Why HamariBoli?

Hamari Boli is the reincarnation of Hindustani, gratefully acknowledging the richness and unity of the Desi Culture as evident in the meticulous amalgamation of indigenous and foreign cultures from the early Aryan settlers to the Middle Vedic Civilizations to the Afghan and Turkic period to the British Raj to modern Day India and Pakistan and the Diaspora Desis and their descendants spread all over the world. It is the living testament to the diversity and inclusive spirit of the Sub-continent.

The Linguistic Case:

Literally meaning 'Our Language', Hamari Boli is a Language Planning and People-to-People Communication initiative aimed at Hindi-Urdu script, style, status & lexical reform/modernization, particularly, eliminating the written illegibility of Hindi-Urdu by neutralizing the script using Roman alphabet and simultaneously use the opportunity to create a People-to-People communication channel for Indo-Pak confidence building.

Hindi & Urdu are actually one language divided artificially for sociocultural and politico-religious motivations. But this knowledge is not popular understanding and to this day, the divide plays a major role in communal identification in Indo-Pak. However, linguists by and large are in agreement over their twin status. The Global Desi Foundation is working to bridge the divide by bringing the whole range of Hindi-Urdu (as spoken across India & Pakistan) together using roman script and develop & promote a neutral writing style as exemplified by Bollywood and popular media.

As per established Linguistic Standard, "Hindi-Urdu" (taken as one word) is the standard modern term for the erstwhile Hindustani, which was the official language and lingua franca of the British India.

Hindi-Urdu(Hindustani) has 4 standardized registers (i.e. subsets);

1. Standard Hindi (Shuddha/Manak/Nagari Hindi - The Official Language of India. Written in Devanagari. Heavily sanscritized and purged of all Persian, Turkic, Arabic heritage)
2. Standard Urdu (Saaf/Salees Urdu - The Official Language of Pakistan. Written in Nastaliq. Heavily Persianized -and being actively Arabized these days- and purged of most Sanskrit and Prakrit heritage)
3. Dakhini (spoken in and around the Deccan plateue. written in Devanagari and Nastaliq both, called Hindi/Urdu respectively)
4. Rekhta

Prior to 1947, Hindi/Urdu/Hindustani all were used synonymously to refer to one and the same language which was written in Nastaliq(predominantly) & Devanagari both. This is called "Digraphia" where a language is written in more than one script (a recognized socio-linguistic affliction) for reasons other than linguistic (cultural, political, religious, ethnic etc).

Today, despite all government efforts, "Hindi-Urdu" (not Shudh Hindi or Saaf Urdu) is the everyday speech of native speakers, popular media and the Lingua Franca of Indo-Pak and all of South Asia indeed. called Urdu or Hindi respectively when written in Nastaliq or Devanagari.

In addition to Digraphia, Hindi-Urdu also suffers from Diglossia which is yet another major sociolinguistic affliction resulting from linguistic elitism. It refers to situations where two varieties of one language are used by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety (labeled "L" or "low" variety), a second, highly codified variety (labeled "H" or "high") is used in certain situations such as literature, government communication (documents, state media), or other specific settings, but not used for everyday  conversation, mass education and mass media.

In case of 'Hindi-Urdu';

• In Pakistan --  'Standard(Saaf) Urdu' is the "High" variety, whereas 'Hindi-Urdu' is the "Low" variety used by the masses (called Urdu, written in Nastaliq and increasingly in Roman).
• In India, both 'Standard(Shudh) Hindi' and 'Standard(Saaf) Urdu' are the "H" varieties (written in devanagari & Nastaliq respectively), whereas 'Hindi-Urdu' is the "L" variety used by the masses and written in both Devanagari and Nastaliq (and called Hindi or Urdu resectively) as well as in Roman (electronic comm).

'Hindi-Urdu' diglossia can be best contrasted with the Arabic situation where Modern Standard Arabic is the Official Language (the "H" variety) in all Arabic speaking countries in West Asia & North Africa but the regional mass vernacular is one or the other dialect (various 'L' varieties). in fact, linguists argue that the different 'Varieties of Arabic' show far greater variation than 'Hindi-Urdu' (even to the point of mutual unintelligibility). But still, all these varieties are classified and recognized as dialects of Arabic.

Similarly, Standard Hindi and Standard Urdu should be treated as two "High" varieties of 'Hindi-Urdu' and thus not suited for use in media intended for mass consumption by people from 400+ speech subgroups (using 20+ distinct writing systems). for example, Hindi Cinema will lose 99% of its viewership if it were to use Shudh Hindi.

