Like Community, Like Language: Seventy-Five Years of Sindhi in Post-Partition India

Title
Like Community, Like Language: Seventy-Five Years of Sindhi in Post-Partition India
Publication Date
2021
Author(s)
Iyengar, Arvind
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7303-1524
Email: aiyenga2@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:aiyenga2
Parchani, Sundri
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Brill
Place of publication
Netherlands
UNE publication id
une:1959.11/32639
Abstract
Since Partition, the Sindhi language in India has frequently been written off by scholars and laypersons alike, citing supposed linguistic corruption, ever-shrinking domains of use, and near-obsolescence in written form. However, census figures have consistently registered an increase in Sindhi speakers in India over the last seven decades. This article argues for a fresh approach to analyzing the journey of Sindhi in post-Partition India to explain this apparent discrepancy. It adopts a language-ecological perspective and evaluates salient grammatical, sociolinguistic, and script-related changes in Indian Sindhi over the last seventy-five years. The article maintains that these changes represent structurally and sociolinguistically plausible adaptations to the language’s ecosystem since Partition. It concludes that, despite a reduction in domains of use, changes in Indian Sindhi, together with an increase in speakers, testify to the language’s survival in India.
Link
Citation
Journal of Sindhi Studies, 1(1), p. 1-32
ISSN
2667-0925
Start page
1
End page
32
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Files:

NameSizeformatDescriptionLink