Talk:Urdu

• /Archive 1

Usage of Nasta'liq

Urdu is almost always written using the Nasta'liq style of writing. Does anyone know how to type this and incorporate it into Wikipedia, particularly this article? Thanks. Stallions2010 18:45, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's possible unless you use a different font, but I'm not sure. Basawala 20:08, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Urdu and Bollywood

I've added a section on how Urdu influences Bollywood, if anyone can add to it that would help since I'm not a native speaker of Urdu, but it is really influential in Bollywood.

Basawala 21:18, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Title

I say the title should be "Urdu language"; see my comment on the discussion page at Hindi. --Haruo 06:32, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I think adding "Language" to either Hindi or Urdu is unnecessary, since for all of the languages mentioned on the Hindi talk page are also used to describe people, like and English lady, or a Marathi boy. Basawala 19:14, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Change Mumbai to Dehli

I think that Dehli is a more appropriate city to use as an Urdu example, more than Bombay, since Dehli has a stronger Urdu history. Please share your thoughts on this before editing it back. Khoda Hafez. --Basawala 04:08, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Asalamalaikum. Thank you very much for your understanding and congratulations on your wonderful contributions to this article. I agree that Delhi is a more appropriate city than Mumbai for an Urdu example. However, the city of Lucknow (لکھنو) is known for its usage of Urdu (it has been the lingua franca there for centuries). In fact, the language used there is called Lucknowie Urdu (see Uttar_Pradesh#Languages). (mere khyal se) However, Delhi is still a good example as Urdu derives from the Delhi region. I will not edit anything. You can leave the example as Delhi or change it to Lucknow - which ever you prefer. The only reason why earlier I changed it to Mumbai from Karachi was to show the usage and official status of Urdu in both Pakistan and India. Thank you once again for your understanding in everything. Khuda Hafiz. --Ahmed27

Thanks. I was actually on the verge of changing it to Lucknow (or Hyderabad), both cities with a great Urdu tradition. But I chose Delhi instead, since it's basically the city next to the capital. I will change it to Lucknow, because they have the greatest Urdu tradition. Basawala 19:50, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Transliteration

I've noticed the terrible condition of the transliteration in this article, and the slightly better one in the Wikitravel Urdu phrasebook and I would like to change that.

I'm gonna go ahead and change it, since I think the current system is somewhat appalling (except for Urdu song lyrics on a non-Wikipedia site).

The most appropriate transliteration scheme, in my opinion, is the a the IAST system.

But for the letters Se, barhi he, KHaa, swaad, zwaad, to'e, zo'e, ain, ghain, and qaaf :
The letter ﻉ should be transliterate both when it does and does not affect the transiteration. I would use the AlA-LC system here, but that is up for discussion. But since my browser cannot support full Unicode, I cannot write the dotted versions of letters h, s, d, t, and z and therefore cannot fully transliterate these letters, and I will use the non-dotted versions, which I hope are only temporary.

This method, along with a mixture of others, is being used in the Urdu phrasebook on wikitravel (above) and also List of Common phrases in Urdu (section) , and I hope that these sites' transliteration will be cleaned up (I'll get to doing that later), since there are many versions of the transliterated ﺥ, ﺹ, etc, the letter ﻉ is not well represented, and the both the ā form and the aa form are being used.

Also, I think a Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Urdu) should be created, and I'll also try to do that, no guarantees though.

So for now, here is the transliteration system I will use (I only added the real letters to the more ambiguous letters): Consonants b
t
ṭ (I actually cannot view that, I had to copy/paste from IAST)
s ث
j
c, asp. ch (this way is better for works like achcha, so we'd have acchā not achchha)
h ح
kh خ
d
ḍ
z ذ
r
ṛ
z
zh
s
sh
s
z
t
z
'
gh
f
q
l
m
n
v
y

Vowels: a ā i ī ai e u ū o au

Please improve upon this by changing some of the ambiguous letters like badi he, khe, se, soaad, doaad, toe, zoe, ghain, etc. I know that I'm representing 2 sounds each with kh and gh, so please change that (after commenting on this talk page). Please give alternate transliterations for the ambigious letters Se, barhi he, KHaa, swaad, zwaad, to'e, zo'e, ain, ghain, and qaaf. I hope alternates are used since this would create a good lossless transliteration. Hindi is not exactly the same as Urdu (esp. not in writing/transliteration), and for the letter se, we should use the same symbol as the Hindi ष (in IAST, the transliteration of it is ṣ ) since Urdu in Wikipedia should not be molded into the Hindi style.

