Talk:Hindi-Urdu grammar

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Syntax (Dative Subject construction, etc.); Modals. Tuncrypt (talk) 07:28, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
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[edit] Help

Someone who knows the devanagari pronunciation please fill up the IPA symbols in the Verb section within the slashes, leaving one - one extra blanks before and after. I am too tired now.Cygnus_hansa 21:14, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't know the IPA enough to do it confidently, though if you don't get to it, I can do it tonight maybe. I noticed you use the html entities for all the devanagari. If you want you can set up your computer to type the devanagari in directly, it would save a lot of time I'd think. There are instructions at Wikipedia:Enabling complex text support for Indic scripts under Inputting Indic Text. Even with that I can't get all the IPA symbols to work, though the devanagari is fine.
Also for the past perfect, from the table it refers to present perfect which refers to present continuous and looks like it would say मैं कर चुका था. Ok, from my understanding it is fine to use चुका that way, but from the grammar book I have it doesn't appear needed. Snell's book has the past perfect in three forms for intransitives: मैं बोला, मैं बोला हूँ, and मैं बोला था meaning I spoke, I have spoken, and I spoke/I had spoken respectively. And then of course taking the ने construction primarily for transitives. - Taxman Talk 16:24, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
I've put a note on this at the Hindi page, but it appears to me that the symbol 'α' used for the "long Open back unrounded vowel" (Open_back_unrounded_vowel) is incorrect; it should be 'ɑ'. The former is the Unicode U+03B1 "Greek small letter alpha", while the latter is U+0251 "Latin small letter alpha." The two are somewhat different looking, and definitely have a different meaning.
Also, the tilde used here is the wrong tilde. The article says "In the tables below, the tilde (~) indicates the nasalization of the vowel immediately preceding it." The IPA way to represent nasalization is to put a tilde _over_ the vowel. To do this in Unicode, one uses the character U+0303 after the base character (in this case, the vowel). U+0303 is a _combining_ tilde, whereas the tilde used in this article is U+007E, "Tilde".
I can make these changes, but I hesitate to do so because I know absolutely nothing about Hindi besides what I have read here.
-Mcswell 15:15, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
OK, at Cygnus_hansa's request (17:28, 27 May 2006), I have made these changes. Actually, what I did with the tilde is to use the composed forms for the a e o u vowels (I didn't see any 'i~', and there is AFAIK no Unicode composed form for the ae digraph with tilde). The result is not always pretty, in a small font, so conceivably you'll want to revert this, even though the forms I've give are "correct" IPA. If you do decide the new tilde-over-vowel forms are too ugly, and you revert, let me know and I can at least retain the correct symbol for the long Open back unrounded vowel.
Mcswell 14:31, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what wikipedia policy is here, but would it not make sense to use National Library at Calcutta romanization instead of IPA? Most other grammar pages use transliteration instead of phonetic transcription?

Also, might it make sense to have Urdu grammar redirect here and call it Hindustani grammar? (We could pick vocab words for the examples both languages have in common). Or would that be too contentious? Moszczynski 02:19, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I am learning Urdu myself and find this page very useful. It makes sense to have the Urdu Grammar page redirect here, but I would greatly appreciate it if someone could add the Urdu script for each of the words as I can't quite follow the Romanisation.

See the Hindustānī (Hindī-Urdū) grammar article. It contains both the Devanāgarī and Nasta'līq scripts as well as the Roman trasnliteration. The Urdu Grammar page redirects there. With Redgards, --Jdas07 03:39, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] word order

I'm not sure where to put this, and feel free to delete or move as necessary. I came to this page to find out if adjectives follow or precede the nouns, and did not find it in this article. I think it should be there, perhaps under the adjective section?

Thanks.

[edit] Pronunciation

Please revert back all the pronunciation to IPA. It is the wikipolicy tyo use IPA, and no calcultta or anything else is entertained. I had already mentioned this very clearly before the merger.Cygnus_hansa 09:18, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to be leaving the country in a few hours. Once I land back I will work on reverting the changes. Thank you! Kitabparast 10:52, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation and examples

Although these were mentioned earlier (specifically, by Moszczynski), I believe these merit serious discussion and consideration.

1. Which transcription system should be used? Cygnus_hansa mentioned IPA, which seems to be Wikipedia policy as well. However, Moszczynski mentioned National Library at Calcutta romanization. The reason I support Moszczynski suggestion is because:

a. It would be far easier for others (especially those unfamiliar with IPA) to comprehend and replicate the pronunciation of words, and
b. the Calcutta system referred to by Moszczynski is already in used in academia to transcribe Hindi, Urdu, and Sanskrit.

2. It would probably make sense to replace some of the words used as examples with words common to and mutually intelligible between Hindi and Urdu.

