Social Status. As Persian fell out of use in the 19th century, the Indian Muslim elite also deliberately Persianized Hindustani as a symbol of class identity, then insisted on the superiority of Urdu for government work in order to maintain their monopoly on linguistic capital. (Rahman 2011, 80). Both politically and linguistically, elites are “that segment of a group which takes the lead in attaching value to symbols of group identity,” and in many cases, they use this power to their own advantage (King 1994, 3). Social status was such an important factor in the development of Urdu that it may have been an even greater predictor of language attitudes than religion. For instance, fluency in and attachment to Urdu was strong among certain high caste north-Indian Hindu demographics, like Kayasths, Kashmiri Brahmans, and Khatris (King 1994, 10). Furthermore, these higher-class Hindus supported the use of Urdu in the administration because it maintained their advantage for government jobs: their greatest competition came from middle-to-high-caste, Hindi-medium educated Hindus (62, 114). If Hindi had been adopted, these Urdu speakers would have found their lucrative government jobs in jeopardy; for this reason Rahman refers to Urdu as the “class dialect of a nervous aristocracy” (Rahman 2011, 108). Within Hindi/Hindu nationalist camp as well, class-- and more importantly caste—played an important role in language development (Xxxxxxx 2012, 30). Kaithi, a script used by many in the North Western Provinces but few in power, as well as two related scripts Xxxxxxxx, and Xxxxxxx, were also plausible contenders for the unofficial script of Hinduism, but Nagari, being the character of the high-caste Brahmins, won out (King 1994, 67, Rahman 2011, 263). English continued to be the language of power in India even after independence, for it was the English-speaking elite Indians who stepped into high government positions in the new state (Singh 2006, 6). While English remains the language of the highest Indian elite, it does not have to be ‘pure’ to connote wealth and education: just like Urdu came to be associated with the wealth and class of Persian speakers, so, too, does Hinglish convey the high status of English speakers (Si 2010, 390). Given both Hindi and English are already languages of power today, the formal promulgation of Hinglish poses little threat to contemporary holders of power in Indian government, though it does ease the entry requirement for middle- class not-quite-f...
