Talk:Urdu/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

IPA

Someone familiar with Urdu should transliterate the example phrases into IPA. Jeeves 02:38, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

That's been done. (Not by me!) kwami 01:42, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Intro

Sirf ek sawaal... Shouldn't we mention the place of origin of Urdu more definitively than simply 'South Asia' in the beginning? It originated in the north-west regions of the Indian sub-continent around what is now Lahore and New Delhi (switching in between). --LordSuryaofShropshire 21:03, Apr 16, 2004 (UTC)

Yar you are completely right. But see there are contending theories about it. The origins are places in Hyderabad, Deccan; Maharashtra, Bihar, Dehli, Punjab and Sindh. Although I think the evidence for Dehli is the strongest. SO I think we should change it to that :) aala hazrat 00:54, 2004 Apr 17 (UTC)
Theek hai. To sakht hai. Dilli... laykin ek aur jaghe mein likhna chahiye ki zaraa hi shakk hai scholarly circles mein. --LordSuryaofShropshire 16:24, Apr 17, 2004 (UTC)

What date can be put as birth date for Urdu? Chirags 14:24, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Rather a silly question. Does any non-artifical language have a definite birth date? Most languages evolve gradually, sometimes over centuries. However, the earliest known Urdu poet (Amir Khusro) lived around the latter half of the thirteenth century (CE) and the early part of the fourteenth century (CE).

Speakers of Urdu

I have edited the 'speakership' sections to reflect the best data available concerning Urdu as a mother tongue. As a first language Punjabi is overwhelmingly in the plurality in Pakistan at about 48% with Urdu, though official, seeing only 8% of the country as native speakers ([1]). As for speakers in India, while it is tempting to simply say that Muslims speak Urdu and Hindus speak Hindi, this is a woefully misguided and inaccurate statement.

I'll explain... If you hear, say, an interview with Amitabh Bachan or Shah Rukh Khan, their usage of 'Urdu,' or 'Arabo-Persian' words, is the same, and might more accurately be termed Urdu than Hindi. The same phenomenon can be observed in many 'Hindi-speaking' communities across the Northern belt. Surely there is a leaning towards Hindi in heavily Hindu areas, such as Benares. But Hindus living in Hyderabad, or Lucknow, do not speak a noticeably different blend of Hindustani than their Muslim neighbors, certainly not enough to term them speakers of two different languages! Thus, I amended the statement in that passage to say that Muslims, though perhaps feeling more of a cultural pull towards Urdu, are not alone in being native speakers. Also, I feel a small reference to Premchand might be in order, not merely because he is Hindu, though that is a powerful message that Urdu can serve as a powerful unifier between communities, but also because he is practically the father of the afsana and possibly the best Urdu short-story writer there is. Urdu is obviously primarily Muslim in literary flavor, if it is anything, but its grand history should be given full display and it should be noted that some of its greatest fans are Hindus. Ghazals sell in Hindu-majority India. --LordSuryaofShropshire 04:25, Jun 12, 2004 (UTC)

Recent anon edit on order of Urdu vocabulary sources

An anon recently re-ordered the list of languages from which Urdu takes vocabulary to put Hindi last. That sounds like a POV attempt to de-emphasize their relationship, but I don't really know for sure, as modern languages really aren't my thing. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 07:09, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

It certainly was. I remember reading an Urdu scholar's essay in which he said that about half of modern Urdu is Prakrit-Sanskrit (i.e. Hindi) in origin. Well, it doesn't really matter in the end. I believe the emphasis on their (Hindi and Urdu's) sisterhood in Hindustani is enough for the educated reader to discern the truth.--LordSuryaofShropshire 16:58, Jul 4, 2004 (UTC)

Speaking of Urdu as first language but not as a mother tongue

I am myself example of a person who don't have urdu as a mothertongue but speak urdu as my first language. I have first hand knowledge in Pakistan. It is a fact of life here which no body disbutes as a fact (Good phenomenon or bad is different) but it is a very big factor here. specially in urban areas (I live in Peshawar). this u can ask "ANY" Pakistani living in urban areas. plz before removeing or re-editing ask any pakistani about it. and plz also I will be great ful if any body tells me how to settle any disbute over any information (if in the case of any disbute) and who has the authority to decide the disbute. thanks

Hey Zain.... look, first off, welcome, and when you write comments in Talk you can add four '~'s afterwards, which will display your name and edit time. Secondly, disputes are settled as one might hope in a small democracy, through discussion. We strive for neutral points of view, so you'll often see NPOV or POV (neutral point of view or point-of-view) raised as problems with articles.
To deal with this situation. I am quite familiar with the situation in Pakistan and am appreciative of the changes being wrought in the linguistic fabric. However, it is still a fact that as of the most recent and reliable census the easy plurality, over 45%, of Pakistanis speak Punjabi as a first tongue. As you have, of course, pointed out it is also a fact that quite quickly more and more Punjabi Pakistani (or Pashto-speaking, for that matter) kids are being raised with Urdu as their primary tongue. The most definitive 'proof' is still a citation. Since this is attempting to be an amateur but high-quality encyclopaedia, phrases like "people say" are usually untenable unless it can be proven. Hence, an editor, like you or I, cannot state that merely his/her proximity to a subject entitles him/her to greater authority. We ask for citations from encyclopaedias, books, notable journalists, statistics, verifiable data sources. Also, the nature of the sources is scrutinized and the prejudices examined for reasonableness. Hence, we work together to find compromise.
As it stands, here are the issues I have with your amendment of the section on speakership... you say this:

Although urdu is not Mother tongue of many pakistanis but more and more people are using urdu as their first language instead of punjabi and other languages specially in urban areas. (very much like English language overtaking Irish language but at a lot slower pace).

First of all, the wording isn't as clear as it might be. The comparison to English and Irish language, as well, I believe should be further examined and is in reality not necessary here. The dynamics are slightly different there. Moreover, however, this has already been noted farther below in the paragraph:

It is, however, the language of prestige and all signage and is taught as compulsory in the Pakistani school system; it is, more and more, becoming the first language of even many ethnically Punjabi Pakistanis as time goes by.

You are wise to mention urbanity and its greater tendency towards Urdu. So I contend the section should be changed thusly:

It is, however, the language of prestige and all signage, taught as compulsory in the Pakistani school system. As time goes by, more and more Pakistanis of Punjabi or other background are speaking Urdu as a first language. It is evident that the native speakership of Urdu is increasing more quickly in urban centers.

I hope this meets your standards. --LordSuryaofShropshire 21:31, Jul 22, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for ur guidence and plz also help me how to write in a thread

Thanks for your guidence Actually only thing which I wanted to say was that in Pakistan ther are number of pakistanis who know urdu better then any other language they can speak although their mothertongue is not urdu. Actually my english is not that good so I think I was not able to edit it in a proper way. Second I am more used to open forums and open source software forums where I Can Enter what I feel without taking considering a lot about its accouracy. Although I tried to be cautious on wikipedia but I think it was not enough.

Probably because it was my first day editing Articles and at maximum 2nd day browsing wikipedia. and plz also help me how to enter the response in thread. so it won't become a new messege but will become a part of the subject. thanks --Zain 16:06, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Example IPA

I solicited the pronunciations shown from a Sindhi speaker who said he had some familiarity with Urdu, and he assured me that he was pronouncing the words in the correct way for Urdu. However, my transcriptions should be checked if possible by someone who knows Urdu and IPA or someone who knows IPA and a native speaker of Urdu. Jeeves 00:00, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Quoting Poetry

I would like to suggest that we have the Urdu [and/Farsi] text of poetry alongside the translation. This could be in English script or in Urdu. English might be better. What say?--iFaqeer 03:46, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Nah, the purpose of this page is to give information on the use of Urdu, not translations of poetry here. Translations would be better suited for the Urdu poetry page. That page is meant for describing urdu poetry in great detail. Its odd that the information on the Urdu language page on poetry exceeds the Urdu poetry page. -- FarazSyed 20:17, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Was not talking about whole pieces of poetry, but for little bits that are quoted already, here as well as on other pages like Urdu poetry, List of Urdu poets, and so on.—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 21:09, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

Urdu, Hindi, Hindustani ... and Bollywood

As I have said on the comment on the Hindustani article, the description there and here on the whole issue is about the best I have seen.

However, saying that "So Urdu speakers will find their own language in the Hindi cinema..." is over-simplifying the issue. It is not just because the languages are close that Urdu speakers just happen to find their own language in Hindi cinema. Bollywood started out with and continues to have a major contribution from poets and other literateurs that are also major players in the world of Urdu literature. And I say this not just out of chauvinism (or at least not consciously :D), but because if we get it just right (as Wikipedia seems to have done in the case of Hindustani), it really would help document a side of the South Asian experience that is not recognized properly in most cases.

And the phrase "Hindi Cinema", which I admit is a common way to refer to Bollywood is also problematic. I would recommend using the latter term.--iFaqeer 19:03, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)

Just reverted some POV additions to this section. "Not doing justice" to Urdu combined with the phrase "[so-]called Hindi speakers" implies a pro-Urdu, anti-Hindi bias that has no place here, in this section especially. If the Hindi speakers in question think they are speaking Hindi, and other Hindi speakers agree, who are we to say they aren't? It would be as absurd as saying the actors on Pakistani television were "so-called Urdu speakers" because speakers of Hindi can understand their dialogue. --Skoosh 22:12, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hindustani

We really need to synchronize the material here under "Urdu, Hindi, Hindustani" and under the Hindustani entry. I really, really liked what was under the latter entry--till I saw the material here. It would be a good thing to help both improve each other.--iFaqeer 19:05, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)

Well, there's no problem in saying "Bollywood" as opposed to "Hindi cinema" except for the fact that many people, indeed even Bollywood writers and producers themselves, see their movies as being in Hindi. For this reason, it makes the fact that Urdu speakers easily understand Bollywood more significant. If we just said Bollywood and didn't mention that its contributors don't view it as a Hindi industry, an outsider would just be like, "What's the big deal?" Also, There are more native Urdu speakers in India than in Pakistan, which means that not qualifying Bollywood would lead to erroneous conclusions by those ignorant of the facts that India is somehow all-Hindi speaking, which is utter rubbish, since in spite of Hindi-push in schools some of the world's great Urdu scholars are Indian (and often not exclusively Muslim, like Gopi Chand Narang).--LordSuryaofShropshire 22:49, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)
No argument with that you say. Urdu is a language and a culture; not a religion. But I think what you are referring to is my comment that saying that "So Urdu speakers will find their own language in the Hindi cinema..." is an over-simplification. This is, after all, an encyclopedia, isn't it?--iFaqeer 23:09, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)
You needn't keep reminding me that this is encyclopaedic writing. I'm aware. As for the sentence "So Urdu speakers will find their own language in the Hindi cinema." I didn't even write that. The grammar is faulty. I'll change it.--LordSuryaofShropshire 08:20, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)
Not saying you done it, Laad Saab; just asking for your help and input--which I have come to value--in improving it.--iFaqeer 23:29, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)

"Hindi Base of Grammar" or Sanskrit/Prakrit?

