 So hello everyone and welcome to this this taster session on South Asia on South Asian languages and cultures and particularly as part of our BA degrees in languages and cultures. My name is Dr. David Lung and I teach in the School of Languages and Cultures and Linguistics, particularly in the South Asia section. And I teach the literature, occasionally language cinema and the kind of cultural studies of South Asia, alongside post colonial studies. My own focus is on Hindi and Urdu. And so it's a great pleasure that as part of today's session, we'll also be having a kind of language taster on Hindi and Urdu from our senior lecturer in Indian Urdu, Nareesh Sharma. And as a man said, we have a student here with us today, Farah Qureshi, and we'll be able to answer any questions you have about studying that so ask more generally. And so I'll just start sharing my screen and hopefully this will work with no problems. And so I'm hoping you can see that. So the kind of outline for today is that we'll have a sort of short talk from me on some of the things you can, some of the ways we we study South Asia at SOAS, some of the ways we think about it and particularly within the context of the degree program that we offer. And I'll speak for about 10 or 12 minutes, I think. And then we'll have this this Hindi Urdu language taster from Nareesh. And then we'll open up to a kind of question and answer session so any, any questions you might have about studying at SOAS, studying South Asia in particular, we welcome those and we'll try to answer as many as we can. And so what do we mean when we when we think about studying South Asia, particularly through this lens of what we call languages and cultures. Obviously, South Asia is a is a enormous and diverse region and we're speaking about it, we're speaking about India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and right. And when we, when we try to approach a region as diverse as South Asia, and there's multiple ways we can try and do it right we can view it through disciplinary lenses for instance like history or politics or the study of religion. And, or we can do it through the kind of model that we try and push here, which is a very interdisciplinary model right and what do we mean by that we mean trying to take as broad a kind of perspective on the region as is possible. So, in depth, yes, and intense in many ways, but also trying to think what insights can we gain on a place as complex and as interesting and as rich as South Asia. And when we bring different kinds of perspectives to bear right cultural studies historical studies and these kinds of things. And, but then a crucial feature of the way we approach it through this BA languages and cultures. Well, there are two crucial features. And the first is that we very, very strongly believe in the value of studying language. And that's kind of one of the things that makes so us so unique. And we really are convinced that if you want to study places like South Asia, or anywhere else in the world, it's absolutely vital that you can approach these places with that kind of knowledge and the insights of how you study language. And so that's a kind of key feature of how we, we try to train you and try to, to educate you and, and to construct our degree. And, and the other kind of key feature is to think about so that South Asia, not as somewhere there, not as an object, simply to be studied from a distance. And not as somewhere bounded and unconnected to the rest of the world but in fact quite the opposite, and to think of it in its multiple connections right as part of a world that really changes when we start viewing it from different perspectives and so we start thinking about the world from South Asia, from Asia, from Africa, from the Middle East, rather than sitting in London, which of course we are and viewing it as something distant and other and strange and that's a kind of key. And I think really vital part of the degree that we the way we try and approach it here. And we'll be talking a little bit I'll be talking a little bit in a few minutes about the kinds of modules that really emphasize this question of interconnectedness right about a world, and that is perhaps far more a yes interconnected than we we would regularly appreciate and regularly think and so we move beyond what has been a kind of traditional area studies model. Which is focusing, as I said, on a particular region in isolation, and really to think about it in these kind of connected connected ways and I do believe that, you know so as is the best and possibly the only place to come and do this kind of study. And so I very much encourage you to consider coming along to do it. This is a kind of a graphic that I find quite, quite provocative when we think about connections. When we think about the kind of way in which different worlds connect this is a something produced by Facebook in 2010. And it mirrors but also doesn't mirror in some ways the other kinds of maps that are produced all the work. So you can see this kind of huge amount of light in this representation in certain parts of the globe, particularly North America and Europe. But as they draw these sort of very fine blue lines across the map they are trying to emphasize they were trying to emphasize and demonstrate the kinds of ways in which people connect through social media and Facebook in particular. And when we look at things like this we're very tempted to think right this is a kind of particular element of our kind of contemporary world right we live in this hyper connected age. We are more connected than we have ever been before. And