Hindi - n8an

[n8an]

Years after making a start and then stopping, I'm back on it!

I formerly used both the TY Hindi and Elementary Hindi (textbook and workbook). I've been using the EH this time because I can't find my TY Hindi but both seem good.

I've been having a few issues regarding usage of the oblique case, but I will have to double check exactly where I was going wrong before I ask questions of you guys.

[vijayjohn]

Oh wow, welcome back and good luck!

[n8an]

Oh wow, welcome back and good luck!

Thank you

I'm enjoying it so much more this time. Last time I studied Hindi I had never learned a language with cases (at all), so now that I've done several others I find it much more logical

[n8an]

So I'm finally feeling like I'm making progress

I love how this language sounds.

[n8an]

Okay, question time:

I have been reading about the many uses of को in adverbs of time, as well as with direct/indirect objects and destination for verbs of motion.

Obviously nouns go into the oblique case when followed by a postposition, including को.

My book has this sentence:

अक्सर वह बाज़ार जाता और वहाँ से अपनी एक ख़ास दोस्त कविता के घर जाता.

So my question is:

I know that कविता के घर is in the oblique case because it is the destination of the verb जाता, and thus को is the postposition. I understand that it is left unexpressed normally. But could you use it in this case, or would that just be weird?

[n8an]

Ah, also:

Why is क्यों pronounced "kyoon" instead of "kyon", and बहुत pronounced as "bahot" instead of "bahut"?

It's like they've swapped vowel sounds!

I had these questions the last time I studied Hindi, and my Indian friend (who is a native Hindi speaker) told me that "kyoon" and "bahot" are the standard pronunciation even though they aren't written that way, and that "kyon" and "bahut" are regional accents.

Is this really the case?

[vijayjohn]

Oh wow, welcome back and good luck!

Thank you

I'm enjoying it so much more this time. Last time I studied Hindi I had never learned a language with cases (at all), so now that I've done several others I find it much more logical

Yay!

To try to answer your questions:

I don't think you can use को in a situation like that; को to my knowledge functions more like the dative case in a bunch of other languages, so I wouldn't say कविता के घर is in oblique case. The के there may be plural of respect or something. You could just as well say कविता का घर जाता AFAICT.

I think your friend is wrong about those two words. "Kyoon" and "bahot" are just common pronunciations of those words, but I think I can see how your friend might think those are the standard pronunciations because they're just so darn common (probably more so than "kyon" and "bahut")! But for that matter, there are other common pronunciations of बहुत, too, like "bohot" and even "bhot." They're even been written in poetry that way sometimes for hundreds of years. I think the spellings and pronunciations for बहुत with an "o" in them are especially useful for emphasizing things, and 'a lot' is a word you can easily feel the need to emphasize! (I'm reminded of a video from Memri TV of a Pakistani interview where actress Veena Malik is accused of violating Islamic law or something, and she says something along the lines of "why are you picking on me specifically? If you're so worried about Islamic law being violated, there are BOHOT other things you could be talking about!").

[n8an]

Yay!

YAY! To having you around for support

I don't think you can use को in a situation like that; को to my knowledge functions more like the dative case in a bunch of other languages, so I wouldn't say कविता के घर is in oblique case. The के there may be plural of respect or something. You could just as well say कविता का घर जाता AFAICT.

That's what I thought originally, and I kept getting extremely confused as I went on with the book as to why it kept referring to houses respectfully or why everybody had multiple houses. I flicked back through the book a couple of chapters and found this:



Sorry for my poor drawing skills. I used Snapchat

So assuming this is correct and that the कविता *के* घर is in the oblique as a destination with an implied को, I wonder why it is always apparently implied and never actually stated (and apparently never if it's a person).

