Sound of 'j' and 'z' in Hindi films and songs
Asif
this time I have utmost sincerity to do my part in arresting a norm
before it might damage us Indians’ understanding of Urdu language and
some subtleties of English language. I sincerely want to teach a few
good lessons with the hope that those who learn them will spread it in
their region where this norm of misspelling and probably
mispronouncing the letter ‘z’, sound of which is absent in all Indian
languages and dialects, except Urdu, Dogri, and English. Is it
present in Punjabi?
So let’s start and take a look at these film titles: Jhumroo (1961),
Saanjh Aur Savera (1964), Manjhli Didi (1966), Jheel Ke Us Paar
(1973), Ankhiyon Ke Jharonkhon Se (1977), and Sachcha Jhootha (1970).
Pay special attention to where the letters ‘j’ and ‘h’ appear together
and in that order. Now pronounce the letter made up of ‘jh’ and then
pronounce these film titles. The above titles containing the letter
‘jh’ are all pure Indian words (no Urdu or English), so I am sure you
pronounced them correctly. There is reason why filmmakers who made
these films titled them as above in film credit rolls. Anyway, the
way you just pronounced these film titles, just keep them in your mind
for just a few minutes.
Now take a look at these film titles: Zabak (1958), Zindagi (1964),
Zaroorat (1972), Zorro (1974), Zinda Dil (1975), Zamaana (1984),
Zameen Aasmaan (1984). Pronounce them. You have trouble pronouncing
them, right? The reason you cannot pronounce them correctly because
the letter ‘z’ is absent in Indian languages, except Urdu and English
– it is neither ‘j’ (as in Jab Jab Phool Khile or Jalte Badan or Joru
Ka Bhai) nor ‘jh’ (you already learned above that ‘jh’ is not same as
‘z’, right?). If the sound of ‘z’ were same as the sound of ‘jh’,
then these film titles would have been Jhabak, Jhindagi, Jharoorat,
and Jhameen Aasmaan. Sure enough, filmmakers of these films knew the
difference and they were right. Now at least you know that ‘z’ is not
same as ‘jh. Fair enough.
So let’s get back to ‘z’. You might have noticed (mostly in film
title rolls) that when a film title, like Zindagi or Zaroorat or
Zamaana, is written in Devnagri script there is a dot at the bottom of
the Hindi letter that stands for the sound ‘j’. Remember? This dot
is a way in Devnagri script to denote that it is not really ‘j’ but
‘z’. I have seen many people spelling names like ‘Jeenat Aman’ (Karan
Johar still calls her Jeenat Aman, and it feels so bad on him – even
Zeenat looked embarrassed by this on his talk show), ‘Jahida’, or
‘Jaroorat’ – they don’t know the difference.
But you have just learned the difference and you are educated,
progressive, and broad-minded enough to correct others’ errors and
teach them. Believe me that you have a responsibility to right the
wrongs in everyday literature and culture before it is too late. If
you don’t care and this trend of mixing ‘z’ with ‘jh’ continues, then
the day is not far when someone will make a film and title it ‘Zumka
Gira Re’ or ‘Saanz Ki Bela’.
Asif
Afzal A. Khan
> It is with great predicament that I am reviving this topic again, but
> this time I have utmost sincerity to do my part in arresting a norm
> some subtleties of English language. I sincerely want to teach a few
> good lessons with the hope that those who learn them will spread it in
> their region where this norm of misspelling and probably
> languages and dialects, except Urdu, Dogri, and English. Is it
> present in Punjabi?
>
> Saanjh Aur Savera (1964), Manjhli Didi (1966), Jheel Ke Us Paar
> (1973), Ankhiyon Ke Jharonkhon Se (1977), and Sachcha Jhootha (1970).
> and in that order. Now pronounce the letter made up of �jh� and then
> pronounce these film titles. The above titles containing the letter
> pronounced them correctly. There is reason why filmmakers who made
> these films titled them as above in film credit rolls. Anyway, the
> way you just pronounced these film titles, just keep them in your mind
> for just a few minutes.
>
> Now take a look at these film titles: Zabak (1958), Zindagi (1964),
> Zaroorat (1972), Zorro (1974), Zinda Dil (1975), Zamaana (1984),
> Zameen Aasmaan (1984). Pronounce them. You have trouble pronouncing
> them, right? The reason you cannot pronounce them correctly because
> � it is neither �j� (as in Jab Jab Phool Khile or Jalte Badan or Joru
> Ka Bhai) nor �jh� (you already learned above that �jh� is not same as
> �z�, right?). If the sound of �z� were same as the sound of �jh�,
> then these film titles would have been Jhabak, Jhindagi, Jharoorat,
> and Jhameen Aasmaan. Sure enough, filmmakers of these films knew the
> same as �jh. Fair enough.
>
> So let�s get back to �z�. You might have noticed (mostly in film
> title rolls) that when a film title, like Zindagi or Zaroorat or
> Zamaana, is written in Devnagri script there is a dot at the bottom of
> is a way in Devnagri script to denote that it is not really �j� but
> �z�. I have seen many people spelling names like �Jeenat Aman� (Karan
> Johar still calls her Jeenat Aman, and it feels so bad on him � even
> Zeenat looked embarrassed by this on his talk show), �Jahida�, or
> �Jaroorat� � they don�t know the difference.
>
> But you have just learned the difference and you are educated,
> teach them. Believe me that you have a responsibility to right the
> wrongs in everyday literature and culture before it is too late. If
> the day is not far when someone will make a film and title it �Zumka
> Gira Re� or �Saanz Ki Bela�.
>
> Asif
Asif MiaN,
Perhaps you were inspired to prepare this lesson by a recent post
on RMIM by Shri Bharat {"Tohfa-Mukesh Song"} where he wrote a line
from a film song as "Samazo ke mohabbat ho gayee". The correct
word, of course, is "samjho".
However, permit me to offer a correction or comment on your above
lesson. You wrote (and I quote) :
"The above titles containing the letter �jh� are all pure
Indian words (no Urdu or English), so I am sure you
pronounced them correctly."
There is no need to distinguish "Indian" words from Urdu words.
Urdu too is (primarily) an Indian language, though it is under -
stood and spoken in many parts of the world.
There was a time when the dot under the Devnagri "j" was rigorous-
ly placed in all instances requiring the "z" sound. The practice
seems to have all but disappeared.
Afzal
Sukesh
Thank you for pointing this out. Once Hindi was done with in the first
year in college, one tends not remember such subtleties. The British
left in 1947, but left the English language behind, which is slowly
but surely is replacing the native languages. Whether it is good or
bad only time will tell.
Regards
Sukesh
bhagwa...@aol.com
Sukesh wrote:
> On Jul 17, 3:21 am, Asif <alvi.a...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > It is with great predicament that I am reviving this topic again, but
> > this time I have utmost sincerity to do my part in arresting a norm
> > before it might damage us Indians’ understanding of Urdu language and
> > some subtleties of English language. I sincerely want to teach a few
> > good lessons with the hope that those who learn them will spread it in
> > their region where this norm of misspelling and probably
> > mispronouncing the letter ‘z’, sound of which is absent in all Indian
> > languages and dialects, except Urdu, Dogri, and English. Is it
> > present in Punjabi?
The letter 'z' is present in Punjabi (Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi scripts).
The Gurmukhi equivalent of 'j' has a dot underneath to denote the 'z'
sound. Punjabi has many more diverse letters of the alphabet that
denote very distinct sounds.
Bhagwant
UVR
> Asif wrote:
> > It is with great predicament that I am reviving this topic again, but
> > this time I have utmost sincerity to do my part in arresting a norm
> > some subtleties of English language. I sincerely want to teach a few
> > good lessons with the hope that those who learn them will spread it in
> > their region where this norm of misspelling and probably
> > languages and dialects, except Urdu, Dogri, and English. Is it
> > present in Punjabi?
>
> > Saanjh Aur Savera (1964), Manjhli Didi (1966), Jheel Ke Us Paar
> > (1973), Ankhiyon Ke Jharonkhon Se (1977), and Sachcha Jhootha (1970).
> > and in that order. Now pronounce the letter made up of ‘jh’ and then
> > pronounce these film titles. The above titles containing the letter
> > pronounced them correctly. There is reason why filmmakers who made
> > these films titled them as above in film credit rolls. Anyway, the
> > way you just pronounced these film titles, just keep them in your mind
> > for just a few minutes.
>
> > Now take a look at these film titles: Zabak (1958), Zindagi (1964),
> > Zaroorat (1972), Zorro (1974), Zinda Dil (1975), Zamaana (1984),
> > Zameen Aasmaan (1984). Pronounce them. You have trouble pronouncing
> > them, right? The reason you cannot pronounce them correctly because
> > – it is neither ‘j’ (as in Jab Jab Phool Khile or Jalte Badan or Joru
> > Ka Bhai) nor ‘jh’ (you already learned above that ‘jh’ is not same as
> > then these film titles would have been Jhabak, Jhindagi, Jharoorat,
> > and Jhameen Aasmaan. Sure enough, filmmakers of these films knew the
> > same as ‘jh. Fair enough.
>
> > title rolls) that when a film title, like Zindagi or Zaroorat or
> > Zamaana, is written in Devnagri script there is a dot at the bottom of
> > is a way in Devnagri script to denote that it is not really ‘j’ but
> > ‘z’. I have seen many people spelling names like ‘Jeenat Aman’ (Karan
> > Johar still calls her Jeenat Aman, and it feels so bad on him – even
> > Zeenat looked embarrassed by this on his talk show), ‘Jahida’, or
>
> > But you have just learned the difference and you are educated,
> > teach them. Believe me that you have a responsibility to right the
> > wrongs in everyday literature and culture before it is too late. If
> > the day is not far when someone will make a film and title it ‘Zumka
>
> > Asif
>
> Asif MiaN,
>
> Perhaps you were inspired to prepare this lesson by a recent post
> on RMIM by Shri Bharat {"Tohfa-Mukesh Song"} where he wrote a line
> from a film song as "Samazo ke mohabbat ho gayee". The correct
> word, of course, is "samjho".
>
> However, permit me to offer a correction or comment on your above
> lesson. You wrote (and I quote) :
>
> Indian words (no Urdu or English), so I am sure you
> pronounced them correctly."
>
> There is no need to distinguish "Indian" words from Urdu words.
> Urdu too is (primarily) an Indian language, though it is under -
> stood and spoken in many parts of the world.
>
> There was a time when the dot under the Devnagri "j" was rigorous-
> ly placed in all instances requiring the "z" sound. The practice
> seems to have all but disappeared.
>
> Afzal
Asif saahib,
Proper pronunciation has taken a beating in all languages. It's no
secret to RMIM that it gets me riled up also. But why must we make an
exception of Urdu? Why must we make a big deal of the 'z', why must
we hold up the 'j-dot' as an example of how things are going wrong?
Is it the claim that 100% of all Urdu-knowing people pronounce all
Urdu words "correctly"? I hope not, because, well, just go walk the
streets of Lucknow or Lahore, and you'll have your answer.
-UVR.
Asif
UVR Sahab:
I agree with you that a lot of supposedly Urdu-speaking people cannot
pronounce 'z' correctly. But the main topic of my post is not about
it. It is about incorrectly using 'z' letter for the 'jh' sound. I
just cannot believe that some people correctly use 'kh' (Khiladi),
'th' (Thodi Si Bewafai), 'chh' (Chhalia), 'bh' (Bhuvan Shome),
'dh' (Dharmatma), 'ph' (Phansi), and 'gh' (Ghar), and yet they use 'z'
for 'jh'.
As for Afzal Sahab's comment about Urdu, I agree that it is primarily
an Indian language. Elsewhere on my original post I did include it as
an Indian language.
For those who want to learn how to pronounce 'z': try to speak 'ja'
without touching your tongue with teeth or walls of your mouth. Then
try to listen to or watch Rafi, for example, singing on youtube, or an
actor (preferably Dilip Kumar, Bharat Bhushan, Raj Kapoor, Rajendra
Kumar) lip-synching, a song like 'zindagi bhar naheen bhoolegi' etc.
Asif
abhayphadnis
(snip)
> UVR Sahab:
>
> I agree with you that a lot of supposedly Urdu-speaking people cannot
> pronounce 'z' correctly. But the main topic of my post is not about
> it. It is about incorrectly using 'z' letter for the 'jh' sound. I
> just cannot believe that some people correctly use 'kh' (Khiladi),
> 'th' (Thodi Si Bewafai), 'chh' (Chhalia), 'bh' (Bhuvan Shome),
> 'dh' (Dharmatma), 'ph' (Phansi), and 'gh' (Ghar), and yet they use 'z'
> for 'jh'.
At least for people whose mother tongue is Marathi, there is a bona
fide reason for pronouncing "jh" as "z": you see, in Marathi, the
Devanagari character rendered in ITRANS as "jh" is invariably
pronounced as "z"! For instance, the Marathi phrase that is
phonetically pronounced "kaay zaala?" ("kyaa hu_aa?") is written
(following iTRANS here) as "kaay jhaala?" Thus, when a native Marathi
speaker sees the "jh" character in Devanagari in any language, (s)he
will instinctively pronounce it as "z".
It takes either very early exposure to Hindi/Urdu - or extensive
practice in later life - for Marathi speakers to get this "jh/z"
business right.
In the reverse direction, one finds North Indians saying "kaay
jhaala?" phonetically when attempting to speak Marathi!
Warm regards,
Abhay
Anant Rege
"Asif" <alvi...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:14bdaeed-5794-4d5d...@h31g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...
>It is with great predicament that I am reviving this topic again, but
>this time I have utmost sincerity to do my part in arresting a norm
>before it might damage us Indians� understanding of Urdu language and
>some subtleties of English language. I sincerely want to teach a few
>good lessons with the hope that those who learn them will spread it in
>their region where this norm of misspelling and probably
>mispronouncing the letter �z�, sound of which is absent in all Indian
>languages and dialects, except Urdu, Dogri, and English. Is it
>present in Punjabi?
<rest skipped>
It is not good to make a sweeping statement like that unless one is really
familiar with all the languages. In Marathi for example, you will find this
'z' sound in many words. Unlike in Hindi, where letter 'j' has a nukta under
it to mark the 'z' sound, it is written as simple 'j'. One just has to know
the word to pronounce it correctly, either with the 'j' sound or 'z' sound.
Same goes for the letter 'ch'. Here is a link to a famous song that ends
Kishore singing last few lines in Marathi. You can clearly listen to the 'z'
word there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el5OGtd_aV8
I am tempted to write the lines here but I am worried that somebody who
knows Marathi may mis-pronounce the letter 'z' as 'jh' and accuse me of
obscenity.
Anant
abhayphadnis
wrote:
> "Asif" <alvi.a...@gmail.com> wrote in message
Actually, Anant, there is a slight difference in the pronunciation of
the "j" in Marathi words like "laaj" or "jamiin" and Hindi/Urdu words
like "naaz" and "zamiin". The Marathi variant doesn't quite
approximate the "z" sound of the English language while the 'nuktaa-
nashii.n' 'j' in Hindi/Urdu is very similar to the "z" in "zoo".
That said, Asif's statement is indeed too sweeping.
Warm regards,
Abhay
Afzal A. Khan
> On Jul 16, 5:12 pm, "Afzal A. Khan" <me_af...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> Asif wrote:
>>> It is with great predicament that I am reviving this topic again, but
>>> this time I have utmost sincerity to do my part in arresting a norm
>>> before it might damage us Indians� understanding of Urdu language and
>>> some subtleties of English language. I sincerely want to teach a few
>>> good lessons with the hope that those who learn them will spread it in
>>> their region where this norm of misspelling and probably
>>> mispronouncing the letter �z�, sound of which is absent in all Indian
>>> languages and dialects, except Urdu, Dogri, and English. Is it
>>> present in Punjabi?
>>> So let�s start and take a look at these film titles: Jhumroo (1961),
>>> Saanjh Aur Savera (1964), Manjhli Didi (1966), Jheel Ke Us Paar
>>> (1973), Ankhiyon Ke Jharonkhon Se (1977), and Sachcha Jhootha (1970).
>>> Pay special attention to where the letters �j� and �h� appear together
>>> and in that order. Now pronounce the letter made up of �jh� and then
>>> pronounce these film titles. The above titles containing the letter
>>> �jh� are all pure Indian words (no Urdu or English), so I am sure you
>>> pronounced them correctly. There is reason why filmmakers who made
>>> these films titled them as above in film credit rolls. Anyway, the
>>> way you just pronounced these film titles, just keep them in your mind
>>> for just a few minutes.
>>> Now take a look at these film titles: Zabak (1958), Zindagi (1964),
>>> Zaroorat (1972), Zorro (1974), Zinda Dil (1975), Zamaana (1984),
>>> Zameen Aasmaan (1984). Pronounce them. You have trouble pronouncing
>>> them, right? The reason you cannot pronounce them correctly because
>>> the letter �z� is absent in Indian languages, except Urdu and English
>>> � it is neither �j� (as in Jab Jab Phool Khile or Jalte Badan or Joru
>>> Ka Bhai) nor �jh� (you already learned above that �jh� is not same as
>>> �z�, right?). If the sound of �z� were same as the sound of �jh�,
>>> then these film titles would have been Jhabak, Jhindagi, Jharoorat,
>>> and Jhameen Aasmaan. Sure enough, filmmakers of these films knew the
>>> difference and they were right. Now at least you know that �z� is not
>>> same as �jh. Fair enough.
>>> So let�s get back to �z�. You might have noticed (mostly in film
>>> title rolls) that when a film title, like Zindagi or Zaroorat or
>>> Zamaana, is written in Devnagri script there is a dot at the bottom of
>>> the Hindi letter that stands for the sound �j�. Remember? This dot
>>> is a way in Devnagri script to denote that it is not really �j� but
>>> �z�. I have seen many people spelling names like �Jeenat Aman� (Karan
>>> Johar still calls her Jeenat Aman, and it feels so bad on him � even
>>> Zeenat looked embarrassed by this on his talk show), �Jahida�, or
>>> �Jaroorat� � they don�t know the difference.
>>> But you have just learned the difference and you are educated,
>>> progressive, and broad-minded enough to correct others� errors and
>>> teach them. Believe me that you have a responsibility to right the
>>> wrongs in everyday literature and culture before it is too late. If
>>> you don�t care and this trend of mixing �z� with �jh� continues, then
>>> the day is not far when someone will make a film and title it �Zumka
>>> Gira Re� or �Saanz Ki Bela�.
>>> Asif
>> Asif MiaN,
>>
>> Perhaps you were inspired to prepare this lesson by a recent post
>> on RMIM by Shri Bharat {"Tohfa-Mukesh Song"} where he wrote a line
>> from a film song as "Samazo ke mohabbat ho gayee". The correct
>> word, of course, is "samjho".
>>
>> However, permit me to offer a correction or comment on your above
>> lesson. You wrote (and I quote) :
>>
>> "The above titles containing the letter �jh� are all pure
>> Indian words (no Urdu or English), so I am sure you
>> pronounced them correctly."
>>
>> There is no need to distinguish "Indian" words from Urdu words.
>> Urdu too is (primarily) an Indian language, though it is under -
>> stood and spoken in many parts of the world.
>>
>> There was a time when the dot under the Devnagri "j" was rigorous-
>> ly placed in all instances requiring the "z" sound. The practice
>> seems to have all but disappeared.
>>
>> Afzal
>
> Asif saahib,
>
> Proper pronunciation has taken a beating in all languages. It's no
> secret to RMIM that it gets me riled up also. But why must we make an
> exception of Urdu? Why must we make a big deal of the 'z', why must
> we hold up the 'j-dot' as an example of how things are going wrong?
> Is it the claim that 100% of all Urdu-knowing people pronounce all
> Urdu words "correctly"? I hope not, because, well, just go walk the
> streets of Lucknow or Lahore, and you'll have your answer.
>
> -UVR.
Please permit me to offer some brief observations with
regard to your above message (which includes my own
response, but is addressed to Mr. Asif).
1. Nobody is making an "exception" of Urdu. People like
Asif (and myself) write about a language they are, sort
of, familiar with. If there are problems (on RMIM) with
regard to instances of mispronunciations in other languages
(like hindi and Marathi), people familiar with these other
languages are most welcome to write about them. Nobody
in his right mind would object to it.
2. Everybody knows that the "j-dot" practice was in vogue
for a pretty long time. Its disappearance is not accidental.
It is quite deliberate. Why shouldn't we point it out all
the time as a most appropriate example of how (and why)
things have been taking a wrong turn ? Let me quote the
following stanza by the American poet James Russell Lowell :
THEY are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think;
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.
3. Our comments are NOT addressed to the hundreds and thousands
who walk the streets of Lucknow and Lahore. These observations
are meant for those literate, well-read folks who pride themselves
on being RMIMers.
Afzal
Larry
No, we should not point it out all the time as a most appropriate example of
how (and why) things have been taking a wrong turn. Many pretty things made
up by human are fake and are deliberate. The pretty things made up by human
and are not deliberate are rarely. So "j-dot" practice is normal thing. So
there is no need to think that this thing having been taking a wrong turn as
j-dot" practice is is not accidental.and quite deliberate. So there is no
need to analysis how (and why) things have been taking a wrong turn.
Everyone know that Michael Jackson's moon walk is not accidendental and
deliberate, but everyone still love it. So it did not take a wrong turn. So
there is no need to analysis it.
"Afzal A. Khan" <me_a...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:h3q9i4$5un$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
> UVR wrote:
>
>
>> On Jul 16, 5:12 pm, "Afzal A. Khan" <me_af...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>>> Asif wrote:
>>>> It is with great predicament that I am reviving this topic again, but
>>>> this time I have utmost sincerity to do my part in arresting a norm
>>>> before it might damage us Indians� understanding of Urdu language and
>>>> some subtleties of English language. I sincerely want to teach a few
>>>> good lessons with the hope that those who learn them will spread it in
>>>> their region where this norm of misspelling and probably
>>>> mispronouncing the letter �z�, sound of which is absent in all Indian
>>>> languages and dialects, except Urdu, Dogri, and English. Is it
>>>> present in Punjabi?
>>>> So let�s start and take a look at these film titles: Jhumroo (1961),
>>>> Saanjh Aur Savera (1964), Manjhli Didi (1966), Jheel Ke Us Paar
>>>> (1973), Ankhiyon Ke Jharonkhon Se (1977), and Sachcha Jhootha (1970).
>>>> Pay special attention to where the letters �j� and �h� appear together
>>>> and in that order. Now pronounce the letter made up of �jh� and then
>>>> pronounce these film titles. The above titles containing the letter
>>>> �jh� are all pure Indian words (no Urdu or English), so I am sure you
>>>> pronounced them correctly. There is reason why filmmakers who made
>>>> these films titled them as above in film credit rolls. Anyway, the
>>>> way you just pronounced these film titles, just keep them in your mind
>>>> for just a few minutes.
