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by
Prof. A.S. Bokhari, M.A. (Cantab)
Deputy Controller
of Broadcasting in India, 1939
 "Such and such a Car," declares a well-known
advertisement, "is more than a Car---- it is an Investment.” It is with some
such feelings that progressive Indians approach the question of a common
language for India. To them Hindustani is not merely a language or even a new
language. It is a new idea and a new vision. It is, if you like, a kind of
spiritual investment for which they are willing, if need be, to pinch and
scrape. That is why their aspirations have been undaunted by the arguments – the
very sound arguments – of the realist-sceptic school. These arguments are by now
fairly well-known, for they have been repeated on innumerable occasions during
the past fifty years. India, it has been said, uses far too many languages to
possess one common language; the peoples of India profess far too many faiths
and cultures to be on speaking terms with one another; the only language that
can hope to become the lingua franca of India is English; English has
already achieved that position and it will be foolish and wasteful to try to
replace it by an Indian language, etc.
A Spiritual Need
All these arguments have some force, but only on the utilitarian plane. They
fail to check the desire for a common language, because such a desire does not
spring from “practical” considerations. There is no doubt that a common
language, if and when it exists, is bound to be of great practical use to the
tradesman and the teacher, the tourist and the journalist. Even the beggar in
the street will, let us hope, find it of great value. But it will be a great
mistake to imagine that this is what the supporters of the idea of a common
language are primarily trying to attain.
Primarily the need for a
lingua franca
is a spiritual one, and but another aspect of the new national consciousness.
The difficulties and the dangers of the task, however great and real they may
be, are therefore merely looked upon as a challenge to enterprise and
enthusiasm.
The “realists” have, however, rendered very valuable service. They have not
indeed been able to discourage the idealists but they have certainly forced them
to find practical means for the realization of their dreams. Faith may be able
to move mountains, but it can hardly do so without some sort of a lever, however
short the arm and however weak the fulcrum.
After half a century of bickering and debate, the first practical step has at
last been taken and the realists would do well to subject it to scrutiny and
analysis. Two little books have been published under the auspices of the Madras
Government which seek to lay the foundation of a common language for India,
Hindustani (in Devanagri script) and Hindustani ki Pehli Kitab (in
Urdu script) represent the first concrete shape given to the dream of equipping
360 million people with a common language.
Except in certain minor respects, which I shall indicate later, the two texts
are identical, the only difference being, that of scripts. They present the
reader with an everyday vocabulary of about 350 words. It is true that our
minimum daily needs cannot be satisfied by such a small vocabulary. But a First
Language Book can hardly be expected to be exhaustive. It is possible that other
authors would have chosen a different set of words. It is again possible that
the elementary vocabulary offered here does not suit the daily needs of this or
that particular individual. But a choice has to be made, an average has to be
struck and a limit has to be placed on the fund of words that a First
Book must supply. Judged from this point of view, the authors deserve to be
congratulated on their sound judgment and judicious choice.
The vocabulary consists of about 70 common verbs (ana, jana, khana, pina,
uthna, baithna, gana, bhaunkna are all there), of a dozen or so place-nouns
(ghar, bazaar, gaon, shehr, etc.), of names of common articles of
furniture (mez, kursi, chatai, etc.), of common articles of food (dudh,
roti, pani, bhat, etc.); of about a dozen names of animals and birds (kutta,
billi, gae, ghora, murgha, etc); of a score or so of common adjectives (thanda,
garm, achha, bura, etc.,) and of the usual pronouns and prepositions. The
real purpose of the book, however, is not to serve merely as a First Book, but
as a Hindustani First Book. It is, therefore, not enough to say that it covers
our daily needs. It is necessary to go further and examine the conception of
Hindustani embodied in the vocabulary employed for this purpose.
Conception of Hindustani
You can, if you are a pessimist, persist in believing that the term Hindustani
is only a camouflage adopted to gloss over the conflict between Hindi and Urdu.
You can, on the other hand, if you have enough faith, take the term to be an
invitation to those who speak Urdu and those who speak Hindi to consider whether
the difference between the two languages has not been grossly exaggerated by the
difference in scripts.
The authors have obviously accepted this invitation in the proper spirit. The
choice of words is so happy, so patently free from political, communal or
academic bias, and so widely acceptable, that like the man who suddenly realized
one day that he had been speaking prose all his life without knowing it, many
Hindu as well as Muslim readers of the books, and the educated no less that the
uneducated will find that they have been speaking Hindustani all their lives
without knowing it.