this is a result of lots of things right this is a result of technology this is a result of modernity. This is a result in some ways of the kinds of connections wrought by a history of European colonialism and imperial expansion, and a mercantilism and capitalism and all the rest of it right so there's lots of ways in which we can think about the histories of connections through this I want to sort of pick up you know three little case studies that perhaps invite us to think about South Asia and invite us to think about the world in slightly in slightly different terms. And one of these is to kind of think through ideas of what I'm calling connections before colonialism so we think of that period of European colonialism in the 18th and 19th centuries in particular, coming to a kind of end, a formal perhaps in the period after the Second World War. And we still live in the legacy, in many ways of that period and one of the the legacy is one of the kind of things that conditions as, as a result of of the era of European expansion and colonialism is this idea of what we call Euro centrism right which is a kind of approach that puts Europe at the centre of the world. And that's perhaps most obvious when we think of maps right when we look at a map we are constantly we see Europe in the middle. Right, and everything to the left and to the right, and to the east and to the west, Europe on the north, the top of the map. But what happens and you can see it I hope in the in the kind of image up here on the right what happens when we turn that upside down. Even here we've still got Europe in the centre but we're not got Europe on the bottom. What happens when we take those kinds of slightly discomforting steps and start to imagine our world somewhat differently or entirely differently. What do you think when you look at piece of an image like that. And when you compare it then to maps and you can see it at the bottom of the screen there. And this one from the, what's called it was the Imperial Federation of 1886. You can see those kind of pink, red shaded areas. Of course the kind of height of Victorian Britain and that slow and the sun never sets on the British Empire, a kind of way of represent so the way we represent the world the way we picture it really does matter when we think about all the kinds of other issues that have come to condition how we approach places like South Asia, right. And to those are this idea of colonialism on the one hand and Orientalism on the other what we mean by Orientalism is kind of will to stereotype this will to view other parts of the world as Oriental, therefore exotic, as strange, but also as inferior, and a kind of legacy of empire that was built on the idea of a European supremacy a European dominance and the naturalness of this and we are very much invested in disturbing that pattern right in what means today's terms decolonize the kind of knowledge production that surrounds and the way we approach the rest of the world right and so although we have this sort of school of Oriental and African studies as our former official name, we're very much not invested in these ideas of Orientalism but in fact of overturning them entirely and thinking about the world in more equal terms. So your centrism really does appear sort of everywhere and can appear in sort of issues like time, you know, when we talk about the common era when we talk about modernity. And we are again, things that we maybe not think of as having this European origin, but in fact deeply in the ways we view the world. And, and so we come to this question of the hyper connected world and what it looks like when we look from somewhere else. And this matters when we come to think about things like language we think about languages that travel and we think about what constitutes a global language and we immediately turn to English as that kind of global language par excellence and what happens when we think about languages and the kind of language worlds from a different perspective that might be something like what is called the kind of pre modern Sanskrit cosmopolises idea that Sanskrit as a kind of ancient culture in South Asia and spread beyond it and was a kind of key to a key kind of linguistic world in the age prior to long prior to colonialism we might think about other models like the early modern Persian world where Persian becomes a lingua franca stretching from the Middle East all the way through to Southeast Asia. So an example might be something I'm suggesting here is sort of more modern and contemporary Islamic connections right connections forced in this case in the religious context of of Islam and connections that are not necessarily solely modern but in fact have stretched back to Arabic and pre modern Persian as we've talked about. And here's a there's a lovely example that I'd like to share that I'm sharing now of of a link between Urdu and Indonesian right so the great, the great Urdu singer Nusrat Fateh Lechan and his well known song Allah whom which you can see the lyrics there on the on the left is a mean job not the a job not the job the sort of the asaman job not the rather Huck me can see but I am job not the job not the coach. So when there was nothing here you hear you were here you the you being being God and this being then quite recently and taken on by an Indonesian and hugely popular sort of Islamic pop group and called Rehan and their version where they sing both the Urdu and they translate it into Indonesian and sing Chika Teada Bumi Teada Sika La Enya Bulan Matahari Langit Pung Teada. And so these little examples of connections that speak