INVITED SPEAKERS

Hindi is perfect; Urdu is messy: construction of Hindi and Urdu in the19th century

In this paper, I examine sociolinguistic processes by which the Hindi language and the Nagari script were constructed as flawless; and the Urdu language and script as deficient. I argue that such conceptualizations, known in the literature as language ideologies, about Hindi and Urdu as expressed in the (meta)linguistic debates of the 19th century played a crucial role in the construction of Hindu identity. I further argue that to such construals of Hindi and Urdu, the colonialism contributed significantly; the colonial language ideology may have provided a model for (Hindu) nationalists to draw upon.

The portrayal of Hindi as perfect involved arguing that the Hindi writing system shows one-to-one relationship between letters and sounds they represent. A second argument, which probably follows from the first, was that Hindi was easy to acquire. By contrast, Urdu was constructed as a messy language in which the relationship between letters and sounds is chaotic. A further argument was that it is a language hard to acquire. Such images of Hindi and Urdu were part of the debates on the suitability of Hindi (and by implication unsuitability Urdu) for law courts.

Existing works on the role that Hindi played in the construction of Hindu identity drawing on sociological perspectives invoke larger social and political structure as a means analysis (King 1994, Dalmia 1997). Language in such analyses is treated merely as a symbol, an auxiliary factor. I adopt a language ideology framework in particular, the model developed by Irvine & Gal (2000). This approach allows us to show that the metalinguistic discourse of the 19th century was not simply reflective of the macro social structures, but was constitutive of it. Furthermore, I show that the formation of ideologies about Hindi and Urdu cannot be seen in isolation from the larger colonial discourse. I show that the earlier British conceptions of Hindi as easy and Urdu as difficult were available on which the Hindu nationalists built further.

My study is based on an analysis of several metalinguistic documents of the late 19th century, namely memorandums, official reports, and newspaper articles. Bulk of the data comes from the famous memorandum of 1897 entitled “Court character and primary education in the N-W. Provinces & Oudh” submitted anonymously, but believed to be prepared under the leadership of Madan Mohan Malviya.

References

1897. Court character and primary education in the N-W. provinces & Oudh. Allahabd: The Indian Press.

Selections from the vernacular news papers in the NWP, Oudh and Central Provinces. 1869, 1871, 1883

Dalmia, Vasudha. 1997. The nationalization of Hindu tradition. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Irvine, Judith T. & Susan Gal. 2000. Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. Regimes of language, ed. By Paul Kroskrity. 35-83. Santa Fe, NM: SAR.

King, Christopher R. 1994. One language, two scripts: the Hindi movement in nineteenth century North India. Delhi: Oxford University Press. 2