Hindi/Urdu Film Lyrics in Urdu script
Surjit Singh
To summarize:
Hindi/Urdu Film Lyrics come in many LANGUAGES and thanks to the efforts
of many RMIMers past and present, an ISB exists that helps to see and
print these lyrics in Devanagari SCRIPT with the help of a software
package called ITRANS.
If you are still confused about this, you get an F. You need to
re-enroll and try harder next time!
However, one of the main irritations about the way lyrics and other
material is written here in RMIM is that it does not do full justice to
Urdu words (and to words from other languages such as Panjabi, I might
add). All of us Urdu-knowing RMIMers (e.g. Afzal, UVR, I) have been
annoyed by this, some more than others. Examples have been pointed out
thousands of times. Do some homework.
This is a real problem and needs to be solved. I will discuss possible
solutions and comment on them soon.
--
Surjit Singh, a diehard movie fan(atic), period.
http://hindi-movies-songs.com/index.html
Ashok
>
>Hi RMIMers:
>
>To summarize:
>
>Hindi/Urdu Film Lyrics come in many LANGUAGES and thanks to the efforts
>of many RMIMers past and present, an ISB exists that helps to see and
>print these lyrics in Devanagari SCRIPT with the help of a software
>package called ITRANS.
>
>If you are still confused about this, you get an F. You need to
>re-enroll and try harder next time!
What? You are inviting more from Afzal in the future?
In all courses, after repeated Fs, there comes a time
when it is kinder to remove the student from the course--
or better still, when the student removes oneself from the
course. It is all the easier when the course in question is
not a compulsory one and the student just seems to have no
feel for the subject and the student is very good in other
subjects. Otherwise the student will continue to torture
himself and be a nuisance to the class.
:)
>Surjit Singh, a diehard movie fan(atic), period.
Ashok
Afzal A. Khan
This is a very fair summary of the whole issue. The
learned Professor gets an A+ for this !
To explain the point that iTrans may not do full justice to
all Urdu words and expressions, let us take an actual
example. Here is a song from the film "Bahu Begum". First,
the iTrans version :
-------------------------------------------------------------------
> araz\-e\-shauq aa.Nkho.n me.n hai, araz\-e\-vafaa aa.Nkho.n me.n hai
> tere aage baat kahane kaa mazaa aa.Nkho.n me.n hai
>
> vaaqif huu.N khuub ishq ke tarz\-e\-bayaa.N se mai.n
> kah duu.Ngaa dil kii baat nazar kii zubaa.N se mai.n \-2
>
> merii vafaa kaa shauq se tuu imtahaan le
> guzaruu.nga tere ishq me.n har imtahaa.N se mai.n
> vaaqif huu.N khuub ishq\threedots
>
> ai husn\-e\-aashanaa tere jalavo.n kii khair ho
> be\-gaana ho gayaa huu.N Gam\-e\-do jahaa.N se mai.n
>
> %
> % Part-II
> %
>
> ab jaa.n\-b\-lab huu.N shiddat\-e\-dard\-e\-nihaa.N se mai.n
> aise me.n tujh ko Dhuu.NDh kar laauu.N kahaa.N se mai.n
>
> zamii.n hamdard hai merii na hamadam aasamaa.n meraa
> teraa dar chhuuT gayaa to phir Thikaanaa hai kahaa.N meraa
> qasam hai tujh ko, tujh ko qasam hai,
> jazbaa\-e\-dil na jaaye raigaa.N meraa
> yahii hai imtahaa.N teraa, yahii hai imtahaa.n meraa
> ek simT muhabbat hai ek simT zamaanaa
> ab aise me.n tujh ko Dhuu.NDh kar laauu.N kahaa.N se mai.n
>
> teraa Kayaal terii tamannaa liye hue
> dil bujh rahaa hai aas kaa sholaa liye hue