---khuda hafiz --- Basawala 21:46, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I have forgotten to address the issue of nasalized n, which should best be a superscript n.

Also, as I realized, the Wikitravel Urdu phrasebook has a perfectly good transliteration table, although inside the table,under the name column, there are even a few mistakes. Should we use the above system or the system on Wikitravel?

I personally like the above system because of the lack of underlined letters. But, it has c and sh for parallel sounds, which the Wikitravel phrasebook uses c and ś for. I don't like the letter ś, since sh is much better fitted for English speakers. Shukria -- Basawala 22:12, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually, nasalized n should be transliterated as a normal n, since it's with the same letter, and I think some words can be pronounced with either nasal or normal n? Like Jaan Jaa~? Thanks. Basawala 19:33, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Hindustanti is not a mix of Hindi and Urdu

I removed this section, because it is nonsensical:

Some scholars think that Urdu has had such an impact on the Hindi of India that Hindi in itself has evolved into Hindustani, a blend of Hindi and Urdu. It is believed that most Indians speak Hindustani.

See the entries on Hindustani language and Hindi. Hindustani is not a mixture of Hindi and Urdu. Hindi and Urdu are standardized dialects of Hindustani. Anyone who is speaking Hindi or Urdu is by definition speaking Hindustani. Acsenray 16:51, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Urdu cannot be written with Devanagari!

Urdu has letters that CANNOT be represented with Devanagari, like 'ain for example. Also, three urdu letters (ذ, ض, ظ) would be written as one letter in Devanagari. Qaaf, ghain, and khay in Devanagari need little dots next to ka, ga, and kha. And if Devanagri were used to represent Urdu, then it would AUTOMATICALLY be considered Hindi. And Urdu ghazals in Devanagari, however common they might be, are only phonetic aids to the ghazals, NOT authentic urdu. So I'm gonna change it to say that only the Perso-Arabic alphabet can represent Urdu, and NOT devanagari. Please discuss here before changing it back. Thank you. Basawala 17:45, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Letter to letter transliteration has no place in linguistics. The three letters for the same phoneme /z/ that you are talking about correspond to the devanagari ज़. Ain is simply represented by an apsotrophe wherever there is a hiatus. Note that the Arabic Script is meant ONLY for writing arabic. It has been borrowed by Urdu, but it cannot give one-to-one correspondence with its sounds. That is why you have extra symbols for Ta, Da, and Ra, not found in arabic or persian (my answer to the "little dots" in devanagari). In arabic, zo, zuaad and zaal do not give the sound of /z/. zo is for emphatic /δ/. Zuaad is for emphatic dental /d/. Zaal is for plain dental fricative /δ/, as in English then. All of these become /z/ in Persian, and hence in Urdu too. And your talk of "authentic Urdu" written only in "Perso-Arabic" is like a joke. Script is not a concern of linguistics. Cygnus_hansa 18:50, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Pretty much any language can be written in any script. It might not be entirely accurate, and could underrepresent some sounds, but ineffecient and inaccurate orthographies aren't unusual.

What's more relevant to Wikipedia is whether people do write Urdu in Devanagari. Are there any communities or groups that identify their language as Urdu, but nevertheless write in Devanagari? If so, it deserves to be noted in the article. If Urdu is only written in Devanagari as a phonetic aid, then somewhere in the article it should say "Urdu is sometimes also written in Devanagari as a phonetic aid". --Ptcamn 19:14, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

In India, Hindi as taught in schools in only in devanagari script. But many Hindus (and Muslims who go in for modern education) do like Urdu poetry (shaayari and ghazal), which is heavy with Perso-Arabic words. So most Urdu shaayari and ghazal books available in contemporary India have Urdu written in devanagari script. Cygnus_hansa 14:53, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Urdu grammar

The urdu grammar sections seems to have been copied from Hindi. I will change it to reflect the realities of Urdu grammar, and I would appreciate any help! Thank you. Basawala 15:39, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Tadbhav and tatsam are ONLY for Hindi, User:Zulfikkur. The Sanskrit-borrowed words of Urdu number so little that it is pointless to mention them, as most of them have only been merged into Hindi for the shuddha hindi movement, which DOES NOT affect Urdu. Also, the poetic use of "tu" is not just in reference to Allah Ta'ala, it is also used to refer to a lover in poetry, and increasingly in film songs. Basawala 17:01, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