>>>> Now take a look at these film titles: Zabak (1958), Zindagi (1964),
>>>> Zaroorat (1972), Zorro (1974), Zinda Dil (1975), Zamaana (1984),
>>>> Zameen Aasmaan (1984). Pronounce them. You have trouble pronouncing
>>>> them, right? The reason you cannot pronounce them correctly because
>>>> the letter �z� is absent in Indian languages, except Urdu and English
>>>> � it is neither �j� (as in Jab Jab Phool Khile or Jalte Badan or Joru
>>>> Ka Bhai) nor �jh� (you already learned above that �jh� is not same as
>>>> �z�, right?). If the sound of �z� were same as the sound of �jh�,
>>>> then these film titles would have been Jhabak, Jhindagi, Jharoorat,
>>>> and Jhameen Aasmaan. Sure enough, filmmakers of these films knew the
>>>> difference and they were right. Now at least you know that �z� is not
>>>> same as �jh. Fair enough.
>>>> So let�s get back to �z�. You might have noticed (mostly in film
>>>> title rolls) that when a film title, like Zindagi or Zaroorat or
>>>> Zamaana, is written in Devnagri script there is a dot at the bottom of
>>>> the Hindi letter that stands for the sound �j�. Remember? This dot
>>>> is a way in Devnagri script to denote that it is not really �j� but
>>>> �z�. I have seen many people spelling names like �Jeenat Aman� (Karan
>>>> Johar still calls her Jeenat Aman, and it feels so bad on him � even
>>>> Zeenat looked embarrassed by this on his talk show), �Jahida�, or
>>>> �Jaroorat� � they don�t know the difference.
>>>> But you have just learned the difference and you are educated,
>>>> progressive, and broad-minded enough to correct others� errors and
>>>> teach them. Believe me that you have a responsibility to right the
>>>> wrongs in everyday literature and culture before it is too late. If
>>>> you don�t care and this trend of mixing �z� with �jh� continues, then
>>>> the day is not far when someone will make a film and title it �Zumka
>>>> Gira Re� or �Saanz Ki Bela�.
>
>>>> Asif
>
>
>
>>> Asif MiaN,
>>>
>>> Perhaps you were inspired to prepare this lesson by a recent post
>>> on RMIM by Shri Bharat {"Tohfa-Mukesh Song"} where he wrote a
>>> line
>>> from a film song as "Samazo ke mohabbat ho gayee". The correct
>>> word, of course, is "samjho".
>>>
>>> However, permit me to offer a correction or comment on your above
>>> lesson. You wrote (and I quote) :
>>>
>>> "The above titles containing the letter �jh� are all pure
abhayphadnis
> UVR wrote:
> > On Jul 16, 5:12 pm, "Afzal A. Khan" <me_af...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> >> Asif wrote:
> >>> It is with great predicament that I am reviving this topic again, but
> >>> this time I have utmost sincerity to do my part in arresting a norm
> >>> some subtleties of English language. I sincerely want to teach a few
> >>> good lessons with the hope that those who learn them will spread it in
> >>> their region where this norm of misspelling and probably
> >>> languages and dialects, except Urdu, Dogri, and English. Is it
> >>> present in Punjabi?
> >>> Saanjh Aur Savera (1964), Manjhli Didi (1966), Jheel Ke Us Paar
> >>> (1973), Ankhiyon Ke Jharonkhon Se (1977), and Sachcha Jhootha (1970).
> >>> and in that order. Now pronounce the letter made up of ‘jh’ and then
> >>> pronounce these film titles. The above titles containing the letter
> >>> pronounced them correctly. There is reason why filmmakers who made
> >>> these films titled them as above in film credit rolls. Anyway, the
> >>> way you just pronounced these film titles, just keep them in your mind
> >>> for just a few minutes.
> >>> Now take a look at these film titles: Zabak (1958), Zindagi (1964),
> >>> Zaroorat (1972), Zorro (1974), Zinda Dil (1975), Zamaana (1984),
> >>> Zameen Aasmaan (1984). Pronounce them. You have trouble pronouncing
> >>> them, right? The reason you cannot pronounce them correctly because
> >>> – it is neither ‘j’ (as in Jab Jab Phool Khile or Jalte Badan or Joru
> >>> Ka Bhai) nor ‘jh’ (you already learned above that ‘jh’ is not same as
> >>> then these film titles would have been Jhabak, Jhindagi, Jharoorat,
> >>> and Jhameen Aasmaan. Sure enough, filmmakers of these films knew the
> >>> same as ‘jh. Fair enough.
> >>> title rolls) that when a film title, like Zindagi or Zaroorat or
> >>> Zamaana, is written in Devnagri script there is a dot at the bottom of
> >>> is a way in Devnagri script to denote that it is not really ‘j’ but
> >>> ‘z’. I have seen many people spelling names like ‘Jeenat Aman’ (Karan
> >>> Johar still calls her Jeenat Aman, and it feels so bad on him – even
> >>> Zeenat looked embarrassed by this on his talk show), ‘Jahida’, or
> >>> But you have just learned the difference and you are educated,
> >>> teach them. Believe me that you have a responsibility to right the
> >>> wrongs in everyday literature and culture before it is too late. If
> >>> the day is not far when someone will make a film and title it ‘Zumka
> >>> Asif
> >> Asif MiaN,
>
> >> Perhaps you were inspired to prepare this lesson by a recent post
> >> on RMIM by Shri Bharat {"Tohfa-Mukesh Song"} where he wrote a line
> >> from a film song as "Samazo ke mohabbat ho gayee". The correct
> >> word, of course, is "samjho".
>
> >> However, permit me to offer a correction or comment on your above
> >> lesson. You wrote (and I quote) :
>
Has the j-dot really disappeared? I just flipped through some Hindi/
Urdu books that I have and I find the j-dot cropping up in profusion!
The Devanagari books I looked at: a complete collection of Faiz's
poetry, a book of Meena Kumari's poetry, a book on Nagarjuna's poetry,
Ibn-e-Insha's "Urdu Ki Akhiri Kitaab", a collection of Ghalib's verse,
and a Hindi translation of Shivaji Sawant's "Mrityunjay" - all of them
are editions that have been released in the past 10 years. What books
have you looked at in deciding that the j-dot has disappeared?
If it is indeed disappearing, what is your basis for assuming a
conspiracy to make it happen? What the motives of these conspirators?
Warm regards,
Abhay
Afzal A. Khan
>>> -UVR.
I suppose I could post a rejoinder to your message. But, strictly
speaking, it would be OT. So I wouldn't do it.
OTOH, Asif's original post was relevant to our Newsgroup. It
concerned itself with Indian films mostly.
Afzal
Kalyan
>
> Has the j-dot really disappeared? I just flipped through some Hindi/
> Urdu books that I have and I find the j-dot cropping up in profusion!
> The Devanagari books I looked at: a complete collection of Faiz's
> poetry, a book of Meena Kumari's poetry, a book on Nagarjuna's poetry,
> Ibn-e-Insha's "Urdu Ki Akhiri Kitaab", a collection of Ghalib's verse,
> and a Hindi translation of Shivaji Sawant's "Mrityunjay" - all of them
> are editions that have been released in the past 10 years. What books
> have you looked at in deciding that the j-dot has disappeared?
>
> If it is indeed disappearing, what is your basis for assuming a
> conspiracy to make it happen? What the motives of these conspirators?
>
> Warm regards,
> Abhay-
>
> - Show quoted text -
I too am surprised at the j-dot disappearance assertion. If anything,
I see more of it. That also has to do with more of the Urdu words
making it into mainstream Hindi, You see it textbooks in school, hindi
magazines etc. And it a good thing to have the national language
growing and absorbing from other languages as that is the only way to
stay alive and relevant, IMO.
Kalyan
surjit singh
Look at some internet newspapers, e.g Jagran. It is practically gone.
Another strange thing is using a dot where it is not needed; I have
seen it in Shamshad Begam.
Afzal A. Khan
> On Jul 17, 11:56 am, Kalyan <kkolach...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> On Jul 17, 11:02 pm, abhayphadnis <aphad...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> Has the j-dot really disappeared? I just flipped through some Hindi/
>>> Urdu books that I have and I find the j-dot cropping up in profusion!
>>> The Devanagari books I looked at: a complete collection of Faiz's
>>> poetry, a book of Meena Kumari's poetry, a book on Nagarjuna's poetry,
>>> Ibn-e-Insha's "Urdu Ki Akhiri Kitaab", a collection of Ghalib's verse,
>>> and a Hindi translation of Shivaji Sawant's "Mrityunjay" - all of them
>>> are editions that have been released in the past 10 years. What books
>>> have you looked at in deciding that the j-dot has disappeared?
>>> If it is indeed disappearing, what is your basis for assuming a
>>> conspiracy to make it happen? What the motives of these conspirators?
>>> Abhay
>> I too am surprised at the j-dot disappearance assertion. If anything,
>> I see more of it. That also has to do with more of the Urdu words
>> making it into mainstream Hindi, You see it textbooks in school, hindi
>> magazines etc. And it a good thing to have the national language
>> growing and absorbing from other languages as that is the only way to
>> stay alive and relevant, IMO.
>>
>> Kalyan
>
> Look at some internet newspapers, e.g Jagran. It is practically gone.
Here are some words taken from a SMALL section of the front page
of the hindi newspaper "Dainik Bhaskar" which is touted as the
"No. 1" newspaper in most parts of India. {Issue dt. 17th July}
Correct word Newspaper word (in D. script)
------------ -----------------------------
ruKH rukh
zid jid
KHilaaf khilaaph
Yusuf Raza Yusuph Raja
fil~haal phil~haal
saKHt sakht
parda~faash parda~phaash
KHulaasa khulaasa
Zil'e jile
Afzal
Asif
wrote:
> "Asif" <alvi.a...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:14bdaeed-5794-4d5d...@h31g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...
>
> >It is with great predicament that I am reviving this topic again, but
> >this time I have utmost sincerity to do my part in arresting a norm
> >before it might damage us Indians’ understanding of Urdu language and
> >some subtleties of English language. I sincerely want to teach a few
> >good lessons with the hope that those who learn them will spread it in
> >their region where this norm of misspelling and probably
> >mispronouncing the letter ‘z’, sound of which is absent in all Indian
> >languages and dialects, except Urdu, Dogri, and English. Is it
> >present in Punjabi?
>
> <rest skipped>
>
> It is not good to make a sweeping statement like that unless one is really
> familiar with all the languages. In Marathi for example, you will find this
OK, my apologies for making a rather sweeping statement. I think I
type too fast.
> 'z' sound in many words. Unlike in Hindi, where letter 'j' has a nukta under
> it to mark the 'z' sound, it is written as simple 'j'. One just has to know
> the word to pronounce it correctly, either with the 'j' sound or 'z' sound.
> Same goes for the letter 'ch'. Here is a link to a famous song that ends
I still don't get it. If letter 'j' (and I am assuming you mean a
Marathi language letter that sounds like 'j') is used for 'z' sound as
in 'zoo', then what Marathi letter do you use in words like 'Jaal' or
'Jaagran' or 'Paranjape' or 'Jay'? And if 'j' is indeed used in
Marathi for the 'z' sound, then why do some RMIMERs write 'jh' for
it? To help me understand the whole thing in Marathi, could you
please list examples of how these words are written in Marathi and
their Devnagri scripts?
1. Jaagran
2. Jheel
3. Zameen
Thanks.
Asif
Asif
I meant this: if 'j' is used for 'z' sound in Marathi, then why do
some RMIMERs write 'z' for 'jh' sound? You did not explain it.
Asif
UVR
>
> 2. Everybody knows that the "j-dot" practice was in vogue
> for a pretty long time. Its disappearance is not accidental.
> It is quite deliberate. Why shouldn't we point it out all
> the time as a most appropriate example of how (and why)
> things have been taking a wrong turn ?
>
> who walk the streets of Lucknow and Lahore. These observations
> are meant for those literate, well-read folks who pride themselves
> on being RMIMers.
>
> Afzal
Afzal saahib,
With all due respect, I firmly and totally disagree with #2. You have
made this 'conspiracy theory' comment earlier on RMIM as well as on
ALUP, but I think you are just blowing it completely out of
proportion. You won't find this conspiracy theory at work except in a
far fringe of a particular fundamentalist group of people, to balance
whom out, I daresay there is an equally fundamentalist group of people
at work at the "other end." The fact is that the vast majority of
people who care about correct pronunciation do pay attention to how
they say "z" just as much as they do to "Kh", "Gh", "q". There is no
need for us (I speak of you, me, Asif and the vast majority of Urdu-
using and Urdu-song/poetry-loving people, including RMIMers) to ignore
the vast majority of people, is there? At least, I am certainly not
interested in having any 'discussions' about what these fringe
elements are accomplishing and how.
Regarding #3, I do understand that Asif's comments were addressed to
that gentleman (Mr. Bharat?). However, the way the argument was
presented, it came across as if the assertion was that "everyone who
knows Urdu pronounces its sounds correctly". While we now know that
Asif wasn't saying this, you are well aware that the assertion itself
is as far from the truth as can be. This is why I mentioned the
Lucknow/Lahore layman.
Besides, as Abhay points out, people familiar only with Marathi-
influenced Roman transliteration of Urdu/Hindi words, may
instinctively write "zumroo" because the English letter they associate
with the Devanagari letter 'jh' is 'z'. How are we sure that if
someone writes "zumroo" he does not read it as Jhumroo? I know many
people who WRITE, for example, "Zhanak Zhanak Paayal Baaje" and read
it PERFECTLY with the correct pronunciation. I am not saying I
condone the "Zhanak"-type spelling, I absolutely don't. But we can be
a little gentle about it. Jumping at someone gullet is not the best
way of conveying your point. In fact, it is the best way of ensuring
the opposite -- that they WILL NOT listen to the substance of what we
have to say.
-UVR.
vijaykumark
Seconded... the issue really is with the limitations of
transliterations schemes (hence, two cheers for iTrans)...
Limited understanding of the others' transliteration schemes
leads to such assertions.
Vijay
(What are we going to have next? the pronunciation
of "Shiva" as "Siva" by South Indians? Wait, we
already did that)
Ahmad
While the discussion of 'z', 'j' and 'jh' sounds continues, I would
like to add another translated sound that I find very unpleasant in
English translation of Urdu sound.
The name "Bade Ghulam Ali Khan". d is used for an urdu letter where
an equivalent letter does not exist in English language. I would have
thought that a closer sound would be "Barey Ghulam Ali Khan".
I am also puzzled by the use of capital N to give a sound of noon
ghunna in Urdu. Is there a need to use capital N for a sound such as
"Wahaan", generally written as "WahaN". Another word "Aashian" sounds
much better than "AashiaN". There is no need in my opinion to add
capital N at the end, which looks odd any way !
Ahmad
Anant Rege
I think both Abhay and UVR sort of explained it. In Marathi devnagari script
the letter 'j' can be pronounced two ways, one as 'j' and second is close
to 'z'. You just have to know the word and language to know how to pronouce
it. As Dharmendra asks in 'Chupke Chupke', why two similar spellings like
'do' and 'go' produce different pronounciations in English. There is no rule
and you just have to know how to pronounce them. And almost everybody in
Marathi will associate the English letter 'z' with the sound of 'jh'. So
when you are not aware of ITRANS and start writing in Roman script
Hindi/Urdu songs, one can easily write 'z' whereever this is 'jh' in
Devnagari script. Now you ask then why some RMIMERs including many Marathi
write 'jh'? It is just practice and awareness of ITRANS. If I dig out my
earliest posts in RMIM, I will not be surprised to find letter 'z' instead
of 'jh' in many written instances but trust me, I have always pronoucned it
correctly irrespective of how I wrote it. It is same as writting 't' for
both 't' and 'T' or writting 'd' for 'd' and 'D'. Irrespective of how you
write it, you will always pronounce the word correctly since you know the
word.
Anant
Asif
UVR
I suppose I should plead guilty on the count of using 'N' for noon-
Ghunna. I find it useful in many situations, so I use it. But since
you don't like the *looks* of it, there would be little point in my
trying to explain the rationale, because what could I say to make it
aesthetically pleasing to you?
Regarding your other point about "Barey", the 'r' sound (of English)
is NOT really the sound of the retroflex flap, is it? So Bade Ghulam
Ali Khan or Barey Ghulam Ali Khan, both should be fine, depending on
your preference, just so long as you circumspectly stay away from
writing "Bare" Ghulam Ali Khan!
-UVR.
djames
Test it out on a native English speaker unfamiliar with the language.
I think you will find the Barey closer to the correct pronunciation
than Bade. Also tumri is likely to be more successful than the
commonly accepted romanised spelling for thumri. james
UVR
Well, you could spell it 'thumri' and tell this 'native' English
speaker that the "th" in thumri is pronounced like the "th" in Thomas
or Thames (in London), not like the "th" in think nor like the the
"th" in then.
On the contrary, if you spell it 'tumri', the Englishman may well get
it almost-but-not-quite right, but it would look silly to the rest of
the world.
In any case, I don't think it is quite necessary to test it out on a
native English speaker. He wouldn't be able to say more than half of
our words right if he KNEW what the correct pronunciations were.
-UVR.
Afzal A. Khan
Shri UVR-ji,
I had to attend to some urgent matters; hence the delay, for
which I am sorry.
As to why the Marathi-speaking people do what they do is
something that I do not quite understand. And there is little
point in me making any comments thereon.
Why Mr. Asif chose to prepare and post a lesson on (mis)pronun-
ciation is a question that he can very well answer for himself.
You have yourself admitted that he did not make any assertion
that "everyone who knows Urdu, pronounces its sounds correctly".
I don't think I have made any such assertion either. I faintly
recall that you had an e-mail exchange with me (some years back)
about 'Allama Iqbal's Urdu pronunciation. Now, his (written)
diction (in both Urdu and Faarsi) was impeccable. But that is
quite another thing. An year or so back, we had some lengthy
discussions on ALUP about "impeccable" pronunciation, geographi-
cal quirks, "ahl-e-zabaan" etc. I am sure you remember all those
discussions. When it is nobody's case that "everyone who knows
Urdu, pronounces its sounds correctly", why use that as a tool in
arguing your case ? What the hundreds and thousands of ordinary
folks walking the streets of Lucknow and Lahore do, and how they
speak whatever language they do speak, is entirely irrelevant for
purposes linked only to our RMIM group. Asif's post was NOT
addressed to or meant for them.
Having said that, I would still like to reiterate that what we
are discussing here is not SPOKEN Urdu, but WRITTEN Urdu, parti-
cularly when it is written in Roman script. And that too, in the
strict context of our Newsgroup (RMIM) and the 30 or 35 people
who are regular participants. And, pray, what are the occasions
when we use Urdu words in Roman script here ? Briefly, I would
say : when we refer to film names, and filmi lyrics. It is
possible that some (or a few ?) RMIMers may not be able to write
certain words correctly. But does it mean that they simply MUST
NOT be encouraged to learn the correct sounds and spellings ?
Is "samazo" so sacrosanct that "samjho" seems like a blasphemy ?
Is a wrong (written) spelling such a holy cow that anybody making
even a faint attempt to offer a correction or amendment must be
pilloried ?
There is a Sanskrit shloka in a Veda, [probably Yajurveda
{25/14 ? )] which reads something like :
"A no bhadrah kratavo yantu visvatoadabdhaso aparitasaa."
A rough rendition in English reads like :
"Let benevolent, harmless, free and fruitful ideas come to
us from all sides."
So why should there be such a furore if poor Asif prepares a
lesson so painstakingly for the benefit of other RMIMers ?
Nobody is infallible here, and (the RMIM Archives would show
that) I have always owned up my own mistakes.
You state that you firmly and totally disagree with "# 2".
I do not quite follow which part of my comment # 2 you do not
agree with. You can't possibly disagree with the assertion that
the "j-dot" practice had been in vogue for a pretty long time.
In the lengthy iTrans debates of yore, reference had been made
to the booklets of Urdu poetry compilations that used to be pub-
lished by Prakash Pandit. Even in the current discussion, Shri
Kalyan has referred to it, as did Abhay Phadnis.
I feel that you perhaps are not in agreement with the claim
that the above {"j-dot"} practice is vanishing. You have also
used the words "conspiracy theory" and ascribed them to me (for
having used them in earlier RMIM discussions). I think even
Phadnis has attributed the use of this word to me. I am sorry
I do not recall using the word in earlier threads. Certainly,
I didn't use it in the current discussion.
What I have claimed is no doubt true. I have personally experi-
enced it in my time. {But I can't possibly provide details
here.) You can read for yourself what Prof. Surjit Singh wrote
(that his reading of the Daily Jagran confirms this). I too
have provided details from a SMALL section of the front page of
the Dainik Bhaskar (issue dt. 17th July, i.e. yesterday) where
quite a few Urdu words have been used without the dot.
Here are some other Urdu words taken from the two hindi dailies,
Bhaskar and Jagran (today's issue) :
haazir haajir
faisla phaisla
giriftaar giraphtaar
ziyaada jiyaada
zimmedaar/zimmedaari jimmedaar/jimmedaari
isteefa isteepha
muKHaatib mukhaatib
KHafa khafa
The disappearance of this practice is not a simple "conspiracy".
Normally, a "conspiracy" is a "shaD'yantra" hatched by a few
against many --- a small rebel group can plan a conspiracy
against the establishment. Here, it is a case of a deliberate,
almost official policy. For me, it is immaterial, if you or
Abhay Phadnis do not agree with this. The truth (whatever it
is) is not created by any claim I may make, nor can it be
changed by your denials or disagreements.
Phadnis has referred to some books where he can still see the
dots. May I submit that all these are books of poetry, all
except one being Urdu poetry books. Now, you can't possibly
publish these books in iTrans, can you ? How many people (and
here I am referring to the common masses) know and can decipher
iTrans ? If you omit the dots here, the contents won't make
much sense (if any). And the books simply won't sell ! A
really appropriate example would be general hindi books, even
college text books and the daily (hindi) newspapers.
I will quote two instances in this regard. One is well-known
and the other should be. I don't know if either of you were
around in pre-independence days (i.e. during the British Raj).
Railway Stations then, in all parts of the country, had the name
pillars in English, Urdu and also hindi (or the local language).
But after Independence, the Urdu names were simply painted over.
It wasn't as if all the Urdu-knowing people had vanished from
India. Even today, I daresay, India has many more Urdu-speakers
than, say, Pakistan. Sometimes, one can see a clue in Crosswords
appearing in US newspapers : "Language of Pakistan", and the
answer is a four-letter word. It makes me feel quite angry.
The second instance : Maulvi Abdul Haq is popularly known as
Baba-e-Urdu. His services in the educational field and in the
promotion of the Urdu language are legendary. He was a founder-
member of the Anjuman-e-Taraqqi-e-Urdu. The Anjuman also had
branches in cities that, in due course, became part of Pakistan.
In August 1947, he was called by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and
given an ultimatum in unequivocal terms. Either he had to remain
in India, in which case, he was required to dissociate himself
completely from any linguistic activities of the Anjuman in
Pakistan, practically requiring him to disband it. Maulvi Abdul
Haq decided immediately to go over to Pakistan. I have, in my
time, read a great deal on this particular issue but could not
really understand the urgency and immediacy of such an ultimatum.
