MOST interracially spoken language(s)?

TheKickInside
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Re: MOST interracially spoken language(s)?

Postby TheKickInside » 2008-12-28, 4:28

^
Well yeah, but whites are only about two-thirds of the population. There's also Native Americans, Hispanics, African-Americans, East Asians, South Asians and Middle Easterners. Apart from Hispanics, all of those groups are largely English-speaking. I can't think of another society or language where there's that sort of diversity.

alijsh
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Re: MOST interracially spoken language(s)?

Postby alijsh » 2008-12-29, 2:35

Rémy LeBeau wrote:Ali: Persian was never really spoken as a first language in India (or South Asia generally), it was always learned later on as an auxiliary language, and even then it was restricted mostly to the elite. The normal people tended to stick to their ethnic languages [...] The role of Persian in South Asia before the British was pretty much the same as the role of Arabic in Iran before Tajiks and Turks conquered Iran after the Arab caliphates; an auxiliary language that was by and large restricted to the elites.

Thanks Remy. My information on this issue says that you're wrong. Persian was used as a lingua franca and a lingua franca is not spoken only by the elite. I don't like to discuss more on this issue and try to convince you (I don't like you to think I'm biased). I have heard it from different resources but you may like to read the posts of Huhmzah in this thread. As he has said, "there was a great debate in the 1940s on whether Urdu OR Farsi should be the national language of Pakistan.", "Persian was like the "lingua franca" of India's Muslims (and Hindus that dealt with Muslims on a regular basis or lived in Muslim areas). Since there were and are Muslims in each and every town and village in India from Kashmir to Bengal to the Dravidian states etc etc there was a LOT of linguistic disparity so Persian emerged fairly early on as the mode of communication. After the British colonized India, Persian was associated to strongly with the "former" regime and thus it started losing favor and was eventually replaced with Urdu as the "Muslim" lingua franca. " ---- Regards

Rémy LeBeau

Re: MOST interracially spoken language(s)?

Postby Rémy LeBeau » 2008-12-29, 23:01

Muslims are a minority in South Asia, in the past they were a minority who were the elite, but still, a minority. Even if every single Muslim in South Asia could speak Persian and did so on an every day basis (which was never the case), that still wouldn't be enough people speaking it to sensibly call it a "lingua franca" of South Asia. Yes, those who could afford education could speak and understand Persian, but especially after the coming of the British, it wasn't spoken as a primary language of communication, and even though it was studied among Muslims, it wasn't studied for the purpose of actually being spoken, much as is the case with Arabic in Iran, French in England or Russian in East Germany.

A good example of this is Muhammed Iqbal; despite most of his works being written in Persian, he would speak in Urdu, and when he wanted to target the Muslim masses of India, he actually switched from Persian to writing in Urdu.


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