Just that.--iFaqeer 22:26, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Politeness

"Tum" is definitely not plular; and Aap is also very often not. I am going to revert—unless someone can express a real and well-argued objection.—iFaqeer | Talk to me! 18:49, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

Aap is used to refer to one person as a sign of respect because it is a plural form. You are saying that I respect you to such a degree that I will not use a form met for just one person, you are worth more than that. Whether this goes through my mind when I speak Urdu I cannot say. But similarly in French vous is used as a polite form of the you singular but it is still a plural form.

Urdu and the Middle East

I've lived in the Middle East for about 12 years. The Middle East has a very large number of expats (infact, they are majority). As such, most shop keepers prefer to learn Urdu because of the large population that can understand Urdu/Hindi and the fact that Urdu shares some words with Arabic and English too.

So, could someone write about its use abroad? I also know that it can be understood in some Chinese villages along the border with India and Pakistan. There is a sizable Urdu speaking population in North America and Europe too.

Here's a very interesting link in this regard:
http://guyanafriends.com/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/860604972/m/77110386221
Not the Middle East, but definitely outside the subcontinent.—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 06:27, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

Mahmud Ghaznavi

Mahmud Ghaznavi as founder of Urdu? Never heard of that one. Let's get some documentation before we put that in. Reverting.—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 19:05, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

If I can put my 2 cents in as a linguist, that seems extremely unlikely. No constructed language has ever been naturalized, and creating a "natural language" is far beyond the capability of a single person or even a group of people. The person who added that stuff was either yanking our collective chain or is seriously misinformed. Even if e were to produce "documentation", I would be highly suspicious of it. A language created by a committee that went on to become a major natural language...I would think I'd have heard of this in my classes, as it would be quite a singular event. Jeeves 21:53, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Afsana vs. Afsaana

I just did a little copy editing on this article's literature and poetry section, but as I don't speak Urdu, I wasn't sure which version of this word (Afsana vs. Afsaana) was more standard. Could some native speaker remove one form from this article? Jarsyl 05:26, 2005 Jun 1 (UTC)

Article oddities

First off, is there a valid reason for the infobox being reduced to just the name and the SIL code? Secondly, why is this article not at Urdu? Since there is nothing to disambiguate "Urdu" from, there is no need for the "language". See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Languages#Structure for applicable guidelines.Peter Isotalo 22:10, Jun 7, 2005 (UTC)

No- Hindi and Urdu are not the same languages

To a person who has only heard a language spoken on the streets or from movies, the languages may seem similar. The fact is that the so called 'Urdu' speaking people and 'Hindi' speaking people do not converse in the purest forms of these languages. Due to Bollywood (Indian film Industry) and the British Invasion, in this era the people use a hybrid language of Urdu, Hindi, and English.

If one were to use complete Urdu and another complete Hindi, they wouldn't be intelligible to one another. Just because people using a language alter the way they speak and vocabulary they use, it doesn't mean that the language has changed, but they are using a mixture of languages. Urdu will always remain Urdu (Persian/Arabic derived) and Hindi will always remain Hindi (Sankrit derived).

The grammatic structure in these languages, however, is very similar. The nouns and adjectives are what are completely different.

The language spoken by most people in this era is neither completely Urdu nor Hindi. Due to the emphasis of English in Pakistani and Indian schools, the mother tongues are being forgotten. The primary source that the majority of people turn to for education in their native language is movies. Bollywood (Indian Film Industry)'s use of a hybrid language consisting of Urdu, Hindi, and English is what is spoken by the majority of people who have not studied Urdu or Hindi. This fact doesn't change the original languages however. (unsigned by 70.177.166.200 (talk • contribs) 23:25, 19 August 2005)

Ah, language politics. From the point of view of linguists who aren't trying to prove a nationalist point, Hindi and Urdu are two standard variants of the same language (see diasystem, and Historical linguistics#Language evolution and the comparative method, especially the key phrase, "core vocabulary"). It's not just a "similar" grammar that they share - it's the same grammar. It's not just a similar basic vocabulary - it's the same basic vocabulary, with very few exceptions. When confined to casual, everyday conversation, the two languages are, as I understand it, practically indistinguishable. It is only in orthography and technical vocabulary - the kind heard on newscasts - where mutual intelligibility breaks down, and linguists do not consider these to be the central features of languages. I see little difference between a Hindi speaker being unable to understand the technical, Farsi/Arabic words in a PTV newscast, and an uneducated native English speaker being unable to understand the technical Latin/Greek words in an Oxford academic lecture. Unfamiliar vocabulary is not the same as a different language.
The notion of an "original" and "pure" Urdu and Hindi that predated Hindustani is just ahistorical linguistic nationalism. (What does "pure" even mean here? Is tashrif laie "pure" Hindi or "pure" Urdu? How about maf kijie? Is chaiwala a "Hindi" or an "Urdu" word? Perhaps it's a Chinese word, since that's where chai comes from?) There was Apabhramsa, there was Farsi, and then those two languages intermingled to form Hindustani. There was a continuum, to be sure, but the two poles were originally Farsi and Apabhramsa, not Urdu and Hindi. The latter pair diverged from Hindustani, not the other way around. There was never a "pure" Urdu distinct from Hindi, unless one means Farsi. As for Hindi, scrubbing away the Perso-Arabic words from its vocabulary and replacing them with Sanskrit-derived equivalents is a modern project, born of a political desire to reinforce Hindu/Indian identity versus Muslims/Pakistanis. (see Serbo-Croatian language for a similar situation elsewhere.) In short, it is all POV, and not supported by disinterested linguists. Hindi and Urdu share a common ancestry, a common grammar, and are mutually intelligible when spoken in most situations (e.g. buying fruit, chatting about one's day, hailing a rickshaw, ordering a cup of tea). That information should not be deleted. --Skoosh 04:07, 24 August 2005 (UTC)Skoosh 04:07, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Difference in opinion in this article

Check this:"It soon became the language of the Mughals, distinguished linguistically from local languages by its large and extensive Arabic (20%) and Persian (70%) vocabulary and the rest being derived from Turkish and local dialects in its purest form. The result was what has been called one of the world's most beautiful languages, the "Kohinoor" ("Mountain of Light," a famed native, large and brilliant diamond from the region) of languages. It is widely spoken today in Pakistan and some muslim dominant parts of India.

In the past hundred years, due to Bollywood (the Indian film industry) and the British Invasion, Urdu and Hindi have become intertwined. Bollywood's use of a middle tongue between Urdu and Hindi has brought the people to a common tongue often used in the current time."

If the language has 90% Perso-Arabic vocabulary then why would it be classified as "Indo-Aryan"?? This statement is simply not true. The basic vocabulary of Hindi and Urdu are same. Even though Hindi draws most of its higher vocabulary from Sanskrit, it is littered with Arabic words, vice versa is true for Urdu. I'm not propogating any kind of language nationalism here. But i think such gaping inaccuracies in Wikipedia articles should not tolerated.

If you go through the history of this article, you'll notice how India has been added and removed from the "Official Language of:" table. Well whoever is behind this. STOP IT. Urdu is infact one of the national languages of India. SEE: List of national languages of India. This article itself recognises that India has more Urdu speakers than Pakistan. (unsigned by AMbroodEY 04:38, 25 August 2005)

User:Happytime (which I think is the same person as User:Thetruth) has been making these idiotic changes. The user has been a problem before. See Talk:Hindi. Please revert his biased changes. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 09:06, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
  • The case for Urdu is quite different from any other language. This is a derived language from other languages (Arabic, Farsi, Turkish), it is not one of the older original languages such as Sanksrit. Urdu is a fairly recent language (1500's) that has the grammatic structure of an Indo-Aryan sublcass. This is not referring to the modern day slang refferred to Urdu which is better dubbed Hindustani(mix of Hindi, English, and Urdu) which you are referring to.
The national/official languages of India are English and Hindi while others are recognized. (unsigned by Happytime 19:08, 26 August 2005)

Roman Urdu

There is one point in the article that I feel is incorrect. It's from the section regarding Roman Urdu. It is from these statements:

Urdu can be proud of having the richest variety of alphabet characters (44 compared to English’s 26) that can represent most of the sounds. Urdu’s own script is far more superior [sic] to the Roman script


1) The statement "Urdu can be proud of having the richest variety of alphabet characters (44 compared to English’s 26" While it is not necessarily incorrect, it is a vague statement with nothing backing it up.

While there may be more pronunciation sounds in the Urdu language, than those of the English language, this does not have anything to do with the Roman alphabet. The Roman alphabet with only 26 characters is capable of producing words for any sounds made by a human. It's all in the way the letters are arranged as well the specific language itself. For example in German, the combination of 'ch' represents a sound not normally used in English, however the letters are from the Roman alphabet. Another example is the Spanish letter 'r'. These letters represent sounds not normally used in English, yet they can be represented using the Roman alphabet.

2) The statement "Urdu’s own script is far more superior [sic] to the Roman script" is misleading. What makes the Urdu script "far superior"? If you look at the roman alphabet it is superior in ways. For example,it is far more efficient than the Urdu script. With less characters and the ability to perform the same function, this would make it more efficient. Many languages around the world have voluntarily switched to the Roman alphabet for this very reason (Turkey, Malaysia, etc..) (unsigned by 64.42.192.130 (talk • contribs) 17:20, 8 September 2005)

1) is a POV statement as phrased anyway -- who's to say that having a longer alphabet is inherently good (or bad for that matter)? 2) is utterly meaningless -- a script is only good or bad in relation to how it describes its language(s). Linear A, for example, may have been a decent script for whatever the Minoan language was, but Linear B (which is very similar and seems to work the same way) doesn't work at all well for Greek. That said, it was the major script used in Bronze Age Greece, so it was what it was. And actually reasons for Romanization differ depending on where it happened -- Turkey, for example, considered it a form of modernization, while Vietnam did it under colonial pressure and Hindi/Urdu is in the process of doing it primarily because it represents neutral ground between Devanagari and Arabic scripts. Haikupoet 03:43, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

DO NOT EDIT COMMENTS ON TALK PAGES

Happytime has edited my earlier comment (removing all the evidence I set forth in my argument), as well as significantly changing the meaning of a comment by AMbroodEY, and deleting one of Sukh's comments entirely (as can be seen in this side-by-side comparison). This sort of abusive behavior crosses the line, and if continued, can lead to serious consequences (e.g. banning). Let's not force that outcome. We need to respect each other's words on talk pages so that we can deal with each other in good faith.

Also, everyone please remember to sign your comments, so we can more easily follow the thread of the conversation. Four tildes at the end is enough - MediaWiki does the rest. --Skoosh 09:29, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

  • A discussion has took place, please stop reverting. Any comments on the discussion page that are offensive will be removed. If you would like to talk about it as between users, then use the individual talk pages. Thanks----Happytime
There has been some discussion, but there is still a controversy over the changes being introduced; a complete consensus has not been reached. Or rather, there is a consensus on this issue, save for one editor. As for where to talk about this: discussion of the edits and reverts of a specific article belong on that article's talk page more than anywhere else. --skoosh (háblame) 20:15, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I've restored the affected comments to their original state, as far as I can tell. --Skoosh 09:49, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Quote from Happytime's post:Any comments on the discussion page that are offensive will be removed.

