'Urdu' (, 'اردو', trans. ''Urdū'', historically spelled 'Ordu'), is an
Indo-Aryan language of the
Indo-Iranian branch, belonging to
Indo-European family of languages. It developed under
Persian and
Arabic, to some lesser degree also under
Turkic influence on
apabhramshas in
South Asia during the
Delhi Sultanate and
Mughal Empire (1526–1858 AD).
[2]
Urdu is a standardised
register of
Hindustani[3] termed ''
khaṛībolī'', that emerged as a
standard dialect.
[4] The grammatical description in this article concerns this standard . In general, the term "" can encompass dialects of Hindustani other than the standardised versions.
Standard Urdu has approximately the twentieth largest population of native speakers, among all languages. It is the
national language of
Pakistan as well as one of the
23 official languages of
India.
Urdu is often contrasted with
Hindi, another standardised form of Hindustani. The main differences between the two are that Standard Urdu is conventionally written in
Nastaliq calligraphy style of the
Perso-Arabic script and draws vocabulary more heavily from Persian than Hindi, while Standard Hindi is conventionally written in
Devanāgarī and draws vocabulary from
Sanskrit comparatively more heavily. Linguists nonetheless consider Urdu and Hindi to be two standardized forms of the same language.
[5]
Speakers and geographic distribution
The phrase ''Zaban-e Urdu-e Mualla'' ("The exalted Urdu language") written in
Nasta'liq script.
Urdu is spoken in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, UAE, Saudi-Arabia, Mauritius, Germany, USA, Iran, Afganistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Maledives, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, South Africa, Oman, Canada, Australia, Fiji, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Kenya, Libya, Malawi, Botswana, and United Kingdom.
There are between 60 and 80 million native speakers of standard Urdu (''Khari Boli''). According to the
SIL Ethnologue (1999 data), Hindi/Urdu is the fifth most spoken language in the world. According to Comrie (1998 data
[ Most Widely Spoken Languages ]),
Hindi-Urdu is the second most spoken language in the world, with thirty million native speakers, after
Mandarin and possibly
English.
Because of Urdu's similarity to
Hindi, speakers of the two languages can usually understand one another, if both sides refrain from using specialized vocabulary. Indeed, linguists sometimes count them as being part of the same language
diasystem. However, Urdu and Hindi are socio-politically different, and people who self-describe as being speakers of Hindi would question their being counted as native speakers of Urdu, and vice-versa.
In
Pakistan, Urdu is spoken and understood by a majority of urban dwellers in such cities as
Karachi,
Lahore,
Rawalpindi/
Islamabad,
Abbottabad,
Faisalabad,
Hyderabad,
Multan,
Peshawar,
Gujranwala,
Sialkot,
Sukkur and
Sargodha. Urdu is used as the official language in all provinces of
Pakistan. It is also taught as a compulsory language up to high school in both the English and Urdu medium school systems. This has produced millions of Urdu speakers whose mother tongue is one of the regional languages of Pakistan such as
Punjabi,
Hindku,
Sindhi,
Pashto,
Gujarati,
Kashmiri,
Balochi,
Siraiki, and
Brahui. Urdu is the
lingua franca of Pakistan and is absorbing many words from regional languages of Pakistan. The regional languages are also being influenced by Urdu vocabulary. There are millions of Pakistanis whose mother tongue is not Urdu but since they have studied in Urdu medium schools they can read and write Urdu but can only speak their mother tongue. Most of the nearly five million
Afghan refugees of different ethnic origins (such as
Pashtun,
Tajik,
Uzbek,
Hazarvi, and
Turkmen) who stayed in Pakistan for over twenty-five years have also become fluent in Urdu. A very large number of newspapers are published in Urdu in
Pakistan, including the
Daily Jang,
Nawa-i-Waqt,
Millat, among many others (see
List of newspapers in Pakistan).
In
India, Urdu is spoken in places where there are large Muslim minorities or cities which were bases for Muslim Empires in the past. These include parts of
Uttar Pradesh (namely
Lucknow),
Delhi,
Bhopal,
Hyderabad,
Bangalore,
Mysore,
Ajmer, and
Ahmedabad.
[6] Some Indian schools teach Urdu as a first language and have their own syllabus and exams. Indian
madrasahs also teach
Arabic as well as Urdu. India has more than 2,900 daily Urdu newspapers. Newspapers such as
Daily Salar,
hindustan express,
Daily Pasban,
Siasat Daily,
Munsif Daily and
Inqilab are published and distributed in Bangalore, Mysore, Hyderabad, and
Mumbai (see
List of newspapers in India).
Outside South Asia, it is spoken by large numbers of migrant South Asian workers in the major urban centers of the
Persian Gulf countries and
Saudi Arabia. Urdu is also spoken by large numbers of immigrants and their children in the major urban centers of the
United Kingdom, the
United States,
Canada,
Norway and
Australia.
Countries with large numbers of native Urdu speakers:
★ India (48.1 million [1997])[7]
★ Pakistan (16 million [2007])[8]
★ Bangladesh (650,000)[9]
★ United Arab Emirates (600,000)
★ United Kingdom (400,000 [1990])
★ Saudi Arabia (382,000)[10]
★ Nepal (375,000)
★ United States (350,000)
★ South Africa (170,000 South Asian Muslims, some of which may speak Urdu)[11]
★ Oman (90,000)
★ Canada (80,895 [2001])[12]
★ Bahrain (80,000)
★ Mauritius (74,000)
★ Qatar (70,000)
★ Germany (40,000)
★ Norway (26,950 [2005])[13]
★ France (20,000)
★ Spain (18,000 [2004])[14]
★ Sweden (10,000 [2001])[15]
★ World Total: 60,503,578[16] |
Official status
Urdu is the national language of
Pakistan and is spoken and understood throughout the country. It shares
official language status with English. It is used in
education,
literature, office and court business (it should be noted that in the lower courts in Pakistan,despite the proceedings taking place in Urdu, the documents are in English. In the higher courts, ie, the High Courts and the Supreme Court both the proceedings and documents are in English.),
media, and in religious institutions. It holds in itself a repository of the
cultural, religious and
social heritage of the country.
