Word: urdu
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Behind Nehru's pronouncement (which was promptly endorsed by the education ministers' conference) was the knowledge that Hindi has failed to replace English as a national language. With an Urdu base and a Sanskrit script, Hindi is spoken by the biggest single language bloc in all India-roughly 100 million people, most of whom live in Uttar Pradesh, the sprawling area that has traditionally supplied New Delhi with most of its politicians. Hindi has remained largely unknown in southern India, which prides itself on its command of English...
...commission sent out thousands of questionnaires in Urdu, English and Bengali, last week reported six to one for reform. Henceforth, it recommended, Pakistani males should get permission for second marriages from special new courts of matrimony; they should prove themselves able to support two families; they should not marry again "merely ... to marry a prettier or younger woman." The commission added that child marriages and the sale of brides should be outlawed, and that women and men should have equal rights of divorce. As of now, Pakistanis can divorce their wives in Islamic fashion by saying "I divorce thee" three...
...satisfied with some of the commission's proposals, all of them subject to parliamentary debate. In many other states, the proposed new boundaries will fall short of perfectly sorting out language groups, thus emphasizing India's need for one unifying national language. Hindi (related to Urdu and Sanskrit in the Hindustani group) is spoken by 40% of Indians and understood by many more, but it is little known in South India, and, like all native Indian languages, lacks the precision and flexibilities needed in the law and the sciences. The British, first unifiers of India since...
...Blenheim bombers on one more mission, was shot down over France. He slipped away from the Germans three times, once killing three captors with a knife and the butt of a sentry's rifle, another time impersonating an Irish Republican Army man (and spouting Urdu when asked to show that he could speak Gaelic). He slept one night in an absent German general's bed, watched from the bedroom window the Nazis' parade into Paris, and cycled across France to freedom. Back in Britain, he left his commander's desk and flew repeated fighter missions...
...determine the place of religion in the state, though the Moslem faith is really all that binds together the two halves, which are separated by 1,000 miles of hostile India. West Pakistan is arid and Middle Eastern: its people eat wheat, speak Punjabi or Urdu, and supply most of the tough manpower for Pakistan's 250,000-man army and for its permanent civil service. East Pakistan is lush and Southeast Asian: its people eat rice, speak Bengali, and complain that they do not have the influence at Karachi to which their preponderant numbers entitle them. In local...