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Edit request from 75.149.106.130, 30 December 2010

{{edit protected}} Change "Based on the Hindi dialect of Delhi, its vocabulary developed under Persian, Arabic and Turkic influence over the course of almost 900 years." to "Based on Khariboli, the Hindustani dialect of Delhi, its vocabulary developed under Persian, Arabic and Turkic influence over the course of almost 900 years." because the former gives rise to the dispute between Hindi and Urdu as to which came from the other. The correction/modification states a fact that all agree to. Khariboli was a dialect of Hindustani spoken in and around Delhi and is the basis of both Hindi and Urdu. 75.149.106.130 (talk) 19:05, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

• Support - sounds reasonable.   — Jeff G.  ツ 19:14, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
• Support - its more factual too.--Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 22:56, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose. He's got his facts backwards. Khariboli is not a dialect of Hindustani, Hindustani/Urdu is a register of Khariboli. Khariboli is a dialect of Hindi. Hindustani (AKA Urdu) developed out of Khariboli, or actually out of Braj Bhasa and then Khari Boli, not the other way around. That is, Standard Hindi is a standardization of Urdu, which is a register of Khariboli, which is a dialect of Western Hindi, which is an Indic language. The problem is that the word "Hindi" is so ambiguous as to be nearly useless: Hindi (MSH) is a form of Urdu and Urdu is a form of Hindi (Hindi Belt). We could change it to "Based on the Western Hindi dialect of Delhi", maybe. Khariboli IMO is too unfamiliar to be used in the first paragraph of the lede. — kwami (talk) 00:27, 31 December 2010 (UTC)\

Comment. If Hindi is so confusing why to put it in lead, just drop it from lead saying "Based on (local) dialect of Delhi". BTW 900 years ago was there Hindi or Western Hindi or somethimng else? --Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 02:38, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay, done. I also cleaned up the wording, which had gotten a bit garbled from all the piecemeal editing. — kwami (talk) 03:02, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! --Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 03:49, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Please have a look on what George Abraham Grierson in his book Western Hindi, Linguistic Survey of India. says about Western Hindi, Hindustani, Urdu & Hindi,

pg. 1, "Western Hindi has five dialects,—Hindostani, Bangaru, Braj Bhakha, Kanauji, Bundeli. Hindostani, as a local vernacular, is spoken in Western Rohilkhand, the Upper Gangetic Doab, and the Panjab District of Ambala. It has also been carried over the whole of India by Musalman conquerors, and has received considerable literary culture. Under these conditions it hfis three main varieties, Literai*y Hindostani proper, employed by both Musalmans and Hindus for literary purposes and as a lingua franca ; Urdu, employed chiefly by Musahnans and by Hindus who have adopted the Musalman system of education, and a modern development, called Hindi, employed only by Hindus who have been educated on a Hindu system. Urdu, itself, has two varieties, the standard literary form of Delhi and Lucknow, and the Dakhinl, spoken, and used as a literary medium, by Musalmans of Southern India."

pg. 3, "The earliest date which Yule gives of the use of the word ' Hindostani ' is 1616 ..."

pg. 44, 45 & 46, "It (literary Hindostani) has several recognised varieties, amongst which may be mentioned Urdu, Rekhta, Dakhini, and Hindi. Urdu is that form of Hindostani which is written in the Persian character, and which makes a free use of Persian (including Arabic) words in its Tocabulary. The name is said to be derived from the Urdu-e mu'alla or royal military bazaar outside the Delhi palace. It is spoken chiefly in the towns of Western Hindostan, by Musalmans and by Hindus who have fallen under the influence of Persian culture. Persian vocables are, it's true, employed in every form of Hindostani. Such have been admitted to full citizenship even in the rustic dialects, or in the elegant Hindi of modern writein like Harishchandra of Benares. To object to their use would be affected purism, just as would be the avoidance of the use of all words of Latin derivation in English. But in what is known as High Urdu the use of Persian words is carried to almost incredible extremes. In writings of this class we find whole sentences in which the only Indian thing is the grammar, and with nothing but Persian words from beginning to end. It is curious, however, that this extreme Persianisation of Hindostani is not, as Sir Charles Lyall rightly points out, the work of conquerors ignorant of the tongue of the people. On the contrary, the Urdu language took its rise in the efforts of the ever pliable Hindu to assimilate the language of his rulers. Its authors were Kayasths and Khatris employed in the administration and acquainted with Persian, not Persians or Persianised Turks, who for many centuries used only their own language for literary purposes. To these is due the idea of employing the Persian character for their vernacular peech, and the consequent preference for words to which that character is native. Persian is now no foreign idiom in India, and though its excessive use is repugnant to good taste, it would he a foolish purism and a politick mistake to attempt (as some have attempted) to eliminate it from the Hindu literature of the day."