I think your friend is wrong about those two words. "Kyoon" and "bahot" are just common pronunciations of those words, but I think I can see how your friend might think those are the standard pronunciations because they're just so darn common (probably more so than "kyon" and "bahut")! But for that matter, there are other common pronunciations of बहुत, too, like "bohot" and even "bhot." They're even been written in poetry that way sometimes for hundreds of years. I think the spellings and pronunciations for बहुत with an "o" in them are especially useful for emphasizing things, and 'a lot' is a word you can easily feel the need to emphasize! (I'm reminded of a video from Memri TV of a Pakistani interview where actress Veena Malik is accused of violating Islamic law or something, and she says something along the lines of "why are you picking on me specifically? If you're so worried about Islamic law being violated, there are BOHOT other things you could be talking about!").

Aha, this makes sense. Do you think it's a specific "accent"? It seems to be the standard pronunciation, which is weird considering it doesn't conform to the written language (which is usually the case with standardised pronunciations, right?).

It kind of reminds me of the seemingly endless pronunciations of यह, वह, ये and वे. I've had friends laugh at me for pronouncing them as my book says to (yeh and vo for both), and I seem to hear "yaha" "vaha" "ye" and "vey" a lot.

Hmmmmm. I need to do some research on this.

You know, you have drawn my attention to something - I haven't even tried listening to Hindi/Urdu yet. In my mind, my level is just so bad and basic that I'm not "ready" for it yet, and that I won't understand anything. I guess maybe it's time to give it a try

Vijay, how are you competent in almost every language ever? I am amazed.

[vijayjohn]

That's what I thought originally, and I kept getting extremely confused as I went on with the book as to why it kept referring to houses respectfully or why everybody had multiple houses. I flicked back through the book a couple of chapters and found this

Yeah, that's weird; I've never seen any of those kinds of examples or claims before and doubt that TY Hindi has them. I did a Google search for "भारत को जाता" (in quotes) and found that while there are some results for it, there aren't nearly as many as for "भारत जाता" in quotes. I'm inclined to guess that भारत को जाता is a calque off of English.

Sorry for my poor drawing skills. I used Snapchat

No worries!

Aha, this makes sense. Do you think it's a specific "accent"? It seems to be the standard pronunciation, which is weird considering it doesn't conform to the written language (which is usually the case with standardised pronunciations, right?).

See, it may well be the most common pronunciation by now at least, but it's hard at least for me to tell where it came from in the first place (if it even has a clear source). I've heard kyoon for sure a lot in Bollywood movies, but the reason why Mumbai is basically Hindi-speaking in the first place (let alone home to almost the entire Hindi movie industry) is because of immigration from various parts of the Hindi Belt. In general, language contact in South Asia is complicated and messy and kind of all over the place, and always has been, so it's often hard to trace these kinds of things.

It kind of reminds me of the seemingly endless pronunciations of यह, वह, ये and वे. I've had friends laugh at me for pronouncing them as my book says to (yeh and vo for both), and I seem to hear "yaha" "vaha" "ye" and "vey" a lot.

Really? This makes me wonder who your friends are. I guess they're high-caste Hindus from either wealthy or middle-class families? Maybe some of them are teachers or have teachers in their family? "Ye" and "vo" are totally normal pronunciations for those pronouns.

Or are you just thinking of different words? Yahaan (with a nasalized vowel, no actual n) means 'here', wahaan (also with a nasalized vowel) means 'there', and ve can be a particle, I think.

Vijay, how are you competent in almost every language ever? I am amazed.

Because that's all I have?

Thanks, though!

[Saim]

Why is क्यों pronounced "kyoon" instead of "kyon",

At least in Pakistan [kjũ] is more common, not sure about Hindi as spoken in India.

and बहुत pronounced as "bahot" instead of "bahut"?

The most common pronunciation of बहुत in normal speech is baut ([bɔːt]), bhaut ([bʱɔːt]) or even bauhat ([bɔːɦət]). I don't believe I've ever heard anyone say [bəɦʊt] as the spelling would suggest. It's not uncommon in Hindi for vowels to change when next to /ɦ/ (शहर, anyone?).

It kind of reminds me of the seemingly endless pronunciations of यह, वह, ये and वे. I've had friends laugh at me for pronouncing them as my book says to (yeh and vo for both), and I seem to hear "yaha" "vaha" "ye" and "vey" a lot.