And if you really want to say "of Hindi or Sanskrit origin", you must also include Portuguese and Greek too, since loanwords from those languages are as few and on the same level as those of sanskrit. Basawala 17:10, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Saying "of Hindi or Sanskrit origin" complements "Persian or Arabic". Sanskrit and Arabic loanwords are on the same contribution level to the Urdu language. So I will revert that edit. Thanks for the information on tadbhav and tatsam words, I did not know that so your edit will be kept. Khuda hafiz.

Sanskrit loanwords are very few in Urdu, I think what you are referring to are the words of native Hindustani origin, which are Sanskrit loanwords (for example, aadmi, ladka, kutta, billi, etc. are not anything like in Sanskrit). What is meant by Sanskrit loanwords are words like madhu, krishi, doordarshan, etc., which are NOT found in real Urdu. Basawala 17:25, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Urdu and Hindi are both descended from Sanskrit (the basis of Indo-Aryan languages), just as French and Spanish are both descended from Vulgar Latin. Zulfikkur 17:32, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

This is not true. Hindi and Urdu are descended from Prakrit dialects. Basawala 17:42, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

"Hindi evolved from Sanskrit, by way of the Middle Indo-Aryan Prakrit languages " From the Hindi article. Native Hindustani words are NOT the same as Sanskrit words, and are much more accurately described as words of Hindi/Urdu/Hindustani origins. Sanksrit origins would refer to direct borrowings from Sanskrit found in Modern Formal Hindi, which has nothing to do with native Hindustani words. Please do not revert without coming to an agreement. Bahut bahut Shukria. Basawala 17:47, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Portugese is insignificant in the development of the Urdu language. AbdulQadir 18:35, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

True, but it is at the same level as words borrowed directly from Sanskrit, like raaja from Sskrt or kamra and botal from portuguese, which are the only sanskrit and portuguese loanwords i can think of. Basawala 21:12, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Basawala, thanks for your concern on this issue. I just placed what I found and researched to be correct on the Urdu article. I have two sources for Urdu being a variant of Hindi: (1) [Ethnologue: Comments] (2) [Sociolinguistics of Hindi]. For the second issue regarding Sanskrit loanwords in Urdu I, as native speaker of Urdu and Hindi, found there to be a significant amount of Sanskrit borrowings in the Urdu language, such as dant (tooth), dhuan (smoke), nakhun (fingernail), aag (fire), etc. Also, since 60% of Urdu uses vocabulary from Hindi, which is based on Sanskrit (as all Indo-Aryan/Indian origin languages are), one could deduce that Urdu would also have some Sansktrit borrowings. The same is true of Persian words in Urdu. Urdu is also based on Persian, which has a singificant amount of loanwords from Arabic. Hence, we can say that Urdu (which has a large number of borrowings from Persian) also has a significant amount of loanwords from Arabic. A source that I found hepls support this argument: [Hindi-Urdu FAQ: What are the origins of Hindi and Urdu?]. Thanks for not reverting the Urdu page. I also hope there will be another expert to help us. Thank you again for all your understanding in this matter. --Jdas07 06:22, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

• Keep the phrases on Sanskrit. AbdulQadir 06:03, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep "of Hindi or Sanskrit origin". Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language based on Sanskrit. This is common sense. 70.106.119.264 01:59, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Zulfikkur 02:01, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Patel24 02:31, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

American English is not acceptable

I have gone ahead and british-ized this article, since Urdu and the places where Urdu is spoken has had more impact from British than American English. I probably have missed many Americanisms here, so please help me in correcting them. Also, if anyone doesn't like the usage of BritEng here, I would like to hear any suggestions or comments. Shukriya. Basawala 21:23, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

IPA equivalents?

