Meter (Ghazals)
Parul Trivedi
in urdu Ghazals. I hope it proves useful to some of you who write poetry
and for all the rest that enjoy reading it.
I have taken some care in preparing this and if by chance have stated
something that is not accurate please bring it to my attention. If
something is not clear please let me know. I'll do my best to expound
it again.
There are 36 meters used in Urdu poetry. 15 out of these have extended
forms which are permitted with the main form in the same ghazal. The
meters themselves consist of feet. Only 20 feet are used to create this
36 meters.
Example of a meter: MAFUL FAILAT MAFAIL FAILUM
Here - MAFUL, FAILAT, MAFAIL AND FAILUM are the four feet of the meter.
(The name of the feet are derived from Arabic root 'fial' (to do) but
has no meaning. )
By using the number 1 (one) to indicate long syllables and the number 2
(two) to indicate short syllables the meter can be broken down as
follows:
MAF U L FA I LA T MA FA E L FA I LUN
2 2 1 2 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 1 2
This meter also has an extended form. In the last feet FAILAT is
acceptable in place of FAILUN
Examples of ghazals in this meter:
Mai zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya
---- Sahir
2 2 1 2 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2
1 2
MAI ZIN d GI ka SAA th ni Bha TA ch LA
ga YA
Words can span across feet - Example ZINDAGI is spread across MAFUL
and FAILAT
Long vowelled letters can be considered as short vowelled as "KA" (a
common occurrence I have seen is with the word MERI (Mine) where it can
be scanned as 2, 2 both with long vowels or as 1 2 with ME as short
and RE as long or as 1 1 where both ME and RE are shortened.)
ta phir na intezar mai neend aaye umar bher
Aana ka aahad kar gaya aaya jo khawb mei ----
Ghalib
2 2 1 2 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 1
2
TA PHIR na IN ta ZA r mai EEN DAAY e UM r
BHER
Here D of NEEND is extended to 2 because of the AA sound following it
of AAYE. We find this in a lot of verse. Recent example was a ghazal
posted by Raj Sahib.
2 2 1 2 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 1 2
AA NA ka AHA d KAR ga ya AA YA jo Khaw b Mei
Here ya of gaya a long vowel has been shortened. But say if we had
words like 'Phir' or 'hum' they cannot be broken down PH and IR (1 ,
1) because when we say the word we do it as one and not as two separate
letters. Same holds true for hum.
In the same ghazal the sher "Muj tak kab unki bazm me aata tha daur-a
-jam" is an example of the extended meter. Jam is broken down as JA
(2) and M (1) for the last two.
Other exampels - guzara hai aaj ishq mei hum us makam se
Nafrat si ho gayi hai mohabat ke nam se- Shakil(?)
Duniya ne teri yaad se begana kar diya
Tuzase bhi dil pharab hai gam rozgar ke -- Faiz
Milte hai zindigi mai mohobat kabhi kabhi
hoti hai dilbaro ki inayat kabhi khabi -- Sahir
In my opinion this is a meter that has been extensively used. This
meter is considered of medium difficulty. ( the 36 meters are classified
by some in terms of difficulty- Easy, medium, and hard)
Some other meters:
Easy meters: (if there is anything like it!)
/ indicates extended form in place of ie 2/2 means 2 1 is ok to use in
place of 2 )
1 2 2 1 2 2 1 2 2 1 2 2/21 Mohobut ke rahoo mei chalan sambhal ke
yahan jo bhi aaya gaya haat mal ke
(shakil)
1 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 - Muje teri mohobat ka sahara
mil gay hota
agar tufa nahi aata kinara mil
gay hota
1 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 1 2 2/2 1 - kaha zalim ne mera haal sunkar
wo is geene se mar jaya to aacha
----Daag(?)
2 1 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 1 2 / 2 1- koi din gar zindagani aur hai
hamne apna dil me thani aur hai
----Ghalib
2 1 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 1 2 / 2 1 - sab kaha kuch lalo-o-gul mai
numayan ho gayi
khak mai kay surate hongi ke
pinahan ho gayi
Ghalib
2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 (paata paata bhutta
bhutta…………)--- Mir
I'll list all the meters in the next post. One interesting thing about
the last one. Mir has used it with great success in many of his
ghazals but Ghalab and Iqbal have not written any thing using it!!! A
matter of temprament (did not suit their style), I think.
To: Kaash and Shareek - hope this helps.
Amit Trivedi
Philip Nikolayev
> Ghalib
> 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 (paata paata bhutta
> bhutta…………)--- Mir
This should be "patta patta, buuTa buuTa."
Philip
ahm...@noka.ub.bw
Parul Trivedi <tri...@facstaff.wisc.edu> wrote:
> As some of you have asked here is a something about meters (bher) used
> in urdu Ghazals. I hope it proves useful to some of you who write poetry
> and for all the rest that enjoy reading it.
