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Urdu - Official Language of Pakistan - Ankaboot - 02-18-2010
Urdu (Urdu: ??????, is a Central Indo-Aryan language of the Indo-Iranian branch, belonging to the Indo-European family of languages. It is one of the two official languages (the other being English) of Pakistan. It is also one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of five Indian states. Its vocabulary developed under Persian, Arabic and Turkic. In modern times Urdu vocabulary has been significantly influenced by English. Urdu was mainly developed in western Uttar Pradesh, India, which is the seat of Hindustani languages in the Indian Subcontinent, but began taking shape during the Delhi Sultanate as well as Mughal Empire (15261858) in South Asia. Urdu is the means of communication between the people from various provinces and regions of Pakistan, and the Pakistanis and Indians too. Due to historical affinities and a large number of Afghan refugees in Pakistan, Urdu is already read, understood and spoken by most Afghans.
Language scholars independently categorize Urdu as a standardized register of Hindustani (literally translated means belonging to Hindustan) termed the standard dialect Khariboli. The grammatical description in this article concerns this standard Urdu. In general, the term "Urdu" can encompass dialects of Hindustani other than the standardised versions. The original language of the Mughals was Chagatai, a Turkic language, but after their arrival in South Asia, they came to adopt Persian. Gradually, the need to communicate with local inhabitants led to a composition of Sanskrit derived languages, written in the Perso-Arabic script and with literary conventions and specialised vocabulary being retained from Persian, Arabic and Turkic; the new dialect was eventually given its own name of Urdu.
The word Urdu is believed to be derived from the Turkic or Mongolian word 'Ordu', which means army encampment. It was initially called Zab?n-e-Ordu-e-Mu'alla "language of the Exalted Camp" (in Persian) and later just Urdu. It obtained its name from Urdu Bazar, i.e. encampment (Urdu in Turkic) market, the market near the Red Fort in the walled city of Delhi.
Standard Urdu has approximately the twentieth largest population of native speakers, among all languages.
Urdu is often contrasted with Hindi, another standardised form of Hindustani. The main differences between the two are that Standard Urdu is conventionally written in Nastaliq calligraphy style of the Perso-Arabic script and draws vocabulary more heavily from Persian and Arabic, while Standard Hindi is conventionally written in Devan?gar? and draws vocabulary from Sanskrit comparatively more heavily. Most linguists nonetheless consider Urdu and Hindi to be two standardized forms of the same language; others classify them separately, while some consider any differences to be sociolinguistic. It should be noted, however, that mutual intelligibility decreases in literary and specialized contexts. Furthermore, due to religious nationalism since the partition of British India and consequent continued communal tensions, native speakers of both Hindi and Urdu increasingly assert them to be completely distinct languages.
Speakers and geographic distribution
.There are between 60 and 80 million native speakers of standard Urdu (Khari Boli). According to the SIL Ethnologue (1999 data), Urdu ????/Hindi is the fifth most spoken language in the world. According to George Webers article Top Languages: The Worlds 10 Most Influential Languages in Language Today, Hindi/Urdu is the fourth most spoken language in the world, with 4.7 percent of the world's population, after Mandarin, English, and Spanish.