If there is disagreement or if there would be an interminable debate, perhaps voting on this might resolve the issue. Kitabparast 03:19, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I would have to agree, only linguists and a few others know IPA, and only people that already know devanagari and nastaliq can read those scripts. That leaves out a large portion of the potential readers of the article. An article doesn't do us much good if it's only accessible to linguists and those that already know the language. Where is the policy that articles should only use IPA? - Taxman Talk 15:04, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Yeah I agree too. IPA is really hassling to read, and transliteration is far more comprehensible and practical. Basawala 21:22, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I found the guidelines for transliteration on Indic languages here. It mentions several forms of transliterations, none of the IPA. I really think we should keep Kitabparast's transliteration. Thanks, --Basawala 01:19, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
I still oppose any changes from IPA. All other transliteration schemes are horrible. And as a counter-argument, the Calcutta scheme etc. is comprehensible only to Indian/Pakistani persons or Indologists, whereas most of the important dictionaries (eg Oxford) use the IPA. No deviation from IPA is entertainable. For example, ā, th, ph, bh, ee, aa, etc. all have different pronunciations in different European languages. Whereas IPA is the same for all languages. And the link mentioned above is for in-line Indic words while writing a text in English. As for wiki-policy: see here. Cygnus_hansa 20:15, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Many others, including myself, would say that the IPA is "horrible". It is no doubt useful when comparing languages, which is when the pronunciation in different European languages would matter, but I would think that most people who use the English Wikipedia would be at least semi-fluent in English. I'm not saying the the Calcutta system or IAST is the perfect method for English speakers in general, but IPA would be less welcomed since it is difficult to learn due to the vast amounts of morphographs that exist in all the world's languages. Calcutta was devised specificly for Indic languages, and would fit this article better than IPA. Plus, all the non-European grammar articles in Wiki, including Hebrew grammar, Arabic grammar, Chinese grammar, Bengali grammar, and Persian grammar, use a transliteration system and not IPA. It would really be a divergence if Hindi-Urdu grammar was the only one to not use transliteration and instead IPA. --Basawala 20:32, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Your proposal would only make this article suitable for certain communities, and not a generalized one. And we are not putting up a transliteration: we are indicating pronunciation. Cygnus_hansa 23:38, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Nevertheless, academics around the world consistently adhere to a systematic method for transcribing Hindī and Urdū. They do not use IPA. Far more people are conversant with the transcription system than with IPA. Furthermore, the system used is quite transparent. I disagree with your claim that this system would be comprehensible only to South Asians and Indologists or to certain communities. (If you still adhere to this belief, please expand on what exactly you mean.) Basawala makes an excellent point that grammar articles in other non-European languages consistently use transcription systems, systems when tend to be unique to each language. And yet people conversant with many languages or none can easily make use of such transcription systems. Furthermore, I must agree with Basawala that calling the transcription "horrible" is utterly subjective and all such remarks have no place in this discussion. Additionally, the transcription system is used not to indicate how a word may be spelled (this system makes no differentiation in Urdū among the various letters for "s", for example) but how it is to be pronounced by accurately rendering the vowels and consonants of the word. Kitabparast 00:27, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
I think it is easily demonstrable more people can access/read transliterated indic text than IPA. It doesn't matter if they perfectly know which vowels are which (they can look up IAST or whatever for that), but latin characters gives 80% of the information to a huge number of readers whereas IPA only gives the information to a very small number. So while I see the value to a linguist in having the IPA, it's clearly the smaller audience. - Taxman Talk 11:43, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
There is no need of transliteration; that would have been necessary and sufficient if no devanagari/Arabic script were used. Since we have used both for the writing, the same is comprehensible to most South Asians. For the rest, the pronunciation is necessary and sufficient in IPA. Taxman's 80 % thing is very subjective and not acceptable. Having already two scripts for the matter here, adding a third one as English transcription is superfluous. And you are missing one more point. Continued use of IPA in this article was a necessary CONDITION that I had put, being the author of this page, for the merger og Hindi grammar with this article. Or we can do one thing: we can de-merge Hindi grammar from Hindustani grammar. Hindi grammar will use IPA and here you can do whatever you want. And if you want my specific objections to Calcutta scheme, let me tell you that the things that this article was using, such as superscript ʰ, ⁿ, etc are not a part of the Calcutta romanisation at all: they are borrowed from IPA (leading to a quagmire). And ṛ is not for the retroflex flap: it is for the vocalic r as in rishi. So you create a quagmire here and say that you want it because it is simple (to you). Again, as for difficulty etc., if you are not new to wikipedia, you can easily tell that most of the articles on English wikipedia are not at all in simple, easy English and use a lot of technicalities and complex terms. For simple English, we have another wikipedia. And just like one can see IAST page for help, one can also see IPA page for help. Cygnus_hansa 16:25, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
The English Wikipedia only needs to be suitable for the English speaking community. The Calcutta system is suitable for English speakers because English-speakers are familiar with all the symbols used and can easily learn this system. After all, if you check any English word derived from Hindustani in any well-known dictionary, and you can see that the etymology give you a word in the Calcutta system. E.g., look up chutney and you'll get "From Hindi caṭnī". Since the use of this Transliteration system is so widespread, even among English-language dictionaries (both American and British) designed for the masses, it is sure to be accepted by the English speaking community. In fact, some linguistic books even only use Calcutta Rom. without the Devanagari or Perso-Arabic. No book on Hindustani grammar would ever use only IPA. And is the additional English transcription really superfluous? I would really say no, since this article should let everyone be able to read it, not just those literate in either Devanagari, Urdu, or IPA. And what is not conform to Calcutta Rom. can easily be fixed or decided about, and is no major problem. And also, this is a grammar article, and it already contains technical terms like past perfect etc., so no one's trying to make the entire thing simple, just more efficiently read and more like like other texts dealing with Hindustani grammar. Basawala 21:06, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Your arguments are not convincing at all. If you have so much problems with IPA, then de-merge Hindi grammar. Cygnus_hansa 22:17, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
I do appreciate that you wrote the substantial amount of this article. But that doesn't mean you own it. It's still GFDL and consensus rules. I don't agree with what others feel should happpen with Hindustani language, but even though I wrote a substantial portion of the grammar section there that was borrowed from Hindi, I don't get to over-ride what others think. My 80% number is fairly easy to back up, but even if you don't accept it, it's easy to show the number of people that can understand transliteration is much greater than the number of people that understand IPA. - Taxman Talk 02:39, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Vocabulary choice

This article is about Hindi-Urdu grammar, but pretty much all of its religious and kinship vocabulary used here are Hindi-specific (and peculiar to Hinduism), (like caste, guru for teacher, kavi for poet, bahu for daughter-in-law, etc). All of these words would be very rare in Urdu. I think we should use either words that are common among both language and do not pertain to any religion or words that represent both Hindi and Urdu and which represents as many religions as necessary. Thanks, Basawala 19:00, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I have changed the Urdu for "Hindi-Urdu grammar" to "Hindi-Urdu qawaa'id" instead of the previous version which was just a transliteration of the Hindi, and not an accepted word in Urdu. Basawala 21:18, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Since this is about Hindustani grammar, then I also think the article should use example words which are common to Hindi and Urdu and don't pertain to any specific religion. Agger

