One language, Two scripts - a book review

[Guest guest]

There is a review by prof. Sushil Srivastava, Allahabad university

on the interesting book by Christopher King, One language, Two

scripts: The Hindi movement in 19th century North India, OUP, 1994.

 

It gives an idea of the Hindi movement in 19th century in the

North India, and esp. the growth of Nagari script use, and

the associated Nationalism. It is at:

http://www.urdustudies.com/pdf/10/28KingLanguage.pdf

 

p.218

"On the contrary, he [ie., King] asserts that the Hindi movement

in the nineteenth century consciously distinguished people in

terms of religion and language and determined a language on

the basis of its script and vocabulary, rather than such

linguistic characteristics as grammar or syntax."

 

p. 220

"However, their identification of a spoken language of India

notwithstanding, the problem of the script of this spoken language

continued to puzzle the early Europeans. They had the hardest

time believing that both the Hindus and Muslims wrote

the language in a script that was similar to, or even derived

from, the Perso-Arabic script. They were convinced, as per

their perception of Indian society in general, that the

Hindus must have a separate and distinct script. Their search

for a script other than Perso-Arabic led them nowhere.

This is precisely the reason why the Serampore missionaries

opted for the Roman script in their early discourses

aimed at preaching Christianity among the Indian peoples. [8]

 

[8] The Nagari script was used for writing Sanskrit and therefore

its use must have been restricted to a particular caste of the

Hindus. See Grierson, op. cit., Vol. I, Part I, Intro., and

Vol. VIII, Part I; see also Cust, op. cit., p. 48."

 

p. 226

"The government argued that it had accorded official recognition

to "Khari Boli" Hindi because it wished to identify itself

closely with the perceptions of people. It is unconvincing.

In fact, by doing so the British government rather sought

to effect a total break with the preceding Mughal (= Muslim)

government. [...] The fact of the matter is, all such moves

led to furtherantognism and conflict between Hindus (=Hindi)

and Muslims (=Urdu)."

 

Any learned comments on the Srivastava article?

 

Regards,

N. Ganesan

[Guest guest]

naga_ganesan wrote:

 

> There is a review by prof. Sushil Srivastava, Allahabad university

> on the interesting book by Christopher King, One language, Two

> scripts: The Hindi movement in 19th century North India, OUP, 1994.

>

> It gives an idea of the Hindi movement in 19th century in the

> North India, and esp. the growth of Nagari script use, and

> the associated Nationalism.

 

It would be hard to call Sushil, a professor of history at a

distinguished university an uninformed person, but let me point out

some things.

 

First, he is the same person who wrote an article "The Farce That Is

Hindi" in the Economic and Political Weekly. October 28, 2000.

 

 

> [8] The Nagari script was used for writing Sanskrit and therefore

> its use must have been restricted to a particular caste of the

> Hindus. See Grierson, op. cit., Vol. I, Part I, Intro., and

> Vol. VIII, Part I; see also Cust, op. cit., p. 48."

 

I presume that he is thinking about Kayasthas, his own caste.

 

It is true that Kayasthas specialized in writing (which is different

from composing the texts), being scribes. However they wrote not for

Kayasthas, but for anyone who hired their services. I am aware of

several Jain manuscripts which were scribed by Kayasthas. A number

of temple inscriptions are known which were scribed by Kayasthas

(but were composed and engraved by others).

 

Use of Devanagari was not restricted to Sanskrit. It was used for

apabhramsha as well as various dialects of Hindi. Except for some

pockets of India (in Delhi-UP region) most Hindus did not use

the "urdu" script except for legal documents. The Jains of North

India have composed texts in practically every century, many of the

manuscripts have survived and can be seen. I have not yet heard

about a single one being in Urdu script.

 

For a 17th century Devanagari manuscript of Padmavat of Jayasi, see

Hindi-Forum/message/473

 

Incidentally does anyone have Sushil Srivastava's email address?

 

Yashwant

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, "ymalaiya" <ymalaiya> wrote:

> First, he is the same person who wrote an article "The Farce That Is

> Hindi" in the Economic and Political Weekly. October 28, 2000.

>

 

Does this have a URL?

 

> I presume that he is thinking about Kayasthas, his own caste.

>

> It is true that Kayasthas specialized in writing (which is different

> from composing the texts), being scribes. However they wrote not for

> Kayasthas, but for anyone who hired their services. I am aware of

> several Jain manuscripts which were scribed by Kayasthas. A number

> of temple inscriptions are known which were scribed by Kayasthas

> (but were composed and engraved by others).

 

It appears Kayasths are like KaNakkapiLLais in the south. They

were also scribes. In Andhra, a name commonly used for brahmins

is karNam, because they held the karaNam jobs.

 

Regards,

N. Ganesan

[Guest guest]

naga_ganesan wrote:

 

>> First, he is the same person who wrote an article "The

>>Farce That Is Hindi" in the Economic and Political Weekly. October

>>28, 2000.

> Does this have a URL?

 

http://www.dalitstan.org/journal/hindia/hin000/hind0020.html

 

Note that dalitstan.org is run by an unknown anti-India organization

that seeks to dismember India.

 

Yashwant