Due to interaction with other languages, Urdu has become localized wherever it is spoken, including in Pakistan itself. Urdu in Pakistan has undergone changes and has lately incorporated and borrowed many words from Pakistani languages like Pashto, Punjabi and Sindhi, thus allowing speakers of the language in Pakistan to distinguish themselves more easily and giving the language a decidedly Pakistani Flavour. Similarly, the Urdu spoken in India can also be distinguished into many dialects like Dakhni (Deccan) of South India, and Khariboli of the Punjab region since recent times. Because of Urdu's similarity to Hindi, speakers of the two languages can usually understand one another at a basic level if both sides refrain from using specialized vocabulary. Some linguists count them as being part of the same language diasystem. and contend that they are considered as two different languages for socio-political reasons. It learned as a second or third language. Nearly 93% of Pakistan's population has a mother tongue other than Urdu. Despite this, Urdu was chosen as a token of unity and as a lingua franca so as not to give any native Pakistani language preference over the other. Urdu is therefore spoken and understood by the vast majority in some form or another, including a majority of urban dwellers in such cities as Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Abbottabad, Faisalabad, Hyderabad, Peshawar, Quetta and Sargodha. It is written, spoken and used in all Provinces/Territories of Pakistan despite the fact that the people from differing provinces may have different indigenous languages, as from the fact that it is the "base language" of the country. For this reason, it is also taught as a compulsory subject up to higher secondary school in both English and Urdu medium school systems. This has produced millions of Urdu speakers from people whose mother tongue is one of the State languages of Pakistan such as Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi, Balochi, Potwari, Hindko, Pahari, Saraiki, and Brahui but they can read and write only Urdu. It is absorbing many words from the regional languages of Pakistan. This variation of Urdu is sometimes referred to as Pakistani Urdu. So while most of the population is conversant in Urdu, it is the mother tongue only of an estimated 7% of the population, mainly Muslim immigrants (known as Mohajir in Pakistan) from different parts of South Asia (India, Burma, Bangladesh etc.). The regional languages are also being influenced by Urdu vocabulary. There are millions of Pakistanis whose mother tongue is not Urdu, but since they have studied in Urdu medium schools, they can read and write Urdu along with their native language. Most of the nearly five million Afghan refugees of different ethnic origins (such as Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek, Hazarvi, and Turkmen) who stayed in Pakistan for over twenty-five years have also become fluent in Urdu. With such a large number of people(s) speaking Urdu, the language has in recent years acquired a peculiar Pakistani flavour further distinguishing it from the Urdu spoken by native speakers and diversifying the language even further.
Autograph and a couplet of Last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah II, dated 29th April 1844A great number of newspapers are published in Urdu in Pakistan, including the Daily Jang, Nawa-i-Waqt, Millat, among many others.
In India, Urdu is spoken in places where there are large Muslim minorities or cities which were bases for Muslim Empires in the past. These include parts of Uttar Pradesh(Awadh), Areas of Former State of Hyderabad and cities namely Lucknow, Delhi, Meerut,Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Roorkee, Deoband, Moradabad, Bijnor, Najibabad, Rampur, Aligarh, Allahabad, Gorakhpur, Agra, Kanpur, Badaun, Bhopal, Hyderabad, Aurangabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Mysore, Patna, Gulbarga, Nanded, Bidar, Ajmer, and Ahmedabad. Some Indian schools teach Urdu as a first language and have their own syllabus and exams. Indian madrasahs also teach Arabic as well as Urdu. India has more than 3,000 Urdu publications including 405 daily Urdu newspapers. Newspapers such as Sahara Urdu, Daily Salar, Hindustan Express, Daily Pasban, Siasat Daily, The Munsif Daily and Inqilab are published and distributed in Bengaluru, Mysore, Hyderabad, and Mumbai .
Outside South Asia, it is spoken by large numbers of migrant South Asian workers in the major urban centres of the Persian Gulf countries and Saudi Arabia. Urdu is also spoken by large numbers of immigrants and their children in the major urban centres of the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Germany, Norway, and Australia. Along with Arabic, Urdu is among the immigrant languages with most speakers in Catalonia.
