Maintenance of Punjabi Language in Delhi: A Sociolinguistic Study (An Old and Rare Book)

Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi in India have such structural similarities that linguists have gone to suggest that they are three manifestations of a single language. L. M. Khubchandani calls the entire North-Indian region as the HUP region. There was a time when Urdu was the language of education in the entire region. Whether it was due to imperial pressure or love of Urdu, religion was not a factor against Urdu education.

The ‘communal’ character of languages in India led to a situation where there were no sharp boundaries between languages and dialects. Even the language boundaries were fuzzy. Variety, which became focussed because of good literature, regal or religious support was treated as language. When it faded because of the shift in focus, it was treated as dialect. The inclusive logic permeating Indian thinking which permitted co-existence of different cultural entities helped the growth and maintenance of such a situation. Thus at times Awadhi, Braj, Maithili were treated as languages, at other times they were treated as dialects. For a variety of reasons Urdu remained focussed for a long time and was treated as a separate language."

For long time separate identity of Punjabi was questioned. Even the Sikh Gurus used Bhakha in the Grantha Saheb. But _ once religion was made a factor for separate identity, the language of religion naturally assumed a separate sanctity for its practitioners. In the case of Punjabi, since the language of Adi Grantha is not what is known as Punjabi now, it was the script which was . treated as the defining factor of the group. No wonder that in successive censuses, people of that region returned Gurumukhi as their mother tongue.

Adoption of the dominant regional language as culture language to be used in domains other than the intimate domains by minority and settlers was a natural thing. While Hindi provided a macro identity to a host of languages thus creating a loose dialect language relation, the Sindhi Hindi mother tongue label transfer, the Bengali-Assamese mother-tongue transfer in Assam and the declaration of regional languages as mother tongues by tribals and other minority groups was a natural process. The latest manifestation of this feature is in Abohar and Fazilka area, where the Wagadis once counted as Punjabi’s, declared themselves as Hindi speakers and upset the calculation of many political pundits.

It is in this context that maintenance studies in India have to. be seen. In India where determined minorities have retained their loyalty to their language under most inhospitable conditions as Saurashtri in Tamilnadu and people are willing to sacrifice their languages on the alter of privilege as in the case of those preferring English to the exclusion of their language. maintenance must be seen as a spectrum. Documentation of various contact situations, , differing attitudes of speakers towards each other’s language and the change 1 lingo-centric socio political behaviour over period of time is bound to provide fresh insights into the study of this phenomenon.

The present study is a contribution to this aspect of Socio-linguistics which has held the interest of scholars in different parts of the world. If this adds to the existing knowledge in the field, then our efforts would have been rewarded.

I congratulate all those responsible for the publication of this monograph.

**Contents and Sample Pages**