Really? This makes me wonder who your friends are. I guess they're high-caste Hindus from either wealthy or middle-class families? Maybe some of them are teachers or have teachers in their family? "Ye" and "vo" are totally normal pronunciations for those pronouns.

I've had Indian teachers on iTalki correct my pronunciation of singular यह and वह. In theory conflating यह with ये is nonstandard in Hindi but it is part of the prestige dialect so almost everyone talks like this in normal speech.

In Urdu it is standard, there is no [yah] or [vah].

(and apparently never if it's a person).

I think their point is that -को will always have a dative meaning if it has a human referent. If you're going to someone's house you use -के पास. Since in English you wouldn't say you're going to someone either I'm not sure why they needed to mention it.

I'm inclined to guess that भारत को जाता is a calque off of English.

I've seen it in a number of descriptions of Urdu grammar so I doubt it.

I'm not sure if I've heard it much in Urdu but it definitely exists in Punjabi:

"chal mele nu chaliye"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3tS2oTUvHI

[n8an]

Yeah, that's weird; I've never seen any of those kinds of examples or claims before and doubt that TY Hindi has them. I did a Google search for "भारत को जाता" (in quotes) and found that while there are some results for it, there aren't nearly as many as for "भारत जाता" in quotes. I'm inclined to guess that भारत को जाता is a calque off of English.

That actually makes sense though - भारत जाता actually is (or, could be) in the oblique case with an omitted को. The more I look for it, I see the same thing. I am just a bit confused why the को is almost always omitted.

Sorry for my poor drawing skills. I used Snapchat

No worries!

See, it may well be the most common pronunciation by now at least, but it's hard at least for me to tell where it came from in the first place (if it even has a clear source). I've heard kyoon for sure a lot in Bollywood movies, but the reason why Mumbai is basically Hindi-speaking in the first place (let alone home to almost the entire Hindi movie industry) is because of immigration from various parts of the Hindi Belt. In general, language contact in South Asia is complicated and messy and kind of all over the place, and always has been, so it's often hard to trace these kinds of things.

Ahhhhh.

This explains a lot! I have several friends from Mumbai who only speak Hindi and can't speak Marathi, and they told me that their friends don't speak it either. I assumed that this was because they were Catholics, but I guess it's more common than I thought.

Are other dialects of Hindi (Awadhi etc) still as commonly spoken, or are they also being eroded by the "standard" version? I know Bhojpuri still has a fair amount of media, but I'm not sure about the rest.

Really? This makes me wonder who your friends are. I guess they're high-caste Hindus from either wealthy or middle-class families? Maybe some of them are teachers or have teachers in their family? "Ye" and "vo" are totally normal pronunciations for those pronouns.

Oh, I have all kinds of friends but definitely some are rich Hindus.

Or are you just thinking of different words? Yahaan (with a nasalized vowel, no actual n) means 'here', wahaan (also with a nasalized vowel) means 'there', and ve can be a particle, I think.

Oh no - my Hindi isn't that bad, Vijay

Because that's all I have?

Thanks, though!

No no. Don't be modest. You just need Hebrew in order to be part of every conversation I can have on this site (along with the 400 I can't partake in)

At least in Pakistan [kjũ] is more common, not sure about Hindi as spoken in India.

The most common pronunciation of बहुत in normal speech is baut ([bɔːt]), bhaut ([bʱɔːt]) or even bauhat ([bɔːɦət]). I don't believe I've ever heard anyone say [bəɦʊt] as the spelling would suggest. It's not uncommon in Hindi for vowels to change when next to /ɦ/ (शहर, anyone?).

Gotcha. I hadn't even made the connection between the ह vowel changing thing. Thanks!

I've had Indian teachers on iTalki correct my pronunciation of singular यह and वह. In theory conflating यह with ये is nonstandard in Hindi but it is part of the prestige dialect so almost everyone talks like this in normal speech.

In Urdu it is standard, there is no [yah] or [vah].

Ah, so it really is "yeh" and "vo" for both singular and plural in both Hindi and Urdu?

think their point is that -को will always have a dative meaning if it has a human referent. If you're going to someone's house you use -के पास. Since in English you wouldn't say you're going to someone either I'm not sure why they needed to mention it.