Countries with large numbers of native Urdu speakers:
Country No of speakers
India 210,536,111 2001
Pakistan 178,765,000
United Kingdom 300,000
Bangladesh 50,000
United Arab Emirates 200,000
Saudi Arabia 282,000
United States 150,000
Afghanistan 120,000
Canada 56,415 2006
Oman 90,000
Bahrain 80,000
Mauritius 74,000
Qatar 70,000
Germany 50,000
Cuba 1,000
Norway 27,700 2006
France 20,000
Spain (Catalonia) 18,000 2004
Sweden 10,000 2001
World Total 305,200,226
Official status
Urdu is the national and one of the two official languages (Qaumi Zabaan) of Pakistan, the other being English, and is spoken and understood throughout the country, while the state-by-state languages (languages spoken throughout various regions) are the provincial languages. It is used in education, literature, office and court business. It holds in itself a repository of the cultural and social heritage of the country. Although English is used in most elite circles, and Punjabi has a plurality of native speakers, Urdu is the lingua franca national language in Pakistan.
Urdu is also one of the officially recognised languages in India and has official language status in the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, and the national capital, New Delhi.
The importance of Urdu in the Muslim world is visible in the Holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, where most informational signage is written in Arabic, English and Urdu, and sometimes in other languages. Despite being the national language of Pakistan, it is not native to the country, but was introduced by Urdu-speaking immigrants from India. Urdu was not spoken as a native language in the area that would become Pakistan before the Partition of India, although it was taught as literary language.
Dialects
Urdu has four recognised dialects: Dakhni, Pinjari, Rekhta, and Modern Vernacular Urdu (based on the Khariboli dialect of the Delhi region). Sociolinguists also consider Urdu itself one of the four major variants of the Hindi-Urdu dialect continuum.
Dakhni (also known as Dakani, Deccani, Desia, Mirgan) is spoken in Deccan region of southern India. It is distinct by its mixture of vocabulary from Marathi and Telugu language, as well as some vocabulary from Arabic, Persian and Turkish that are not found in the standard dialect of Urdu. In terms of pronunciation, the easiest way to recognize a native speaker is their pronunciation of the letter "q?f" (?) as "kh" (?). Dakhini is widely spoken in all parts of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Urdu is read and written as in other parts of India. A number of daily newspapers and several monthly magazines in Urdu are published in these states.
Pakistani variant of the language spoken in Pakistan; it becomes increasingly divergent from the Indian dialects and forms of Urdu as it has absorbed many loan words, proverbs and phonetics from Pakistan's indigenous languages such as Pashto, Panjabi and Sindhi. Furthermore, due to the region's history, the Urdu dialect of Pakistan draws heavily from the Persian and Arabic languages, and the intonation and pronunciation are informal compared with corresponding Indian dialects.
In addition, Rekhta (or Rekhti), the language of Urdu poetry, is sometimes counted as a separate dialect.
Grammar
Levels of formality
Urdu in its less formalised register has been referred to as a rekhta (?????, [re?xt?a?]), meaning "rough mixture". The more formal register of Urdu is sometimes referred to as zab?n-e-Urdu-e-mo'alla (???? ???? ???? [z?ba?n e? ?rd?u? e? mo?lla?]), the "Language of Camp and Court".
The etymology of the word used in the Urdu language for the most part decides how polite or refined your speech is. For example, Urdu speakers would distinguish between ???? p?n? and ?? ?b, both meaning "water" for example, or between ???? ?dmi and ??? mard, meaning "man". The former in each set is used colloquially and has older Hindustani origins, while the latter is used formally and poetically, being of Persian origin.
If a word is of Persian or Arabic origin, the level of speech is considered to be more formal and grand. Similarly, if Persian or Arabic grammar constructs, such as the izafat, are used in Urdu, the level of speech is also considered more formal and grand. If a word is inherited from Sanskrit, the level of speech is considered more colloquial and personal.
That distinction has likenesses with the division between words from a French or Old English origin while speaking English.
Politeness
Urdu is supposed to be a subtle and polished language; a host of words are used in it to show respect and politeness. This emphasis on politeness, which is reflected in the vocabulary, is known as adab and to some extent as takalluf in Urdu. These words are generally used when addressing elders, or people with whom one is not acquainted. For example, the English pronoun 'you' can be translated into three words in Urdu the singular forms tu (derogatory) and tum (informal and showing intimacy called "apna pan" in Urdu) and the plural form ?p (formal and respectful).
