hindi/urdu

[lobelia321]

As my Hindi consists of snatches only, mostly gleaned from sub-titles (and hence confined largely to the dil, divanna, kuch nahi variety, *g*), I can't tell what sort of speech people are using in most films.

For example, do some films have a mix of Hindi and Urdu? And when is Urdu used -- is it more 'elevated'? E.g. the Chayya Chayya and also the Satrangi re lyrics from Dil Se seem more poetic than the songs, say, from KKHH -- are they also in a different language? And would audiences still understand?

And the way that people lapse into English for whole phrases or just words: is that just a recent 1990s thing (in the movies, that is)?

And, most importantly, do you think I can actually *learn* Hindi, sort of osmotically, just by watching enough films and reading Shah Rukh's lips a lot????

ETA: Whoops. This was meant to go on the bollywood community. But heh, as you're all responding so kindly, I'll leave it here as well.

Comments

[lazulus]

Interestingly enough, by the end of this decade Hindi will be the second most spoken language on earth, overtaking English. The mostr spoken is -- of course -- Chinese.

I can tell the indic languages apart when looking at the script and know Bengali when I hear it, but I am not familiar enough with Urdu or Hindi to tell them apart when spoken.

[novanumbernine.livejournal.com]

And the way that people lapse into English for whole phrases or just words: is that just a recent 1990s thing (in the movies, that is)?

i dunno, but in india you will often hear people who do not share a common indian language speaking to each other in english. hindu is not as widely spoken in southern india as it is in the north.

n.x :)