The Case for HamariBoli ('Hindi-Urdu') is partly inspired by Modern Simplified Chinese(Standard Mandarin) where Classical Chinese (the "H" variety) was successfully replaced with vernacular Mandarin during the New Culture Movement . Today, Standard Mandarin has become a fully developed lingua franca of mainland China, Taiwan and Singapore, most spoken language in the world and is also one of only 6 official UN languages. 

The Case for Hamari Boli

We are of the opinion that the politically motivated division of The Hindustani Language as Hindi & Urdu was an epic injustice and disservice to the language and 900Million+ speakers.The deliberate disseverance of literary canon, forced sanskritization and persianization, super-enforced with extreme digraphia has only resulted in depriving the speakers of almost half of their very own linguistic heritage! We believe that the artificial Hindi-Urdu divide is detrimental to public interest as it severely limits the reach and accessibility of the language. The peculiar brands of Hindi and Urdu (the so-called 'Standard') manufactured as national languages in India and Pakistan since partition are patently un-natural as they do not represent the language as it is held by the people but are solely based on the establishments' ideal of the national language. The interest of the people will be far better served if the efforts and money being wasted on addressing either of the two scripts are invested in creating and promoting content accessible to all Hindi-Urdu speakers alike. Testimony to the argument is the fact that both 'Official Hindi' and 'Official Urdu' can only be found in text books and official speeches. Popular Hindi-Urdu is essentially the same throughout the Greater Desi Region i.e. the whole South Asian Sub-Continent.

Regardless of the political and communal sensitivities, the case for Hamari Boli (unified Hindi-Urdu) can be made entirely convincingly in utilitarian terms. The simple appeal of ensuring "Maximum Good for the Maximum Numbers" is strong enough to counter any opposition. the Indo-Pak region is home to 400+ language subgroups. Hamari Boli is the only option to reach all of them equally. Just like Mandarin, Hamari Boli is the most widely spoken and used language in the Indo-Pak subcontinent and With 900Mn+ speakers worldwide, ranks only 2nd to Mandarin. Just as Arabic is the language of the Arab World, Hamari Boli is the lingua franca of the Desi World. Not just Indo-Pak but entire South Asia indeed i.e. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, Mauritius, Srilanka, Afghanistan and the 30Mn+ Desi Diaspora worldwide. if the case is presented like this, it will definitely make sense for any potential funder. The very name "Hamari Boli" (Our Langauge) is neither Shudh Hindi nor Saaf Urdu and brings an air of familiarity for all desis and reinforces the idea of it being "The Desi Lingua Franca".

As the most widely understood Desi language, Hindi-Urdu is the link language of the sub-continent. However, written cross-communication is impossible due to script alienation. Nastaliq and Devanagari are illegible for the speakers of Hindi and Urdu respectively. The unfortunate result is that a lot of efforts and resources are being wasted trying to address either of the two scripts. All written works have to be transliterated back and forth in order to be legible to the readers of Nastaliq and Devanagari all of whom can be served with the script neutralized Hamari Boli, thus eliminating the superficial illegibility of written language imposed by Nastaliq/Devanagari. To this end, Hamari Boli uses the “Uddin and Begum Hindi-Urdu Romanization scheme”, proposed by the late Syed Fasih Uddin and the late Quader Unissa Begum for the Romanization of Urdu-Hindi-Hindustani. It was adopted by The First International Urdu Conference, 1992 Chicago, as;

"The Modern International Standard Letters of Alphabet for Hindi-Urdu (HINDUSTANI) - The Language, script for the purposes of hand written communication, dictionary references, published material and Computerized Linguistic Communications (CLC)".

In addition to being a bonafide scholarly endeavor, Hamari Boli is also an apolitical initiative to create a People-to-People Communication & Collaboration Platform where Desi scholars, students, professionals and everyone interested can cooperate in real time on initiatives that are of equal importance across both sides of the border. Hamari Boli's social objectives are to reunite the Desi Language to facilitate cross communication across borders and bring Desi people from around the world together in a cooperative endeavour for the benefit of all.

As a full scale Language Planning & People-to-People diplomacy endeavor, the Hamari Boli Initiative is inspired, driven and directed by several socio-linguistic considerations and objectives;

Social:

• Create a perpetual apolitical People-to-People communication & collaboration platform.
• Eliminate language communalization (Hindi for Hindus, Urdu for Muslims) by neutralizing the script
• Make Indians and Pakistanis consciously register the shared Desi heritage, easing feelings of alienation.
• Provide an apolitical environment to scholars and researchers to observe & study people interaction, analyze sentiments toward each other, identify best practices, report problem areas and suggest solutions.
• Create a lasting, freely available  resource that Indians and Pakistanis both own, contribute to & share  equally.