> I have taken some care in preparing this and if by chance have stated
> something that is not accurate please bring it to my attention. If
> something is not clear please let me know. I'll do my best to expound
> it again.
>
> There are 36 meters used in Urdu poetry. 15 out of these have extended
> forms which are permitted with the main form in the same ghazal. The
> meters themselves consist of feet. Only 20 feet are used to create this
> 36 meters.
>
> Example of a meter: MAFUL FAILAT MAFAIL FAILUM
>
Thanks, Amit, for this very informative post. I look forward to a complete
exposition on meter in your future posts. Looking at how involved the
analysis is, I am surprised how, without any knowledge of prosody, I was able
to enjoy Urdu poetry and could even detect if any line was out of behr.
Just a little addition to what you said about the feet, in case the syllables
in the feet are not apparant to anyone who is not familiar with the
derivatives of the Arabic word "fe'l": the first word mentioned is "maf'ul"
(or maf'ool), with a glottal stop after maf, and rhymes with maqbool. Then
there is faa'ilaat (rhymes with shaamilaat), mafaa'il (like muqaabil) and
faa'ilun (like saari bun, "knit the sari").
Also, are what you denote by 1 and 2, short and long syllables or
merely unstressed and stressed ones? Am I right when I say that the last
syllable in faa'ilun, for example, is short, but stressed, that is why it is
denoted by 2 rather than 1?
In view of what we have been discussing recently, Urdu viz-a-viz English
poetry, I hope someone (perhaps Philip or Fuzuli?) will give us a similar
introduction to meter in English poetry. It would be nice to know why, even
inspite of trying, I could never appreciate or even detect the rhythm in much
of English poetry.
Jamil
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Philip Nikolayev
> Thanks, Amit, for this very informative post. I look forward to a complete
> exposition on meter in your future posts. Looking at how involved the
> analysis is, I am surprised how, without any knowledge of prosody, I was able
> to enjoy Urdu poetry and could even detect if any line was out of behr.
Dear Jamil-saahab,
I'm sure you're understating your knowledge of Urdu prosody. But I
wonder: how do you detect whether the line is in or out of behr when
the rules for scansion are not phonetic. The curious thing about the
metrical system, as derived from Arabic and Persian, is that it is
based on the *characters* rather than the sounds, and therefore is
sometimes not entirely phonetic. For example, "ain" is treated as a
consonant; most of the time this makes no difference with respect to
sound (as in "maaluum"), but sometimes it does (as in, say, "shuruu
honaa"). How do you "hear" the implied schwa between the "ain" and the
"h"? Or how do you bring it our by "humming," as Prof. Pathria
suggested elsewhere?
> Also, are what you denote by 1 and 2, short and long syllables or
> merely unstressed and stressed ones? Am I right when I say that the
> last syllable in faa'ilun, for example, is short, but stressed, that
> is why it is denoted by 2 rather than 1?
What does's stressed/unstressed mean in this context? I
assumed the whole system was based on vowel length only. Technically,
Urdu does not have stress, right? Stress is a feature of the phonetic
systems of languages where different vowel lengths do not create
different phonemes.
(A phoneme is a sound taken is its sense-differentiating capacity. For
example, in the words "cat" and "cut" it is the vowel that
differentiates the two meanings; therefore the "a" and "u" in these
are different phonemes, while the first consonant phonemes [k] are
identical, as are the last, [t].)
In English, stress does not make a new vowel phoneme: all phonemes can
be stressed or unstressed. Compare "net" with "Intrenet." But in Urdu
different vowel length creates different phonemes: "kam" vs. "kaam."
So how can you have stress on top of that?
(I mean, I think de facto stress is used when people wish to emphasize
certain sounds; songs are good examples of this. But can stress be a
part of the metrics?!)
> In view of what we have been discussing recently, Urdu viz-a-viz
> English poetry, I hope someone (perhaps Philip or Fuzuli?) will give
> us a similar introduction to meter in English poetry. It would be
> nice to know why, even inspite of trying, I could never appreciate
> or even detect the rhythm in much of English poetry.
I'll gladly post some examples later today; and perhaps later we can
talk about how various meters can be "translated" (if anyone besides
me is interested). There has been very little theory about such
matters, so we can be pioneers!
For now, let's take the most common English meter: iambic
pentameter. "Pentameter" means there are five feet in each line, and
iamb refers to the stress pattern -/ (one stressed, one unstressed
syllable). So a classic line in iambic pentameter looks like this:
_/_/_/_/_/(_)
The last unstressed syllable is optioinal: the line is "feminine" with
it, "masculine" without it.
Now, meter is an implied, ideal thing in Urdu and English alike. Lines
of poetry are not, strictly, in meter by themselves: we read meter
into them through the rules of scansion. These, of course, are
different between Urdu and English. Here is a famous line in iambic
pentameter from Shakespeare's _Hamlet_:
To be or not to be, that is the question.
