You must have heard the famous biblical lore of ‘The tower of Babel’. The story goes that the king Nimrod decided to make a magnificent city with a tower so high that it would reach the heavens. The tower would be a symbol of their progress and grandeur. God was infuriated with the people. He utterly disliked their hubris. How dare these humans compete with God! In order to teach them a lesson, God cursed the city with multiple languages. The workers couldn’t understand each other’s language and abandoned the tower.
Jama Masjid, the main mosque in Delhi India
This is a seemingly harmless fable explaining the origin of multiple languages. Popular myths have their own way of interpreting the world around us. But more importantly, they implicitly convey norms and worldview of a culture. Whether one believes them or not is immaterial to this received knowledge within us. Embedded within this myth is the idea of monolingualism as being the ideal scenario; the existence of multiple languages then becomes a metaphor for the fragmented city and its anarchy. Like Bible, for a long time even philologists believed that all languages of the world originated from a single source. This theory does not hold steam in modern day linguistics, but a general perception that a single language engenders unity among people, still persists. Not just monotheism, but the language debate has been an important aspect of nationalism as well. The idea of one language, one nation (borrowed from Europe) trickled down into Indian consciousness during the 20th century movement of nationalism, when scattered provinces of India were coming together to form a national identity.
In a country where states are defined linguistically, Delhi, a city and a union territory, is a metaphorical island unto itself. While other metro cities have one dominant language, the language of Delhi is a confusing mix of as many cultures as it hosts. Sure, there is Hindi, the lingua franca of the city. But this is how it seems ostensibly; if you scratch the surface, the answer is not as simple.
Language of Delhi
Ask anyone about the language of Delhi, and they will tell you without batting an eyelid that it’s ‘Hindi’. Simple. But this simplicity is deceptive as well as exclusive. Delhi is part of what is known as the Hindi-speaking belt. Hindi is merely an umbrella term used to refer to numerous variations and styles of Hindi spoken in different regions of Northern India. There’s Delhi Hindi with a generous use of slangs, Lucknow Hindi peppered with Urdu vocabulary, Bihari Hindi with its characteristic lilt, Awadhi and many more such variations. The way one speaks Hindi marks their place of origin. Not just city or region, but also social class, caste and sometimes even religion.
Linguist William Labov conducted an experiment in New York City wherein he proved that people belonging to different classes pronounced the -r syllable differently. Subsequently, many such studies were done in different cities to corroborate the fact that social markers like class can create variation within speakers of the same language itself.
Delhi was a capital throughout much of its pre-modern history. In a way, it was a meeting point of cultures long before the advent of globalisation. At different points in history, Delhi has been inhabited by occupants of different cultures and social groups. The Partition of India in 1947 brutally changed its geography and demography. Refugees from the newly created Pakistan started coming to Delhi, amongst other places. Given its proximity to Delhi, most of the refugees were from Punjab. As they worked, prospered and found a home in Delhi, the tag of ‘refugee’ washed away with time. Punjabi became a prominent aspect of Delhi’s identity and remains so till date. Such was it’s influence that in 2000, Delhi Official Language Act 2000 was enacted, which made Punjabi and Urdu the official languages of Delhi, in addition to Hindi.
Languages belong to communities. They do not belong to a place, a country or a state but to the people who inhabit those places. But people migrate. And when they do, their cultures, including languages, migrate with them. Being resting stops for itinerant population is what grants cities their characteristic transience. Cities, especially metropolitan ones, are like sentient beings, ever-changing and transforming. And so is language. At some point, the massive influence of Punjabi on Delhi’s linguistic culture diminished with demographic changes. An example from Journalist Vir Sanghvi’s memoir The Rude Life illustrates this shift. He describes the overhaul of Hindustan Times in 1997 when The Times of India entered the Delhi market and immediately became popular with the readers because of its content and affordable rates. The declining popularity of The Hindustan Times had its owners worried about its future. What is interesting is Vir Sanghvi’s evaluation of the cause of this change. In the years following Partition, Delhi had become a Punjabi dominated city. The Hindustan Times was primarily a paper for this generation which was okay with putting a ‘the’ before Delhi; the quality of writing was of secondary importance to the editors of HT. Many language purists beleived that it was a Punjabi newspaper written in English. But, the younger generation was more cosmopolitan and English-oriented. They were part of the post-liberalization world who were interested in reading correct English and diverse content from round the world. And thus, owing to the tastes and linguistic choices of the newer generation, Hindustan Times had to revamp the paper to stay relevant.
English: Providing Universality
Delhi has a prominent culture of speaking English. The elitist connotations attached to the English language viz-a-viz vernacular Indian languages are common knowledge. “The soundscape of Delhi’s Street life is typified by a mix of Hindi, Urdu, and, post-Partition, Punjabi to boot… How did the linguistic diversity of the street get transmuted into monolingual literary texts, especially in a language that the vast majority of Indians don’t speak?” says anthropologist Rashmi Sadana in her article ‘The City as Literary Field’. In an attempt to answer this question, she elucidates that in the case of English, the number of speakers isn’t important, but rather who speaks it and where. Today, English is the language of bureaucracy, higher education, and the judiciary and is used for all official purposes. English is indispensable to our cultural milieu because it is a connecting link amongst all the Indian states, a role which Hindi hasn’t succeeded in doing. The southern states have time and again opposed the imposition of Hindi. English offers neutrality, a liberation from regionality to its speakers, and perhaps that is why it is more acceptable to Indians from all parts of the country. With its three major central universities, an IIT and a gamut of colleges and educational institutes scattered across town, Delhi becomes a ripe spot for a flourishing community of intellectual elites. This coterie of intellectuals has most access to all the institutions where English is the common language of communication. Writing and speaking English allows people to transcend the boundaries of state and even nation. Multilingualism is deeply embedded in the social fabric of the entire Indian subcontinent. The politics of language form the identities of individuals and their communities. It is time we understand that linguistic eclecticism is the norm, rather than a curse. The tower of Babel may have caused havoc and confusion with introduction of linguistic diversity, but therein lies an opportunity to celebrate different cultures. And rest assured, human beings will always find a way to communicate, be it rock art in the caves, morse code, music and the like.
In a country where states are defined linguistically, Delhi, a city and a union territory, is a metaphorical island unto itself. While other metro cities have one dominant language, the language of Delhi is a confusing mix of as many cultures as it hosts. Sure, there is Hindi, the lingua franca of the city. But this is how it seems ostensibly; if you scratch the surface, the answer is not as simple