Linguistic:

• Graphization (Romanization using Uddin & Begum scheme)
• Lexical expansion & modernization (combining Hindi-Urdu vocabulary and unifying literary canon, technical vocab modernization)
• Style reform (simplified language accessible to the widest desi population as exemplified by Bollywood)

Roman Hindi-Urdu is already in vogue and the newer generations are all comfortable using it. However, the problem is that there's no standardization and for any standard to be widely agreed upon, there needs to be significant content in it. what better than a Dictionary? Google Trends reports 100Million+ 'Dictionary' related searches annually from Indo-Pak!

Some specific arguments for the desirability of Hamari Boli (Unified Hindi-Urdu using Roman alphabet) are;

1. Too much money and efforts are being wasted trying to address one of the two scripts. The extreme Hindi-Urdu digraphia essentially means doing the same thing twice! Font support, content production is always limited to one or the other script. With the neutralized Roman script, Hamari Boli will serve both Devanagari and Nastaliq readers thus freeing resources which can be pooled to produce much greater and better content. For example, a Hamari Boli Wikipedia!
   
   
2. By neutralizing the script, Hamari Boli will solve the illegibility problem and will make written Hindi-Urdu perfectly mutually legible thus making the works of Hindi and Urdu writers accessible to readers across both sides of the border
   
   
3. The difficulty of writing: The QWERTY keyboards are designed specifically for Roman Alphabet, it is very difficult to type Nastaliq and Devanagari.
   
   
4. Since both Nastaliq and Devanagari are calligraphic styles, they suffer from legibility problem on computer/mobile screens.
   
   
5. Young generation: Both in India and Pakistan, the younger generations are all comfortable using Roman for electronic communication (Internet/SMS).
   
   
6. Diaspora Desis: There are well over 30Million immigrants from the sub-continent around the world. Many later generation ppl can understand Hindi-Urdu very well but can’t read or write it in default scripts.
   
   
7. Since there’s no standardization, Roman Hindi-Urdu is not acceptable for print. Hamari Boli is that standard.

The table below illustrates the script problem in all clarity. It is shocking to see how even the most common words and phrases appear absolutely alien in the 'other' script.

Hamari Boli	Perso-Arabic	Devanāgarī	English Translation	Notes
assalamu alaikum	السلام علیکم	अस्सलामु अलैकुम्।	Hello	lit. "Peace be upon you." (from Arabic) آداب [aːdaːb] would generally be used to give respect و علیکم السلام / वअलैकुम् अस्सलाम् [ˈwaɭikum ˈaʔsaɭam] is the correct response.
adáb arz hai	آداب عرض ہے	आदाब अर्ज़ है।	Hello	"Regards to you" (lit Regards are expressed), a very formal secular greeting.
khudá hafiz	خدا حافظ	ख़ुदा हाफ़िज़।	Good Bye	Khudá is Persian for God, and hafiz is from Arabic hifz "protection". So lit. "May God be your Guardian." Standard and commonly used by Muslims and non-Muslims OR al vida formally spoken all over
hán	ہاں	हां	yes	casual
ji	جی	जि	yes	formal
ji han	جی ہاں	जि हां	yes	confident formal
ná	نا	ना	no	casual
nahin OR ji nahin	نہیں, جی نہیں	नहीं, जी नहीं	no	formal
meharbani	مہربانی	मेहर्बानी।	please
shukria OR jazakallah	شکریہ	शुक्रीया।	thank you
tashreef laie	تشریف لائیے	तश्रीफ़ लायीए।	Please come in	lit. Bring your honour
tashreef rakhie	تشریف رکھیئے	तश्रीफ़ रखीये।	Please have a seat	lit. Place your honour
áp se mil kar khvushi (khushi) hui	اپ سے مل کر خوشی ہوی	आपसे मिलकर बहुत ख़ूशी हुई।	I am happy to meet you।	lit. It is a pleasure to have met you
kya áp angrezi bolte hai?	کیا اپ انگریزی بولتے ہیں؟	क्या आप अन्ग्रेज़ी बोलते हैं?	Do you speak English?
main Urda nahin bolta (male) bolti (female)	میں اردو نہیں بولتا	मै ऊर्दू नहीं बोलता।	I do not speak Urdu.
mera nám .... hai	میرا نام ۔۔۔ ہے	मेरा नाम ___ है।	My name is ...
Lahaur kis taraf hai?	لاھور کس طرف ہے؟	लाहौर किस तरफ़ है?	Which way to Lahore?
Lakhnau kahan hai	لکھنو کہاں ہے؟	लख्नौ कहां है?	Where is Lucknow?
Urdu ek acchi zabaan hai	اردو ایک اچھی زبان ہے	ऊर्दू एक अच्छी ज़बान है।	Urdu is a good language.