Explained in the last point in the second declination. And further, I think I have taken great care to include only that vocabulary used in common Hindustani, and the rest very rarely as exceptions (I cannot help listing them). If you want to purge even that out, kindly de-merge Hindi grammar from this. Cygnus_hansa 16:36, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
No. Many of the words you listed are not even found in good Urdu dictionaries, and it is a wonder why this article is titled "Hindi-Urdu" and not "Hindi and possibly Urdu". I will make sure all the words here are common to both Hindi and Urdu and not just one, meaning there's no need to de-merge. --Basawala 21:14, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
The "better" the Urdu dictionary is, the more it means that it contains exclusively Perso-Arabic words. How can you find words of Sanskrit origin on so-called "good" Urdu dictionaries? And it seems you have not read the explanation. Cygnus_hansa 22:15, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, but good Urdu dictionary also include the shared Hindustani words common to everyday vocabulary and would not leave out words on purpose. On the other hand, the Persian/Arabic words in this article (yaad, kaaghaz) are both found in standard Hindi dictionaries. There are so many Sanskrit borrowings here and only two Persian ones? Everyday Hindustani has more Persian than direct Sanskrit (compare commonly used Persian words- kitaab (book), baad (after), bacca (child), har (every), taraf (direction), waqt (time) to commonly used Sanskrit ones- raaja (king/raja), ?? aag (fire)). There are really few commonly used (common to both Hindi and Urdu) Sanskrit borrowings. Mar de Sin Speak up! 22:58, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs

The article might go into more detail concerning the distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs. I just corrected the affirmation that all verbs take ne in the perfective to the more basic fact that only transitive verbs do so. One example: if you say mai.n aaya hoo.n, e.g., meaning "I've come", ne is NOT used. If you, however, say tumne kyaa kiiyaa? (meaning "what did you do"), ne IS present, because the verb karnaa is transitive.

My changes make these parts of the article factually correct, but someone more knowledgeable than me should elaborate a bit on the distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs which causes this rather curious grammatical construction. Agger

[edit] IAST or IPA

Continued. It seems you guys do not understand my point, or are ignoring it. IAST or National Library at Calcutta romanization schemes are simple not sufficient to include all the phonemes of Hindustani. They have no symbols for / x /, / ɤ /, / ɽ /, and / ɽʰ /, difference between / ai/ and / æ /--which are very important and common phonemes of Hindustani. And the aspirated consonants are shown in the article in the IPA scheme, and not in Calcutta scheme (and you are calling it Calcutta scheme). And the Calcutta scheme can never indicate pronunciation correctly: its a transliteration, and not pronunciation. For Sanskrit both coincide, but for Hindi, there are differences. Since none of you know linguistics here, none can understand it. As for having made the article (having spent dozens of nightouts on it), I know its free licence and stuff, but won't even I and my views get some respect out of some minimum courtesy? I compromized for the merger into Hindustani, but here its not possible. If you want IAST/Calcutta since it is simple, lift off the entire article and put it in http://simple.wikipedia.org . And let me tell you, I am no enemy but a big fan of IAST. You may know that it was only me who, after much petition, got the IAST characters with dots below Ḍ, ḍ, Ṭ, etc, from User:DaGizza into the Insert toolbox. I always use IAST in inline Hindi and Sanskrit words (even in the grammar article), but it cannot be considered suitable to indicate pronunciation. And sorry if I sound snobbish, but since I have done a PhD level course in Linguistics, I have a good feel of what is better and what is worse. Cygnus_hansa 14:04, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Your concerns are easily remedied. But first, let me say that we all appreciate your effort on this article, and we do respect your concerns, but we do not have to agree with them. Most of us also understand that Calcutta is not 100% phonetic, but it represents the Devanagari/Perso-Arabic phonemes very well. That's what matters. IPA would vary based on the Hindustani speaker's pronunciation, for example ai can be pronounced as a pure vowel sound as well as a diphthong in certain dialects. This is one of the main reasons IPA won't work. There are other reasons too, already addressed above. And to address your concerns about certain phonemes, from UN Romanization,
  • Dotted variants of the characters: क़ qa; ख़ ḳha; ग़ g̣a; ज़ za; ड़ ṙa; ढ़ ṙha; फ़ fa
There is a small problem with the "g", but I'm sure that can easily be solved. --Mar de Sin Speak up! 18:02, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
The difference is this is not a phonology article, it's a grammar article. It's not so critical to get the pronunciation perfect here. More important is to make the words accessible to more poeple. - Taxman Talk 18:29, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
If you want greater accessibility, then go to simple.wikipedia. So what if it is a grammar article. And I know in Western Hindustani where ai should be pronounced as a diphthong and where as a pure vowel. Cygnus_hansa 14:04, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps Ġ/ġ can be used for ग़/غ. Thank you, Mar de Sin! And I support what Mar de Sin said: I, personally, am amazed by your hard work, Cygnus_hansa, and am very grateful for your effort. But that should not be used as veto-power. I am sure we can all come to an amicable solution. Taxman's comment is also quite significant. Kitabparast 17:54, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
So you are inventing a new system, which is not allowed here. The dotted variants listed are not a part of IAST or Calcutta romanization. And the page you have listed clearly states the ff.: There is no evidence of the use of the system either in India or in international cartographic products. It was stated in 1987 that the appropriate resolution had not been implemented in India and the Hunterian system was still in use in large-scale mapping (Fifth United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names. Montreal, 18-31 August 1987. Vol. I. Report of the Conference, p. 30.).. It means, if you understand English, that the system has never been popular in India, and of course not in Pakistan. Cygnus_hansa 16:41, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
I never said to use that system. It's different from Calcutta in a few spots, but it includes all of the variants. I'm sure Calcutta would have a way to represent these letters, and we could always go with the commonest way. I have not heard of anything suggesting that you have to stick 100% with a given Romanization system's orthography when there are letters that are not well enough represented. I have seen too, that there would be many different ways to represent certain sounds in IPA, eg, the short /u/ I have seen represented as /ʊ/, and /a/ as /ɐ/ or even /ɒ/, which is not any worse than the problems you mentioned. --Mar de Sin Speak up! 16:48, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
No no no no no no. In IPA one sound has only une symbol. Short u can be represented as /u/ or /ʊ/ because both are free allophones. The latter is articulated a little more open than /u/. And Calcutta one has no way of expressing Urdu sounds. Cygnus_hansa 13:56, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I meant both symbols were used to represent the same Devanagari character, showing the difference in pronunciation/perceived pronunciation. Mar de Sin Speak up! 20:34, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Thats what I mean too. It is pronunciation which is more important rather than just changing the script. And I have already mentioned wiki-priority towards IPA. And as for your claim that no grammar uses IPA, let me tell you that I have come across many grammars of Hindi in encyclopedias and in seminar presentations I have attended that used IPA. Cygnus_hansa 14:24, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Most grammars use Transliteration. Wikipriority towards IPA only goes for when pronunciation of a specific word/phonograph is needed, list on an alphabet chart for example. All other non-European grammar articles on Wikipedia use a form of transliteration (incl. Bengali, Tamil, Persian, Arabic, etc), and it would be against this conformation to use IPA, of which I already noticed inconsistencies of on this very article (both /a/ and /ə/ for the same exact sound is one of them.) Plus, there is a general agreement to use transliteration (only one person for IPA), and you pointing out transliteration's faults would not convince us, nor would it be a veto power not to use transliteration. After all, IPA has many faults too, including the fact that its use is not widespread on linguistic-related articles on Wikipedia. The majority really hope to have transliteration on this page, so I would hope you allow us to do so. If you give permission, then we will start adding transliteration. If you don't, then we will have to still discuss this issue and how to resolve it. Mar de Sin Speak up! 18:28, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