Yeah, gotcha. It's really interesting to me how the first time I learned Hindi I was completely bamboozled by things that I'm now able to gradually make sense of. I guess all the other languages I've studied in between have made my brain more open to finding logic in places I couldn't see it before.

[vijayjohn]

I've had Indian teachers on iTalki correct my pronunciation of singular यह and वह. In theory conflating यह with ये is nonstandard in Hindi but it is part of the prestige dialect so almost everyone talks like this in normal speech.

Yeah, I think this is a distinction in Hindi that's artificially introduced to a) distance it from Urdu and b) make it look like Sanskrit, which really does distinguish pronouns by gender and number.

This btw is exactly the sort of reason why I specifically mentioned teachers. Indian teachers say all kinds of BS no one else in the world says. I'm not sure I've ever even heard anyone say "yah" and such, even with high(ish)-caste, BJP-loving native speakers of Hindi in my family.

This explains a lot! I have several friends from Mumbai who only speak Hindi and can't speak Marathi, and they told me that their friends don't speak it either. I assumed that this was because they were Catholics, but I guess it's more common than I thought.

Mumbai has been an important port city for centuries by now, so its population is largely made up of immigrants (and their descendants, of course) from various parts of India. The lingua franca of Mumbai is Hindi, not Marathi, especially since an awful lot of these immigrants came (and still come IIUC) from Hindi-speaking areas anyway. I remember my dad once saying there is no way you can go to Mumbai without knowing at least a little bit of Hindi and cab drivers don't speak a word of English. There is even a political party called Shiv Sena that started out criticizing precisely the fact that Mumbai is Hindi-speaking rather than Marathi-speaking and blaming immigrants for this (but ended up becoming a more generically Hindu nationalist movement within a few years).

Are other dialects of Hindi (Awadhi etc) still as commonly spoken, or are they also being eroded by the "standard" version? I know Bhojpuri still has a fair amount of media, but I'm not sure about the rest.

None of the languages spoken in the Hindi Belt have any official recognition except Maithili and Santali (plus languages that are spoken mainly outside the Hindi Belt such as Bengali and English ), so I think everything is being eroded by the standard, even though many of them are among the most widely spoken languages in the world, some of them have long literary histories, and some were even the prestige variety of Hindi until relatively recently and are still widely recognized as being more overtly prestigious than the standard at least in the context of literature. Some very well-known Bollywood songs are in nonstandard varieties, e.g. this I believe is in Braj, and this is in Awadhi. Much of the dialogue in Lagaan is in Bhojpuri. Certain kinds of Hindu mythological plays are supposed to use what would now be considered nonstandard varieties by longstanding tradition.

No no. Don't be modest. You just need Hebrew in order to be part of every conversation I can have on this site (along with the 400 I can't partake in)

Well, if you didn't know, I'm currently part of the Biblical Hebrew and Modern Hebrew study group.

Ah, so it really is "yeh" and "vo" for both singular and plural in both Hindi and Urdu?

Yep.

I guess all the other languages I've studied in between have made my brain more open to finding logic in places I couldn't see it before.

This is exactly why I study as many languages as I do.

[Saim]

None of the languages spoken in the Hindi Belt have any official recognition except Maithili and Santali (plus languages that are spoken mainly outside the Hindi Belt such as Bengali and English ), so I think everything is being eroded by the standard, even though many of them are among the most widely spoken languages in the world, some of them have long literary histories, and some were even the prestige variety of Hindi until relatively recently and are still widely recognized as being more overtly prestigious than the standard at least in the context of literature. Some very well-known Bollywood songs are in nonstandard varieties, e.g. this I believe is in Braj, and this is in Awadhi. Much of the dialogue in Lagaan is in Bhojpuri. Certain kinds of Hindu mythological plays are supposed to use what would now be considered nonstandard varieties by longstanding tradition.