"Rekhta (i.e. ' scattered ' or ' crumbled ') is the form which Urdu takes when used for poetry. The name is derived from the manner in which Persian words are ' scattered ' through it. When poems are written in the special dialect used by women, which has a vocabulary of its own, it is known as Rekhti.

"Dakhini is the form of Hindostani used by Musalmans in the Deccan. Like Urdu it is written in the Persian character, but is much more free from Persianisation. It uses grammatical forms (such as mere-ko for mujh-ko) which are common in rustic parts of Northern India, but which are not found in the literary dialect, and in the Southern Deccan it does not use the agent case with ne before transitive verbs in the past tense, which is a characteristic feature of all the dialects of Western Hindostan."

pg. 46, "The word ' Hindi ' is used in several diflercint ma&nings. It is a Pei-sian, not an Indian word, and properly signifies a native of India, as distinguished from a 'Hindu' or non-Musalman Indian."

"On the other hand, Europeans use the word in two mutually contradictory senses, du. sometime to indicate the Sanskritised, or at least the non-Persianised, form of Hindostani, wMoh is employed as a literary form of speech by Hindus, and which is usually written in the Nagari character : and sometimes, loosely, to indicate all the rural dialects spoken between Bengal proper and the Panjab."

"This Hindi, therefore, or, as it is sometimes called, 'High Hindi', is the prose literary language of the Hindus of Upper India who do not employ Urdu. It is of modern origin, having been introduced under English influence at the commencement of the last century. Up till then, when a Hindu wrote prose and did not use Urdfl, he wrote in his own local dialect, Awadhi, Buiideli, Braj Bhakha, or what not. Lallu Lal, imder the inspiration of Dr. Gilchrist, changed all this by writing the well-known Prem Sigar, a work which was, so far as the prose portions went, practicaUy written in Urdu, with Indo-Aryan words substituted wherever a writer in that form of speech would use Persian ones."

pg. 46 & 47,"Since Lallu Lal's time Hindi has developed for itself certain rules of style which differentiate it from Urdu, the principal ones relating to the order of words, which is much less free than in that form of Hindostani. It has also, of late years, fallen uiiider the fatal spell of Sanskrit, and is showing becoming in the hands of Pandits and under the encouragement of some European writers who have learned Hindi through Sanskrit, as debased as literary Bengali, without the same excuse. Hindi has so copious a vocabulary of its own, a vocabulary rooted in the very beings of the sturdy peasantry upon whose language it is based, that nine-tenths of the Sanskrit words which one meets in most modem Hindi books are useless and unintelligible excisescences."

pg. 46 & 47,"We may now define the three main varieties of Hindustani as follows :— Hindostani primarily the language of the Upper Gangetic Doab, is also the lingua franca of India, capable of being written in both Persian and Deva-nagari characters, and without purism, avoiding alike the excessive use of either Persian or Sanskrit words when employed for literature. The name ' Urdu ' can then be confined to that special variety of Hindostani in which Persian words are of frequent occurrence, and which hence can only be written in the Persian character, and, similarly, ' Hindi ' can be confined to the form of Hindustani in which Sanskrit words abound, and which hence can only bo written in the Deva-nagari character. These are the definitions which were proposed by the late Mr. Growse, and they have the advantage of being intelligible, while at the same time they do not overlap. Hitherto, all the three words have been very loosely employed. Finally, I use ' Eastern Hindi ' to connote the group of intermediate dialects of which Awadhi is the chief, and ' Western Hindi ' to connote the group of dialects of which Braj Bhakha and Hindustani (in its different phases) are the best known."

"As a literary language, the earliest specimens of Hindustani are in Urdu, or rather Rekhta, for they were poetical works."

pg. 47, "Urdu and Hindi, as representing, each, one of the two great religious systems of India, have their headquarters wide apart. Two rival cities claim to be tlie true headquarters of Urdu, viz, Delhi and Lucknow. ... Hindi, also, has two schools of writers—that of Agra, and that of Benares. ... In connexion with this, it may here again be mentioned that Literary Hindustani founded on a vernacular dialect of Western Hindi, but is still in living connexion with it."

--Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 02:38, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that seems pretty much correct, apart from the distinction between Hindustani and Urdu being a recent one; historically, they referred to the same thing. He's not using the term Khari Boli at all, but just calling it Hindustani. — kwami (talk) 02:50, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, IMO above source/reference should be used to fix all related articles. --Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 03:45, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Hm, should we use the population figures too? ;) — kwami (talk) 07:56, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

lol...may be in history section. But the work is very informative and composite especially it is not that biased. Although many definitions have changed and several new ones have originated regarding evolution of the dialects/languages in question then also this work can work as litmus paper for evolution facts on WP articles of languages/dialects mentioned in this work. --Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 11:47, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it does look like a good source, I just haven't had a chance to look it over. — kwami (talk) 12:11, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit protected}} template. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:05, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

it seems that these is been Effort to destroy the identity of Urdu language. regardless what ever you all say or write about Urdu (Ordu) it is different language then Hindi. request for Hindi speaking people please respect Hindi and do welfare of that beautiful old historical language and do run after Bollywood as they don't speak Hindi or Urdu correctly. Please there is nothing called Hindustani language and stop destroying the identity of Hindi and Urdu. and stop misguiding people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nightrider083 (talk • contribs) 15:01, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

broader Urdu

Bihari is called "Urdu" in Bangladesh. Should we add something about that? How widespread is the use of "Urdu" for any variety of Hindi when spoken by Muslims? — kwami (talk) 02:29, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Public domain urdu dictionaries

• Henry Blochmann (1877). English and Urdu dictionary, romanized (8 ed.). the University of Michigan: Printed at the Baptist mission press for the Calcutta school-book society. p. 215. Retrieved 2011-7-06. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
• John Dowson (1908). A grammar of the Urdū or Hindūstānī language (3 ed.). the University of Michigan: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., ltd. p. 264. Retrieved 2011-7-06. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
• John Dowson (1872). A grammar of the Urdū or Hindūstānī language. Oxford University: Trübner & Co. p. 264. Retrieved 2011-7-06. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
• John Thompson Platts (1874). A grammar of the Hindūstānī or Urdū language. Vol. Volume 6423 of Harvard College Library preservation microfilm program. Oxford University: W.H. Allen. p. 399. Retrieved 2011-7-06. {{cite book}}: |volume= has extra text (help); Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
• John Thompson Platts (1892). A grammar of the Hindūstānī or Urdū language. the New York Public Library: W.H. Allen. p. 399. Retrieved 2011-7-06. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
• John Thompson Platts (1884). A dictionary of Urdū, classical Hindī, and English (reprint ed.). Oxford University: H. Milford. p. 1259. Retrieved 2011-7-06. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)

DÜNGÁNÈ (talk) 17:49, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Buttsechs?

Pardon me, but is there any particular reason why 'Buttsechs', a crude homophone for a sensetive term, redirects here? In the event of no replies, I will delete this redirect. Thanks, Intheeventofstructuralfailure (talk) 11:49, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Take a look at the page history. It's just vandalism. — kwami (talk) 12:28, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Pakistan/India or India/Pakistan

Kwamikagami seems bent on putting India first in the list of countries where Urdu occurs. He bases this on a rigid, legalistic practice that he thinks is inflexible in Wikipedia, that the country with most speakers comes first and the country of origin comes first. Normally, I would agree with him, but not in this case. Urdu is more firmly associated with Pakistan than with India because it is the official language of Pakistan, it is intimately associated with Islam, it is usually contrasted with Hindi (the first language of India), and there are enough linguistic sources that list it as being spoken in Pakistan first to justify an exception to Kwami's rigid rule. The International Encyclopedia of Linguistics article on Urdu begins, "Urdu is the national language of Pakistan..." and then mentions Muslims in India second. Linguasphere mentions Pakistan first. Ethnologue calls Urdu a "Language of Pakistan". These are not minor sources and if they consistently associate Urdu with Pakistan, then an exception to kwami's rigid rules needs to be made here. --Taivo (talk) 22:39, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

There is no rule, simply a pattern of usage in our articles. Imagining a rule and calling it "rigid" three times is propaganda, not a rational argument. The patterns found in other articles mostly favor India in this one:

1. Listing countries alphabetically, esp. if there is conflict. (India comes first)
2. Listing countries by number of native speakers (India comes first)
3. Starting w country of origin (India)
4. Starting w center of diversity (Dakhini etc: India)

As for association with Islam, India has a larger Muslim population than Pakistan. Pakistani Urdu-speaking families are immigrants from India. Urdu is an official language in India as well as in Pakistan. The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics article begins, "Urdu is the literary, cultural, and religious language of Muslims in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and other parts of the world ...". Masica (CUP) The Indo-Aryan Languages speaks of Urdu as "the language first of the Muslim population, mainly urban, of northern India; now the official language of Pakistan and a second language for all educated persons there; the southern form Dakhini, mentioned above as having a base at Hyderabad, is also found spoken (along with Standard Urdu for formal purposes and by the more educated) by Muslims in cities and towns throughout the Deccan, and in Bombay."