to much more connected worlds than we might appreciate. And then of course there's that perhaps greatest example of South Asian culture and connections in Bollywood in song and dance in Hindi language cinema. And again when we think about that as a kind of perhaps the most popular cultural product from India from South Asia. And we kind of think about it in in in isolated terms as something that is there but again we can see and we can look at this in the in the degree as well thinking about the way in which it travels, you know, not solely to where there are members of the diaspora not solely to London to Leicester to places in in India where there are in India in the UK where there are substantial kind of South Asian diaspora populations but in fact all over the world as part of those aspers but also as part of independent attempts to include and enjoy different cultures. So for instance, you can see some images here on the right of of a variety of film posters from Ghana in the 1980s. And you can see, you know, Bollywood films featuring alongside adaptations of Hollywood and other kinds of nollywood as we call it productions in in West Africa. And again, there's a long history here that's really interesting to explore and I was, in fact, decided at the very last minute to include a little image from tomorrow's new film coming out on Netflix which is called the must day or hello trouble, which is this kind of interracial love story with an Indian, an Indian man and a Nigerian woman. And we're going to see tomorrow perhaps how that plays out. But very much faded as you can see in the news clips there as this nollywood meets Bollywood in a love story on Netflix kind of moment. The connections are always here to be pulled or taken to be looked at. And that's very much the kind of prime feature of our degree program in BA languages and cultures and as we approach South Asia through it. And I'm sure you've had a chance to kind of examine the website and to look at the way in which that structure is laid out but just very briefly and there's other sessions later on today. And if you're if you're registered for those as well, you know, we really try and lay out those foundations in the first and second year right looking at these connections between Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, and through culture through literature through cinema and film, and then through questions of language and decolonization. Before building on that in the second year right again exploring these kind of key cultural texts of culture of literature and of film, and to think through questions of connection and connectivity. And the world that we live in today and to think particularly you know how these connections are not solely of the moment, but have a long histories. So if you look at the world as I've said from places like South Asia right when we reorient our perspective, it can actually look quite different. Should you be doing the four year version of the degree you then get to spend your third year on a year abroad right really focusing in on language and our kind of South Asia ones that relate to that are particularly in the order and and then in your final year whether you take a year abroad or not, and you can then start really focusing in on the regions that are of particular interest to you or maintaining the kind of diversity and comparative perspective that we that we have introduced you in the years running up to that. And as I said, yes, those are the kind of languages and we offer that deal with South Asia, including Persian, and which has a long standing players presence in South Asia that was taught by our colleagues in near Middle East section. And we also offer and where feasible courses on Bengali Punjabi, Prakrit and Tibetan which all have connections as I said to the region we offer them from the beginner's level, right through to the year abroad, and then to beyond so the time you're coming back from your third year if you choose to take that option. And you're really able to use these to quite a high level and engage with texts and whether those are written or cinematic and or something else. So that's it for me, a very brief and very sort of and history if you like a very sort of rushed overview of some of the things we can do when we when we study South Asia when we study. And this be a languages and cultures. I'm not going to pass over to my friend and colleague Naresh Shah, who's going to give you a little taste of what it's like to learn in the order. Great. Thank you. Thanks very much, David. Yes, I'm going to just spend a few minutes and cover a little short India of the language tasted with you. And the idea is to just give you some background to these languages. And we're going to be introducing some beginners level words and phrases and also just to give you a feel for the kind of things that we might be doing in a in the language class. So I'll just get a slide started while I'm just getting this technology to work for me. Let me encourage you to interact and put some comments in the chat. So, first of all, maybe you could just tell me which languages you already know what languages you already speak, you already have some interesting knowledge of Hindi. It'll be really useful for me to know. So, see, yeah, please do, you know, type away. I didn't see any, any comments coming in yet so I'll let you do that whilst I proceed. And first of all, I'm going to start off with this. The title of my presentation today is milky buddy who she who he this is a phrase that means pleased to meet you. And so, as you know, I'm an Aresha Massini lecturing