Who decides whats offensive and whats not? Dont delete meaningful discussion just becoz its "offensive" to you. I dont care if you want to establish a false pedigree for Urdu. Go ahead classify it as an Arabic langauge. Only thing you'll ever manage to do is to descredit wikipedia. Moreover, is there any need for puttin "one of the schedule languages of India",Schedule langauge == Official Language. For every other schedule langauge article describes tat langauge as official language of India not as "schedule lang. of India". Dont try to make it confusing just becoz some ppl cant bear to see it. -- AMbroodEY

Ironically AMbroodEY this phenom of false geneology in terms of pakistani identity is well documented. Excellent books to read up on this phenom is Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey & Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions among the Converted Peoples by V.S.Naipaul. He basically experiences average pakistanis attempting to claim arab ancestry in order to disguise their actual indo-aryan ancestry. It is a well known phenom in the islamic world, as islam indirectly promotes arab values as the true values of man. Ironically, cultures that have wholly converted to Islam such as the Turkic and Persian people, do not have this problem of false geneology. It is essentially a fear of being grouped with the lower 'non-believers' that causes this phenom. Urdu has very little relation to Arabic language, both structurally and phonetically. I know that Urdu speakers would have trouble even pronouncing certain Arabic words properly, i know because i've tried! Urdu was a language that developed in northern delhi and in lahore. It has never been a majority language in any nation, state or even city. It was never used exclusively by muslims, nor used as a divisive line in the general community. these are just fallacies spread by the nationalists that attempt to eradicate the true history of pakistan, and replace it with a sadly foreign fallacy. It is quite sad as its a beautiful synthesis of north indian languages & persian. thanks for reading Ead83 02:07, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Urdu's official status in India

I actually first introduced the phrase "scheduled national language" on this page, since, based on List of national languages of India, there seems to be a distinction drawn between Hindi and English, and all the other languages officially recognized by New Delhi. If that distinction is inaccurate, then that's my mistake. Also, we should treat all the scheduled languages consistently on their respective pages, including Urdu. Rereading that national languages page, it seems that Hindi and English can be called official languages, and those two plus the 22 scheduled languages are all national languages. Is that a fair assessment? --skoosh (háblame) 02:36, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Whats going on here

can any one explain me whats going on ? WiseSabre 19:49, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

I'll tell, some ppl here r inventing a false history for Urdu. Urdu is NOT a Pakistani langauge alone, it has more native speakers in India than in Pakistan. Only wikipedia article fails to mention that Urdu is in fact result of fusion of Hindi with Arabic words. Microsoft Encarta describes its as:Urdu is the same language as Hindi but is written in a different script. <a href="http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_762510380/Urdu.html"> [1]</a>. Even other sources describe Urdu as Hindi derived language loaded with Perso-Arabian words... But Pakistan for nationalistic reasons has over past 50 yrs tried to establish its separate identity. Disowning Urdu's Indo-Aryan past is one such program. I hope i'm not opening a can of worms here.User:AMbroodEY

hey don't comment over NATIONALISTIC reasons. it surely will open canof worms ;-)

NPOV

History of Urdu

Lots of crap like :

'Na Badet Yavani Bhasham Pranah Kanthgatepi va' (One should not speak the language of Muslim rulers even at the cost of death) was the slogan often used by an educated section of Hindus. This aversion against Urdu particularly in rural India also affected the unity in Indian society.

First of all "Yavan" here means Greeks and not Muslim and there is no reference to the source of the saying.

I've tagged the History of Urdu section as NPOV. "Inherent resilience" of Sanskrit? "Had the Muslim rulers been honest"? That's pretty blatant. --skoosh (háblame) 09:27, 4 September 2005 (UTC)


According to Anwar Azim, "Urdu never indeed took root in the soil of rural India. One reason for this was its snobbish aversion to the dialects of the regions, where Urdu was supposed to have deep roots." [2] In fact, Sanskrit-educated rural India had developed an aversion against Urdu, which they associated with 'Yavanas' (the alien rulers). 'Na Badet Yavani Bhasham Pranah Kanthgatepi va' (One should not speak the language of Muslim rulers even at the cost of death) was the slogan often used by an educated section of Hindus. This aversion against Urdu particularly in rural India also affected the unity in Indian society.

Wherever Muslim soldiers went and settled they carried Urdu with them, which also served their purpose of keeping the Muslim masses separated from the non-Muslims. Had the intention of Muslim rulers been honest, they would have allowed this lingua franca to develop in the linguistic tradition of this land as was done by previous invaders like Huna, Kushans and others. Development and growth of any language depend upon state patronage as well as of its acceptability among the native dwellers. Urdu enjoyed commanding status in the literary courts of Muslim rulers and Nawabs, and flourished under their patronage but common people hardy developed any emotional attachment with it as a result it never got the environment for its natural growth. Urdu pushed the Sanskrit, the language of intellectuals in Indian society to wall but it could survive only due to its inherent resilience.

Argument that Urdu was developed as lingua franca during Muslim rule may be partially correct but its Persianisation and Arabisation at the cost of the native dialect shows that Muslim conquerors never cared for the sentiments of the subjugated natives in their attempt to impose their cultural hegemony over them.

I have removed this para on the basis

  • urdu is not very old language,it is slowly but steadily taking roots in rural area's.
  • the major reason for urdu taking roots in rural area is that people now watch pakistani drams and indian movies.when i talk to villagers they speak with urdu without any hesitation (still old ppl cant speak urdu).
  • urdu literature was not only delevoped by muslims but also by hindus
  • there is no education given in western punjab in punjabi,In few years all western punjab will switch over to urdu.

الثاقب (WiseSabre| talk) 11:58, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

I would agree on much of the above, except for the fact that during the mughal and even british rule of india (& current day pakistan & afghanistan) the actual lingua franca was actually persian. my own grandfather's mother tongue was farsi (persian) even though he was raised a sikh in lahore! I believe it is incorrect to attempt to try and group urdu as being in a separate language group as hindi, when obviously a native speaker would identify its root language as primarily Sanskrit. Today's youth i've realised speak more Hindustani (a fusion of Hindi & Urdu) than either language. Its inevitable that words will be borrowed and outside influences will evolve in language as it has always done. I think its quite amusing to see the 'old guard' traditionalists attempt to retain the original character of a language and insist that it will never change. For example, an average arabic speaking north african would generally have trouble reading the koran that is written in the arabic of the early sixth century; just as english speaking people today would have trouble reading a 6th century english document. I think i've made my point clear Ead83 02:37, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Hindustani subgroup???

There is no such Subgriup, Urdu is classified under Western Hindi languages by linguists. See Indo-Aryan languages. This article is starting to look more out of Uncyclopedia rather than Wikipedia. This article basically is 500 essay on how Urdu is different than Hindi. AMbroodEY 02:07, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree... Someone's just trying to spread their own agenda. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 08:35, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

urdu and entertainment

could we make new pages for newspapers published in urdu and t.v channels in urdu?
and list of urdu poets and writers of urdu? الثاقب (WiseSabre| talk) 13:42, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

anyone intersted in hindi urdu relation should check this site,there is a software for tranliteration (and NOT translation) between hindi words to urdu, infact it will only change the script.. [3]


Online use of urdu I think this should be removed because there are alot of sites now who use urdu.should we enlist them all? الثاقب (WiseSabre| talk) 11:33, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Attack by POV warrior

This article has been under attack by a POV warrior. I am fairly sure that it is one person. He has been reverting to his preferred, un-scientific, anti-Muslim version as JacobCK (brand new user, only edits here) and two anon IPs. One has already been blocked for 3RR and the other is an AOL anon IP with a long history of vandalism and trolling. The talk page for that IP (which consisted of a long series of complaints re vandalism and trolling) has been blanked and all that is left is a declaration that the user intends to destroy Wikipedia.

I have used up my 3RR on this article and I hope there's someone else here to hold the fort. Zora 01:53, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

I've been watching the situation on this article for a couple of weeks now as something of an outside observer with an interest in languages, and what we appear to have here is a case of identity politics taking preference over a regard for established facts. It's sad that nationalism and religion can interfere with sober contemplation of the history of a language, but such are things. (I hadn't even known there was a dispute of any sort -- within linguistic circles there is no dispute at all that Hindi and Urdu are basically dialects of one Hindustani language.) And I don't quite know what to make of the fact that no one has acted on the request for protection, but something is definitely called for. Haikupoet 03:35, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Protecting the Urdu page

There are biased views in the current article that are far away from the truth. The article reads, "Urdu and Hindi are the standardized forms of the Hindustani language, also known as Hindi-Urdu.

Urdu developed as a vernacular dialect from the interaction between local Indian Sanskrit-derived Prakrits "

This is completely false if one reads the history of the Urdu language from authentic/credible textbooks. Hindustani is a language that arose after the formation of Hindi and Urdu separately. It wasn't a precedent, it is a mix of the two that many people speak nowadays. Also, Sanksrits/Prakrits had very little to do with Urdu's formation.

It is currently on a version that promotes a pro-Hindu mentality. It writes that it was developed in Delhi. In truth, it is not known to an exact location and was developed in numerous areas. The word Hindi is written moreso on the URdu page than urdu itself. If one would like to read about the Hindi page they would go to that language page.

These are two completely different languages if one studies the both of them and knows how to speak them. It is different from Hindustani which is the mix of the two. This is the Urdu language page and discussess the Urdu language, there is a separate page for Hindustani and Hindi. You can see for yourself by using these dictionaries: |Urdu Dictionary and |Hindi Dictionary. (For the Hindi dictionary you must choose English for the first option and Hindi for the second at the top, then try typing an english word for the Hindi translation).

