I wonder what kind of effect these largely South and East Asian towns will have in relation to language. I know a lot of children born in the U.S. (or raised for the most part in the U.S.) who are now adults and maybe knew the language (be it Mayalayam, Hindi, Marathi, etc) as a child, or could understand it, but lost it as they grew up feeling it was “uncool” or not important, or just didn’t have enough opportunities to use it. Most of the friends I know as such express a lot of regret at losing the language (or not having been taught it in the first place), especially as they become adults and have more interest in learning about India and Indian culture– or returning to work/visit/go to school.

This article doesn’t really mention it, but I wonder what kind of effect having such a large Indian population in a U.S. city would have on languages. I wonder if, for example, the high school started offering Hindi or other languages as an option for study, or if they are local language learning classes. Or, do they have more Indian channels on TV.

Personally, I think the language piece would be a big deal. When I have a child/children, I really would love to make sure they learn and can speak Hindi/Bhojpuri and can maintain that connection with their Indian side (and be able to talk to their grandparents/cousins/etc in India!) I wonder if this possible language retention comes into play with the choice of where to live, and what families in Cupertino (etc) are doing regarding language.

it’s not just me. the populations are in the HGDP data set. tons of people have analyzed them. and yeah, they’re the same basically.

Razib Khan did a genetic study on the Brahvis and the non-Brahvi Baluchis (the Brahvis identify themselves as being a Baluchi), and genetically, they are indistinguishable.

@ Swati: Brahui-speakers may well have migrated from further South. What language the Indus Valley people spoke is very hard to determine. They could well have been Austroasiatic (Munda), or speakers of a language of an unrecorded family (going along with this is the fact that there is a large percentage of Hindi agricultural vocabulary which cannot be traced to Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, or Austroasiatic sources—and may well represent the vestiges of languages spoken in India even before Austroasiatic speakers entered the area).

Alina, you’re absolutely right in saying Pashto is very close to Dari. I have many issues with the tree (especially the dates, and the seeming linearity of the timelines), but it gets the message across nicely.

Ananda, I’m not sure what you mean when you make a comment like that. Point taken about Hazara oppression, but to call Pashtuns retarded and backward thinking is a bit unwarranted. Often, ‘regressive’ cultural norms evolve as a survival aid in difficult geographies. There have been some evolutionary psychology studies on cultures of honor in the American south, highlands of Scotland, and the highlands of Italy. Common sense would tell me that this should also apply to the hilly regions that Pashtuns typically occupy. See this, or look up cultures of honor. I’ll dispense with my usual snobbery and quote from Wiki:

“Cultures of honour will often arise when three conditions[5] exist: 1) a lack of resources; 2) where the benefit of theft and crime outweighs the risks; and 3) a lack of sufficient law enforcement (such as in geographically remote regions). Historically cultures of honour exist in places where the economy is dominated by herding animals. In this situation the geography is usually remote since the soil can not support extensive sustained farming and thus large populations; the benefit of stealing animals from other herds is high since it is main form of wealth; and there is no central law enforcement or rule of law.”

Whether you belong to a ‘culture of law’ or a ‘culture of honor’ has larger implications for assimilation and integration anywhere.

It seems that the pashtuns are the most retarded and backward thinking of Afghanistan’s ethnicities yet the most dominant historically. The Universities in Kabul today are increasingly filled by the Mongol Hazaras and if the country was a meritocracy it would end up with them on the top instead of the bottom.