[Zia, Khaver (1999), "A Survey of Standardization in Urdu". 4th Symposium on Multilingual Information Processing, (MLIT-4), Yangon, Myanmar. CICC, Japan] Although English is used in most elite circles, and
Punjabi has a plurality of native speakers, Urdu is the
lingua franca and is expected to prevail.
Urdu is also one of the officially recognized state languages in
India[17] and has official language status in the Indian states of
Andhra Pradesh,
Bihar,
Jammu and Kashmir, and
Uttar Pradesh, and the national capital,
Delhi. While the government school system in most other states emphasizes Standard
Hindi, at universities in cities such as
Lucknow,
Aligarh and
Hyderabad, Urdu is spoken, learned, and regarded as a language of prestige.
Classification and related languages
Urdu is a member of the
Indo-Aryan family of languages (i.e., those languages descending from
Sanskrit), which is in turn a branch of the
Indo-Iranian group (which comprises the Indo-Aryan and the Iranian branches), which itself is a member of the
Indo-European linguistic family. If
Hindi and Urdu are considered to be the same language (
Hindustani or Hindi-Urdu), then Urdu can be considered to be a part of a
dialect continuum which extends across eastern Iran, Afghanistan and modern Pakistan
[18]—right into eastern India. These idioms all have similar grammatical structures and share a large portion of their vocabulary. Punjabi, for instance, is very similar to Urdu; Punjabi written in the
Shahmukhi script can be understood by speakers of Urdu with little difficulty, but spoken Punjabi has a very different
phonology (pronunciation system) and can be harder to understand for Urdu speakers.
Dialects
Urdu has four recognised dialects:
Dakhini, Pinjari,
Rekhta, and Modern Vernacular Urdu (based on the
Khariboli dialect of the Delhi region). Sociolinguists also consider Urdu itself one of the four major variants of the
Hindi-Urdu dialect continuum.
[19]
Modern Vernacular Urdu is the form of the language that is least widespread and is spoken around
Delhi,
Lucknow,
Karachi and
Lahore, it becomes increasingly divergent from the original form of Urdu as it loses some of the complicated Persian and Arabic vocabulary used in everyday terms.
Dakhini (also known as Dakani, Deccani, Desia, Mirgan) is spoken in
Maharashtra state in India and around
Hyderabad and other parts of
Andhra Pradesh. It has fewer Persian and Arabic words than standard Urdu. Dakhini is widely spoken in all parts of
Karnatka,
Tamil Nadu and
Andhra Pradesh. Urdu is read and written as in other parts of India. A number of daily newspapers and several monthly magazines in Urdu are published in these states.
In addition,
Rekhta (or Rekhti), the language of Urdu poetry, is sometimes counted as a separate dialect.
Grammar
Main articles: Hindi-Urdu grammar
Levels of formality in Urdu
The order of words in Urdu is not as rigidly fixed as it is thought to be by traditional grammarians. However, usually (but not invariably) an Urdu sentence begins with a subject and ends with a verb. That is why Urdu is often called as SOV language (e.g. Subject-Object-Verb language). However, Urdu speakers or writers enjoy considerable freedom in placing words in an utterance to achieve stylistic effects, see Bhatia and Koul (2000, pp. 34-35).
Urdu in its less formalised
register has been referred to as a ''
rekhta'' (ریختہ, ), meaning "rough mixture". The more formal register of Urdu is sometimes referred to as ''zabān-e-Urdu-e-mo'alla'' (زبانِ اردوِ معلہ, ), the "Language of Camp and Court".
The
etymology of the word used in the Urdu language for the most part decides how polite or refined your speech is. For example, Urdu speakers would distinguish between پانی ''pānī'' and آب ''āb'', both meaning "water" for example, or between آدمی ''ādmi'' and مرد ''mard'', meaning "man". The former in each set is used colloquially and has older
Hindustani origins, while the latter is used formally and poetically, being of
Persian origin.
If a word is of
Persian or
Arabic origin, the level of speech is considered to be more formal and grand. Similarly, if
Persian or
Arabic grammar constructs, such as the
izafat, are used in Urdu, the level of speech is also considered more formal and grand. If a word is inherited from
Sanskrit, the level of speech is considered more colloquial and personal.
Politeness
Urdu is supposed to be very subtle and a host of words are used to show respect and politeness. This emphasis on politeness, which is reflected in the vocabulary, is known as 'takalluf' in Urdu. These words are generally used when addressing elders, or people with whom one is not acquainted. For example, the English pronoun 'you' can be translated into three words in Urdu the singular forms ''tu'' (informal, extremely intimate, or derogatory) and ''tum'' (informal and showing intimacy called "apna pun" in Urdu) and the plural form ''āp'' (formal and respectful). Similarly, verbs, for example, "come," can be translated with degrees of formality in three ways:
# 'آئے' āiye/ or 'آئیں' āe
n/[aːẽː] ( formal and respectful)
# 'آو' āo/[aːo] (informal and intimate with less degree)
# 'آ' ā/[aː] (extremely informal, intimate and potentially derogatory).
Vocabulary
Urdu has a vocabulary rich in words with
Indian and
Middle Eastern origins. The borrowings are dominated by words from
Persian and
Arabic. There are also a small number of borrowings from
Turkish,
Portuguese, and more recently
English. Many of the words of Arabic origin have different nuances of meaning and usage than they do in Arabic.
Most Used Words
''ka'' (کا) along with its other variants ''ki,kay,ko'' (کی، کے، کو) is the most used word in written Urdu.
