Monsoon Days

Ally #103 I seem to have disappointed my fine fellow panjabis on both sides of the border (first dost mittar, now you) by saying that panjabi is a dying tongue (like all other tongues).
Let me present my case is this way: As expats, I ask you two to look at panjabi children born in the west - do you know of even ONE panjabi child (born of pakistani or indian parents, it does not matter) born in the US who is more comfortable in panjabi than in English?? Just ONE child?? Is there any reason to think that what is happening to the expats today will not happen to the inpaks (to use Mr. Madani`s unique contribution to the english language) tomorrow??

I rest my case. :-)

I agree that it seems incredible that a language spoken by 150 million people (I assume this is a good figure Ally came up with) is doomed to extinction in just a few more generations.

dost mittar #100 I must admit I am more of an armchair theorist on this, and not one to start a campaign to teach the Quran in english. The closest I came was when I volunteered once as a sunday school teacher for small kids (which included my own). First thing I did, I went through the Kalima in English (``There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his prophet``), and we spent three or four Sundays discussing the implications of this one sentence only.

As for expressing oneself in one`s mother language, I think you do a pretty good job of expressing yourself in English. :-) You and I could probably have a great conversation in panjabi on chowk e.g. = but we dont, since that basically means cutting every nonpanjabi speaker out. Sometimes temporal starts off in urdu and then i respond in urdu, but that too is unfair to non-urdu speakers who are therefore deprived of out incredible wit and wisdom. ;-) So, lets have a universal language. If you want to learn gurmukhi, that is fine. But it would be a matter of personal interest, not to promote better communication with other souls on this planet (including the unfortunate souls who were born non-Panjabi).

tahmed #93,

i dont think its fair for you to say that Punjabi is a dying language, many more Punjabi ppl, are now turning back to their native tongue though not for anything professional, there has been a renewed interest in the language from Punjabi ppl, and more so from the ppl abroad. I am taking time out to read in Shahmukhi, and train my eye to read it without confusing it with Urdu, also i would like to learn Gurmukhi, and there is so much help on the internet and things for those with an interest.

Eventually the borders will ease, and Punjabi ppl will communicate with each other, they will do it, in Punjabi. There will eventually end up being more interaction and development, between Chandigarh and Lahore. Punjabi has a sophisticated vocabulary, its been forgotten, but now ppl are reviving it, there are efforts under way to add more vocabulary to it. As Punjabi ppl progress and prosper, so will their language. So i wouldn`t write the native language of about 150 million people worldwide off the books just yet.

harimou:
``Oh, the same thing happens amongst Sangilikkaruppans and Sudalaimuthus of Tamil Nadu in India where the politicians send their children to English-medium schools while opening Tamil-medium schools for the hewers of wood and drawers of water. `
Why blame second rate politicians? How about the ``visionary architect`` of India who sent his grandchildren to Doon school instead of letting them rub shoulders with the children of janata-janardhan in the schools run by his socialist government?

harimau:
There is always an earlier stage when words for a new discipline can be added and as the discipline grows, the words in that language grow. That is why, Spanish, German and French have equivalent words or spellings for equivalent technical terms. Unfortunately when scientific disciplines were developing in Europe, University were being open, our guys were doing Sufi poetry, Urdu poetry, buliding Taj Mahal, chasing Anarkali [on Lahore-Islamabad motorway], killing their brothers to get to the throne and in a constant state of war/ empire building with no interest in science. Now it is too late to create Kendriya Hindi Sansthan and try to unify northern Indian languages and make it scientific using Sanskrit.

There is not a single element in the periodic table that owes it to Indian, Chinese, Arabs, Muslims or Turkish empires. The disciplines require systematic and constant approaches which were not there. The scholarships in certain areas owed it to few scholars and with the death of the scholar or his disciples, the area of specialty suffered.

Hindi, Urdu, Panjabi are good for communication, producing movies, songs and literature and culture. These are the languages of about one tenth of humanity. These languages are here to stay but for the above mentioned purposes. But we do have misplaced and obsessive infatualtion with our languages and the rivalries between them is additional headache. Two northeners would be fighting over it a third northerner would be inventing scientific equivalents words. All three are wasting time. North has to learn many thing from south India and Language development within rational boundries is one of them. Actually ``What North India should be taught by (or should learn from) South India`` is a good topic worthy of several articles at chowk. Perhaps you or somebody from south should take this challenge.

