Heritage Language Shift among Young Sindhis in Pune

Abstract

<p>The Sindhi community in India numbers about 2.5 million and has settled in various parts of the country-mostly urban areas such as Mumbai, Pune, Delhi and Ahmedabad. Previous studies that have researched the linguistic habits of the Sindhi community in India (Khubchandani 1963, Daswani & Parchani 1978; Daswani 1985, Parchani 1998) largely suggest that there is progressive inter-generational heritage language shift among urban Sindhis, many of whom have adopted either English or Hindi as the home language. However, most of the literature regarding such shift is based on empirical data, and has stopped short of actively exploring the mindset of such Sindhis who have undergone heritage language shift.</p>