Try reading it out in accordance with the correct pattern of stressed
and unstressed syllables. Do you perceive the rhythm differently now?
(In actual speech, not all syllables would be stressed or unstressed
in the same way in the same line, just like the implied schwas would
not be there in a line of Ghalib if it were said in ordinary speech).
Does this help?
Yours,
Philip
Parul Trivedi
>
> ahm...@noka.ub.bw writes:
>
> > Thanks, Amit, for this very informative post. I look forward to a complete
> > exposition on meter in your future posts. Looking at how involved the
> > analysis is, I am surprised how, without any knowledge of prosody, I was able
> > to enjoy Urdu poetry and could even detect if any line was out of behr.
>
> Dear Jamil-saahab,
>
> I'm sure you're understating your knowledge of Urdu prosody. But I
> wonder: how do you detect whether the line is in or out of behr when
> the rules for scansion are not phonetic. The curious thing about the
> metrical system, as derived from Arabic and Persian, is that it is
> based on the *characters* rather than the sounds, and therefore is
> sometimes not entirely phonetic. For example, "ain" is treated as a
> consonant; most of the time this makes no difference with respect to
> sound (as in "maaluum"), but sometimes it does (as in, say, "shuruu
> honaa"). How do you "hear" the implied schwa between the "ain" and the
> "h"? Or how do you bring it our by "humming," as Prof. Pathria
> suggested elsewhere?
>
Ab baat nikli hai to lagta hai door tak jayaee!
I was using 1 and 2 to denote only short and long syllables. Stress is
something I was going to post later after folks got comfortable--but,
best laid plans of mice and men... :-)
Also, I'll like to mention I am new at using English script to write
Urdu-so invariable errors do occur. Please have patience. I'll learn.
(mujjko hai aashaki ki ye aadat naie naie!)
Anyway here is what I was going to mention:
According to classical prosody there is no mention of stress (and I am
not sure why) but it is very much part of the feet of meters. For
example let's take the couplet:
2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
pat ta pat ta bhu ta bhu ta haa lha ma ra jaa ne hai
Jaa nen jaa ne gul hin jaa ne baa ghto sa ra jaa ne hai
Here the feet is Fa:lun. Primary stress is on Fa and secondary stress
is on lun.
So the first '2' takes the primary stress and the second one the
secondary.
Because of this the 'L' of haal and 'Ha' of hamara can be joined (so as
to speak). You will see whereever there is primary stress this is not
done. Either a long vowelled consonant is used (Ja, Pat etc) or a word
with short vowelled consonant followed by consonant with no vowel like
gul.
This more obvious if see Gahalib's ghazal: dard minnatkasha dava na
huwa/Mai na achcah huwa bura na huwa.
The meter is Failatun mufailun falun/falan (2122 1212 22/221) where:
Fa = 2, I = 1 LA = 2 tun = 2
Mu = 1, Fa = 2, I = 1 lun = 2
Fa =2, lun =2 or extended form Fa = 2 la =2 and n = 1.
The stress here becomes important because the "kafiya"- na huwa -is
broken down as
nahu and wa. (The last feet Fa-Lun). Since Fa here takes the secondary
stress this can be done.
Another sher of the same ghazal is Kitna shri hai tere lab ki rakeeb
Galiya kha ke bemaza na huwa
In the first line Ki rakeeb - Ki and r (of rakeeb) go together and keeb
is the extended form 2 1)
Regarding Failun: ( 2 1 2). Here primary stress can be on the first 2
or the last 2. The same is true for Fa:lun (mir's Ghazal above). The
stress can be on Lun instead of Fa. But it has to be the same
throughout. Cannot interchange between couplets of one ghazal.
The basic rule is as follows:
When there is one long syllable(denoted by 2) in a foot it will take
primary stress.
When there are two one of the will take primary and the other one
secondary.
When there are three the first and the third will take primary and the
middle one secondary. (MAFAILUN) This is 1 2 2 2. An example of this.
1 2 2 2 four times is a meter used in ghazal-kisi patthar ke murat se
mohobat ka irada hai (shair). There is an exception here. If the feet
is mustafilun (2 2 1 2) then the middle one takes the primary and the
other two secondary.
This may be confusing to some but it will become clear (I hope) once I
can post all the feet and meter.
Parul Trivedi
>
> >By using the number 1 (one) to indicate long syllables and the number 2
> >(two) to indicate short syllables the meter can be broken down as
> >follows:
> >
> >MAF U L FA I LA T MA FA E L FA I LUN
> > 2 2 1 2 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 1 2
> >
>
> ’1’ for short syllables and ’2’ for long ones. In that case, is it not a
> typing error where the opposite is implied ? ( as in the excerpt above).
