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From: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: Hindi / Urdu And other IE Indian Languages
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Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 15:05:47 GMT
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In article <5c48sk$1uck$1@news-s01.ny.us.ibm.net>,
Misha Chaitanya Chitharanjan  <mishac@asia-mail.com> wrote:
>Something has been plaguing me about Indian languages (And I dare
>not ask on soc.culture.indian, its a flame fest:) ).
>
>Just how similar are Hindi and Urdu? I was under the impression that
>besides the script differences and the fact that Urdu uses more
>words of Persian and Arabic origin, whereas Hindi uses Sanskrit words,
>there was no real difference.  However, some have told me otherwise.
[...]

Here's another data point:
	Are you familiar with the concept of a "language table"?  It's a
group, usually open to anyone interested, who meet once a week or so over
dinner or coffee to converse in a given language.  When I was an
undergraduate, there were tables for German, French, Spanish, Italian,
Japanese, Chinese--and Hindi-Urdu.  That is, the Hindi and Urdu speakers
didn't just meet at different tables in the same room on the same night
(like the German and French tables did one year), they met as one.  We
(the German table) shared their room and time for a while, and either
their table was all Hindi or all Urdu speakers or the speakers all
understood one other perfectly. 
-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
