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Urdu

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Urdu
اُردو
Native toPakistan, India
RegionSouth Asia
Native speakers
61 million native,
104 million total
Persian alphabet
Official status
Official language in
Pakistan;
India (Andhra Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh).
Language codes
ISO 639-1ur
ISO 639-2urd
ISO 639-3urd
The phrase Zaban-e Urdu-e Mualla written in Urdu

Urdu (اُردو) is an Indo-European language of the Indo-Aryan family that developed under Persian, Turkish, Arabic, Hindi, and Sanskrit influence in South Asia during the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire (1200-1800).

Taken by itself, Urdu is approximately the twentieth most populous natively spoken language in the world, and is the national language of Pakistan as well as one of the 24 national languages of India.

Urdu also refers to a standardized register of Hindustani that was made one of the official languages of Pakistan and India. The grammatical description in this article concerns this standard Urdu.

Urdu is often contrasted with Hindi, another standardized form of Hindustani that is the official language of India. The primary differences between the two are that Standard Urdu is written in Nastaliq script and draws heavily on Persian and Arabic vocabulary, while standard Hindi is written in Devanāgarī and has supplemented some of its Persian and Arabic vocabulary with words from Sanskrit . The term "Urdu" also includes dialects of Hindustani other than the standardized languages. Other than these, linguists consider Urdu and Hindi to be the same language.

Speakers and geographic distribution

There are between 60 and 80 million native Urdu speakers. Overall, besides the more than 160 million who speak Urdu in Pakistan, there is a considerable Indian population who communicate in Urdu everyday.

In Pakistan, Urdu is spoken and understood by a majority of urban dwellers in such cities as Sahiwal, Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Quetta, Hyderabad, Sialkot, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Multan and Sukkur. Urdu is used as the official language in all provinces of Pakistan. It is also taught as a compulsory language up to high school in both the English and Urdu medium school systems. This has produced millions of Urdu speakers whose mother tongue is one of the regional languages of Pakistan such as Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto, Gujarati, Kashmiri, Balochi, Siraiki, and Brahui. Urdu is the lingua franca of Pakistan and is absorbing many words from regional languages of Pakistan. The regional languages are also being influenced by Urdu vocabulary. Most of the nearly five million Afghan refugees of different ethnic origins (such as Pakhtun, Tajik, Uzbek, Hazarvi, and Turkmen) who stayed in Pakistan for over twenty-five years have also become fluent in Urdu.

In India, Urdu is spoken in places where there are large Muslim majorities or cities which were bases for Muslim Empires in the past. These include parts of Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Bhopal, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Mysore. 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 2900 daily Urdu newspapers. Newspapers such as Daily Salar, Daily Pasban, Siasat Daily, Munsif Daily and Inqilab are published and distributed in Bangalore, Mysore, Hyderabad, and Mumbai.

Urdu is also spoken in Kashmir and urban Afghanistan. Outside South Asia, it is spoken by large numbers of workers in the major urban centers of the Persian Gulf countries and Saudi Arabia. Urdu is also spoken by large numbers of immigrants and their children in the major urban centers of the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Norway and Australia.

Countries with large numbers of Urdu speakers:

Official status

Urdu is the national language of Pakistan. It shares official language status with English. Although English is used in most elite circles, and Punjabi has a plurality of native speakers, Urdu is the lingua franca and is expected to prevail. Urdu is also one of the official languages of India, and in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, and Uttar Pradesh, Urdu has official language status. While the government school system in most other states emphasizes Standard Hindi, at universities in cities such as Lucknow, Aligarh and Hyderabad, Urdu is spoken and learned and is regarded as a language of prestige.

Urdu is a member of the Indo-Aryan family of languages (i.e., those languages descending from Sanskrit), which is in turn a branch of the Indo-Iranian branch (which comprises the Indo-Aryan and the Iranian branch), which itself is a branch of the Indo-European linguistic family. If Hindi and Urdu are considered to be same language (Hindustani (or Hindi-Urdu)), then Urdu can be considered to be a part of a dialect continuum which extends across eastern Iran, Afghanistan and modern Pakistan [citation needed]—right into north India. These idioms all have similar grammatical structures and share a large portion of their vocabulary. Punjabi, for instance, is very similar to Urdu: Punjabi written in the Shahmukhi script can be understood by speakers of Urdu with little difficulty, but spoken Punjabi has a very different phonology (pronunciation system) and can be harder to understand for Urdu speakers.