No, I stand by my words. And there is no inconsistency in the use of /ə/ and /a/ anywhere. So here in America, the British measurement system is widely in use. Then you will say that the metric system has faults too and we should switch over to the Bristish sytem; after all, the largest English speaking population is in the United States. The only last permission I can give is to retain IPA and further add Romanization. Beyond this I will not agree. Cygnus_hansa 09:22, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
This situation is unlike your metric analogy, (which I really hope we will adopt someday). And unlike your analogy, IPA has more faults due to the variety of dialects in Hindi-Urdu and also due to the fact that its not used on grammar articles in Wikipedia. That fact, as I have stated many times before, is enough to discredit the use of IPA. And I do admit to being wrong about /a/ and /ə/, but why are isn't /a/ used for "a" when /u/ is used for "u"? After all, the differences between a and aa and between u and uu are on the same level. (I did notice an inconsisency on this page though) Other pages I have seen here on Hindi use /ʊ/ for "u". And IPA's pronunciation doesn't always represent the way things are spelled, like the final u in guru and final i in shakti that are spelled short but pronounced long (which is not faithfully represent on this page). You say I will denounce a system just because it has faults, but no, I will only denounce a system (IPA) that has more faults than another (transliteration) on the specific use for such grammar articles as this one and also when I have never seen another Hindi/Urdu grammar entirely in IPA (I'm sure they exist, but are not common enough for me to come across). IPA surely is a great system for pronunciation, but a grammar article is to explain grammar in a cohesive manner faithful to orthography, not to try to give semi-inaccurate pronunciations in IPA. IPA, on the other hand, could be used in an article explaining morphology, not grammar. In that use, I would be perfectly happy with IPA. But grammar is not morphology, and should not be treated as such. Transliteration gives a better transcription than IPA, which is only based on sounds and phonemes. Mar de Sin Speak up! 00:16, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Oh my God!!!!!!!!!!! Grammar is not morphology? Not phonology? Then what is it???? For your kind information, modern Grammar consists of three principle divisions: phonology, morphology and syntax. First you don't know anything. On the top of it you make a lot of noise. And YES. IPA is not always exactly written as Hindi/Urdu is spelled. Very correct, and that is the whole point of my prefernce for IPA. Transliteration is just a letter-to-letter "writing" change thing. Language is something which is spoken, not what is written. Writing is an artifical thing. Grammars do not need to be faithfull to orthography at all? Is the grammar the wife of orthography? And IPA has NO FAULTS. It is a highly (at least 99 %) exact methodology; transliteration has immense faults. And your analogy of /a/ and /ə/ are wrong. /a/ is an entirely different vowel. Short /a/ does not exist in Hindustani at all. It is not the short vowel counterpart of long /aː/ -- which exists in Hindustani. Such kind of confusion occurs when people use transliterations, and treat them as the Quran or Gita. Hindustani's <a> of IAST corresponds to /ə/ of IPA. The analogy with short i and u are also wrong (which, indeed, have true long and short counterparts). Thats why I am strongly against romanization. It seems you are afraid of IPA, because it kinof looks strange and weird. Most humans treat things strange and exotic to them as offensive, but they make a mistake. It is high time that you rather get yourself familiar with IPA. And as for dialects, I have already mentioned that we are here to discuss only the standard Khariboli dialect. Other dialects not only have phonological differences, but much more differences in other parts of grammar. I have an entire book on hindi linguistics. Cygnus_hansa 01:00, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I meant phonology, not morphology. Phonology is to be treated as a separate topic from grammar, as it is in a different section from it in most langauge pages (including hindi). And is IPA strange and foreign to me? No it's not. I learned English IPA a long time ago. I just don't like it being used for such specific topics as Hindustani grammar, when such commonly-used and orthographically accurate systems such as Transliteration exist. You say IPA has no faults; for phonology that is correct, but for grammar and syntax, that is entirely wrong. Look at English for example: "to" is pronounced differently in different structures, as is "a", "with", etc. And there are different pronunciations for the same word in the same dialect: "often", "controversy", etc. Hindustani has less of these, but they sure do exist. And you would use IPA for this? Astounding. And you say grammar doesn't need to be faithful to orthography? Well, grammar can only be faithful to grammar itself, but it should be more faithful to orthography than pronunciation for the above reasons. "Transliteration is just a letter-to-letter "writing" change thing. Language is something which is spoken, not what is written. " After writing was invented, language became both spoken and written, after all, what would be do without our spelling? Wud uh sentens laik dhis bee konsidurd uh prapur igzampol uv dhee eenglish leyngwij? Wouldn't you agree that spelling orthography is an important part to language, even if it can be changed (mostly by government efforts)? And would you consider the great literary works of English and Hindustani not part of the language? Of course, you would probably say that many languages (like many First People or African/Asian tribal ones) don't have writing all. Sure, that's true, but writing is an entire sphere of linguistics, and though some languages don't use it, it is still an important part of language to those who do. And most Hindustani transliteration systems, incorporate both orthography and phonology