HINDI/URDU HISTORY
a variety of online resources


On a Saturday every spring, the Southern Asian Institute and the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia University host a one-day WORKSHOP on some topic of South Asian, and especially Urdu/Hindi, literature; nowadays the workshop is often comparative. Counterpart workshops are held every fall at the University of Pennsylvania. These workshops are open to the public, but require registration in advance. Current information is available below. Workshop topics have included:

[Tentative topic for 2012: "Dakani Hindi/Urdu"]
[Tentative topic for 2011: "Chandayan: the first work of Hindi literature?"]

*"Fort William College: Hindi/Urdu/Hindustani" (2010) WITH ONLINE MATERIALS*

*"What is a Shahr-Ashob?" (2009) WITH ONLINE MATERIALS*
*"Josh Chahiye! - On the Poetry and Prose of Josh Malihabadi" (Fall 2008, at Penn) WITH ONLINE MATERIALS*
*"Satire in Braj and Urdu" (2008) WITH ONLINE MATERIALS*
*"Mir Dard: Poet and Sufi" (Fall 2007, at Penn) WITH ONLINE MATERIALS*
*"Insha and Rani Ketaki ki kahani" (2007) WITH ONLINE MATERIALS*
*"The Poetry of Bhava" (Fall 2006, at Penn) WITH ONLINE MATERIALS*
*"Sarapa and Nakh-shikh-varnan" (2006) WITH ONLINE MATERIALS*
*"Modernism in Urdu and Hindi: Two Poets (N. M. Rashid and Muktibodh)" (2005)*
*"The Urdu Marsiyah: Text and Performance" (2004)*
"Who was Bullhe Shah?" (2003)
"Urdu Poetry in Drag," a study of rekhti (2002)
"Nazir Akbarabadi: Poet of the People?" (2001)
"Has there ever been a Progressive Poetry in Urdu?" (2000)
Faiz, Rashid, and Miraji (1999); Ismat Chughtai (1998)

==SEE ALSO: the specially recommended Hindi/Urdu historical background materials *on this site*, some of which are online

=Anjum, Zafar, "The Ghost of Urdu: a personal memoir," Sept. 1, 2003, on the Chowk website: [site]

=Barz, Richard, and Yogendra Yadav, An Introduction to Hindi and Urdu (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 2000); the introduction is online: [site]

=Bedi, Susham, "Two Sides of a Coin: Linguistic and Cultural Aspects of a Language": [site]

=Busch, Allison, "Vernacular Poetics in Early-modern South Asia," in CSSAAME 24,2 (2004): [site]

=Dudney, Arthur, "Keeping the Magic Alive: How Devakanandan Khatri's Chandrakanta, the First Hindi Best-seller, Navigates Modernity and the Fantastical" (2009): [on this site]

=S. R. Faruqi, Urdu ki na'i kitab (1986), a literary anthology for students with introductory material in simple, clear Urdu: [on this site]

=Freitag, Sandria B., ed., Culture and Power in Banaras: Community, Performance, and Environment, 1800-1980 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989): [site]

=Gandhi's last letter on Hindi/Urdu, written 19 days before his assassination: [on this site]

=Gold, Ann Grodzins, A Carnival of Parting: The Tales of King Bharthari and King Gopi Chand as Sung and Told by Madhu Natisar Nath of Ghatiyali, Rajasthan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). An example of real, unexpurgated North Indian (Rajasthani) oral storytelling: [site]. At present this text is only available to UC people, but I'm hoping they'll open it up one of these days.

=Golshani, Eden, An excellent website on the Indic scripts derived from Brahmi: [site]

=Grierson, George, A Bibliography of Western Hindi, Including Hindostani (Bombay: Bombay Education Society, 1903): [site]

=Hansen, Kathryn, Grounds for Play: The Nautanki Theatre of North India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). These 'folk operas' had both Hindi and Urdu forms: [site]

=Hurst, Rev. John F., "A Native Publishing House in India," in Harper's New Monthly Magazine 75 (June-Nov 1887), pp. 352-356: [site]. About the early days of the famous Naval Kishor Press.

=Insha'allah Khan, "Rani Ketaki ki kahani." See the 2007 Workshop material, where the text is presented in both scripts: [on this site].

=Kellogg, Rev. S. H., A Grammar of the Hindi Language (1938 ed.): those excellent comparative dialectical charts are [on this site]

=King, Christopher. One Language, Two Scripts: the Hindi Movement in Nineteenth Century North India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994: [on this site]

=Lal, Vinay, "Sexual Moves, Colonial Maneuvres, and an Indian Game: Masculinity and Femininity in 'The Chess Players'"; on his 'Manas' website: [site]

=Majumdar, Rochona, "'Self-Sacrifice' versus 'Self-Interest': a Non-Historicist Reading of the History of Women's Rights in India," in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East 22,1-2 (2002) (in PDF format): [site]. The article contains much discussion of literary sources.

=Pritchett, Frances W., Marvelous Encounters: Folk Romance in Urdu and Hindi (New Delhi: Manohar, 1985): [on this site]

=Raley, Rita, "A Teleology of Letters; or, From a 'Common Source' to a Common Language." A theoretical article on the role of Gilchrist in shaping Hindi/Urdu: [site]

=Ramaswami, Sumathi. Passions of the Tongue: Language Devotion in Tamil India, 1891-1970 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). A useful case for comparative study: [site]

=Russell, Ralph, "Some Notes on Hindi and Urdu," Annual of Urdu Studies 11 (1996): [site]

=Russell, Ralph, "Urdu in India since Independence": [site]

=Saksena, Ram Babu, A History of Urdu Literature (1927), Chapter 1, "The Urdu Language and its History": [on this site]; an Urdu translation [on this site], a Hindi translation [on this site]

=Shackle, Christopher, and Rupert Snell, Hindi-Urdu Since 1800: A Common Reader (London: SOAS, 1990): [on this site]

=Srivastava, Sushil, "Review Article: Christopher King, One Language, Two Scripts,"  Social Scientist 23, 263-65 (1995): [site]

=Tara Chand, "The Problem of Hindustani" (1944), a set of four articles: [on this site]

=Wright, Gillian, "Urdu and the City," Outlook India, April 10, 2008: [site]

=Yashwant Malaiya's valuable site on the modern Indic languages: [site] 

=And while we're at it, why not a few classic Akbar-Birbal jokes? [site]
 

 
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