Dialects

Urdu has four recognized dialects: Dakhini, Pinjari, Rekhta, and Modern Vernacular Urdu (based on the Khariboli dialect of the Delhi region).

Modern Vernacular Urdu is the form of the language that is least widespread and is spoken around Delhi, Lucknow, Karachi and Lahore, it becomes increasingly divergent from the original form of Urdu as it loses some of the complicated Persian and Arabic vocabulary used in everyday terms.

Dakhini (also known as Dakani, Deccani, Desia, Mirgan) is spoken in Maharashtra state in India and around Hyderabad. It has fewer Persian and Arabic words than standard Urdu.

In addition, Rekhta (or Rekhti), the language of Urdu poetry, is sometimes counted as a separate dialect.

Grammar

Despite Urdu and English both being Indo-European languages, Urdu grammar can be very complex and is different in many ways from what English speakers are used to. Most notably, Urdu is a subject-object-verb language, meaning that verbs usually fall at the end of the sentence rather than before the object (as in English). Urdu also shows mixed ergativity so that, in some cases, verbs agree with the object of a sentence rather than the subject. Unlike English, Urdu has no definite article (the). The numeral ek might be used as the indefinite singular article (a/an) if this needs to be stressed.

In addition, Urdu uses postpositions (so called because they are placed after nouns) where English uses prepositions. Other differences include gender, honorifics, interrogatives, use of cases, and different tenses. While being complicated, Urdu grammar is fairly regular, with irregularities being relatively limited. Despite differences in vocabulary and writing, Urdu grammar is nearly identical with Hindi. Urdu also has a unique punctuation system. Periods are sometimes used to end a sentence, though the traditional "full stop" (a vertical line "-") is more generally used. After a heading, a colon followed by a dash (-:) is used. Colons are used in almost the same way as in English. Semi-colon and ellipsis are not generally used in Urdu. However, we can see their use sometimes because Urdu is still evolving and is influenced by English. Urdu punctuation sometimes uses western conventions for commas, exclamation points, and question marks.

Genders

In Urdu (and of course in Hindi too), there are only two genders for nouns. All male human beings and male animals (or those animals and plants which are perceived to be "masculine") are masculine. All female human beings and female animals (or those animals and plants which are perceived to be "feminine") are feminine. Things, inanimate articles and abstract nouns are also either masculine or feminine according to convention, which must be learnt by heart by non-Urdu speakers if they wish to learn correct Urdu. The ending of a word, if a vowel, usually helps in this gender classification. If a word of Hindi origin ends in long ā, it is normally masculine. If a word ends in ī, i, or iyā, it is normally feminine. Similarly, the gender is also tried to be preserved for words borrowed from Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit. The categorisation of Urdu words directly borrowed from English (which are numerous) is very arbitrary—but could be influenced by the ending. Adjectives ending in long [α:] must get inflected to agree with the gender of the noun.

Interrogatives

Besides the standard interrogative terms of who (کؤن kaun), what (کیا kyā), why (کیوں kyon), when (کب kab), where (کہاں kahān), how and what type (کیسا kaisā), how many (کِتنا kitnā), etc, the Urdu word (کیا kyā) can be used as a generic interrogative often placed at the beginning of a sentence to turn a statement into a Yes/No question. This makes it clear when a question is being asked. Questions can also be formed simply by modifying intonation, exactly as some questions are in English.