I disagree with Romair that no multi-ethnic country should have an absolute majority of a single group. He forget to mention Britain and Switzerland surviving without any problem while Russia and Yugoslavia did not. Similarly the rise of China or India in the future would not invent wheels to Mandrinize or Hindiaze all scientific languages. They will actully find way to spell the already developed words in Mandarin, same as we have haspatal and iskool for hospital and school respectively or French, German or Spanish do with new scientific words.

tahmed#93:
My reference to arabic and quran was in the context of language rather than religion. So we can then expect you to lead a camaign against the teaching of arabic in the madrassas of the U.S:-). And you didn`t say that you would like to replace urdu with english in Pakistani schools and colleges. There is nothing natural about the decay of Panjabi in Pakistan or among hindus in India. These tendencies are a hangover from the pre-partition notions of hindi-hindu-hindustan and muslim-urdu-pakistan. I am only now learning gurmukhi script so that I can enjoy some of the new panjabi literature. I believe people can express themselves best in their mothertongue. There is something pathetic when one hears a panjabi saying things like `meray godday mein dard ho rahi hai!``.

romair:
I agree with some of the things you say. It was not long ago that french was considered to be the language of international communication (hence the term lingua franca?) . You are right about the rush to learn chinese. I remember that after the oil crisis of 1970s, there was a rush to learn arabic. The domination of english also may not continue for ever, though it is likely to remain so during my lifetime.
But I disagree wrt hindi/urdu. And this is because of its status in India. Hindi is NOT the lingua franca of India, english is and is likely to remain so. Protagonists of hindi fought and lost the battle to make hindi the official language of India in the 1960s. Almost all office work in India in the govt and private offices takes place in english or in the regional languages in the states. This is unlikely to change.

`Horde`` originated from Turko-Mongol word “Ordu” (as in the hordes of Mongols descending from the Central Asian Steppes), which means army. There is a city by the name of Ordu in the northern Turkey, near the Black Sea. Even the military museum in Istanbul, closer to Taksim Square, if I remember correctly, is called Ordu museum.

Urdu evolved as a lingua franca of Delhi’s armies between 1200 and 1600. The language evolved as a necessity to allow troops from diverse background, speaking Indian languages, Persian, Turkish and Arabic, could communicate with each other effectively. Thus its vocabulary and composition. The language became sophisticated and gentrified when Delhi-based bureaucrats gradually adopted it.

Romair: #91 The goras may be going into extinction due to low birth rates and intermarriages, but what used to be called the third world is not that far behind: Both China and India have undergone reductions in birth rates over the past two decades that even the best and the brightest did not dare to predict back in the 1960`s and 1970`s. The same is happening whereever urbanization takes place, the link between low birth rates and urbanization being a phenomenon that has been well understood and recorded by demographers starting from the 19th century.

Also, reality is more complicated and such linear thinking is no predictor of the future: in addition to falling birth rates we must recognize other dimensions of change (revolutionary advances in genetics, growth of a common culture, the increasing irrelevance of race resulting from intermarriages) that are now taking place. While no one can predict the future, one thing we can predict I think for sure is: it WONT be a linear projection of today`s world.

Thus, for example: english is no longer the first language of the english only. For example, in the US, the largest ethnic group today is of German descent - and virtually all of them think of english as their first language. The US (and Canada too I think) is expected to continue a significant population growth for the rest of this century due to continued immigration - and US born children of virtually all immigrants - hispanic or asian -speak english fluently (and in most cases are more comfortable in it than the language of their parents).

dost mittar #90 In answer to your question, I think the only language one should read the Quran in is a language which one understands. To read it in Arabic is as absurd as to would be to read the Faust in the original German without knowing a word of German.

I have always maintained on chowk that the spirit of the Quran is opposite to the violent and chauvinistic spirit of the muslim extremists, and that is all the more reason for muslims trying to understand Islam to read the Quran with understanding. So I am surprised that you should even feel need to ask me this question.

As for panjabi being a dying language, I think I am merely stating the obvious. As a fellow panjabi, I enjoy speaking the language as much as you do. But please dont shoot the messenger. :-)

And btw, if the rest of humanity can live a perfectly fulfilling life without knowing a word of panjabi, I think so will future generations of panjabis. After all, all cultures change anyway - the Lahore panjabi culture today for example is vastly different from the village panjabi culture of the 19th century, and indeed (for the middle and upper middle class at least) vastly similar to urban culture in any other city in the world.

Ref Mullah32 #71

[.... although Lahore drivers still seem to drive as if the family honor is ruined unless they chase a couple of pedestrians off the streets and unless they cut across the guy in front.]

You must admit that that is a vast improvement over believing that their family honor is ruined unless they kill their daughters. ;-)

PS. That smiley is my usual pathetic attempt at sick humor.

