Indigenization and Transliteration: Loan-Words in Khalid Hussaini’s The Kite Runner

Abstract

The present research is based on the qualitative method by analysing the words of Urdu language through the alphabets of English language in Khalid Hussaini’s The Kite Runner (2003). English is a language used as co-official language in Pakistan and a lingua franca in the world.  During the writing process, it is natural that many words of the Urdu language get their way in and become part of The Kite Runner. The key purpose of this research is linguistics manipulation in the novel and the strong influence of Urdu language. Different critics and researchers have highlighted the various aspects of The Kite Runner such as socio-cultural condition, class clashes, diaspora elements, ethnic division, father and son relationship etc. It seems that less attention is paid to my area of study. The study will provide a new perspective to The Kite Runner. After the analysis it appears that there is a strong influence of Urdu language which can also be considered as environmental effects. This paper aims to find out Urdu words in the text that have become part of English language as Urdu loan words. It highlights a large number of Urdu words which are mentioned in The Kite Runner. It is hoped that this study would help to motivate the future researchers to delve the same in another piece of literature. The results show that the novelist takes keen interest in Urdu language by using Urdu words as transliteration. I employed linguistic influence as a powerful instrument by using loan words to share the culture of the society. This research is an attempt to unfold the local words and their attached senses so that the reader can easily understand the meaning of sentences in context. It will help the readers in decoding the text influence by applying transliteration and indigenization.