Pronouns

Urdu has pronouns in the first, second and third person, all for one gender only. Thus, unlike English, there is no difference between he or she. More strictly speaking, the third person of the pronoun is actually the same as the demonstrative pronoun (this / that). The verb, upon conjugation, usually indicates the difference in the gender. The pronouns have additional cases of accusative and genitive. There may also be multiple ways of inflecting the pronoun, which are given in parentheses. Note that for the second person of the pronoun you, Urdu has three levels of honorifics:

  • آپ āp/[αːp]: Formal and respectable form for you. Has no difference between the singular and the plural. Used in all formal settings and speaking to persons who are senior in job or age. Plural could be stressed by saying you people (آپ لوگ āp log)) or you all (آپ سب āp sab).
  • تُم tum/[tum]: Informal form of you. Has no difference between the singular and the plural. Used in all informal settings and speaking to persons who are junior in job or age. Plural could be stressed by saying you people (تُم لوگ tum log) or you all (تُم سب tum sab).
  • تُو tū/[tuː]: Extremely informal form of you, as thou. Strictly singular, its plural form would be تُم tum. Except for children, very close friends, or poetic language (either with God or with lovers), its use could be perceived as offensive in Pakistan or India.

Imperatives (requests and commands) correspond in form to the level of honorific being used, and the verb inflects to show the level of respect and politeness desired. Because imperatives can already include politeness, the word مہربانی "meharbānī", which can be translated as "please", is much less common than in spoken English; it is generally only used in writing or announcements.

Word order

The standard word order in Urdu is, in general, Subject Object Verb, but where different emphasis or more complex structure is needed, this rule is very easily set aside (provided that the nouns/pronouns are always followed by their postpositions or case markers). More specifically, the standard order is 1. Subject 2. Adverbs (in their standard order) 3. Indirect object and any of its adjectives 4. Direct object and any of its adjectives 5. Negation term or interrogative, if any, and finally the 6. Verb and any auxiliary verbs. (Snell, p93) The standard order can be modified in various ways to impart emphasis on particular parts of the sentence. Negation is formed by adding the word نہیں nahīn, meaning "no", in the appropriate place in the sentence, or by utilizing ن na or مت mat in some cases. Note that in Urdu, the adjectives precede the nouns they qualify. The auxiliaries always follow the main verb. Also, Urdu speakers or writers enjoy considerable freedom in placing words to achieve stylistic and other socio-psychological effects, though not as much freedom as in heavily inflected languages.

Tense and aspect of Urdu verbs

Urdu verbal structure is focused on aspect with distinctions based on tense usually shown through use of the verb to be (ہونا honā) as an auxiliary. There are three aspects: habitual (imperfect), progressive (also known as continuous) and perfective. Verbs in each aspect are marked for tense in almost all cases with the proper inflected form of honā. Urdu has four simple tenses, present, past, future (presumptive), and subjunctive (referred to as a mood by many linguists). Verbs are conjugated not only to show the number and person (1st, 2nd, 3rd) of their subject, but also its gender. Additionally, Urdu has imperative and conditional moods.

Case

Urdu is a weakly inflected language for case; the relationship of a noun in a sentence is usually shown by postpositions (i.e., prepositions that follow the noun). Urdu has three cases for nouns. The Direct case is used for nouns not followed by any postpositions, typically for the subject case. The Oblique case is used for any nouns that is followed by a postposition. Adjectives modifying nouns in the oblique case will inflect that same way. Some nouns have a separate Vocative case. Urdu has two numbers: singular and plural—but they may not be shown distinctly in all declinations.

Also see Hindi Grammar

Levels of formality in Urdu

The order of words in Urdu is not as rigidly fixed as it is thought to be by traditional grammarians. Although usually (but not invariably) an Urdu sentence begins with a subject and the ends with a verb. That is why Urdu is often called as SOV language (e.g. Subject-Object-Verb language). However, Urdu speakers or writers enjoy considerable freedom in placing words in an utterance to achieve stylistic effects, see Bhatia and Koul (2000, pp. 34-35).

Urdu in its less formalised register has been referred to as a rekhta (ریختہ, [reːxt̪aː]), meaning "rough mixture". The more formal register of Urdu is sometimes referred to as zabān-e-urdu-e-mo'alla (زبانِ اردوِ معلہ, [zəba:n e: ʊrd̪uː eː moəllaː]), 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 پانی pānī and آب āb, both meaning "water" for example, or between آدمی ādmi and مرد mard, meaning "man". The former in each set is used colloquially and has Hindi 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 of Hindi origin, the level of speech is considered more colloquial and personal. The grammar constucts based on Hindi are prevalent in the language used on a day to day basis.