in a way that is consistent, efficient, and suitable for common linguistic use. Mar de Sin Speak up! 16:14, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Phonology is an integral part of modern grammar, whether you like it or not. And pronunciation is more important than writing, whether you like it or not. Transliteration works fine and well for Sanskrit, because devanagari script was meant for it. For Hindi, orthography to pronunciation has minor differences. So transliteration will not suffice. And don't even talk about Urdu; its script is the most unscientific in the world. It is somewhat proper for Arabic, for which it was meant originally, but not at all for Urdu. Literary works are not a part of language, there are a part of the literature. This article is not to quote great poems of Kabir, Ghalib and Tulsidas. Cygnus_hansa 20:24, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Please do not insult Urdu. You say its orthography is only suitable for Arabic, but you haven't even learned Urdu orthography yet. I have learn both Devanagari and Urdu. I learned Devanagari first, and when I started Urdu, I had the same feeling that the script wasn't suitable for the language. But after it was learnt, I realized that the Arabic script was perfectly moulded for Urdu and that it was even better than Devanagari. Biases are caused by ignorance. Phonology sure can be considered part of grammar, but on Wikipedia, phonology has separate articles than grammar ones, "whether you like it or not" as you say it. Pronunciation is no more important than writing. After all, the same language with different writing scripts used can be considered two separate languages, like Serbian and Croatian. Transliteration will suffice because it incorporate spelling as well as pronunciation. IPA just incorporates pronunciation, and it is not fit to represent all parts of a language. And you are still ignoring that fact that all other non-European grammar articles omitt IPA and use transliteration. Mar de Sin Speak up! 23:01, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
I have nothing to do with other non-European grammars. Aren't you ignoring the wikipedia policy too? And for your information, I know Perso-Arabic script very well, including all its limitations. If I am ignorant about something, I just don't speak about it at all (unlike you). And pronunciation is more important than writing. Script change does not mean creation of a separate language. Linguists never accept any such thing that if you write the same language in two different scripts, they become two languages. Are you telling us a joke? And let us analyze transliteration. According to devanagari script, the verb "to do" must be literally transliterated as karanā, whereas any native speaker of Hindustani knows that the middle "a" is always dropped in pronunciation, leading to karnā. This is called syncopation of schwa, which is a very important phenoimenon in Hindi. There are, hence, numerous such examples whereby I can show you that transliteration does NOT follow pronunciation. It does in case of Sanskrit, but not in case of Hindustani. And you have also forgotten that some dotted variants are your own invented ones, not a part of any popular transliteration scheme at all. Cygnus_hansa 16:23, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I must say to this article belongs to a category of grammar articles and its quality (transliteration) cannot be ignored just because of your IPA demands. And how am I ignoring WikiPolicy? By pronunciation? Since pronunciation doesn't seem to be such a big deal on the other grammar articles. By not using exactly one transliteration system? I have chosen the most academic one, and added extra letters based on existing transliterations. If you want me to find a transliteration system with every phonograph from both Hindi and Urdu, i'll do it. But that's not policy isn't it? Just look at all the articles with different Hindustani transliterations. And there are different IPA symbols used for the same letters. Look at the t and d on IAST and compare it to the other articles. That's just one, of which the others are listed above. And if you know the Perso-Arabic script so well, then why couldn't you help add them to the article? But moving on, I'm really tired of this conflict, since there seems to be no way we could come to an agreement. Mar de Sin Speak up! 20:51, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
The fact you pointed out on IAST page is a mistake, which I will correct very soon. IPA has only one letter per sound and vice versa. I know the Perso-Arabic letters, but I am not very comfortable with them; I tend to forget the nuktas. That does not however means that I don't understand the funda of it. Hence the saying that Urdu script is highly unscientific (it has more phonemes than alphabets, and there is no one-to-one correspondence). And your hype of other grammar articles. Firstly, there are not many non-European grammars at all. So you don't have a large number to look up to. Secondly, none of them present so much details as we have presented here. Thisdly, you must know that it is a self-acknowledged criticism of Wikipedia, that more importance is given here to arrive at things based on "consensus" or majority vote, rather than on credential or merit. You may see tha page Wikipedia. I stand by my support for IPA here. Additionally, you seem to be confused that IPA has many letters for the same sounds. The confusion might be because of the fact that IPA transcriptions could be of two types: narrow transcription, which is also called phonological transcription, and is written in / /; it contains only the distinguishable phonemes. The other type is the phonetic transcription, whih is written in [ ], and also called broad transcription; it contains all the phonemes, their allophones and secondary articulations. Naturally, it might use the proper symbol for the allphone, and other diacritics for secondary articulation. These two things must not lead you to believe that IPA has multiple symbols for the same sound. Cygnus_hansa 18:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

