Encyclopedia
is an
Indo-European language of the Indo-Aryan family that developed under
Persian,
Turkish,
Pashto,
Arabic,
Hindi, and
Sanskrit influence in
South Asia during the
Delhi Sultanate and
Mughal Empire .
Taken by itself, 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 23 national languages of
India.
also refers to a standardised register of
Hindustani termed
, that emerged as the standard dialect of Urdu. The grammatical description in this article concerns this standard .
is often contrasted with
Hindi, another standardised form of Hindustani. The primary differences between the two are that Standard is written in
Nastaliq script and draws heavily on Persian and Arabic vocabulary, while standard Hindi is written in
Devanagari and has supplemented some of its
Persian and
Arabic vocabulary with words from
Sanskrit. The term "" also includes dialects of Hindustani other than the standardised languages. Other than these, linguists consider and Hindi to be the same language.
Speakers and geographic distribution
There are between 60 and 80 million native speakers of standard . Overall, besides the more than 160 million who speak in Pakistan, there is a considerable Indian population who communicate in everyday. According to the
SIL ethnologue , Hindi/Urdu is the fifth most spoken language in the world. According to
Comerie ,
Hindi-Urdu is the second most spoken language in the world, with 330 million native speakers.
Because of 's extreme similarity to
Hindi, speakers of the two languages can usually understand one another, if both sides refrain from using specialized vocabulary. Indeed, linguists sometimes count them as being part of the same language diasystem. However, and Hindi are socio-politically different, and people who self-describe as being speakers of Hindi would question their being counted as native speakers of , and vice-versa.
In
Pakistan, is spoken and understood by a majority of urban dwellers in such cities as
Karachi,
Lahore,
Rawalpindi/
Islamabad,
Faisalabad, Hyderabad,
Multan,
Peshawar, Gujranwala,
Sialkot,
Sukkur and Sargodha. 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 medium school systems. This has produced millions of speakers whose mother tongue is one of the regional languages of Pakistan such as
Punjabi,
Sindhi,
Pashto, Gujarati, Kashmiri, Balochi, Siraiki, and Brahui. is the lingua franca of Pakistan and is absorbing many words from regional languages of Pakistan. The regional languages are also being influenced by vocabulary. Most of the nearly five million
Afghan refugees of different ethnic origins who stayed in Pakistan for over twenty-five years have also become fluent in .
In
India, 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, parts of
Andhra Pradesh,
Bangalore, and
Mysore. Some Indian schools teach as a first language and have their own syllabus and exams, Indian
madrasahs also teach
Arabic as well as . India has more than 2900 daily newspapers. Newspapers such as Daily Salar, Daily Pasban, Siasat Daily, Munsif Daily and Inqilab are published and distributed in
Bangalore,
Mysore, Hyderabad, and
Mumbai.
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. 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 speakers:
Official status
is the national language of
Pakistan and is spoken and understood throughout the country. It shares official language status with English. Although English is used in most elite circles, and
Punjabi has a plurality of native speakers, is the lingua franca and is expected to prevail. is also one of the official languages of
India, and in the Indian states of
Andhra Pradesh,
Delhi,
Jammu and Kashmir, and
Uttar Pradesh, has official language status. While the government school system in most other states emphasises Standard
Hindi, at universities in cities such as
Lucknow,
Aligarh and Hyderabad, is spoken and learned and is regarded as a language of prestige.
Classification and related languages
is a member of the Indo-Aryan family of languages, which is in turn a branch of the Indo-Iranian group , which itself is a member of the
Indo-European linguistic family. If
Hindi and are considered to be same language , then they can be considered to be a part of a dialect continuum which extends across eastern Iran, Afghanistan and modern Pakistan —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 : Punjabi written in the
Shahmukhi script can be understood by speakers of with little difficulty, but spoken Punjabi has a very different
phonology and can be harder to understand for speakers.
Dialects
has four recognised dialects: Dakhini, Pinjari, Rekhta, and Modern Vernacular . Sociolinguists also consider iself one of the four major variants of the
Hindi- dialect continuum.