Vocabulary
Urdu has a vocabulary rich in words with Indic and Middle Eastern origins. The language's Indic base has been enriched by borrowing from Persian and Arabic.[44] There are also a small number of borrowings from Turkish, Portuguese, and more recently English. Many of the words of Arabic origin have different nuances of meaning and usage than they do in Arabic. Other words have exactly the same pronunciation, spelling, and meaning. For instance, the words "Sawaal" (lit. "Question") and "Jawaab" (lit. "Answer") are exactly the same in both Urdu and Arabic.
Writing system
The Urdu Nasta?liq alphabet, with names in the Devan?gar? and Latin alphabets
Persian script
Urdu is written right-to left in an extension of the Persian alphabet, which is itself an extension of the Arabic alphabet. Urdu is associated with the Nasta?l?q script style of Arabic calligraphy, whereas Arabic is generally written in the modernized Naskh style. Nastaliq is notoriously difficult to typeset, so Urdu newspapers were hand-written by masters of calligraphy, known as katib or khush-navees, until the late 1980s.
Kaithi script
Urdu was also written in the Kaithi script. A highly-Persianized and technical form of Urdu was the lingua franca of the law courts of the British administration in Bengal, Bihar, and the North-West Provinces & Oudh. Until the late 19th century, all proceedings and court transactions in this register of Urdu were written officially in the Persian script. In 1880, Sir Ashley Eden, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal abolished the use of the Persian alphabet in the law courts of Bengal and Bihar and ordered the exclusive use of Kaithi, a popular script used for both Urdu and Hindi. Kaithi's association with Urdu and Hindi was ultimately eliminated by the political contest between these languages and their scripts, in which the Persian script was definitively linked to Urdu.
Devanagari script
More recently in India, Urdu speakers have adopted Devanagari for publishing Urdu periodicals and have innovated new strategies to mark Urd? in Devanagari as distinct from Hindi in Devanagari. The popular Urdu monthly magazine, ????? ???? (Mahakta Anchal), is published in Delhi in Devanagari in order to target the generation of Muslim boys and girls who do not know the Persian script. Such publishers have introduced new orthographic features into Devanagari for the purpose of representing Urdu sounds. One example is the use of ? (Devanagari a) with vowel signs to mimic contexts of ? (ain). To Urdu publishers, the use of Devanagari gives them a greater audience, but helps them to preserve the distinct identity of Urdu when written in Devanagari.
Roman script
Urdu is occasionally also written in the Roman script. Roman Urdu has been used since the days of the British Raj, partly as a result of the availability and low cost of Roman movable type for printing presses. The use of Roman Urdu was common in contexts such as product labels. Today it is regaining popularity among users of text-messaging and Internet services and is developing its own style and conventions. Habib R. Sulemani says, "The younger generation of Urdu-speaking people around the world, especially Pakistan, are using Romanised Urdu on the Internet and it has become essential for them, because they use the Internet and English is its language. Typically, in that sense, a person from Islamabad in Pakistan may chat with another in Delhi in India on the Internet only in Roman Urd?. They both speak the same language but would have different scripts. Moreover, the younger generation of those who are from the English medium schools or settled in the west, can speak Urdu but cant write it in the traditional Arabic script and thus Roman Urdu is a blessing for such a population." Roman Urdu also holds significance among the Christians of Pakistan and North India. Urd? was the dominant native language among Christians of Karachi and Lahore in present-day Pakistan and Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh Rajasthan in India, during the early part of the nineteenth and twentieth century, and is still used by Christians in these places. Pakistani and Indian Christians often used the Roman script for writing Urd?. Thus Roman Urd? was a common way of writing among Pakistani and Indian Christians in these areas up to the 1960s. The Bible Society of India publishes Roman Urd? Bibles which enjoyed sale late into the 1960s (though they are still published today). Church songbooks are also common in Roman Urd?. However, the usage of Roman Urd? is declining with the wider use of Hindi and English in these states.
