With its ancient roots and myriad population, India is a linguistic haven. As years change into centuries, the sound of umpteen languages and dialects have filled the country’s air. Their stories, of course, do not follow a similar pattern, some are in extinction mode, some barely survive while some are flourishing in equal measure.
Mohammad Jahangeer Warsi, a US-based linguist, insists he is making an effort to give a certain recognition to a language that has no official documentation or written record and even the luxury of acquiring a name has evaded it so far. According to him, confined to the five districts of northern Bihar, yet highly-popular among the natives, it is the primary mode of communication of the local Muslims. “The dialect is mostly used by the illiterate section in Dharbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Begusarai and Madhubani districts of Bihar. While the educated set prefers to converse in Hindi or Urdu. Basically a mode of informal communication, if at all the need to write it arises, the locals rely on the Devanagari or Urdu scripts,” informs Mr Warsi.
He then shares an interesting point, “Although used in Bihar, the dialect is not even remotely connected with Bhojpuri and sounds different from Maithali as well. Rather on a surprising note, it has a close resemblance to Bengali and both the languages are often labelled as ‘sisters’.” Mr Warsi, who has gone ahead and named the dialect as Mithilanchal Urdu, plans to accumulate the words, work on its spoken grammer and also write a dictionary.
For the sake of understanding and clarification, he comes up with in an example. “In English as we say, ‘What are you doing?’ In Urdu/Hindi it translates as “Tum kya kar rahe ho? The same question in Mithilanchal Urdu will be asked as ‘“Tu ka kar rahlu hai”?
Recipient of James Mcleod Recognition Award in 2012, Mr Warsi, who originally hails from Bihar, has been teaching Hindi and Urdu at Washington University in St Louis, USA.
Talking about the popularity and importance of the subcontinent’s widely spoken languages in a faraway foreign land, he informs, “Learning a foreign language is compulsory in the American curriculum. Keeping that in mind, migrants from the sub-continent usually opt for Hindi and Urdu, as the familiarity attached with them makes it far more convenient than picking up the finer nuances of a European language or Chinese. Other students choose to attain proficiency in Hindi and Urdu, since these languages serve as a link to their country of origin. On the other hand, there is another set of learners who are on a serious pursuit to give it a professional shape as in future, they want to be interpreters or indulge in research work.”
“The way Urdu and Hindi are making their presence felt in distant shores, if nurtured well and an earnest effort is made ‘Mithilanchal Urdu’ too will make a mark beyond Bihar,” Warsi concludes on a positive note.