DISTINCTION BETWEEN HINDI AND URDU

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09415777229, 094055338

E-mail- [e-mail];[e-mail]

 

 

DISTINCTION BETWEEN HINDI AND URDU

 

 

Shri Ram Naresh Tripathi is well known to me. One day he came to see me at Mussoorie. I had feared that he would reproach me for my propagation of Hindustani. But when I talked to him I found the reverse. He told me that if I cherished the hope that Hindustani would emerge from a blending of Hindi and Urdu, Urdu would be of more help. Only I should become as fully aware of the attempts to distort Urdu by giving it a new look as I am of the attempts to distort Hindi. Hindustani would then come of itself. I asked him to give me illustrations to help me understand what he meant. When he tried to think he found some difficulty in doing so. I then asked him to explain in writing. The result was the following letter which he wrote to me:

Pujya Bapu,

You had asked me to explain to you the structural difference between Hindi and Urdu. But it seems to me a matter of experience. I cannot clearly define it. I can venture a suggestion though. Get a paragraph from Harijan translated into Hindi and Urdu by two competent writers. You will know the difference between the structures of the two languages. I had told you that day that Urdu was more refined than Hindi. I will give you an example. Here is a sentence from a well-known Hindi writer cannot be used. It is either. No good Urdu writer will ever use an incorrect idiom. If he does so he had to be prepared to engage in a stiff battle. There is no movement for refining Hindi. But rather than such a movement being started it would do Hindi much more good if Urdu books and writings were published in the Devanagari script. In this way Hindi would be benefited by the struggles of the Urdu writers and poets over the last several centuries to improve and polish Urdu. This would automatically transform it into Hindustani.

This letter deserves consideration. I am a lover of languages but I am not a linguist. My knowledge of Hindi is barely satisfactory. I did not learn Hindi from any books. I did not have the time for that. My son Devdas who, with my encouragement and my blessings, went to Madras to learn Hindi, knows it far better than I do. There are many others also whom I can name. My knowledge of Urdu is even less than my knowledge of Hindi. I have known the Nagari script from my childhood. I have learnt the Persian script with considerable effort. As I have not had the practice, I am able to read it only with some difficulty. I manage somehow to write it. Thus my knowledge of Urdu is very rudimentary. What I do have is love and an impartial attitude. Therefore, if God wills it and if I get help from scholars of the two languages, my venture will succeed. I published Tripathiji’s letter only with the idea that he and other would help me in this effort. Another lover of Hindi also tells me that hardly has there been such work done for Hindi as there has been for Urdu. If only people would not indulge in a tug of war but would realize that the two languages have a common root in the speech of the millions of our villagers and that it is for this that our scholars and poets have to work, we could quickly march forward.