In a blow against the British Empire, Khan suggests that London artificially divided India's Hindu and Muslim populations by splitting their one language in two, then burying the evidence in obscure scholarly works outside the public view. All language is political -- and so is the boundary between one language and another. The author analyzes the origins of Urdu, one of the earliest known languages, and propounds the iconoclastic views that Hindi came from pre-Aryan Dravidian and Austric-Munda, not from Aryan's Sanskrit (which, like the Indo-European languages, Greek and Latin, etc., are rooted in the Middle East/Mesopotamia, not in Europe). Hindi's script came from the Aramaic system, similar to Greek, and in the 1800s, the British initiated the divisive game of splitting one language in two, Hindi (for the Hindus) and Urdu (for the Muslims). These facts, he says, have been buried and nearly lost in turgid academic works. Khan bolsters his hypothesis with copious technical linguistic examples. This may spark a revolution in linguistic history! Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide integrates the out of Africa linguistic evolution theory with the fossil linguistics of Middle East, and discards the theory that Sanskrit descended from a hypothetical proto-IndoEuropean language and by degeneration created dialects, Urdu/Hindi and others. It shows that several tribes from the Middle East created the hybrid by cumulative evolution. The oldest groups, Austric and Dravidian, starting 8000 B.C. provided the grammar/syntax plus about 60% of vocabulary, S.K.T. added 10% after 1500 B.C. and Arabic/Persian 20-30% after A.D. 800. The book reveals Mesopotamia as the linguistic melting pot of Sumerian, Babylonian, Elamite, Hittite-Hurrian-Mitanni, etc., with a common script and vocabularies shared mutually and passed on to I.E., S.K.T., D.R., Arabic and then to Hindi/Urdu; in fact the author locates oldest evidence of S.K.T. in Syria. The book also exposes the myths of a revealed S.K.T. or Hebrew and the fiction of linguistic races, i.e. Aryan, Semitic, etc. The book supports the one world concept and reveals the potential of Urdu/Hindi to unite all genetic elements, races and regions of the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent. This is important reading not only for those interested to understand the divisive exploitation of languages in British-led India's partition, but for those interested in: - The science and history of origin of Urdu/Hindi (and other languages) - The false claims of linguistic races and creation - History of Languages and Scripts - Language, Mythology and Racism - Ancient History and Fossil Languages - British Rule and India's Partition.

Bringing together scholarship on issues relating to language, culture, and identity, with a special focus on Asian countries, this volume makes an important contribution in terms of analyzing and demonstrating how language is closely linked with crucial social, political, and economic forces, particularly the tensions between the demands of globalization and local identity. A particular feature is the inclusion of countries that have been under-represented in the research literature, such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Pakistan, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Korea. The book is organized in three sections: Globalization and its Impact on Language Policies, Culture, and Identity Language Policy and the Social (Re)construction of National Cultural Identity Language Policy and Language Politics: The Role of English. Unique in its attention to how the domination of English is being addressed in relation to cultural values and identity by non-English speaking countries in a range of sociopolitical contexts, this volume will help readers to understand the impact of globalization on non-English speaking countries, particularly developing countries, which differ significantly from contexts in the West in their cultural orientations and the way identities are being constructed. Language Policy, Culture, and Identity in Asian Contexts will interest scholars and research students in the areas of language policy, education, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, and critical linguistics. It can be adopted in graduate and advanced undergraduate courses on language policy, language in society, and language education.

This Volume Of Critical Essays On Indian Literature Cobers A Wide Range Of Genres Like Novel, Short Story And Poetry And Of Languages Like Hindi, English, Urdu, Bengali, Oriya, Kannada And Malayalam Besides English. Informed By A Deeo And Firsthand Awareness Of Indian Literary Trends And Texts As Well As Of Contemporary Literary Theory, These Essays Revaluate Concepts And Movements Like Modernism, Dalit Literature, Nativism And Feminism And Offer Close Readings Of The Texts Of A Number Of Indian Writers Including Premchand, Mirza Ghalib, Mahasweta Devi, Ramakanta Rath, Kamala Das, Chandrasekhara Kambar And Ayyappa Paniker. The Author'S Radical Democratic Attitude To Literature Is Evidenced By His Jusicious Is Evidenced By His Judicious Acceptance Of The Diversity Of Indian Literature And His Sympathetic Understanding Of Avant-Gardist And Subalyern Trends. His Perceptions Are Fresh, Position Well-Argued. Writen In A Lucid Jargon-Free Style, These Insightfuleassays, Including The Brief Editorial Reflections He Wrote For The Journal Indian Literature, Make An Indispensable And Fascinating Reading

This volume breaks new ground on the issue of the Urdu language with the backdrop of language politics in the post- and pre- Partition eras. It is a compilation of essays and commentaries by seventeen renowned Urdu literateurs, scholars of social science, and lovers of the Urdu language and its literature.This seminal volume of essays on the status of the Urdu language since partition examines the problems faced by Urdu and the future of its survival as a functional language in India. It forwards the argument that this once-secular language has now been denigrated to only the Muslim population--it survives merely as a medium of religious instruction in madrasas. This has brought the functionality of the language in the common Indian civic space into question and has given it communal overtones. These essays, by seventeen renowned Urdu litterateurs, speak against such reductionism. They look forward to the integration of Urdu into the educational curriculum as a Modern Indian Language and provide workable solutions for the same. This would also pave the way for a better assimilation of the minority Muslims into the mainstream fabric of India, by promoting a more liberal and modern outlook in the community. Redefining Urdu Politics in India is a significant contribution towards giving Urdu its rightful place alongside other regional Indian languages and the dissemination of education to all sections of the Indian Muslim community.

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Documents, mostly taken from the bulletins of the All India Centre of the Progressive Writers' Association and the Indian People's Theatre Association.