Keep in mind, though, that these are some of the poorest areas of India where literacy and education rates are rather low, so it may take a couple of generations for Hindi to truly marginalise these other languages, at least in the vernacular sphere and outside of larger cities. A similar dynamic is at play in the shift from Punjabi to Urdu in Pakistan.

[n8an]

Mumbai has been an important port city for centuries by now, so its population is largely made up of immigrants (and their descendants, of course) from various parts of India. The lingua franca of Mumbai is Hindi, not Marathi, especially since an awful lot of these immigrants came (and still come IIUC) from Hindi-speaking areas anyway. I remember my dad once saying there is no way you can go to Mumbai without knowing at least a little bit of Hindi and cab drivers don't speak a word of English. There is even a political party called Shiv Sena that started out criticizing precisely the fact that Mumbai is Hindi-speaking rather than Marathi-speaking and blaming immigrants for this (but ended up becoming a more generically Hindu nationalist movement within a few years).

Aha. But it seems like Marathis are still speaking Marathi amongst themselves...right?

None of the languages spoken in the Hindi Belt have any official recognition except Maithili and Santali (plus languages that are spoken mainly outside the Hindi Belt such as Bengali and English ), so I think everything is being eroded by the standard, even though many of them are among the most widely spoken languages in the world, some of them have long literary histories, and some were even the prestige variety of Hindi until relatively recently and are still widely recognized as being more overtly prestigious than the standard at least in the context of literature. Some very well-known Bollywood songs are in nonstandard varieties, e.g. this I believe is in Braj, and this is in Awadhi. Much of the dialogue in Lagaan is in Bhojpuri. Certain kinds of Hindu mythological plays are supposed to use what would now be considered nonstandard varieties by longstanding tradition.

Thanks! I like listening to these other languages. I had only really heard Bhojpuri before.

Well, if you didn't know, I'm currently part of the Biblical Hebrew and Modern Hebrew study group.

I should've known are you progressing with Hebrew much?

A similar dynamic is at play in the shift from Punjabi to Urdu in Pakistan.

Is this happening? I don't know that much about the Pakistani linguistic situation, though I do notice my Pakistani friends speaking Urdu to each other often. I had just assumed that they were of different ethnic backgrounds, but what you're saying makes sense.

[mundiya]

Instead of quoting various posts, I'm just going to discuss several of the words simultaneously.

n8an: क्यूँ is also a common spelling, though it's used much less than क्यों. It became a matter of convention to predominantly use the spelling क्यों, but that doesn't necessarily affect pronunciation habits. Same is true for other spellings such as बहुत and ढूँढ़ना. बहुत has already been discussed. ढूँढ़ना is a widely used spelling in writing but is uncommon in speech, where ढूँढना predominates (and which is also used in writing). Another example is the number six, which is usually spelled छह but pronounced छे.

vijay: The use of वह, वे, यह, and ये in writing (and, for some, in speech too) doesn't have anything to do with Sanskrit or keeping a distance from Urdu. Standardized Hindi writing retained the use of these four pronouns due to the influence of Braj Bhasha, which has the same exact pronouns, in addition to some variants. Written Urdu also used the same four pronouns in the past but lost the singular-plural difference during its standardization process in the 18th century when the language was increasingly Persianized and much of the Braj Bhasha influence was purged. Incidentally, the pronunciation वो might be due to Persian, which has ओ as the equivalent (so does Punjabi).

n8an: People still commonly speak the regional dialects such as Braj Bhasha, Awadhi, Bundeli, Hariyanvi, Chhattisgarhi, and of course Bhojpuri. They just aren't cultivated much for literature because the official state languages are the ones predominantly used for written purposes in India.

n8an: Do the Catholics of Mumbai generally speak Hindi and not Marathi? I wasn't aware of that.

[Saim]

Is this happening? I don't know that much about the Pakistani linguistic situation, though I do notice my Pakistani friends speaking Urdu to each other often. I had just assumed that they were of different ethnic backgrounds, but what you're saying makes sense.