In conclusion, let me quote an excerpt from a post I had sent to
ALUP about an year back :
When the 2004 Indian Parliamentary Elections were to be held,
and political campaigning had reached a crescendo, the then
Indian Prime Minister made a grandiose promise : "We are
going to appoint Two Crore Urdu teachers". When told that he
was going a little overboard, the figure was soon whittled
down to Two Lakhs. But nobody thought it fit to ask as to
where were the schools which could absorb such numbers.
Everybody knew that it was merely a well-worn election
rhetoric.
I had once quoted a sher by Faani Badayuni (which was written
about himself). The sentiments are equally applicable to the
Urdu language itself :
Mar mar ke jee raha hai Faani
Allah re us ki saKHt~jaani
Afzal
Larry
Yes, there is no reason that to use it as a tool in arguing your case. We
should keep focus on the original pronoucation regardless whether people
pronounce it correctly or not. It is same as saying that nobody in this
world can come out the thing which is exactly 1 meter, then we do no need
know how long is exactly 1 meter. There is no occasions when we use Urdu
words in Roman script here. Both languages are comple different. A few
RMMIMers may not be able to write certain words correctly. It does not mean
that they simply must not be encouraged to learn the correct sounds and
spellings. There will always be new words come out every day. People need to
learn the standard spelling of these new word in order to communicate with
other people clearly. Yes, it is "samazo" so sacrosanct that "samjho" seems
like a blasphemy. Everyone knows samazo is so beautiful while samjho is so
rustic. If you can use world samazo rather than samjho, then you can make
yourself more classy. People who talk to me will respect you.Yes, it is
wrong (written) spelling such a holy cow that anybody making even a faint
attempt to offer a correction or amendment must be pilloried. Since the
people who offer a correction or amendment actually helped other people to
communicate their message clearly and other people learn new thing, so these
people should be praised rather than pilloried. Yes, there is a Sanskrit
shloka in a Veda (25/14). There is no such a furore if poor Asif prepares a
lesson so painstakingly for the benefit of other RMIMers. Since he made this
community to be a better place and enhance the quality of messages in the
forum, everyone should welcome such move rather than trash talk. Although
such lesson can be boring, but learning them will eventually paid off. Yes,
we can't possibly publish these books in iTrans. We need to overcome
enumerous spelling ambinugities when we publish these books in iTrans. Even
tranlating a single page may need to clarify the spelling of least twenty
words. You can image that how may spelling ambinugities we need to overcome
when translating a book completely. There are only a few people know and can
decipher iTrans since it contains so many spelling whose meaning are totally
unclear. Once the original word were spelled wrong, then it is extremely
hard to decipher them. For a lot of words, only the original author know
what they are.
? How many people (and
here I am referring to the common masses) know and can decipher
iTrans
"Afzal A. Khan" <me_a...@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:h3topk$d6l$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
raaz
>
Here are some other Urdu words taken from the two hindi dailies,
Bhaskar and Jagran (today's issue) :
haazir haajir
faisla phaisla
giriftaar giraphtaar
ziyaada jiyaada
zimmedaar/zimmedaari jimmedaar/jimmedaari
isteefa isteepha
muKHaatib mukhaatib
KHafa khafa
The disappearance of this practice is not a simple
"conspiracy".
Normally, a "conspiracy" is a "shaD'yantra" hatched by a few
against many --- a small rebel group can plan a conspiracy
against the establishment. Here, it is a case of a
deliberate,
almost official policy
With due respect for your views, I do not ascribe this usage,
is out of any consipiracy theory, probably the readers may
feel comfortable that way, being colloquial, instead of pure
pronounciation, in between.
If conspiracy is the motive behind (if at all) why should
they use Urdu words at all, can as well use equivalent
Hindi words.
For instance in Kannada news papers, will find words like,
haajaru, manjuuru, rivaaju, daakhala etc;
In Marathi they ask - yaanchi kimmat kai ? (what is it's price)
In my view, words are adopted into local dialect, like in the
song from Milan(1967) - pawan kare sor
Afzal A. Khan
My dear Sir,
I must again emphasise that the words in question viz. "conspiracy
thery" have NOT been used by me in this thread. They have been
used by others --- UVR, Abhay Phadnis and now your goodself.
In my previous post, I have explained this point in detail.
If these hindi newspapers have dropped the 'dot', it is a matter
of deliberate policy. In the opinion of their editorial board,
such dots are simply not required. They can, of course, use
equivalent hindi words (like "viruddh" for "KHilaaf"), --- and
that would be fine with me. But they don't. I have cited these
examples merely to support my case that the earlier practice has
been given up. A few RMIMers here seem to be maintaining a myth
that the practice is still extant and is being followed rigorously,
as before.
Also, normally, newspapers do not use grammatically incorrect,
phonetically wrong, colloquial language in their contents. This is
true of Urdu newspapers too.
Your reference to the "Milan" song makes this relevant to our
Newsgroup. There are, indeed, a great many songs where words
in local dialects are used, like "tori" for "teri", "mori" for
"meri" etc. One can't really expect a rustic guy to belt out a
song in chaste Urdu. But that is neither here nor there.
Afzal
Ahmad
>
> - Show quoted text -
When it comes to Thumri, it is Thumri as all Indians know it and not
Tumri.
Ahmad
raaz
>
> I must again emphasise that the words in question viz. "conspiracy
> thery" have NOT been used by me in this thread. They have been
> used by others --- UVR, Abhay Phadnis and now your goodself.
> In my previous post, I have explained this point in detail.
>
> If these hindi newspapers have dropped the 'dot', it is a matter
> of deliberate policy. In the opinion of their editorial board,
> such dots are simply not required. They can, of course, use
> equivalent hindi words (like "viruddh" for "KHilaaf"), --- and
> that would be fine with me. But they don't. I have cited these
> examples merely to support my case that the earlier practice has
> been given up. A few RMIMers here seem to be maintaining a myth
> that the practice is still extant and is being followed rigorously,
> as before.
>
> Also, normally, newspapers do not use grammatically incorrect,
> phonetically wrong, colloquial language in their contents. This is
> true of Urdu newspapers too.
>
> Your reference to the "Milan" song makes this relevant to our
> Newsgroup. There are, indeed, a great many songs where words
> in local dialects are used, like "tori" for "teri", "mori" for
> "meri" etc. One can't really expect a rustic guy to belt out a
> song in chaste Urdu. But that is neither here nor there.
>
>
In general, journalistic standards have declined over the years,
they lack sincerety and seriousness in language, to certain
extent.
For instance, " The Hindu " was considered as a bench mark for
English language , for many decades. Those years, parents used to
make it a point to make their school going children to read it
without
fail, to improve thier proficiency in English language.
But now days, I find grammatical errors and spelling mistakes
appearing in few news items.
It is difficult to pinpoint, whether it is due to lack of command
over language among reporters or lack of time for corrections,
because of the present day rat race for reporting breaking
news, at the 11th hour, while the edition goes for print.
However, the integrity of " The Hindu " is unquestionable,
in trying to maintain the standards.
Naseer
> The disappearance of this practice is not a simple "conspiracy".
> Normally, a "conspiracy" is a "shaD'yantra" hatched by a few
> against many --- a small rebel group can plan a conspiracy
> against the establishment. Here, it is a case of a deliberate,
> almost official policy. For me, it is immaterial, if you or
> Abhay Phadnis do not agree with this. The truth (whatever it
> is) is not created by any claim I may make, nor can it be
> changed by your denials or disagreements.
>
Many years back (30 years+), in my quest to learn the Devanagri
script, I purchased Hindi grammar books, one of which I would describe
as a detailed book of high quality, produced by the government's Hindi
Board or similar. Unfortunately, I have lost this book, most probably
during one of many house moves. I do remember one thing distinctly.
The author (authors?), while mentioning the Urdu sounds represented by
Devanagri letters with dots below them, fully endorsed the practice of
not employing these dots at all. Therefore, Afzal Sahib, you are
absolutely right in stating that this is a deliberate official (not
almost official) policy.
Naseer
Naseer
> It is with great predicament that I am reviving this topic again, but
> this time I have utmost sincerity to do my part in arresting a norm
> before it might damage us Indians’ understanding of Urdu language and
> some subtleties of English language. I sincerely want to teach a few
> good lessons with the hope that those who learn them will spread it in
> their region where this norm of misspelling and probably
> mispronouncing the letter ‘z’, sound of which is absent in all Indian
> languages and dialects, except Urdu, Dogri, and English. Is it
> present in Punjabi?
>
Yes Asif Sahib, it is definitely present in the Punjabi of Pakistan.I
have heard the "z" sound pronounced correctly even by Punjabi speakers
who are totally illiterate. The same is true of "f" , "Gh" and "KH"
sounds.
Naseer
surjit singh
OTOH, here is a guide to Hindi spelling:
http://giitaayan.com/hindispelling.asp
"as formulated by an Expert Committee appointed by the Government of
India for the purpose and as approved by the Government."
UVR
Some will reject that evidence as "hearsay", so here's one straight
from the horse's mouth:
http://tdil.mit.gov.in/insrot.pdf
Perhaps Afzal Khan saahib would care to explain why, if it is indeed
"Official Policy" to remove the dots from j-dot etc, it appears in
this document alongside the 'nukta-yukta' fa, qa, Gha, Kha?
-UVR.
PS: Naseer saahib, 30 years is a long time.
Asif
I tend to subscribe to Afzal Sahab's and Naseer Sahab's views that
there might be a deliberate attempt on part of some literary scholars
and journos to eliminate (officially or otherwise) the use of 'j-
dot'. The very fact that while they stopped (or trying to stop) using
the dot below a 'ja' in Devnagri script they happily continue to use
the very same dot below a 'da' to make it a 'Da' (as in Roti Kapada
Aur Makaan) or in the lap of a moon to make it a chandrabindu. Why
this discrimination? I think this attempt (to eliminate the 'j-dot')
is akin to a deliberate practice by some of today's Internet users
whose fingers ache terribly if they have to type just two (yes just
two) more letters to make it 'should' - so they always stick to just 4
letters and write it as 'shud'. I am afraid 'shud' will become the
correct English word in maybe 5 years, no? Next: a Hollywood remake
of 'It Should Happen To You' (1954) would be titled 'It Shud Happen To
You' in 2012.
By the way, I still have no clue to why 'z' is used in English
transliteration for the sound 'jh' in a certain region of India. I
just do not understand the explanations by Anant Sahab and others. If
such a prominent Maharashtrian like V. Shantaram got it right so
famously in 1955, it just beats me why the general populace from his
land still get it wrong.
Asif
UVR
Chandrabindu! Don't get me started. Have you even looked at the same
dailies (dainik jagaran and dainik bhaskar) which Afzal saahib has
advanced as the leading dailies that are guilty of dropping the dot
under the ja? I *defy* you to show me a single chandrabindu in either
of them. Go ahead, prove me wrong.
NOW, perhaps you'll understand why you are doing your own self great
disservice by using these papers as evidence in support of your
claim. If anything, you already weak claim of 'the Establishment is
systematically destroying Urdu sounds in Hindi' is further weakened by
these unscrupulous, couldn't-care-less-for-correct-spelling-be-it-
Hindi-or-Urdu-or-English rags (for rags they verily be). They have
demonstrated amply that they don't care two hoots for spelling,
period.
If you have other evidence, please present it. Otherwise, let's call
the case closed and move on to other topics. There's nothing to be
gained here.
-UVR.
Naseer
> While the discussion of 'z', 'j' and 'jh' sounds continues, I would
> like to add another translated sound that I find very unpleasant in
> English translation of Urdu sound.
> The name "Bade Ghulam Ali Khan". d is used for an urdu letter where
> an equivalent letter does not exist in English language. I would have
> thought that a closer sound would be "Barey Ghulam Ali Khan".
>
Here is a link you might find interesting, Ahmad Sahib. There is
another link on the same topic but I have not been able to find it
yet.
Naseer
vijaykumark
1. The tip of the hat for iTrans!
2. They have three forms of "e" and four forms of
"o" to cover all the bases. Impressive!
Vijay
pdg
>> Next: a Hollywood remake
>> of 'It Should Happen To You' (1954) would be titled 'It Shud Happen To
>> You' in 2012.
OT, but couldn't resist this one - "technically speaking" the name of
your movie should be: iT shud hApp3n 2 u
Afzal A. Khan
> so here's one straight
> from the horse's mouth:
> http://tdil.mit.gov.in/insrot.pdf
>
> Perhaps Afzal Khan saahib would care to explain why, if it is indeed
> "Official Policy" to remove the dots from j-dot etc, it appears in
> this document alongside the 'nukta-yukta' fa, qa, Gha, Kha?
>
> -UVR.
Shri UVR-ji,
What exactly do you expect ? That the Central Government or
some State Government/s would issue a Notification or a GR
(Government Resolution) or even an Ordinance to outlaw the
use of the dot below certain letters in the D. script ?
The best policy for discrimination against any group of people
or language or pretty much everything else is NOT to promulgate any
official policy. Keep mum. And, on the contrary, proclaim
from the rooftops that "we don't discriminate, we are scrupulously
non-partisan" etc. etc. And then quietly pass down the word
through word of mouth about what exactly is the policy that should
be followed.
I will narrate a personal experience about the modus operandi,
though it is not related to the language issue.
Some 35 years back (or more), I was asked by a very large organi-
zation to join a Selection Committee for recruitment of new
personnel. Just before the interviews were scheduled to take
place, "word" was passed down to the Selection Committee from the
"powers that were" that women candidates were to be discouraged ---
we should select as few women candidates as possible, regardless
of their proven merit. I felt obliged to recuse myself.
This is how the system operates. Of course, it is my own percep-
tion.
I didn't go through the pdf document in complete detail. I did
notice, though, that it was issued in 2002. Maybe, it was a
Revised document. Also, I didn't get to see any words in the
examples cited that would represent special Urdu sounds or letters.
Incidentally, the Sindhi language is mentioned at one or two
places, but I missed seeing any reference to the Urdu language or
sounds.
We do get to see, however, that (in Roman characters), the simple
"daal" (lentils) is to be written as "daala" and "Driver" is to be
written as "d'raaivara". I am sure Urdu practitioners would not
write these words in this form in Roman. Doesn't this indicate the
leanings of those who drafted the document ? Additionally, don't
you think that "nukta" here should in fact be written as "nuqta" ?
Or perhaps, there is a very subtle 'nukta' here !!
UVR-ji, they say that the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
One must see what is the actual practice being followed in this
regard. I have cited many examples from two hindi newspapers.
You now say that these are nothing but "rags". I didn't get that
impression at all. They are perfectly respectable papers and
their coverage of news is quite comprehensive. One website says
that "the Daily Jagran is the undisputed leader in the newspaper
segment". "Dainik Bhaskar" ranks as # 2.
Is "Navbharat Times" good enough for you ? Here are some words
that I collected from today's issue :
hazaar hajaar
ruhjaan rujhaan (the original word itself
is mis-spelt in D. script)
ziyaada jiyaada
sar~zameeN sarjameeN
waaq'ea (incident) waakya
afsar aphsar
nazdeek najdeek
qad (stature) kad
mutaabiq mutaabik
zimmedaari jimmedaari
be~izzat be~ijjat
qaanoon kaanoon
zordaar jordaar
tareeqe tareeke
mehaz mehaj
KHanapuri khaanapuri
saaf saaph
Enough said.
Afzal
Vinay
Not exactly all. They still miss the short 'o' (hrasva) sound, despite
covering the 'hrasva e' sound.
Vinay
> Vijay
vijaykumark
waaq'ea (incident) waakya
curious... why did you use waaq'ea for your Roman
transliteration instead of vaaqyaa? How would you
expect to write waaq'ea correctly in Devnagari?
Vijay
roy.ar...@gmail.com
> UVR wrote:
> Is "Navbharat Times" good enough for you ? Here are some words
> that I collected from today's issue :
>
I believe a distinction ought to be made between two categories of
words in the list by Afzal sahab: in the first, aaKarii, qad, mutaabiq
and qaanuun which have become accepted Hindi words as aakharii, kad,
mutaabik, and kaanuun. At least I remember our Hindi books printing
them as such.
On the other hand, the z -> j and f -> ph is contrary to what I
remember learning in school. I am sure these would have been marked as
spelling errors without the use of the dot, in which form the words
actually appeared in textbooks.
I noticed that z -> j, f ->ph is quite (almost 100 %) consistent in
Navbharat Times' online edition and agrees with Afzal Sahab's
observations. The only instance where I found a use of "z" is in
"fizaa" but then that turned out to be a person's name in the article.
I wondered whether they make a special exception in the case of proper
nouns, but then again, there was a person referred to by name ijaaj.
So it's not as if they lack the wherewithal to print it correctly
online, if they choose to. It does seem to be a deliberate choice.
Whether it is a politically motivated choice, or plain laziness, I
can't tell. I would place my bets on the latter. Forget Urdu words,
people brazenly misspell even simple native Hindi words - such as a TV
serial spelt in Devnagari as "aap ki antaraa" on screen.
Can someone confirm whether the print editions of Hindi newspapers
also replicate these umm .. variants ? I might just have to buy one
tomorrow.
-- Arunabha
Naseer
UVR Jii,
I accept 30 years is a long time. I presume you are suggesting that
more recent literature does not exclude the subscript dot. I do not
have books on Hindi literature (including newspapers, magazines) and
therefore I am unable to carry out a "survey" to see if the usage of
subscript dots is common or a rarity. I cited the example of the
grammar book because it blatantly advised its readership to avoid the
usage of subscript dots in words of Urdu origin.You will just have to
take my word for it.
In terms of whether there is a clear prejudice or discrimination
against sounds of Urdu origin, one only needs to look at the link
Professor Surjit Singh has provided.
"Words of Arabo-Persian origin which have been adapted in Hindi
vocabulary should continue to be used as such; e.g. जरूर. But where
their use in innate form is desired, dots (नुक़्ते) must be used to
denote alien origin; e.g. राज़, नाज़."
Please note that the dots are there to indicate the "alien" origin of
these words and not to guide the reader to read "z", "f" , "KH" and
"Gh" etc. Note also that the "alien" lable is being applied to "Arabo-
Persian" sounds which came almost a millenium before the English "f"
and "z" came along. Curiously, as Asif Sahib has pointed out, the dot
below D to make R and Dh to make Rh is never omitted. I wonder why
this is the case. Do you know why these dots cling on and others fall
off?
Another thing puzzles me. If these subscript dots have continued to be
used in the Hindi script, what is the reason for a whole new
generation of people (with minor exceptions) who are actors in the
Bollywood film industry as well as TV serials, are totally ignorant of
these sounds. Surely, when they were reading Hindi books, their
teachers would have taught them to pronounce j subscript dot as z, ph
subscript as f and so on and so forth. Have they deliberately ignored
the written word? Or are there other reasons?
By the way, is "the other end" synonymous with " the other side of the
border", viz. Pakistan?
Naseer
UVR
I'll answer the "easy" question right now. The other topics, I will
deal with later.
On Jul 21, 2:27 pm, Naseer <qures...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> By the way, is "the other end" synonymous with " the other side of the
> border", viz. Pakistan?
>
> Naseer
No. It's a reference to the other end of the spectrum from the one
that, according to Afzal saahib, harbors no meager amount of ill-will
towards Urdu. These two extremes are out to get each other, and the
common man is the loser.
Pakistan is absolutely nowhere in the picture in this discussion. As
far as I know, nobody is/has been writing Urdu in Devanagari in
Pakistan. You may kindly correct me if I am wrong.
-UVR.
UVR
> UVR wrote:
> > so here's one straight
> > from the horse's mouth:
> >http://tdil.mit.gov.in/insrot.pdf
>
> > Perhaps Afzal Khan saahib would care to explain why, if it is indeed
> > "Official Policy" to remove the dots from j-dot etc, it appears in
> > this document alongside the 'nukta-yukta' fa, qa, Gha, Kha?
>
> > -UVR.
>
> Shri UVR-ji,
>
> What exactly do you expect ? That the Central Government or
> some State Government/s would issue a Notification or a GR
> (Government Resolution) or even an Ordinance to outlaw the
> use of the dot below certain letters in the D. script ?
>
Afzal saahib,
You're missing the whole picture. In focussing on the removal of dots
BELOW certain letters, you are completely and utterly ignoring the
removal of other things -- like the chandrabindu -- by the selfsame
newspapers.
I will make a bold statement here -- these fellows do not care about
correct pronunciation. They aren't making any kind of exception for
Urdu words and spelling them erroneously out of spite or ill-will.
They're doing it out of rank ignorance. And the worst part is, they
don't care if they're ignorant -- because their circulation doesn't
suffer as a result of it.
If their misspelling were indeed the result of spite, we should be
able to see them spelling all other words correctly EXCEPT those of
Urdu/Persian/Arabic origin. But we simply don't see that. They make
mistakes all around, regardless of whether the word is of Hindi/Urdu/
Sanskrit/Persian/Arabic or English origin. Here is a selection from
Dainik Bhaskar, Navbharat Times, Dainik Jagaran:
English
1. vesT inDeej -- West Indies
2. TesT seereej -- Test Series
3. main aaph da maich (aaph) -- Man of the Match
4. rijalT -- result
5. eshej -- Ashes
Sanskrit/Hindi
1. pR^iShT -- pR^iShTh
2. andhera -- aNdheraa, and umpteen other examples where chandrabindu
has been removed. The number of such words rivals and may even dwarf
the number of Urdu misspellings (i.e., removal of dot below
consonants).
More examples should be unnecessary. The point I'm making is, the
misspelling is not out of malice, it's out of ignorance. Ignorance
which is widespread and extreme, and is expanding by the day.
-UVR.
Afzal A. Khan
My dear Arunabha,
In this particular thread, my initial (and essential) contribution
was merely to stress the obvious point that Urdu too is primarily
an Indian language and should be recognized as such.
Now, it is an article of faith with all genuine Urdu lovers that
Urdu is a separate and distinct language with a script of its own.
Its vocabulary is one of its distinguishing features. Also, we
Urdu lovers believe that it pre-dates (modern) Hindi as we know the
latter language today. It has a vocabulary derived mainly from
Sanskrit and maybe a few other languages or dialects --- but NOT
from Arabic and Faarsi. If at all some such words have found their
way into Hindi, the source therefor is Urdu. OTOH, such words have
been freely absorbed in Urdu from Arabic, Faarsi and Turkish etc.
Please don't mind my saying so, but I believe that words like "qad,
mutaabiq, aaKHiri,qaanoon etc." are essentially Urdu words. And
this fact cannot be altered, simply because these words are being
used in Hindi also, but in a "mutilated" form. And it is this
"mutilation" that people like me object to. If Hindi-wallahs want
to use an Urdu word like "raaz" in their writings, let them do so
by all means; but why write it as "raaj" when it can very well be
written as "raaz" (by the 'dot' process) ? You say that you have
seen these words printed "as such" in your Hindi books. I presume
you mean that the 'dot' and "qaaf" etc. were duly retained.