> Please do clarify.
>
> Regards,
> Tejjit Singh Kalsi
Kalsi shaib:
You are absolutely right! My error (It should say 1 for short and 2 for
long.) Thank you for pointing it out and being so generous as to call it
a typo. I think it is nothing but carelessness on my part. I have also
noticed other typos in my postings. I should pay more attention before I
post anything.
Amit Trivedi
B. & T. S. Kalsi
First of all, I should like to thank Amit Sahib for starting this series of
postings about the basics of Urdu prosody. I am sure it will be very helpful
and at the same time interesting for many ALUP’ers. I am looking forward to
the coming instalments.
I am also sure that Jamil Sahib’s explantion about the glottal stop has
clarified the matter for many people. I can only add the following:
Persian and Urdu have inherited the Arabic root, fe-’ayn-laam, as a paradigm
for grammatical and prosodical structures. This does create some practical
problems, especially for people not familiar with Arabic phonetics. The root
consists of three consonants, as ’ayn is a full-fledged consonant in Arabic
being a voiced glottal stop. This is indicated very clearly by the rhyming
examples given by Jamil Sahib, where the ’ayn is replaced by a consonant in
the rhyming word. The problem lies in the fact that in Urdu speech, this
consonantal pronunciation of ’ayn is only vestigially present in very
cultured diction. By and large, it is just pronounced like a vowel, so that
ba’ad (disyllabic) becomes baad (monosyllabic) in normal Urdu speech. So one
has to keep this in mind when breaking up words like maf’ool, faa’ilaat and
faa’ilun into syllables.
ahm...@noka.ub.bw
Philip Nikolayev <nik...@login3.fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
> I'm sure you're understating your knowledge of Urdu prosody. But I
> wonder: how do you detect whether the line is in or out of behr when
> the rules for scansion are not phonetic. The curious thing about the
> metrical system, as derived from Arabic and Persian, is that it is
> based on the *characters* rather than the sounds, and therefore is
> sometimes not entirely phonetic. For example, "ain" is treated as a
> consonant; most of the time this makes no difference with respect to
> sound (as in "maaluum"), but sometimes it does (as in, say, "shuruu
> honaa"). How do you "hear" the implied schwa between the "ain" and the
> "h"? Or how do you bring it our by "humming," as Prof. Pathria
> suggested elsewhere?
The way I always 'pronounced' this ain at the end of a word like 'shuruu' is
to treat it as a glottal stop rather than a schwa, the same way I would
distinguish the sentences "We studied this in organic chemistry" from "We
studied this inorganic chemistry". For the meaning of the two phrases to be
distinct from eachother, there has to be a stop between n and o in the first
phrase. Let us try the line from Ghalib to see how it works:
Aaghosh-e-gul kashooda baraae widaa' hai
(Ai 'andaleeb chal keh chale din bahaar ke)
Now recite the first line without the stop, as
Aaghosh-e-gul kashooda baraae widaahai
the rhythm is perceptibly broken.
...
> For now, let's take the most common English meter: iambic
> pentameter. "Pentameter" means there are five feet in each line, and
> iamb refers to the stress pattern -/ (one stressed, one unstressed
> syllable). So a classic line in iambic pentameter looks like this:
>
> _/_/_/_/_/(_)
>
> The last unstressed syllable is optioinal: the line is "feminine" with
> it, "masculine" without it.
>
> Now, meter is an implied, ideal thing in Urdu and English alike. Lines
> of poetry are not, strictly, in meter by themselves: we read meter
> into them through the rules of scansion. These, of course, are
> different between Urdu and English. Here is a famous line in iambic
> pentameter from Shakespeare's _Hamlet_:
>
> To be or not to be, that is the question.
>
> Try reading it out in accordance with the correct pattern of stressed
> and unstressed syllables. Do you perceive the rhythm differently now?
>
> Philip
>
Yes, reading that line with that stress pattern does make a difference, and I
can now detect something remotely resembling a behr.
Thanks.
Mush
Parul Trivedi wrote in message <36551E...@facstaff.wisc.edu>...
>
>Amit Trivedi
Mush
How about this one.
She was a Phantom of Delight,
When First She Gleam'd Upon My Sight:
A dancing Shape, An Image Gay;
To Haunt, to Startle, and waylay.
(W. Wordsworth.)
ahm...@noka.ub.bw wrote in message <733lij$d94$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>In article <36551E...@facstaff.wisc.edu>,
> Parul Trivedi <tri...@facstaff.wisc.edu> wrote:
>
It would be nice to know why, even
>inspite of trying, I could never appreciate or even detect the rhythm
in much
>of English poetry.
>Jamil
Mush
Sorry, too complicated for casual readers.
A simpler explanation would benefit non Urdu speakers. Thanks
Philip Nikolayev wrote in message ...