Politeness

A host of words are used to show respect and politeness. This emphasis on politeness, which is reflected in the vocabulary, is known 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 (informal, extremely intimate, or derogatory) and tum (informal and showing intimacy called "apna pun" in Urdu) and the plural form āp (formal and respectful). Similarly, verbs, for example, "come," can be translated with degrees of formality in three ways:

  1. آ‏ئے āye/[aːje] or آ‏یں āen/[aːẽn] (nasalized n) ( formal and respectful)
  2. آ‏و āo/[aːo] (informal and intimate with less degree)
  3. آ ā/[aː] (extremely informal, intimate and often derogatory).

Vocabulary

Urdu has a vocabulary rich in words with Indian and Middle Eastern origins. The borrowings are dominated by words from Hindi, Persian, and Arabic. There are also a number of borrowings from Sanskrit, 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. In fact, Urdu is the classical example of the Muslim empire's curiosity.

Writing System

 
The Urdu Nasta’liq alphabet, with names in the Devanagari and Latin alphabets
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Urdu is written in a derivative of the Persian alphabet, which is itself derivative of the Arabic alphabet. Like Semitic Languages, Urdu script is written from right to left. Urdu is similar in appearance and letters to Arabic, Sindhi, Persian, and Pashto. In their modern incarnation, Urdu differs in appearance from Arabic in that it typically uses the more complex and sinuous Nasta’liq style of script, whereas Arabic is more commonly written in the modernized Naskh style. Nasta’liq is notoriously difficult to typeset, so Urdu newspapers were made from hand-written masters (a.k.a katib or khush-navees) until the late 1980s. The daily Jang was the first Urdu newspaper composed in Nasta’liq on 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 programs. Urdu can also be written in the Devanagari script. This often occurs in India as many Indians speak Urdu but are not literate in it (i.e. Lucknow). Instead they use the more common Devanagari script. Urdu ghazals are also frequently written in the Devanagari script.

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 reasonably 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:ژ خ غ ط ص or ق and Hindi for letters such as ڑ. 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.

A list of the Urdu alphabet and pronunciation is given below. Urdu contains many historical spellings from Arabic and Persian, 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 [i], 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 ط (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.

Letter Name of letter Pronunciation in the IPA
ا alif [ə, ɑ] after a consonant; silent when initial. Close to an English long a as in Mask.
ب be [b] English b.
پ pe [p] English p.
ت te dental [t̪] Close to French t as in trois.
ٹ ṭe retroflex [ʈ] Close to English T.
ث se [s] Close to English s
ج jīm [dʒ] Same as English j
چ cīm/ce [tʃ] Same as English ch, not like Scottish ch
ح baṛī he [h] voicleless h, partially an Alveolar consonant
خ khe [x] Slightly rolled version of Scottish "ch" as in loch
د dāl dental [d̪]
ڈ ḍāl retroflex [ɖ]
ذ zāl [z]
ر re dental [r]
ڑ aṛ retroflex [ɽ]
ز ze [z]
ژ zhe [ʒ]
س sīn [s]
ش shīn [ʃ]
ص su'ād [s]
ض zu'ād [z]
ط to'e [t]
ظ zo'e [z]
ع ‘ain [ɑ] after a consonant; otherwise [ʔ], [ə], or silent.
غ ghain [ɣ]
ف fe [f]
ق qāf [q]
ک kāf [k]
گ gāf [g]
ل lām [l]
م mīm [m]
ن nūn [n] or a nasal vowel
و vā'o [v, u, ʊ, o, ow]
ہ, ﮩ, ﮨ choṭī he [ɑ] at the end of a word, otherwise [h] or silent
ھ do cashmī he indicates that the preceding consonant is aspirated (p, t, c, k) or murmured (b, d, j, g).
ی choṭī ye [j, i, e, ɛ]
ے baṛī ye [eː]
ء hamzah [ʔ] or silent

