Question of national language in Asia and Africa

That a nation has a national language is a fairly recent idea. I may be wrong but it appears to me it's not older than the French Revolution in its current form. It works fairly well when applied to Europe's chiefly monolingual nations - Germany has German, France has French, Spain has Spanish and so on. Of course there are notable exceptions like Switzerland and Luxembourg, the trend is Europe is more clear cut than in Africa and Asia.

If existence of multilingual states is an exception in Europe, monolingual nation states are a rarity in Asia and Africa. There are at least 103 languages, 14 recognised languages (official at lower level) and two federal in India. South Africa boasts of 14 official languages. They may be extreme cases on both continents, at the same time, however, they present a situation where the idea of a national language isn't feasible.

I read somewhere it's not uncommon for people in Africa to be fluent in four or five languages. And no one there furrows a brow using them until one of them is raised to the status of a national language. It's only then that divisions arise. 

To most people, in Asia and Africa, these different languages are part of their identity. I don't think I will ever talk to my friends in Punjabi or family in Hindi. And there isn't going to be an issue until I am told to exclusively use only one of those. That would mean losing a part of your identity.

Perhaps that explains why almost all of the formerly colonised countries continue to read and write in the respective languages of their former masters, while speaking in Hausa or Hindi.

Queen Victoria and Hindustani/Urdu

So it happened today in the afternoon when instead of taking a siesta I thought why not while away browsing the internet instead of lying on the bed and looking at an old slow moving fan hung at the ceiling. I started out with checking my Spanish reading skills on El Mundo. Then, deciphering an article there, I came across the word Francia (France). There is nothing special about France except that on reading the first image to strike my mind was of Napoleon. Nothing special about that either except that I suddenly developed an interest in that era and how he made the Portuguese Royal Family escape to Brazil on English ships to save themselves. From there began a journey which took me to different corners of the Portuguese Empire.

Reading about the Portuguese a sudden thought crossed my mind, what were the Indian empires like during the Age of Discovery? So I turned to reading about the Mughal Empire, how Babar (a descendant of Genghis Khan) established the empire in India during the middle of the sixteenth century, and how his son Humanyun almost lost it in 1540 only to capture it again some fifteen years later and what a splendid empire it was during the reign of King Akbar.

The last Mughal Emperor was exiled to Rangoon (Burma) by the British following the 1857 mutiny. After the "rebellion" or "insurgency" the British East India Company had to hand over power to the English monarchy and Queen Victoria was declared the empress of what was later to be called the Raj.

Of course I was already aware with the sequence of events (except that Humanyan once lost the Mughal empire to the Suris) from history textbooks in school. But I didn't know that Queen Victoria took her job so seriously that she began to learn Hindustani (Urdu/Hindi). Her teacher was Abdul Karim. (I don't know more about the man.)

Not only that she also wrote in Hindustani in her diary. Here is one of the entries: 

The English text reads:  

Today I and my family were almost in greater .... and grief than they had ever been as my young grandson Prince Albert Victor of Wales died this morning at nine o'clock.

The Urdu text reads: 

آج جس ... اور ... ...

Unfortunately I can't read the Urdu (Hindustani) text. Of course I can read printed Urdu and write myself. But because I have never ever seen anyone writing in Urdu, it's impossible for me to decipher.

This makes me wish if Nathu Ram Godse hadn't assassinated Gandhi on that fateful evening, his policies would have more of an impact on independent India and I would not only be able to read that diary but also appreciate Urdu calligraphy. What a pity! Urdu (the language that brought us independence - azadi ki zuban) is now an "enemy" tongue!

گورا مارے تو بیچارہ پاگل ، مسلم مارے تو دہشتگرد

جس امریکی فوجی نے ١٦ افغانوں کو قتل کیا ہے اس کو پاگل کرار دینے کی کوششیں زوروں پر ہیں - کیا امریکہ اور یوروپ کے لوگوں کے لئے یہ خیال کرنا بھی مشکل ہے کہ ان میں سے کویی ہتھیارہ یا دہشتگرد ہو سکتا ہے ؟ یا پھر یہ اس بات کا نیا نمونہ ہے کہ دہشتگرد ایک عیسیٰ لفظ ہے جو صرف مسلموں کے لئے استمعال کیا جاتا ہے ؟

جواب مشکل نہیں ہے 

 ناروے کہ اندرس بروک ایک پاگل تھا ، امریکہ کہ رابرٹ بیلس کہ دماغ خراب ہو گیا تھا ، لکن عرب ملکوں میں رہنے والے جیسے انسان نہیں ہے، جیسے انکا دماغ خراب نہیں ہوتا... لکن انکے لئے صرف ایک ہی لفظ استمعال ہوتا ہے : دہشتگرد !