What's Braj got to do with the Hindi–Urdu divide?

Abstract

Jonathan Arac, ‘From north Indian vernaculars to a new world philology’ Aamir R. Mufti, ‘Orientalism and the language of Hindustan’ Rashmi Dube Bhatnagar, ‘What's Braj got to do with the Hindi–Urdu divide?’ Mehr Afshan Farooqi, ‘Āb‐e gum, or “Disappeared Water” as a metaphor for language, location, and loss This cluster of papers carries forward Critical Quarterly's emphasis on language in society and history. They offer incisive, innovative perspectives on several major debates concerning vernacular languages of northern South Asia. Hindi and Urdu have been the languages of Indian‐Hindu and Pakistani‐Muslim nationalism, extending over the arc from British colonialism to Independence and Partition (1947), and continuing in the seven decades since. Both languages arise from the north Indian everyday speech called, in its own terms, Kharī bōlī and known in the nineteenth century as Hindustani (unsuccessfully revived by Gandhi as a unifying term and concept). The only definitive distinction between them is the alphabet: Hindi is rendered in Devanagari; Urdu in a right‐to‐left script derived from Persian and Arabic.