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 are using [Romanized Urdu] on the Internet and it has become essential for them, because they use the Internet and English is its language. A person from Islamabad chats with another in Delhi on the Internet only in Roman Urdu. They both speak almost the same language but with different scripts. Moreover, the younger generation of those who are from the English medium schools or settled in the west, can speak Urdu but can’t 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 North India. Urdu was the dominant native language among Christians of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan in the early part of 1900s and is still used by some people in these Indian states. Indian Christians often used the Roman script for writing Urdu. Thus Roman Urdu was a common way of writing among Indian Christians in these states up to the 1960s. The Bible Society of India publishes Roman Urdu Bibles which enjoyed sale late into the 1960s (though they are still published today). Church songbooks are also common in Roman Urdu. However, the usage of Roman Urdu is declining with the wider use of Hindi and English in these states. The major South Asian film industries, Bollywood and Lollywood, are also noteworthy for their use of Roman Urdu for their movie titles.

Also see Roman Urdu.

Examples

English Urdu Transliteration Notes
Hello السلام علیکم assalāmu ‘alaikum اداب [aˈdaːb] would generally
be used to give respect.
و علیکم السلام [ˈwaɭikum ˈaʔsaɭam]
is the correct response.
Hello اداب عرض ہے ādāb arz hai "Regards to you"
(lit Regards are expressed),
a very formal secular greeting.
Good Bye خدا حافظ khudā hāfiz Khuda is Persian for God,
and hāfiz is from Arabic hifz "protection".
So lit. "May God be your Guardian."
Standard and commonly used
by Muslims and non-Muslims OR al vida formally spoken all over
yes ہاں hān casual
yes جی jī formal
yes جی ہاں jī hān confident formal
no نا nā casual
no نہیں, جی نہیں nahīn OR jī nahīn formal
please مہربانی meharbānī
thank you شکریہ shukrīā OR jazakallah
Please come in تشریف لائیے tashrīf laīe lit. Bring your honour
Please have a seat تشریف رکھیئے tashrīf rakhīe lit. Place your honour
I am happy to meet you اپ سے مل کر خوشی ہوی āp se mil kar khvushī (khushī) hūye lit. It is a pleasure to have met you
Do you speak English? کیا اپ انگریزی بولتے ہیں؟ kya āp angrezī (English) bolte hain?
I do not speak Urdu. میں اردو نہیں بولتا main Urdu nahīn boltā (male) bolti (female)
My name is ... میرا نام ۔۔۔ ہے merā nām .... hai
Which way to Lahore لاھور کس طرف ہے؟ Lāhaur kis taraf hai?
Where is Lucknow? لکھنو کہاں ہے؟ Lakhnau kahān hai
Urdu is a good language. اردو ایک اچھی زبان ہے Urdu ek acchī zabān hai

Common difficulties faced in learning Urdu

  • the phonetic mechanism of some sounds peculiar to Urdu (eg. ṛ, dh etc) The distinction between aspirated and unaspirated consonants will be difficult for English speakers. In addition, the distinction between dental and alveoloar (or retroflex) consonants will also pose problems. English speakers will find that they need to carefully distinguish between four different d-sounds and four different t-sounds.
  • pronunciation of vowels: In English, unstressed vowels tend to have a "schwa" quality. The pronunciation of such vowels in English is changed to an "uh" sound; this is called reducing a vowel sound. The second syllable of "unify" is pronounced /ə/, not i. The same for the unstressed second syllable of "person" which is also pronounced /ə/ rather than "oh." In Urdu, English-speakers must constantly be careful not to reduce these vowels.
    • In this respect, probably the most important mistake would be for English speakers to reduce final "ah" sounds to "uh." This can be especially important because an English pronunciation will lead to misunderstandings about grammar and gender. In Urdu, وہ بولتا ہے voh boltā hai is "he talks" whereas وہ بولتی ہے voh boltī hai is "she talks." A typical English pronunciation in the first sentence would be "voh boltuh hai," which will be understood as "she talks" by most Urdu-native speakers.
  • The 'a' ending of many gender-masculine words of native origin, due to romanisation, is highly confused by non-native speakers, because the short 'a' is dropped in Urdu (i.e. ہونا honā).
  • the Verbal concordance; Urdu exhibits split ergativity; see Ergative-absolutive language for an example.
  • Relative-correlative constructions. In English interrogative and relative pronouns are the same word. In "Who are you?" the word "who" is an interrogative, or question, pronoun. In "My friend who lives in Sydney can speak Urdu," the word "who" is not an interrogative, or question-pronoun. It is a relative, or linking-pronoun. In Urdu, there are different words for each. The interrogative pronoun tends to start with the "k" sound:" kab = when?, kahān = where?, kitnā = how much? The relative pronouns are usually very similar but start with "j" sounds: jab = when, jahān = where, jitnā = how much.