PPS. My PS spares the resident Mullah from pointing it out.

Ref sameerJB #77

[There is no necessity for 130 million people anywhere in the world to be forced to adopt overtly as in Pakistan and covertly as in India to a language of 450 million people. Neither of these languages are scientific or technical to provide an edge for any speaker in market place. These languages are not going to invent 35-40 million new words just to name all the chemicals in the world. This is just as example.]

There are some countries where they do go to the trouble of inventing new words. An example is Bahasa Malaysia/Bahasa Indonesia. Some 15 years back, the governments of Malaysia and Indonesia added 200K new words to their language to be able to teach scientific subjects in the native languages. This gave rise to words such as `sains` for `science`, `teknologi` for `technology`, etc. The confusion is compunded when the Malay word for water is `air` (pronounced a-yer) and because they abandoned their Jawi script 70+ years ago and adopted the Roman script.

The Northies also attempted to introduce thousands of new scientific terms into Hindi. With the result that a state like Bihar that produced Rajendra Prasad today produces Lalloo Prasad and a state like Uttar Pradesh that produced Jawaharlal Nehru today produces Mayawati. Meanwhile, Telugu and Tamil seem to be the most common languages among expatriate software engineers in the US, and not Java or HTML.

#Ref tahmed32 #83

[I was surprised a few years ago when, visiting Bangladesh, my Bengladeshi colleage spoke bitterly about politicans talking about making Bangla the national language and medium of instruction in schools while sending their own kids to english medium schools and sending them to the US or UK at the first opportunity.]

Oh, the same thing happens amongst Sangilikkaruppans and Sudalaimuthus of Tamil Nadu in India where the politicians send their children to English-medium schools while opening Tamil-medium schools for the hewers of wood and drawers of water.

At least, the Bengalis have the sense not to name their kids `Bangla Babu` as opposed to the `Tamil Kings` that you see in Tamil Nadu.

#Ref UmerMurtaza #82

[I`m not trying to be rude but who are you?]

Just someone whose respect for the Punjabi language increased dramatically when I read somewhere that 85% of Punjabi is high-velocity abuse and the other 15% is low-velocity abuse!

#Ref Saminasha #82

[Interestingly enough, my Indian friends make very little distinction between Urdu and Hindi...which makes Hindi a vehicle weighted with the same freight as Urdu, nahin?]

Don`t even get me started on Hindi. My native language is Tamil.

PS. My cousins and nephews who grew up in Delhi speak fluent Hindi/Hindustani/Urdu. I ask them to translate Hindi movies for me but even they stumble over Bombay Hindi which is something else!

PPS. I do watch Hindi movies on the flights to India (they have subtitles) because they are so unintentionally funny.

tahmad/dost-mittar #90: ``In future, everyone will speak the same language. And that language will be english. ``

I was sitting in a restaurant and heard an interesting conversation, the other day. Two Canadians were discussing the USA`s war on Iraq. And one guy said, ``I don`t know why all these people are fighting over these things, eventually the whole world will be Chinese and Indian, and we (goras) will be extinct.``

I think English was definitely the dominanting language of the 20th century and continues to be the dominating language of the 21st. But I think, it has reached its peak, or is close to its peak as the percentage-wise dominant language in the world. It was dominant, not due to any in-built features in the language that made it easy to understand. It was dominant due to two English speaking countries that ruled the world in the 20th century, i.e. England and USA.

These countries will remain powerful, however, other areas of the world are going to become powerful also, thereby, introducing some new languages into international lingua franca. China`s economy may be the size of the USA`s in 25 years. This will make Chinese a far more understood language than it is now. People in other countries will have to learn Chinese to get a share of this market, just like people have to know English to get to the US market.

Similarly South Asia will not always remain as poor as it is, while its population is going to keep growing. It will not dominate USA, but it will grab a much greater chunk of the international economic market, thereby bringing South Asian languages like Hindi/Urdu into the international mainstream.

The whole continent of South America is lying dormant. Someday it will be a major player in the economic arena, and this will lead to a rise of Spanish and Portugese again.

The Arab speaking countries are not going to remain (rich and) backwards forever. As they advance, Arabic will gain a more solid footing in the world and will add its economic value to its religious value.