You seem to think that IPA is like a panacea for all languages and grammars, with exact sound-to-symbol correspondence and equal representation for all languages. Although IPA is a great system, there are so many discrepancies with the way it is used to represent Hindi and Urdu. I know that there can only be one symbol for sound, but still, sometimes a single "sound" can be represent by different phonemes. It is far more efficient to use an academic transliteration which incorporates each perceived sound separately, instead of allowing different ways to represent short /u/ at the end of a word, or the difference between /t/ and /t̪/, etc. I think that there are more benefits to using transliteration than faults, and is better suited for grammar than IPA. You disagree, and keep on listing the fallibilities of transliteration and the benefits of IPA. You have already proved your point that IPA is suitable for phonetical accuracy, but this article deals with grammar. It is mere opinion to say that grammar articles need extreme phonetical accuracy than efficiency in phonetics as well as to a certain extend orthography. My view of this is opinion too, but I feel that my side is better supported. You should not let a Wikipedia article be changed according to your way based only on opinion, and the same with me. And it would better to focus on reaching a solution than trying to override my entire argument. I think we should try to find a common solution which suits all. Sorry that I don't have any ideas yet, but I hope we do reach a common agreemnt. Mar de Sin Speak up! 16:48, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

It is your mere opinion that transliteration has more benifits and less faults, whereas I think the opposite. And if 100 people say some wrong thing to be right, it does not become inherently right. You must give credit to scholarly opinion (which itself corresponds to NPOV rather than personal opinion). IPA transcription is much more beneficial and advantageous than transcription. And phonetics and phonology are intergral parts of modern grammar. Their negligence in other grammar articles (which are themselves only a handful) is no excuse here. The problem now seems to me like the Kashmir issue. What you call discrepency is nothing but the correct way to write the grammar. Cygnus_hansa 19:30, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Please do not assume that scholarly opinion is 100% IPA. A great amount (maybe the majority) of Hindi-Urdu scholars use transliteration. And please do not assume that you only hold scholarly knowledge while the rest of us are mere commonfolk. That's bad faith. "IPA transcription is much more beneficial and advantageous than transcription." Again, that's opinion. And please make controversial analogies with no basis whatsovever. " What you call discrepency is nothing but the correct way to write the grammar. " The correct way of grammar depends, once again, on the person. Mar de Sin Talk to me! 19:44, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
The same arguments apply to you, too. Cygnus_hansa 04:25, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Since the issue of IAST Vs IPA could not be resolved (it has been months now), I take it as a signal of reverting back to the original system in which the article was written, which is the IPA. So I have started transcribing IAST pronunciations back to IPA. Cygnus_hansa 05:00, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Seriously, what is this IPA lameness?... The reasons for transliteration have already been expounded. Use ISO 15919. Tuncrypt 18:05, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vocabulary change

I changed premi (a lover) to sipaahi (a soldier), since premi wasn't found in the Urdu dictionary but sipaahi was found in both Hindi and Urdu (first entry for both). That change was necessary to reflect proper Hindustani/ to reflect both languages. I also changed mor (a peacock) to gul (a rose) to reflect the Persian vocabulary under that category (2. All the other masculine nouns). Mar de Sin Speak up! 23:41, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Sipaahi is welcome, but gul is not used in everyday Hindi, whereas mor is used in Urdu. Please revert back to mor. Cygnus_hansa 14:00, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
How about gulaab? That's what I found in the Hindi dictionary for rose, and because we need to use a Persian-derived word as an example there, it's the perfect word. Mar de Sin Speak up! 23:12, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Gulaab is ok. Cygnus_hansa 16:37, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Horrible

I just noticed today! Someone had changed the introduction and written that Hini-Urdu are descendents of BOTH SANSKRIT AND PERSIAN ! This is utterly wrong! I am telling you again and again, this is a linguistics article. If you don't have background into it, don't trouble it. People like me can manage with correct, verifiable information and NPOV. Hindi-Urdu is NOT a descendent of Persian. It is in the Indo-Aryan branch, and descendent of Sanskrit alone. Persian belongs to another branch: Iranian branch. English belongs to Germanic branch. Its 80 % formal vocabulary comes from Latin, which is in the Italic branch. This does not mean that English is in the Italic bbranch, or a mixture of Italic and Germanic branches. Suffices to say that Hindi-Urdu has no relation wahtsoever (save of loanwords) with Arabic, which belongs to an entire different family. I have made such changes, with external links as sources, and certainly I am not inviting consensus on this issue. Also, Hindustani does not encompass non-standard registers. The grammar discussed here is invalid for dialects such as Haryanavi, Pahari, Braj, Awadhi, etc. Cygnus_hansa 01:51, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Seeking help and contribution

Dear Wikipedians,

We apreciate your valuable contribution in article named Wikipedia:Indic transliteration scheme on english WIkipedia.

We at Marathi Language wikipedia do not have enough expertise to update IPA related info in our article, specialy we have been unable to import/update IPA templates and do not know how to use IPA symbols.Please click here-this link- to provide help to update "IPA transliteration for Indic Languages" article for Marathi wikipedia

We seek and request for help in updating above mentioned article and would like to know relevant resources and refferences in respect of Devanagari and IPA .

Thanks and Regards

Mahitgar 16:08, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Done the vowels section. Please feel free to comment on formatting or any confusion.Cygnus_hansa 05:16, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Conjugation

The parts in the conjugation table regarding the past range from slightly to dead wrong. Maybe I'll change it up, maybe not; I have to point this out at least. Tuncrypt 23:27, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm slowly working on a new table, which I'll leave and edit here day-to-day for the time being (so it'll mostly look like a mess). Tuncrypt 17:00, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I think that bolnā should be used as the example verb instead of karnā. This is because it is regular in its perfective, and because it can be used both as intransitive and transitive. I guess I'll eventually put in the devanagari but someone else has got to put in the urdu. sorry lol Tuncrypt 22:06, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