> hairaa.N kha.Dii huii hai doraahe pe zi.ndagii
> naakaam hasarato.n kaa janaazaa liye hue
> ab aise me.n tujh ko Dhuu.NDh kar laauu.N kahaa.N se mai.n
>
> aavaaz de rahaa hai dil\-e\-Kaanamaa.n Karaab
> siine me.n iztaraab hai saa.Nso.n me.n pech\-o\-taab
> ai ruuh\-e\-ishq ai jaan\-e\-vafaa kuch to de javaab
> ab jaa.n-b-lab huu.N shiddat\-e\-dard\-e\-nihaa.N se mai.n
> aise me.n tujh ko Dhuu.NDh kar laauu.N kahaa.N se mai.n
------------------------------------------------------------------
I daresay that those who are quite familiar with the Nagari
script and the working of iTrans may not have much difficulty
in reading through the lyrics. The difficulty occurs for people
like me and perhaps Professor Singh too. Now I shall try to
render the song in my admittedly very simple Roman English.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Simple Roman English Version
'Arz-e-shauq aaNkhoN men hai, 'arz-e-wafa aaNkhoN men hai
Tere aage baat kehne ka maza aaNkhoN men hai
Waaqif hooN KHoob 'ishq ke tarz-e-bayaaN se maiN
Keh dooNga dil ki baat nazar ki zabaaN se maiN
Meri wafa ka shauq se tu imtihaan le
GuzrooNga tere 'ishq men har imtihaaN se maiN
Ai husn~aashna, tire jalwoN ki KHair ho
Begaana ho gaya hooN GHam-e-do~jahaaN se maiN
Part II
Ab jaaN~ba~lab hooN shiddat-e-dard-e-nihaaN se maiN
Aise men tujh ko DhooNDh ke laaooN kahaaN se maiN
ZameeN hamdard hai meri na hamdam aasmaaN mera
Tira dar chhooT gaya to phir Thikaana hai kahaaN mera
Qasam hai tujh ko, tujh ko qasam hai
Jazba-e-dil na jaaye raaigaaN mera
Yehi hai imtihaaN tera, yehi hai imtihaaN mera
Ek simt muhabbat hai, ek simt zamaana
Ab, aise men tujh ko DhooNDh ke laaooN kahaaN se maiN
Tera KHayaal, teri tamaana liye huwe
Dil bujh raha hai aas ka shola liye huwe
HairaaN khaRi huwi hai doraahe pe zindagi
Naakaam hasratoN ka janaaza liye huwe
Ab, aise men tijh ko DhooNDh ke laaooN kahaaN se maiN
Aawaaz de raha hai dil-e-KHaanmaaN KHaraab
Seene men iztiraab hai, saaNsoN men pech-o-taab
Ai rooh-e-'ishq, jaan-e-wafa, kuchh to de jawaab
Ab jaaN~ba~lab hooN shiddat-e-dard-e-nihaaN se maiN
Aise men tujh ko DhooNDh ke laaooN kahaaN se maiN
--------------------------------------------------------------------
For an Urdu-knowing person, all those slashes and dots
are a source of irritation. Please don't mind my saying so.
Let me cite the example of another much briefer song :
-------------------------------------------------------------------
iTrans Version
> aa ga_e dil me.n tum merii mahafil me.n tum
> bach ke nazaro.n se merii kahaa.N jaa_oge
> aa_e milane ke din phuul khilane ke din
> ham pukaare.nge aur tum chale aa_oge
>
> terii Kaatir yahaa.N mujhako aanaa pa.Daa
> giit gaayaa hu_aa phir se gaanaa pa.Daa
> dekh le hai muhabbat me.n itanaa asar
> mil ga_ii phir hamaarii tumhaarii nazar
> zindagii hai javaa.N ab judaa_ii kahaa.N
> jis jagah jaa_oge tum hame.n paa_oge
> aa ga_e dil me.n tum \threedots
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Simple Roman English
Aa gaye dil men tum, meri mehfil men tum
Bach ke nazroN se meri kahaaN jaaoge
Aaye milne ke din, phool khilne ke din
Hum pukaareNge aur tum chale aaoge
Teri KHaatir yahaaN mujh ko aana paRa
Geet gaaya huwa phir se gaana paRa
Dekh le hai mohabbat men itna asar
Mil gayee phir hamaari tumhaari nazar
Zindagi hai jawaaN, ab juddaa~ee kahaN
Jis jagah jaaoge tum hameN paaoge
Aa gaye dil men tum......
