Search

A study examined the linguistic processes involved in the lexical modernization of Urdu and the extent to which the changes affect the efficiency of communication, the Urdu-speaking community, and the language itself. Data were drawn from the language used in popular Urdu daily papers and periodicals covering the complete range of activities in the community at the regional, national, and international levels, and from regional and national radio broadcasts on All India Radio. Listener attitudes toward the radio programs were also recorded. Four conclusions are reached: (1) The influence of English and other surrounding Indo-European languages, especially Hindi, is forcing Urdu to adopt some new linguistic processes, thereby gaining some linguistic traits and losing others during modernization; (2) the raw material for linguistic processes of modernization is most often old and based on classical languages such as Persian and Arabic, bringing back old sounds and lexical items in new contexts and forms and creating a communication gap bridged only by education; (3) both diglossia and code-switching prevail, the former because of lexical acculturation and the latter in an effort to achieve both purity and modernity; and (4) Urdu modernization is creating a communication gap between those with diglossic or code-switching facility and those without it. (MSE)