What is the IPA equivalent for غ (i.e. ghain) is it ɣ (i.e. v with a voop in the bottom) or it it ʁ (ie. inverted small caps r)? ghain is the one we use for gham and ghalib right? Currently ghain is assigned ɣ (i.e. v with a voop in the bottom) in the page "Urdu" Do we have to change it to ʁ (ie. inverted small caps r)? Also please check the IPA for ط (i.e. the letter to'e) Is it [t] or [ʈ] (longer t) ? Please given the description of the symbol too, as I have given, as the Unicode is not showing on many computersSaurabh Mangal 10:02, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the IPA for 'غ' is ɣ. I only know this because it corresponds to Gurmukhi ਗ਼ which has that phonetic value in Punjabi. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 10:07, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Could you Give the description of what symbol you suggested? Please hear the IPA at http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonants/course/chapter1/chapter1.html and at http://www.paulmeier.com/ipa/charts.html and read about the IPA from Wikipedia. Saurabh Mangal 10:21, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I am somewhat wary of implementing IPA to represent Urdu. Not everything is pronounced as it is written. In order to indicate pronunciation, for example, there is no reason to differentiate between ث, س, and ص. Using dots under the letters to indicate retroflexivity (is that even a word) I think is not only adequate but also allows for readers to process the transliteration swiftly. But if it is official policy *sigh* then what can one do? Kitabparast 05:22, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Superscript "h" to indicate aspiration: code or character?

I am of the opinion that aspiration must be indicated by some means other than a normal "h". I have taken the liberty of inserting a superscript "h" to indicate aspiration wherever needed. I am willing to do this with other Urdu-related pages as well. I would like to ask, however, whether one ought to use a superscript "h" through code ("sup" in angled brackets, h, "/sup" in angled brackets), as has been done with the nasalized "n" here (and I agree that the nasalized "n" must be represented by a superscript "n") or should the superscripted "h" and "n" be represented by the appropriate character (and thus using no code)? Thus, should it be ^h and ⁿ or ʰ or ⁿ? Once a decision has been made, I would be willing to do my best to implement this in Urdu pages I encounter. Of course, the same can be said about Hindi. Kitabparast 05:16, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Preferably realized through the character as given in the Insert box for IPA.Cygnus_hansa 14:47, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! Kitabparast 16:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

su'ād and sīn

Ok we know Urdu is not totally phonetic like some other languages but what about these two. Is there anyway at all to know which one to use when? Saurabh Mangal 08:19, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

For all loanwords from Hindi/Hindustani/English/Persian, one must use sin, because it corresponds to plain /s/. Suad comes in certain Arabic loanwords for emphatic /s/ (not found in Urdu/Hindi/Persian/English etc.).

'Ain + alif or alif + madd

Urdu has two different spellings for the word aam, depending on the meaning. Aaam meaning mango is written with alif + madd and aam meaning ordinary and simple is 'Ain + alif. Is there any rule?

When we start words with aa sound, should we use 'Ain + alif or alif + madd? I have seen 'Ain + alif in aadat, aasteen, aajzi, aarazi, aadi, aalim and aalishaan. Are there more words which use this, instead of the more used alif + madd? Saurabh Mangal 08:27, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Ain stands for the glottal stop. It is not the आ vowel. The glottal stop exists in Ararbic and Persian, but is rarely realized as such in Urdu, who have given it aa sound. For loanwords from Hindi/Sanskrit/English/Persian, one must use Alif+madd (giving the normal aa sound). For certain Arabic words (whose spelling must be learnt), Ain has to be used. Cygnus_hansa 14:50, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

zhe i.e. ژ

Could somebody give examples for the use of ژ (two extra dots on ze(which has one dot)). I know only one i.e. zhuzh meaning a porcupine. Is the currently assigned IPA of /ʒ/ (s as in vision) correct? Or is it pronounced like j with superscript h as in hindi jha. In hindi a porcupine is called jhaau-chooha; with jha as /j with superscript h/. Could somebody give examples to point out the difference between the various /z/ also. Saurabh Mangal 08:35, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

zhe is pronounced as English s as in pleasure. I don't think it exists with this pronunciation in Urdu; probably it is pronounced /z/. In Arabic and Persian, it gives the pronunciation /ʒ/. In Hindi, procupine is called saahi. As I said earlier, the Perso-Arabic script is actually meant for Arabic language, with which it shares one-to-one correspondence. The "proper" /z/ is "ze". Zaal is for voiced dental fricative. Zo is for emphatic voiced dental plosive. Zuaad is for emphatic voiced dental fricative. Jim is for j as in joke. Persian/Arabic do not have aspirated plosives, so no question of Hindi-like jha. Cygnus_hansa 14:41, 11 July 2006 (UTC)