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
There can be no end to such examples. So one last song :
----------------------------------------------------------------------
iTrans Version
> aap ke hasiin ruK pe aaj nayaa nuur hai
> meraa dil machal gayaa to meraa kyaa qusuur hai
> aap kii nigaah ne kahaa to kuchh zuruur hai
> meraa dil machal gayaa to meraa kyaa qusuur hai
>
> khulii laTo.n kii chhaa.Nv me.n khilaa\-khilaa saa ruup hai
> ghaTaa pe jaise chhaa rahii subah\-subah kii dhuup hai
> jidhar nazar mu.Dii udhar suruur hii suruur hai
> meraa dil \threedots
>
> jhukii\-jhukii nigaah me.n bhii hai.n balaa kii shoKiyaa.N
> dabii\-dabii ha.nsii me.n bhii ta.Dap rahii hai.n bijaliyaa.N
> shabaab aap kaa nashe me.n Kud hii chuur\-chuur hai
> meraa dil \threedots
>
> jahaa.N\-jahaa.N pa.De kadam vahaa.N fizaa.n badal ga_ii
> ki jaise sar\-basar bahaar aap hii me.n Dhal ga_ii
> kisii me.n ye kashish kahaa.N jo aap me.n huzuur hai
> meraa dil \threedots
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Simple Roman English
Aap ke haseen ruKH pe aaj naya noor hai
Mera dil machal gaya to mera kya qusoor hai
Aap ki nigaah ne kaha to kuchh zuroor hai
Mera dil machal gaya to mera kya qusoor hai
Khuli laToN ki chhaaNv men khila~khila sa roop hai
GhaTa pe jaise chha rahi subah~subah ki dhoop hai
Jidhar nazar muRi, udhar suroor hi suroor hai
Mera dil machal gaya to mer akya qusoor hai
Jhuki jhuki nigaah men bhi haiN bala ki shoKHiyaaN
Dabi~dabi haNsi men bhi taRap rahi haiN bijliyaaN
Shabaab aap ka, nashe men KHud hi choor~choor hai
Mera dil machal gaya to mera kya qusoor hai
JahaaN jahaaN paRe qadam wahaaN fiza badal ga~ee
Ke jaise sar~basar bahaar aap hi men Dhal ga~ee
Kisi men yeh kashish kahaaN jo aap men huzoor hai
Mera dil machal gaya t mera kya qusoor hai
-----------------------------------------------------------------
It is my humble submission that there is a certain fluency
and greater adherence to the Urdu words and idioms in such a
simple conversion of the original song.
In the Geetayan data base, there are separate columns for the
iTrans version and the Nagri scipt. Perhaps -- just perhaps --
we can think about adding another column for the Simple Roman
English version too. Those who are comfortable with the Nagri
script can read the song through the Nagri column, others
through the iTrans column. And people like yours truly and
perhaps Professor Saheb can read the song through the additional
third column. Maybe some one like me can do cuch conversion,
mail it to Shri Vinay (or whoever else is maintaining the site)
and he can incorporate it against the respective song entry.
Afzal
Surjit Singh
> In article <2g1k4cF...@uni-berlin.de>, surjit...@yahoo.com says...
>
>>Hi RMIMers:
>>
>>To summarize:
>>
>>Hindi/Urdu Film Lyrics come in many LANGUAGES and thanks to the efforts
>>of many RMIMers past and present, an ISB exists that helps to see and
>>print these lyrics in Devanagari SCRIPT with the help of a software
>>package called ITRANS.
>>
>>If you are still confused about this, you get an F. You need to
>>re-enroll and try harder next time!
>
I am an incorrigible and patient optimist!
>
>
> What? You are inviting more from Afzal in the future?
> In all courses, after repeated Fs, there comes a time
> when it is kinder to remove the student from the course--
> or better still, when the student removes oneself from the
> course. It is all the easier when the course in question is
> not a compulsory one and the student just seems to have no
> feel for the subject and the student is very good in other
> subjects. Otherwise the student will continue to torture
> himself and be a nuisance to the class.
>
> :)
>
>
>
>>Surjit Singh, a diehard movie fan(atic), period.
>
>
>
> Ashok
>
--
Surjit Singh, a diehard movie fan(atic), period.
Afzal A. Khan
Ah, but what sweet torture !
Afzal
>
> >Surjit Singh
>
> Ashok
Surjit Singh
>
>
> Ah, but what sweet torture !
>
Must be Bill from Stratford-uopn-Avon.
ON a related note my wife DVDed Kishor Sahu's Hamlet for me yesterday. I
am going to watch it this weekend.
>
> Afzal
>
>
>
>>>Surjit Singh
>>
>>Ashok
--
Surjit Singh, a diehard movie fan(atic), period.
naniwadekar
"Afzal A. Khan" <me_a...@privacy.net> wrote -
>
> For an Urdu-knowing person, all those slashes and dots
> are a source of irritation. Please don't mind my saying so.
