Sanskritization, de-Sanskritization and Colonial Rule

Re: # 75, masanamuthu,

No problem! Every human being has been bastardized to the core. I can not use this word for languages though. Any language.

Samar

Re: # 72, rahul_capri,

We are communicating on different wavelengths. This is my last attempt to get to you.

What I am trying to make you understand is Urdu/Hindi poetry was/is safe in the hands of Muktibodhs, Raghuvir Sahais, Rahi Masoom Razas, Asad Zaidis, Devtales, Rajesh Joshis and many others plus some others who write this language in Saudi script. OK! How dare you think after 60 years of independence genuine Urdu/Hindi poets could be counted on fingers?

Samar

samar:

Hindi and Urdu are the same. Thinking about it, this looks like a good weapon in the hands of anti-Hindi-imposition folks. They could make use of the fact to get ``Hindu parties`` to support pure Hindu languages like Tamil, Kannada, Telugu etc.. against the bastardized Hindi.. I din`t mean to start a ``flame war``..

Re: # 73, masanamuthu,

I will tell you why! It was because what Indus aired in Urdu got communicated to you in Hindi!!

What is in a name yaar!!!

Samar

As a person who does not know much about Hindi / Urdu, I was watching a Pakistani (free preview channel, Indus I think..) . I could not figure out any difference between watching `Zee` and `Indus`.. They sound the same..

samar,
``They are all mixing up language with script, may be due to religious reasons. ``
yaar, when did i talk about script(or religion)? khair ...lets agree to disagree as we earlier did.Since kaalchakra understands what I am trying to say and what is at stake here...let me reply to him.
``Indian urdu poetry will be very different from Arabic/Persian poetry of the past.``
kaalchakra...My point is that Urdu has internalized these ``influences`` since it was born.These are innate. not acquired. These influences are in its dna; which the poetry of earliest Urdu poets like Ghalib,Mir would tell you. One fine day you decide this influence has to go.Fine..arrey bhai accept toh karo.!! Why this continued dishonesty of ``One language two scripts``? In fact you are allowing only that part of Urdu to flourish that is already common(intersects) with Hindi.So one day this dishonest statement of ``One language two scripts`` will be true in India,if it is not already.
``And he would draw more words and sensibilities from his connections to awadhi and brajbhasha than from Arabic and Persian languages and cultures. ``
That Indian has no other choice! He may want to write like Ghalib, Mir, Faiz but he does not have the ammo for it.He can try, but he will end up with a watered down version..and the sad part is..he would not even know why is that so..for he is been fed the mantra of one laguage two scripts for so long..he thinks he actually knows Urdu.Of course...some may be ndustrious enough to realize this and learn,but that is another thing.
``By the way I could figure out most of Sri malihabadi, although not all. Had we been up against something like kamayani, I would have been in worse trouble :( ``
now tell me, when you read kamayani.what is the problem? Only some words that you can go look up.You can actually write like that if you so desire.But this by Josh..you can understand...(and understanding is not a problem yet), but can you imagine yourself writing iike that?
So..lets not even talk about Urdu/Hindi/Hindu/Muslim/Nastalique/Devnagri for a while. Lets talk in terms of poets..The land which is the birthplace of poets like Mir,Ghalib, Josh ,Firaq, Majaz..will never have any other poet like them.Poets like them will be on the other side of the border, and the greatest of them all ..Faiz`s mother tongue is Punjabi.Ironical, isnt it?
But as Ghalib would have said..
GHalibe-KHasta ke bagair, konse kaam band haiN ? roi`ye zaar zaar kya, kiji`ye haaye haaye kyuN

Re: # 69, khamy1,

As I know `Persian` I can very well `translate` this ghazal for you. But I am not going to do that for free. Moreover, you have asked me to `explain`, which is not my forte, so excuse me.

#68 by Kaalchakra,

Well said Kaal saheb. They are all mixing up language with script, may be due to religious reasons. I have no problem with different scripts, even naming these language(s) differently don`t concern me. But insisting on these being different languages is harming majority of Urdu speakers and writers.

But I agree to disagree till the matter is not decided by the people.

Samar

Re: # 64, rahul_capri,

First of all I will tell you that I too read a lot of poetry. I really love poetry. In #55 I discussed Urdu/Hindi and the language divide caused, as many have agreed, by Hindoo/Muslim revivalism during 19th and 20th century and by officialdom and politics after partition. This encouraged even poets like Jayshankar Prasad, Pant, Nirala and others to write Sanskritized Hindi and many Urdu poets wrote Urdu loaded with Persian. After 47 this started to change gradually and many modern Hindi poets used peoples language, so to say. You can call it Urdu, you can call it Hindi. The poem I have quoted is by Muktibodh, a Maharashtrian by birth, writing poetry in Hindi/Devnagri script and you can see for yourself the language he has written in, Urdu or Hindi. That is why I don`t agree with you that Urdu is whithering away in India. I is safe in the hands of the people and many Hindi/Urdu poets who write in easy, accessible to all language. Apart from Muktibodh, Samsher, Dushyant, Raghuvir Sahay, Dhumil (and Nida, Badr and many others) have used this language. Now, at least you should not deny the benefit of common script, though I am not against different scripts at all. As for the Faiz and Josh or Prasad and Pant are concerned both are equally difficult to understand only due to their Sanscritized or Persianized Hindi/Urdu. You have to consult dictionaries to understand both.