Writing system
Main articles: Urdu alphabet
The Urdu Nasta’liq alphabet, with names in the Devanāgarī and Latin alphabets
Nowadays, Urdu is generally written right-to left in an extension of the
Persian alphabet, which is itself an extension of the
Arabic alphabet. Urdu is associated with the ''
Nasta’liq'' style of Arabic calligraphy, whereas
Arabic is generally written in the modernized ''
Naskh'' style. ''Nasta’liq'' is notoriously difficult to typeset, so Urdu newspapers were hand-written by masters of calligraphy, known as ''katib'' or ''khush-navees'', until the late 1980s.
Historically, Urdu was also written in the
Kaithi script. A highly-Persianized and technical form of Urdu was the ''lingua franca'' of the law courts of the British administration in
Bengal,
Bihar, and the North-West Provinces & Oudh. Until the late 19th century, all proceedings and court transactions in this register of Urdu was written officially in the Persian script. In 1880,
Sir Ashley Eden, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal abolished the use of the Persian alphabet in the law courts of
Bengal and
Bihar and ordered the exclusive use of
Kaithi, a popular script used for both Urdu and
Hindi[20] Kaithi's association with Urdu and
Hindi was ultimately eliminated by the political contest between these languages and their scripts, in which the Persian script was definitively linked to Urdu.
More recently in India, speakers have adopted Devanagari for publishing Urdu periodicals and have innovated new strategies to mark in Devanagari as distinct from Hindi in Devanagari
[21] The popular monthly magazine, महकता आंचल (''Mahakta Anchal''), is published in Delhi in Devanagari in order to target the generation of Muslim boys and girls who do not know the Persian script. Such publishers have introduced new orthographic features into Devanagari for the purpose of representing sounds. One example is the use of अ (Devanagari ''a'') with vowel signs to mimic contexts of ع (''
‘ain''). To publishers, the use of Devanagari gives them a greater audience, but helps them to preserve the distinct identity of when written in Devanagari.
The
Daily Jang was the first Urdu newspaper to be typeset digitally in ''Nasta’liq'' by computer. There are efforts underway to develop more sophisticated and user-friendly Urdu support on computers and the Internet. Nowadays, nearly all Urdu newspapers, magazines, journals, and periodicals are composed on computers via various Urdu software programs.
A list of the Urdu alphabet and pronunciation is given below. Urdu contains many historical spellings from Arabic and Persian, and therefore has many irregularities. The Arabic letters ''yaa'' and ''haa'' are split into two in Urdu: one of the ''yaa'' variants is used at the ends of words for the sound [i], and one of the ''haa'' variants is used to indicate the
aspirated consonants. The
retroflex consonants needed to be added as well; this was accomplished by placing a superscript ط (''to'e'') above the corresponding
dental consonants. Several letters which represent distinct consonants in Arabic are conflated in Persian, and this has carried over to Urdu.
| Letter | Name of letter | Pronunciation in the IPA |
|---|
| ا | ''alif'' | after a consonant; silent when initial. Close to an English long 'a' as in Mask. |
| ب | ''bé'' | English b. |
| پ | ''pé'' | English p. |
| ت | ''té'' | dental Close to French t as in trois. |
| ٹ | | retroflex Close to English T. |
| ث | ''sé'' | Close to English s |
| ج | | Same as English j |
| چ | | Same as English ch, not like Scottish ch |
| ح | | voiceless h |
| خ | ''khé'' | Slightly rolled version of Scottish "ch" as in loch |
| د | | dental |
| ڈ | | retroflex |
| ذ | | |
| ر | ''ré'' | dental |
| ڑ | | retroflex |
| ز | ''zé'' | |
| ژ | ''zhé'' | |
| س | | |
| ش | | |
| ص | | |
| ض | | |
| ط | ''to'é'' | |
| ظ | ''zo'é'' | |
| ع | ''‘ain'' | after a consonant; otherwise , , or silent. |
| غ | ''ghain'' | voiced version of |
| ف | ''fé'' | |
| ق | | |
| ک | | |
| گ | | |
| ل | | |
| م | | |
| ن | | or a nasal vowel |
| و | | |
| ہ, ﮩ, ﮨ | | at the end of a word, otherwise or silent |
| ھ | | indicates that the preceding consonant is aspirated (p, t, c, k) or murmured (b, d, j, g). |
| ء | ''hamzah'' | or silent |
| ی | | |
| ے | | |
Transliteration
Urdu is occasiossnally also written in the Roman script.
Roman Urdu has been used since the days of the
British Raj, partly as a result of the availability and low cost of Roman
movable type for printing presses. The use of Roman Urdu was common in contexts such as product labels. Today it is regaining popularity among users of text-messaging and Internet services and is developing its own style and conventions.
Habib R. Sulemani says, "The younger generation of Urdu-speaking people around the world are using Romanised Urdu on the Internet and it has become essential for them, because they use the Internet and English is its language. A person from Islamabad chats with another in Delhi on the Internet only in Roman . They both speak the same language but with different scripts. Moreover, the younger generation of those who are from the English medium schools or settled in the west, can speak Urdu but can’t write it in the traditional Arabic script and thus Roman Urdu is a blessing for such a population."
[22]
Roman also holds significance among the Christians of
North India. was the dominant native language among Christians of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan in the early part of 1900s and is still used by some people in these Indian states. Indian Christians often used the Roman script for writing . Thus Roman was a common way of writing among Indian Christians in these states up to the 1960s. The Bible Society of India publishes Roman Bibles which enjoyed sale late into the 1960s (though they are still published today). Church songbooks are also common in Roman . However, the usage of Roman is declining with the wider use of Hindi and English in these states. The major
Hindi-Urdu South Asian film industries,
Bollywood and
Lollywood, are also noteworthy for their use of Roman for their movie titles.
