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Languages of India

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Re: Languages of India

#211

Post by z3phyr »

kranner wrote: post #208
z3phyr wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

अवश्य - Avashya It is closer to "Certainly"

Yes, but I didn't say there was no word in formal Hindi that didn't mean the same thing as 'zaroor'. I said 'nishchit' isn't that word. 'Avashya' is again a word you wouldn't be able to use in colloquial speech without coming across as eccentric. It means the same thing as 'zaroor' but it's like saying "I am desirous of x " instead of "I want x ".

My grandmother was illiterate, but I remember her using Avashya even when she did not speak Khari boli much

Re: Languages of India

#212

Post by p1esk »

vishnugupta wrote: post #20

The diversity in general in India is mind boggling which most of Indians take for granted. Be it terrain, climate, language, culture, food, etc., And all the above change noticeably every 200KM or so such that you will find more similarities between Delhi and Lahore (different countries) than Delhi and Bangalore. It's a miracle that India manages to function as one country.

I wonder why some countries (like India) have so much diversity, while others (like Russia) have so little...

Re: Languages of India

#213

Post by kranner »

z3phyr wrote: post #203
u801e wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed that some words have different pronunciations. For instance, the word for "definitely" is pronounced zaroor in Urdu but in Hindi, it's pronounced jaroor.

It depends. For what an urdu speaking person will use "Zaroor", a hindi speaking person would use "Avashya".

Even the Hindiest of the Hindi-speaking people, e.g. in Uttarakhand say "zaroor".

You will only find someone like a Hindi teacher or a priest using a word like "avashya" when they're trying to signal that they are educated and thus speaking in the 'pure' register. In the natural language of Hindi, the word used is 'zaroor'. Using 'avashya' is speaking a conlang, pretty much.

Re: Languages of India

#214

Post by trap3486 »

KorematsuFred wrote: post #196
random314 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are 100% wrong. The Bollywood Hindi is actually the real Hindi. It's not a mix of 2 languages. It's just one language - Hindi. Just like Hollywood English is simply English. The Hindi that is taught in text books in India is an artificial Hindi constructed 100 years ago by replacing Hindi words of Persian origin with words rooted in Sanskrit. So far this artificial language has stayed inside text books. If you ac…

> constructed 100 years ago by replacing Hindi words of Persian origin with words rooted in Sanskrit That is untrue I have a master degree in Hindi. Bollywood Hindi is not Hindi in any sense. For example it does not match to a Navbharat Times to typical classic of Hindi literature. > Which part of India wouldn't you say > "Zara kitaab dena" Essentially everywhere from railway signs to classrooms to essays and everywh…

>Essentially everywhere from railway signs to classrooms to essays and everywhere.

These are official government sanctioned institutions practicing text book Hindi. I have used it in classrooms too. This language is never used in the streets. Differing choice of nouns perfectly intelligible to each other doesn't even constitute a different dialect, much less a different language. There are cultural and scriptural differences and an effort to use more Sanskrit words in Hindi literature starting 150 years ago and an effort to use Persian words by Mughal courtiers words going back even further. I know several people from the Hindi heartland and absolutely noone uses pustak in place of kitaab or ullas in place of khushi, unless they want to be laughed at. That language belongs to classrooms, dramas and to a lesser extent Hindi literature. Just listen to this interview of mayawati.

https://youtu.be/X8tbH-TCyqA

She uses awaaz, nafrat and afsos as well as English words and claims to be speaking Hindi. Is she wrong? Is she not from the heartland? Is she actually speaking Urdu? If you use these words like of Dil instead of hriday in an academic exam you will lose points, but that is an exercise in linguistic politics that any true student of language has no time for.

I understand that Hindi and Urdu are taught as distinct languages in India and there is an ongoing effort to bifurcate the nouns used in both systems but this effort has been largely unsuccessful amongst actual speakers of Hindi. They have succeeded with news anchors, plays, newspapers etc. But not anywhere else.

Re: Languages of India

#215

Post by kranner »

_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #206
yumraj wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they are Urdu words, not Hindi. Yes, they are more commonly used than the Hindi words you mentioned. For what it's worth, मुजरिम is also Urdu. Not sure about आरोप, but I have a feeling that it's also Urdu, though I could be wrong. Edit: read any Hindi newspaper these days, at least the online edition, and in fact you will find a lot of common Hindi/Urdu words being replaced with English words written in Devnagri…

Is चाभी a Hindi word?