Among middle-class/educated urban people, yes. Everyone understands both Urdu and Punjabi [in traditionally Punjabi-speaking areas], but many middle- and upper-class women can only speak Urdu and many poorer people, again especially women, can only speak Punjabi. Educated families do not tend to pass Punjabi down to children, but since only about half the population of Punjab Province was literate in 1998 (I can't find any more recent data), Punjabi is still the most common vernacular language.

n8an: Do the Catholics of Mumbai generally speak Hindi and not Marathi? I wasn't aware of that.

I imagine it's just that the Catholics n8an has met are not Marathis, but Bombay residents whose recent ancestors come from other parts of India.

[vijayjohn]

Keep in mind, though, that these are some of the poorest areas of India where literacy and education rates are rather low, so it may take a couple of generations for Hindi to truly marginalise these other languages, at least in the vernacular sphere and outside of larger cities. A similar dynamic is at play in the shift from Punjabi to Urdu in Pakistan.

One thing I've also noticed among native speakers (not that this is unique for Hindi-speakers, but still) is that they're not necessarily aware of dialect variation, i.e. that the way they talk is not necessarily how everyone else talks, so that might also be a contributing factor to the survival of said variation. This has interesting results sometimes. For example, my sister-in-law's mom seems to come from a considerably more privileged background than her dad does, and this is reflected to some extent in their pronunciation of both Hindi and English: Her mom consistently differentiates [z] and [d͡ʒ] in both languages whereas her dad consistently merges them in both languages. However, they both also differentiate [s] and [ʃ] but also both have /pʰ/ and /f/ in Hindi merged into [f], and neither they nor any of their friends ever break up consonant clusters, not even word-finally. I've noticed that for my sister-in-law, this has had the result that she doesn't necessarily know which words have [z] and which don't, and she didn't know anyone ever actually said [pʰ] except Bollywood actors.

Aha. But it seems like Marathis are still speaking Marathi amongst themselves...right?

I guess? I mean, I've never met any from Mumbai, so I can't say.

I'm pretty sure, however, that Malayalees who grew up in Mumbai generally do not speak Malayalam much. IME they seem to be about as bad about this as Malayalee Americans.

Thanks! I like listening to these other languages. I had only really heard Bhojpuri before.

And I forgot to include the link for the Awadhi one. Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOF7JWJqHEc. In the beginning of this one, the guy even insists on nonstandard pronunciation, which merges /ʃ/ with /s/.

EDIT: This isn't in a well-defined nonstandard variety that I know of but does include the same (I guess somewhat non-prestigious) pronunciation, merging /ʃ/ with /s/ (except in the spoken part) as well as /z/ with /d͡ʒ/, /x/ with /kʰ/, etc. as eskandar once pointed out.

I should've known are you progressing with Hebrew much?

Well, tbh, I'm only doing it to help other people feel motivated, so I'm really not keeping track of my own progress. (Not that I do a great job of keeping track of such things anyway - I suppose that's probably part of the reason why I do progress in the first place!).

[n8an]

Instead of quoting various posts, I'm just going to discuss several of the words simultaneously.

n8an: क्यूँ is also a common spelling, though it's used much less than क्यों. It became a matter of convention to predominantly use the spelling क्यों, but that doesn't necessarily affect pronunciation habits. Same is true for other spellings such as बहुत and ढूँढ़ना. बहुत has already been discussed. ढूँढ़ना is a widely used spelling in writing but is uncommon in speech, where ढूँढना predominates (and which is also used in writing). Another example is the number six, which is usually spelled छह but pronounced छे.

Thanks! I guess it's only natural that people don't speak the way that is necessarily written all the time.

n8an: Do the Catholics of Mumbai generally speak Hindi and not Marathi? I wasn't aware of that.

Oh, I don't know about that. This one girl had a Portuguese name, so I assume that she wasn't a Mumbai native. She, unfortunately, had quite a snobby attitude to non-Catholics and and non-Hindi speakers, so I distanced myself from her as soon as I possibly could without asking many questions.

Among middle-class/educated urban people, yes. Everyone understands both Urdu and Punjabi [in traditionally Punjabi-speaking areas], but many middle- and upper-class women can only speak Urdu and many poorer people, again especially women, can only speak Punjabi. Educated families do not tend to pass Punjabi down to children, but since only about half the population of Punjab Province was literate in 1998 (I can't find any more recent data), Punjabi is still the most common vernacular language.

