This course provides the second semester of training in Hindi and Urdu, allowing students to acquire linguistic skills in culturally authentic contexts. Equal emphasis is placed on both Hindi and Urdu, including writing systems, vocabulary, and culture. Course will focus on using language for communication. Students will be able to read and write both Hindi and Urdu scripts, communicate in social situations, and narrate in all three time frames: past, present and future. Classes are interactive.

Poetry occupies a significantly large space in the public sphere in South Asia. In addition to the expected areas of literature and performing arts, poetry is routinely performed in different domains of everyday life. This course will introduce students to various traditions, texts, and genres of Hindi-Urdu poetry that are routinely publicly performed as part of religious rituals, social practices, performing arts, and protest rallies. We will closely read some of the most widely performed Hindi/Urdu poems as independent literary texts, experience them as performances, and then analyze both texts and performances in their own contexts.

This is a continuing proficiency-based course which refines and expands previously acquired linguistic skills in culturally authentic contexts. Focus is on expanding vocabulary, mastering more complex grammatical structures, and acquiring idiomatic expressions. Use of authentic Urdu materials from print and electronic media, literature, and films. Equal emphasis on all skills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing). Various aspects of the target language culture will be integrated with instruction. Activities will be conducted in Urdu and classes will be interactive.