Liz

I certainly do  do not wish to present myself as an expert linguist,
specialising in Indo-Iranian languages, but my interest in RK 's 'Indian
period' draws me into a personal  requirement to define accurate parameters
related to the languages mentioned in his works.

Hindustani: The major dialect of Hindi, the general medium of communication
in Northern  India .

 Hindi: The principal language of Northern India belonging to the Indic
branch of the Indo-Iranian languages
written in Devanagari script.

Urdu:  A  variety of Hindustani spoken by Muslims  in RK's India of the Raj.
It is written in a Persian script and contains many Farsi and Arabic words
that would not  be found in the Hindi lexicon.As you rightly observe the
'official' language of Pakistan.

Bengali: The language of Western India ( the area around Calcutta) - the
Bengal of RK's time.
(Bangladesh incidentally translates as Golden Bengal )

The question asked in the market place of Dacca:
Yahin Koi Urdu bolne wala admi hai ? Is there anyone one here who can speak
Urdu ? would meet with a mainly negative response - I speak from experience
! (perhaps it was my execrable Urdu or as George Engle observes-a tendency
to overestimate one's linguistic competence !)

In essence Hindi and  Urdu are similar, but they are certainly not the same.
If I had to use a crude  comparative example, I  would  perhaps point to
Spanish and Portuguese


The word Urdu  is an abbreviation of zaban-i-urdu
(Hindustani) = language of the camp(related to 'ordu'  turkish -camp
(Persian  -urdu related to horde).

 In RK's time Urdu was mainly spoken in the area of Moghul occupation, the
whole of Northern India and what is now Pakistan, there are of course areas
where Sindhi, Baluchi,  Pushtu and  significantly Punjabi are the domestic
mother-tongues - Urdu is the common language. Someone speaking Hindi in
these  rural areas might be understood, but perhaps would not receive a
respectful welcome.

Are there any Urdu/English or Hindi/English dictionaries in the library at
Batemans ?

I think RK spoke enough Urdu to 'get by' , he certainly was aware of the
subtleties of address in  Urdu, although he went a little awry in the
conversation between Colonel Creighton and Kim as he leaves for St Xavier's:
I quote -
'Not when I brought thee' - Kim actually dared to use  the tum of equals -'
a white stallion's pedigree that night ?'

'Tum' is actually only used to inferiors. To equals or superiors  'ap' is
always used';

Although he gets it right in the next passage when Kim rebukes the tonga
wallah for using the pronoun 'thou'
(tum) - 'which is a rudeness when applied to a white man.'

I apologise for this lengthy message, which grasshoppers around a bit, but I
hope it offers some information of use and explains why I feel RK's
delightful 'Indian' stories deserve examination of     their linguistic
element.

Is there a  Urdu/Hindi glossary in existence that covers all of  RK's  works
?

Regards (and Salaams)
Michael Jefferson

-Original Message-----
From: Liz Breuilly <[log in to unmask]>
To: Kipling Mailbase <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Saturday, November 27, 1999 11:48 AM
Subject: Re: Urdu,Hindi etc


>Michael, could you explain in more detail the differences, mutual
>intelligibility, etc. between Hindi, Hindustani and Urdu? It sounds as
>if you know a fair bit about it.
>I was a little dubious about the Encarta reference to Bangla Desh. What
>is the answer to your question about the market place? Few, or none? Was
>Urdu used when it was East Pakistan?
>Liz
>




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