LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 11 : 9 September 2011
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.

HOME PAGE

BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ AND DOWNLOAD FREE!

REFERENCE MATERIAL

BACK ISSUES

  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports in Microsoft Word to languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Contributors from South Asia may e-mail their articles to
    B. Mallikarjun,
    Central Institute of Indian Languages,
    Manasagangotri,
    Mysore 570006, India     mallikarjun@ciil.stpmy.soft.net.

  • PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES GIVEN IN HOME PAGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIST OF CONTENTS.

  • Your articles and book-length reports should be written following the APA, MLA, LSA, or IJDL Stylesheet.

  • The Editorial Board has the right to accept, reject, or suggest modifications to the articles submitted for publication, and to make suitable stylistic adjustments. High quality, academic integrity, ethics and morals are expected from the authors and discussants.

Copyright © 2010
M. S. Thirumalai
Custom Search

Emergence of the Urdu Discourses in Kashmir

M. Ashraf Bhat, Ph.D.

Abstract

This paper investigates the role of the various overt and covert dimensions, which have led to the emergence and acceptance of a non-native language (Urdu) in defining community identities among the members of Kashmiri speech community in the Kashmir region of India.

The paper based on quantitative and qualitative techniques is part of a larger effort, which was aimed at studying the linguistic assertions of community identities in the multilingual context of the Kashmir region.

Urdu was nobody’s first language in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, and yet it has come to represent the state on the linguistic map of India. It is the official language of the state, and acts as the lingua franca for the three culturally diverse regions of the state.

Within the region of Kashmir, the language functions as the prestige norm. Urdu is the medium of instruction in the government schools, and is learnt as the first language under the three-language formula of the Indian Union. It occupies the central space in print and broadcast media; education, religious and political discourses, the legislature and the judiciary, and can even boast of an indigenous literary tradition. The Kashmiri speaking community in Kashmir reports Urdu as one of the languages in its repertoire, and language choices with respect to Urdu and Kashmiri reflect a sharp functional separation comparable to the English/regional language divide in many regions of the country. Attitudes to Urdu across the community reflect accommodation and acceptance. In the context of the separatist movement, Urdu has acquired another dimension: it is perceived as the symbol of the sub-continental pan-Islamic identity.

This paper examines the various factors by providing an account for the probable dimensions responsible for creating persuasive space for the acceptance and the maintenance of (non-native) Urdu—not only as the language of masses but also as the state official language—devoid of any resistance.

1. Introduction

Urdu is the mother tongue of sixty million Indians (2001 census). It is also a national language of Pakistan. It also functions as an identity symbol of Indian Muslims. It is associated with Islam and the Muslims in South Asia. This association is a result of the British colonial rule that replaced Persian, the official language of the Mughal rule, with Urdu at lower and English at higher level, particularly, in North India. Urdu is one of the languages recognised in the 1950 by the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

M. Ashraf Bhat, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
Hauz Khas
New Delhi-110 016
India
ashraf.iitk@gmail.com
Custom Search
  • Click Here to Go to Creative Writing Section

  • Send your articles
    as an attachment
    to your e-mail to
    languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Please ensure that your name, academic degrees, institutional affiliation and institutional address, and your e-mail address are all given in the first page of your article. Also include a declaration that your article or work submitted for publication in LANGUAGE IN INDIA is an original work by you and that you have duly acknowledged the work or works of others you either cited or used in writing your articles, etc. Remember that by maintaining academic integrity we not only do the right thing but also help the growth, development and recognition of Indian scholarship.