#65, Also, combination of words is not at all a problem. Laparwah (or La-parwah), Nalayak, Beqasoor, Lawaris, Nabaligh are most common words of Hindi language and any substitutes for Sanscritized words for these have been resisted by common people and these words are still in vogue in Hindi. So overall, Urdu/Hindi language is safe in the hands of common people and what you are worried about is Saudi script, which in my opinion, will die of its natural death in India. I think we should bother ourselves for our language and not for a foreign script.

Samar

It should have been: ``He seems to know Urdu/Hindi language and literature MUCH better than I do.``

khamy1

You, cheat! :)

If someone picked any passage from, say, kamayani of Jaishankar Prasad, 90% of Hindi speakers couldn`t make head or tail of what on earth the poet was trying to say. So that proves little.

For a language that has been influenced by so many great cultural forces, over so long a period of time, we can only talk about a wide range, a continuum of expressions, vocabularies, and ideas. These stretch, naturally, from Arabian/Persian to indigenous and Sanskrit-based. The situation is almost identical to that in Hindustani classical music. Internally very very diverse, but not five different things.

Unless we argue that Urdu is basically and irreplaceably a Muslim language meant merely to express Islamic religious idiom (an argument made effectively by many), the Arabic/Persian component had to wither away after India became free. How could it be otherwise? But as a non-religious language of every day existence, of common secular discourse, it will bloom, taking on a more and more indigenous form. Poetry too will come, but in a new form: Indian urdu poetry will be very different from Arabic/Persian poetry of the past. An Indian might feel more at home writing about his girlfriend gayatri living in the gaon of gola gunj than about the ghilmans :). And he would draw more words and sensibilities from his connections to awadhi and brajbhasha than from Arabic and Persian languages and cultures.

Still, rahul may yet be right. He seems to know Urdu/Hindi language and literature better than I do.

By the way I could figure out most of Sri malihabadi, although not all. Had we been up against something like kamayani, I would have been in worse trouble :(

[Ditto! I said both are the same language(s) written in two different scripts.

Samar[- samer1982 #63.

...if you think they are the same language written differently then do me a favor and explain to us the meaning of this rare ghazal by a hindi poet shri josh malihabadi.


RizwaN ne sar-e-arsh ye di jaa ke duhaii
ay Khaliq-e-Israar-e-azal ramz-e-sarishti

jannat ki fizayeN haiN mukaddar kai din se
amada-e-ighlaam haiN hooroN se baheshti

ghilmanoN ke sifroN se lahoo behta hai paiham
kambakht ghisaRte haiN hareeri maiN voh khisti

kya kya maiN nasabnamay bataoon ke Khudawand
inn maiN koi rizvi, koi naqvi, koi chishti



Thanks in advance…;)

Re: # 62
jang, yes thats correct,Hindi and Urdu poetry both in tone and subject matter have been different.Going into its reasons is another can of worms, though.

Re: # 61
dost, i already gave one example --mughal-e-azam..How two words are combined to make a compound word..another type is hosh-o-hawas.In Hindi you have sandhi and samas.
Further in Urdu, you make antonyms by adding ``Na`` or ``Be`` or ``La`` .. Na-aashna , La-parwah , Be-Nazeer
In Hindi..you add ``a```` ..asambaddh , adharm ...
Can you say naadharm?or Besambaddh?
Someone who knows both these languages better can perhaps give more examples.

Re: # 60
samar, The reason why I earlier said..``agree to disagree``, because we were talking through each other. You showed no sign that you wanted to talk about poetry in #55. Though poetry, as I said, stretches language and the poetry of today defines the language of tomorrow I would even say that it is bigger than language..anyhow..this is a digression.
The poetry that you have quoted..is it by Dushyant Kumar? and yes, I agree Shaharyar is a genuine poet.I like Bashir Badr as well.But 4-5 big names to show for 60 years post independence(There are many others, not so popular)? are not these exceptions pointing towards the obvious that Urdu is slowly withering away in the land of its birth..?
I gave you an example of how compound words are formed using ``e`` and ``o``.Ghalibs poetry is full of it.Its not something new that has come up in Urdu .I guess this construct has come from arabic persian,which is only natural because Urdu has borrowed many words from these languages .Pick up anything written by Faiz. Someone brought up in Hindi can understand it,but never write like that. The converse is also true.Someone brought up in Urdu can not write something like ``Ram Ki Shaktipooja`` for instance.
Sometimes I feel that this ``One language two scripts`` notion is more ideological than technical.So it is very difficult to unlearn. anyway....

Re: # 61, dost-mittar,

Ditto! I said both are the same language(s) written in two different scripts.

Samar

#61 its very clear to me from content or subject matter (besides conjugation of adjectives) ...urdu poetry is about saki, maikhana, yearning etc couched in devition to god (lest the mullah gets upset). it tends to have most oblique references and celebrated sad ethos. hindi stuff is more direct, folksy, light-hearted and 50% of it being about khrishna and his gopis.