Usually, bare transliterations of Urdu into Roman letters omit many
phonemic elements that have no equivalent in English or other languages commonly written in the
Latin alphabet. It should be noted that a comprehensive system has emerged with specific notations to signify non-English sounds, but it can only be properly read by someone already familiar with Urdu, Persian, or Arabic for letters such as:ژ خ غ ط ص or ق and
Hindi for letters such as ڑ. This script may be found on the Internet, and it allows people who understand the language but without knowledge of their written forms to communicate with each other.so it is very purety language.
Examples
| English | Urdu | Transliteration | Notes |
|---|
| Hello | السلام علیکم | | ''lit.'' "Peace be upon you." اداب would generally be used to give respect و علیکم السلام is the correct response. |
| Hello | آداب عرض ہے | | "Regards to you" (''lit'' "Regards are expressed"), a very formal secular greeting. |
| Good Bye | خدا حافظ | | ''Khuda'' is Persian for God, and ''hāfiz'' is from Arabic ''hifz'' "protection". So ''lit.'' "May God be your Guardian." Standard and commonly used by Muslims and non-Muslims, or ''al vida'' formally spoken all over |
| yes | ہاں | | casual |
| yes | جی | | formal |
| yes | جی ہاں | | confident formal |
| no | نا | | casual |
| no | نہیں، جی نہیں | | formal;jī nahīn is considered more formal |
| please | مہربانی | | |
| thank you | شکریہ | | |
| Please come in | تشریف لائیے | | ''lit.'' "Bring your honour" |
| Please have a seat | تشریف رکھیئے | | ''lit.'' "Place your honour" |
| I am happy to meet you | اپ سے مل کر خوشی ہوئی | | ''lit.'' "Meeting you has made me happy" |
| Do you speak English? | کیا اپ انگریزی بولتے ہیں؟ | | ''lit.'' "Do you speak english?" |
| I do not speak Urdu. | میں اردو نہیں بولتا/بولتی | | ''boltā'' is masculine, ''boltī'' is feminine |
| My name is ... | میرا نام ۔۔۔ ہے | | |
| Which way to Lahore? | لاھور کس طرف ہے؟ | | |
| Where is Lucknow? | لکھنئو کہاں ہے؟ | |
| Urdu is a good language. | اردو اچھی زبان ہے | |
Sample text
The following is a sample text in (formal Urdu), of the Article 1 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (by the
United Nations):
Urdu text
:'دفعہ 1:' تمام انسان آزاد اور حقوق و عزت کے اعتبار سے برابر پیدا ہوۓ ہیں۔ انہیں ضمیر اور عقل ودیعت ہوئی ہی۔ اسلۓ انہیں ایک دوسرے کے ساتھ بھائی چارے کا سلوک کرنا چاہیۓ۔
Transliteration (
ALA-LC)
:.
Gloss (word-for-word)
:'Article 1:' All humans free[,] and rights and dignity
★ ('s) consideration from equal born are. To them conscience and intellect endowed is. Therefore, they one another
★ ('s) brotherhood
★ ('s) treatment do must.
Translation (grammatical)
:'Article 1:' All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience. Therefore, they should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
'Note:' ''
★ ('s) represents a possessive case which when written is preceded by the possessor and followed by the possessed, unlike the English 'of'.''
Common difficulties faced in learning Urdu
★ The
phonetic mechanism of some sounds peculiar to Urdu (eg. ṛ, dh etc): The distinction between aspirated and unaspirated consonants will be difficult for English speakers. In addition, the distinction between dental and alveolar (or retroflex) consonants will also pose problems. English speakers will find that they need to carefully distinguish between four different d-sounds and four different t-sounds.
★ Pronunciation of vowels: In English, unstressed vowels tend to have a "
schwa" quality. The pronunciation of such vowels in English is changed to an "uh" sound; this is called reducing a vowel sound. The second syllable of "unify" is pronounced //, not . The same for the unstressed second syllable of "person" which is also pronounced // rather than "oh." In Urdu, English-speakers must constantly be careful not to reduce these vowels.
★
★ In this respect, probably the most important mistake would be for English speakers to reduce final "ah" sounds to "uh." This can be especially important because an English pronunciation will lead to misunderstandings about grammar and gender. In Urdu, وہ بولتا ہے ''voh boltā hai'' is "he talks" whereas وہ بولتی ہے ''voh boltī hai'' is "she talks." A typical English pronunciation in the first sentence would be "voh boltuh hai," which will be understood as "she talks" by most Urdu-native speakers.
★ The 'a' ending of many gender-masculine words of native origin, due to
romanisation, is highly confused by non-native speakers, because the short 'a' is dropped in Urdu (i.e. ہونا ''honā'').
★ The verbal
concordance: Urdu exhibits
split ergativity; see
Ergative-absolutive language for an example.
★ Relative-correlative constructions: In English interrogative and relative pronouns are the same word. In "Who are you?" the word "who" is an interrogative, or question, pronoun. In "My friend who lives in Sydney can speak Urdu," the word "who" is not an interrogative, or question-pronoun. It is a relative, or linking-pronoun. In Urdu, there are different words for each. The interrogative pronoun tends to start with the "k" sound:" kab = when?, kahā
n = where?, kitnā = how much? This is similar to the 'W' in English, which is used for the same purpose. The relative pronouns are usually very similar but start with "j" sounds: jab = when, jahā
n = where, jitnā = how much.
Literature
Urdu has only become a literary language in recent centuries, as Persian and Arabic were formerly the idioms of choice for "elevated" subjects. However, despite its late development, Urdu literature boasts some world-recognised artists and a considerable corpus.