Literature

Urdu has only become a literary language in recent centuries, as Persian and Arabic were formerly the idioms of choice for "elevated" subjects. However, despite its late development, Urdu literature boasts some world-recognized artists and a considerable corpus.

Prose

Religious

After Arabic and Persian, Urdu holds the largest collection of work on Islamic literature and Sharia. 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. Two of the most popular Islamic books, originally written in Urdu, are the Fazail-e-Amal and the Bahar-e-Shariat.

Literary

Secular prose includes all categories of widely known fiction and non-fiction work, separable into genres.

The daastaan, or tale, a traditional story which may have many characters and complex plotting. This has now fallen into disuse.

The afsaana, or short story, probably the best-known genre of Urdu fiction. The best-known afsaana writers, or afsaana nigaar, in Urdu are Saadat Hasan Manto, Qurat-ul-Ain Haider, Munshi Premchand, Ismat Chughtai,Krishan Chander, Ghulam Abbas, Banu Qudsia and Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi. Munshi Premchand, became known as a pioneer in the afsaana, 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 saférnama (i.e: Odyssey, lit: travel story), Mazmoon (i.e: Essay), sarguzisht, inshaeya, murasela, and khud navvisht (i.e: Autobiography).

Poetry

Main article: Urdu poetry
File:Ghalib.gif
Mirza Ghalib (1797-1869), a respected poet of Urdu.

Urdu has been the premiere language 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 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 Imam Hussain, grandson of Prophet 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.

Foreign forms such as the sonnet, azad nazm (a.k.a Free verse) and haiku have also been used by some modern Urdu poets.

Probably the most widely recited, and memorized genre of contemporary Urdu poetry is naat—panegyric poetry written in praise of the Prophet Muhammad. Naat can be of any formal category, but is most commonly in the ghazal form. The language used in Urdu naat ranges from the intensely colloquial to a highly Persianized formal language. The great early twentieth century scholar Imam Ahmad Raza Khan, who wrote many of the most well known naats in Urdu, epitomized 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 salaam—a 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 Prophet—Mustafa Jan-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 imam Hussain and Battle of Karbala, called noha (نوحہ) and marsia. Anees and Dabeer are famous in this regard.

Urdu poetry terminology

Ash'ar (اشعار) (Couplet). It consists of two lines, Misra (مصرعہ); first line is called Misra-e-aala (مصرعہ اعلی) and the second is called 'Misra-e-sani' (مصرعہ ثانی). Each verse embodies a single thought or subject (sing) She'r (شعر).

History

Main article: History of Urdu

Urdu developed as local Indo-Aryan dialects came under the influence of the Muslim courts that ruled South Asia from the early thirteenth century. 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 Persianized Turks from Central Asia who spoke Turkish as their mother tongue. The Mughals were also Turks from Central Asia and spoke Persian as a second language. The mingling of these languages led to a vernacular that is the ancestor of today's Urdu. Dialects of this vernacular are spoken today in cities and villages throughout Pakistan and northern India. Cities with a particularly strong tradition of Urdu include Hyderabad, Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, and Lucknow.

The birthplace of the Urdu language is not known with certainty. Urdu literature has a long Arabic history, however, and because of this it has strong middle eastern roots. The word Urdu itself comes from the Turkish word ordu, "tent" or "army", from which we get the word "horde". Hence Urdu is sometimes called "Lashkari zaban" or the language of the army. Furthermore, armies of India often contained soldiers with various native tongues. Hence, Urdu was the chosen language to address the soldiers as it abridged several languages.

