help with difficult words

[Rajat Bhatnagar]

Hi
I have been reading this newsgroup for the past several weeks now, and have
seen some great shayiri/ghazals posted. It would be better if those posts
were accompanied with the meanings of some of the difficult words contained
in the ghazal. This would help people like me to appreciate the whole ghazal
instead of only couple of shers ( which is usually the case with me )

Thanks
Rajat

[Yogesh Sethi]

I think it is a very good suggestion. Especially considering the fact
that a variety of methods are employed to represent Urdu in the Roman
alphabet. Some words are close in appearance and a misreading can easily
lead to misinterpretation. Thus vocabulary notes not only help with the
meaning but also clarify the words being used. This imperative would not
be so great if we had the benefit of the original script.

But we must keep in mind that there are limitations. Vocabulary notes
for large poems can be time consuming and could easily lead to
repetitions. So we will need to strike a balance.

I think that if one is posting their own creations, vocabulary notes
would be most desirable as they will clarify the intent of the author
to the readers. For the postings of well known works, w'll need to be to
be more flexible.

Here, let me say to Rajat and all others concerned, if you come across
any words or lines that give you a hard time please post them, within
reason, and I'm sure someone will respond to it.

Regards,

Yogesh Sethi

[Yogesh Sethi]

Adnan wrote:
>
> On the same note, is it possible to get a kind of
> dictionary of *difficult* urdu words posted here.
> I retrieved a somewhat helpful one sometime back from
> another group. I feel though that it is not complete.
<snip>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Adnan
<snip>

You touch upon a complex issue. I would like to invite comments from
others on this matter. Every body, please do pitch in and express your
views and provide whatever additional information you can.

Let me comment a bit on the subject.

It has been my experience that Urdu dictionary is a rather difficult and
complex proposition. One area of difficulty is that Urdu is a rich
language with a vast vocabulary - it has words that create different
nuances with only minor variations of the script. This works quite
alright when writing in the Urdu script itself, since it provides us
with all the vowels and consonants needed to express the intent
properly. But it begins to unravel when we try to transpose it to the
alphabets from other languages. I've yet to see a solution that is being
widely accepted. Please keep in mind that I'm not talking of just
getting by but rather having a tool that will withstand the gauntlet of
serious literary work.

Thus one day we will have to come to grips with an ASCII representation
of Urdu which will be widely acceptable and comprehensive, before tomes
of literary works can be commited to computerization. A high level
computerized dictionary will be exteremly desirable and is probably
essential. But it will have to be user friendly and comprehensive in
order to be of real help.

This brings us to what I consider to be the second major difficulty:
Indexing. Relative to the Roman alphabet, there is a greater inherent
difficulty in indexing Urdu due to the occurances of the short and long
vowel sounds, nasal sounds, variations of soft and hard consonants,
usage of half characters and the various combinations thereof. The
problem becomes even more accute when a lexicographer tries to be
comprehensive and wants to include and identify the different variations
and roots of words with origins in Persian, Hindustani, Sanskrit et al.
I do have such a dictionary published under the title 'A Dictionary of
Urdu Classical Hindi and English'. It is a scholarly work. I wouldn't
trade it for anything, but I shudder every time I use it! It is
prodigiously time consuming. I end up spending an inordinate amount of
time for some thing which should be quite simple, almost all the time is
spent in trying to locate the word. I'm talking about having to wade
thru a forest of 72 variations of Persian/Urdu/Devnagri alphabets, not
counting the sub variations that occur after the first character,
without a friendly indexing scheme. I have other works which are easier
to use but they are not as comprehensive. Perhaps there exists an ideal
dictionary somewhere and if someone knows about it please post the
information.

So what are we to do in the meantime?

Please see next post for some of my ideas.

Regards

Yogesh Sethi

[Yogesh Sethi]

Adnan wrote:
>
> On the same note, is it possible to get a kind of
> dictionary of *difficult* urdu words posted here.
> I retrieved a somewhat helpful one sometime back from
> another group. I feel though that it is not complete.
<snip>

> Thanks,
>
> Adnan

<snip>

Continuing our discussion on the subject, I think it will be great if a
comprehensive computerized Urdu dictionary in ASCII format becomes
available. The only one that I have seen is the one that you refer to,
which was a great community service performed by Dinesh Prabhu. But as
you point out, it has its limitations.

I wish someone will come forward with another such effort. But more
importantly, I wish that a standardization of Urdu representation in
ASCII is achieved. For example if such a standard existed, it would be
esay to start a data base for words that could not only grow quickly,
but can also be continually updated.

At the moment the only way that I find satisfactory is to start one's
own collection of Urdu words and put them in a format suitable to one's
taste. I myself follow the traditional method of keeping them on 3"x5"
cards. It requires fair amount of effort but is quite effective. I hope
to convert them into a computer file someday but only if I can find a
widely accepted standard.

Of course, there are excellent sites on the net with considerable
archived material. I'm posting, separately, a list of the sites that I
found to be useful.

Regards

Yogesh Sethi

[Adnan]

Agreed that there needs to be a standard ASCII representation for urdu
to be able to build a dictionary. Wonder if that makes it a chicken and
egg situation?
For the time being the efforts by Dinesh Prabhu and others are very
commendable.

Adnan