Sindhi scripts

[mannu]

My “mother tongue”, Sindhi, is supposed to have been written in more than eight different scripts-including Devanagari! This comes as a surprise to me. My family always wrote it in the Arabic script. I suspect there are very few Sindhis out there who write using Devanagari, let alone some of the other ancient scripts.

It’s a shame I call it my

Comments

[vandyvandana]

being a Sindhi, even i have no clue about the script. Did try learning a lil from my granpa when i was a kid, but it seemed to be too complicated so i didnt bother much.

verbally, communicating in sindhi is not that difficult. sindhi and punjabi are quite similar, so it was pretty eazy.

certain patches in Rajasthan (eg. Ajmer) use sindhi as the local language for communication.
I dont think this language will become extinct very soon. But yeah, from the cities its vanishing at an exponential rate.

[suhit_kelkar]

A writer, I forget the name, recently said that only three languages will ultimately survive-- English, Chinese and Spanish. This not entirely but substantially because they have many speakers.
Only people who think like you will be able to save 'less peopled' languages.
One way to do this would be to start project Gutenberg-like websites for these languages.
I would like to do something of the sort for my own mother-tongue, Marathi, but a common portal for the comraratively less-spoken languages would be so much lively and cross-pollinating.

[anonymous]

I know it's against manners to suggest some Microsoft product to an Adobe geek but still, BhashaIndia.com could have some resources for your grandma.

Very impressed to read that Googling grandma.

Amit Agarwal
http://labnol.blogspot.com/

Being a sindhi

[anonymous]

I see what you are saying. I am a sindhi from bombay in us and can speak some sindhi but not as fluently as i can speak marathi. sad but true. its funny coz sindhis are known for their business savvy but the language is dying. i guess sindhi in my family tree might die with me since i cross married. i wish that at least spoken word persists. devnagri is not so hard, i remember my grandmom learned devnagri in her 60's.

i have been at your blog regarding flex a few time. good blog!

vikas.

Thought provoking post

[anonymous]

It’s a shame I call it my mother tongue: I can barely speak Sindhi.

This posting set me thinking. Guess this is a challenge many Indians are facing today. I guess there are many more elsewhere in the world with these challenges.

This struck a chord since this problem of languages has been bothering me.

Most of us have adopted English (the language), Hindi (since its sort of pan Indian and necessary one needs to follow Bollywood movies) and our native tongue becomes a spoken language for some and dies after a generation.

I have been deliberating for a while on what might be potential apporaches to tackle this but thats a post in itself. Maybe later.

Meanwhile why dont you sign up for a service like mylanguageexchange.com. I notice it has 422 Sindhi speaking users. Many I am sure would be happy to help you solve your problem.

I tried this service some time back. Found a few people keen to teach and learn something else.

Regards
Arun

Arun Ramarathnam