Gotcha. Why is Punjabi not passed down in Pakistan? I feel like it almost always is in India (I know the situations are different, but still).

Why is it the educated women who can only speak Urdu and poorer women who only speak Punjabi? What's the phenomenon behind this?[/quote]

And I forgot to include the link for the Awadhi one. Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOF7JWJqHEc. In the beginning of this one, the guy even insists on nonstandard pronunciation, which merges /ʃ/ with /s/.

Thanks!

I always heard that sh/s merging was a feature of Bengali. Is that not exclusively true?

Well, tbh, I'm only doing it to help other people feel motivated, so I'm really not keeping track of my own progress. (Not that I do a great job of keeping track of such things anyway - I suppose that's probably part of the reason why I do progress in the first place!).

Could be!

I'm so glad to see a few more people here learning Hebrew. It's nice to actually be able to be of some kind of assistance instead of always asking others for help

[Saim]

Oh, I don't know about that. This one girl had a Portuguese name, so I assume that she wasn't a Mumbai native.

Perhaps she is of Konkani background. This year in Hungary I met a Catholic from Mumbai with a Portuguese name whose mother tongue was Konkani (I think his family is originally from Goa).

Gotcha. Why is Punjabi not passed down in Pakistan? I feel like it almost always is in India (I know the situations are different, but still).

Urdu and English are the only languages of the State, meaning that they are used exclusively in public bureacuracy and education and are dominant in Pakistani media. Urdu is also the language pushed by Pakistani nationalism to "unify" (read: homogenise) the different nationalities of Pakistan. Even before the establishment of Pakistan it had quite a lot of prestige as a major vehicle for North Indian Muslim literature, and it was an official language in British-administered Punjab (having replaced Persian).

In Eastern Punjab on the other hand, Punjabi at least in theory has preferential status as the main official language at the (federated) state level, and public schools often teach subjects through the medium of Punjabi. Although Persian was the language of the Sikh Empire and the Guru Grant Sahib is written in a mixture of Indo-Aryan vernaculars, Punjabi is often seen as the national language of the Sikhs, since Sikhism primarily took root in Punjab.

Why is it the educated women who can only speak Urdu and poorer women who only speak Punjabi? What's the phenomenon behind this?

This is not uncommon in processes of language shift. On the one hand women are traditionally tasked with child-rearing and are often the ones seen as being the guardians of traditional morals and values (including the "correct" language to speak) -- for this reason women that have access to Urdu often chose to pass it down to their children in lieu of Punjabi. Women are also less likely to be educated or literate and thus are not necessarily going to be proficient in Urdu, and poor women are not as likely to get outside of the home and interact with other layers of society as their male counterparts, so they are also some of the most likely to be monolingual in Punjabi. Paradoxically, women are often overrepresented both among the pioneers and those left behind in processes of language shift.

Thanks!

I always heard that sh/s merging was a feature of Bengali. Is that not exclusively true?

Sanskrit had a three-way /s, ʂ, ʃ/ distinction but these have all merged into /s/ in most (all?) of Indo-Aryan. In Hindi-Urdu and Punjabi /ʃ/ exists but it is limited to Persian and English loans and is still merged with /s/ in the speech of some regional/social groups.

[mundiya]

Sanskrit had a three-way /s, ʂ, ʃ/ distinction but these have all merged into /s/ in most (all?) of Indo-Aryan. In Hindi-Urdu and Punjabi /ʃ/ exists but it is limited to Persian and English loans and is still merged with /s/ in the speech of some regional/social groups.

/ʃ/ is also used in Sanskrit loanwords (e.g. देश, भाषा, and many others). Some of these have variants with /s/ as well (e.g. देस) or with /kh/ (e.g. भाखा). There are also people who differentiate between /ʃ/ and /ʂ/, in which case भाषा would have /ʂ/ instead of /ʃ/. But most speakers don't use /ʂ/.