Modern Vernacular 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 as it loses some of the complicated Persian and Arabic vocabulary used in everyday terms.
Dakhini is spoken in
Maharashtra state in India and around
Hyderabad. It has fewer Persian and Arabic words than standard .
In addition, Rekhta , the language of poetry, is sometimes counted as a separate dialect.
Grammar
Despite and English both being Indo-European languages, grammar can be very complex and is different in many ways from what English-speakers are used to. Most notably, is a subject-object-verb language, meaning that verbs usually fall at the end of the sentence rather than before the object . also shows mixed
ergativity so that, in some cases, verbs agree with the object of a sentence rather than the subject. Unlike English, has
no definite article . The numeral
ek might be used as the indefinite singular article if this needs to be stressed.
In addition, uses postpositions where English uses prepositions. Other differences include gender, honorifics, interrogatives, use of cases, and different tenses. While being complicated, grammar is fairly regular, with irregularities being relatively limited. Despite differences in vocabulary and writing, grammar is nearly identical with that of Hindi. also has a unique punctuation system. Periods are sometimes used to end a sentence, though the traditional "full stop" 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-colons and ellipsis are not generally used in . However, we can see their use sometimes because is still evolving and is influenced by English. punctuation sometimes uses western conventions for commas, exclamation points, and question marks.
Genders
In and Hindi, there are only
two genders for nouns. All male human beings and male animals are
masculine. All female human beings and female animals are
feminine. Things, inanimate articles and abstract nouns are also either masculine or feminine according to convention, which must be memorised by non- speakers if they wish to learn correct . While this is similar to Hindi and most other Indo-European languages such as
French, it is a very challenging learning requirement for speakers of languages which do not have such gender inflection. It is also a challenge for those who are used to only the
English language, which although an Indo-European language, has eliminated almost all of its gender inflection.
The ending of a word, if a vowel, usually helps in this gender classification. If a word of
Hindi origin ends in long a, it is normally masculine. If a word ends in i, i, or iya, it is normally feminine. Similarly, Urdu tries to match the gender of words borrowed from Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit and other languages that have grammatical gender. The categorisation of words directly borrowed from English is arbitrary, but may be influenced by how the words end phonologically in English. Adjectives ending in a long [a:] must be inflected to agree with the gender of the noun.
Interrogative pronouns
Besides the standard interrogative pronouns "who" , "what" , "why" , "when" , "where" , "how" / "what kind of" , "how many" , etc, the word 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 that a question is being asked. Questions can also be formed simply by modifying intonation, exactly as some questions are in English.
Personal pronouns
has pronouns in the first, second and third persons, all of which are undifferentiated for gender. Thus, unlike English, there is no difference between
he and
she. More strictly speaking, the third person of the pronoun is identical with the demonstrative pronoun . Gender distinction is, however, normally indicated in the conjugation of the verb. The pronouns have additional cases of accusative and genitive. There may also be multiple ways of inflecting the pronouns. Note that for the second person of the pronoun
you, has three levels of honorifics:
- ?? ap/[a?p]: Formal and respectable form for you. Used in all formal settings and speaking to persons who are senior in job or age. No difference between the singular and the plural; plural reference can, however, be indicated by the use of "you people" ) or "you all" .
- ??? tum/[tum]: Informal form of you. Used in all informal settings and speaking to persons who are junior in job or age. No difference between the singular and the plural; plural reference can, however, be indicated by the use of "you people" or "you all" .
- ??? tu/[tu?]: Extremely informal form of you, as thou. Strictly singular, its plural form would be ??? tum. Inappropriate use of this form — i.e. other than in addressing children, very close friends, or in poetic language — risks being perceived as offensive.
