Major/Minor Languages
<p>Closed in during the pandemic, my partner and I play those trivial games that couples planning a family sometimes indulge in. Debating hypothetical scenarios about bringing up our (as yet) imaginary children. Today’s debate is about which languages we would bring them up speaking.</p>
<p>Between us, we share five and a half languages: English, French, Kreol Morisien (Mauritian Creole), Hindi, Bhojpuri, and half of Urdu. I count Urdu as half because, while I am fairly conversant with the more Persianized and Arabicized vocabulary of Urdu — and recognize the syncretic association of Hindi and Urdu in nineteenth and twentieth-century Indian literary and cultural traditions, before the constructions of the Hindu-Hindi and Muslim-Urdu divides — I am also more than conscious of the barrier represented by my lack of ability to read and write Urdu in its current standardized Nastaliq script.</p>
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