Blackwell Reference Online

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The national language of Pakistan and the major language of Indian Muslims, Urdu is an offshoot of Dakani (also Delhavi), a seventeenth-century literary language of north India which is also the forebear of Hindi. Increasing Persianization since the early eighteenth century, the writing of Dakani literature in Perso-Arabic script, and the conscious attempt to eradicate Braj Bhasha or indigenous Hindi elements from the language, all contributed to the emergence of Urdu as a separate language. In the nineteenth century the replacement of Persian by Urdu as an official language of British India further consolidated the status of Urdu. Linguistic commonalities with Hindi are still very strong, but the sociosymbolic differences are highlighted by the two different scripts, D evanāgarī for H indi writing and a modified form of Perso-Arabic for Urdu. The latter is moreover associated with Muslim religion, strongly adding to divergent communal attitudes. The adaptation of the Perso-Arabic alphabet to Urdu made some modifications necessary. It consists of 35 letters, plus a number of supplementary signs ( table 6 ). In addition to the four Persian letters which were added to the 28-letter Arabic alphabet – those for p, c, ž and g – three extra letters were created for Urdu, i.e. those for t h , d h and ṛ. Since diacritics are a systematic component of the Arabic alphabet, this ... log in or subscribe to read full text