While third world countries are progressing, they need to go out of their way to learn the dominate language(s) of the world. However, once they have reached a certain level of confidence and progress, they tend to start looking at their own roots, and want to shed, ``outside`` influences. They actually start to go towards their own historic culture. I don`t know if this is good or bad, but this is what human nature seems to do. Apparently, now Sottish and Irish Gaelic language teaching seems to be political issues in Ireland and Scotland (not sure about this). Much of this, may have to do with the new found confidence in Ireland due to its IT boom. The furthur third world countries progress (specially those with huge populations like China, India, Brazil and Pakistan), the more other people will be forced to start learning these countries` languages, making these languages stronger in the world.

There are about 1 billion speakers each, of the following three languages in the world: Mandarin, Englilsh, Hindi/Urdu (other languages in the Indic set). There are around 500 million speakers of Spanish/Portugese. http://www.linguasphere.org/languageNJ.html#most%20spoken.

However, there are only 375 million native speakers of English, while there are 885 million native speakers of Manadarin alone. And I believe English is the official mother tongue of only a few large countries and a bunch of tiny ones. While Mandarin is the official language of well over a billion people. Hindi/Urdu is the official language of over a billion people also.

The number of Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu and Spanish native speakers in the world is increasing, while the native English speakers is close to constant or even decreasing. In fact, of the total English speakers, 750 million actually speak it as a second language. As soon, as the countries speaking Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu and Spanish start making their mark in the world, the influence of these languages is bound to increase (there own populations are large enough to ensure this). This will result in English actually losing its hold as the dominant language and not increasing it. One can even see this within the USA, with Spanish becoming more and more popular in the Southwestern states. Many signs are in Spanish, etc.

I think the world will be speaking English as the only dominant language for a while (maybe 50 years). Meanwhile, Mandarin, Spanish and Hindu/Urdu will start making their marks as the international lingua franca. In the following phase, the world will be English, Spanish/Portugese (due to very sharpe rise of Spanish speaking population within the USA and rise of South America) and of course Mandarin (due to China) speaking. Then Hindi/Urdu is going to make a mark. And eventually at some stage, as the whole world progresses to US levels (who knows when - maybe in 100 to 200 years), Mandarin and Hindi/Urdu will dominate (just due to population alone).

So anyone looking out for a Hindi/Urdu or other Indian dialect is actually doing us all a favor. Professionals who can speak English and Chinese are right now worth their weight in gold in the international business market. Someday individuals who can speak English, Chinese and Hindi/Urdu will be worth their weight in diamonds and uranium.

So contrary to the initial point about English in previous replies, anyone who can, ``just`` speak English, will probably be, according to my opinion, left completely behind starting in from the middle of the 21st century by those who can speak the above three languages (plus Spanish as an added bonus).

Most of us desis already know two of the above three. I don`t know about everyone else, but I plan to start taking Chinese language lessons soon. And I seriously think, Pakistan should start pushing Chinese as a foreign language, to fill the large amount of jobs that will open up in the booming Chinese in 25 years.

It is very difficult to consolidate the costs of multiple languages with their benefits. It adds culture, but can and does potentially divide people. This is a historic fact. Countries with one language tend to be more cohesive than countries with multiple languages. However, forcing a language down everyone`s throat is not a solution.

Language differences are a results of hundreds of years of cultural evolution, and are thus an indicator of differences amongst communities. These differences could be due to lack of interaction because of geographical boundaries, different religions, kingdoms etc. It is only natural that words will enter a language due to the above factor. Urdu has so many Turkish words in it. Urdu now has English words in it. There is nothing wrong with that. It is neither here nor there.

If Arabic words appear in Punjabi and people accept it, so what. That is how languages evolve in the first place.

What is more important is the equal distribution of resources and wealth amongst people in different areas. I think one of the biggest problems facing Pakistan is the size of the Punjab province, not the decline or rise of the Punjabi language. Punjab needs to be divided into smaller provinces, so that other provinces can get a fair deal. After the break up of USSR and Yugoslavia (not 100% sure), I think Pakistan is the only country left in the world where one province/state has a larger population than the rest of the provinces combined. We have seen what happened to the USSR and Yugoslavia. I think the same thing could happen to Pakistan, due to the dominance of Punjab in every field due to its large size.

Sooner or later, the dialects of Urdu and Punjabi and Sindhi etc., will evolve in different directions between Punjabis and Sindhis and Lucknowis in Pakistan and India. This is a natural process, when people speaking the same language end up in different countries. I am not sure how and why that can or should be stopped. It should neither be shoved down people`s throats nor discouraged. I think Pakistan (and India) would be better off and more united within their countries, if their different languages evolved towards one common language within each country. I certainly wouldn`t have any problem if Urdu and English was the only languages spoken in Pakistan. Even though neither is my mother tongue. Or English and Punajabi, or English and Pushto etc. Provided it was not done forcefully.