lol it has been a while but it shall go up eventually. Tuncrypt 15:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Almost done, lol Tuncrypt 02:56, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Having learned more about linguistics in general, I'm probably going rewrite this... rewrite, in a different (better) way. This will happen in the summer. Tuncrypt 13:42, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Gender First Person Second Person Third person
Singular Plural Singular Plural / Honourable Singular Plural / Honourable
मैं / maiⁿ हम / hum तू / tū तुम / tum आप / āp यह, वह / yah, vah ये, वे / ye, ve
Simple Present
♂ boltā hūⁿ bolte haiⁿ boltā hai bolte ho bolte haiⁿ boltā hai bolte haiⁿ
♀ boltī hūⁿ boltī haiⁿ boltī hai boltī ho boltī haiⁿ boltī hai boltī haiⁿ
Continuous Present
♂ bol rahā hūⁿ bol rahe haiⁿ bol rahā hai bol rahe ho bol rahe haiⁿ bol rahā hai bol rahe haiⁿ
♀ bol rahī hūⁿ bol rahī haiⁿ bol rahī hai bol rahī ho bol rahī haiⁿ bol rahī hai bol rahī haiⁿ
Simple Imperfect
♂ boltā thā bolte the boltā thā bolte the bolte the boltā thā bolte the
♀ boltī thī boltī thīⁿ boltī thī boltī thīⁿ boltī thīⁿ boltī thī boltī thīⁿ
Continuous Imperfect
♂ bol rahā thā bol rahe the bol rahā thā bol rahe the bol rahe the bol rahā thā bol rahe the
♀ bol rahī thī bol rahī thīⁿ bol rahī thī bol rahī thīⁿ bol rahī thīⁿ bol rahī thī bol rahī thīⁿ
INTRANSITIVE PAST
Simple Past
♂ bolā bole bolā bole bolā bole
♀ bolī bolīⁿ bolī bolīⁿ bolī bolīⁿ
Perfect Present
♂ bolā hūⁿ bole haiⁿ bolā hai bole ho bole haiⁿ bolā hai bole haiⁿ
♀ bolī hūⁿ bolī haiⁿ bolī hai bolī ho bolī haiⁿ bolī hai bolī haiⁿ
Perfect Past
♂ bolā thā bole the bolā thā bole the bolā thā bole the
♀ bolī thī bolī thīⁿ bolī thī bolī thīⁿ bolī thī bolī thīⁿ
TRANSITIVE PAST
First, the subject takes the ergative case, adding the marker of ne, along with other slight modifications from the nominative:
मैने / maine हमने / humne तूने / tūne तुमने / tumne आपने / āpne इसने, उसने / isne, usne इन्होंने, उन्होंने / inhoṃne, unhoṃne
Secondly, now the verb agrees with the object rather than the subject. The same conjugation pattern applies; considering its gender and number and thus what the object would be as a (3rd person) subject, use the intransitive past section of the table to retrieve the proper conjugation. Lastly, the conjugation reverts to masculine singular (-ā) regardless of gender and number if the object is marked with ko.
Simple Future (Pure)
♂ bolūⁿgā boleⁿge bolegā bologe boleⁿge bolegā boleⁿge
♀ bolūⁿgī boleⁿgī bolegī bologī boleⁿgī bolegī boleⁿgī
Subjunctive
bolūⁿ boleⁿ bole bolo boleⁿ bole boleⁿ
Simple Future (Simple)
♂ boltā hūⁿgā bolte hoⁿge boltā hogā bolte hoge bolte hoⁿge boltā hogā bolte hoⁿge
♀ boltī hūⁿgī boltī hoⁿgī boltī hogī boltī hoⁿgī boltī hogī boltī hoⁿgī
Continuous Future
♂ bol rahā hūⁿgā bol rahe hoⁿge bol rahā hogā bol rahe hoge bol rahe hoⁿge bol rahā hogā bol rahe hoⁿge
♀ bol rahī hūⁿgī bol rahī hoⁿgī bol rahī hogī bol rahī hoⁿgī bol rahī hogī bol rahī hoⁿgī
Perfect Future
♂ bolā hūⁿgā bole hoⁿge bolā hogā bole hoge bole hoⁿge bolā hogā bole hoⁿge
♀ bolī hūⁿgī bolī hoⁿgī bolī hogī bolī hoⁿgī bolī hogī bolī hoⁿgī
Imperative
bol bolo, bolnā bolie, boliegā
The new table is grossly wrong. I am a native speaker and I also have a proper book. Cygnus_hansa 17:26, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

This one here, or in the article? Tuncrypt 21:38, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Verb suggestions

I'll do these myself if/when I have time, but I'd like to see what others think of these ideas:

  • Have a special section for "honaa" - "to be" since it is so crucial to all other verbs. This should probably go at the beginning.
  • Use bolnaa instead of karnaa as the main example since it's a regular verb (as suggested and initiated above)
  • Include the personal pronoun where appropriate -- thus "mai(n) bolungaa", not just "bolungaa". This is especially important for the second person since there are three forms -- right now the "tu" form seems to be omitted sometimes
  • For forms that just consist of a participle plus honaa ("to be") we could make things simpler by just giving the masculine singular form, then explaining that the participle declines like an adjective such as "nilaa". This would apply to the "simple present", and all continuous and perfect forms.
  • Section on irregular verbs other than "honaa" -- "denaa", "lenaa", "jaanaa", "karnaa". This can just say where they differ.
  • Clarify the sectio on compound / auxiliary verbs and make its own section.

Comments appreciateed Grover cleveland 08:41, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate your concern, but the hectic transcription will make everything too much of a work requirement.Cygnus_hansa 04:16, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Outside the scope of this article

Does anyone else think this whole section:

Hindi and Urdu are variants of each other (i.e., the same language in the linguistic sense); Hindi is considered as the national language and is constitutionally the official language of the Indian Union, while Urdu is considered the national language of Pakistan and one of the 24 scheduled languages of India. Though some sources (typically nationalists) consider Hindi and Urdu to be separate languages, linguists consider both the languages to be one and the same, since they have essentially the same grammar and the same non-technical and non-formal vocabulary, the grammar itself being derived from Apabhramsha (a middle Indo-Aryan language). The language has official status in Fiji where it is officially referred to as Hindustani and is a major language in Guyana and Suriname. They are Indo-European languages, and belong to the Indo-Aryan group, which itself is a part of the Indo-Iranian linguistic branch.

is kinda off-topic and should be moved, maybe, to, like, Hindustani? Yeah, I do. —Wiki Wikardo 19:37, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Presentation of verbs

I really appreciate the effort of whoever put this huge table together! However, I think that the current table has some fatal problems. I have a few changes I'd like to make, but I'd like to get some consensus here first.