within India as David mentioned. And so this phrase milky buddy who she who he pleased to meet you. We. I'm not going to go into the grammar and the structure of how this works, but it means something like having met great happiness happened. And so in the classroom sometimes they I like to offer some suggestions. Okay, how do we learn languages, how can we memorize words and phrases, and sometimes trying to build up some associations so this particular phrase that come up with a little sort of mnemonic and mentioning something like milky bar. I don't know whether you ever are a fan of milky bar. I am not a particularly white chocolate fan myself. But milky bar sort of sounds like milky buddy to me and then cushy cushy sort of reminds me of a cushion it's almost sounds the same and we kind of association can we have with who we anything that you can think of. Well, there's who we who is the kpop staff from Pentagon I don't know whether you are the Korean pop music, or maybe you watch Dr who who we some connection there so this phrase maybe you could imagine you are eating a milky bar sitting on a cushion, whilst you're watching or watching Dr who are listening to we if you build that mental image, maybe it connects to this phrase milky buddy who she who I don't know try it. Think about that. And move on to some greetings Namaste Salam aleikum, greetings that you might hear in in the end of the and also a phrase here for you. Miranam Nuresh and Miranam Nuresh you see in Roman script. The translation. My name is Nuresh. A question you might ask. First of all is okay we're doing a Hindi and Urdu taster. How come we're having both of these languages together in one. The background well in the end of the hour at the spoken level virtually identical at the day to day colloquial level, we might have some differences in vocabulary, and maybe not too dissimilar to British English and American English where in Britain we might have a lift where as in the US they say elevator or pavement and sidewalk things like that we have different, different types of words different words for for the same thing. And similarly with Hindi and Urdu at the day to day level. They are virtually identical so this phrase Miranam Nuresh. You could say that in Hindi. Am I speaking Hindi or am I speaking Urdu. It's the same. The distinction comes when you see the written form. And here you can see the phrase Miranam Nuresh had written in Urdu which is this sort of modified Persian Arabic script, and which is written from right to left, and then in Hindi we have the Hindi script which is written from left to right in Devanagri, which is also what we use for Sanskrit Marathi, various other languages. So yes at the day to day level, very similar. It's only when we get to sort of like literary or journalistic styles of language that Hindi borrows more from Sanskrit and Urdu borrows more from Persian Arabic sources. The word Naam. Naam, name, you see the similarities between the actual words themselves and agenda. So, well, we've already introduced what I've introduced myself, and this is what we're going to be covering not necessarily in this order, things might be might be flowing sort of to info that you still get a bit of a flavor. So as I said Miranam Nuresh, and I'm going to ask this question to you. And I would say Abga Naam kya hai. Abga Naam kya hai. Now, we're not going to have our mics on, we're not going to go into breakout rooms, but you can still repeat after me, you can still answer the questions, whilst I'm asking you in the comfort of your own home. And I do say this to language students, that even if you don't have anyone to practice with, you can talk to yourself. It might be odd if you know you were getting the bus or the tube and talking to yourself, someone might give you weird looks but you know when you're at home, particularly in lockdown, you can be talking to yourself and practicing the language. And right now I would encourage you to speak to your computer or speak to me through your computer with your mics off. Abga Naam kya hai. And your answer would be Miranam, whatever your name is, hai. So let me ask you that and you answer. Abga Naam kya hai. And I'm presuming you're telling me your name. And how about you ask me the question as well. So I'm imagining you're asking me Abga Naam kya hai. Please do try that. Abga Naam kya hai. And then put that all together as a phrase, Abga Naam kya hai. And my answer would be Miranam, nareesh hai. And the phrase, please to meet you. Hey, what was that mnemonic that we had? What was that image that we had in our mind? We're eating amil ki baan. I'll sit him on a comfortable cushion and we're either listening to Rui or watching Doctor Who. Milke bari khushi hui. Do you try that? Milke bari khushi hui. And so a little bit about our modules at SOAS. We'll go into a little bit more language shortly but let me tell you about what we teach at SOAS. We have a lot of language programs, language modules in India on the beginners level. So you don't need any background or any existing knowledge in Hindi or whatever. And then we go up into various levels we have. You can see it on the website. You can explore in more detail the type of things that we cover in each module. There's various materials, text books here from beginners levels, learning the script, learning the language, grammar books, readers, et cetera. So quite a range of material. And obviously now with everything being online, loads of material. I post my material online. All of our classes are held online in the virtual classroom. Hindi and Urdu, where are they spoken? I'm sure you