Fly from Delhi to Karachi and back. Take Pakistan International Airlines one- way, Air India the other. If you do, you will hear mutually unintelligible flight announcements, one in Urdu and the other in Hindi. But these flight announcements are saying the same thing and, if the airlines were really concerned about passenger safety, they could be easily crafted to be intelligible to all passengers, regardless of whether they call Delhi or Karachi “home.”
This is an example that Tariq Rahman uses to encapsulate his argument that the distinction between Hindi and Urdu is a social construct. Presently the Director of the National Institute for Pakistan Studies, Rahman wrote From Hindi to Urdu to consider the delineation of Urdu as a distinct language. What emerges is an encyclopedic discussion that ranges broadly from questions surrounding Urdu's origins to its uses in present-day Pakistan and India. The work is exceedingly helpful...