Prose
Religious
Urdu holds a large collection of work on Islamic literature and
Sharia. These include translations and interpretation of
Qur'an, commentary on ''Hadith'', ''Fiqh'',
history,
spirituality,
Sufism and
metaphysics. A great number of classical texts from
Arabic and
Persian, have also been translated into Urdu. Relatively inexpensive publishing, combined with the use of Urdu as a
lingua franca among Muslims of
South Asia, has meant that Islam-related works in Urdu far outnumber such works in any other South Asian language. Two of the most popular Islamic books, originally written in Urdu, are the
Fazail-e-Amal and the
Bahar-e-Shariat.
Literary
Secular prose includes all categories of widely known fiction and non-fiction work, separable into genres.
The ''dāstān'', or tale, a traditional story which may have many characters and complex plotting. This has now fallen into disuse.
The ''afsāna'', or
short story, probably the best-known genre of Urdu fiction. The best-known ''afsāna'' writers, or ''afsāna nigār'', in Urdu are
Saadat Hasan Manto,
Qurat-ul-Ain Haider,
Munshi Premchand,
Ismat Chughtai,
Krishan Chander,
Ghulam Abbas,
Banu Qudsia and
Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi. Munshi Premchand, became known as a pioneer in the ''afsāna'', though some contend that his were not technically the first as Sir Ross Masood had already written many short stories in Urdu.
Novels form a genre of their own, in the tradition of the English novel.
Other genres include ''saférnāma'' (i.e: Odyssey, lit: travel story), ''mazmoon'' (essay), ''sarguzisht'', ''inshaeya'', ''murasela'', and ''khud navvisht'' (i.e: Autobiography).
Poetry
Main articles: Urdu poetry
Mirza Ghalib (1796-1869), a respected poet of Urdu.
Urdu has been the premier language of poetry in South Asia for two centuries, and has developed a rich tradition in a variety of poetic genres. The 'Ghazal' in Urdu represents the most popular form of subjective poetry, while the '
Nazm' exemplifies the objective kind, often reserved for narrative, descriptive, didactic or satirical purposes. Under the broad head of the Nazm we may also include the classical forms of poems known by specific names such as '
Masnavi' (a long narrative poem in rhyming couplets on any theme: romantic, religious, or didactic), '
Marsia' (an elegy traditionally meant to commemorate the martyrdom of Hazrat
Imam Hussain, grandson of Prophet Muhammad, and his comrades of the
Karbala fame), or 'Qasida' (a panegyric written in praise of a king or a nobleman), for all these poems have a single presiding subject, logically developed and concluded. However, these poetic species have an old world aura about their subject and style, and are different from the modern Nazm, supposed to have come into vogue in the later part of the nineteenth century.
★ ''
Diwan'' (دیوان)
★ ''
Doha'' (دوہا)
★ ''
Geet'' (گیت)
★ ''
Ghazal'' (غزل), as practiced by many poets in the Arab tradition.
Mir,
Ghalib,
Dagh and
Faiz are well-known composers of ''ghazal''.
★ ''
Hamd'' (حمد)
★ ''
Kalam'' (کلام)
★ ''
Kulyat'' (کلیات)
★ ''
Marsia'' (مرثیہ)
★ ''
Masnavi'' (مثنوی)
★ ''
Musaddas'' (مسدس)
★ ''
Mukhammas''
★ ''
Naat'' (نعت)
★ ''
Nazm'' (نظم)
★ ''
Noha'' (نوحہ)
★ ''
Qasida'' (قصیدہ)
★ ''
Qat'ã'' (قطعہ)
★ ''
Rubai'' (a.k.a. Rubayyat or Rubaiyat) (رباعیات)
★ ''
Sehra'' (سہرا)
★ ''
Shehr a'ashob''
★ ''
Soz'' (سوز)
Foreign forms such as the
sonnet, 'azad nazm' (a.k.a
Free verse) and
haiku have also been used by some modern Urdu poets.
Probably the most widely recited, and memorised genre of contemporary Urdu poetry is ''
nāt''—panegyric poetry written in praise of the Prophet
Muhammad. ''Nāt'' can be of any formal category, but is most commonly in the ''ghazal'' form. The language used in Urdu ''nāt'' ranges from the intensely colloquial to a highly Persianised formal language. The great early twentieth century scholar Imam
Ahmad Raza Khan, who wrote many of the most well known ''nāts'' in Urdu, epitomised this range in a ''ghazal'' of nine stanzas (''bayt'') in which every stanza contains half a line each of Arabic, Persian, formal Urdu, and colloquial Hindi. The same poet composed a ''salām''—a poem of greeting to the Prophet Muhammad, derived from the unorthodox practice of ''qiyam'', or standing, during the ''
mawlid'', or celebration of the birth of the Prophet—''Mustafā Jān-e Rahmat'', which, due to being recited on Fridays in some Urdu speaking mosques throughout the world, is probably the more frequently recited Urdu poems of the modern era.
Another important genre of Urdu prose are the poems commemorating the martyrdom of
Imam Hussain and
Battle of Karbala, called ''
noha'' (نوحہ) and ''
marsia''. '
Anees' and '
Dabeer' are famous in this regard.
Urdu poetry terminology
'Ash'ār' (اشعار) (Couplet). It consists of two lines,
Misra (مصرعہ); first line is called ''Misra-e-oola'' (مصرع اولی) and the second is called 'Misra-e-sānī' (مصرعہ ثانی). Each verse embodies a single thought or subject (sing)
She'r (شعر).