The fact that this "dot-word" practice has been more or less
abandoned is a demonstrable fact. I myself have provided several
specific instances from hindi newspapers. People can, however,
debate whether such abandonment is a sort of 'conspiracy' or
a matter of settled policy. IMHO, the whole object seems to be
to absorb such Urdu words in hindi and then claim that these are
hindi words. We have had many debates in ALUP (alt.language.urdu.
poetry) in the recent past, where some people who are essentially
anti-Urdu in spirit have expressed their firm belief that Urdu has
no future with its own script and that Urdu-users must switch over
to the D. script. So the entire exercise would end with Urdu words
being written in a mutilated form, with facile claims being made
that, after all, these are hindi words. And this is an attempt
that genuine Urdu lovers would always resist.
I have tried to explain the background in which the current contro-
versy has to be seen, even though it is not a controversy of my
making.
You are, of course, right when you say that the use of "corrupted"
spellings seems to be a matter of deliberate choice. But can a
"deliberate choice" have its origin in "plain laziness" ?
You have mentioned TV serials. I too watch some of them here (i.e.
in the US). The industry has people from so many different
parts of India : Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bengal, Madhya
Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, even Kerala. And it is
a pleasure to listen to them with their fine Urdu /hindi accents.
I am particularly amazed at the well-nigh impeccable Urdu accent of
many actors of Bengali origin like Rohit Roy, Abir Goswami,
Nivedita Bhattacharya, Rupali Ganguly, etc. I mentioned this
linguistic group specially because, generally, their hindi accent
is not considered very pure by many people. Just goes to show what
true dedication can achieve.
Afzal
Afzal A. Khan
> On Jul 21, 2:27 pm, Naseer <qures...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>> By the way, is "the other end" synonymous with " the other side of the
>> border", viz. Pakistan?
>>
>> Naseer
>
> No. It's a reference to the other end of the spectrum from the one
> that, according to Afzal saahib, harbors no meager amount of ill-will
> towards Urdu. These two extremes are out to get each other, and the
> common man is the loser.
> -UVR.
Shri UVR,
I must register my protest here. Urdu-wallahs are NOT at the
extreme end of the spectrumm, but right in the middle. They bear
no ill-will towards the hindi-wallahs. Time and time again,
I have pointed ou (in both forums) that Urdu-wallahs want only
to be left alone. They do not wish to interfere with the one
extreme end of the spectrum. Suggestiona for doing away with
the Faarsi/Arabic content of the Urdu vocabulary --- the so -
called "non-indigenous" part ---, abandoning the Urdu script and
adoption of the D. script etc. etc. --- all these emanate
from this sole extreme end.
As I pointed out in my response to Shri Arunabha Roy, my initial
(and essential) contribution in this thread was merely to stress
an obvious point --- that Urdu too is primarily an Indian lang-
uage.
As regards the controversy/conspiracy/deliberate policy parts, we
may continue to prolong the debate. But Urdu-wallahs are NOT at
the extreme end of any spectrum and they are certainly not "out to
get the other group". Not by any means.
And, apart from me and Naseer Saheb, how many other Urdu-wallahs
can you name who have risen to defend their language and its
usages ? And even Naseer Saheb is a late entrant in the current
discussion.
Afzal
Vinay
Oh, big words there - faith, belief. Can't argue with those, can one?
You are free to believe what you want.
> Please don't mind my saying so, but I believe that words like "qad,
> mutaabiq, aaKHiri,qaanoon etc." are essentially Urdu words. And
> this fact cannot be altered, simply because these words are being
> used in Hindi also, but in a "mutilated" form. And it is this
The word is "adaptation". Anyone who knows anything about languages
would tell you that it's a natural phenomenon and no living language
is immune to it. Actually if they have to live they wouldn't want to.
That's how they grow; by coining/adopting/borrowing words from other
languages and adapting them to suit to their own nature.
> "mutilation" that people like me object to. If Hindi-wallahs want
> to use an Urdu word like "raaz" in their writings, let them do so
> by all means; but why write it as "raaj" when it can very well be
> written as "raaz" (by the 'dot' process) ? You say that you have
> seen these words printed "as such" in your Hindi books. I presume
> you mean that the 'dot' and "qaaf" etc. were duly retained.
The good thing is that you cannot dictate what "Hindi-wallahs" can and
cannot do. All the above mentioned words are indeed Hindi words and
all Hindi speakers know and use them. What more, nobody calls anyone
'gaNwaar' or uneducated if one uses kad, kaanoon, mutaabik, aakhirii
variants.
>
> The fact that this "dot-word" practice has been more or less
> abandoned is a demonstrable fact. I myself have provided several
> specific instances from hindi newspapers. People can, however,
> debate whether such abandonment is a sort of 'conspiracy' or
> a matter of settled policy.
It is neither demonstred so far, nor a fact. You have provided three
newspapers that have done away with nuqtaas in entirety. That you list
ten words from them or twenty it doesn't matter. They have done it as
a policy. Yes, you are right there. But of course you convenienty
choose to ignore (despite people pointing to it repeatedly) that they
have done away with so many other things too, including chandrabindu.
Every newspaper in the world has a policy. That doesn't make them
guilty. It's the motive that matters. And these cases that you have
mentioned as example point to laziness or ignorance but not to "a
conspiracy against Urdu". Frankly these businessmen (the newspapers)
don't give two hoots about any language. But even if there are some
vested interests, they can hardly account for all the ways in which a
language spoken by millions of people changes.
But that's why I think this debate is meaningless. You don't know
about several Hindi television channels and media outlets that
overzealously use nuqtaas but do away with chandrabindu. Nor do you
know about the Hindi literary publications most of which are indeed
careful about these details. You bring some anecdotal evidences and
you think you have a motive. Well, humbly sir, that's not enough.
Here are some academic evidences that show that the phenomenon of not
using or being indifferent to nuqtaas and the related sounds is not
new. It has always been like that among Hindi speakers. In fact, if a
case can be made related to their use, it would be the opposite of
your "conspiracy theory" viz. some people are deliberately trying to
force their use despite a general indifference.
Exhibit 1. CE 1866. Duncan Forbes in his famous dictionary of
Hindustani and English writes:
"In some printed books, for instance in Dr. Gilchrist's "Hindee Story
teller," an attempt has been made to form distinct Devanagari letters
for the various forms of the Persian and Arabic z, which, it will be
observed, are all represented by ज़; but in reality the object is not
worth the labour. In the first place, the Hindus who alone use the
Devanagari character, are sparing in the use of Persian or Arabic
words, to one or other of which the various forms of the letter z
belong; and secondly, such words as they have in the course of
centuries adopted have become naturalized, or rather corrupted, so as
to suit the elements of the Nagari; thus, haazirii [written in Urdu;
iTransed by vinay] is generally written and sounded हाजिरी haajirii
[written in IPA, iTransed by me]"
Please don't go picking on the un-PC-ness of Forbes in the quoted
text. Note that he observed as early as in 1866 that most Hindi
speakers didn't use the 'z' versions either in speech or writing.
Exhibit 2: Some years even further back, in 1845, John Shakespeare in
another famous work 'An introduction to the Hindustani language'
wrote:
"To represent such Arabic or Persian letters as have no exact
correspondents in the Nâgari, the following characters [he mentions
dotted letters below -vinay], which approach most nearly in
pronunciation, are commonly used in writing this language; and, though
not the practice of the people of India, points may be adopted beneath
the letters, in such cases, to shew the extraordinary use made of
them"
Note the words "and, though not the practice of the people of India".
He is clearly indicating that people are not accustomed to use the
nuqtaas.
Here's a more detailed one. Samuel Kellogg, whose 'Grammar of the
Hindi Language' is a pioneering work and is still widely respected and
followed (even though minor parts of it may be dated), wrote in 1876,
in the very book:
"Inasmuch as the Arabic and Persian alphabets differ widely from the
Devanágarí, all words from those languages containing letters not
represented in those alphabets, when received into Hindi, undergo
certain modifications. These are, in brief, as follows:"
I cannot copy the rest because of Urdu and Nagari letters are not
copying but you can go to http://books.google.com/books?id=qmkUAAAAIAAJ&lr=&rview=1&pg=PA27
and read it yourself. In essence, particularly about q,Kh,G,f,z
sounds, he notes:
a) The letters that are pronounced z in Urdu becomes j/ज in Hindi (and
d/द in Marwari)
b) The glutturals Kh and G become, respectively kh and g. q commonly
becomes k.
And most noteworthy is this:
"c) The sound of f may be regarded as fairly naturalized in most
dialects. Not only is its pronunciation retained in Arabio and Persian
words when introduced into Hindi, where it is represented by फ as in
सराफ, 'a banker' for saraaf [iTransed by me]; but to a great extent
the common people substitute the foreign sound of f for ph even in
Indian words; pronouncing, e.g. फल ('fruit') fal, instead of phal; फिर
('again') fir, etc."
There is more about some other Urdu letters that you can read at the
link.
The point is that using nuqtaa has not exactly been the top priority
of Hindi speakers/writers in the past either(rightly or wrongly).
All these grammarians and linguists that I have quoted above are
descriptionists (as opposed to prescriptionists; linguists anyway
are). They are surveying, researching, and recording their
observations. They are noting what was actually in use, instead of
dictating what should be in use.
> IMHO, the whole object seems to be
> to absorb such Urdu words in hindi and then claim that these are
Any language can claim any word as its own. Nobody has a right or
power to prevent that. If enough Hindi speakers use a word, it is
already a Hindi word without a registrar putting a stamp on it. Very
much like Urdu has absorbed so many Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit
words among others. They are very much Urdu words now.
> I have tried to explain the background in which the current contro-
> versy has to be seen, even though it is not a controversy of my
> making.
>
I think it is. Asif's original question was a genuine curiosity which
was anyway answered adequately by Abhay, Anant, and UVR. It was you
who brought ulterior motives in the equation.
Regards,
Vinay
> Afzal
Ahmad
> On Jul 16, 11:21 pm, Asif <alvi.a...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > It is with great predicament that I am reviving this topic again, but
> > this time I have utmost sincerity to do my part in arresting a norm
> > before it might damage us Indians’ understanding of Urdu language and
> > some subtleties of English language. I sincerely want to teach a few
> > good lessons with the hope that those who learn them will spread it in
> > their region where this norm of misspelling and probably
> > mispronouncing the letter ‘z’, sound of which is absent in all Indian
> > languages and dialects, except Urdu, Dogri, and English. Is it
> > present in Punjabi?
>
> like to add another translated sound that I find very unpleasant in
> English translation of Urdu sound.
> The name "Bade Ghulam Ali Khan". d is used for an urdu letter where
> an equivalent letter does not exist in English language. I would have
> thought that a closer sound would be "Barey Ghulam Ali Khan".
>
> ghunna in Urdu. Is there a need to use capital N for a sound such as
> "Wahaan", generally written as "WahaN". Another word "Aashian" sounds
> much better than "AashiaN". There is no need in my opinion to add
> capital N at the end, which looks odd any way !
>
>
> - Show quoted text -
Another letter that has been mis-pronounced is the sound "ph",
replaced by "f", and I am pleased that it is being discuused.
I have heard Fal, for phal (fruit), but this was common among Bengali
speakers and I presumed that in Bengali this sound did not exist. But
I do not know Bengali language and may be wrong in my assumption.
However when transcribing in roman letters it should be "ph" not " f
".
Ahmad
Anant Rege
"Asif" <alvi...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:407988d5-3a5e-4acd...@d32g2000yqh.googlegroups.com...
>Asif
If you don't understand it, that is fine but how can you say the practice is
worng? Who can dictate what letter to use for certain prononciation when a
word is written in a script that is not native to the language? I find it
interesting that South Indians associate the Roman letter 's' to the sound
of 'sh' and letter 'sh' to the sound of 's'. It is other way round to my
instincts but I can not call it wrong. So until somebody comes up with a
transliteration scheme like 'ITRANS' and people become familiar with it,
they will go by whatever comes naturally to them. I know that your original
post was only an excercise to make new RMIMers aware of ITRANS, but nobody
should get upset about the mistakes they are likely to make initially. As
an example, here is something you posted in 2005. Now everybody who knows
Hindi/Urdu will certainly *pronounce* the words properly but this does not
deny the fact that there are so many errors in these 4 lines written by a
person who is well conversant in the language.
Anant
<By Asif>
Very nice! Thanks for the lyrics of this beautiful KK-Lata solo. It
was one of the many songs I used to feast on when I first learned to
play radio in 1976. It was a moderate hit on Radio Ceylon those days.
By the way, the song begins with roughly these lines:
main tumse pyaar karti hoon
hmm
main tumse pyaar karti hoon
kya kaha
arre baaba main tumse pyaar karti hoon
maine naheen suna zara zor se kaho
<End By Asif>
Naseer
>
> - Show quoted text -
UVR Jii,
Apologies for sticking my nose in when your letter is addressed to
Afzal Sahib.
I do not wish to have a debate over the chandrabindu's (semisphere
with dot in the middle) omission in Devanagri script and its
replacement by the anusvara (a dot). From what I have been able to
glean about this issue from various Hindi grammar books is that the
latter (anusvara) is:-
1) A convenient device used in place of any of the nasal consonant
group.
2) Where chandrabindu (used for vowel nasalisation) should correctly
be used, the anusvara is used to avoid clutter. This is how Wikipedia
describes anusvara.
"In Hindi, it is pronounced as a nasal stop homorganic to the
following consonant, or as nasalization of the preceding vowel when no
consonant follows. It has merged in pronunciation with the
chandrabindu diacritic in Hindi, the two used in complementary
distribution depending on the character over which they are placed"
What this means is that this is one of those "understood and accepted"
conventions which only the likes of you and me would find
unacceptable, our reason being that this is simply inaccurate...so far
as the language's writing system is concerned.
The chandrabindu issue, I believe is not the same as the subscript dot
issue as in raaz and raaj . For this changes the sound of the final
consonant altogether (in this case meaning too) whereas maaN (with
chandrabindu) and maan (with the anusvara) would still be read as
"maaN".
As for your comment about words being mis-spelt is concerned, the
Guardian newspaper is notorious for the number of spelling mistakes.
At least at one time it was. I think missing the dot below Hindi
consonants, although this strictly could be construed as mis-spelling,
is a different matter altogether. Just as in the Urdu alphabet, the
three dots above were brought in to represent p,ch,zh (zhaalah) and g
(gaaf was once kaaf+ three dots above) of Farsi consonants and a small
"toe" on top of letters to represent typical Indian sounds, the
subscript dot was brought into the Devanagri script to include sounds
which this alphabet did not possess. These new consonants were z, f,
KH, Gh, q as well as R and Rh. Now if one begins to drop the dot below
j, ph, kh, gh, k, D, Dh (for whatever reason) then the purpose has
been lost for which these dots were intended for. Missing the dot in
the English words does not in anyway diminish the case for keeping the
dots to represent the additional consonants. If this trend reaches a
stage where the subscript dot is no longer part of the Hindi consonant
system, the reader would read raaj, pharsh, khat, gam (Gham), kaanuun,
laD (for laR) and paDh (for paRh). And our reader would not be wrong
in doing so.
I can not comment about the Sanskrit word you have mentioned. I assume
the Th is the correct version. If my assumption is correct, perhaps
the word is written in the way we Urdu-waalaas write JhuuTaa, dhokaa
etc in place of the Hindi JhuuThaa, dhokhaa (?).
For the incorrect aNdheraa, is the anusvara being used or the
chandrabindu?
Naseer
Akkordeon
Hmm interesting topic...
This z sound in Indian languages is essentially an import from Persian
and Arabic. Marathi has this sound predominantly in words borrowed
from Persian, e.g. zara (not to be confused with jara, which is old
age), zabardast, zaroor etc, but funnily enough even in words which
have direct Hindi equivalents, e.g. azoon (same meaning as ajahoon (na
aaye balma etc) , aaz (its Hindi equivalent is aaj), etc, but on the
other hand, mazaa is pronounced as majaa. I have learned in school to
use nukta below the Devnagri letters and follow it strictly.
The difference pointed out by Abhay in Urdu z and Marathi z is that
the Marathi z has an additional (though fleeting) d before it. So the
Marathi word for a baby frock is 'zable', if you remove the initial
invisible d before z, it will approximate the sound in "Zabak". Same
is the story with the two 'ch' in Marathi, which confuses Hindi and
Gujaratis no end. If you pronounce chamcha in Marathi, you will
notice that it is actually 'ts', not ch as non-Marathi people say
it.
Incidentally, this is like teaching an Englishman to say the French
'j', which is devoid of the initial 'd'. English 'jam' , 'joke' are
pronounced as 'djam' , 'djok', remove the 'd' and you get the French j
as in Je t'aime, Bon jour monsieur, or like Dr Zhivago, in Russian. I
had a tough time getting a Marathi friend to say it, he kept saying
Zivago, shivago, jhivago, but the poor fellow could not get the French
j + the aspirant h.
I am also pained to see (hear) the recent crop of imperfect singers
converting the other way round, pronouncing j and sh as z and s.
Listen to 'O jaane jaa, dono jahaan, meri baahon mein aa jhool ja". He
has managed to pronounce every single j and sh wrongly. The MD is
Preetam Chakraborty, who is not so great on his Hindi, either. And we
used to say Mukesh's pronunciation was not good (he used to say khaab,
not khwaab).
Chandu
vijaykumark
>
> - Show quoted text -
Hah! Just going through some old posts, I see
that we were discussing the same issues 9 years
ago!
Again Afzal-ji was the prime mover of the motion
opposing the use of iTrans for representing
Urdu sounds... the actual argument is that
Devnagari is inadequate for representing all
Urdu sounds or that no transliteration
scheme will ever do justice to the original
language in its entirety.
I wonder why we split hairs on such trivialities
when we are entirely comfortable with having
different pronunciations for words like
"go" and "to". In other languages we are
happy to read by sight, and say "kehna"
when we write "kahanaa" and say "kahanee"
when we write "kahaanii"...but we see red
when we see "sunane-sunaane" in place of
the preferred "sunne-sunane"
By the way... on the chandrabindu, the way
I have learnt it is that if it is a long
vowel, use chandrabindu, for short vowels,
use anusvar. Thus, "gaa.Nv", "maa.N",
"suu.Ngh", but "ga.ndh", "ma.ndir" etc.
However, for both "i" and "ee", use
anusvar.
Vijay
Naseer
>
> I do not wish to have a debate over the chandrabindu's (semisphere
> with dot in the middle) omission in Devanagri script and its
> replacement by the anusvara (a dot). From what I have been able to
> glean about this issue from various Hindi grammar books is that the
> latter (anusvara) is:-
Sorry to follow on from my own post. Of course I meant to say semi-
circle!
Naseer
UVR
Naseer saahib,
I only have the time for a quick rejoinder. I hope you will excuse the
"sarsaree" tone of this response.
I'm afraid I don't get your argument. When the chandrabindu is
"dropped" in favor of the anuswaar, you are ready to accept that this
is being done as a matter of 'convenience'. Presumably your
contention is that the Devanagari-wallahs are aware of when the
anuswaar must be read as a vocalized half-n and when it must be read
as a pure nasal, and THEREFORE it makes no difference (in your eyes)
if these newspapers are systematically getting rid of the
chandrabindu.
But when the dot is dropped below the ja, it is a mark of a vast
insidious policy to undermine the Urdu language, to destroy Urdu and
so on and so forth? What gives? Why isn't the chandrabindu omission
as egregious in your eyes as the omission of the ja-dot?
I really hope you have a good explanation for this, because (I regret
to say this) the way your posts and Afzal saahib's have been focussed,
it appears to me that your concern is not for correct Hindi spelling
_overall_, but rather only the correct spelling of Urdu words in
Devanagari.The rest of Hindi spelling could go to hell in a handbasket
and you would scarcely bat an eyelid.
-UVR.
Sunil Dandekar
>
> - Show quoted text -
I tend to agree with UVR, Afzal saab. I stake no claim on being a
linguist. But you can consider it as a layman's take on the whole
thing. What follows is actually series of disjointed thoughts which
may/may not have any bearing on whatever you have said/not said/left
unsaid. Since you and UVR seem to be passionate about this issue I am
attempting to bounce those thoughts off you and him.
The simple explanation for vanishing nukta is probably carelessness.
We need not suspect evilness for what can be explained by mere
stupidity.
There are examples parallel to nukta in Marathi. In my school days
there was a practice of writing an anuswar on certain words like
chandane(n). That practice was officially abolished, even though that
anuswar indicated stress on the last syllable. You can call it
progress in the interest of improving efficiency of the script and
weeding out marginally important practices (in the opinion of the
linguists..)
The reason could be as simple as hassle of carrying 2 different type
faces for each pronunciation. Why go to all that trouble when people
anyway know how to pronounce it? In Marathi there were never different
methods to distinguish between different pronunciations of j , ch , z
people understand it by the use.
Now whether that is a correct practice or attitude is a different
issue altogether. For my mother tounge, the prevailing wisdom is, why
is it that the pronunciation practiced by only 3.5% of the people
should be deemed to be correct? It should be other way round. I bow my
head against this wisdom and mutely witness the correct Marathi in the
newspapers and newsreaders.
The languages must evolve sometimes painfully for the purists, to
survive. I also reiterate what I said elsewhere. The spoken language
was first, the dictionaries and the script followed later. Script is
at best, the closest approximation of the phonetic sound and there
could be many instances where the script falls short of the
representation of the sound. Will there be a sufficient script
representation of “ooiiii maw” ever capture the rainbow of sound that
every second gav ki gori says at the drop of hat in the 60s film?
I also notice that the more vibrant a language more tolerant it is. Or
is it the other way? Many people suspect that languages like Urdu or
Sanskrut (yes we pronounce it that way) are victims of their own
demand on purity of diction and script. English is equally comfortable
with center or centre and does not shudder at ain't. It merely says,
‘I am like that only’ and flourishes. Just the other day I was reading
Forest Gump and the whole book is written in a language and spellings
from the POV of a mentally challenged person. It makes a curious kind
of sense to read it that way.
So request you to keep on pointing the mistakes. That is welcome. But
do give allowance for the urdu challenged. Who knows, you may start
seeing some sense in some of the wrong transliterations.
regards,
Sunil
Naseer
> Sukesh wrote:
> > On Jul 17, 3:21 am, Asif <alvi.a...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > It is with great predicament that I am reviving this topic again, but
> > > this time I have utmost sincerity to do my part in arresting a norm
> > > before it might damage us Indians’ understanding of Urdu language and
> > > some subtleties of English language. I sincerely want to teach a few
> > > good lessons with the hope that those who learn them will spread it in
> > > their region where this norm of misspelling and probably
> > > mispronouncing the letter ‘z’, sound of which is absent in all Indian
> > > languages and dialects, except Urdu, Dogri, and English. Is it
> > > present in Punjabi?
>
> The Gurmukhi equivalent of 'j' has a dot underneath to denote the 'z'
> sound. Punjabi has many more diverse letters of the alphabet that
> denote very distinct sounds.
> Bhagwant
Bhagwant Jii,
As a matter of interest, could you please let us know if the subscript
dot under j/ph etc in Gurmukhi is regulary used or is the situation
similar to Hindi?
Naseer
Naseer
Vijay Kumar Jii,
In Urdu the word for "incident" with full vowels would be written as
"vaaqi'ah" (vaao+ long vowel alif+qaaf+short vowel zer+ 'ain+ short
vowel zabar+ he). In Hindi, it would be, I believe, va+aa+k subscript
dot (if one is placed :) ), the i symbol, and ya (as there is no
equivalent for the letter 'ain).