A list of the Urdu alphabet and pronunciation is given below. Urdu words retain Arabic and Persian spellings, and therefore has many irregularities. The Arabic letters yaa and haa are split into two in Urdu: one of the yaa variants is used at the ends of words for the sound , and one of the haa variants is used to indicate the aspirated consonants. The retroflex consonants needed to be added as well; this was accomplished by placing a superscript ? (to'e) above the corresponding dental consonants. Several letters which represent distinct consonants in Arabic are conflated in Persian, and this has carried over to Urdu. The National Language Authority of the Government of Pakistan has finalized the list and collating order of Urdu letters.
[I]Letter Name of letter Phonemic representation (in IPA)
? alif /?/, /?/, /?/, /?/ depending on diacritical marks
? bay /b/
? pe /p/
? te /t?/ (dental)
? ?e /?/ (retroflex)
? se /s/
? j?m /d?/
? chay /t?/
? ba?? he /h/
? khe /x/
? d?l /d?/ (dental)
? ??l /?/ (retroflex)
? z?l /z/
? re /r/
? ?e /?/ (retroflex flap)
? ze /z/
? zhe /?/
? s?n /s/
? sh?n /?/
? su'?d /s/
? zu'?d /z/
? to'e /t/ (dental)
? zo'e /z/
? ain /?/ after a consonant; otherwise /?/, /?/, or silent.
? ghain /?/
? fe /f/
? q?f /q/
? k?f /k/
? g?f /?/
? l?m /l/
? m?m /m/
? n?n /n/ or a nasal vowel
? v?'o /v/, /u/, /?/, /o/, /ow/
?, ?, ? cho?? he /?/ at the end of a word, otherwise /h/ or silent
? do cashm? he indicates that the preceding consonant is aspirated (/p?/, /t??/, /??/, /t??/, /k?/) or murmured (/b?/, /d??/, /??/, /d??/, /??/).
? hamzah /?/ or silent
? cho?? ye /j/, /i/, /e/, /?/
? ba?? ye /e?/
Transliteration of Urdu
Usually, bare transliterations of Urdu into Roman letters omit many phonemic elements that have no equivalent in English or other languages commonly written in the Latin alphabet. It should be noted that a comprehensive system has emerged with specific notations to signify non-English sounds, but it can only be properly read by someone already familiar with Urdu, Persian, or Arabic for letters such as:? ? ? ? ? or ? and Hindi for letters such as ?. This script may be found on the Internet, and it allows people who understand the language but without knowledge of their written forms to communicate with each other.
Examples
English Urdu Transliteration Notes
Hello ?????? ????? assal?mu alaikum lit. "Peace be upon you." (from Arabic)
Hello ? ????? ?????? wa?alaikum assal?m lit. "And upon you, peace." Response to assal?mu alaikum (from Arabic)
Hello (???? (??? ?? ?d?b (arz hai) lit. "Regards (are expressed)", a very formal secular greeting
Goodbye ???? ???? khuda h?fiz lit. "May God be your Guardian" (from Persian).
yes ??? h?n casual
yes ?? j? formal
yes ?? ??? j? h?n confident formal
no ?? n? casual (archaic - not used in speech anymore)
no ????? ?? ???? nah?n, j? nah?n casual; j? nah?n formal
please ??????? meharb?n? lit. "kindness" Also used for "thank you"
thank you ?????? shukr?? from Arabic shukran
Please come in ????? ????? tashr?f la?e lit. "(Please) bring your honour"
Please have a seat ????? ?????? tashr?f rakh?e lit. "(Please) place your honour"
I am happy to meet you ?? ?? ?? ?? ???? ???? ?p se mil kar khush? h?y?