  • 1. First and foremost, we should not put everything in one table. Right now the table is so dense it is almost unreadable. I suggest putting each form (e.g. present continuous) in a separate table and following it with a prose description with examples.
  • 2. Similarly, the current presentation obscures the fact that there is an enormous amount of regularity in the various verbal forms. This makes learning Hindustani verbs far easier than the unwitting reader might suspect on the basis of the current table. For example, the imperfective forms consist of the verb stem + "t" + adjectival concordance as in "niilaa" + the appropriate form of the verb "to be". The future consists of the subjunctive + "g" + adjectival concordance. These patterns should be pointed out as they make learning the language much easier.
  • 3. We should put the personal pronouns (mai~, tuu, tum,. etc) in with the examples to make things clearer.
  • 4. We must give at least the simple present, past and future tenses of honaa before anything else because they are used as auxiliaries in all other verbs.
  • 5. As people above have noted, karnaa is an unfortunate choice of paradigm because it is irregular in its perfective kiyaa and its imperative kijie. bolnaa is a much better choice, and I suggest that we substitute it.
  • 6. I have never seen "kartaa hai" described as the "present simple" -- only the "present imperfective" (Snell) or the "present habitual" (Masica). Can someone point to a reference that gives it this name? Which form of "honaa" would be called present simple: "mai~ huu~" or "mai~ hotaa huu~"?
  • 7. Similarly, the description of "kartaa thaa" as "past simple" seems strange -- normally it is referred to as "past habitual" or "past imperfective".
  • 8. The description of "kar cukaa" as the "present perfect" is similarly nonstandard. Normally the "present perfect" or "present perfective" refers to "mai~ kiyaa huu~" = "I have done". "kar cukaa" has the more specialized meaning "I have JUST done" and is usually not treated as part of the central paradigm.
  • 9. The form often known known as the "simple perfective" or "simple past": e.g. mai bolaa, "I spoke"" or maine hindii bolii, "I spoke Hindi", seems to be entirely absent from the table.
  • 10 recipes such as "Replace X with Y in Z", as used e.g. in the description of the so-called "present perfect" are very hard to follow. These are not found in any grammar I have seen and should be avoided.
  • 11. The presentation of the imperative is simply incorrect. The imperative of karnaa has exactly three forms: (tuu) kar, (tum) karo and (aap) kiijie. In the current table is it conflated with the subjunctive. Also, there is no need for separate masculine and feminine forms of the subjunctive since they are identical.

Please add your comments! Grover cleveland 07:09, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I numbered your points to hopefully make it easier to follow the response. Some responses: 1. I'm not convinced a lot of smalleer tables will help, but if you can work up an example in a sandbox, it may be more obvious. 2. That's true, but learning the language isn't the primary aim of this article. There's lots of other sources that could have that focus such as Wikibooks. But again, if you can show a simple way that the information can be displayed that shows the regularity mroe easily, have at it. 3. Those are implied in the person/number descriptions so most grammar references don't include them in order to save space, which is valuable here. 4. Probably not a bad idea. 5. Agreed, another example may be better, though the manner of kiyaa is similar to how all verbs ending in /ɑː/ (ā) that add the y in the perfective form and kariye is indeed a utilized form also that does follow the regular rules. 6. I agree, based on the sources I've seen 7. Same 9. I see your point, the forms using bol chuka and main bolaa seem approximately equally used to me. When we discussed this in the past the idea was to keep it a bit simpler and avoid having to give a detailed and confusing explanation of the additional verb forms of bolaa hai and bolaa thaa. I don't agree that kar chukaa is nonstandard, it's just a different option. 10. I agree they make it difficult, but they save space and aren't unused. Pāṇini's Ashtadhyayi makes extensive use of it for example (to a fault if the goal is simplicity of course). 11. I agree except that the subjunctive can and is used as a polite imperative at times. Equivalent to "would you please...". Simply adding the imperative as a separate section would help in my mind. Of course I am not a linguist and I do know that User:Magicalsaumy that wrote most of the article is/was a linguistics student, so he's probably not wrong, it just may not be the clearest way to present the material. There is a note about the tu and aap forms, so the table is probably a more technical version of the tum form. Apparently it means that the tum level imperative comes from (or is) the subjunctive. - Taxman Talk 00:49, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
I recognized the wrongs of the table quite long ago, and ended up making a new one. As correct as mine is, I still don't think that it should replace the old, bad one; in the year of studying since I made it I think I could now make an even better one.
But overall I think that this page needs a thorough rewrite, and it is basically up to someone to apply themselves to the massive task. Linguistic student or not, Magicalsaumy, in my opinion, has a flawed editing style, which as such mars the page(s) he has created. This page's thoroughness is no doubt fantastic, but it still somehow misses the mark. The guy sources almost close to nothing he writes; he carries on in a lengthy, talkative, and "instructional" rather than concise, refined, and encyclopedic writing style; and he slops on heaps of decidedly irrelevant/off-topic information (i.e. detailing script in a phonology section, insisting on IPA in a grammar article, etc.). Tuncrypt (talk) 20:16, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Great job Tuncrypt

You've made this page much higher quality that it was previously. I look forward to making some relatively minor contributions, but you have done all the hard work that needed to be done. Thanks. Grover cleveland (talk) 23:14, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Uses of cases

I am thinking of adding a section in which the uses of the cases is displayed systematically. For example, the direct case can be used in several ways:

  • The subject or complement of hona
  • The subject of an intransitive verb
  • The subject of a transitive verb not in perfective aspect
  • The direct object of a transitive verb when unmarked

Would something like this, with referenced examples, be appropriate for this article? Grover cleveland (talk) 15:50, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. But isn't case laid down already, more or less? Like,
  • Vocative - self-evident
  • Oblique - postpositions (and adverbs)
  • Direct - everywhere else
? Tuncrypt (talk) 16:43, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
At the very least the distinction between usages of the Direct and Dative/Oblique with "ko" for the direct object is nonobvious and, I would suggest, worth mentioning in a little more detail. Cheers. Grover cleveland (talk) 06:11, 2 April 2008 (UTC)