Imperatives 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 ??????? "meharbani", 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 is, in general, Subject Object Verb, but where different emphasis or more complex structure is needed, this rule is very easily set aside . More specifically, the standard order is 1. Subject 2. Adverbs 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. 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 ????
nahin, meaning "no", in the appropriate place in the sentence, or by utilizing ??
na or ??
mut in some cases. Note that in , the adjectives precede the nouns they qualify. The auxiliaries always follow the main verb. Also, 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 verbs
verbal structure is focused on aspect with distinctions based on tense usually shown through use of the verb to be as an auxiliary. There are three aspects: habitual , progressive and perfective. Verbs in each aspect are marked for tense in almost all cases with the proper inflected form of hona. has four simple tenses, present, past, future , and subjunctive . Verbs are conjugated not only to show the number and person of their subject, but also its gender. Additionally, has
imperative and conditional moods.
Case
is a weakly inflected language for case; the relationship of a noun in a sentence is usually shown by
postpositions . 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. has two numbers: singular and plural—but they may not be shown distinctly in all declinations.
Levels of formality in
The order of words in is not as rigidly fixed as it is thought to be by traditional grammarians. Although usually an sentence begins with a subject and the ends with a verb. That is why is often called as SOV language . However, speakers or writers enjoy considerable freedom in placing words in an utterance to achieve stylistic effects, see Bhatia and Koul .
in its less formalised register has been referred to as a
rekhta , meaning "rough mixture". The more formal register of is sometimes referred to as
zaban-e-urdu-e-mo'alla , the "Language of Camp and Court".
The etymology of the word used in the language for the most part decides how polite or refined your speech is. For example, speakers would distinguish between ????
pani and ??
ab, both meaning "water" for example, or between ????
admi and ???
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 , the level of speech is also considered more formal and grand. If a word is of
Hindi or
Sanskrit 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 . 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 the singular forms
tu and
tum and the plural form
ap . Similarly, verbs, for example, the imperative form of the verb "to come," can be translated with degrees of formality in three ways:
- ???? aiye/[a??je] or ???? aen/[a???]
- ??? ao/[a?o]
- ? a/[a?] .
Vocabulary
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 small 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, is a classic example of the curiosity exhibited by Muslim leaders that brought them in contact with myriad languages and cultures.
is a Turkic word that means "Army." The language has vocabulary and other characteristics from many languages spoken in close areas from which the army recruited its soldiers. The army needed a common language that everyone could understand and learn easily, so they formed a language that included words from every country/language represented in the army.
Writing System
is written in a derivative of the Persian alphabet, which is itself derivative of the
Arabic alphabet. Like
Semitic languages, script is written from right to left. is similar in appearance and letters to
Arabic,
Sindhi,
Persian, and
Pashto. In their modern incarnation, differs in appearance from
Arabic in that it typically uses the more complex and sinuous
Nasta’liq is a calligraphy style for mainly Persio-Arabic [i]. ...
style of script, whereas
Arabic is more commonly written in the modernised
Naskh style.
Nasta’liq is notoriously difficult to typeset, so newspapers were made from hand-written masters until the late 1980s. The daily Jang was the first newspaper composed in
Nasta’liq on computer. There are efforts underway to develop more sophisticated and user-friendly support on computers and the Internet. Nowadays, nearly all newspapers, magazines, journals, and periodicals are composed on computers via various software programs. In India, ghazals are often found transcripted into
Devanagari, as an aid for those who speak
Hindi and can comprehend Urdu, but cannot read the Perso-Arabic script.
Usually, bare transliterations of 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 , 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.
A list of the alphabet and pronunciation is given below. contains many historical spellings from Arabic and Persian, and therefore has many irregularities. The Arabic letters
yaa and
haa are split into two in : 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 ? above the corresponding
dental consonants. Several letters which represent distinct consonants in Arabic are conflated in Persian, and this has carried over to .