Also, a large portion of the History has been cut out, which explains the Urdu development. The most incorrect part however has to be the introduction in which cities are named. Urdu is the official language only of Pakistan and JammuKashmir (now considered part of India) (JammuKashmir is the reason Urdu is even listed as one of the national languages in India). (unsigned by 70.177.166.200 (talk • contribs) 19:35, 12 September 2005)

If what you say is so true, why is it that you won't even sign your posts? Why is it that linguists with no particular axe to grind in the debate say that Hindi and Urdu are the same language? In any case, it's far more likely that two languages with such similar grammar (in their "pure" forms) share a common ancestor (Sanskrit and the Prakrits) -- the English language may derive more than half of its vocabulary from Latin, but it's still a Germanic language. Haikupoet 00:24, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
The reason why linguist classify these languages as such is that Linguists don't go in to depth when studying specific languages. What is referred to as Urdu or even Hindi, which is spoken by the masses (due to Bollywood & after British Invasion) is in truth a mix of the two with many English words inserted(often termed Hindustani). The grammer as well is not completely the same, it is mostly words like: you, me, him, her, she, where, that are the same. If you do not believe this you can see for yourself from the dictionaries provided above. Example words you could use: voice, easy/hard, hate, regret, cancel, flood, or any other words of choice. (unsigned by 70.177.166.200 (talk • contribs) 00:32, 13 September 2005)
So what you're saying is, professional linguists don't know what they're talking about, because none of them have studied these two languages in depth? That seems entirely unwarranted. A quick Google search reveals some evidence to the contrary, concerning both description of contemporary forms [4], and historical development [5]. Here's another page that puts Hindi and Urdu in the context of historical linguistics and its response to the question of language definition. I strong suggest reading about the example of Serbo-Croatian, or the Scandinavian languages. It helps to explain how historical linguists approach such issues.
As far as grammar, that is distinct from vocabulary. The latter is a list of words; the former is the set of rules governing how they are used and transformed. A language like Tok Pisin, for example, borrows many words from English for its core vocabulary, but its grammar comes from other languages. I find it curious that you mention the words him, her, and she as words that Hindi and Urdu have in common, since those pronouns do not exist per se in those languages. The demonstrative pronouns yeh and voh are used instead, and though they can be translated as he or she in context, they carry no gender information, nor are they restricted to persons or animate beings; they are more akin to the English pronouns this and that. In any case, the fact that both the grammars and the core vocabularies of Hindi and Urdu are identical are a strong indication that they are, in fact, ultimately the same language, as I've argued before. The fact that they are often not only mutually intelligible, but indistinguishable in conversation (see the beginning of this thread for an example) just seals the case.
Let us imagine an alternative history where a certain subset of Britons, after the Battle of Hastings and the beginning of Norman rule, shied away from using words of Norman French origin and instead looked more to Old English and Old High German as sources of new vocabulary for their own standardized language. These people (let's call them Saxonites) would continue to speak a language with the same grammar and the same core vocabulary as those who speak Modern English, but when speaking of religion or international politics, would use many words that would be unfamiliar and even incomprehensible to ordinary English-speakers. On the other hand, when a Saxonite hung out in a bar with his friends or haggled over the price of fruit in the market, his speech would be indistinguishable from English. Are Saxonite and English different languages, or the same language? My answer is that if Saxonite and English share an identical grammar, a common core vocabulary, are mutually intelligible in informal speech, and often indistinguishable in that context, then they are really different dialects of the same language. A language with ancient historical roots, not one that was created out of colonialism and modern media. If an English-speaker in that context tried to deny her language's historical ties to Saxonite by claiming that English really came from French and Latin, not Anglo-Saxon or Old High German, and that "pure", "original" English is not so riddled with the "Saxonite" words that young people have picked up from the movies — well, we can readily see that such a claim would be absurd and ahistorical.
Throw in different writing systems and you have the Hindi/Urdu/Hindustani situation exactly. --skoosh (háblame) 14:02, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Interesting. I thought the POV warrior might be of the Hindutva persusasion, protesting that pure Hindi had never been sullied by any intermixture with the languages of the conquerors. Now it seems that he might be Pakistani, and interested in proving that Urdu is Turkish and Persian in origin. Ah well, so much for my perspicacity <g>. Zora 01:04, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

I believe you were offended by the History section. It was added by a different user some time back. I had no disagreement with it because it was the truth. Just as any people with pride for who they are would protect their tongue, the Hindus didn't want their tongue to be lost. Muslims were invaders in a majority Hindu land, although they had their affect on the people, the original inhabitants held firm their original identity. It is true however that they show traces of Muslim cultures/languages in the present day. (unsigned by 70.177.166.200 (talk • contribs) 00:32, 13 September 2005)


I've told u time and again (HT,thetruth and ur various manifestations) that Urdu is an official language of India. Indian constitution lists 22 official languages & Urdu is one of them. States are free to list any language as their official langauge. Urdu is more of an Indian language rather than Pakistani language.

1. Urdu was born in modern day India.
2. India has more native speakers of Urdu than Pakistan.

AMbroodEY 04:38, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

There's no reason to fight over this matter. I'm a Punjabi from Lahore who regularly uses Urdu, and I will provide you with real, unbiased info.

First off, Urdu is NOT derived from Persian, Arabic, and Turkish. It came from Sanskrit (indirectly), just like Hindi. Yes, Urdu uses more words from these 3 languages than Hindi, and the word "Urdu" itself is Turkish for "foreign" or "horde", but that doesn't mean that it's derived from those languages.

Secondly, Urdu and Hindi are, for the most part, mutually intelligible. Urdu has more Persian words and Hindi has more Sanskrit words, but they are intelligible for the most part. This does not mean, however, that they are the same language.

Thirdly, Urdu is considered by most a more cultured language than Hindi. I'm not being biased, and I hope I'm not offending anyone, but what can I do about the truth? Urdu is considered a language of poets and beauty. The same is for Spanish and Portuguese: Spain is larger than Portugal, and their languages are similar, but Portuguese is considered more cultured, as it has a larger number of Classical Latin words and has a more diverse vocabulary. The same for Urdu and Hindi - India is larger than Pakistan, but Urdu is more cultured because of the many more words from Arabic and Persian and the fact that it has a larger vocabulary. Hindi is cultured, too, as it has more Sanskrit words, but it has a smaller vocabulary. Generally, linguists grade culture on the vocab.

There. If I have time, I'll give reliable links to this info, so we can resolve this petty dispute.

 -Stallions2010
Thanks for the input. Are you familiar with the concept of diasystems? For example, Nynorsk and Bokmål are two different standard versions of Norwegian (in fact, there is a different Wikipedia for each of them). However, they're both Norwegian. Hindi and Urdu have been described in much the same way, as two standard dialects of one language. To me, it's not just mutual intelligibility that speaks to this underlying unity, but frequent indistinguishability — the fact that native speakers can perceive an entire conversation to be in Hindi (or Urdu, whichever they identify most with) while their partners perceive it to be in the other language. Mutual intelligibility is not the final word, since dialect continuums confound notions of definition by intelligibility alone (and I suspect that there's a dialect continuum in northern South Asia as well, although it may vary across classes, religions and social contexts as well as geographically). But when even native speakers can't always tell the difference, then how much of a difference is there, really?
Also, I would seriously doubt the objectivity (not to mention credibility) of any linguist who judged how "cultured" a language was, as if that were some intrinsic property of the language itself. Language, dialect, and accent prestige is the domain of sociolinguistics; a sociolinguist might study whether a language is regarded as more or less "cultured", but not whether or not that language really is cultured, and certainly not by using metrics like source languages for loanwords. "Refinement", "elegance", and the like, are subjective aesthetic judgments that have little to do with the language itself, and everything to do with the perceptions of those who read or listen to it. With that said, I'm glad we've gotten get your insights on the relative prestige and popular regard of Urdu and Hindi. --skoosh (háblame) 11:56, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Pakistani literature

If you're watching this page, just a note to say you may be interested in editing Pakistani literature both for Urdu influences and Punjabi, Pushto, Baluchi, etc, etc. Please check the talk page for some comments on what's needed there. Lisa 12:25, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Unprotecting

Long enough. --Tony SidawayTalk 22:10, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

  • I would highly recommend you keep an eye on this situation though. The POV warriors aren't going to go away. Haikupoet 02:27, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Protection

I hate to protect this page, since it was unprotected only a few days ago. Please try to get to a consensus. Protection is not the solution. Also, the unforutnate edit war makes almost every participant make 3RR violations (Though I'd side with Zora in terming anon 70.*'s edits as vandalism). Anyway, please open an RfC instead of continuing this edit war. Thanks. --Ragib 07:46, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

How should be stop this war?

How should be stop this war? why couldnt we mention in article both parties arguments? الثاقب (WiseSabre| talk) 18:58, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Open an WP:RfC. A discussion there should bring a conensus. --Ragib 19:07, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
Just exactly how widespread are Harprit's sentiments? Is it only a few lone nuts who insist that Hindi and Urdu are separate languages, or are there substantial communities of, say, Hindutva activists or champions of Urdu who are preaching a Partition before Partition? Harprit never cites any publications or web pages in support of his views, which is why he's being ignored. Are there any? I'll include notable views that I loathe and reject, but non-notable views (lone kookery) don't deserve the space or attention. Zora 19:54, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
They are the same languages. His views are unsubstantiated and basically show that he wishes to create a division that isn't there. This user does not know how to discuss the issues, and by the range of reverts by different editors, it can be seen that only he (and his anonymous IPs) support his own view. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 22:59, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
Well, yes, of course they're the same languages. But the question is, how widely are such views held? We describe widely held views, even if they're grotesquely unscientific. Zora 23:08, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
The issue is somewhat more complicated, as it always is when community consensus (in this case the linguistic world) runs up against identity politics. In an ideal world, we'd be able to ignore the identity warriors and simply say "Look, this is what it is, here is why we believe this, and the only thing that can get us to change our minds is a good counterargument." That's how it works among rationalists. The problem is that when you deal with identity politics you're dealing with emotions and propaganda, neither of which deal very well with logic or reason (except when they try to pervert said logic and reason to their own ends, like the creation scientists as an example). The simple fact is that you can talk at an identity warrior until you're blue in the face, present any and every possible well-accepted argument to make your position clear, and you'll still be accused of taking the wrong side in the issue, even if you have no personal stake in the issue. Haikupoet 03:08, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Hindi and Urdu are considered separate languages for the same reason Russian and Ukrainian are: mutually intelligible, but with different national standardizations. I know Ukrainians who will admit that their language is really a dialect of Russian, but many or most Ukrainians would find that suggestion offensive (no matter how obvious it may be to a linguist). Yes, by the criterion of mutual intelligibility Standard Hindi is a sub-dialect of Urdu, and Urdu in turn is a dialect of Hindi in the broad sense. But language is more than just intelligibility: it is a social phenomenon. For everyone except linguists not interested in sociolinguistics, and perhaps language learners in a classroom, what a language is is socially defined. Malaysian and Indonesian are considered separate languages, as are Serbian and Croation, Czech and Slovak, Portuguese and Galician, etc, while Arabic, German, Igbo, and Chinese are considered single languages despite a lack of mutual intelligibility. I think a balanced treatment of a language must address both how intelligible it is to other lects, which of course is of interest to anyone who wants to use it to communicate, as well as how it is viewed by its speakers, for to learn a language requires learning a culture, and much of culture is ethnic identity. For the illiterate man on the street, Hindi vs. Urdu may be a label with little practical significance, but many people's identities are strongly bound by whether their language is Hindi or Urdu. kwami 02:02, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
I think the issue is not whether they are the same language or not. Urdu and Hindi are distinct because of their scripts, and religous, cultural and political backgrounds. I don't think anyone is suggesting that the same distinction used between Ukranian and Russian cannot be used here. However the problem is that the 'user' (I'm not sure what to call him/her because of all the sock puppetry) wants to remove all trace of the similarities of the two "languages" - this is simply not on. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 10:01, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Unprotecting again

I refuse to believe that such intelligent editors can be incapable of editing the article towards a consensus position rather than revert warring. I'm unprotecting the article again. Please let's give this a good go. --Tony SidawayTalk 02:38, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

