Today I went to some Muslim muhalla to meet some people. A bit of background is necessary. I am a bengali and know only three languages: Bengali, Urdu/Hindi and English. The people in the region I went to are mostly poor and uneducated.
The visit was pleasant. I talked with some people about this world and the next. No, that was wrong. I mostly listned. Anyway, before going there, I was worried that here people may not understand me at all; I don’t know the local language: Kannada! It has happened in the past that Hired drivers do not understand me, the shopkeepers do not understand me; it’s too much pain.
There was no problem at all because all of them spoke and understood Urdu.
Many of them speak far better than I do.
So here is the situation: you go to a muslim-dominated area, you will hardly face any problem, most of them understand Urdu. Most of the Muslims who come here also know Urdu. When you go to a non-Muslim dominated (poor) area, you have immense difficulty in communicating.
I think this is a good thing that almost all Muslims speak Urdu. Non-Muslims should also learn it(hindi should be enough) so that we have no problem in communicating.
I will end with a quote of one of the persons I met: “Urdu ki paidaish hui Lakhnau mein, usne jawani bitayi Hyderabad mein, aur burhi hui Bangalore mein” (Rough Translation: Urdu was born in Lucknow, spent it’s youth in Hyderabad and she is spending her old age at Bangalore).
Language does unite, especially if one is away from home, on foreign grounds. However, this is but one trait of language; this tool that humanity has cultivated is so dynamic and so powerful that it has changed and written many a history across the world.
Are Urdu and Farsi similar, and is Farsi understood/spoken where you are?
The Farsi spoken, taught and understood in India, is the classical Farsi–the langauge of Gulistan, Bostan, Gulzar Dabistan and the verses of Urfi, Iraqi, Hafiz etc. I have read it and can understand and talk. These days Urdu knowing people are less aware of Farsi still, Urdu and even Hindi owes a lot to Farsi. Now it is not taught as much also because Arabic gets prominence. In colleges and universities it is taught. Modern Persian is however not popular here at all.
Urdu, ah, what a beautiful language!
I wish i could speak it. I think i did at one point when i was very small, but sadly, no longer. I can understand it to some degree, as well as Hindi & Gujarati.
I often wish to spend a few good months in India with my family, who don’t speak much English, just so i am forced into re-learning the language(s).
I’d much prefer to learn Urdu over Gujarati, though.
P.S., “I… know only three languages: Bengali, Urdu/Hindi and English.“. ONLY THREE! My, my, what a dunce you are! I expect you to be fluent in no less than ten languages by the time you finish your degree, or you shall not be worthy of the title!
P.P.S., i had no idea you were Bengali. Not that it makes any kind of difference to me! But you call yourself “Indian”… is that OK? Just that you wouldn’t catch a Scottish person calling themselves English, or a Welsh person, Irish. Borders matter to people, no matter how recently they were established!
Yes, languages do unite. Cultures are often more important to one’s identity than are countries.
Farsi is not anybody’s mother tounge here, but many people learn it, as indscribe has already pointed out.
iMuslim, I am curious. Why you think it is beautiful? You don’t understand it! Is it the sound? IshaAllah you will learn it!
I did not point out that I am a bengali because I never felt the need. The fact that I am an Indian sets the much of the context/background. The fact that I am a believing Muslim sets the morals.
Being a bengali may sometime become important, especially when I sit down to eat. (Mughlai and Arabic food are very dear to me too.)
I admire your ‘oneness’; the ability to incorporate diversity within your definition of who you are. Few people can or would want to do that; in fact our identities are often defined by who we are not! We take pride and derive a sense of identity from what makes us different from our neighbor; our walls have begun to define who lives within, a pity, isn’t it?
whoof! that was a complement beyond me!
not at all, i didn’t care that much.
“I am curious. Why you think it is beautiful? You don’t understand it! Is it the sound?“
I do understand it, i just don’t speak it… i know, i’m weird.
It has a very “musical” sound to it, a bit like French.
nothing weird about it. i uderstand my father-tounge (which is not bengali) but I don’t speak it.
problem is my stock-of-words in urdu is meagre. i am trying to build it up.
ah! french. you surely have not heard spanish much.
when the muslims ruled spain, arabic was the official language. that is why spanish (I was learning spanish in the middle of last year. I started off quite well, then lack ot time ruined it.) has the flavour of arabic. as france is very close by, it also was influenced by arabic.
urdu is inspired by farsi (persian), hindi and arabic. farsi and arabic sounds very similar.
that is the reason why urdu sounds like french.
That is an interesting connection!
But my reference to French was simply that its intonation is similar to that of Urdu; no idea about their shared word/ grammatical origins.
If you have the time, watch the video i gave a link to, if you didn’t know about muslim spain. it will be very rewarding.
and a morale booster!
The same thing I find about Hindi. Basically the dialects of Hindi and Urdu doesn’t differ much, hence, if anyone knows Hindi, they’ll possibly be able to communicate to all Indian Muslims except in Bengal, Assam, Tamilnadu and Kerala.
But the relationship between French/Spanish with Urdu was not known to me. May I have any links for that?
There is not a thing that I can point to. You will find bits and pieces here and there. For example you will find that Spanish, Portugal and French are influenced by Arabic.
Influence of Farsi/Arabic on Urdu are also well known. Farsi and Arabic sounds very similar because of interations.
But I really don’t have one document that puts all these together.
This is an interesting thread. I have noticed the same thing while living in a Muslim area of Chennai. I barely know ten words of Tamil, but can get by passably in both Hindi and Urdu (ok, more Hindi than Urdu–but on the street they are pretty similar). It has always confused me exactly why Urdu is so prevalent across South Asia. I’ve found that even when I was traveling in Nepal and Tibet I was able to speak to people in Urdu–but it doesn’t exactly make a lot of sense to me. Is there a big effort to teach urdu among muslims? I imagine that it is pretty difficult to keep the language intact in places like Tamil Nadu where muslims have lived for generations with no real extended contact with their relatives in the north. How can we explain how the language survived?
For instance, as an American of German/Irish descent, my family forgot their mother tongues (Gallic and German almost as quickly as they disembarked the boat. Why didn’t that happen here?
I wrote a post about it a few days ago if you are interested in further musings.
http://www.scottcarneyonline.com/blog/2007/02/why-do-all-muslims-tn-speak-urdu.html#links
Scott
There is an effort to learn Urdu among Muslims, yes. Somehow they can attach themselves to it, maybe because of the Arabic letters, or maybe the abundance of Farsi/Arabic words.
The main reason why most Muslims do understand Urdu is because the sermons in mosques are delivered in Urdu, normally.
Tamil Muslims, in general, do not speak Urdu. Those in Chennai normally do. Most people outside the capital can not understand or speak Urdu. Interestingly, there are two kinds of Mosques there: Tamil Mosque, and Urdu Mosque. Urdu Mosques are those where the sermon is given in Urdu.
In the mid-19th century, there was an effort by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan to promote Urdu as the common language of Indian Muslims. I am not aware of the effects of this effort by Sir Syed in South India.
But what I am interested to know is how is it that the Muslims of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka speak Urdu while Tamil and Keralite Muslims don’t? Is it because Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh had been under the rule of Persian/Turkish rulers whereas Tamil Nadu and Kerala had not?