Abstract
Abstract In the context of current developments concerning the maintenance of South Asian and other minority mother‐tongues in Britain, it would be useful to establish whether Hindi and Urdu could be treated, in the spoken mode, as styles of a single language. This paper will examine the apparent paradox that while Hindi and Urdu are treated as separate languages in Indian census data and most speakers claim membership of one of the two language communities, broadcast material intended for speakers of both Hindi and Urdu is easily understood by members of both communities without either group experiencing difficulty. The paper first outlines the Indian background to the differentiation of a single speech form under two separate labels, and looks at some problems involved in referring to census information on Hindi and Urdu. Then sample data from a BBC‐TV broadcast for Hindi‐ and Urdu‐speaking viewers is analysed to discover what kind of balance is kept between the two styles. Finally the paper reports a sample survey of viewers’ opinions on the data. It was found that there is little consensus regarding what constitutes Hindi and what Urdu, and that a person's nationality and religion are significant factors determining how he assigns a word to either style.
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