| Letter | Name of letter | Pronunciation in the IPA |
|---|
| alif | |
| be | |
| pe | |
| te | dental Close to French t as in trois. |
| ?e | retroflex Close to English T. |
| se | |
| jim | |
| cim/ce | |
| ba?i he | Alveolar consonant |
| khe | |
| dal | |
| ?al | |
| zal | |
| re | |
| a? | |
| ze | |
| zhe | |
| sin | |
| shin | |
| su'ad | |
| zu'ad | |
| to'e | |
| zo'e | |
| ‘ain | |
| ghain | |
| fe | |
| qaf | |
| kaf | |
| gaf | |
| lam | |
| mim | |
| nun | |
| va'o | |
| cho?i he | |
| do cashmi he | indicates that the preceding consonant is aspirated or murmured . |
| cho?i ye | |
| ba?i ye | |
| hamzah | |
is occasionally also written in the Roman script.
Roman 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 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 -speaking people around the world are using [Romanised ] 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 . They both speak 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 but can’t write it in the traditional Arabic script and thus Roman is a blessing for such a population." Roman also holds significance among the Christians of
North India. 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 . Thus Roman was a common way of writing among Indian Christians in these states up to the 1960s. The Bible Society of India publishes Roman Bibles which enjoyed sale late into the 1960s . Church songbooks are also common in Roman . However, the usage of Roman 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 for their movie titles.
Also see
Roman .
NOTE: The nature of hamza being a true letter has been debated, but ultimately it is considered by most to be one. In the word "Chai" , Hamza is placed above Bari Yay, making is "ai" sound.
Examples
| English | Urdu | Transliteration | Notes |
|---|
| Hello | ?????? ????? | | lit. "Peace be upon you."
???? would generally
be used to give respect
? ????? ??????
is the correct response. |
| Hello | ???? ??? ?? | | "Regards to you"
,
a very formal secular greeting. |
| Good Bye | ??? ???? | | Khuda is Persian for God,
and hafiz 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 | ??? | | casual |
| yes | ?? | | formal |
| yes | ?? ??? | | confident formal |
| no | ?? | | casual |
| no | ????? ?? ???? | | formal;ji nahin is considered more formal |
| please | ??????? | | |
| thank you | ????? | | |
| Please come in | ????? ????? | | lit. Bring your honour |
| Please have a seat | ????? ?????? | | lit. Place your honour |
| I am happy to meet you | ?? ?? ?? ?? ???? ??? | | lit. Meeting you has made me happy. |
| Do you speak English? | ??? ?? ??????? ????? ???? | | |
| ??? ???? ???? ?????/????? ??? | | bolta is masculine, bolti is feminine |
| My name is ... | ???? ??? ??? ?? | | |
| Which way to Lahore | ????? ?? ??? ??? | | |
| Where is Lucknow? | ????? ???? ??? | |
| ???? ??? ???? ???? ?? | | |
Common difficulties faced in learning
- the phonetic mechanism of some sounds peculiar to The distinction between aspirated and unaspirated consonants will be difficult for English speakers. In addition, the distinction between dental and alveoloar 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 //, not . The same for the unstressed second syllable of "person" which is also pronounced // rather than "oh." In , 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 , ?? ????? ?? voh bolta hai is "he talks" whereas ?? ????? ?? voh bolti 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 -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 .
- the Verbal concordance; 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 ," the word "who" is not an interrogative, or question-pronoun. It is a relative, or linking-pronoun. In , there are different words for each. The interrogative pronoun tends to start with the "k" sound:" kab = when?, kahan = where?, kitna = how much? The relative pronouns are usually very similar but start with "j" sounds: jab = when, jahan = where, jitna = how much.
Literature
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, literature boasts some world-recognised artists and a considerable corpus.
Prose
Religious
After
Arabic and
Persian, 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 . Relatively inexpensive publishing, combined with the use of as a lingua franca among Muslims of
South Asia, has meant that Islam-related works in far outnumber such works in any other South Asian language. Two of the most popular Islamic books, originally written in , 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
dastan, or tale, a traditional story which may have many characters and complex plotting. This has now fallen into disuse.
The
afsana, or short story, probably the best-known genre of fiction. The best-known
afsana writers, or
afsana nigar, in 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
afsana, though some contend