Wherever Muslim soldiers and officials settled, they carried Urdu with them. Urdu (along with Persian) enjoyed commanding status in the literary courts of Muslim rulers and Nawabs, and flourished under their patronage, partially displacing Sanskrit as the language of religious intellectuals in Indian society. The prestige bestowed upon Urdu at the expense of Sanskrit was a source of irritation for many religious Hindus, and to this day there remains religiously motivated conflict between the languages that sometimes makes dialogue difficult.

Urdu continued as one of many languages in Northwest India. In 1947, Urdu was established as the national language of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in the hope that this move would unite and homogenize the various ethnic groups of the new nation. Urdu suddenly went from a language of a minority to the language of the majority. Today, Urdu is taught throughout Pakistani schools and spoken in government positions, and it is also common in much of Northern India. Urdu's sister language, Hindi, is the official language of India.

Urdu and Hindi

Technically, linguists do not distinguish between Hindi and Urdu as separate languages. For them, Urdu and Hindi can be seen as variants of the same spoken language (Hindustani) with Urdu being written in Perso-Arabic script and with a heavy Persian and Arabic vocabulary (cf. Webster's New World Dictionary). Both these languages are based on the Khariboli dialect—the dialect of the Delhi region. However, Standard Urdu and Standard Hindi are definitely distinct languages—for the purpose of politics and sociolinguistics-although in terms of mutual intelligibility, they would still be considered dialects of the same language. There are two fundamental distinctions between them:

  1. The source of borrowed vocabulary (Persian or Sanskrit), and the script used to write them (an adaptation of the Persian script written in Nasta'liq style, or the Devanagari alphabet). In colloquial situations in much of the Indian subcontinent, where neither learned vocabulary nor writing is used, the distinction between the Urdu and Hindi tends to zero. In other dialect areas, the distinction may become even more pronounced even in colloquial speech, for "Hindi" in such cases will often refer to the local dialect.
  2. The most important distinction at this level is in the script: if written in the Perso-Arabic script, the language is generally considered to be Urdu, and if written in Devanagari it is generally considered to be Hindi. Since the Partition of India, the formal registers used in education and the media in India have become increasingly divergent from Urdu in their vocabulary. Where there is no colloquial word for a concept, Standard Urdu uses Perso-Arabic vocabulary, while Standard Hindi uses Sanskrit vocabulary. This results in the official languages being heavily Sanskritized or Persianized, and unintelligible to speakers educated in the other standard (as far as the formal vocabulary is concerned).

Note that for the purpose of linguistics, neither of above two arguments qualify for the purpose of considering Hindi and Urdu to be separate languages. For example, English has about 80-90% of its technical and formal vocabulary coming from Latin (mostly through French). But this fact does not make English a Romance language (i.e., languages descending from Latin)—English is always considered to be a Germanic language, because its "common and everyday vocabulary" and grammar is based upon Old German. Script never causes distinction between languages, because linguistics deals with language as it is "spoken," regarding script as but choice construction.

It can be argued that Standard Hindi is a form of colloquial Hindustani, intentionally de-Persianized and de-Arabicized, with its formal vocabulary borrowed instead from Sanskrit. Similarly, it can also be argued that Standard Urdu is also a form of Hindustani, intentionally de-Sanskritized, with its formal vocabulary borrowed instead from Persian and Arabic.

These two standardized registers of Hindustani have become so entrenched as separate languages that often nationalists, both Muslim and Hindu, claim that Hindi and Urdu have always been separate languages. However, there are unifying forces. For example, it is said that Indian Bollywood films are made in "Hindi", but the language used in most of them is almost the same as that of Urdu speakers. The dialogue is frequently developed in English and later translated to an intentionally neutral Hindustani which can be easily understood by speakers of most speakers of most North Indian languages, both in India and in Pakistan.

Also see Hindi.

Urdu and Bollywood

The Indian film industry based in Mumbai is often called Bollywood. The language used in Bollywood films is often called Hindi, but most dialogues are actually written in Hindustani -- they can be understood by Urdu and Hindi speakers alike. The film industry wants to reach the largest possible audience, and it cannot do that if the dialogue of the film is too one-sidedly Hindi or Urdu.[citation needed] This rule is broken only for song lyrics, which use elevated, poetic language. Often, this means using poetic Urdu words, of Arabic and Persian origin. A few films, like Umrao Jaan, Pakeezah, and Mughal-e-azam, have used vocabulary that leans more towards Urdu, as they depict places and times when Urdu would have been used.