Do you speak English? ??? ?? ??????? ????? ???? kya ?p angrez? bolte hain? lit. "Do you speak English?"
I do not speak Urdu. ??? ???? ???? ?????/????? main urd? nah?n bolt?/bolt? bolt? is masculine, bolt? is feminine
My name is ... ???? ??? ??? ?? mer? n?m .... hai
Which way to Lahore? ????? ?? ??? ??? l?haur kis taraf hai? lit. "What direction is Lahore in?"
Where is Lucknow? ????? ???? ??? Lakhnau kah?n hai
Urdu is a good language. ???? ???? ???? ?? urd? achh? zab?n hai lit. "Urdu is a good language"
Sample text
The following is a sample text in zab?n-e urd?-e mu?all? (formal Urdu), of the Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (by the United Nations):
Nastaliq text (used in Pakistan and India)
???? 1: ???? ????? ???? ??? ???? ? ??? ?? ?????? ?? ????? ???? ??? ???? ????? ???? ??? ??? ????? ???? ??? ???? ????? ??? ????? ?? ???? ????? ???? ?? ???? ???? ??????
[edit] Transliteration (ALA-LC)
Daf?ah 1: Tam?m ins?n ?z?d aur ?uq?q o ?izzat ke i?tib?r se bar?bar paid? hue hai?. Unhe? zam?r aur ?aql wad??at hu? he. Islie unhe? ek d?sre ke s?th bh?? ch?re k? sul?k karn? ch?hie.
[edit] IPA Transcription
d??fa ek: t??mam ?nsan azad? ?? h?quq o ?iz?t? ke ??t??ba? se b??ab?? p?da h?e h?. ?n?? z?mi? ?? ??q?l ??di?t? h?i he. ?sl?e ?n?? ek d?us?e ke sat?? b?ai t?a?e ka s?luk k??na t?ah?e.
Gloss (word-for-word)
Article 1: All humans free[,] and rights and dignity *('s) consideration from equal born are. To them conscience and intellect endowed is. Therefore, they one another *('s) with brotherhood *('s) treatment do must.
[edit] Translation (grammatical)
Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience. Therefore, they should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Note: *('s) represents a possessive case which when written is preceded by the possessor and followed by the possessed, unlike the English 'of'.
Literature
Urdu has become a literary language only in recent centuries, as Persian and Arabic were formerly the idioms of choice for "elevated" subjects. However, despite its relatively late development, Urdu literature boasts some world-recognised artists and a considerable corpus.
Prose
Religious
Urdu holds the largest collection of works on Islamic literature and Sharia after Arabic. These include translations and interpretation of Qur'an, commentary on Hadith, Fiqh, history, spirituality, Sufism and metaphysics. A great number of classical texts from Arabic and Persian, have also been translated into Urdu. Relatively inexpensive publishing, combined with the use of Urdu as a lingua franca among Muslims of South Asia, has meant that Islam-related works in Urdu far outnumber such works in any other South Asian language.[citation needed] Popular Islamic books, originally written in Urdu, include Bahar-e-Shariat, Fazaeil-e-Aamaal and Faizan-e Sunnat.
Literary
Secular prose includes all categories of widely known fiction and non-fiction work, separable into genres.
The d?st?n, or tale, a traditional story which may have many characters and complex plotting. This has now fallen into disuse.
The afs?na, or short story, probably the best-known genre of Urdu fiction. The best-known afs?na writers, or afs?na nig?r, in Urdu are Munshi Premchand, Saadat Hasan Manto, Krishan Chander, Qurratulain Hyder (Qurat-ul-Ain Haider), Ismat Chughtai, Bhupendra Nath Kaushik "Fikr", Ghulam Abbas, Bano Qudsia and Ahmad Nadeem Qasimi. Munshi Premchand, became known as a pioneer in the afs?na, though some contend that his were not technically the first as Sir Ross Masood had already written many short stories in Urdu.
