Sanskritization, de-Sanskritization and Colonial Rule

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

#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.

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

Jang

Those parts of Urdu grammar that come from Persian and Arabic are taught to us, if the teacher wants s/he will tell the student that they have come from Persian/Arabic etc. otherwise the student will assume them (quite rightly) just to be Urdu. which they have become now.

Rahul

You asked on UP for a good Urdu grammar book:

Urdu: An essential grammar by Ruth Laila Schmidt, Routledge

http://www.amazon.com/Urdu-Essential-Grammar-Routledge-Grammars/dp/0415163811/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-3084605-2125441?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177789048&sr=8-1

It has one chapter dedicated to Persian grammar in Urdu and one to Arabic grammar in Urdu, describing things such as the Izafat (increase, addition) e.g. Hukumet`e Pakistan, Jan`e man etc.

I quote from the book

`Urdu developed in close contact with Persian, which was the language of administration and education during the period of Muslim rule in India. Even after Urdu began to replace Persian as the language of poetry in the 18th centruy, Persian retained its official status for another century, and remained a rich source of literary vocabulary in Urdu. Elements of Persian grammar have been borrowed along with the vocabulary, and a knowledge of them is essential for reading literary Urdu, particularly poetry.`

From my personal experience this is true, when we did A level Urdu we had to read books like Taubat Unusoo and Umrao Jaan etc. We filled reems and reems of A4 paper with vocabulary that had almost all come from Persian and some from Turkish with of course the usual suspects from Arabic. Our teacher had a degree in Persian, and had been a broadcaster of news on Radio Pakistan. I would say to properly understand Urdu literature and especially poetry one should know at least the basics of the Persian language and its vocabulary, as unending amounts of it is used in Urdu.

Even my basic studies of Turkish have helped me understand soooooooo many Urdu words and where they come from, words like Ujret, i.e. Wages not much in use nowadays as people would just write tankhwa but used not long ago in the writings of Manto, Munshi Prem Chand and people of that time. 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.

If i opened up a Hindi dictionary on the other hand (if i could read it) i would be utterly lost.

Quoting from the grammar book, the preface by Gopi Chand Narang

`Unlike Arabic and Persian, Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language akin to Hindi. Both Urdu and Hindi share the same Indic base, and at the phonological and grammatical level they are so close they appear to be one language, but at the lexical level they have borrowed so extensively from different sources (Urdu from Arabic and Persian, Hindi from Sanskrit) that in actual practice and usage each has developed into an independent language..... although the grammars of these laguages cover so much common ground, nevertheless in order to do justice to the differing sociolinguistic paradigms, seperate materials have to be developed for each of these languages, which taken together form the 4th largest speech community in the modern world.`

I remember seeing an interview of Imran Khan on Star News, the presenter asked him who he thought the most `sunder mahila` in Bharat was, he was confused and asked her to repeat the question when she did he asked her what a `mahila ` was, when she said aurat, he finally clicked and said `ah yani khatun!`. These kind of linguistic issues will continue to occur as we have more interaction, and eventually we in Pakistan will understand what a mahila is and you in India will understand what a khatun is!!!

#90 jang
Here is the answer to your question.

#9 by Aasif on April 28, 2007 8:41am PT
rahul:
as shobig wrote.. urdu is taught in the same manner. The rules or qua-ed take all the rules into account which are borrowed from other languages. Like fa-el , ma-fool (made famous by references to shoresahib on UP) ... zameer, issm etc..

since erudite folks are on this board, can anyone tell me how Urdu as a language is formally taught (e.g. Pakistanis would know this)? Hindi is taught with grammer...noun-verb-adjective etc, sandhi-samas, alankar..some examples of prose-poetry and so on. Can urdu be taught without learning some elements of Persian or Arabic as a basis?

kaal,
``The word `language` does not mean the same in the way you two use it.``
I have tried to explain.Maybe its still not clear.anyhow....
``What do you think we should or can do, other than people learning an additional script, nastaliq? ``
First step is to realize and accept the current position,regardless of what the history may be.
I think, there is some unconscious ideological commitment , which causes some of us to stick to this ``one language two scripts`` formula.I have no idea what it is.Perhaps it is the ethos of the ``Ganga Jamuni tehzeeb`` that some of us have.But it should be remembered that Ganga and Jamuna are two separate rivers.We can take the best from both, but they can(should) never be thought of as one river.
But anyway,I dont see any shortcuts.
I have tried to think on the lines of , if Hindi can be expanded to accomodate arabic/persian influence; but that is too tacky a solution and full of confusion.You can write hosh-o-hawas, but you cant use that construct with hindi words.It just wont feel right .
The only way to save Urdu is to recognize it as a separate language.
I am too lazy right now to think about how the social and political logistics of how such a realization can be brought about.What do you think?

dost , grammar is what you say, and what I say too.The reason why what I say I think is important, I have explained in other interacts.
jang , I am in awe of your felicity in using matrimonials as a general purpose crystal ball ;to analyse any and every social phenomenon. As for the other point, I am not really ``afraid``,but just resisting because it is not directly concerned with our current topic ,which is linguistics.
samar, ``OK! How dare you think after 60 years of independence genuine Urdu/Hindi poets could be counted on fingers? ``
Relax, bro.You are losing it now. ``Urdu/Hindi``, you said? When my whole point on this board is that its ``Urdu,Hindi`` not ``Urdu/Hindi``.and why did you weasel out of khamy1`s post? Dont you think you owe an answer to yourself, if not to anyone else? Finally, I genuinely appreciate your attempt to get to me.

samar1982

Two points for your consideration.

1. For some (possibly completely inexplicable) reason I have this image of you as a ``young kid`` (which to me means, someone 23-24 years of age). I might even have addressed you as such (only affectionately). If I was and am wrong, apologies.

2. Khamy1 is a wonderful person. In time you might get to like him as much many of us do. Of course, that doesn`t mean he won`t try to beat up on you when he feels like it. :)

You and rahul are conducting this debate at a very high level. It`s a joy to sit back and learn from you two knowledgeable folks. Thanks for some good reads.

Re: # 84, Kaalchakra Saheb,

Thanks for very kind and affectionate words. You are Kaal so I`m not surprised you got me right. I have turned 25 this March and you can address me whatever you think fit for me. I will keep in mind your advices while interacting with Khamyji.

Regards

Samar