From the 1950s through the 1970s, Bollywood films displayed the name of the film in Hindi, Urdu, and Roman scripts. Most Bollywood films today present film titles in Roman Urdu, although some also include the Hindi and Urdu scripts.

Urdenglish

There is a tendency to use English words and expressions in Urdu speech in Pakistan. This mixture is popularly known as Urdenglish. According to Khalid Ahmed of Daily Times [10] :

Those who speak Urdu sabotage it with colorless English words. The so-called ‘English-medium’ community does it all the time. So do most politicians. Asked to speak only in Urdu most of us go into contortions of unease. But the unkindest cut of all is that our great creative writers in Urdu too can’t speak Urdu for a minute without plastering us with ordinary not-too-original English expressions.

Footnote

Template:FnAs in Ghalib's famous couplet[11] where he compares himself to his great predecessor, the master poet Mir :

Urdu script

ریختے کے تمہیں استاد نہیں ہو غالب

کہتے ہیں اگلے زمانے میں کوئی میر بھی تھا

Transliteration

Rekhte ke tumhen ustād nahīn ho Ghālib
Kahte hain agle zamāne men ko'ī Mīr bhī thā

Translation

You, alone, are not the only expert of 'Rekhta', Ghalib
It is said that even once there existed someone named Mir

Bibliography/References

Bhatia, Tej K. and Koul Ashok. (2000). "Colloquial Urdu: The Complete Course for Beginners." London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-13540-0 (Book); ISBN 0-415-13541-9 (cassette); ISBN 0-415-13542-7 (book and casseettes course)

  • Asher, R. E. (Ed.). (1994). The Encyclopedia of language and linguistics. Oxford: Pergamon Press. ISBN 0-0803-5943-4.
  • Azad, Muhammad Husain: Ab-e hayat (Lahore: Naval Kishor Gais Printing Wrks) 1907 [in Urdu]; (Delhi: Oxford University Press) 2001 [In English translation]
  • Azim, Anwar. (1975). Urdu a victim of cultural genocide. In Z. Imam (Ed.), Muslims in India (p. 259).
  • Bhatia, Tej K. Colloquial Hindi: The Complete Course for Beginners. London, UK & New York, NY: Routledge, 1996. ISBN 0415110874 (Book), 0415110882 (Cassettes), 0415110890 (Book & Cassette Course)
  • Chatterji, Suniti K. (1960). Indo-Aryan and Hindi (rev. 2nd ed.). Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay.
  • Dua, Hans R. (1992). Hindi-Urdu as a pluricentric language. In M. G. Clyne (Ed.), Pluricentric languages: Differing norms in different nations. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3-1101-2855-1.
  • Dua, Hans R. (1994b). Urdu. In Asher (Ed.) (pp. 4863-4864).
  • Dua, Hans R. (1994a). Hindustani. In Asher (Ed.) (pp. 1554).
  • Kelkar, A. R. (1968). Studies in Hindi-Urdu: Introduction and word phonology. Poona: Deccan College.
  • Khan, M. H. (1969). Urdu. In T. A. Sebeok (Ed.), Current trends in linguistics (Vol. 5). The Hague: Mouton.
  • Narang, G. C.; & Becker, D. A. (1971). Aspiration and nasalization in the generative phonology of Hindi-Urdu. Language, 47, 646-767.
  • Ohala, M. (1972). Topics in Hindi-Urdu phonology. (PhD dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles).
  • "A Desertful of Roses", a site about Ghalib's Urdu ghazals by Dr. Frances W. Pritchett, Professor of Modern Indic Languages at Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
  • Rai, Amrit. (1984). A house divided: The origin and development of Hindi-Hindustani. Delhi: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-1956-1643-X.
  • Snell, Rupert Teach yourself Hindi: A complete guide for beginners. Lincolnwood, IL : NTC

See also

 
The Wikibook [[wikibooks:|]] has a page on the topic of: Urdu

alphabetically arranged

 
Urdu edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sites About Urdu

Online Use of Urdu

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