know the main places where Hindi and Urdu are spoken. And that is Urdu is a national language. It's a national language in Pakistan. And both of these Hindi and Urdu are official languages of India but also all around the world, wherever Hindi and Urdu speakers from the subcontinent have settled, Hindi and Urdu are spoken. And certain regions as well have developed their own styles of Hindi. And for example, I would come into mind is Fiji and Hindi. So indentured workers who were taken from the subcontinent to Fiji took the language with them. And in Fiji you have this style of Hindi, its own distinct form, Fiji and Hindi. And similarly as well in the Caribbean, in places like Guyana where indentured labourers once again were taken across the oceans into their language, you have styles of Urdu and Hindi spoken there as well. And in terms of speakers of the language, so in India alone, you can see from the 2011 census here that the number of Hindi speakers is close to 700 million. And Urdu is, well, a lot of people and Urdu over 60 million which interestingly is more than a number of Urdu speakers in Pakistan. And that could be an interesting discussion to talk about that another time. And just to compare with the numbers of English speakers as well, you can see the stats here. And in England as well you see Urdu is up there with over a quarter million Urdu speakers. So it could be a useful language to learn here. You're probably not far from an Urdu speaker and could find opportunity to practice in person once these lockdown restrictions are over. A little bit about language family, sometimes it's useful to think about how languages are connected and that's why I was interested to know about what languages you speak, because we can see connections between languages and the fact that Hindi and Urdu are part of the European language family, which you can see illustrated to some extent on this slide and you see in the end of the year in the Indic languages and English down here in the Germanic languages and other languages that you might know you might find on this chart as well. So there are these links that occur between languages which can be useful for language learning. Just like in particular because you see the Indo-European word brother and how it has sort of the similarities with other words for brother across the continent. In the Proto-Indo-European rehtar and how in the UK English we have brother, then in India we've got brother, which I mean more than Hindi, Bhai, more than Urdu, Bhai as well. So you might see links and similarities between your languages that you know and other and Hindi and Urdu. And this little slide here I tend to like to share as well because you'll see a number of words here and my question is which of the following are Hindi and Urdu words. Which of these words have come to English from the Hindi and Urdu path. I don't know if anyone wants to put anything in the chat. I would encourage you to to interact with me through the chat and tell me which of these words you think coming to English from Hindi and Urdu. Well, let me tell you in fact they all are interestingly so what these words have come across and so that can be useful in in again seeing connections building vocabulary words that we already know. And whilst we're learning the language, the script, we talked a little bit about the script I mentioned that Hindi is written in Devanagari, which we also use in Sanskrit and the T, Konkani, Nepali and here's a slide just illustrating what the Hindi in the other half of that looks like and then the script is written in this modified form of sort of an Arabic script. And on the issue of scripts and writing here is a famous diary, any thoughts on who could have written this diary a historical figure. And at the bottom, there is a translation as well, not the neatest of handwritings if I am honest. This is in fact written by Queen Victoria, the Empress of India herself she was given the title later in her reign, and I believe she had an affinity to India. And wanted to learn Urdu, which was the official language at the time. This is her Urdu teacher, Abdul, and, you know, being an Urdu teacher myself, I'm not taught any royalty as far as I'm aware, but hey, that might change I don't know if Elizabeth the second is interested in learning Urdu probably not actually. Anyway, let's get started with a bit more speaking we've already been talking about our names you asked me my name I told you my name I asked you your name. I'm going to read each other by saying Namaste. You can respond with namaste. Kia hal hae. Try this phrase. Kia hal hae. Put that together. Kia hal hae, which means how are you. And the response, tea care. It's fine. Shukria. Tea care Shukria. Okay, thanks. And you are up. Tea care Shukria. And, okay, thanks weather good little TK in his because the actual word T care sounds like by TK so again, another way of maybe remembering it TK, okay. Okay, thanks. And so try these try saying these phrases. Kia hal hae. Kia hal hae. TK Shukria. TK Shukria. Now if we had more time if we were in breakout rooms or if we had our mics on. I'd go into a little bit more detail with the pronunciation. How do we say this peak, because it's a very specific kind of T sound, and it has this aspiration as well TK Shukria. And then we have the phrase or up or up, and we really roll our Rs in in the end will do or up TK Shukria again. So, what was the phrase for them for asking our names. What's your name. Abha ka naam kya hae. Abha ka naam kya hae. So the idea with language learning is lots of repetition, practicing, trying to build connections