Urdu poetry example
As in
Ghalib's famous couplet where he compares himself to his great predecessor, the master poet
''Mir'':
[23]
''
''
Transliteration
:''Rekhta ke tumhi
n ustād nahī
n ho Ghālib''
:''Kahte hain
n agle zamāne mein
n ko'ī Mīr bhī thā''
Translation
:You are not the only master of poetry O'Ghalib,
:They say, in the past; was also someone Mir
History
Main articles: History of Urdu
Urdu developed as local Indo-Aryan dialects came under the influence of the Muslim courts that ruled South Asia from the early thirteenth century. The official language of the
Delhi Sultanate, the
Mughal Empire, and their successor states, as well as the cultured language of poetry and literature, was
Persian, while the language of religion was
Arabic. Most of the
Sultans and nobility in the Sultanate period were Persianised Turks from
Central Asia who spoke
Turkish as their mother tongue. The
Mughals were also from Central Asia and spoke Turkish as their first language; however the Mughals later adopted Persian. Persian became the preferred language of the Muslim elite of north India before the Mughals entered the scene. Babur's mother tongue was Turkish and he wrote exclusively in Turkish. His son and successor Humayun also spoke and wrote in Turkish. Muzaffar Alam, a noted scholar of Mughal and Indo-Persian history, suggests that Persian became the ''lingua franca'' of the empire under Akbar for various political and social factors due to its non-sectarian and fluid nature.
[24] The mingling of these languages led to a
vernacular that is the ancestor of today's Urdu. Dialects of this vernacular are spoken today in cities and villages throughout
Pakistan and northern
India. Cities with a particularly strong tradition of Urdu include
Hyderabad,
Karachi,
Lucknow and
Lahore.
The name ''Urdu''
The term Urdu came into use when
Shah Jahan built the
Red Fort in Delhi. The word ''Urdu'' itself comes from a
Turkic word ''ordu'', "tent" or "army", from which English also gets the word "horde". Hence Urdu is sometimes called "Lashkarī zabān" or the language of the army. Furthermore, armies of India often contained soldiers with various native tongues. Hence, Urdu was the chosen language to address the soldiers as it abridged several languages.
Wherever Muslim soldiers and officials settled, they carried Urdu with them. Urdu enjoyed commanding status in the literary courts of late Muslim rulers and
Nawabs, and flourished under their patronage, partially displacing
Persian as the language of elite in the then Indian society.
Urdu continued as one of many languages in Northwest India. In 1947, Urdu was established as the national language of Pakistan in the hope that this move would unite and homogenise the various ethnic groups of the new nation. Urdu suddenly went from a language of a minority to the language of the majority. It also became the official language of some of the various
states of India. Today, Urdu is taught throughout Pakistani schools and spoken in government positions, and it is also common in much of Northern India. Urdu's sister language, Hindi, is the official language of India.
Urdu and Hindi
Because of their great similarities of grammar and core vocabularies, many linguists do not distinguish between Hindi and Urdu as separate languages--at least not in reference to the informal spoken registers. For them, ordinary informal Urdu and Hindi can be seen as variants of the same language (
Hindustani) with the difference being that Urdu is supplemented with a Perso-Arabic vocabulary and Hindi a Sanskritic vocabulary. Additionally, there is the convention of Urdu being written in Perso-Arabic script, and Hindi in Devanagari. The standard, "proper" grammars of both languages are based on
Khariboli grammar — the dialect of the Delhi region. So, with respect to grammar, the languages are mutually intelligible when spoken, and can be thought of as the same language.
Despite their similar grammars, however, Standard Urdu and Standard Hindi are distinct languages in regards to their very different vocabularies, their writing systems, and their political and sociolinguistic connotations. Put simply, in the context of everyday casual speech, Hindi and Urdu can be considered dialects of the same language. In terms of their mutual intelligibility in their formal or "proper" registers, however, they are much less mutually intelligible and can be considered separate languages--they have basically the same grammar but very different vocabularies. There are two fundamental distinctions between them:
★ The source of vocabulary (borrowed from
Persian or inherited from Sanskrit): In colloquial situations in much of the Indian subcontinent, where neither learned vocabulary nor writing is used, the distinction between the Urdu and Hindi is very small.
★ The most important distinction at this level is in the script: if written in the Perso-Arabic script, the language is generally considered to be Urdu, and if written in Devanagari it is generally considered to be Hindi. Since the
Partition of India, the formal registers used in education and the media in India have become increasingly divergent from Urdu in their vocabulary. Where there is no colloquial word for a concept, Standard Urdu uses Perso-Arabic vocabulary, while Standard Hindi uses Sanskrit vocabulary. This results in the official languages being heavily Sanskritised or Persianised, and unintelligible to speakers educated in the other standard (as far as the formal vocabulary is concerned).
Note that for the purpose of linguistics, neither of above two arguments qualify for the purpose of considering Hindi and Urdu to be separate languages. For example, English has about 80-90% of its technical and formal vocabulary coming from Latin (mostly through French). But this fact does not make English a Romance language (i.e., languages descending from Latin) — English is ''always'' considered to be a Germanic language, because its "common and everyday vocabulary" and grammar is based upon Anglo-Saxon, which is obviously Germanic. Script ''never'' causes distinction between languages, because linguistics deals with language as it is spoken, regarding script as but choice construction.
Hindustani is the name often given to the language as it developed over hundreds of years throughout India (which formerly included what is now Pakistan). In the same way that the core vocabulary of English evolved from Old English (Anglo-Saxon) but includes a large number of words borrowed from French and other languages (whose pronunciations often changed naturally so as to become easier for speakers of English to pronounce), what may be called
Hindustani can be said to have evolved from Sanskrit while borrowing many Persian and Arabic words over the years, and changing the pronunciations (and often even the meanings) of those words to make them easier for Hindustani speakers to pronounce. Therefore, Hindustani is the language as it evolved organically.
Linguistically speaking, Standard Hindi is a form of colloquial
Hindustani, with lesser use of Persian and Arabic loanwords, while inheriting its formal vocabulary from Sanskrit; Standard Urdu is also a form of Hindustani, de-Sanskritised, with its a significant part of formal vocabulary consisting of loanwords from Persian and Arabic. The difference, thus is in the vocabulary, and not the structure of the language.
The difference is also sociolinguistic: When people speak Hindustani (i.e., when they are speaking colloquially) speakers who are Muslims will usually say that they are speaking Urdu, and those who are Hindus will typically say that they are speaking Hindi, even though they are speaking essentially the same language.