You're asking us to be more reasonable than the #$%@#$ who refuses to discuss and uses anon IPS and sockpuppets to get his way.
If Harprit, or whoever he is, would just give some SOURCES, so that we could say "Such and such people believe X" and give cites, then it would be much easier to craft a para or two stating his position. At the moment, there is nothing on the table to show that anyone but Harprit believes what he's saying. We don't have to compromise with lone nuts. Wikipedia takes note of commonly held positions, not of the theories of the tin-foil-hat brigade. Zora 23:54, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
I agree one hundred percent. I really don't think that there is much more to be said about the matter. It's evident that the user will continue vandalising using sock puppets and will refuse to cite sources or discuss changes in any depth. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 00:19, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Unesco

unesco report stated that hidi+urdu is the 3rd largest language after chinese and english with 437 million speakers [6] الثاقب (WiseSabre| talk) 14:58, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Pidgin and creole

Kwami (sp?) removed my comment re Urdu being first a pidgin and then a creole, saying that there was no evidence for that. True, I can't cite any evidence, seeing as how I've only had a few linguistics courses, and those were quite general. But what I understand is that the current theoretical paradigm in linguistics is that new languages/dialects often evolve by the process of cultural collision (conquest, population movements), the creation of a pidgin to handle limited contacts between peoples who speak diverse languages, and then the evolution of that pidgin into a creole. I'm most familiar with that in regard to Hawaii, where I live. There's Hawaiian pidgin, which evolves into a dialect still called pidgin but which is really a creole. Everything I know about Hindustani conforms to this model -- with the complication that it's all taking place in a huge swathe of territory with many interacting dialects. Are there any professional linguist types among us who could dig up cites for the pidgin-creole progression in this case? Zora 17:47, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, you spelled it right!
I thought the motivation might have been something like this. Every language is influenced by the languages its speakers interact with, and is affected to a greater or lesser extent. (Well, except for Sentinelese, which doesn't interact with any other language.) Chicano Spanish has been greatly affected by English, for example, but this is a very different process from pidginization or creolization. If Urdu were a creole, I would expect it to be grammatically simplified compared to Hindi, at least in the sense of having lost much of its inflectional system. However, grammatically the two idioms are identical. This makes me highly doubtful that the language was ever a pidgin. Even though English is paradigmatically simplified compared to its nearest relatives, there is no agreement, despite years of debate, whether it might be a Frisian-Danish creole, so this isn't a simple question. kwami 19:32, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
OK, thanks, let's leave out my additions then. You're clearly more conversant with the linguistics issues than I am. Zora 19:43, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Protected, twoversions template

I've protected this article on the "language rising out of the neccesity of Muslim Army camps in South Asia to communicate with each other in the 1500's" version because that happened to be where I found it tonight after the latest round in the edit war. I've added the twoversions template which gives readers a single link to press to see the other version, and another link they can press to see the differences.

Please establish a consensus on a version of the article that will bring an end to this long content editing war. --Tony SidawayTalk 00:19, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

There is no consensus to be had, as far as I can tell, for the individual who wrote the current version does not appear to be willing to discuss the issue. We could hold a vote here, but unless that person agrees to abide by the result, I don't see what good it would do. As someone with no particular interest in either Hindi or Urdu, or in either Islam or Hinduism, it seems to me that the current version is extremely biased, and has little linguistic merit. Phrases like "Had the intention of Muslim rulers been honest" and "Muslim conquerors never cared for the sentiments of the subjugated natives in their attempt to impose their cultural hegemony over them" and "The legatee of feelings expressed can feel the intensity if it is your sweet heart and the orator may be the content one" should be enough to indicate it's rather POV. There is an attempt to deny the obvious similarity with Hindi, saying Urdu "is similar to Punjabi and Hindi due to loan words infused into the Urdu language", and suggesting that Urdu is a mixture of Persian and Arabic, when any linguist could tell us that Urdu and Hindi are essentially the same language in all but their cultured vocabulary. At the least, if a significant number of people vote for the now alternate version, could we swap the places of the current and alternate versions?

Votes for current version

Votes for now alternate version

  1. kwami 03:58, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
  2. Haikupoet 04:02, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
  3. Zora 05:54, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
  4. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 11:02, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
  5. Girish 08:04, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment Since the vote's been so lopsided (now 5 to 0), Tony's switched the versions. Need we continue? kwami 11:04, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Switching versions

I see no support for the currently displayed version. I've now switched to the " Indo-European language which arose in the vicinity of Delhi" version without the "twoversions" template in the hope that whoever is insisting on the "Muslim Army camps" version will be drawn to defending his position. --Tony SidawayTalk 14:48, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

It's rather odd. I've had a few requests on my user talk page asking me to switch back to the other version, but not one of those people has come here to speak in favor of that version per se. --Tony SidawayTalk 06:50, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, I got a talk-page message from Harprit, who demands to know why I have a vendetta against him, tells me that as a Muslim I shouldn't be watching Indian movies, and warns me that if I ever come to Mumbai, he and his friends will "show me how to play Holi". I think he has something more in mind than colored powder. Interesting. I think I've been threatened. Zora 07:30, 3 October 2005 (UTC) (who just happens to be a Buddhist <g>)
  • I think I have enough evidence now, on my user talk page, that this is a case of bad-faith edits accompanied by sock puppetry, otherwise known as astroturfing. Thanks for being patient. --Tony SidawayTalk 16:55, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Unprotected. No evidence of any good faith editors who favor the alternative version. --Tony SidawayTalk 00:06, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Comments on consensus and edit war

I'm looking at the edits today. Some reverts but also progress in editing, which is good. Provided no one editor gets over say two reverts per day, I don't mind. The straw poll we carried out seemed pretty plain, and the few responses in favor of the military communication version were made on my talk page and seemed pretty sockish to me, so although I don't class that version as vandalism, per se, I'm going to grant a lot of latitude to those who, as part of a group, revert to the version upon which there is substantial support and upon which useful edits are proceeding.

I'd just like to remind all editors that, since there are a number editing this article, there's no need for anyone to do lots of reverts. If the community is seen as a whole to support a particular version, that is good, but one person playing "holding the fort" isn't on. It won't hurt the article if it's in a state that you yourself don't favor for a while; if there is substantial support for the version you favor it will be returned to that version. Also don't revert for the sake of reverting. Edit the version that you favor to make it better. --Tony SidawayTalk 20:35, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

I've talked with JusticeLaw, and think I see where he's coming from. (Check his talk page - you can ignore my lengthy ramblings in the middle, which don't really say anything!) He still doesn't seem willing to enter into dialogue on this talk page, but at least he has attempted to integrate the two versions of the article. I think we can work together on this. His main contention (as I read it) is this: an article on Urdu should be about Urdu, not how similar Urdu is to Hindi. And he's right. The article on Hindi could just as easily be about how it's a dialect of Urdu. Perhaps we should summarize the relationship between the languages in both the Hindi and Urdu articles, and relegate detailed discussion to the Hindustani article. That would be a more encyclopedic approach, I think. That said, obviously Justice favors his own version of things, and is still removing relevant information, but things like this can be ironed out, if both sides edit the article. And there are plenty of things to improve: We still don't have half the words in Urdu script, for one!
Anyway, hopefully things can be constructive from now on. kwami 07:19, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Image of Alphabets

Sorry to butt in without having read all the discussion - can anyone get an image of the alphabet up please (preferably the modern one as well e.g alif mad) as try as I might messing around with encoding (and I'm computer literate) I can't get it to display all the characters. Thanks!

Hold on, I'll make one and upload it.
in the mean while try reading instructions, and try downloading the urdu font from the bbc urdu site,
its link is http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/ --Girish

There you go, have added image of urdu alphabets --Girish

Cleaning up the article

The introduction

The intro summarizes the history of the language twice, when it's arguable whether it needs to be stated there even once. We should combine the summaries into one, and rearrange the paragraphs for a more a logical flow. skoosh (háblame) 16:31, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

History

There's a serious need for sourcing and the removal of stray POV sentiments here. I've done some, but there's more to be done yet. skoosh (háblame) 16:31, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Further work

Any suggestions? skoosh (háblame) 16:31, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes - Ead's comment that it was Persian that was official, not Urdu. I don't know the history myself, but I would think that Urdu was a perhaps more of a contact language that became the native language of part of the ruling elite that spent more time speaking Urdu than Persian, his granny notwithstanding.
Also, what is the point of the Romanized Urdu section? It's completely out of proportion to its importance, unless it can be shown that their actually is a movement to write Urdu in Roman, and anyway it is useless without the Urdu script along side. (I added a few words, but I suspect they're Persian translations, and so worse than nothing.) I suggest that in the Urdu alphabet chart a column for internet usage might be added,

and the whole Romanized Urdu section could be deleted.

I also think that whatever comparison we have with Hindi be duplicated on the Hindi page, because of the socio-political sensitivities involved. Whatever's not appropriate there should go to the Hindustani article rather than here. The Hindi article is also in bad shape and desperately needs work - they don't even know which language they're talking about! kwami 18:07, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Zora's revision

I thought there was some merit in Harprit's complaint, conveyed through Kwami, that the "Urdu = Hindi" arguments ought not to be the first topic of the article. I therefore extensively rearranged the article so that the "positive" aspects came first -- classification, geographic distribution, grammar, writing, literature -- and then Hindi/Urdu stuff and finally the Romanized Urdu. I have done some rewriting, but not as much as the article needs. I think it could be much more succinct than it is. I hope that the other editors will approve this reorganization and help with further rewriting. Zora 21:35, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Kwami's version

Justice complained that Zora's article didn't continue the integration of the two versions, but reverted to the old version with just some rearrangment. Anyway, I thought I'd give it a try. Since Zora's version was better written, I used it as the starting point, revised about half of it, and added in things from Justice's version. I am not knowledgeable on the subject, and hardly consider what I've done definitive, but hopefully we can cooperate on this.

A couple tidbits from Ethonologue I thought were interesting, and support one of the changes I proposed earlier:

Hindi: Formal vocabulary is borrowed from Sanskrit, de-Persianized, de-Arabicized. Literary Hindi, or Hindi-Urdu, has four varieties: Hindi (High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, Literary Hindi, Standard Hindi); Urdu; Dakhini; Rekhta.

I read this as meaning that Hindustani has a substantial Perso-Arabic component, and that standard Hindi was created by purging this and replacing it with Sanskrit.

Urdu: Dialects: Dakhini (Dakani, Deccan, Desia, Mirgan), Pinjari, Rekhta (Rekhti).

That is, three of the four varieties of Hindustani identified under 'Hindi' (Dakhini, Rekhta, and Urdu proper) are considered dialects of Urdu. I read this as meaning that Standard Hindi and Standard Urdu are both standardized registers of Hindustani, and that otherwise dialects of Hindustani are the same thing as dialects of Urdu.

Hindi, Hindustani, Urdu could be considered co-dialects, but have important sociolinguistic differences.
Dakhini is freer of Persian and Arabic loans than Urdu. Rekhta is a form of Urdu used in poetry.