>
Since you still haven't grasped that the slashes and dots
have to do with the technical aspect of iTrans, don't you
think readers are likely to simply ignore your ignorant tirade?
My turn for an irritated 'please don't mind this' comment.
You are so clueless about iTrans that you would do
yourself a favour if you never said a word about it
in future. By now, it has become a case of :
'Want a laugh by reading clueless chatter?'
'Read Rawat's posts or Ajit's brilliant analysis or
Afzal Sahab's posts on iTrans.'
You yourself admit that you know nothing about iTrans.
You have to hope at every turn that your assumptions are
correct. Why bother, then? I would say your understanding
of iTrans is negative (sub-zero). You are a formidable
scholar of Urdu. I would suggest you should try to comment
on matters concerning Urdu and Devanagari if the impulse
is irresistible. You might have sensible things to say in that
domain. But iTrans is just not your cup of tea.
- dn
V S Rawat
scripts and codes, this old forward will be very relevant.
-Rawat
-------------------------------
The Future of English
The European Commission has just announced an agreement
whereby English will be the official language of the
European nation rather than German which was the other
possibility.
As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government
conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement
and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become
known as "Euro-English".
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly,
this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard
"c" will be dropped in favour of the "k". This should klear
up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year
when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with the "f".
This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan
be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated
changes are possible.
Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters
which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.
Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in
the languag is disgrasful and it should go.
By the 4th yer peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as
replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz
yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd
from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil
hav a reil sensibl riten styl.
Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find
it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil
finali kum tru.
If zis mad yu smil, pleas pas it on to oza pepl.
--------------
Afzal A. Khan
Surjit Singh wrote:
>
> Afzal A. Khan wrote:
> >
>
> >
> > Ah, but what sweet torture !
> >
>
> Must be Bill from Stratford-uopn-Avon.
>
> ON a related note my wife DVDed Kishor Sahu's Hamlet for me yesterday. I
> am going to watch it this weekend.
Ah, that would indeed be torture. (I saw the movie back
in the mid-fifties.)
Afzal
Afzal A. Khan
naniwadekar wrote:
> But iTrans is just not your cup of tea.
>
> - dn
Truer words were never spoken.
Afzal
V S Rawat
> "Afzal A. Khan" <me_a...@privacy.net> wrote -
>
>> For an Urdu-knowing person, all those slashes and dots
>> are a source of irritation. Please don't mind my
>> saying so.
>>
>
>
> Since you still haven't grasped that the slashes and dots
> have to do with the technical aspect of iTrans, don't
> you think readers are likely to simply ignore your
> ignorant tirade?
>
Two kinds of readers will not ignore his posts.
1. First kind is like me who think what he is saying has
more sense and less nonsense.
2. Second kind is like you who should be happy to find some
fodder in his posts so that you can post ugly posts like
this giving vent to your inbuilt hatred for all and sundry.
> My turn for an irritated 'please don't mind this'
> comment.
copy cat.
> You are so clueless about iTrans that you would do
> yourself a favour if you never said a word about it in
> future.
Being clueless is better than being blind followers of all
mistakes like African pagans.
> By now, it has become a case of : 'Want a laugh by
> reading clueless chatter?' 'Read Rawat's posts or Ajit's
> brilliant analysis or Afzal Sahab's posts on iTrans.'
our posts are bringing laugh are much better than your
qunabaa's posts bringing hatred and spilling venom.
You should be offerred the role of sanjay dutt in Shankar
Daadaa LLB.
> You yourself admit that you know nothing about iTrans.
> You have to hope at every turn that your assumptions are
> correct. Why bother, then? I would say your understanding
> of iTrans is negative (sub-zero). You are a formidable
> scholar of Urdu. I would suggest you should try to
> comment on matters concerning Urdu and Devanagari if the
> impulse is irresistible. You might have sensible things
> to say in that domain. But iTrans is just not your cup of
> tea.
Oh nani! for God sake, please certify that iTRANS is rawat's
cup of tea.
-Rawat
V S Rawat
->
--------------------------------------------------------------------
-> For an Urdu-knowing person, all those slashes and dots
saying so.
They sure are.
Most of the non-iTRANS lyrics sites are displaying lyrics in
their own coding which is not even Roman in toto. All their
attempts are to avoid all those punctuation marks from
within lyrics. Thus, there is indeed a "public feels so"
point in what you mentioned.