The two standardised registers of Hindustani — Hindi and Urdu — have become so entrenched as separate languages that often nationalists, both
Muslim and
Hindu, claim that Hindi and Urdu have always been separate languages. However, there are unifying forces. For example, it is said that Indian
Bollywood films are made in "Hindi", but the language used in most of them is almost the same as that of Urdu speakers. The dialogue is frequently developed in English and later translated to an intentionally neutral Hindustani which can be easily understood by speakers of most North Indian languages, both in India and in Pakistan.
Also see
Hindi.
Urdu and Bollywood
A typical Bollywood poster
The Indian film industry based in
Mumbai is often called
Bollywood (بالی وڈ). The dialogues in Bollywood movies are written using a vocabulary that could be understood by Urdu and Hindi speakers alike. The film industry wants to reach the largest possible audience, and it cannot do that if the vocabulary of the dialogues is too one-sidedly Sanskritized or Persianized. This rule is broken only for song lyrics, which use elevated, poetic language. Often, this means using poetic Urdu words, of Arabic and Persian origin. A few films, like
Umrao Jaan,
Pakeezah, and
Mughal-e-azam, have used vocabulary that leans more towards Urdu, as they depict places and times when Urdu would have been used.
[25]
From the 1950s through the 1970s, Bollywood films displayed the name of the film in Hindi, Urdu, and Roman scripts. Most Bollywood films today present film titles in the
Roman alphabet, although some also include the Devanagari and Nasta`liq scripts.
Dakkhini Urdu
Dakkhini Urdu is a dialect of the Urdu language spoken in the Deccan region of southern India. It is distinct by its mixture of vocabulary from Marathi and Telugu, as well as some vocabulary from Arabic, Persian and Turkish that are not found in the standard dialect of Urdu. In terms of pronunciation, the easiest way to recognize a native speaker is their pronunciation of the letter "qāf" (ﻕ) as "kh" (ﺥ). The majority of people who speak this language are from
Bangalore,
Hyderabad,
Mysore and parts of
Chennai.
Distinct words, very typical of Dakkhini dialect of Urdu:
Nakko (instead of Nahi in Traditional Urdu) =No
Hau (instead of Han in Traditional Urdu) =Yes
Kaiku (instead of Kyun in Traditional Urdu) =Why
Mereku (instead of Mujhe in Traditional Urdu) = For me
Tereku (instead of Tujhe in Traditional Urdu) =For you
Also see:
Dakkhini
Footnotes
1. The Council
2. A Historical Perspective of Urdu
3. North Carolina State University: About Hindi-Urdu by Afroz Taj
4. Language in India: Hindustani as an Anxiety between Hindi-Urdu Commitment by S. Imtiaz Hasnain, Ph.D. and K. S. Rajyashree, Ph.D.
5. UC Davis University of California: Hindi-Urdu Program, Middle East & South Asia Studies, UC Davis
6. India Travelite: Holy Places - Ajmer
7. Ethnologue Report for India
8. [1]
9. Ethnologue Report for Bangladesh
10. Ethnologue Report for Saudi Arabia
11. Ethnologue Report for South Africa
12. Canada: Language Profile
13. Statistics Norway
14. Pakistan Link: Desi Salsa in Barcelona
15. Answers.com: Demographics of Sweden
16. Ethnologue Report for Urdu
17. see Urdu at Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia
18. Phukan, 2000.
19. Ethnologue report for Hindi
20. King, 1994.
21. Ahmad, R., 2006.
22. The News, Karachi, Pakistan: Roman Urdu by Habib R Sulemani
23. Columbia University: Ghazal 36, Verse 11
24. Alam, Muzaffar. "The Pursuit of Persian: Language in Mughal Politics." In ''Modern Asian Studies'', vol. 32, no. 2. (May, 1998), pp. 317-349.
25. Hindi? Urdu? Hindustani? Hindi-Urdu?
References
★ Ahmad, Rizwan. 2006. "Voices people write: Examining Urdu in Devanagari". http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/NWAV/Abstracts/Papr172.pdf
★ Alam, Muzaffar. 1998. "The Pursuit of Persian: Language in Mughal Politics." In ''Modern Asian Studies'', vol. 32, no. 2. (May, 1998), pp. 317-349.
★ Asher, R. E. (Ed.). 1994. ''The Encyclopedia of language and linguistics''. Oxford: Pergamon Press. ISBN 0-08-035943-4.
★ Azad, Muhammad Husain. 2001 [1907]. ''Ab-e hayat'' (Lahore: Naval Kishor Gais Printing Works) 1907 [in Urdu]; (Delhi: Oxford University Press) 2001. [In English translation]
★ Azim, Anwar. 1975. Urdu a victim of cultural genocide. In Z. Imam (Ed.), ''Muslims in India'' (p. 259).
★ Bhatia, Tej K. 1996. ''Colloquial Hindi: The Complete Course for Beginners''. London, UK & New York, NY: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-11087-4 (Book), 0415110882 (Cassettes), 0415110890 (Book & Cassette Course)
★ Bhatia, Tej K. and Koul Ashok. 2000. "Colloquial Urdu: The Complete Course for Beginners." London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-13540-0 (Book); ISBN 0-415-13541-9 (cassette); ISBN 0-415-13542-7 (book and casseettes course)
★ Chatterji, Suniti K. 1960. ''Indo-Aryan and Hindi'' (rev. 2nd ed.). Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay.
★ Dua, Hans R. 1992. "Hindi-Urdu as a pluricentric language". In M. G. Clyne (Ed.), ''Pluricentric languages: Differing norms in different nations''. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-012855-1.
★ Dua, Hans R. 1994a. Hindustani. In Asher, 1994; pp. 1554.
★ Dua, Hans R. 1994b. Urdu. In Asher, 1994; pp. 4863-4864.