I read this as meaning that Standard Urdu has been Persianized over the level of its Hindustani base, that "Urdu" varies in its degree of Persianization, rather than being defined by it, while "Hindi" is defined by being de-Persianized.

Well, someone else can try integrating this if they think it's worthwhile. kwami 01:27, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

How are these for definitions? From the OED:
Hindustani, a. and n.: The language of the Muslim conquerors of Hindustan, being a form of Hindi with a large admixture of Arabic, Persian, and other foreign elements; also called Urdū, i.e. zabān-i-urdū language of the camp, sc. of the Mogul conquerors. It later became a kind of lingua franca over all India, varying greatly in its vocabulary according to the locality and local language.
Hindi, a. and n.: The great Aryan vernacular language of Northern India, spoken (with numerous dialects) from the frontiers of Bengal to those of the Panjāb and Sindh, and from the Himālaya Mountains to the Nerbudda. / It comes into contact on the N.W. and W. with Panjābī, Sindhī, and Gujarātī, on the S. with Marāthī, on the S.E. with Orīya, on the E. with Bengālī, sister Aryan languages, and on the N. with Nepālī (which some make merely a dialect of Hindī).
Urdu, n. and a.: Formerly, = HINDUSTANI; in recent use distinguished from Hindustani (the lingua franca) and designated as the official language of Pakistan.
1847 W. YATES Hindustani Dict. Pref., The Hindustaní or Urdú is peculiarly the language of the Muhammadan population of Hindústán.
I think this history of usage supports Ethnologue and suggests that Bihari, while considered Hindi, should not be considered Hindustani. kwami 21:00, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Number of Islamic texts in Urdu

Kwami, that was darn good editing. It's a much better article. There is one sentence, however, that I find problematic:

Relatively inexpensive publishing, combined with the use of Urdu as a lingua franca among Muslims of South Asia has resulted in Urdu having more contemporary Islamic works than any other language.

I left that out of my version because I saw no references supporting it. It is possible that there are more Islamic works in Urdu than in Arabic, but I don't think that it's so obvious as to not need a reference. That sentence sounds to me like a BOAST, and I don't trust unreferenced boasts. If there are no references, the sentence should be removed. Zora 02:08, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Hello, I have deleted the tranlisteration of alphabet table because it seemed irrelevant. We can have a transliteration for the alphabet for every language this way, and it seems a repeat for the previous table. Responding to Zora; I have direct experience with the Urdu language and it is absolutely true that the majority of Islamic books in either India or Pakistan are written in the Urdu language. When books are written in Indian dialects (Tamil, MalayAlam, Hindi, etc.) they are usually there for missionary purposes. I have been to the book shops and seen the books, this is obvious if you have been in contact with them. This is like asking one to source "the majority of books written in the United States are in the English language". It is so obvious that nobody will source it.--StephenCox 02:32, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
We're talking two different things here. Zora's concern was that the article states that there are more Islamic texts published in Urdu than there are in Arabic, which includes the entire output of the Arab world. I left that in because I don't know that it's untrue, but she's right: we need verification. What is the Islamic output of Saudi Arabia plus Egypt plus Iraq etc etc etc, and is this really less that the output in Urdu? If not, we need to remove or at least modify the sentence. (It's not very interesting to say that there are more Islamic texts in Urdu than in Malayalam!)
Glad you decided to join us, Stephen! kwami 03:26, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

error in alphabet image

The two diacritic-R letters are reversed: the R-dot is [z] (as in Arabic and Persian), while the R-toay is the retroflex [r] (allophone of retroflex /d/), which is only Indic. kwami 07:16, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

  • corrected it, please also put errors on image authors talk page too, it takes longer to notice messages on article pages --Girish

Classification

Why don't we just discuss the classification here, rather than arguing in the edit comment line? Also, I don't think Justice was trying to remove all mention of Hindi, as he only took out a couple comments he evidently didn't agree with.

The last couple contentious edits were these: classification levels between Indo-Aryan and Urdu, and what to call the Northern Indian dialect continuum that would be the 2nd most populous if counted as a single language.

I had "Hindi" for the latter. Someone changed it to Hindustani, but that's not the same thing, and wouldn't be #2 in language rankings. Hindustani is basically colloquial Urdu, including the two standardized registers, standard Urdu and standard Hindi. It doesn't include Bihari, Chhatisgari, etc, which are required to get into 2nd place in the rankings. So I changed it again, saying that this wider language was also confusingly called Hindi. This is what Justice reverted.

Now, I know the wording isn't very elegant, and I would welcome something better, but calling it Hindustani is, as far as I know, incorrect.

As for the first issue, I don't think that anyone in either camp disagrees that both Standard Urdu and Standard Hindi are varieties of Hindustani. So I don't see why that should be a problem for the classification. Now, "Hindi" in the wider sense is a social construct without any linguistic validity, so that's out. But my understanding is that Western Hindi (the western end of the dialect continuum, including Hindustani) is okay. Maybe I'm wrong here?

Personally, I'd take out Central Indo-Aryan instead, as that is an Ethnologue classification that I have strong reservations about. (For example, the two main "dialects" of Panjabi are classified by Ethnologue into different branches of Indo-Aryan, one Central and one not, even though they're part of a dialect chain.) Anyway, Indo-Aryan is a valid node, as I believe is Hindustani, and Western Hindi is a very commonly used term.

(Is there any support for using "Hindustani" to include Panjabi, Bihari, etc? If so, what do we call the diasystem that includes standardized Urdu & Hindi? Just calling it Urdu might be accurate historically (I don't know, really), but I'm sure that would infuriate Hindu nationalists, and we'd have another edit war on our hands.)

Comments? kwami 09:58, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

(I just made a compromise edit, leaving in Hindustani but ranking it at #4, after Chinese, Spanish, and English. Also, an earlier discussion above agreed that Western Hindi was valid, but Hindustani was not; here we seem to be saying the opposite.) kwami 10:30, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Is there any support for using "Hindustani" to include Panjabi, Bihari, etc?
Punjabi and Hindi/Urdu do have a degree of mutual intelligibility but it is generally not considered part of Hindustani because not only is the language tonal but it has a very different form of pronunciation. Obviously some people do disagree and classify it as being part of Hindustani, my understanding is that this is not the general view. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 14:37, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

remove warning?

Things seem to have settled down a bit. The only thing still being reverted is the classification in the table, which for some reason someone hiding behind an anonymous IP address doesn't like. It can, however, be substantiated with Ethnologue or any other number of references. But even if it's wrong, that's a pretty minor point which could easily be cleared up if anon. is willing to present any evidence.

What say we give it five days for everyone to comment, and then remove the warning if there are no substantial objections?

Remove warning

  1. kwami 19:23, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
  2. Zora 19:51, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
  3. JusticeLaw 06:32, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Keep warning [none]

Okay, it's been nine days, so I'll remove the warning. The only issue still contested is the classification of Urdu as Hindustani. kwami 21:59, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, Justicelaw was right

I sat down and read the article, instead of just looking at the diffs, and realized that Justicelaw's edit was OK. It is misleading to call Hindi a dialect of Urdu. I think the standard formulation is that they're both dialects of Hindustani. I'm sorry I've been a pain. I'm so rattled by Harprit attacks at this point that I'm not being fair. Zora 08:46, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Classification

Urdu is not a subcategory of Hindi or Hindustani. Hindustani would be both under Urdu and Hindi. Indo-Iranian is what is in most places, but it can be further classified as Indo-Aryan and that should be enough.--StephenCox 22:10, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Urdu was a synonym for Hindustani until Partition. Check the OED. Hindustani is not a 'mixture' of Urdu and Hindi, as you put it. After partition, the term Urdu was used for the new official language of Pakistan, which is a register of Hindustani. Currently, Urdu means both this official language, and also all forms of Hindustani except for Standard Hindi. If you want to say that Hindustani is a mix of Urdu and Hindi, please provide a reliable reference. (That is, not some political or nationalistic tract.) kwami 22:11, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

http://chars.lin.oakland.edu/General/HistoricalClassification.pdf --JusticeLaw 01:47, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Perils of genetic classification

The problem with genetic classification of languages is that it ignores a lot of complexity. While I don't agree with Harprit? Justicelaw? in dividing Urdu utterly from Hindi, I would admit that the nationalistic drive to erase the Hindustani roots of Urdu has clearly had effects on the level of vocabulary, and may be having other effects too. I'm NOT a linguist, but I'd assume that there are linguists who challenge the usual genetic classifications. (Especially when it comes to pidgins and creoles -- doesn't Derek Bickerton, the Hawaiian creole specialist, have something on this?)

However, Justicelaw has not been able to find any academic texts that support his position. A pdf of a handout by a professor at a small lower-tier college with Hindi and Urdu side by side doesn't constitute a convincing argument -- especially since this professor is not a specialist in Hindustani.

I'd suggest that we put an asterisk in the classification box and then add "disputed" and then have a para in which we outline the dispute. The onus is then on Justicelaw to come up with something substantive. Zora 05:21, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

The classification isn't disputed by any evidence. The handout does not support Justice's claim; it merely gives Hindi and Urdu as representative Indic languages, which they are. No one disputes that (well, except for Harprit, who seems to think that Urdu is Iranian). kwami 20:06, 20 October 2005 (UTC)


However the classification debate ends up, the participants should not abuse it by using sockpuppets. Also, any classification needs to be backed up by a reference, since there seems to be dispute arising from one particular user's constant reverts. Thanks. --Ragib 05:57, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

The powers-that-be seem unalterably opposed to more stringent editor identification policies, but they're not in the trenches dealing with problem users. I wish we had a user ID system that made it absolutely impossible to use sockpuppets and set up multiple accounts under different usernames. There are editors who actively seem to enjoy conflict and confusion, and as soon as they're banned under one username (which takes a lot of time and energy on the part of other editors) they just hop right back on under another name. Aargh. Zora 09:04, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Classification Evidence

Okay, I have finally got a chance to do some research on it. Here it is:

Britannica Encyclopedia: “Indo-Aryan language originating in the region between the Ganges and Jamuna rivers near Delhi, now the official language of Pakistan. Numbering some 48,980,000 speakers in the late 20th century, Urdu is the primary language of the Muslims of both Pakistan and northern India.”

Meriam-Webster Dictionary: “urdu, from Persian zabAn-e-urdu-e-muallA language of the Exalted Camp (the imperial bazaar in Delhi)

an Indo-Aryan language that has the same colloquial basis as standard Hindi, is an official language of Pakistan, and is widely used by Muslims in urban areas of India “

Encyclopedia Infoplease: “Urdu , language belonging to the Indic group of the Indo-Iranian subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. The official tongue of Pakistan, Urdu is also one of the 15 languages recognized in the 1950 Indian constitution.”

And here is this article which deals primarily with phonotactic distrubtions in the language (quite interesting you should read) and it supports the claim: www.crulp.org/Publication/Crulp_report/CR03_10E.pdf.