Would you like to give some ideas how else it can be done.
The basic on-the-back-of-a-receipt-stamp calculation shows
there are 26 upper and 26 lower case, a total of 52 symbols
in english. Rest of the keyboard is full of punctuation marks.
Hindi has some 44 vowels and consonants.
Then there are 11 maatraas.
There should be some 25+ half-letters plus one halant for
those letters which do not have a half letter.
The above totals to 81+ letters and we have not even started
counting samyuktaakshars which might be further 50+. A
single r and its variants mess up with the alphabet so much
that no other letter in no other language could have done.
It is a mathematical impossibility trying to represent some
130+ letters of hindi by combinations of 52 letters. Thus,
there is no option but to use punctuations and other keys.
->
-> Let me cite the example of another much briefer song :
->
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I will take this one which is my fav.
> iTrans Version
>
>> aap ke hasiin ruK pe aaj nayaa nuur hai meraa dil
>> machal gayaa to meraa kyaa qusuur hai aap kii nigaah ne
>> kahaa to kuchh zuruur hai meraa dil machal gayaa to
>> meraa kyaa qusuur hai
>>
>> khulii laTo.n kii chhaa.Nv me.n khilaa\-khilaa saa ruup
>> hai
your changes
laTo.n -> laToN
chhaa.Nv -> chhaaNv
me.n -> men
khilaa\-khilaa -> khilaa-khilaa
In first one, your N is representing ending nasal n, whereas
in the second one, the same N is representing chandrabindu.
How will a software recognise whether it is to take N to be
- ending nasal n, or
- chandrabindu, or
- ravaN waalaa N which is what it represents in iTRANS
in third one, your n is representing what your N was
representing in first. THough there could be multiple
english letters mapped to same devangari or urdu letter,
(like w and v), just see that withing first three changes
you ended up using unnecessary multiple to one coding.
But, in khilaa-khilaa, I totally agree with you.
Unless someone asserts that it is a limitation imposed by
tex (the software which actually does all the
transliteration), it must be an unnecessary restriction
imposed by iTRANS to try to interpret each and every letter
that is punched in lyrics.
They should have tried to convert only those letters which
are recognised by iTRANS coding scheme, and should have
simply copied whatever "alien" letters have been punched
within the lyrics. Thus, we would have got rid of all those
backslashes \ and commands (\threedots) which are just for
bypassing such interpretations.
>> ghaTaa pe jaise chhaa rahii subah\-subah kii dhuup hai
>> jidhar nazar mu.Dii udhar suruur hii suruur hai
mu.Dii -> muRi
that one also looks nice to me.
Here techincalities rise their head. R^i and R^I are used in
iTRANS to denotre some letters. Thus it is implicit that
whenever the software encounters R in a lyrics, it does not
immediately converts it, but rather looks for next two
characters and if those are ^i or ^I, the full R^i and R^I
is converted to a single letter.
Of course, they could have looked for R^ instead of only R,
and they could have achieved their aim. But that brings the
question, why not drop ^ from the above two and have Ri and
RI represent those two sanskrit letters.
Here, they have tried to keep identical manner of coding for
other two letters L^i and L^I of sanskrit. They can't drop ^
from these because single L is already represented for that
marathi/ rajasthani L or ld sound.
Thus, your muRi will create problem in software when it will
not find either ^i or ^I after that R. Of course, the
software could have been made to work differently if the
letter after R is not ^.
>> meraa dil \threedots
>>
>> jhukii\-jhukii nigaah me.n bhii hai.n balaa kii
>> shoKiyaa.N
your made that to be
> Jhuki jhuki nigaah men bhi haiN bala ki shoKHiyaaN
first, you unnecessarily dropped - from Jhuki jhuki. It is
considered more proper is same word, if repeated is
connected by a -.
here again, like previous occasion, you are using n (in men)
and N (in haiN) to represent the same thing. why?
and then you made the same N represent chandrabindu in
shokhiyaaN
as far as ruK ruKH or shoKiyaa.N shoKHiyaa.N is concerned,
there are several feedback that K is not intuitive.
Also, in ki kii, bhi bhii, etc. what you are saying can be
implemented in software. The way they are dropping a at the
end of a sentence, they can code in the software to make
double letter at the end of every word appear as single
letter, or actually the opposite.
But, your bijliyaaN will have j appear as half j in absence
of an a after it. software can't help it.
