

>Indeed, the modern Hindee is almost fifty percent English;

There are several Hindi newspapers on the web, in case one doesn't
have access to printed ones. They do have English words, perhaps 5%.

It is one thing to presents one's point of view, perhaps
even stretch things a little bit, but why isn't there
any hesitation in outright gross exaggeration (specially
by an academic researcher).

Yashwant