TEDxLahore - Tariq Rahman - Who's afraid of Urdish and Urdi?

Linguistics expert Tariq Rehman, explores why we are threatened by linguistic change while tracing the origins of the Urdu language and wants us to accept code-switching and borrowing if we want Urdu to remain a living language.

About the speaker

Dr. Rahman's work on sociolinguistics uncovers the historical and social evolution of language in the subcontinent, and talks about how we can understand and approach its natural and ongoing evolution. He considers the purist attitude that has developed towards language change in Pakistan to be alarming and believes that language change must be accepted as a reality in all living languages.

Tariq Rahman is a Professor of Sociolinguistic History at the National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. He is a highly published scholar with over 90 articles in scholarly journals, 9 books, 4 encyclopedia articles, 22 contributions to various books and several book reviews. His history of language-learning among the Muslims of South Asia, Language, Ideology and Power (OUP 2002) remains a landmark in the field. His latest book, Denizens of Alien Worlds (OUP 2004), connects the medium of instruction with world view, poverty and politics in Pakistan.


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Category:

Education

Tags:

• TEDx
• Lahore

[coolwinds1]

This guy looks lyk anupam kher..!!

[Grazikon]

@yoshimitsu1001 @yoshimitsu1001 Great pure languages like Norman French? It had prestige in Medieval England because . That's it. And as for "pure", it's specifically a dialect of French (which already has Frankish influence on Latin) which includes Scandinavian influences. And the standards of "British English" and "American English" are about equal in what they keep from earlier forms of English.

[kyamusibathayphir]

simply he want in 21st century nobody will left in Pakistan to understand literature which produced by our ancestor .. well

[MrRuggedboy27]

now i am an indian muslim and i come from hyderbad deccan, and i dont say jameen, neochawar, i still say zameen, nichawar though at school we only learned hindi and thus also came across the wrong pronunciations, but we just read n laughed and stuck to our guns, my urdu alhumdulliah though deccanish, is still very pronunciation wise right

peace out

[yoshimitsu1001]

for god sake don't tell and teach us this stuff........ the great pure languages latin and norman french turned into british english and later the beauty of british english is screwed by the american english................. we loved classical urdu - lost it - now don't make us loose whatever remnants we have.... please - we love urdu - and we do not have any respect for urdish

[nabeelva]

The nerd in me really enjoyed this. Being an American Pakistani who has Urdu roots and love the language, I really enjoyed the historical perspective and history of the ideological biases and the impact of those biases. Thanks for broadening my thought process.

[gabcraft]

A very interesting talk. As the speaker's intro says, he is a socio-linguist. Someone with a focus on linguistics only, would differ with him. By saying that code-switching and phonetic substitution is ok, he is not considering the question of identity and its relationship with language. For a country struggling with an identity crisis the way Pakistan is, I don't think it would be such a good idea.

[1971PWF]

Thanks for this informative piece sir!

[ahmertension]

the best talk out of all the ones in TEDx Pakistan. absolutely brilliant, and pertinent

[rahidelvi]

This talk was simply beyond fascinating. Thanks for posting.