with words and phrases, and getting to that point where we, it's automated, we can do it without thinking. That's what we do in the classroom. That's what we encourage students to do when I set homework as well. So milke pari khushihui, that was our phrase for please to meet you. And we can try and have a little bit of a conversation now. So, on the next slide we'll see some words and phrases I'll say them and then you repeat after me. So, with your audio mute. Namaste or As-salamu alaikum. And then the reply would be Walikum As-salam. Namaste. So, try repeating that phrase. And you, how are you? Okay. Thanks. My name is Nareesh and you'd obviously say your name there. Milke pari khushihui. And a very quick conversation. This time you answer, you read out the bits in green. As-salamu alaikum. Namaste. So I'm imagining you're reading the bits in green and I'm answering to you. My name is Nareesh. It's very strange doing this without your mics on usually in the classroom. Obviously my students have their mics on and we can interact with each other. Grammar. Obviously we need to couple our language learning with grammar. We might cover some terminology, so even if you haven't done grammar before, not to worry. We explain everything about grammar terms and nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. Don't go into anything too much hardcore grammar detail just the basics that we need to know. And you'll see from this phrase, for example, the word hair is, so how in Hindi is the word verb goes at the end and meaning what goes just in front of the verb so we can see word order and structure from very early on. But it's not just all about grammar rules in textbooks and things like that. We might look at a song and I might ask you to identify a particular grammatical forms in the song and here is the image of Sushmi Dasen who sings this song in the film. And she's got a very stylish pee-pee on there and will do practical activities such as role plays, but we'll also look at the language through the literature, maybe access some poetry and here is an image of a verse written in a very beautiful calligraphic style, maybe you know trying to analyze this, what is this verse or looking at print news as well as online news might take a look at some film posters and look at different typescripts. So all sorts of things that we might do. And this actually brings me to the end of the presentation so we can have some questions about either my presentation or David's presentation. So I think I can stop sharing now and open the floor up to you. Okay, thank you both for that. We've received three questions in the Q&A which I'm hoping you guys will be fine to answer live. So I'll read the questions that we've had one question from for now. One question Katarina, which is, do you think apps like Duolingo and the like, can teach us to become proficient in a language. Right. I, to be honest, don't know what the ins and outs of Duolingo are. So I'm not sure if I'm really well placed to answer that. I think from from what I've heard you can pick up words and phrases but becoming proficient in a language, I don't know. Personally, I think you need to speak to people. And one of the best ways to build up proficiency is, is interaction, but also immersion. That's why I encourage students to do the, the year abroad, or we also have a summer abroad module to go to the country to be immersed in the country, and to be interacting with, you know, in the older speakers and having in the family all the time. Sometimes we can create fake immersion environments at home, and by just watching the, you know, TV of the region, listening to the music of the region and just having as much of it around you as possible. But yeah, I'm not sure if you can just do it solely through through the app. Yeah, I would like to hear about your experience of Katarina do drop me an email. David, if you have anything to, to, to say about that, since having, you know, studied languages as well, or for her being, you know, a Korean language student, anyone else has anything to mention. Um, I've actually tried you lingo. Um, but I feel that there's quite a lot of grammatical errors on it. And I feel like it's very, it's kind of like comparing it to Google translate like it doesn't translate exactly how you want it to. And so it teaches you wrong sometimes and the spelling is a bit off as well. So I wouldn't recommend it honestly. Thanks. I see the next question from kishford that you're a mature student. And you can speak a little bit of word. Right. Yes. We do have students who come who already have some prior language knowledge. And we have different levels available. So it probably be about having a conversation and assessing your, your language level. So I always try and meet students before they enroll in a particular module. And now that everything is online, it's just a lot more convenient to be able to set up a quick, you know, zoom chat, and, and, and assess your level. And then, you know, advise more specifically, but if you have some prior knowledge, then yes, you know, we have different levels. So if we have a level that's suited to you, then you have more than happy to talk about that. Okay. Thank you. The next question is, what is the difference between shukria and then you're going to catch me now. Sure. I don't know, David, would you like to take this as. I could try and take this and we might take it with the next one which is from an anonymous attendee and take them together how different are or do Hindi and Hindustani grammatically. I mean, the difference between shukria and a new ad is where they're