Naseer
Naseer
> copying but you can go tohttp://books.google.com/books?id=qmkUAAAAIAAJ&lr=&rview=1&pg=PA27
> and read it yourself. In essence, particularly about q,Kh,G,f,z
> sounds, he notes:
> a) The letters that are pronounced z in Urdu becomes j/ज in Hindi (and
> d/द in Marwari)
> b) The glutturals Kh and G become, respectively kh and g. q commonly
> becomes k.
> And most noteworthy is this:
> "c) The sound of f may be regarded as fairly naturalized in most
> dialects. Not only is its pronunciation retained in Arabio and Persian
> words when introduced into Hindi, where it is represented by फ as in
> सराफ, 'a banker' for saraaf [iTransed by me]; but to a great extent
> the common people substitute the foreign sound of f for ph even in
> Indian words; pronouncing, e.g. फल ('fruit') fal, instead of phal; फिर
> ('again') fir, etc."
>
> There is more about some other Urdu letters that you can read at the
> link.
>
> The point is that using nuqtaa has not exactly been the top priority
> of Hindi speakers/writers in the past either(rightly or wrongly).
>
> All these grammarians and linguists that I have quoted above are
> descriptionists (as opposed to prescriptionists; linguists anyway
> are). They are surveying, researching, and recording their
> observations. They are noting what was actually in use, instead of
> dictating what should be in use.
Vinay Jii,
The gist of what is being said by the learned authors in the pieces of
evidence you have furnished seems to me to be that wherever there are
instances of sounds such as z, f, Gh, KH and q, the Hindi speakers
(almost) invariably pronounce them as j, ph et etc. If this is the
case, what purpose does the subscript dot serve in the Devanagri sound
system? Why has the Devanagri script, as shown in the two links
provided by Professor Sahib and UVR Jii, continues to incorporate the
dots in these kinds of "official" documents?
>
> > IMHO, the whole object seems to be
> > to absorb such Urdu words in hindi and then claim that these are
>
> Any language can claim any word as its own. Nobody has a right or
> power to prevent that. If enough Hindi speakers use a word, it is
> already a Hindi word without a registrar putting a stamp on it. Very
> much like Urdu has absorbed so many Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit
> words among others. They are very much Urdu words now.
It is ironic that a process of elimination of Arabic/Persian words
during the formative years of the Hindi Movement led to the
Sanskritised language called Hindi as we know it. Now, and Urdu-wallas
have no problem with this, you are talking about Hindi absorbing these
kinds of words and claiming them as part and parcel of its repertoire.
All that is being asked is that "phan" (a snake's hood) should be
distinguished from "fan" (art), raaj from raaz, khaanaa (food) from
KHaanah (box/house) etc
> > I have tried to explain the background in which the current contro-
> > versy has to be seen, even though it is not a controversy of my
> > making.
>
> I think it is. Asif's original question was a genuine curiosity which
> was anyway answered adequately by Abhay, Anant, and UVR. It was you
> who brought ulterior motives in the equation.
What do you believe these ulterior motives to be?
Naseer
surjit singh
Always used. These dotted letters (sh, Kh, G, z, f) are a part of the
standard alphabet list. In fact the script is called paintii akkharii
meaning the one with 35 letters neatly divided into 7 rows of 5 each.
Since the 60s another letter l-dot has been added to represent the
special L sound, the same as used in Marathi, e.g.
Afzal A. Khan
>>>> -UVR.
> representation of �ooiiii maw� ever capture the rainbow of sound that
> every second gav ki gori says at the drop of hat in the 60s film?
>
> I also notice that the more vibrant a language more tolerant it is. Or
> is it the other way? Many people suspect that languages like Urdu or
> Sanskrut (yes we pronounce it that way) are victims of their own
> demand on purity of diction and script. English is equally comfortable
> with center or centre and does not shudder at ain't. It merely says,
> �I am like that only� and flourishes. Just the other day I was reading
> Forest Gump and the whole book is written in a language and spellings
> from the POV of a mentally challenged person. It makes a curious kind
> of sense to read it that way.
>
> So request you to keep on pointing the mistakes. That is welcome. But
> do give allowance for the urdu challenged. Who knows, you may start
> seeing some sense in some of the wrong transliterations.
>
>
> regards,
>
> Sunil
My dear Shri Dandekar,
Yours is a very 'sane' post, written in a calm frame of mind
(unlike a couple which -- as per my practice -- I have ignored).
So I will definitely respond to it.
First of all, I am not familiar with the nuances of the Marathi
language, though I have had opportunities to interact with a
great many "Marathi manoos" in my time. Though I can recognize
the shape or appearance of things like 'anusvara' and the
now-deceased "chandra~bindu", I do not know much about their
linguistic history etc. So you will understand why I cannot
comment about them. But I am curious as to the "official
process" through which the "anusvara" (or is it the 'chandra ~
bindu' ?) was "abolished". Maybe you can provide the details of
this official abolition.
What you have stated above may be a very valid explanation for
the Marathi language and its pertinent usages. It may also be
valid for hindi pronunciations as well.
The fact that the "dot-word" or the subscript dot practice used
to be in regular use is not in dispute. It was only when a few
participants in this discussion (Phadnis, Ketan ?) said that the
practice has not been discontinued, did I cite examples from some
top-of-the-line hindi newspapers to establish that it has indeed
been given up. I do not wish to belabour the point by giving
examples from hindi books, which are available online.
My point is simply this. If essentially Urdu words are used in
hindi writing, is it all that difficult to retain their Urdu
pronunciation ? I believe there are no technical difficulties in
using the dot in hindi fonts. Adamancy about not using it is
another matter. If one writes the following line of a popular
song (without the dots), how is it going to look and feel ?
Raaj ki baat hai, mehphil men kaheN ya na kaheN
What you say about 3.5 % of the population being correct may be
valid for the Marathi language. But that is certainly not the case
with the Urdu language. If you visit any Urdu website on the
Internet, whether it is a newspaper or a book or a sort of blog,
you will find that Urdu words are always, but always, spelt in a
correct, proper fashion. You will not find 'zor' printed as 'jor'.
So the figure can be construed as 100 % in the case of Urdu.
It is true that some Urdu spellings are not quite in consonance
with their actual pronunciation. For example, "bilkul" is written
(and printed) with an additional 'alif'. But there is a consis-
tency about it. There are a few other words of this nature.
But nobody says that the above word should be written or printed in
hindi also with that additional 'alif' or 'aa ki maatra'.
One person says words like "mutaabiq" or "muKHaatib" etc. are hindi
words. By this process of "expropriation", one can take over the
entire Faarsi/Arabic vocabulary of Urdu, mutilate the spellings and
justify the same. After all, "M-e-A" was a hindi film, wasn't it ?
Even in the iTrans debates, my only point was that the system does
not cater to certain Urdu letters or sounds. And that is something
undisputable. I never said that iTans should be given up. It is
a useful device. The only thing is that those who are not familiar
with the hindi language/D script may not be comfortable with it.
I agree with you that a suitable script is the closest approxima-
tion to the phonetic pronunciation. Also, I think "ooi maa(N)"
is a sufficiently close approximation. I can't recall any gaaNv ki
gori crying "ooiiii maw". If anything, the prolongation is not for
the first word, but for the second. Also, "maw" closely approxi-
mates "law" or "jaw".
I do not know why you should seek to compare Sanskrit with Urdu.
Urdu is certainly not a victim of any demand for "purity of
diction and script". Its printed books and newspapers etc. all
follow a uniform script. British English and American English
are essentially the same language with the same script. The
spellings of a few words do differ, no doubt But that is all.
My purpose is not to point out mistakes. My aim was to suggest
that it is quite possible to transcribe most Urdu words in the
D. script by continuing to use the earlier system of the subscript
dot etc. I do make allowances for the Urdu-challenged. It was
for the latter, I suppose, that Asif prepared that lesson. I am
sure you will agree that if hindi newspapers use essentially Urdu
words so liberally, they can't possibly be Urdu-challenged.
As regards motivation (sheer carelessness or deliberate design),
any further discussion would be fruitless. I did (in one of my
posts) allude to my personal experience in this regard. And, as in
the case of Naseer Saheb's book of hindi grammar, you will just
have to take my word for it. But it won't matter, if you don't.
I am certainly not dictating anything to anyone. At the same time,
Urdu-wallahs won't consent to be dictated to either.
I must thank you, in conclusion, for your input in this discussion.
Afzal
Vinay
Naseer Saahab:
Actually it is not as straightforward. If you go through the cited
examples you will notice that certain sounds have been more easily
acquired than others. And in certain areas more than the rest. For
example, f sound, as pointed out by Kellogg, was common to the extent
that even native words containing ph are pronounced with an f sound.
Also, it's not that every single person invariably cannot or do not
pronounce the original Persian/Urdu sounds. It's simply that it's not
the general practice. But both variants are accepted without any
assignment of value or class in Hindi.
> case, what purpose does the subscript dot serve in the Devanagri sound
> system? Why has the Devanagri script, as shown in the two links
> provided by Professor Sahib and UVR Jii, continues to incorporate the
> dots in these kinds of "official" documents?
>
>
There are borrowed words that have been part and parcel of Hindi, and
there are those which are not universally known but are still used
occasionally in specific contexts. The inclusion of nuqtaas were/are
primarily to transcribe the sounds from foreign languages that Hindi
commonly adopted/s from viz. Persian, English. (And by foreign here, I
mean foreign to Hindi language not as in across the border.) Very
recently, when creating the Unicode set for Nagari, even short o and
short e symbols have been added in the set along with some other
symbols that are not used in Hindi words. Why? To transcribe some
sounds specific to Dravidian languages. They saw the requirement,
either now or in future, and they added the provision. That people use
them or not is another matter.
Nuqtaas are in use not only in several official document but also in
Hindi literature (not just in Urdu works transcribed in Nagari) and in
a large part of formal media. They of course also help in transcribing
Urdu works in Devanagari, of which there is a large readership. f and
z are also used to transcribe a lot of originally English words in
Hindi, which are increasingly getting assimilated in the language. As
it stands today, nobody calls for removal of nuqtaas from Hindi. At
the same time though, nobody calls for making them mandatory either.
They are simply there as an aide. Native speakers of any language
don't need a script to tell them how to pronounce a word. Someone who
pronounces 'qayaamat' as that will pronounce it the same way even if
it is written as 'kayaamat'. And vice versa. Very much like in Urdu
script, where even though the vowels are often not transcribed, people
know how to pronouce the word, don't they?
>
> > > IMHO, the whole object seems to be
> > > to absorb such Urdu words in hindi and then claim that these are
>
> > Any language can claim any word as its own. Nobody has a right or
> > power to prevent that. If enough Hindi speakers use a word, it is
> > already a Hindi word without a registrar putting a stamp on it. Very
> > much like Urdu has absorbed so many Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit
> > words among others. They are very much Urdu words now.
>
> It is ironic that a process of elimination of Arabic/Persian words
> during the formative years of the Hindi Movement led to the
> Sanskritised language called Hindi as we know it. Now, and Urdu-wallas
Then the Hindi you know is apparently different than the one I do, or
at least you have a very narrow understanding of it. Hindi speakers
are using foreign words since much earlier than when the language was
even known as Hindi. In some registers more than others. The
Sanskritized Hindi is just one register of it, which is more or less
limited to technical vocabulary and part (not whole) of its
literature. In much larger number, people have been using Hindi that
is filled with all sorts of influences. And it is not new. Of course
the sources and degree of influences have varied over time. Earlier it
borrowed largely from Persian (through Urdu), now it's more influenced
by English. And through out it has borrowed heavily from other Indian
languages.
> have no problem with this, you are talking about Hindi absorbing these
> kinds of words and claiming them as part and parcel of its repertoire.
> All that is being asked is that "phan" (a snake's hood) should be
> distinguished from "fan" (art), raaj from raaz, khaanaa (food) from
> KHaanah (box/house) etc
>
When a language absorbs a foreign word organically, it doesn't go
asking the foreign language how to do it. It just happens over the
time. BTW, a language doesn't *need* to distinguish two words sounding
similar but having different meanings (homonyms). Context is often
sufficient to establish the difference in meaning.
> > > I have tried to explain the background in which the current contro-
> > > versy has to be seen, even though it is not a controversy of my
> > > making.
>
> > I think it is. Asif's original question was a genuine curiosity which
> > was anyway answered adequately by Abhay, Anant, and UVR. It was you
> > who brought ulterior motives in the equation.
>
> What do you believe these ulterior motives to be?
>
Oh, I didn't have to use my imagination. Afzal Sb. has spelt it out
pretty clearly. Check his point #2 in message #6 of this thread. Here
is the link: http://groups.google.com/group/rec.music.indian.misc/msg/7579c1430b5ccb35
Vinay
> Naseer
abhayphadnis
(snip)
> What you say about 3.5 % of the population being correct may be
> valid for the Marathi language. But that is certainly not the case
> with the Urdu language. If you visit any Urdu website on the
> Internet, whether it is a newspaper or a book or a sort of blog,
> you will find that Urdu words are always, but always, spelt in a
> correct, proper fashion. You will not find 'zor' printed as 'jor'.
> So the figure can be construed as 100 % in the case of Urdu.
Afzal-saahib, while printed/online Urdu text may be "100%" in the case
of correct spelling of consonants, it is far, far way from that
perfect figure when it comes to vowelisation of consonants. I learned
to read and write the script in my teens and I find that the biggest
stumbling block to fluency in reading is the erratic use of diacritics
to indicate vowelisation. I love the script and like reading it but
(at least for me) deciphering the exact word when reading Urdu is a
constant exercise in reference to context - "dal" written for "dil",
"galaa" written for "gilaa", "da_aa" written for "du_aa"...I could go
on till the cows come home!
I have come across *very* few books that bother to use diacritical
marks as the norm rather than as the exception (the ones I can
remember readily are translations where the original Urdu verse
appears alongside the English translation, like in Kiernan's
translations of Faiz). My occasional attempts to read Urdu newspapers
tell me the situation is not very different there - indeed, many of
them seem to dispense with vowelisation markings altogether!
Warm regards,
Abhay
Afzal A. Khan
Shri Phadnis,
You are almost 100 % correct in respect of "vowellisation"
in Urdu !
The fact of the matter is that this is a question of
diacritical marks which are almost completely absent in
Urdu writing (print as also in handscripted writings).
There have been several discussions on this topic,
particularly in ALUP. A few people (who can read the
Urdu script but are not very familiar with the language)
have been suggesting (in these discussions) that such
marks must be introduced in Urdu writing and print, and
that these must be provided in as complete a fashion as
in the case of the D. script ("maatraas") and also in
the English (or Roman) script.
In all such discussions, I have always tried to explain
that Urdu-wallahs can mostly decipher from the context
as to whether a particular letter is "governed" by a
zabar or zer or pesh. Their absence can at times make
a proper understanding of the word difficult. For instance,
take a word with just three consonants 'm', 'l' and 'k'.
In most cases, this would be written or printed in the Urdu
script without any diacritical marks. And that can lead
to some confusion :
If 'm' carries a zer, the word could be "milk" {meaning
"possession/s"}.
If both 'm' and 'l' carry a zabar, the word could be
"malak" {meaning "angel"}.
If 'm' carries a pesh, the word could be "mulk", {meaning
"country"}.
If 'm' carries a zabar and 'l' carries a zer, the word
could be "malik" {meaning "ruler" or "king"}.
Nevertheless, it is also a fact that in almost all cases,
a reader would be able to make out from the context the exact
sense in which the word is to be read and understood. But
this would happen only in the case of people who are quite
familiar with the Urdu language. Others would still exper-
ience difficulty with such words.
OTOH, if the entire text in any Urdu writing is provided
with the appropriate diacritical marks, the net result would
be a very irritating "clutter", which would not be to
any Urdu reader's liking. Believe me, if Urdu-wallahs found
this absence unmanageable, diacritical marks would have
become mandatory a long time back.
All this does not mean that such marks are NEVER included in
Urdu writing. If an Urdu "kaatib" (i.e. scribe) feels that
the appropriate mark is needed in some word, he would make
it a point to include it. But these instances would be rare.
In texts of a religious nature (e.g. the Holy Quraan), it is
mandatory in modern times to include full diacritical marks.
In many countries, the readers of the Holy Text may not be
familiar with the Arabic language and, therefore, the provision
of d.marks is considered essential. It is also to be noted that
in Arab countries, local newspapers (brought out in Arabic) do
not carry d. marks. And this is for the same reason as in the
case of Urdu --- the readers can easily decipher the exact word
even in the absence of any d. marks.
I do understand the difficulties people like your goodself may
face --- but there it is.
If there is anything else you need to know in this connection,
please do not hesitate to ask.
Sincerely,
Afzal
raaz
>
> It is ironic that a process of elimination of Arabic/Persian words
> during the formative years of the Hindi Movement led to the
> Sanskritised language called Hindi as we know it.
>
Hindustani, interspread with Hindi and Urdu words, which was
in usage, prior to adopting Hindi as National language. As a whole,
the language in most of Hindi films was / is only Hindustani, barring
few, with more of urdu words.
Once, Hindi was declared as National language, the process of
refining has started, which is fundamental requirement for any
language to be in it's pure form. The process has no malafied
intentions or motives behind.
With due respect, your saying " process of elimination of
Arabic/ Persian words " is uncharitable, in my opinion.
UVR
Afzal saahib,
I regret to note that even you did not understand what I meant by the
"fringe at the other end".
Allow me to explain, and if you still disagree with me, let me know.
In my experience, there is one and only one fringe trying to destroy
Urdu -- it is that fundamentalist faction which, for despicable
political gain, chest-thumpingly asserts that Urdu is a 'foreign' or
'muslim' language, wants to send it 'across the border' as it were.
You know that left to my own devices, I would sentence these people to
be shot at point-blank range and for their remains to be left for the
vultures to feast on. Sorry for the violent image.
Unfortunately, there does exist a fundamentalist fringe on the other
side of the political spectrum in India and the world too. It is the
existence of these two extremes that has led to the decades (nay,
centuries, perhaps) of religious and societal strife in India. I
don't have to elaborate; you are familiar with all these people as
much as I am.
I am NOT talking about anyone "from the other side" who is trying to
undermine Hindi. Hindiwallahs are doing it to themselves without any
help from anyone else.
-UVR.
Afzal A. Khan
>>> -UVR.
I don't know how to interpret your above explanation. If you
agree that Urdu-wallahs are not out to get the hindi-wallahs
and that they are content to live and let live, then I shall
most certainly welcome such an explanation.
My 'protest', and all the other comments made by me in this
thread, were strictly confined to the language issue. I have
no wish whatsoever to get into a discussion about the larger
"religious and societal" strife in India. That is too sad for
words.
Afzal
UVR
Afzal saahib,
Regarding your first paragraph:
I don't know whether Urdu-wallahs are out to get the Hindi-wallahs or
not. I don't know about "live and let live" either.
What I do knowis that the average Hindiwallah bears no ill will
towards the average Urduwallah or his language. Ignorance, may be.
Malice, no. The Hindiwallah may well be unaware of the correct
pronunciations of certain Urdu words. But this is no different from
the average Urdu-wallah having no clue how to -correctly- pronounce,
say, ShaTkoN. The Hindiwallah may, as a consequence of his lack of
awareness of correct pronunciation, be ignorant as to the correct
spellings of certain Urdu words. Again, this is no different from an
Urduwallah, even a learned one, being quite hard pressed to spell, in
the Urdu script, words like kiraN, charaN, shaanti, kR^iShNa or viShNu
-- all of which are words he would come across in the normal course of
life. Some of the Hindiwallahs may be stupid enough to not even care
about correct pronunciation or spelling, and these may be folks well
ensconced in the newspaper/publishing business. But I'm sure there
are Urduwallahs of that type too, within the newspaper and publishing
industry as well as outside of it. Some of the Hindiwallahs may even
take the brazen tone that it doesn't matter how they spell and Urdu
word, 'jindagi' or 'ijaajat.' And there will be such Urduwallahs too
-- who write 'krishan' and 'shaanti' knowing full well that the Urdu
script is not capable of representing the 'R^i' or 'Sh' letters or the
'N/terminal short i' sound, but who will also assert that it doesn't
matter (the excuse being that the way they're spelling the word is
the 'correct' colloquial pronunciation of the concerned word).
So, then. Does these Urduwallahs' behavior mean that all Urduwallahs
are out to get Hindiwallahs? Does it give the Hindiwallahs the right
to claim that Urduwallahs, in writing Hindi words wrongly in the Urdu
script are trying to destroy Hindi? Does it give the Hindiwallah the
right to claim that "at least Hindi invented Devangari letters to
represent Urdu sounds. When has the Urdu script done likewise?" And
does the fact that Urdu never even had any symbols to represent
certain Hindi sounds then give the Hindiwallahs the right to drop the
q, Kh, Gh, z from Devanagari -- payback, as it were?
I tend to think that the answer to all these questions is -- NO!
Likewise, I don't think the misguided actions of a
fewDevanagariwallahs should lead the Urduwallah to think that his
language is being systematically exterminated. Let us not attribute
to malice or evil intent something that can be chalked down to brazen
ignorance and couldn't-care-less-ness, or just pure inability.
Regarding your second paragraph:
My original 'protest' in this thread was against the attitude and tone
of Asif saahib's post -- NOT its subject matter. The lesson was
appropriate, the delivery was not.
You have characterized his post as "a faint attempt to offer a
correction or amendment" which "poor Asif" had prepared "painstakingly
for the benefit of other RMIMers" (post #15 by yourself, dated July
18, 2009). I don't know about painstaking, but it was most definitely
not a "faint attempt &c." Not the way I read it, not the way it was
written. Had he in fact offered such a post, I daresay I would not
have objected.
-UVR.
Afzal A. Khan
>>>>>> Naseer
>>>>> -UVR.
>>>> Shri UVR,
>>>> Afzal
>>> Afzal saahib,
My dear UVR,
Let us take your last two paragraphs first --- these concern
Mr, Asif's initial post.
Frankly, his post did not strike me as anything offensive.
It was replete with words like "predicament" {in his place,
I might have used "trepidation", which I think is what he
really meant}, "sincerity", "sincerely" etc. There was no
rant or angry words. What is important is that the post was
meant only for RMIMers. It was not addressed to all and sundry.
And even, for RMIM, he couldn't possibly have meant people like
you or Naseer Saheb or even myself. All too often, we have seen
a few RMIMers writing the impugned words incorrectly. Is there
any harm if he decided to prepare and post a sort of "lesson" ?
When you wrote your first response, you brought in the Lucknow /
Lahore theory which, to my mind, is irrelevant. Asif's post was
neither meant for all these folks nor was it likely to be read by
them. I said as much in my rejoinder. And the issue related to
Urdu words/letters/sounds which are transcribed in our NG in
Roman, and for which a simple device ['z'for 'j' and the dot]
already exists.
