EDUCATION
Ph. D. in linguistics University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
M.A. in linguistics University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
M. Phil. in linguistics University of Delhi, India.
I am Professor of Linguistics in the Department of English Literature & Linguistics at Qatar University. I am a linguist in both the popular and scholarly senses of the term. In the popular sense, I am a linguist because I proficiently speak Urdu, Hindi, English, and Arabic. In addition to commanding different levels of speech in Urdu-Hindi, I also have a good control of both the Devanagari and Arabic/Persian scripts. I also have a near-native proficiency in Yemeni dialect. In the scholarly sense, I am a linguist, because I study language. I specialize in sociolinguistics –a branch of linguistics that studies the social, political, and cultural aspects of language.
My specialty is the sociolinguistics of Urdu and Hindi in India. I have done extensive fieldwork in the city of Old Delhi, Shahjahanabad. See the research section for published research papers on Urdu in India. My secondary specialization is the socio-linguistics of Arabic in the Arab World.
In my Ph.D. dissertation, under the supervision of Prof. Robin Queen, I also study the recent phenomenon of adopting the Devanagari script for writing Urdu. It is worth noting that Urdu speakers have traditionally resisted suggestions to adopt Devanagari for Urdu arguing that doing so will destroy the independent identity of Urdu. I analyze data from several Urdu-in-Devanagari magazines and books and show how Muslims are making efforts to preserve some linguistic features of Urdu in Devanagari, for example, the distinctive Urdu phonemes. I also show how they are trying to preserve the orthographic features of Urdu in Devanagari. An example of this is the representation of the Urdu letter ain. Some of these unique features of Urdu in Devanagari actually violate basic principles of the Devanagari writing system.
Dr. Rizwan Ahmad
Department of English Literature & Linguistics
P O Box 2713
Doha, Qatar
Tel: (00974)-4403-4903
Email : rizwan.ahmad (at) qu.edu.qa
rizzahmad (at) gmail dot com