Novels form a genre of their own, in the tradition of the English novel.
Other genres include saf?rn?ma (travel story), mazmoon (essay), sarguzisht(account/narrative), inshaeya(satirical essay), murasela(editorial), and khud navvisht (autobiography).
Poetry
Mirza Ghalib (17961869), a respected poet of Urdu.Urdu has been one of the premier languages of poetry in South Asia for two centuries, and has developed a rich tradition in a variety of poetic genres. The 'Ghazal' in Urdu represents the most popular form of subjective music and poetry, while the 'Nazm' exemplifies the objective kind, often reserved for narrative, descriptive, didactic or satirical purposes. Under the broad head of the Nazm we may also include the classical forms of poems known by specific names such as 'Masnavi' (a long narrative poem in rhyming couplets on any theme: romantic, religious, or didactic), 'Marsia' (an elegy traditionally meant to commemorate the martyrdom of Hazrat Husayn ibn Ali, grandson of Muhammad, and his comrades of the Karbala fame), or 'Qasida' (a panegyric written in praise of a king or a nobleman), for all these poems have a single presiding subject, logically developed and concluded. However, these poetic species have an old world aura about their subject and style, and are different from the modern Nazm, supposed to have come into vogue in the later part of the nineteenth century.
Probably the most widely recited, and memorised genre of contemporary Urdu poetry is n?tpanegyric poetry written in praise of the Prophet Muhammad. N?t can be of any formal category, but is most commonly in the ghazal form. The language used in Urdu n?t ranges from the intensely colloquial to a highly Persified formal language. The great early twentieth century scholar Imam Ahmed Rida Khan, who wrote many of the most well known n?ts in Urdu (the collection of his poetic work is Hadaiq-e-Baqhshish), epitomised this range in a ghazal of nine stanzas (bayt) in which every stanza contains half a line each of Arabic, Persian, formal Urdu, and colloquial Hindi. The same poet composed a sal?ma poem of greeting to the Prophet Muhammad, derived from the unorthodox practice of qiyam, or standing, during the mawlid, or celebration of the birth of the ProphetMustaf? J?n-e Rahmat, which, due to being recited on Fridays in some Urdu speaking mosques throughout the world, is probably the more frequently recited Urdu poems of the modern era.
Another important genre of Urdu prose are the poems commemorating the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali Allah hiss salam and Battle of Karbala, called noha (????) and marsia. Anees and Dabeer are famous in this regard.
Terminology
Ash'?r (?????) (Couplet). It consists of two lines, Misra (?????); first line is called Misra-e-oola (???? ????) and the second is called 'Misra-e-s?n?' (????? ????). Each verse embodies a single thought or subject (sing) She'r (???).
Urdu poetry exampleThis is Ghalib's famous couplet in which he compares himself to his great predecessor, the master poet Mir:
????? ?? ???? ????? ???? ?? ????
???? ??? ???? ????? ??? ???? ??? ??? ???
Transliteration
Rekhta ke tumhin ust?d nah?n ho Gh?lib
Kahte hain agle zam?ne men ko'? M?r bh? th?
Translation
You are not the only master of Rekhta*, Ghalib
They say that in the past there also was someone named Mir.
*Rekhta was the name for the Urdu/Hindi language in Ghalib's days, when the distinction had not yet been made.
History
Urdu developed as local Indo-Aryan dialects came under the influence of the Muslim courts that ruled South Asia from the early thirteenth century. Its Indo-Aryan vocabulary has been enriched by borrowings from Arabic, Persian, Turkish, English and other Indian languages.