Another point that I made in my posts (and which I would like to
reiterate here) is that we are NOT dealing with SPOKEN pronuncia-
of Urdu or hindi words by the common man-in-the-street. The
issue pertained to learned, literate, computer-savvy RMIMers
(and only a few amongs them) who somehow do not use the simple
device to which reference has been made above. So what is wrong
about it ? You yourself have admitted that the lesson was
"appropriate".
You state that even a learned Urdu-wallah may not be able to
write words like "kiraN, charaN,kR^iShNa" etc. correctly in the
Urdu script. Please do tell him how to write such words correct-
ly and which letters of the Urdu script should he use. How many
Urdu-wallahs do you think would have a crying need for writing
these words (in the Urdu script) in the first place ? And on
RMIM ?
If Urdu-wallahs (on RMIM) choose to write these words in Roman,
you have every right to guide them as to how to go about it.
I will definitely try to follow the advice of learned folks like
your goodself. Though I cannot presume to speak for Mr. Asif or
Naseer Saheb, I daresay they too won't have any objection either.
It is certainly not a question of Urdu-wallahs on RMIM being out
get the hindi-wallahs. If film-makers choose certain names for
their films or if film lyricists choose to write songs with
Urdu words, it is certainly not the fault of the few Urdu-wallahs
who participate in RMIM discussions. And if at all it is poss-
ible to depict these names/words by a system readily available in
Roman (and capable of being used on the computer), they would
definitely like to use it.
The larger issue of whether there is a systematic attempt to
"exterminate" Urdu can be discussed till the cows come home.
By not raising an uproar over a post like Asif's will go some
way towards reassuring the few Urdu-knowing RMIMers that there
is no such attempt at least on RMIM.
Afzal
Sunil Dandekar
> In my experience, there is one and only one fringe trying to destroy
> Urdu -- it is that fundamentalist faction which, for despicable
> political gain, chest-thumpingly asserts that Urdu is a 'foreign' or
> 'muslim' language, wants to send it 'across the border' as it were.
> You know that left to my own devices, I would sentence these people to
> be shot at point-blank range and for their remains to be left for the
> vultures to feast on. Sorry for the violent image.
Chief White Halfoat in Catch-22
Racial prejudice is a terrible thing, Yossarian. It really is. It’s a
terrible thing to treat a decent, loyal Indian like a nigger, kike,
wop or spic.’ Chief White Halfoat nodded slowly with conviction.
UVR
Afzal saahib,
Regarding your take on Asif's post, we will simply have to agree to
disagree. I did not think the post took a gentle or genteel tone, and
by the looks of it, neither did a number of other RMIMers,
notwithstanding the words "predicament" etc (BTW, I might have used
'trepidation' too). Let's leave it at that.
In the rest of your post you have tried to refocus this discussion on
RMIM, or RMIMers writing Urdu (or Hindi) words in Roman. I crave your
forgiveness, but I feel I must draw attention to the fact that after
Dr. Singh mentioned them en passant, it was you who brought in
references from non-RMIM sources (Hindi newspapers) into this thread.
You were also the one to mention the "deliberate" and "almost official
policy" of undermining Urdu -- I don't think you meant to suggest that
such a policy exists *on RMIM*. Therefore, (without meaning any
disrespect, I state dispassionately that) it is a bit disingenuous to
now say that the field of argument be limited to RMIM and RMIMers.
The discussion has moved far afield.
The same's the case with the matter of writing Urdu or Hindi words in
Roman. Much electronic "ink" has been spilled in this thread talking
about Devanagari, the allegedly 'systematic' elimination of ja-dot &c.
from that script, and the motivations therefor. Examples have been
provided as evidence of the stepmotherly treatment of Urdu (misspelt
words in Devanagari newspapers). I don't see how we can now carry on
as if this was a discussion only about RMIMers making mistakes while
writing Hindi or Urdu in Roman transliteration.
You ask whether any Urdu script practitioner would ever need to write
words like "kiraN, kR^ishNa" etc correctly. But of course he would!
Has no Urdu paper or journal ever referred to the actress uSha kiraN
or the actor manmohan kR^iShNa? I have used iTrans here to indicate
the correct spellings of their names. Those are just two people;
there are any number of people with names that can't be written 100%
correctly in the Urdu script.
You ask which Urdu characters should be used to represent the correct
spellings of such words. Well, that's just it! There aren't even any
characters in the Urdu script for these. Devanagari writers invented
special characters for displaying some (not all) Urdu letters, should
Urdu writers also have tried to create new letters for a few
Devanagari characters? I don't know -- it's not for me to say. What
I *do* know is that the introduction of new letters is nothing new to
the Urdu script which owes its very existence to the introduction of
new letters (into the Persian script, which itself formed by the
introduction of new letters into the Arabic). And it isn't like the
Urdu script has remained static since its creation -- "new" letters
(such as the noon Ghunna formed by the dropping of the noon-dot, the
letters for Te, Re using a diacritical 'b' as opposed to 4 dots seen
in certain books) have been introduced or have gained currency. So
why does it appear that an exception is being made to mete out
stepmotherly treatment to the sounds and characters of the very
language that Urduwallahs claims is a "sagi behn" of Urdu?
The point is, languages and scripts change -- and changing them is in
the hands of people who practice them.
But you're right, we can discuss these topics till the cows come home,
and then some. Let's not.
-UVR.
Naseer
> Naseer saahib,
>
> I'll answer the "easy" question right now. The other topics, I will
> deal with later.
>
> On Jul 21, 2:27 pm, Naseer <qures...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > By the way, is "the other end" synonymous with " the other side of the
> > border", viz. Pakistan?
>
> > Naseer
>
> No. It's a reference to the other end of the spectrum from the one
> that, according to Afzal saahib, harbors no meager amount of ill-will
> towards Urdu. These two extremes are out to get each other, and the
> common man is the loser.
>
> far as I know, nobody is/has been writing Urdu in Devanagari in
> Pakistan. You may kindly correct me if I am wrong.
>
> -UVR.
UVR Jii, aadaab.
I apologise for my misunderstanding. But I do wish you would write in
plane unambiguous language for those of us of lesser intellect than
you !:) Why can't you say what you mean? Why couch in phrases such
as..
"the other end"
"fringe at the other end"
"from the other side"
"other side of the border"
As for people writing in Devanagri in Pakistan, if it is another one
of your challenges such as "I *defy* you" (addressed to Asif Sahib),
then I shall take up the challenge. You might have to wait a long time
though. By then I might be dead and buried and my bones turned to
dust!!:)
Naseer
surjit singh
There is at least one person in Pakistan who presumably knows
Hindi :)
She is in charge of the Hindi Department of the University of the
Punjab, Lahore:
Naseer
As far as the f sound is concerned, I am aware of this phenomenon. I
know that in Punjabi, for example, "phir" is invariably pronounced
"fir" or "fer". I have heard Gujarati speakers pronounce "phal" as
"fal". Similar examples exist for j/z. Some people in the Pakistani
Punjab pronounce "jum'ah" (Friday) as "zuma". As you know gunDaa is
often pronounced "GhunDaa". This, I think, is because the speakers
genuinely believe that the they are pronouncing it with the correct
sound or they are copying received pronunciation, which in itself was
wrong. GhunDaa is now the "Ghalatu_l'aam" pronunciation. Those who
pronounce the word for Friday as "zuma", I dare say are illiterate in
Urdu. Otherwise, they would know the correct written form. Conversely,
I have read somewhere that 'Allaamah Iqbal pronounced "faaluudah" as
"phaluuda". When asked why he, an educated man, pronounced this word
incorrectly, his reply was, "My mother pronounces it as phaluuda"!
> It's simply that it's not the general practice. But both variants are accepted
> without any assignment of value or class in Hindi.
OK. So you are saying that when one sees a word written as "raaj" for
"raaz", one can read it as "raaj" or "raaz". Is this what you mean? If
we have such a fluid situation, then why bother with having the
subscript dot convention at all? Why not leave it to the discerning
reader?
> > case, what purpose does the subscript dot serve in the Devanagri sound
> > system? Why has the Devanagri script, as shown in the two links
> > provided by Professor Sahib and UVR Jii, continues to incorporate the
> > dots in these kinds of "official" documents?
>
> There are borrowed words that have been part and parcel of Hindi, and
> there are those which are not universally known but are still used
> occasionally in specific contexts. The inclusion of nuqtaas were/are
> primarily to transcribe the sounds from foreign languages that Hindi
> commonly adopted/s from viz. Persian, English. (And by foreign here, I
> mean foreign to Hindi language not as in across the border.) Very
> recently, when creating the Unicode set for Nagari, even short o and
> short e symbols have been added in the set along with some other
> symbols that are not used in Hindi words. Why? To transcribe some
> sounds specific to Dravidian languages. They saw the requirement,
> either now or in future, and they added the provision. That people use
> them or not is another matter.
What specific contexts would the nuqtas be used? When you say "across
the border", I presume you are taking your bearings from India. Then
if one went across the border, one could end up in Bangladesh, Burma,
China, Nepal and Pakistan. Where would you be if you went across the
border?:)
> Nuqtaas are in use not only in several official document but also in
> Hindi literature (not just in Urdu works transcribed in Nagari) and in
> a large part of formal media. They of course also help in transcribing
> Urdu works in Devanagari, of which there is a large readership. f and
> z are also used to transcribe a lot of originally English words in
> Hindi, which are increasingly getting assimilated in the language. As
> it stands today, nobody calls for removal of nuqtaas from Hindi. At
> the same time though, nobody calls for making them mandatory either.
> They are simply there as an aide. Native speakers of any language
> don't need a script to tell them how to pronounce a word. Someone who
> pronounces 'qayaamat' as that will pronounce it the same way even if
> it is written as 'kayaamat'. And vice versa. Very much like in Urdu
> script, where even though the vowels are often not transcribed, people
> know how to pronouce the word, don't they?
>
I think you are saying once again that one should read "raaj" as
"raaz" or "raaj" according to context. But, is this really the case
Vinay Jii. Do you really think that people who don't know that when
the word in fact is "raaz" would read the word without the subscript
correctly. But if the subscript was there, this would be a clear
signal to them.
> > It is ironic that a process of elimination of Arabic/Persian words
> > during the formative years of the Hindi Movement led to the
> > Sanskritised language called Hindi as we know it.
>
> Then the Hindi you know is apparently different than the one I do, or
> at least you have a very narrow understanding of it. Hindi speakers
> are using foreign words since much earlier than when the language was
> even known as Hindi. In some registers more than others. The
> Sanskritized Hindi is just one register of it, which is more or less
> limited to technical vocabulary and part (not whole) of its
> literature. In much larger number, people have been using Hindi that
> is filled with all sorts of influences. And it is not new. Of course
> the sources and degree of influences have varied over time. Earlier it
> borrowed largely from Persian (through Urdu), now it's more influenced
> by English. And through out it has borrowed heavily from other Indian
> languages.
Here is an example of Hindi prose. Would you class this as technical?
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00urduhindilinks/shacklesnell/315premchand.pdf
>
> > Now, and Urdu-wallas have no problem with this, you are talking about Hindi
> > absorbin. All that is being asked is that "phan" (a snake's hood) should be
> > distinguished from "fan" (art), raaj from raaz, khaanaa (food) from
> When a language absorbs a foreign word organically, it doesn't go
> asking the foreign language how to do it. It just happens over the
> time. BTW, a language doesn't *need* to distinguish two words sounding
> similar but having different meanings (homonyms). Context is often
> sufficient to establish the difference in meaning.
I am well aware of homonyms. Why not allow the readers to work out
from context that the words are NOT baDaa and baDhaa but baRaa and
baRhaa? Why are the dots in the baRaa/baRhaa set allowed to stand
their ground?
>
> > > > I have tried to explain the background in which the current contro-
> > > > versy has to be seen, even though it is not a controversy of my
> > > > making.
>
> > > I think it is. Asif's original question was a genuine curiosity which
> > > was anyway answered adequately by Abhay, Anant, and UVR. It was you
> > > who brought ulterior motives in the equation.
>
> > What do you believe these ulterior motives to be?
>
> Oh, I didn't have to use my imagination. Afzal Sb. has spelt it out
> pretty clearly. Check his point #2 in message #6 of this thread. ...
I take the meaning of the word "ulterior" to be something beyond what
is apparent. I think Afzal Sahib has made his views blatantly obvious.
To my mind at least, there is nothing ulterior in the post you have
cited.
Naseer
Naseer
I don't think your tone is "sarsaree". It is more "gaRbaRii". Definite
anger there UVR Sahib.
> I'm afraid I don't get your argument. When the chandrabindu is
> "dropped" in favor of the anuswaar, you are ready to accept that this
> is being done as a matter of 'convenience'. Presumably your
> contention is that the Devanagari-wallahs are aware of when the
> anuswaar must be read as a vocalized half-n and when it must be read
> as a pure nasal, and THEREFORE it makes no difference (in your eyes)
> if these newspapers are systematically getting rid of the
> chandrabindu.
This "convenient" device is not of my making UVR Jii. This is what
learned Hindi authors are saying and it seems to be the accepted and
done thing by the printers. Also, if you read carefully, I did say
that the likes of you and I would not find this trend acceptable.
> > What this means is that this is one of those "understood and accepted"
> > conventions which only the likes of you and me would find
> > unacceptable, our reason being that this is simply inaccurate...so far
> > as the language's writing system is concerned.
> But when the dot is dropped below the ja, it is a mark of a vast
> insidious policy to undermine the Urdu language, to destroy Urdu and
> so on and so forth? What gives? Why isn't the chandrabindu omission
> as egregious in your eyes as the omission of the ja-dot?
The argement began with the mention of subscript dot not always being
used in Hindi written works, apart from the dot below D and Dh. I
provided one (unsubstantiated but in good faith) example where the
book recommended the avoidance of these dots. The desire expressed by
Afzal Sahib was that it would be nice if the dots were consistently
used so that the Urdu words could be read correctly. Then we began to
travel to Lucknow and Lahore! I am not sure if anyone has suggested
that the avoidance of the dots is an "insidious" policy. What has been
pointed out is that the Urdu words without these dots would loose
their true pronunciations and that pronunciation would become the
norm.
> I really hope you have a good explanation for this, because (I regret
> to say this) the way your posts and Afzal saahib's have been focussed,
> it appears to me that your concern is not for correct Hindi spelling
> _overall_, but rather only the correct spelling of Urdu words in
> Devanagari.The rest of Hindi spelling could go to hell in a handbasket
> and you would scarcely bat an eyelid.
Hindi spelling is a matter which has not troubled me the slightest. At
the same time I have not thought of locating Hindi spelling to hell or
anywhere else for that matter.
Naseer
Naseer
Professor Sahib,
Not quite! UVR Sahib has set a tripple-barrelled condition... Urdu,
written in Devanagri, in Pakistan!
Naseer
Naseer
> What I do know is that the average Hindiwallah bears no ill will
I don't know when the Urdu alphabet was used for the very first time,
but I do know that Baba Farid's poetry was written in this script in
the 13th Century. You have mentioned a number of words, given below,
which you state are not spelt correctly in Urdu to correspond with the
Hindi spellings.
ShaTkoN, kiraN, charaN, shaanti, kR^iShNa or viShNu
I am assuming here and please correct me if I am wrong, the "Sh" is
the retroflex sh, the R with an inverted v is you know what ( a vowel)
and the N is the nasal retroflex.
Urdu spelling was not "invented" to spell words in their original
Sanskrit form. It was in fact to write the Sanskrit derived vernacular
KhaRii Boli, which I would suggest had shed these sounds. For this
reason Urdu has Krishan, charan, raat etc. Now, "N" can be written as
nuun superscript toe, as is the norm in Shahmukhi Punjabi. I am sure
the Sh sound could also be written, perhaps sheen plus toe. My
feelings is that whoever thought of inventing the T, D etc could have
easily added more consonants had there been a need in the language of
the time. I could be wrong. According to the Hindi books, Hindi
speakers themselves don't always distinguish Sh from sh.
Naseer
Naseer
Raaz Sahib,
Please take a look at the link below. It is a review of Christopher
King's book, "One Language: Two Scripts". I hope it will prove useful
to you and other interested parties.
http://minds.wisconsin.edu/handle/1793/11913
Naseer
Afzal A. Khan
My dear UVR,
Regarding Asif's post, let us agree to disagree. The criticism
directed against him/it is itself an indication that some people
cannot stand anything said in the cause of Urdu pronunciation,
vis-a-vis its transcription in Roman.
I am disappointed when you accuse me of being the first to
change the direction of the discussion from "RMIM-related" to
"non-RMIM-related sources", viz. hindi newspapers etc. Such a
suggestion is quite duplicitous in nature.
The reference to a dot being placed below 'j' (to denote the
'z' sound) is present in Asif's first post itself. And he has
referred to the film titles in D. script, in connection with
this reference. In my response, I merely referred to the
disappearance of the above practice. I never said anything
about this being an anti-Urdu step or any conspiracy etc.
Then S'Shri Phadnis and Ketan stated in their posts that the
practice was still continuing. To which, the good Professor
replied that "it is gone". He made the first reference to
internet newspapers and cited a hindi newspaper, the Daily
Jagran (I think). It was only thereafter that I quoted specific
examples from some hindi newspapers.
And even before all that, you had brought in a reference to the
"Lucknow/Lahore" theory. May I humbly submit that you were the
first to expand the scope of the discussion. Pray, what do
the hundreds and thousands of common people walking the streets
of Lucknow and Lahore have to do with RMIM ? We don't even know
for sure that all of them speak only Urdu ! It need not be
stressed that I had pointed out, time and again, that such a
theory has nothing whatsoever to do with RMIM. Ours is a NG
with comparatively few regular participants, say, 30-35. And,
most certainly, Asif's post was NOT directed to the hundreds
and thousands of the Lucknow/Lahore denizens.
You have called into question my poser as to whether "any Urdu
script practitioner would ever need to write words like 'kiraN
and 'kR^ishNa' etc. correctly". You say "But, of course, he
would !". You yourself can write the Urdu script pretty well.
Please write out the above words in Urdu script. You may
perhaps be surprised to find that you have written them exactly
in the same manner as hundreds of thousands of Urdu writers
would.
And then you demand that the Urdu language should "invent"
special symbols and letters to denote these particular sounds.
Till such time as such symbols and letters are "invented",
Urdu-wallahs would continue to write them, in the U. script,
exactly as they do now.
Also, we are not discussing the U. script at all. The topic of
discussion was the representation of Urdu letters/sounds in
Roman. For the "z' sound, a perfectly sound system had existed
(the dot-j system), which (for certain reasons) has been given
up. And you demand the "invention" of symbols or creation of
an altogether new system in the U. script. Talk of the Pot and
the Kettle.
BTW, these are proper nouns. These have a "habit" of being
spelled in different styles in many languages. Take for
example the Pakistani cricketer "A. Razzaq". It is often
written (in Roman) as Abdul Razzaq. The correct spelling
would be Abdur Razzaaq. A current Bangladesh opener's name is
spelt as "Imrul Kayes". This is "derived" from the name of the
6th century Arabian poet Umra-ul Qais.
Leaving aside the issue of proper nouns, I am not sure there
are any other words in the Urdu language which require the
abovereferred (Sanskrut) sounds. When such words themselves
do not exist, why should it occur to Urdu-wallahs to "invent"
a new system from scratch ? You refer to certain symbols (like
the small 'toe' etc.) that have become part of the Urdu script.
When words requiring this sound are assimilated in the language,
then some system can emerge. But this is not something that can
be "demanded" by others.
Languages and scripts do change. And, as you have rightly said,
this can be done only by the people who practice them. This is
a sort of self-demand --- it cannot be imposed from outside.
I am not aware that Urdu-wallahs have been at pains to claim
hindi as a "sagi behn" of Urdu. During the last, say, 150 years
or so, their position (as per their practitioners) has been that
of "rivals" or "antagonists". OTOH, hindi-wallahs keep on
claiming that Urdu (at best) is only a "shaili" of hindi --- a
claim that Urdu-wallahs have always rejected categorically.
Afzal
Narsingh
humor (just to lighten the discussion). In the metro Vancouver
(Canada) area, there are two radio stations which brodcast mostly
Punjabi songs. About 90% of the time is taken up by commercials, about
8% with bad-to-average music and two percent with decent music program
(the ones hosted by Aashiana). Commercials are fun to listen to. For
example a phone number ending with 3500 will be pronounced as "tree
fibe jeero jeero." Narsingh
Ahmad
>
> - Show quoted text -
There is an agreement on discussion "Till the cows come home". I
have always wondered about this Phrase in the past. I used to think
that the cows came home each day in the evening after grazing, so not
such a long time. Today I looked up the Phrase Thesarus. It looks
that it has been in use since 1829 and Groucho Marx used it in the
film Duck Soup thus : "I could dance with you till the cows come
home, better still, I will dance with the cows and you come home".
Ahmad
Afzal A. Khan
> Narsingh
Dear Mr. Narsingh,
I am very pleased to learn that even "neutral" RMIMers (i.e those
who are neither 'anti-Urdu' nor 'pro-Urdu) have been reading our
discussion. I particularly commend the attitude of people like
Prof. Surjit Singh who have been quite detached and absolutely
non-partisan, and now your goodself. May your tribe increase !
As regards the Vancouver radio broadcasts, if you live in or near
that area, you may please consider calling them on the phone, to
give them a gentle lesson (as to how the correct pronunciation is
"five" and "zero") --- a la Mr. Asif !
And since both these words are English (and not Urdu), I suppose
your call would not raise their hackles.
Your call !!
Afzal
abhayphadnis
(snip)
> I am very pleased to learn that even "neutral" RMIMers (i.e those
> who are neither 'anti-Urdu' nor 'pro-Urdu) have been reading our
Afzal-saahib, I am genuinely curious: who on this thread do you see as
"anti-Urdu"?
Warm regards,
Abhay
Afzal A. Khan
For the moment, I will take the Fifth !
I too am curious to know your take on this.
At least, you can tell us who do you think is "anti-Asif"
and who "pro-Asif" !!
Afzal
abhayphadnis
I have not accused anyone of being either! My own views on this whole
issue have been stated already in my earlier posts on this thread.
Warm regards,
Abhay
Ahmad
I have heard this pronounciation in India on many occassions and in UK
too.
I think it depends upon where these people grew up. What can you do;
send them for elocution lessons !.
In English language the same problem exists between Scottish, and
mainly from people from Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Listening to their pronounciation of common English words is
painful. Ahmad
UVR
On Jul 24, 4:48 pm, "Afzal A. Khan" <me_af...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
> My dear UVR,
>
> Regarding Asif's post, let us agree to disagree. The criticism
> directed against him/it is itself an indication that some people
> cannot stand anything said in the cause of Urdu pronunciation,
> vis-a-vis its transcription in Roman.
>
As I have attempted to state previously, the thing I could not "stand"
is most likely the tone taken, not the cause espoused, by Asif
saahib's post.
> I am disappointed when you accuse me of being the first to
> change the direction of the discussion from "RMIM-related" to
> "non-RMIM-related sources", viz. hindi newspapers etc. Such a
> suggestion is quite duplicitous in nature.