For your oo (instead of uu) and ee (instead of ii) there are
already feedbacks that your version is more prevalent and
thus intuitive.
stopping here. Most of the concepts get covered till now.
In majority of your changes, your version seems to be better.
> In the Geetayan data base, there are separate columns for
> the iTrans version and the Nagri scipt. Perhaps -- just
> perhaps -- we can think about adding another column for
> the Simple Roman English version too. Those who are
> comfortable with the Nagri script can read the song
> through the Nagri column, others through the iTrans
> column. And people like yours truly and perhaps
> Professor Saheb can read the song through the additional
> third column. Maybe some one like me can do cuch
> conversion, mail it to Shri Vinay (or whoever else is
> maintaining the site) and he can incorporate it against
> the respective song entry.
It is Vinay's area to reply, but I am taking freedom to
highlight that there is issue of server space also involved.
:) You want him to buy more space to store 9000 lyrics in
roman format. :) Gariib par itanaa zulm to mat kiijiye.
Professor will say "if you feel the need. why don't you go
and create a site for roman lyrics.".
Indore is scorching under 43 deg C nowadays, about the
highest of past half century. I wonder whether I should not
allow sun to rise, and I should instruct clouds to bring
rain because I feel the need.
-Rawat
Afzal A. Khan
V S Rawat wrote:
> Indore is scorching under 43 deg C nowadays, about the
> highest of past half century. I wonder whether I should not
> allow sun to rise, and I should instruct clouds to bring
> rain because I feel the need.
>
> -Rawat
I may deal with the technical parts of your post
sometime next week.
As for the heat, I do sympathise with you. I have
lived in those parts but that was many decades ago.
And at that time, Malwa had a far more pleasant
climate. And what a heavenly neat and clean place
little Mhow used to be ! You made me nostalgic.
I am sure before long, you would be able to sing
"UmaD umaD ke aayee re ghaTa" and
"Garjat barsat saawan aayo re".
Afzal
Abhay Jain
With more of programs becoming UNCODE
compliant, ITRANS may just not matter.
Most of music programs support UNICODE.
IMHO, this debate about ITRANS may
ITRANS was a great piece of work to transcribe
in ASCII and have it tansliterated to Devnagri, etc.
Abhay Jain
"Surjit Singh" <surjit...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:2g1k4cF...@uni-berlin.de...
Surjit Singh
> Hi RMIMers:
>
> To summarize:
>
> Hindi/Urdu Film Lyrics come in many LANGUAGES and thanks to the efforts
> of many RMIMers past and present, an ISB exists that helps to see and
> print these lyrics in Devanagari SCRIPT with the help of a software
> package called ITRANS.
Since everybody is stating their position on Hindi/Urdu, let me do so
too. Linguistics considers Hindi and Urdu to be the same language;
remember Zafar? However, we cannot wait for the results of the
linguistic science to be accetable to all (words like qayaamat and yug
parivartan come to mind).
So I accept that for all practical purposes, today, they are different
languages and are likely to be treated as such for a loooooong time.
There are two problems to solve:
1. ISB is not in Urdu. The Holy Grail is to have the ISB screenable and
printable in many scripts, but at the least in Devanagari, Urdu and
consistent Roman. (This is one of my dreams.)
There are two ways of getting there.
A. Find a way to go directly from Devanagari (DN) to Urdu (UR) and Roman.
The first one is very hard mainly because one glyph of DN does not
correspond to one glyph of UR and vice versa and the left-to-right (DN)
and (mainly) right-to-left (UR) nature of the two scripts. The second
one is easy and ITRANS already does it. Read the ITRANS manual and FAQ.
B. Redo the entire ISB from scratch in UR using UTRANS or another
scheme. In principle it can be done, but who will do it? Not enough
people know Urdu or have interest in doing this.
2. The other problem is to represent Urdu words properly when writing
songs in ITRANS and while discussing them in RMIM. Many suggestions come
to mind:
A. ITRANS is adequate, use it consistently. That is my view. YMMV.
B. ITRANS is not adequate, we must improve it. Nearly impossible. Read
Lesson Number 1; ITRANS is for DN AND NOT FOR URDU.
C. Use other existing schemes. For example, UTRANS, or what ALUP uses or
some other. Go ahead and do it. You do not need anybody's permission. If
enough people follow you, it will become the standard.
D. Devise a new scheme. I AM AGAINST IT. We have enough schemes to
represent UR, why add to the the confusion?