Sindhī multiscriptality, past and present: A sociolinguistic investigation into community acceptance

South Asian History and Culture, 2018

This essay gives an overview of the complex relationships between language, script, and identity in various speech communities across South Asia. South Asia hosts a great number of languages, whose written forms play an important role in the formation of their speakers' identity. Apart from polygraphia, i.e. several scripts for one language, and the phenomenon of one script being shared by several languages, some scripts have been assigned or associated with a dominant or dominating role over the course of time. The reasons for choosing one script over another can be linked to the conscious and unconscious strengthening of ethnic, national, and/or religious identities. These choices can also be linked to state agencies, their regulation of mass education and bureaucracy , or simply to standardization processes caused by technological inventions. In this issue, which contains six articles, the authors compare socioculturally and linguistically divergent geographic areas to examine script-related politics of identity among Chakma, Konkani, Marathi, Meitei, Punjabi, Santali, and Tamil speakers. In the essay at hand, meanwhile, we highlight the complex roles various scripts have played across geopolitical, linguistic, and religious borders, for instance the Arabic, so-called Bengali, Nagari, or Roman scripts.

A research paper on the atttitudes and perceptions towards sindhi language also touching upon the variation in sindhi language on the edge of its dialects.

Vak Manthan, 2021

Indigenous languages are facing peril of disappearance. The indigenous knowledge system is stored in the oral literature for devoid of scripts. There is a general consensus among the speakers to introduce scripts to achieve indigenous literacy. In this present context the unit of study is Arunachal Pradesh. Each district bears a different linguistic picture – some are inhabited by similar linguistic groups with dialectal variations, others share the space with varied tongues. The state is home to approx. 32 -34 scheduled languages of broader Tibeto-Burman family. Three scripts are used in the respective regions of the state – Tai-Khamti, Wancho, and Bhoti/ classical Tibetan; the other communities write in modified Roman script. There exist many unwritten languages. English is the official language; Hindi and Assamese are the lingua franca of the state. The present study focuses on the situation where a part of population of native speakers are conscious of preserving their tongue by writing their literature. The Christian missionaries promote mother tongue languages by printing hymns and gospels in the mother tongues. However, the presence of Christian missionaries does not necessarily help to make primers for school curriculum. The essential learning tool utilized by the native speakers is creation of scripts. Most communities use the modified form of Roman script to write primers, as in, Galo (Galoo Ennam) Nyishi, Singpho, Lisu, Hrusso, etc. Wancho script is used in parallel with Wancho written in Roman script. The paper elaborates on the problems faced by native speakers in designing the orthography; the conflicting views on scripts by the different groups of a community; the contestation regarding the appropriateness of the script; and how far scripts made learning better. The languages mentioned in the study are Tai Khamti, Nyishi, Wancho, Galo, Mishmi, Lisu, Hrusso and Bhoti.

Asian Journal of English Studies, 2013

Earlier studies have revealed that heritage language shift is indeed taking place among sections of the Sindhi community in India. This study analysed the opinions of Sindhis in Pune below 35 years of age who admitted to having undergone such language shift, as to why this shift has occurred, and to what extent English is responsible for it. The results showed that learning or using a language, in the eyes of the informants, depended on the necessity of, exposure to and prestige associated with that language. It emerged that English ranked highly and Sindhi ranked low on all three parameters.

Sindhi is probably the oldest written language of Pakistan. Even when Persian was the official language of the Muslim rulers of Sind, Sindhi was given more importance in the educational institutions of Sind than the other languages of Pakistan were in the areas where they were spoken. From the 17th century onwards a number of religious and other books were written in Sindhi and were probably part of the curricula of religious seminaries. It was the only indigenous Pakistani language which was taught officially by the British at various levels of education. After the influx of Urdu-speaking Mohajirs to Sindh in 1947, the teaching of Sindhi has become an ethnic, identity symbol for the Sindhi nationalists. Thus, it is promoted by the Sindhis and resisted by the Mohajirs. This article sheds light on how language-teaching, in this case that of Sindhi, can have implications for ethnic politics.

2019

The study focuses on Sindhi speaking mothers’ attitudes towards their mother tongue (Sindhi) and the target languages Urdu and English in an urban multilingual setting in Karachi. Applying the qualitative methodology and using interpretive approach the open-ended questions are asked and interviews are recorded from the five educated mothers living in Karachi. The help is taken from different existing social and psychological theories to investigate some of the relevant important issues that need to be considered in such a context. The study focuses on critical evaluation of prestige and ideology connotations associated with Sindhi, Urdu and English in Karachi. The findings show that urban setting creates cognitive slaveries in the minds of the Sindhi mothers and in turn affects their language choices for their children.

Pakistan is a multilingual country with six major and over 59 minor languages. However, the languages used in the domains of power (government, corporate sector, media and education) are English and Urdu. Compared to the other regional languages in Pakistan, the Sindhi language has a more emancipated position in the state-run schools and some other domains. The present study seeks to explore the extent to which the use of Sindhi language has been shifted or maintained, and to survey the patterns of language use in certain domains through Fishman’s domain concept for the determination of language shift within the community concerned. A mixed method data collection including questionnaires and in-depth interviews was conducted to find out whether Sindhis in the Sind province of Pakistan maintain their heritage language in specific domains and to ascertain the impact of Pakistan’s language policy on the Sindhi language. The results show that Sindhis in Sindh province fully maintain their language and behold sentimental affiliation with it as part of their cultural identity. The Sindhis have successfully uplifted and maintained their language in education and other vital domains. The Sindhi community enjoys a higher ethno-linguistic vitality than the other ethnic groups in Pakistan.

South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 2024

April 2021, 2021

Sindhi is one of the historical languages which is widely used in all over the world, but especially in the province of Sindh Pakistan. Sindhi language has its own script and written by the right-handed. Nowadays the use of different Sindhi platforms is increasing especially for communication. The majority of the people of Sindh province read, write and speak very well, but they face the problem in text communication while using different communication platforms. However, the users of computer and mobile phone feel trouble/difficulty during the use of the Sindhi script in typing of text messages, tweets and comments while using different platforms in computer and mobile phone. Natural Language Processing (NLP) is one of the better options for the solution of these problems of text communication on different platforms. For the proper solution of text communication issues, Romanized Sindhi text is used instead of Sindhi text. Romanized text writing is easier than the Sindhi text writi...