>
I regret very much that you found my position "duplicitous", but the
fact of the matter is, I -*DID NOT*- accuse your esteemed self of what
you say I did. I have said you were the first to post _references
from non-RMIM sources_ (which is true) and also that you did so _after
Dr. Singh mentioned them en passant_ (which, too, is true).
If I did accuse you of, if anything, is of seeking to refocus the
discussion and narrow the scope of it to RMIM after so much bandwidth
had been spent (by you, as well as others including me) on things that
were way beyond RMIM. I don't think this was in any way, shape or
form duplicitous, but if you feel it was, please accept my apologies.
> And even before all that, you had brought in a reference to the
> "Lucknow/Lahore" theory. May I humbly submit that you were the
> first to expand the scope of the discussion. Pray, what do
> the hundreds and thousands of common people walking the streets
> of Lucknow and Lahore have to do with RMIM ? We don't even know
> for sure that all of them speak only Urdu ! It need not be
> stressed that I had pointed out, time and again, that such a
> theory has nothing whatsoever to do with RMIM. Ours is a NG
> with comparatively few regular participants, say, 30-35. And,
> most certainly, Asif's post was NOT directed to the hundreds
> and thousands of the Lucknow/Lahore denizens.
>
I have stated previously, and will say it again -- Asif's post came
across (to me) as suggesting that everyone who knows Urdu pronounces
these sounds correctly. This caused me to mention the fact that there
are multitudes of people who know Urdu and don't do so. I have
accepted Asif's explanation of what he meant and have stated so on
RMIM -- I have no reason to doubt his motives.
> And then you demand that the Urdu language should "invent"
> special symbols and letters to denote these particular sounds.
> Till such time as such symbols and letters are "invented",
> Urdu-wallahs would continue to write them, in the U. script,
> exactly as they do now.
>
I have NOT demanded any such thing. Please re-ready my previous
post. And I have in fact categorically stated that it would not be
correct of anyone (including Hindiwallahs) demand that Urdu invent new
characters.
> Also, we are not discussing the U. script at all. The topic of
> discussion was the representation of Urdu letters/sounds in
> Roman. For the "z' sound, a perfectly sound system had existed
> (the dot-j system), which (for certain reasons) has been given
> up. And you demand the "invention" of symbols or creation of
> an altogether new system in the U. script. Talk of the Pot and
> the Kettle.
>
Please, Afzal saahib, this is just too much! On the one hand you
agree that I have "rightly said" that the Urdu script can only be
changed by those who practice it. And on the other you accuse me of
"demanding" something that I haven't and use the Pot-Kettle analogy.
I'll leave it to you to resolve the staggering incongruity of it all.
> Languages and scripts do change. And, as you have rightly said,
> this can be done only by the people who practice them. This is
> a sort of self-demand --- it cannot be imposed from outside.
>
Absolutely -- and those who practice the Hindi script should be
allowed to make whatever demands of it they choose to make. Wouldn't
that be the correct implementation of the "Live and Let Live"
philosophy that you say practitioners of Urdu take? If certain myopic
measures adopted by Devanagari writers cause them to remain ignorant
of the correct pronunciation of certain Urdu words, whose loss is it?
Urdu's? Not at all.
Let me give you an anecdote from my own life. This dates back to when
I was not even in my teens. I had lived in South Delhi for 10+ years
and was heavily influenced by the colloquial pronunciations used by
the average South Delhi 'Hindiwallah' kid. So much so that mazaa
might've been majaa, phir, fir and phal, fal.
Then I happened to accompany my father to a place where I was
fortunate enough to live in a building with Pakistani, Bangladeshi and
Sri Lankan families. There were also some Pakistani boys my age. One
day, early on in my acquaintance with them, I happened to say
"jyaada". The 4 Pakistani kids who were around me burst out laughing
saying "jyaada? jyaada! ... ha ha ha!" And when I naively asked what
was wrong, they laughed even more (kids can be cruel like that). I
remember it very vividly because this was the first linguistically
embarrassing moment of my life. After considerable time had elapsed
with me bemusedly watching them point and laugh at me, one of those
kids kindly informed me that it is 'ziyaada not "j(y)aada".' I have
never forgotten that lesson. (As a consequence of it, I went on to
teach myself to read and write Urdu)
But whose loss do you think it was that kids in Delhi were saying
"jyaada" at that time? Urdu's, or the kids'?
-UVR.
Asif
> Afzal saahib,
>
> On Jul 24, 4:48 pm, "Afzal A. Khan" <me_af...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>
>
> > My dear UVR,
>
> > Regarding Asif's post, let us agree to disagree. The criticism
> > directed against him/it is itself an indication that some people
> > cannot stand anything said in the cause of Urdu pronunciation,
> > vis-a-vis its transcription in Roman.
>
> As I have attempted to state previously, the thing I could not "stand"
> is most likely the tone taken, not the cause espoused, by Asif
> saahib's post.
>
UVR Sahab:
If it could help you understand the whole thing better, I clearly say
here that my tone was as much respectful, friendly, and sincere as my
words could possibly convey. I am really amused to see that you claim
here that my tone (whatever it appeared to you) was "most likely" and
yet you could not stand it. After you raised the Lahore/Lucknow
theory I was quick to point out that my lesson was not about
pronunciation of 'z' - it was about "writing" 'jh' and 'z' where they
rightfully belong and that too only for this group. I mentioned the
'z' pronunciation stuff only to explain the difference between 'jh and
'z'. Even then I did not insult anyone for his/her lack of knowledge
of proper use of 'z' and 'jh'. I have got a couple of emails
appreciating the lesson - I can forward them to you for proof.
I am disappointed that you could "not stand" a simple, harmless
attempt by me to contribute something meaningful on this forum.
Honestly I could not understand all your criticism until I just got to
read your childhood 'z' story - is that the root of all your anger on
this thread? Come on, please forget it and let's move on. The loss
was definitely those cruel kids'. The real winner was Urdu simply
because you learned it - and you became richer with it. Please spread
the light instead of blocking it.
Asif
Afzal A. Khan
My dear UVR,
I have carefully gone through your post and would like to offer
the following comments :
!. Asif's post : You have yourself admitted previously that its
contents were "appropriate". You objected to its tone/tenor.
I think you also said that other RMIMers too felt that way
(about the tone/tenor etc.). Of course, you didn't mean people
like me or Naseer Saheb, because we didn't find anything objec-
tionable or offensive in the said post. I have now carefully
gone through ALL the posts in the thread (about 90 in all).
And I didn't see anyone taking umbrage at the tone or tenor of
the said post. One or two did call it "a sweeping statement",
but that is all. Nobody called the language 'abusive' or
'unparliamentary'. Maybe my aged eyes missed something. As
regards "sweeping", I beg to submit that it was a 'general'
statement. It had to be. It was addressed to RMIMers alone,
and he couldn't possibly have named 15 or 20 or 25 people (from
amongst RMIMers) specifically. who (for whatever reason) were
prone to mispronounce certain words/sounds. You yourself have
agreed with what he said.
And now you say that his post "came across to you as suggesting
that everyone knowing Urdu pronounces these sounds correctly".
I have again examined his post minutely and nowhere has he
suggested anything of the kind. To some people, your above
statement may come across as a case "of giving a dog a bad name
in order to hang it". There are Urdu-knowing folks and, then,
there are other "Urdu-knowing" folks. You may pronounce the
sound "z" correctly in "ziyaada", but one cannot expect every
street-urchin to pronounce it correctly. When Jagjit Singh
sings the line "khulti zulfoN ne sikhaaii mausamoN ko shaayari"
do you think he is doing justice to a particular sound ? And
he is supposed to know Urdu quite well. Or you can contrast
the language spoken in the classic "Umraao Jaan" (stg. Rekha)
and the non-classic "Umraao Jaan" stg. Aishwarya Rai.
2. Non-RMIM sources : You admit that I quoted examples from hindi
newspapers ONLY after posts from Abhay Padnis, Kalyan and
Prof. Surjit Singh had appeared in the thread. I am sure you
realize that my action was intended only to disprove the notion
that the "j-dot" practice was still continuing to be observed,
as opined by Phadnis and Kalyan. So what wrong did I commit ?
And was there anything wrong in my seeking to refocus the
discussion and narrow its scope to RMIM ? After all, Asif's
post was meant only for RMIM (and RMIMers). And even if some
bandwidth and "electronic ink" had already been expended, we
can always try to come back to the original discussion, can't
we ?
3. Whether Urdu should invent new symbols : If you didn't intend
to ask Urdu-wallahs to invent new symbols, why did you bring
this issue into the discussion in the first place ? In your
post of the 24th July, you have written two paragraphs (about
25 lines in all) talking about words like "kiraN, kR^iShNa"
etc., how Urdu-wallahs will have to write and use such words
and how Urdu's history is replete with the invention or intro-
duction of new symbols etc. etc. And now this volte face !
I am reminded of some characters in old Indian films who would
quietly accept a bribe, saying "bhala, is ki bhi kya zaroorat
thi !".
4. Live and let live : Yes, this has been the Urdu-wallahs' creed
all along. And when we do that, you lament as to why we don't
cry to high heavens about the death of the "Chandrabindu" ! If
this symbol has been 'slain', it is the hindi-wallahs who are
responsible. So why accuse Urdu-wallahs of not caring about
correct hindi spellings ? This is what you wrote to Naseer
Saheb on the 22nd July (and I quote) :
"(I regret to say this) the way your posts and
Afzal saahib's
have been focussed, it appears to me that your concern is not
for correct Hindi spelling _overall_, but rather only the
correct
spelling of Urdu words in Devanagari.The rest of Hindi
spelling
could go to hell in a handbasket and you would scarcely bat an
eyelid."
5. Your childhood experience : I read it with considerable
sympathy. Believe me, during the twenties and thirties (I
don't talk of earlier decades), you would have found almost all
street urchins in Delhi pronouncing the word "ziyaada" quite
correctly. And why worry about the loss ? Let us concentrate
on the gain. I think YOU were the real gainer, as you came to
learn our beautiful language !
Afzal
UVR
>
> 2. Non-RMIM sources : You admit that I quoted examples from hindi
> newspapers ONLY after posts from Abhay Padnis, Kalyan and
> Prof. Surjit Singh had appeared in the thread. I am sure you
> realize that my action was intended only to disprove the notion
> that the "j-dot" practice was still continuing to be observed,
> as opined by Phadnis and Kalyan. So what wrong did I commit ?
>
> And was there anything wrong in my seeking to refocus the
> discussion and narrow its scope to RMIM ? After all, Asif's
> post was meant only for RMIM (and RMIMers). And even if some
> bandwidth and "electronic ink" had already been expended, we
> can always try to come back to the original discussion, can't
> we ?
>
I didn't say there was anything "wrong" -- 'disingenuous' was the word
I used. It's not the same thing.
> 3. Whether Urdu should invent new symbols : If you didn't intend
> to ask Urdu-wallahs to invent new symbols, why did you bring
> this issue into the discussion in the first place ? In your
> post of the 24th July, you have written two paragraphs (about
> 25 lines in all) talking about words like "kiraN, kR^iShNa"
> etc., how Urdu-wallahs will have to write and use such words
> and how Urdu's history is replete with the invention or intro-
> duction of new symbols etc. etc. And now this volte face !
> I am reminded of some characters in old Indian films who would
> quietly accept a bribe, saying "bhala, is ki bhi kya zaroorat
> thi !".
>
"Volte face"! Here is what I wrote, taken verbatim from my other
post. After exploring the fact that the Urdu script has never quite
been able to write all Hindi sounds correctly, I said --
<quote>
"[does this] mean that all Urduwallahs are out to get Hindiwallahs?
Does it give the Hindiwallahs the right to claim that Urduwallahs, in
writing Hindi words wrongly in the Urdu script are trying to destroy
Hindi? Does it give the Hindiwallah the right to claim that "at least
Hindi invented Devangari letters to represent Urdu sounds. When has
the Urdu script done likewise?" And does the fact that Urdu never
even had any symbols to represent certain Hindi sounds then give the
Hindiwallahs the right to drop the q, Kh, Gh, z from Devanagari --
payback, as it were?
I tend to think that the answer to all these questions is -- NO!"
</quote>
The operative line is the one with the loudly exclaimed "NO!" It
simply doesn't do to ignore it.
Now, having read the entire statement in its proper context, Please
explain what "volte face" you can see here.
> 4. Live and let live : Yes, this has been the Urdu-wallahs' creed
> all along. And when we do that, you lament as to why we don't
> cry to high heavens about the death of the "Chandrabindu" ! If
> this symbol has been 'slain', it is the hindi-wallahs who are
> responsible. So why accuse Urdu-wallahs of not caring about
> correct hindi spellings ? This is what you wrote to Naseer
> Saheb on the 22nd July (and I quote) :
> "(I regret to say this) the way your posts and
> Afzal saahib's
> have been focussed, it appears to me that your concern is not
> for correct Hindi spelling _overall_, but rather only the
> correct
> spelling of Urdu words in Devanagari.The rest of Hindi
> spelling
> could go to hell in a handbasket and you would scarcely bat an
> eyelid."
Excuse me Afzal saahib, but "live and let live" is quite far from the
attitude you (as an Urduwallah) have taken in this post!
Live and let live it would have been to leave the Hindiwallah to deal
with Devanagari and whatever ill-advised changes he has been making to
his script over the decades. Live and let live it would have been to
let the Hindi wallah remove whatever he wants to remove and suffer the
cosequences thereof. Live and let live it is NOT to see misspellings
in the *Hindi* script and complain about an "official policy" or at an
insidious movement to destroy *Urdu*! Live and let live it is NOT to
present oneself as an Urduwallah and agree that changing a language or
script is the prerogative of those who practice it, and then in the
very next breath as it were, to lecture the Hindiwallah on what he
should to with his script.
jiyo aur (aur ko) jeene do should also imply jiyo aur (marta hai to)
MARNE do!
Regarding the "hell in a handbasket", I daresay it does not seem to me
-- from your posts in this thread -- that you do care about correct
Hindi spelling overall. Only how Urdu words are spelt in it. If you
contend that I am mistaken, please point to just ONE post in this
thread where you have agreed that not only were the Urdu words
misspelt in those Hindi papers, but so were other words. My position
throughout this discussion has been that these people are "equal
opportunity misspellers" -- they are not singling Urdu words out for
any kind of mistreatment. The evidence shows this in ample measure.
Please advise how we must interpret the fact that you have not even
acknowledged the evidence.
(Not only was the evidence ignored, there was a specific painting of
"Urdu misspellings" as different from the other misspellings. As if
"eshej" [Ashes], 'vest inDeej', 'philm' and 'man aaph da maich' are
somehow less egregious than 'ijaajat' and 'aphsar'! What are we to
make of this except that you don't care for correctness of Hindi
spelling -overall- but only the Urdu ones?)
>
> 5. Your childhood experience : I read it with considerable
> sympathy. Believe me, during the twenties and thirties (I
> don't talk of earlier decades), you would have found almost all
> street urchins in Delhi pronouncing the word "ziyaada" quite
> correctly. And why worry about the loss ? Let us concentrate
> on the gain. I think YOU were the real gainer, as you came to
> learn our beautiful language !
>
> Afzal
On this matter there can be no disagreement! It is *I* who have
gained.
(FWIW, I wasn't around in the 20s and 30s. My mother wasn't even
born! I was speaking of the 70s. What a difference a 'few' decades
can make.)
-UVR.
Afzal A. Khan
> On Jul 26, 12:18 am, "Afzal A. Khan" <me_af...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> 2. Non-RMIM sources : You admit that I quoted examples from hindi
>> newspapers ONLY after posts from Abhay Padnis, Kalyan and
>> Prof. Surjit Singh had appeared in the thread. I am sure you
>> realize that my action was intended only to disprove the notion
>> that the "j-dot" practice was still continuing to be observed,
>> as opined by Phadnis and Kalyan. So what wrong did I commit ?
>>
>> And was there anything wrong in my seeking to refocus the
>> discussion and narrow its scope to RMIM ? After all, Asif's
>> post was meant only for RMIM (and RMIMers). And even if some
>> bandwidth and "electronic ink" had already been expended, we
>> can always try to come back to the original discussion, can't
>> we ?
>>
>
> I didn't say there was anything "wrong" -- 'disingenuous' was the word
> I used. It's not the same thing.
I didn't ask what you "called" it. My question was simply :
was it wrong ? This was as straightforward as it could be.
I did two things. When two RMIMers opined that the "j-dot"
practice was still continuing, I quoted examples to prove
that it had been given up. Thereafter, I steered the
discussion towards the main issue, which was in fact RMIM -
related. Was this wrong ? Would you have preferred to let
the discussion continue to meander through so many addi-
tional channels ? Would you have liked to make this thread
some sort of a "Sar~taaj" thread (a la Binaca Geet Mala),
by letting it reach a total of, say, 150 posts ?
Remember, you had already complained about expending too
much bandwidth and spilling of "electronic" ink etc., though
you were the first to bring in a totally extraneous element
by talking about the "Lucknow/Lahore" theory.
The two things I did were as straightforward and honest as
honest could be. You called it "disingenuous". Perhaps
you would care to explain what kind of "deception" was
involved or practised there.
Employing such excuses can be described, at best, as
mendacious.
This is an age-old device employed by people to obfuscate the
issues and prove themselves innocent. Make some insinuations.
Ask some rhetorical questions. Plant the ideas firmly in the
minds of listeners or readers. And then end with a resounding
NO. But rest assured : it simply doesn't wash.
Your above quote comes across to me as follows : "Look, hindi
(and Hindi-wallahs) at least "invented" D. letters (or symbols)
to represent Urdu sounds. That was a big favour done to Urdu
and Urdu-wallahs, but did the Urdu-wallahs do likewise ?
Never ! Doesn't that give the Hindi-wallahs the right to drop
the special symbols (for certain Urdu sounds) ? Yes and Yes !
And this discontinuance (of the earlier system) would serve you
Urdu-wallahs right !" And then you also slip in the quite
innocent remark "Payback, as it were", thereby implying that
the Urdu-wallahs were to be blamed for this state of affairs and
the Hindi-wallahs were sort of paying them back for all their
sins.
Why make all those rhetorical statements at such great length, if
the honest (?) intention was to end with a "NO" ? Reminds me of
that infamous line in Indian films when the hero tells the
chief villain : "Aap to purush hi naheeN haiN". And when the
villain glowers at the hero, the explanation follows : "Are, aap
to maha~purush haiN".
You had no choice but to accept that Urdu simply does not have the
letters/symbols to represent certain Sanskrit/hindi sounds. And
yet you kept on harping upon the "fact" that Urdu-wallahs do not
pronounce (and write) words like "ShaTkoN, kiraN, kR^iShNa and
viShNu" etc. correctly. Pray, tell me : how can they ? When the
symbols themselves do not exist, how can they be even aware of the
correct Sanskriticised pronunciation ? But this is a convenient
stick to beat them with.
UVR Saheb, how can it be otherwise ? How do you expect Urdu -
wallahs to be familiar with all the hindi sites (of newspapers,
magazines etc.) ? And, before the dawn of the Computer Age, how
can you expect that they should have been reading the hindi
newspapers and magazines on a regular/daily basis, to keep
themselves abreast of all the developments and changes that have
been taking place in the hindi or D. script over the decades ?
An average Urdu-wallah cannot possibly know for sure what a
"chandrabindu" is and what it looks like. He cannot know why or
when it was dropped so unceremoniusly. When he does not know
what is an "anusvara", how can he decide whether it is an
adequate replacement for the "chandrabindu" ? And please note
that the average Urdu-wallah has not been raising any hullabaloo
about the discontinuance of the "j-dot" practice. It is only the
few Urdu practitioners on RMIM (like Asif, Naseer Saheb and
myself) who feel concerned about it. The average Urdu-wallah is
quite happy to read about the Ashes and the West Indies etc. from
English or Urdu sources.
This generalized question should never have been the focus of
our discussion. The simple issue was writing the Urdu sounds
correctly (in RMIM) in the Roman script. That was all.
>
>> 5. Your childhood experience : I read it with considerable
>> sympathy. Believe me, during the twenties and thirties (I
>> don't talk of earlier decades), you would have found almost all
>> street urchins in Delhi pronouncing the word "ziyaada" quite
>> correctly. And why worry about the loss ? Let us concentrate
>> on the gain. I think YOU were the real gainer, as you came to
>> learn our beautiful language !
>>
>> Afzal
>
> On this matter there can be no disagreement! It is *I* who have
> gained.
>
> (FWIW, I wasn't around in the 20s and 30s. My mother wasn't even
> born! I was speaking of the 70s. What a difference a 'few' decades
> can make.)
That is exactly what I meant. Delhi is far far different today
than what it was, say, in the thirties and forties. And the same
is true of so many other cities and towns in India.
Afzal
> -UVR.
In conclusion (for this post), I would like to make just one more
point. Here is a quote from one of your earlier posts :
"In my experience, there is one and only one fringe trying to
destroy Urdu -- it is that fundamentalist faction which, for
despicable political gain, chest-thumpingly asserts that Urdu
is a 'foreign' or 'muslim' language, wants to send it 'across
the border' as it were.
You know that left to my own devices, I would sentence these
people to be shot at point-blank range and for their remains
to be left for the vultures to feast on. Sorry for the
violent image."
And this is another quote, for which I am indebted to Prof. Surjit
Singh :
"......here is a guide to Hindi spelling:
http://giitaayan.com/hindispelling.asp
"As formulated by an Expert Committee appointed by the
Government of India for the purpose and as approved by the
Government."
Rule # 13 in the above set lays down that words like "raaz" and
"naaz" are words of "foreign" or "alien" origin and, therefore,
these should be used with the dots. {Interestingly "zaroor"
is supposed to be written as "jaroor" !} So, at least in two
cases, the GOI supports poor Mr. Asif !!
Afzal
sancho
has been quite interesting to read the various comments. I am not an
expert on linguistics but I do have some views which I thought I might
share on this forum. It’s turned out to be pretty long, so apologies
for that upfront...but just sharing my views. Not all directly
relevant to a music group...but the discussion has already widened.
I think a lot of issues have arisen in the debate over the “correct”
pronunciation of words (and since these are phonetic languages, the
impact is often on spelling as well) taken from one language (say
Urdu) into another language (say Hindi) . The fundamental question, I
think is that when a word moves from one language to another, why must
the pronunciation remain the same as the original language? Why should
it not change to reflect the structure of the borrowing language
rather than the borrowed language? I think by and large, anecdotal
evidence would suggest that the change in pronunciation and spelling
does happen. In fact, I think Hindi has given a unique place to Urdu
by accepting that words borrowed from Urdu should be identified by the
use of the “nukta” (and I use the words “Hindi” and “Urdu” as
abstracts here with no pointer towards users of the language)
indicating that the sound is different. This is not true in many
languages for words borrowed from other languages.
Consider for example, Hindi and Bengali, both of which owe a lot to
Sanskrit. Hindi words with “v” have a corresponding “b” sound in
Bengali because Bengali does not have the “v” sound . I don’t know
which the older language is...but if both have derived from Sanskrit,
then in many cases the Sanskrit version would be “v”. But the use of
“b” in Bengali cannot be surely imputed to anything but the structure
of the language.