As you can see mostly all classify it under Indo-Aryan. --JusticeLaw 19:22, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, nobody was denying that it is Indo-Aryan - but so is Hindi! It's part of the Central Zone, under Western Hindi languages. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 19:47, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

There is no way I can prove what something is not, it is ridiculous to ask one to do that. All the sources I have provided refer to the language as Indo-Aryan. These are four and that other one I gave earlier. If you people would actually read the evidence, then perhaps you will stop warring. I'm pretty sure that most of these people have no interest or knowledge about the subject matter either; everyone is revenge editting (mostly due to Zora telling everyone I'm Harprit). Hopefully we can get this resolved, I tried my best and offered evidence.--JusticeLaw 18:37, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Justice, if you check those same sources, they will probably tell you that English is Germanic, and Portuguese is Italic/Romance. This is true as far as it goes. However, if you check the wikipedia articles, or Ethnologue, or many other more detailed sources, you'll find more detailed classifications. English is closer to Frisian than it is to German, and closer to German than it is to Swedish. All are Germanic languages, but the family has some internal structure. Similarly, Portuguese is closer to Spanish that it is to Italian, and closer to Italian than it is to Sardinian. All are Romance languages, but again there are levels of relationship between Romance and the individual languages. All we are claiming here is that Urdu is similar: it is Indic, but closer to Dakini and 'High Hindi' than it is to Panjabi, and closer to Panjabi than it is to the Nuristani languages. All are Indic, but have internal relationships. If this classification were false, yes you could demonstrate a negative: there would be plenty of sources saying something like "it's often said that Urdu is Western Hindi/Hindustani/whatever, but this is false. It constitutes its own branch of Indo-Aryan." I have never seen such a claim, despite the fact that the Hindustani relationship is included in classifications all over the place. kwami 19:34, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Actually, Justice, one of your own citations contradicts you: the Webster entry says 'an Indo-Aryan language that has the same colloquial basis as standard Hindi'. Now, that colloquial basis is generally called 'Hindustani', and the quote supports the idea that Urdu is closer to standard Hindi than it is to other Indo-Aryan languages. kwami 19:38, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Nope, it doesn't contradict. Because it shares a colloquial basis with Hindi, doesn't mean it is classified under it.--JusticeLaw 21:04, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Let me give you an analogy to what you're doing. Let's suppose I come across a book that has an even simpler classification. It lists Urdu as an "Indo-European" language. I think, Aha! It isn't Indo-Aryan, it's Indo-European! So I remove the Indo-Aryan line from your classification, and end up with:
Indo-European
Urdu
You, of course, think this is misleading (even though it's true), so you revert to:
Indo-European
Indo-Aryan
Urdu
We get into a revert war. You tell me to provide evidence, and I do - by this point, I've found several simplistic classifications that have Urdu as an Indo-European language and claim that I've "proven" my point. You in turn provide several sources that classify Urdu as Indo-Aryan, but I dismiss them: they're biased, ignorant, old, bigotted, misinformed, whatever. You then tell me to provide some evidence that Urdu is not Indo-Aryan, and I say, Don't be ridiculous! I can't prove a negative! I've proven my point, so stop edit warring with me! Of course, I won't stop pushing the Indo-European > Urdu classification, because I've 'proven' my point. Wouldn't you find this aggravating? kwami 19:58, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
I think this is where JusticeLaw says "touché". I live in a hopeful world. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 21:01, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
I'd agree with you, only if you had multiple sources classifying it with the same classification. The problem is that everybody classifies languages differently; since you found this one ehtnologue site you persist on following it. I'm sure there are people who even classify it further into Indo-Aryan, but with different subgroups. The reason I revert it to Indo -Aryan is becuase until that point most sources agree. Thus, your analogy is baseless as you must have misunderstood the basic concept. I can notice your aggravation in the last paragraph, no need to suppose. --JusticeLaw 21:04, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, please find sources that directly disagree with Western Hindi Languages otherwise the point still stands. If you have sources that list it in Indo-Aryan that doesn't prove or disprove anything. Also provide evidence of how those sources class Hindi in relation to Urdu if possible. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 23:50, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, Justice. That is an intelligent answer that we can base a discussion on.

It is very common for references to classify a language only in its family, or in a well-known branch of a family. Most surveys do this. Your sources probably list languages as being, for example, Polynesian, Bantu, Nilotic, Slavic, Romance, Iroquois, etc., because those are terms that people are familiar with, and they're precise enough for 99% of their audience. For more obscure languages, they might not even list the family, but only say 'Papuan' or 'Australian' or some such. Further classification as Samoic Outlier, Grassfields, Iberian, Nimboran, etc. are not left out because they're wrong, but because the editor decided they weren't relevant for their purposes. If you look at other language articles on Wikipedia, however, you'll find that most have detailed classifications. All we ask is that you find a source that disagrees with Ethnologue, which is the traditional classification. Then we'll have something to discuss. All you've done so far is point out that most sources are not as thorough as Ethnologue.

If the classification is contentious, it should be easy to find another classification that contradicts Ethnologue. kwami 00:09, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Another analogy: you can find hundreds of sources that say that Napoleon was Corsican. A few will go further to say that he was born in the city of Ajaccio on Corsica. However, although these are reputable sources, many refs won't bother with that level of detail. By your argument for Urdu, we shouldn't say that Napoleon was born in Ajaccio, because not all sources agree on this. They only agree on his being born in Corsica, though none contradict that the city was Ajaccio. kwami 00:16, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Hey, i thought i migh as well add something. You people are getting way too stresed over this issue. I agree with Justice in the sources thing, if everyone is classifying it as Indo-Aryan excpet ethnologue then keep it at that. Plus, that site is an individual source. Each book i read has different classifications for other languages, not much on Urdu though. About your claim of other languages on Wiki, go take a look at Hindi, even it is not given this classification you folks are given Urdu.--StephenCox 02:49, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Glad you joined us. A couple points:
  • Ethnologue does classify Urdu as Indo-Aryan. No one disputes that point. However, all sources that go to greater detail than that classify it as Hindustani within Indo-Aryan, just as Swedish is Scandinavian within Germanic. It's not an either-or debate.
  • Check the Hindi talk and history pages. It used to be classified as Indo-Aryan > Central > Western Hindi > Hindustani, just like Urdu. However, that classification is for standard Hindi ('High Hindi'). 'Hindi' in the general sense is not a single language. Not all dialects called 'Hindi' are Hindustani, or Central Indo-Aryan. We had a choice: make the article about standard Hindi (part of Hindustani and #4 in the world) or about Hindi in general (which includes Hindustani and is #2 in the world). Another editor thought we should use the traditional meaning of Hindi, so we changed the classification. But your idea of Hindi was classified just like Urdu: there's no discrepancy.
kwami 03:41, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

===============================================================================================================================================================================================================

There is debate about many things under the sun, but about ONE thing ALL linguists agree - Urdu's grammar and structure is Sankrit-derived - 100%.

So what are the differences?

1) Urdu has a plethora of Arabic and Persian words in it

This does not change the fact that it is Sankrit-derived - if you use more and more English words in Hindi, it will be a VARIANT of Hindi, and might start to look different from Hindi if people use mostly English words in HIndi.

2) Urdu is written right to left, in the Arabic script.

If you write Hindi using English alphabets, IT IS STILL Hindi. Looks like an Arabic-originated language perhaps, but still Hindi.

================================================================================================================================================================================================================

biblio start

here are some things in case anyone wants to do the research:

  • Deshpande, Madhav. (1979). Sociolinguistic attitudes in India: An historical reconstruction. Ann Arbor: Karoma Publishers. ISBN 0-8972-0007-1, ISBN 0-8972-0008-X (pbk).
  • Dyen, Isidore; Kruskal, Joseph B.; Black, Paul. (1992). An Indoeuropean classification: A lexicostatistical experiment. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. ISBN 0-8716-9825-0.
  • Erdosy, George. (1995). The Indo-Aryans of ancient South Asia: Language, material culture and ethnicity. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 3-1101-4447-6.
  • Georgiev, Vladimir Ivanov. (1981). Introduction to the history of the Indo-European languages (3rd ed.). Sofia: Pub. House of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
  • Jain, Dhanesh; & Cardona, George. (2003). The Indo-Aryan languages. London: Routledge.ISBN 0-7007-1130-9.
  • Kobayashi, Masato.; & Cardona, George. (2004). Historical phonology of old Indo-Aryan consonants. Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. ISBN 4-8729-7894-3.
  • Masica, Colin P. (1991). The Indo-Aryan languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-5212-3420-4.
  • Misra, Satya Swarup. (1980). Fresh light on Indo-European classification and chronology. Varanasi: Ashutosh Prakashan Sansthan.
  • Misra, Satya Swarup. (1991-1993). The Old-Indo-Aryan, a historical & comparative grammar (Vols. 1-2). Varanasi: Ashutosh Prakashan Sansthan.
  • Vacek, Jaroslav. (1976). The sibilants in Old Indo-Aryan: A contribution to the history of a linguistic area. Prague: Charles University.

peace – ishwar (speak) 23:25, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Rekhta

Some have criticized various uses of the word Rekhta in this article. Here's a link from Columbia U, partially repeated here in case it is ever removed:

Shadan: Rekhtah: the Urdu language. The dictionary meaning is cement for a building. The way a house is built from lime, gravel, bricks, stones, brick-dust, etc., in the same way the Urdu language has developed from the mingling of Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and various Prakrits. For this reason they call the Urdu language 'Rekhtah'. (177)


Josh: The old name of Urdu was 'Rekhtah'. [...]. (105)

Faruqi: About Rekhtah:

(1) Rekhta is two things at the same time. (a) A macaronic verse where the linguistic features of Persian are grafted on to Hindi templates; (b) amacaronic verse where the linguistic features of Hindi are grafted on to Persian templates.

(Please note that when I say 'Hindi', I mean 'Urdu'; 'Urdu' as a language name did not become known, far less current, until the very end of the 18th century, though the terms Rekhtha and Hindi cintinued to be used for the same language until the last quarter of the 19th century.) In the above sense, Rekhtah is a formal genre. It had a short life, almost entirely in Northern India, up to about early 18th century.

(2) Over time, the language in which the above kind of poems were written came to be called Rekhtah. In the mean time, Hindi became popular in and around Delhi as a literary language and Hindi began also to be called Rekhtah. In course of time, the term Rekhth began to be preferred, though not overwhelmingly, as the name for the written language, while the spoken language was more often called Hindi. The term Rekhtah began to be used for ' poem written in Rekhta', apparently as a throwback to the earlier practice. The term Rekhta, to denote a text written in the language called Rekhtah/ Hindi/ Hindvi, continued to be used until about the end of the 18th century.

However, there are two other ways the term Rekhtah has been used, though not in Urdu: (a) In Gujarati, there was a genre called 'Rekhta' until about the end of the 19th century. It was a kind of folky song, but I don't know more about it. (b) There was a genre called 'Lavani Rekhta' in which I have found poems in the North Indian folk drama (especially the 'Nautanki') of the late 19th century. While 'lavani' is a well-known metre in modern Hindi prosody, based on the Sanskrit 'pingala', there is no metre called Rekhtah in Urdu or Modern Hindi. The poems that I have seen with the heading 'Lavani Rekhta' do not present any special metrical or linguistic features. Perhaps the term meant 'a poem in the Rekhta mode and the lavani metre.' I haven't found anyone attaching any importance to the term.

