Hindi

[Shailendra Raj Mehta]

Samar Abbas wrote:

 << But Hindee is written in a whole four scripts: Perso-Arabic, Devanagari,
Kaithi for its Bihari `dialect' and Mahajani for its Rajasthani `dialect'.
Now, which other language in the world has a whole 4 scripts ?  Perhaps
the Sanghvi linguists may wish to explain. Why, even the Mahatma would
have a hard time explaining that. >>


Actually I answered that in a previous post. But let me do so again.
Sanskrit has been written in more than 4 scripts. At least a dozen. Perhaps
more. Does that make Sanskrit a farce?

You continue the dialogue:

Malaiya:

>> The word "Hindavi" was used by Khusrow, "Hindi" was used by Sharfuddin
>> Yazdi (1424) ... What about Kabir (1398-?) ... Raidas (1398-1448) ...
>> Amir Khosrow (1283-...

Abbas:


 >Most of the personages above wrote in Punjabi, Avadhi and Rajasthani.

If so, Samar, then you set up such an impossibly high standard for the
definition of a language that, all dialects too become, in your definition,
separate languages. Khusro, Kabir, Raidas are completely comprehensible to
modern speakers of Hindi, and are at least as close to modern Hindi as
Shakespeare's English is to modern English. Did Shakespeare not write in
English? Would you argue that "Elizabethan" was a separate language?

Shailendra Raj Mehta wrote:
>Actually, the language that is in real trouble in India...is Urdu.

Samar wrote:


 >>This exactly was the rationale behind the formation of Pakistan. At least
the language of the Mughals survives there. Mr. Mehta's statement reveals
that, in retrospect, Jinnah was right after all.>>

Shailendra:

I said nothing of the sort.
If you would like to believe it, that it is your prerogative.

Oh, Urdu survives in India all right. It is just that Gulzar, Javed Akhtar
and others sell more copies of their poetry in the Devanagari script than
in the Arabic script. In fact I am not even sure that they publish in
Arabic script anymore. For example, was Javed Akhtar's recent
collection, "Tarkash", published in the Arabic script?

Samar, you obviously feel passionately about many things, Urdu among them.
But I daresay, a cool level headed analysis of the issues might help.
Linguistic name calling, (calling Hindi, Hindee, or a farce, just because
some English pamphleteer did so) is neither accurate nor justified.

Shailendra Raj Mehta.