from. So you remember Narech said that in certain contexts or doing Hindi start to differentiate themselves by the kind of vocabulary that they draw on in particularly a higher registers right if you're going to talk about science or you're going to talk about religion or literature. You start picking, you know, choosing your words. Do you say napkin or serviette? You know, do you take the Anglo-Saxon word or do you take the kind of French derived, Norman French derived word? So do you say shukria, which comes ultimately from Arabic shukran? So you use Danyavad, which has a more kind of what we say Indic or kind of Sanskritic origin. They mean the same thing when we translate them. And they are fundamentally interchangeable, though they do indicate, you know, what kind of registry you're speaking. And then this question about grammar, Hindi, Urdu and Hindustani. This Hindustani is a word that I'm particularly familiar with. The PhD was on this idea of Hindustani as a kind of space of common ground, you know, at a time under colonialism when Hindi was becoming associated with Hindu and Urdu was becoming associated with Muslim. And there were lots of people who wanted to say, that's not how we think of language and that's not how we think of literature and that's not how we think of religion. Hindustani, there's a very famous line from, oh my goodness, Iqbal, Hindi, Hindustani, but not Hindustani, but not Hindustani, Hindustani, but not Hindustani, Hindustani, Hindustani, so we are Hindi, we are Indian, right? So these words all have different meanings. On the basic question of grammar, there is no difference. They share a grammar. You might look at one grammatical feature which would be the azafat which I suppose doesn't get used in Hindi, but fundamentally this is a shared grammar across these registers. Great. Thank you. I'm going to ask, if there's any questions, please ask them now. I'll wait for about 20 seconds. Well, maybe we should just say, you know, if there are no questions or if no one wants to raise their hand, we can at least say that, you know, we're all very happy to be contacted with any questions you have. So you can write to Nareesh and you can write to me. And if you want to know anything more about studying South Asia or the degree in particular, we're always happy to get those emails. So do feel free to get in touch with us. That's it. Yeah. Great. Thank you. I'm not sure there's any more questions. Oh, oh, we got one. So, yeah, so can I say religion makes most of the differences between Hindi and Urdu? Yeah, to a point. They, in a kind of contemporary sense, in a recent historical sense, as I was saying, you know, they do get associated with different religious communities. And some people are invested in, in kind of weaponizing that difference, as they were historically from, you know, the 19th century on, and others are interested in not doing that. And religion is a component of it. And but there are, you know, different literary traditions as well, and that overlap for some people, but remain quite separate for others. And there are different kind of aesthetic worlds. So religion as a part of it, but religion itself isn't to blame, you know, it's the it's the choices that people make on the associations they want to make with with language. And I'm not sure if that's an entirely clear answer, but it's a complicated question. Great. Okay, well, I'm afraid we're out of time. So I guess all that's left to do is to thank, thank Farah. We have time for one more question. It's, we can get that in what sort of career path with this degree help with. So, so many different career options we've had students who have done South Asian studies with language and have gone into all sorts of things from journalism to working for, you know, within the charity sector within diplomacy. I don't think we can name it because it's it's it's quite a sort of like a, you know, this interdisciplinary degree that David was explaining about, so it opens up a lot of pathways. I don't think there is one set kind of, you know, direction that our students tend to go into. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's very fast indeed. David, you've got any thoughts on that as well from previous students that you've known. I'll say two things quickly. I was having a conversation just the other day where a friend of mine in business was saying that, you know, the place that most area studies or like, you know, language studies graduates go to is investment banking, which I thought was terribly sad. But, you know, it's because, you know, the banks want people who know parts of the world and know how to speak to people there and know how to interact with them and that kind of cultural knowledge is really valuable. And similarly, you know, every year after year, the, the CBI, the Confederation of British Industry says, we are concerned that there aren't enough people graduating of languages. We are concerned that there aren't as many courses as there used to be because businesses love language. So whether you want to, and love language graduates because language graduates demonstrate this kind of commitment over multiple years to learning something that really takes time and effort. And they come out with a kind of, as I've said, different way of seeing the world. So your options are wide open. Great. Okay, so now we really are out of time. So thank you for helping us out. And of course, thank you to narration David for giving us great talk. And of course, thank you for our attendees for joining us today. I hope you enjoyed and have a great day. Thank you. Thank you.