Hindi and Urdu both.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E0%A4%9A%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%AD%E...

Re: Languages of India

#216

Post by kranner »

z3phyr wrote: post #211
kranner wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but I didn't say there was no word in formal Hindi that didn't mean the same thing as 'zaroor'. I said 'nishchit' isn't that word. 'Avashya' is again a word you wouldn't be able to use in colloquial speech without coming across as eccentric. It means the same thing as 'zaroor' but it's like saying "I am desirous of x " instead of "I want x ".

My grandmother was illiterate, but I remember her using Avashya even when she did not speak Khari boli much

I've grown up in North India and have never word anyone speak the word "avashya" outside of a Hindi lesson. I can only assume your grandmother was using it as an exemplar for your benefit. Perhaps there are communities where it is spoken colloquially but by far the norm is "zaroor" or "jaroor" (same word but the sound has shifted in some places like Western UP from Z to J).

You can find examples of the use of "avashya" in the movies of Hrishikesh Mukherjee (like Golmaal and Chupke-Chupke) in which off-beat characters who made a special point of speaking the purest Hindi as part of their characters' eccentricity used "avashya" and other words like it, while the other characters who spoke normal Hindi didn't.

Re: Languages of India

#217

Post by kranner »

yumraj wrote: post #199
random314 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you have been basically arguing is that Urdu is India's most widely spoken language and Hindi is a niche minority language, definitely outside the top 20.

It's not clear to me how that conclusion can be drawn simply my looking at a very small set of words , while completely ignoring all else that makes a language. Moreover, there are hundreds of dialects of Hindi spoken in India, each with its own nuances and varying degrees of Urdu words . In addition, there is no denying that Urdu and Hindi have some shared lineage. Again will refer to the Wikipedia [0] for better co…

> while completely ignoring all else that makes a language.

What else makes a language? Syntax? Hindi and Urdu have almost identical syntax. There are more syntactical differences between Hindi and Punjabi than there are between Hindi and Urdu.

Re: Languages of India

#218

Post by random314 »

yumraj wrote: post #199
random314 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you have been basically arguing is that Urdu is India's most widely spoken language and Hindi is a niche minority language, definitely outside the top 20.

It's not clear to me how that conclusion can be drawn simply my looking at a very small set of words , while completely ignoring all else that makes a language. Moreover, there are hundreds of dialects of Hindi spoken in India, each with its own nuances and varying degrees of Urdu words . In addition, there is no denying that Urdu and Hindi have some shared lineage. Again will refer to the Wikipedia [0] for better co…

The Wikipedia article does not support your argument. It merely relates the history of the bifurcation primary driven by differences in script and religion. I am well versed with the history of Hindi and Urdu going beyond this Wikipedia article.

If you want to make your argument rigorous please give an estimate of pure textbook Hindi speakers (people who use avashya instead of zaroor, hriday instead of Dil outside academics and newspapers) and "hindustani" speakers.

My conservative estimate is less than 10M for "pure Hindi" and greater than 300M for regular hindi/Urdu.

This is because virtually every one from North India and Pakistan speaks the so called Hindi/Urdu mixed language. I have also met bhojpuri, awadhi, marwari speakers but I am yet to meet the mythical pure Hindi speaker and I am a really old guy.

Re: Languages of India

#219

Post by danans »

avemuri wrote: post #207
danans wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And all the above change noticeably every 200KM And if you are in a dense enough area, it can change every 2km, when accounting for differences in socially conditioned dialects and customs.

You mean a sparse enough area? I've generally found dense areas are more homogeneous while even neighboring villages in sparsely populated areas with bad roads and no telecommunications tend to be very different. Makes intuitive sense since transmission of culture is easier.

Not really. In dense areas, you often have far more diverse populations, as cities attrat people with different traditions and backgrounds. But in a place with as many social groups as India, these people often maintain many of their customs and habits even in the dense urban context, resulting in a great variety within a small area.

Re: Languages of India

#220

Post by marton78 »

p1esk wrote: post #212
vishnugupta wrote: post #20

The diversity in general in India is mind boggling which most of Indians take for granted. Be it terrain, climate, language, culture, food, etc., And all the above change noticeably every 200KM or so such that you will find more similarities between Delhi and Lahore (different countries) than Delhi and Bangalore. It's a miracle that India manages to function as one country.

I wonder why some countries (like India) have so much diversity, while others (like Russia) have so little...

Well, India has a history of for millennia, whereas Russia is way younger.
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