Comments on: The decline of Hindi among American brown folk

By: sangan

sangan — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 13:42:02 +0000

"Definitely the case in Bangalore. Most young upper middle class parents address their kids in English. Kannada is a dying language, unfortunately – at least among the well-to-do."

I dont agree with that statement, Kannada might be less spoken in Bangalore, But it is still spoken by large number of people (70% of people in karnataka speak Kannada) in Karnataka.

By: Moong daal

Moong daal — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 23:58:19 +0000

What I am fascinated with is the very small minority born and raised in the west as Americans or Brits who have not only managed to learn to speak their heritage language but can read and wrote in it as well. How many generations does it take to completely angloise this breed? The only famous examples I can provide are the singer sukhshinder shined. The writer Roop Dhillon or actress Katrina Kaif.

I give them one generation before they lose all real connection with south Asia.

By: Wanderer

Wanderer — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 23:32:35 +0000

Hindi is actually a very recent invention. Originally there was braj and other older languages. Hindi derives from a mix of Hindustani, Urdu, punjabi ( both much older), Marathi, Gujarati and rajistani. It's core is actually braj and Sanskrit. Take the latter and punjabi out and what you have left is Urdu. Another way to look at it is that Urdu is heavily persianised and Hindi sanskritised. Bollywood Hindi is closer to punjabi and rajistanni. Essentially it is the same language as Urdu the difference is political and religious chauvinism.

In uk it is punjabi that rules, followed by Urdu, Gujarati and Bengali.

By: Rahul Rvd

Rahul Rvd — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 19:37:23 +0000

http://bookreviewsbybobbie.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/do-not-feed-the-trolls.jpg

By: de-lurker

de-lurker — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 23:59:32 +0000

@YogaFire who said, "Right now it's not much of a difference, but over time they will probably end up evolving to be pretty distinct. I suppose it'll be something like Spanish and Italian."

I would argue that it won't for these reasons.

India has both Hindi speakers and Urdu speakers, and those who say they speak Hindi who are really speaking Urdu, or a lot of Urdu. And Bollywood.

By: Rahul Rvd

Rahul Rvd — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 01:03:31 +0000

Oh and here is Razib replying to me three years ago, for nagging about the same subject… http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/005294.html#comment-209229

By: Rahul Rvd

Rahul Rvd — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 01:01:30 +0000

“Red | March 12, 2011 1:43 AM | I am curious. The most common word on this website is “South Asian”. I dont recall ever calling myself “South Asian” when I was studying in the US. Neither did my friends. “We called ourselves “Indian”.

Go nuts Inger: http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/003920.html

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 22:32:07 +0000

@Red: I don't understand your confusion - south asian refers to pakistan, bangladesh, sri lanka, afghanistan, and nepal as well as india. So naturally if you're indian you'll call yourself indian, but when referring to the entire region, south asia is the correct term.

his confusion was understandable. if he's a first time commenter he is probably not aware that this is an indian american blog numerically in terms of contributors, and, that some of the contributors are not indian american, such as myself. "south asian" strikes me as a somewhat clinical and artificial term (i hope i'm not divulging anything by observing that at SM meetups the term "indian" is 100 X more common than "south asian"), but it does seem minmax.

anyway, this debate has been erupting since 2004. it will never end because all parties will never get final resolution. i am probably in the set of "non-indian" nationals of south asian origin who is fine with "reclaiming" the term indian in a broader context, but this isn't going to happen.

By: Alina-M

Alina-M — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 22:22:28 +0000

@Red: I don’t understand your confusion – south asian refers to pakistan, bangladesh, sri lanka, afghanistan, and nepal as well as india. So naturally if you’re indian you’ll call yourself indian, but when referring to the entire region, south asia is the correct term.

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 21:36:57 +0000

The pie chart confirms that the US South Asian community is far more diverse than the UK South Asian community

yes. among the "asian" community in the UK even among pakistanis and bangladeshis there's a trend toward subregional sampling which is really strong; mirpuris == pakistani and syhleti == bangladeshi. when i visited london i was struck by the bengali dialect i often heard, which was really hard to understand. in contrast, the bengali i heard in italy was easy to understand. i presume that's because the italian bangladeshi migrants are more geographically diverse and default more to standard bangaldeshi bengali.