Urdu as an African language: a survey of a source literature

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Periodical article

Title:	Urdu as an African language: a survey of a source literature
Author:	Green, Nile
Year:	2012
Periodical:	Islamic Africa (ISSN 2154-0993)
Volume:	3
Issue:	2
Pages:	173-199
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	East Africa South Africa
Subjects:	Indians historical sources Urdu language
External link:	http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.5192/215409930302173
Abstract:	This article provides the first survey of the development of Urdu literature in Africa, with a particular emphasis on East and South Africa. Dealing with the colonial and postcolonial periods, the survey encompasses the early evolution of Indian settler descriptions of Africa before moving on to the range of other genres of African Urdu, including travel writing, hagiography, poetry, and historiography. While in many cases these sources display Islamic cultural and religious concerns, other texts were written by non-Muslim settlers from Punjab. The emergence of these source materials is placed in its historical contexts, particularly colonial South Asian labour and merchant migration and settlement in Africa. Where possible, the Urdu sources are compared to sources in Gujarati and other regional languages. Ref., sum. [Journal abstract]