Sanskritization, de-Sanskritization and Colonial Rule

ssissu, how did you reach those conclusions?

Matter (bhoothasanghatham) can be understood in three modes, solid, lequid and gas. then interaction between them or reactive force and the space for that to happen. these are earth (solid), water (lequid), and gas (air). Reaction is fire and space is akasha. the pancha bhootha. Man also can be understood as bhootha diminent qualities,air (thought) oriented or brahmin, fire (action) oriented kshatriya, water or imotion oriented vayas and earth oriented sudras.thats how the classification came. what it is now is a distorted version as all classic sciences of great India is currently practiced!!

persians themselves did not use arabic script untill islam. they used some kinda aramic (pehlavi) etc..so sindhis or panjabis have unlikely to used shahmukhi.

123 # srk,

Though I am not sure if Sindhi ever had its own script. I am sure Kashmiri had its own script & that`s called Saraswat or something of that name. Now nobody knew it. Persian had replaced it.

Sindhi at some point in history in the ancient past wud have had its own script.

Nevertheless the north-west India (Sindh) had some historical evidence in the form of rock edicts of Asokan empire. The script found in that edict was Kharosti and that`s written from right to left i.e similar to Persian.

If Tibet with its natural barrier in the form of Himalayas had a script that is derived (sic) from Brahmi, I dont think why Sindhi had not one that`s not derived from Brahmi or a variant of that is written from left to right. In any case geographical proximity of Sindh to Persia and its infleunce thereof cant be ignored as Sindh was the extreme backyard of Indian mainland.

The sufi traditions point to the preponderence of Hindu religon and surnames point to the influence of Persian in Sindh. If Kutch and Thar desert was the buffer btw Sindh mainland India, the difficult Balochistan was the buffer btw Sindh and Persia.

Nevertheless, Sindhi MUST have had its own script which can be called its own which is not Indus script (cuniform) coz it`s totally pictographic.

Btw, Iravatham Mahadevan wrote a world-class masterpiec on Indus script.

Harimau,

Urdu came from the camps of the Moghuls apparently. It has become refined, and the Luknovi traditions are well and alive in Lucknow and Karachi. If you study Urdu literature from united India of the 30`s and 40`s (i think the most interesting times and literature) you will come across authors such as Munshi Prem Chand, Rajinder Singh Bedi and others, it was a language not defined by religion at all.

Regards Punjabi, the opposite has happened much of Punjabi in Pakistan has been Urdu-ised and in India it has been Hindi-ised. It is only in the country side you will hear a purer Punjabi, and it shares a lot in common with Sindhi and other local North Indian Languages. Due to all these languages beign North Indian, Urdu included, they do share some similar words but thats about all.

Urdu in Pakistan has not allowed words from Punjabi or Sindhi to enter into the Urdu lexicon, which would just enhance the language even more, instead of `destroying` it as you say.

Every language evolves, and for all our languages the next big influence is English, however, the sad part is that we are not Asianising the English we borrow instead using it directly into our languages making Urdu/Hindi/Punjabi/Any other language sound jaded and the English seems not to fit into it properly.

Srk

I will look into see what the script for Punjabi and Sindhi was before Perso-Arabic and Devanagri, tho i think it might be Devanagri as this is what is used for Sanskrit and probably what was used to write all languages of the area.

Ref ally #99

[#98

From the Redhouse Buyuk Elsozlugu

Ordu - Army
Orduevi - mil Officers Club
Ordugah - Military camp, military encampment

As far as i am aware Ordu is where the word Urdu originates from. In modern Turkish the language Urdu is known as Urduca.]

Thank you very much. In the movie ``Topkapi``, there is a scene where soldiers pour out of a compound signposted ``Ordu``. That is why I asked. ;)

To think that Urdu, a langauge primarily composed of words borrowed from several languages, is considered a literary language, when it evolved as a means of communications among disparate tribes! If Urdu is now considered a ``refined`` language, surely the credit goes for that goes to the natives of India. I believe Lucknawi Urdu is considered the best form of Urdu. I truly hope Pakistanis haven`t destroyed it by adding Punjabi words to it!

ally, I am Telugu speaking south Indian. Most of the south Indian language scripts seems to have evolved from the Brahmi script. If south Indian languages and scripts evolved from the areas of Indus civilization, i am sure Sindhi must have its own scipt, not sure what it is though.

have no idea srk, i know that Gurmukhi is only 400 odd years old and before then everything was written in Shamukhi... dont know what it was before then

what was the script used to write Punjabi and Sindhi before Md Bin Qasim showed up in Sind?

Re: # 94, ally Saheb,

Punjabi written in three different scripts is treated one language.

Sindhi is written in two script but is the same whether you read it in Nastaliq or in Devnagari.

There is one more example exclusively from India. Konkani too is written in Devnagari, Roman and Kannad and if you read it in any of them you are constitutionally recognized as reading Konkani language.

It is only with the language of the area endowed with `Ganga-Jamni tehzeeb` that you read Urdu in Nastaliq and Hindi in Devnagari even if you read exactly the same thing word by word. There must be something wrong with this tehzeeb itself and they must accept Punjabis and Sindhis as better tehzeebyafta who could easily resolve and reconcile similar problems logically and did not divide their own language.

Samar

#98

From the Redhouse Buyuk Elsozlugu

Ordu - Army
Orduevi - mil Officers Club
Ordugah - Military camp, military encampment

As far as i am aware Ordu is where the word Urdu originates from. In modern Turkish the language Urdu is known as Urduca.

Ref ally #92

[....Plus countless other words, open up any page in a Turkish dictionary and you are guaranteed to find so many words that you recognise and are used in Urdu today or have been used in the past. Open up a Persian dictionary and you will be even more amazed at the amount of words that are the same.]

Do you have a Turkish-English dictionary handy?

Can you look up the word `Urdu` in Turkish and tell us what it means?

I am being serious here.

``Elements of Persian grammar have been borrowed along with the vocabulary, and a knowledge of them is essential for reading literary Urdu, particularly poetry``
Exactly my point.One language two scripts? Yeah Right!

ally , thanks a lot. I owe you one.The paragraphs that you have so painstakingly reproduced,clears whatever little doubt I had in this issue(and hopefully it is as helpful to all those who read it)

Hey hey hey ally, every North Indian, not just among Muslims but also among the (unreal) Hindus (that`s a private joke) living there, knows his khatoon from his datoon. All mahilas and aurats are of course, always welcome, in addition.

Samar #87

What u say is right, In India many languages are written in Devanagri, and if one can read Hindi s/he can read many other languages like Nepali and Marathi. In Pakistan too it is the same, all our languages are written in the Perso Arabic script. Even those languages that have devanagri equivalents e.g. Punjabi and Sindhi. Punjabi is actually written in three scripts Shamukhi (Perso-Arabic, the original Punjabi script) Gurmukhi and devanagri, tho in Pakistan only Shahmukhi is used.