A Warning
Here one must sound a note of warning against those who conceive of Hindustani
as a sort of compromise between Hindi and Urdu and in pious tones preach the
principle of “give-and-take”, which in matters linguistic is only another name
for real-politik. Such peace-makers will not be satisfied unless their
own language is “adequately” represented (perhaps according to a fixed
percentage) in every single Hindustani sentence. We should perhaps stipulate
that the Indian national language shall contain 60 p.c. Hindi, 33 p.c. Persian
and Arabic and
7 p.c. European words. Such a “linguistic award” will no doubt dispel many
doubts and fears, but it will hardly produce a language which anybody will care
to use. In deciding whether a word should or should not be included in the new
Hindustani vocabulary the sole test should be “Is it more common and more easily
intelligible than its alternatives?” If it passes this test, the fact of its
being Persian or Arabic or Hindi or English is of no consequence whatsoever. It
is therefore totally irrelevant to calculate the percentage of Hindi words or
Persian words or English words that are to be found in these books. It is enough
to know that each of the words chosen is the most common and the most easily
intelligible of the alternatives available. Those, therefore, who look upon
Hindi as a menace should not be alarmed by the fact that nearly all the verbs
used are of Hindi origin, nor should Hindi lovers be offended at the inclusion
of verbs like
Kharidna............and
band karna....................which have a Persian flavour. Nevertheless,
it will come as a pleasant surprise to a large number of readers that about 90
percent of the words used are of native origin. Those who are used to Hindi only
may perhaps jib a little at mazbut..............(strong),
kamzore.............(weak),
pak...........(pure) just as those who are used to Urdu only, will get a
foreign taste in the mouth in such words as
jag........(world), man........... (mind),
ban............(forest),
desh...........(country), etc. But they must remember that where the aim
is to extend the coverage of a language to the whole of India, fastidious
standards of purism and exclusiveness must receive minor shocks. So long as such
words stand the only applicable test viz., that of maximum intelligibility, they
have every right to be included in a Hindustani vocabulary.
Mazbut............and desh...............are certainly preferable
to
balwan..................and mulk............(although I do wish it
was
des and not desh – it is so in the Urdu edition). Similarly platform,
ticket, rail and school have done such good work that to disown them would be
sheer priggishness.
Orthography
Each book starts off with the alphabet and for the first few pages (10 in the
Devanagri version, 16 in the Urdu) which are devoted to Orthography, follows its
own course. This was only to be expected, as the two alphabets are widely
different and combinations of letters designed as orthographic exercises cannot
follow the same principles in one script as in the other. The vocabulary
introduced in this section is therefore, not identical in the two books. The
authors have made a virtue of necessity by building up their orthographic
exercises round a collection of words which are common and useful. Their choice
of vocabulary for purposes of orthographic practice is, therefore, on the whole,
a happy one; for words like
agar............(if), khat ...........(letter),
paltan...........(regiment),
sarak...............(road) are welcome whether they have been included
from orthographic or from semantic considerations. In view, however, of the
large number of simple and common words on which orthographic exercises can be
based in either script, it is a little surprising to find that uncommon words
obviously not intended to help in laying the foundation of a common language,
such as zan ........ maraz .............
fikr................basar..............sanam............or rare and abstruse
words like ma’mal............and fadak...........or meaningless
combinations of letters like
zamzam................should have been pressed into service. Pedagogically,
the inclusion of such words can hardly be justified. Where the purpose is to
find the greatest common measure of vocabulary between Hindi and Urdu they are
even less excusable. (By the way isn’t............... in the Hindi edition a bad
misprint for...............)
Brief foot-notes intended for the teacher are given in both the editions. These
are not in the common language. For words like past, present, future, masculine,
feminine and even pronunciation the Devanagri edition uses Sanskrit grammatical
terms and the Urdu edition uses terms borrowed from Arabic and Persian – a
painful reminder to the optimists, of the great difficulties that have to be
surmounted in the future. We have taken the first step with ease and grace but
as we travel further along the new road, gulfs will appear here and there which,
somehow or other, will have to be bridged. These, however, are yet a long way
off. There is much more in common between Urdu and Hindi than can be exhausted
by a vocabulary of 350 words. There are thousands more of duly qualified
candidates just waiting to be employed – waiting like all of us, for the Second
Book of Hindustani to appear and the Third and the Fourth....................
Chi da’ presto raddopia il dono.
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