(--answer to an inquirer's question, by email, June 2005)

Protection

I am sorry, but a daily sequence of 3 or more reverts means there is something still problematic with the page. Personally, I agree with the detailed classification from Ethnologue, and don't see any reason as to why we should not provide such a detailed one. So far, I am yet to see any justification from JusticeLaw (and/or the suspected socks) regarding this. The Ethnologue classification is a superset of JusticeLaw's classification, so the superset should be used. If the Ethnologue classification is wrong, JusticeLaw should provide a correct detailed classification. Otherwise, the frequent blanking of the details of the classification can only be considered willful vandalism. Thanks. --Ragib 19:53, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Transliteration

I was wondering why we are using Bollywood (or Lollywood if you prefer) transliterations. Better is UTrans, and better than that is the academic approach like IAST. I won't go too much into detail, but for example, there is no excuse to have badee for بڑى and it would be better represented by baṛī. The problem with Urdu though comes with the diacritical marks which are shared by both Arabic and Devanagari transliteration. I.e. ṣ would represent ष in Devanagari and ص in Arabic. These might cause edit wars in themselves, but as Urdu is an Indic language I think s is a better solution - even though since there is no retroflex 'ś' in Urdu this does not really matter - just a matter of form. Problems also occur due to unicode limitations, because I don't know of a unicode character for the "umlaut" under 'z' for ظ, etc. 'ż' would work just aas well perhaps. In any case, if anyone has a Ferozsons dictionary, follow that or go to Hugo's Urdu Page. The phrases need alot of work as well. My Hindi-Urdu Phrasebook isn't exactly great either, and still incomplete too, but if anyone was wondering where to find examples of what I'm talking about check it out and help me finish it as well! ;-) But in general the transliteration of the phrases are really shaky. Why is اچھی achchhhee but جى ji? Things are more accurately represented (and æsthetically pleasing) by writing acchī and jī. The nasals are a problem but I like using a superscript 'n' or regular 'ṅ'. The IPA is good, I was just wondering why the Roman Transliteration hasn't followed suit.

Also, as an Hindi student interested in Urdu, I would love a section on the differences of Urdu grammar with repect to Arabic and Persian elements, etc.

You seem to be THE expert here. You can write it! We'll copyedit <g>. Zora 23:18, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

The izafe for example, or how the Hindi तस्वीर is تصاوير, and I would like someone to answer this question: is the final -t I see in some Urdu words which don't exist in he Hindi recension the Arabic feminine marker ة? Also what about all that fun punctuation Urdu has in poetry, etc[7]? And as a final note, something that's intrigued me for some time is the ژ zh, I know it is supposed to be rare, but I haven't come across it even once yet! Anyway, until things are resolved I'll leave it up to someone to talk to me if they want help entering characters, etc. Khiradtalk 22:13, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad's name has the zh in it. However his name is not really Urdu, but it's the only time I've ever seen this letter used. Vpendse 10:10, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
All the symbols you want are supported by Unicode. However, they may not display properly on all browsers (I'm thinking IE in particular.) Please go ahead and use whichever romanization you feel is the way to go. (Bollywoodese really isn't appropriate.) If you can talk JusiceLaw into stopping his reverts until he has some evidence for his claim (something that everyone can accept as evidence, such as a reputable source with a contrary classification), then we can unlock the article. kwami 23:02, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Image:UrduSpeakingRegion.gif

Image:UrduSpeakingRegion.gif

I have major problems with this image! It shows Urdu as being the official (or even widespread enough to be mentioned) in Indian Punjab. It also shows its widespread use among the Hindi heartland and West Bengal (Bengali anyone?). Also, there is absolutely no evidence indicating what source was used to make the image. Sukh 17:31, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I for one can say that Urdu is not prevalent in Bengal (both West Bengal and Bangladesh). There are some Urdu speaking pockets in Kolkata and in Dhaka, but that's not significant. --Ragib 18:10, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
It looks as if the author located Urdu-speaking communities, then filled in the entire state. So if there's an Urdu community in Dhaka, then all of Bangladesh is filled. (I guess Bangladesh is considered the equivalent of one Indian state.) This is a very common way of making maps, because often people have only verbal descriptions to go on, and because census data is only broken down by state. I relabeled the map, but hopefully someone can do better. kwami 22:59, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm for removing the map. Not only is there not even a hint as to where the information came from but some of it seems farcical. There are probably as many Urdu speakers in East Punjab/West Bengal as there are in the UK. Why not colour the UK in green too? While we're at it, I'm sure we can find bits of the Middle East to colour in too! I know I'm being facetious , but the map is incredibly misleading! Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 23:33, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
I know the map concentrates on South Asia, but I'm sure Urdu is found across the entire subcontinent. Colouring bits in green for a whole state where there *may* be pocketed communities is very misleading. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 23:40, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

encyclopedia quotes about Hindi/Hindustani/Urdu

hi. i typed up some stuff from a quality encyclopedia here: Talk:Hindustani language#more sources. in case anyone is interested. peace – ishwar (speak) 02:18, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Reverting Siddiqui's version

Siddiqui, you erased all mention of tensions re the use of Urdu in Pakistan, conflicts between Muhajairs and Sindhis, small percentage of population who speak Urdu, and turned that section into a rah-rah rendition of "millions of people speak Urdu". Wikipedia has a duty to notice controversies, not sweep them under the rug. Please don't try to whitewash conflict. Zora 21:48, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Siddiqui's reply to Zora

There is conflict between Urdu and Sindhi languages in the Sindh province. That can be discussed in another paragraph with proper heading. I think that the whole progress of Urdu language in Pakistan during last 58 years cannot be summed up in the Sindhi-Urdu conflict in Sindh province. While Urdu has made great strides in Pakistan as millions of non-Urdu speakers have passed through the Urdu medium education in Pakistan. I think that the conflict and the progress both should be included in this article. Siddiqui 05:58, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

You seem to be assuming that people learning Urdu is a good thing and a win for your side, whatever your side is. You use the terms "progress" and "made great strides". Why? What's so great about learning Urdu? What's so bad about Sindhi? From an encyclopedic and linguistic point of view, all languages are equally good. Zora 06:05, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
Firstly, that particular paragraph is discussing the situation of Urdu in Pakistan. It should discuss the Urdu language in whole of Pakistan. Secondly, the conflict between Urdu and Sindhi in the Sindh province should also be discussed in another paragraph. Thirdly, I am deeply concerned about state of regional languages in Pakistan. The government of Pakistan cannot afford to develop education system for every regional language. In a perfect world, everybody should be educated in their mother tongue and everybody should be multilingual. Siddiqui 06:21, 11 December 2005 (UTC
Perhaps the discussion of the status of Urdu in Pakistan should be generalized, as Urdu vis-a-vis Sindhi, Punjabi, Pashtun, etc. I agree with you about the "perfect world", but I don't agree that your beliefs about the Pakistani educational system need to be enshrined in the article. Though I don't know much about the state of education in Pakistan today (other than that it is dismal, many schools exist only on paper) I suspect that there are other POVs than "They must ALL learn Urdu!" There are certainly many schools of thought in the US re educating non-English speakers. There is also a considerable movement in India to have children educated in English-language schools (this being perceived as one step to getting a good job) and it's probable that there is some such sentiment in Pakistan as well. Some people might be arguing that kids should learn English and not Urdu!
You probably have more information about such matters than I do, and we might be able to craft a better para about non-Urdu languages in Pakistan and the spectrum of contemporary Pakistani views as to how schools should deal with linguistic variety. As long as controversy isn't removed. Zora 06:36, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Issues with number of Urdu speakers around the world

I have issues with some of the countries listed in the "Countries with large numbers of first-language Urdu speakers:" section. Some, for example the UK rely on all the Pakistanis speaking Urdu. This is simply untrue and most will speak Punjabi. There are no references to many of the figures in general. Others, for example South Africa are listed as "200,000 South Asian Muslims, many of which speak Urdu" and are simply idle speculation.

The countries that do not have verified figures need removing. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 11:22, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Urdu as an official language of Delhi

According to Delhi Official Language Bill, 2000, Urdu is one of the four official languages of Delhi, other languages being Hindi, Punjabi and English. deeptrivia (talk) 23:31, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Question on alphabet

In the alphabet, what does the "chotee" and "badee" description mean? If they have a meaning like "long" or "short", or "initial" or "final", could that be included in the table for the alphabet? TIA --Uncle Davey (Talk) 17:03, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

NPOV?

Funny that the Pakistani's are always up in arms over their lineage. They cannot accept that their national language has Sanskrit language influences and all reference to Sanskrit has been removed. At the same time they assert that it is closest to Hindi and is part of Hindustani languages and belongs to Indo-European/Indo-Aryan languages. Should this article then be marked NPOV?

Call to Urdu Speakers

Urdu speakers out there lets try to each of us create one new wikipedia entry for Urdu everyday to help the growth of Urdu wikipedia. I am trying to get my friends interested. We should get this off the ground.

Incorrect

This page is almost completely incorrect. The majority of the material is not credible. It says that Urdu influenced Hindi. This is not factual as Urdu in itself was a concept of a mere half century ago. The differences are purely political, such as with the use of the nastaliq script and the heavy use of arabic loanwords. However, the language itself is rooted the same way as Hindi.

This page is much of rubbish. I have corrected certain things.Cygnus_hansa 15:48, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Some Suggestions

I have urdu as my native language. I would like to suggest a few changes in this article.

First, I haven't seen the word معلہ (mu'alla) with chhoti hay in it. Rather I have seen this word with chhoti yey with an ascended khaRa alif thus the form ﻣﻌﻠٰﻰ.The word is derived from the arabic word a'la ﺍﻋﻠٰﻰ meaning high (but it is difficult to produce).

Second, ڑ arr retroflex [ɽ] , in the IPA chart under the subheading Writing System should be ڑ arr/rray retroflex [ɽ] (by the way I don't know wether the alphabet is called arr but if someone has suggested then it may be personally I have only heard it called rray)

Third, The entry no نا naa casual , in Examples subheading should be no ﻧﮧ naa casual , because نا is treated differently than ﻧﮧ (very light difference)

Fourth, The form of poetry Qat'ã in the Poetry subheading is misspelled قطہ, should be ﻗﻁﻌﮧ

Fifth, The form of poetry نوحہ in the last paragraph of the Poetry subheading is wrongly tranliterated as noha. The better transliteration should either be Nau'ha or Nauha.

Sixth, Under the Urdu Poetry Terminology subheading the compound word مصرعہ ثانی would be read misra sani. To get to better represent the form ﻣﺼﺮﻋۂ ثانی is prefered.

Please lemme know if you disagree to any of these.

Regards.

-sahraza

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