The official language of the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughal Empire, and their successor states, as well as the cultured language of poetry and literature, was Persian, while the language of religion was Arabic. Most of the Sultans and nobility in the Sultanate period were Turks from Central Asia who spoke Turkic as their mother tongue. The Mughals were also from Central Asia, they spoke Turkish as their first language; however the Mughals later adopted Persian. Persian became the preferred language of the Muslim elite of north India before the Mughals entered the scene. Babur's mother tongue was a Turkic language and he wrote exclusively in Turkish. His son and successor Humayun also spoke and wrote in this Turkic language. Muzaffar Alam, a noted scholar of Mughal and Indo-Persian history, suggests that Persian became the lingua franca of the empire under Akbar for various political and social factors due to its non-sectarian and fluid nature. The influence of these languages on Indian apabhra??as led to a vernacular that is the ancestor of today's Urdu. Dialects of this vernacular are spoken today in cities in Pakistan and in some places throughout northern India. Cities with a particularly strong tradition of Urdu Delhi, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Karachi and Lahore,
Urdu and Hindi
Because of their identical grammar and nearly identical core vocabularies, most linguists do not distinguish between Urdu and Hindi as separate languages at least not in reference to the informal spoken registers. For them, ordinary informal Urdu and Hindi can be seen as variants of the same language (Hindustani) with the difference being that Urdu is supplemented with a Perso-Arabic vocabulary and Hindi a Sanskritic vocabulary. Additionally, there is the convention of Urdu being written in Persio-Arabic script, and Hindi in Devanagari. The standard, "proper" grammars of both languages are based on Khariboli grammar the dialect of the Delhi region. So, with respect to grammar, the languages are mutually intelligible when spoken, and can be thought of as two written variants of the same language.
Hindustani is the name often given to this language as it developed over hundreds of years throughout India (which formerly included what is now Pakistan). In the same way that the core vocabulary of English evolved from Old English (Anglo-Saxon) but includes a large number of words borrowed from French and other languages (whose pronunciations often changed naturally so as to become easier for speakers of English to pronounce), what may be called Hindustani can be said to have evolved from Sanskrit while borrowing many Persian and Arabic words over the years, and changing the pronunciations (and often even the meanings) of those words. This usually made the words easier for Hindustani speakers to pronounce and also more pleasant than the coarse original sounds. Therefore, Hindustani is the language as it evolved organically just like many other languages in the world.
Linguistically speaking, Standard Hindi is a form of colloquial Hindustani, with lesser use of Persian and Arabic loanwords, while inheriting its formal vocabulary from Sanskrit; Standard Urdu is also a form of Hindustani, de-Sanskritised, with a significant part of its formal vocabulary consisting of loanwords from Persian and Arabic. The difference, thus is in the vocabulary, and not the structure of the language.
The difference is also sociolinguistic: When people speak Hindustani (i.e., when they are speaking colloquially) speakers who are Muslims will usually say that they are speaking Urdu, and those who are Hindus will typically say that they are speaking Hindi, even though they are speaking essentially the same language.
The two standardised registers of Hindustani Urdu and Hindi have become so entrenched as separate languages that often nationalists, both Muslim and Hindu, claim that Urdu and Hindi have always been separate languages. There have been some observations that the "fully standardized" Hindi register is artificial enough to make it partially incomprehensible to many people classified as Hindi speakers.
Software
The Daily Jang/daily waqt was the first Urdu newspaper to be typeset digitally in Nastaliq by computer. There are efforts underway to develop more sophisticated and user-friendly Urdu support on computers and the Internet. Nowadays, nearly all Urdu newspapers, magazines, journals, and periodicals are composed on computers via various Urdu software programmes, the most widespread of which is InPage Desktop Publishing package. Microsoft has included Urdu language support in all new versions of Windows and both Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 are available in Urdu through Language Interface Pack support.
Urdu - Official Language of Pakistan - ~Maya~ - 02-18-2010
wow exellent information.... :ok
Urdu - Official Language of Pakistan - Ankaboot - 02-18-2010
~Maya~ Wrote:wow exellent information.... :ok
parhey baghair hi excellent kaise ho gayi
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Urdu - Official Language of Pakistan - TrUsT Of AnGeL - 02-28-2010
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