★ Kelkar, A. R. 1968. ''Studies in Hindi-Urdu: Introduction and word phonology. Poona: Deccan College.
★ Khan, M. H. 1969. Urdu. In T. A. Sebeok (Ed.), ''Current trends in linguistics'' (Vol. 5). The Hague: Mouton.
★ King, Christopher R. 1994. ''One Language, Two Scripts: The Hindi Movement in Nineteenth Century North India''. Bombay: Oxford University Press.
★ Narang, G. C. and D. A. Becker. 1971. Aspiration and nasalization in the generative phonology of Hindi-Urdu. ''Language'', ''47'', 646-767.
★ Ohala, M. 1972. Topics in Hindi-Urdu phonology. (PhD dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles).
★
"A Desertful of Roses", a site about Ghalib's Urdu ghazals by Dr. Frances W. Pritchett, Professor of Modern Indic Languages at Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
★ Phukan, S. 2000. The Rustic Beloved: Ecology of Hindi in a Persianate World, The Annual of Urdu Studies, vol 15, issue 5, pp. 1-30
★ Rahim, Rizwana. Urdu in India, 3-part review:
★
★ http://www.pakistanlink.com/Opinion/2005/Sep05/30/02.HTM
★
★ http://www.pakistanlink.com/Opinion/2005/Oct05/14/02.HTM
★
★ http://www.pakistanlink.com/Opinion/2005/Oct05/21/05.HTM
★ Rai, Amrit. 1984. ''A house divided: The origin and development of Hindi-Hindustani''. Delhi: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-561643-X.
★ Snell, Rupert ''Teach yourself Hindi: A complete guide for beginners.'' Lincolnwood, IL: NTC
★ URDU Poetry by an Eminent Poet from INDIA -
Barq Kadapavi
See also
★
Ghazal
★
Languages of India
★
Languages of Pakistan
★
List of Urdu poets
★
List of Urdu writers
★
Persian and Urdu
★
Uddin and Begum Urdu-Hindustani Romanization
★
Urdu Digest
★
Urdu Informatics
★
Urdu keyboard
★
Urdu literature
★
Urdu poetry
External links
{{External links|
About the language
★
Languages in India: Urdu Language
★
The Urdu Language Urdu History
★
North Carolina State University: About Urdu - Nasta`liq With the Help of Devanagari
★
An Urdu Language Poetic Site -
Research
★
National Language Authority, Pakistan
★
The National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language, India
★
CRULP Center for research in Urdu Language Processing
★
Introductory Urdu (Volume 1)
★
Introductory Urdu (Volume 2)
★
UrduTech.com Urdu Softwares/Programs/Scripts Research & Development.
Professional Publications
★
The Annual of Urdu Studies - the major English-language open access humanities journal dedicated to Urdu
★
Urdustan.com - the oldest Urdu website ( since 1998).
Online dictionaries
★ Online Urdu Dictionary
www.ijunoon.com/urdudic/ Convert English words to urdu.
★ Platts, John T. (John Thompson).
A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English. London: W. H. Allen & Co., 1884.
★ Shakespear, John.
A Dictionary, Hindustani and English. 3rd ed., much enl. London: Printed for the author by J.L. Cox and Son: Sold by Parbury, Allen, & Co., 1834.
★
Urdu dictionary Roman Urdu Dictionary.
★
Urdu dictionary Free Online Urdu dictionary tool.
★
Webster's Urdu-English Dictionary
★
Online Dictionary
★
LexCool Hindi/Urdu-English-Kalasha-Khowar-Nuristani-Pashtu Comparative Word List
★
Urdu Wiktionary
★
Basic words and phrases in Urdu
★
Dictionary in Roman Urdu Dinesh Prabhu's Urdu Dictionary
★
Urdu Phrasebook from WikiTravel
★
FreeUrduDictionary.com Free Urdu Dictionary.
Online Urdu script instruction
★
UK India: Learn to Read Urdu
★
Urdu Calligraphy
★
Urdu Alphabet with Devanagari equivalents
★
Urdu Extension Urdu Extension parses the Urdu text in real time and replaces with a matched ligature
News and current affairs
★
Urdu Tech News - First online newspaper providing technology related news & tutorials in Urdu.
★
akhbaar - headlines from popular Urdu newspapers.
★
Hindustan Express Daily Urdu Newspaper
★
Urdu - Worlds Leading Urdu Site
★
Urdu - Poetry, Interview, Travelogue, Multimedia Links.
★
The Inquilab Urdu Daily: India's Leading Urdu Daily
★
Daily Jang: Leading Urdu Newspaper of Pakistan
★
Urdu News - Worlds Largest Urdu News
★
BBC News in Urdu
★
Salar Publications
★
Daily Jasarat Online Urdu newspaper
★
UrduWare News Consolidated Online Urdu News and Links
★
Daily Express Read Urdu News online.
Libraries and literature
★
Urdu Best Aashaar 'Urdu Shair-o-Shairi Collection'
★
Dosti-Yari Poetry Collection on Word" 'Dosti-Yari'"
★
u4u.com Over 516,000 pages of Urdu Literature
★
Allama Iqbal Urdu cyber library Digital library of Urdu books
★
Kitaab Ghar Free online Urdu Digital Library of Books & Literature
★
FreeUrduBooks.Com Huge Collection of Urdu Books
★
Urdu pages: Urdu educational website
★
UrduArticles.com Read 10,000 Urdu articles by 2010
Urdu Community
'
★
Urdu Shairi Blog Blog Containing Lot of URDU Shairi'
★
Free Urdu Blogging Service
★
Urdu Community Forum: Urdu Language
Urdu magazines
★
IBITIANS.com Best Urdu Site, Literature, Columns & Articles
★
Ibtada.com Largest Urdu Magazine
★
Computingpk کمپیوٹنگ: Premier Urdu computing magazine in Pakistan
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