Consider words borrowed into Hindi from English- take a word like
“phone” (I realize some people might insist that it is not a hindi
word...that being “door dhvani” , but for practical purposes, I think
it is today a hindi word). While, one might put a nukta on the first
letter to indicate the “f” sound, there is no way, to my knowledge to
put anything on the matra to show that the “o” sound is different in
English from Hindi. Similarly consider a word like “train” (again for
practical purposes, i think one could say that this is a Hindi word
today). The vowel sound in “train” is different in English from Hindi.
There is no indication of this either. In fact, so all pervading is
the influence of the Indian forms of these vowels, that most Indians,
even while speaking English would use the “wrong” vowels in words like
“phone” and “train”. Wrong in English, that is...it would be perfectly
fine in an Indian language.
This is also true when we consider words borrowed into English from
other languages...specifically Hindi and Urdu. Consider the word
“kismat”. The English pronunciation of this word is “kiz-met” though
it is spelt as kismet. The word comes into English from Persian and I
am guessing that it is the same origin for the Urdu (and Hindi???)
word which is pronounced very different from English. Consider
“jungle” which is derived from the Hindi but pronounced differently in
the 2 languages (the first vowel in the word in English is like the
second vowel of “above” while in hindi the first vowel of the word is
more like the first vowel of “above”)
There are also many cases of words in European languages deriving from
English, where the spelling remains the same (since they use the same
alphabet) but the pronunciation changes.
While all this is of course, anecdotal evidence, to me it is strong
enough to show that when a language borrows from another, it changes
the word (either orthographically or phonetically or both) to fit the
structure of its language. The case of Hindi and Urdu is possibly
unique...and that too, apparently only in one direction.
Why would something like this have happened? And what, in this
context, is “correct”?
I am guessing (and I hope there are people here who know more and
throw some further light on this) that earlier people spoke the
“Hindustani” dialect which grew out of Hindi and Urdu. People knew
that “zindagi” and “jeevan” both meant life...and while everyone may
not have been aware of the roots of the words, they knew (perhaps
because both languages were also in vogue as independent ones) that
the first was pronounced with a “z” and the second with a
“j” (phonetically “dz”). Over time, there were more and more words
from Urdu, which became used in day to day speech and there had to be
a way to write it in Devnagri. 2 choices now arose – either figure out
a way to write the “z” sound in devnagri, or else start pronouncing
the “z” sound as a “j” (the closest phonetically). Since the upper
classes (who really would had the means to influence the choice) would
have considered “jindagi” incorrect or even “uneducated” or “rustic”
and were used to saying “zindagi”, the language would have evolved a
form to have the Urdu sounds in writing in Devnagri (but never a form
for the English sounds, which had close phonetic equivalents in Hindi
– indeed i would say much closer)
And so, it is “zindagi” and not “jindagi”....”ziyaada” and not
“jyaada”
Does that mean “jindagi” is incorrect. That one is more difficult. To
me, it is wrong, because I grew up being taught that “z” is different
from “j” in Hindi by means of the nukta. But a language is by no means
static. Finally, correctness or incorrectness is a factor of usage. If
enough people start saying “jindagi” then it is, at least an
acceptable variant and if more than enough start saying it, then
“zindagi” is incorrect. I have no way to check what is happening but
if one were to accept newspapers as a barometer, maybe it is
happening. Consider for example Afzal saab saying that in the 20’s and
30’s street urchins in Delhi would say “ziyaada” (i don’t say
correctly or otherwise) but in some years time when UVR saab was in
Delhi, it had changed. Clearly language does change. And perhaps for
many of us who grew up in earlier times and (for some of us) who do
not live in India anymore, that change is not so visible.
Is that change good or bad? Prescriptiveness for a language is always
difficult. Can we say that if enough people say “jindagi”, then that’s
the word? It’s difficult to set the limits. For example, more and more
I see people in India, whose first language is, for practical
purposes, English, say “ph” incorrectly as “f”. I had a colleague from
Delhi who would say “fool” instead of “phool” and refused to accept
that it was “phool” (“how do you know? You are, in any case from Tamil
Nadu”) -clearly an influence from English. If enough Indians start
saying “f”, would the sound change? I should hope not.
But in the case we have been discussing, where the borrowing has
happened under counter-intuitive means (at least that is what I have
argued above), there could be merit in saying that in Hindi, one
should say “jindagi” and not “zindagi”. Many of us who have grown up
having being taught “zindagi” (including me) would consider it
incorrect and never use it...but over a period of time, if that starts
being used by enough people, i see no reason to view it as wrong.
May i add that this is only with reference to the Hindi word “zindagi”
being said (and written) as “jindagi” and not the Urdu word “zindagi”.
The Urdu word would always remain “zindagi”. And that would not change
irrespective of how it is written in Devnagri. So you would have 2
words –zindagi in Urdu and jindagi in Hindi- similar to having say,
jungle and 'jangal' or bungalow and 'bangla' in English and Hindi.
That, to my mind, may be an eventual end point.
regards
Sancho
UVR
Your post contains some not-so-thinly veiled accusations as to what
you perceive to be my "real" motive in this thread (and, dare I say,
in Life)! I obviously cannot do anything (anything at all) to
disabuse you of these mistaken notions except to say that these are,
in fact, mistaken notions.
The tenor of your post also suggests that you are quite enraged.
Surely, I am the cause of that. I would like to simply tender a
humble apology for this, and stop this discussion.
Whether you accept or reject my apology, I hope you will be able to
agree that I bear no malice against any Urduwallah, or Urdu.
-UVR.
> ...
>
> read more »
Afzal A. Khan
> Afzal saahib,
>
> Your post contains some not-so-thinly veiled accusations as to what
> you perceive to be my "real" motive in this thread (and, dare I say,
> in Life)! I obviously cannot do anything (anything at all) to
> disabuse you of these mistaken notions except to say that these are,
> in fact, mistaken notions.
>
> The tenor of your post also suggests that you are quite enraged.
> Surely, I am the cause of that. I would like to simply tender a
> humble apology for this, and stop this discussion.
>
> Whether you accept or reject my apology, I hope you will be able to
> agree that I bear no malice against any Urduwallah, or Urdu.
>
> -UVR.
My dear UVR,
Though I did express my views rather forcefully, it is not like
as if I was "enraged". You know me better than that.
So let us end this discussion on a pleasant note. We remain
friends. And my respect for your interest in (and knowledge of)
Urdu is as high as ever. {BTW, I have not specified the
height !!}.
You told us a story of your childhood, so let me do likewise,
but not of my childhood.
It must have been around 35 years back, or a little more perhaps.
Once, I took my family to see a circus (in India). You know how
it is --- during each show, there are two or three comic inter -
ludes, to give a breather to the main performers. During one
such break, a diminutive clown and the ring master came into the
arena. After a little banter, the clown told the ring master :
"you just don't know what a fine singer I am". And the ring
master said " "Ha !". So the clown launched into a song in a
horribly funny voice. And the "song" consisted of just one word,
repeated again and again --- and yet again :
Julephaaye, julephaaye
Julephaaye, julephaaye
Julephaaye, julephaaye
In mock exasperation, the ring master tried his utmost to get the
clown to stop, but each time the clown would escape and continue
the raucous refrain : "Julephaaye, julephaaye".
The crowd roared with laughter. And when the act was over, a
little one from our group piped up : "yeh 'julephaaye' kya hota
hai ?", he asked. And there was a puzzled frown on his face.
"It just means 'zulfeN'", I explained. "Oh !", he said.
And I still remember his face, as the puzzled frown was replaced
with a serene sense of understanding !
Afzal
Afzal A. Khan
> I have over the last ten days or so been following this thread and it
> has been quite interesting to read the various comments. I am not an
> expert on linguistics but I do have some views which I thought I might
> share on this forum. It�s turned out to be pretty long, so apologies
> for that upfront...but just sharing my views. Not all directly
> relevant to a music group...but the discussion has already widened.
>
> I think a lot of issues have arisen in the debate over the �correct�
> pronunciation of words (and since these are phonetic languages, the
> impact is often on spelling as well) taken from one language (say
> Urdu) into another language (say Hindi) . The fundamental question, I
> think is that when a word moves from one language to another, why must
> the pronunciation remain the same as the original language? Why should
> it not change to reflect the structure of the borrowing language
> rather than the borrowed language? I think by and large, anecdotal
> evidence would suggest that the change in pronunciation and spelling
> does happen. In fact, I think Hindi has given a unique place to Urdu
> by accepting that words borrowed from Urdu should be identified by the
> use of the �nukta� (and I use the words �Hindi� and �Urdu� as
> abstracts here with no pointer towards users of the language)
> indicating that the sound is different. This is not true in many
> languages for words borrowed from other languages.
>
> Consider for example, Hindi and Bengali, both of which owe a lot to
> Sanskrit. Hindi words with �v� have a corresponding �b� sound in
> Bengali because Bengali does not have the �v� sound . I don�t know
> which the older language is...but if both have derived from Sanskrit,
> then in many cases the Sanskrit version would be �v�. But the use of
> �b� in Bengali cannot be surely imputed to anything but the structure
> of the language.
>
> Consider words borrowed into Hindi from English- take a word like
> �phone� (I realize some people might insist that it is not a hindi
> word...that being �door dhvani� , but for practical purposes, I think
> it is today a hindi word). While, one might put a nukta on the first
> letter to indicate the �f� sound, there is no way, to my knowledge to
> put anything on the matra to show that the �o� sound is different in
> English from Hindi. Similarly consider a word like �train� (again for
> practical purposes, i think one could say that this is a Hindi word
> today). The vowel sound in �train� is different in English from Hindi.
> There is no indication of this either. In fact, so all pervading is
> the influence of the Indian forms of these vowels, that most Indians,
> even while speaking English would use the �wrong� vowels in words like
> �phone� and �train�. Wrong in English, that is...it would be perfectly
> fine in an Indian language.
>
> This is also true when we consider words borrowed into English from
> other languages...specifically Hindi and Urdu. Consider the word
> �kismat�. The English pronunciation of this word is �kiz-met� though
> it is spelt as kismet. The word comes into English from Persian and I
> am guessing that it is the same origin for the Urdu (and Hindi???)
> word which is pronounced very different from English. Consider
> �jungle� which is derived from the Hindi but pronounced differently in
> the 2 languages (the first vowel in the word in English is like the
> second vowel of �above� while in hindi the first vowel of the word is
> more like the first vowel of �above�)
>
> There are also many cases of words in European languages deriving from
> English, where the spelling remains the same (since they use the same
> alphabet) but the pronunciation changes.
>
> While all this is of course, anecdotal evidence, to me it is strong
> enough to show that when a language borrows from another, it changes
> the word (either orthographically or phonetically or both) to fit the
> structure of its language. The case of Hindi and Urdu is possibly
> unique...and that too, apparently only in one direction.
>
> Why would something like this have happened? And what, in this
> context, is �correct�?
>
> I am guessing (and I hope there are people here who know more and
> throw some further light on this) that earlier people spoke the
> �Hindustani� dialect which grew out of Hindi and Urdu. People knew
> that �zindagi� and �jeevan� both meant life...and while everyone may
> not have been aware of the roots of the words, they knew (perhaps
> because both languages were also in vogue as independent ones) that
> the first was pronounced with a �z� and the second with a
> �j� (phonetically �dz�). Over time, there were more and more words
> from Urdu, which became used in day to day speech and there had to be
> a way to write it in Devnagri. 2 choices now arose � either figure out
> a way to write the �z� sound in devnagri, or else start pronouncing
> the �z� sound as a �j� (the closest phonetically). Since the upper
> classes (who really would had the means to influence the choice) would
> have considered �jindagi� incorrect or even �uneducated� or �rustic�
> and were used to saying �zindagi�, the language would have evolved a
> form to have the Urdu sounds in writing in Devnagri (but never a form
> for the English sounds, which had close phonetic equivalents in Hindi
> � indeed i would say much closer)
>
> And so, it is �zindagi� and not �jindagi�....�ziyaada� and not
> �jyaada�
>
> Does that mean �jindagi� is incorrect. That one is more difficult. To
> me, it is wrong, because I grew up being taught that �z� is different
> from �j� in Hindi by means of the nukta. But a language is by no means
> static. Finally, correctness or incorrectness is a factor of usage. If
> enough people start saying �jindagi� then it is, at least an
> acceptable variant and if more than enough start saying it, then
> �zindagi� is incorrect. I have no way to check what is happening but
> if one were to accept newspapers as a barometer, maybe it is
> happening. Consider for example Afzal saab saying that in the 20�s and
> 30�s street urchins in Delhi would say �ziyaada� (i don�t say
> correctly or otherwise) but in some years time when UVR saab was in
> Delhi, it had changed. Clearly language does change. And perhaps for
> many of us who grew up in earlier times and (for some of us) who do
> not live in India anymore, that change is not so visible.
>
> Is that change good or bad? Prescriptiveness for a language is always
> difficult. Can we say that if enough people say �jindagi�, then that�s
> the word? It�s difficult to set the limits. For example, more and more
> I see people in India, whose first language is, for practical
> purposes, English, say �ph� incorrectly as �f�. I had a colleague from
> Delhi who would say �fool� instead of �phool� and refused to accept
> that it was �phool� (�how do you know? You are, in any case from Tamil
> Nadu�) -clearly an influence from English. If enough Indians start
> saying �f�, would the sound change? I should hope not.
>
> But in the case we have been discussing, where the borrowing has
> happened under counter-intuitive means (at least that is what I have
> argued above), there could be merit in saying that in Hindi, one
> should say �jindagi� and not �zindagi�. Many of us who have grown up
> having being taught �zindagi� (including me) would consider it
> incorrect and never use it...but over a period of time, if that starts
> being used by enough people, i see no reason to view it as wrong.
>
> May i add that this is only with reference to the Hindi word �zindagi�
> being said (and written) as �jindagi� and not the Urdu word �zindagi�.
> The Urdu word would always remain �zindagi�. And that would not change
> irrespective of how it is written in Devnagri. So you would have 2
> words �zindagi in Urdu and jindagi in Hindi- similar to having say,
> jungle and 'jangal' or bungalow and 'bangla' in English and Hindi.
> That, to my mind, may be an eventual end point.
>
> regards
> Sancho
My dear Sancho Saheb,
1. I know next to nothing about linguistics. I am merely a humble
practitioner of the Urdu language. Maybe, one other person, a
true gentleman by the name of Mr. Naseer Qureshi, is your man.
He is most interested in the above subject and can perhaps
carry on a very meaningful discussion in regard to the various
issues you have raised. I hope he too has read your post and,
time permitting, would choose to respond to it. But I would
suggest to both of you to start a new thread, either on RMIM or
(preferably) on ALUP for further discussion --- either you can
slightly modify your post and send it to ALUP or Naseer Saheb
can copy it there and send his response.
2. I must also express my appreciation for your valuable input and
the thoughtful manner in which you have presented your views.
3. I am positive "Sancho" is an alias and it is quite on the cards
that you know something about me and also UVR Saheb --- the two
persons who have had a prolonged "exchange" in this thread.
For all practical purposes, we should treat this thread as over
(particularly after UVR Saheb's last post). It is, therefore,
requested that any further discussion should be carried on
through a different thread, and preferably on ALUP.
4. With the preliminary points out of the way, let me try to
present before you some thoughts on this topic.
5. To my mind, the issue here was very simple ---> how to write,
in Roman, certain Urdu words and sounds, particularly with
reference to Indian films and their music/lyrics. Asif's post
specifically concerned RMIMers. The Urdu words he had in mind
were (e.g.) "zindagi", "zid", "zaroorat, "zamaana", "zeenat"
and also "raaz", "naaz" etc.
6. It had been noted in the thread (and nobody disputed it) that,
for a long time, there was a certain scheme in place that used
to be followed quite rigorously ---> the so-called "j-dot"
scheme. It has now been given up.
Having discussed the fundamentals of the background, let me deal
with some of your points. You have used the expression "when a
word moves from one language to another". This process does NOT
take place at the volition of that word itself. Someone or some
people has/have to "move" that word. And, usually, there is a
background to such movement. Also, it does NOT happen that
the word simply vanishes from its original language. It continues
to be a part of that language. Let us now assume that the two
languages are Urdu and hindi. Normally, an Urdu-wallah would not
care about the new 'avatar' of the Urdu word in the other language.
For example, "zindagi" can become "jindagi" and the latter may be
used like that in hindi newspapers and magazines. But an Urdu -
wallah may not even be aware of such a change, because he does not
(and does not have to) read hindi newspapers or magazines. And
even if he did, he may not be overly bothered about it. The
problem arises (for the limited purpose of our RMIM-related
discussions), when people start using the Roman spelling "jindagi"
routinely (in RMIM or ALUP) for this word. The same thing can (and
does)happen with other words of this nature. And it is this
practice that tends to upset Urdu-wallahs. They cannot subscribe
to this theory that these are two different words, one with a 'z'
(that is meant to be used in Urdu), and the other with a 'j' (that
is meant to be used in Roman). For them, it is (essentially) the
same word. And when there is a convenient system (the j-dot) that
had already been in use for a very long time), they cannot quite
understand why the same cannot be continued as before. They only
seek a revival of that system on RMIM. As it is, some RMIMers
still use these words on RMIM with a 'z'. So, it is no big deal if
others can also do so. Clearly, U-wallahs cannot 'reform' the
entire hindi press, and they don't seek to do so.
To make this relevant to RMIM, please consider the following lines
from Indian films :
Zindagi, kaisi hai paheli haaye
Zindagi dene waale sun
Zindagi hai zinda ('Munimji')
Zaahid sharaab peene de, masjid men baiTh kar
Zaalim tiri aaNkhon ne, kya cheez pilaa di hai
Zamaane ka dastoor hai yeh puraana
ZameeN chal rahi aasmaaN chal raha hai
Zara nazroN se keh do ji, nishaana chook na jaaye
Zara sa jhoom looN maiN
Zaroorat hai, zaroorat hai, zaroorat hai
Zulm ki nagri men kisi ka kaun sahaara hai
One can add many more songs to such a list, where only one Urdu
sound "Z" is involved. Also, I have chosen only those examples
where the "Z" word occurs right at the beginning. How is it going
to look if we start writing all these lines (in Roman) with a 'J' ?
And since it is perfectly possible to write them with a 'Z', why not
simply follow (or, if necessary, revive) that practice ? Is such a
plea so unreasonable ?
In paragraph 2 of your post under reply, you state (and I quote) :
"Why should it not change to reflect the structure of the
borrowing language rather than the borrowed language?"
You make it sound as if it is mandatory to change the pronunciation
of a 'borrowed' word. One question would be : why 'borrow' the word
in the first place ? Hindi (the Sanskriticised version) has, and
had been, doing quite well on its own. So why not let Urdu (with
its Faarsi/Arabic vocabulary) strictly alone ? After all, there is
a pefectly suitable word like "jeevan" available in Hindi. What the
U-wallahs look askance at is this process ---> first "expropriate"
Urdu words and "incorporate" them in hindi, then change their pro-
nunciation and mode of writing and start claiming that these are
actually Hindi words only ! And since a word like "zindagi" will
continue to be used in Urdu, there can be a subsequent demand that
U-wallahs too should start writing it with a "jeem" and not with a
"ze". Please remember that there have been a great many attempts,
over the years, to get Urdu to drop its script and switch over to
the D. script. Also, every h-wallah seems to characterize the
Arabic/Faarsi/Tukic content of the Urdu language as "foreign, alien
and non-indigenous". It is in this background that the reservations
of Urdu-wallahs have to be seen and understood.
There is one thing that I have never been able to quite understand.
Why is there so much interest in and fascination for Urdu poetry
amongst hindi-wallahs ? It seems to be a one-way traffic, as
U-wallahs do not seem to exhibit such a fascination for hindi
poetry. Ask an average U-wallah about Niraala or Jai Shankar
Prasad and he would give you a blank look. And it isn't as if
H-wallahs are seeking to do any favour to Urdu poetry or U-wallahs.
Could it be that there is something intrinsically exquisite,
elegant, refined and resplendent about the language that can be
seen in all its splendour in its poetry ? If it is indeed so, why
seek to distort or mutilate this graceful language, under one
specious argument or another ?
You have cited examples of certain English words like "phone",
"train", "jungle" etc. But I think these are quite irrelevant for
purposes of our discussion. Let us confine ourself to the two
Indian languages, viz. Urdu and Hindi.
You will excuse me for saying that a lot of stuff in your post
above (roughly from the middle to the end) does not seem to follow
a logical path of reasoning. So I am unable to deal with those
points. Even then, I would like to submit that, by and large,
U-wallahs are not concerned as to how some H-wallahs SPEAK certain
Urdu words or use some Urdu sounds. Even when Urdu words are
written in the hindi press wrongly (e.g. without the "nuqta"), an
U-wallah would not be overly concerned. The whole discussion
is about a small Newsgroup like RMIM where the conversational
exchanges are carried on in Roman. And it is with respect to only
such a limited setting that a few U-wallahs like Yours Truly,
Naseer Saheb and the original poster Asif protested.
As regards "correct" and "incorrect", I doubt if a common meeting
ground is possible. You may say that, in the hindi belt, more and
more people are speaking this word as "jindagi". And these people
can keep on shouting from the house-tops that it is a hindi word and
is absolutely correct. But, please rest assured that it would not
persuade the U-wallahs to give up their firmly rooted belief that it
is in fact an Urdu word and its only correct form is with a "Z".
Most h-wallahs have little love lost for the Urdu language, despite
their fascination for Urdu poetry. And this is a fact that cannot
be gainsaid. One example should suffice. Most veteran RMIMers
would remember a gentleman by the name of Mr. Sami Mohammed who
was (and should still be) a huge fan of Naushad and Mohammed Rafi.
He used to maintain a web-page which he called "Sami's Urdu/hindi
Music Page". I don't know if it is still there. And then, about
9-10 years back, one RMIMer asked him point blank (on the forum) as
to why he called it his "Urdu/hindi" page, and why not as "Hindi/
Urdu" page. And you should surely be aware of the huge role of
the Urdu language in Indian film lyrics. Go figure, as the US folks
would say.
Afzal
surjit singh
> He used to maintain a web-page which he called "Sami's Urdu/hindi
> Music Page". I don't know if it is still there. And then, about
> 9-10 years back, one RMIMer asked him point blank (on the forum) as
> to why he called it his "Urdu/hindi" page, and why not as "Hindi/
> Urdu" page. And you should surely be aware of the huge role of
> the Urdu language in Indian film lyrics. Go figure, as the US folks
> would say.
>
> Afzal
Sami's page Uindi/Hurdu page is still there:
http://thaxi.usc.edu/rmim/sami/sami.html
Q: Why do some people write jindagi for zindagi on RMIM?
A: They don't know that it is zindagi.
Q: Why not?
A: Nobody told them that it is an Urdu word. They always thought it is
a Hindi word and is spelt as jindagi.
Q: Should we teach them that it is a loan word from Urdu and should be
spelt as zindagi?
A: Yes, by all means.
Q: Is it really as simple as that?
A: No, it never is on RMIM :) Welcome to RMIM!