Against this, Urdu is the sole official language of Pakistan, and Pakistan has a higher percentage of Muslims than India. But we don't normally arrange countries according to official status in the geographic section: that's what the official-status section is for. — kwami (talk) 02:56, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I would agree with Kwamikagami. Any more or less neutral and measurable rule would seem to favour putting India first. While "more associated with" is both ambiguous and subjective, alphabetical order, number of speakers or country of origin are all relatively neutral (country of origin is not neutral for all languages, though) so I would recommend putting India first.Jeppiz (talk) 11:19, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

But this is not a clear-cut case when you have major linguistic sources putting Pakistan first because the relative importance of Urdu to Pakistan is greater than the relative importance of Urdu to India. Consider English. By both number of speakers and alphabetical order, India should precede both the United Kingdom and the United States. Indeed, if "number of speakers" is considered a valid criterion, then India and China would come first on many, many lists where they are not really appropriate as primary exemplars. It could be argued that there are more Hmong speakers in the United States than in any of the countries where they are scattered in Southeast Asia. While I generally agree that neutrality is often best served by rule-based behavior, I disagree that information exchange is always best served by rule-based behavior. We must always balance the need for neutrality with the importance of presenting information. --Taivo (talk) 11:45, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

• Comment There are certain flaws in Kwamikagami's argument. I will try not go too deeply into them because this deserves an essay in its own right, so I'll try my best to summarise. First of all, the argument As for association with Islam, India has a larger Muslim population than Pakistan - is not true. Pakistan has a larger Muslim population as per List of countries by Muslim population, with India following closely afterwards. But that is not even relevant, since we're discussing the number of native speakers. In terms of native speakers (i.e. those who have Urdu as their mother tongue), yes, India has a larger native Urdu-speaking population. But that argument is a rigid and narrow interpretation. if you look outside the box of just native speakers, most Pakistanis can speak Urdu; as per Pakistan: a global studies handbook by Mohiuddin, 75% of Pakistanis can comfortably speak Urdu at a native level. It is used as a national language/the main medium of communication between people of the different ethno-linguistic provinces. Pakistan's most common language, Punjabi (spoken natively by a population of 90 million or roughly 60% of the Pakistani population) - is furthermore similiar to Urdu, which means most people from that ethno-linguistic group in particular have no problem in adopting and conversing in Urdu. As Taivo correctly points out, Urdu is more important in (and is commonly associated with) Pakistan because it is the national language there and is part of the national identity. In the historical context, the Urdu movement played a pivotal role in the Pakistan Movement; before independence, Urdu was commonly viewed as a linguistic identity of Muslims in the Indian subcontinent and was thus to play a crucial role in the founding of Pakistan, a state for the Muslims of the subcontinent. After independence, Pakistan has been the main centre of Urdu-language education, culture, communication, media, newspapers/journalism, film/television, literature, poetry, music etc., not India. The largest language regulation/promotion board of Urdu, National Language Authority, is based in Pakistan. So if you look through any angle, Urdu is significant in Pakistan and most of the influence that Urdu has today comes from Pakistan.

Now, as Kwamkagami points out, Urdu has official status in India too, which is true. But at a secondary/state level along with some 20 other regional languages. Not at the national level or union level. Only Hindi, Urdu's counterpart, enjoys that status. Urdu does not have a well-defined influence on the national identity of India as a whole. The lone (and perhaps only significant) factor that makes the oranges different from the apples in this case is that there is a native-speaking population here. There is therefore Urdu culture present in India, but overall Urdu print media, literature, education in India is not comparable to that in Pakistan, where it enjoys the status of national language. Common sense dictates that Pakistan should obviously be listed first on the infobox per WP:WEIGHT. Excuse the long comment. Mar4d (talk) 14:46, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

In addendum to the above comment, I'll also add that after 1947, some independent observers have noted that Urdu as a whole has been on the decline in India and relegated as just a Muslim language. And not just the partition of India, but factors such as lack of promotion by language authorities, defunding by state governments, a perceived identity crisis associated with Muslims in India, and domination of Hindi are held as contributors to the decline. Some sources:

• Handbook of Twentieth-Century Literatures of India, p. 346
• Gender, Genre, and Power in South Asian Expressive Traditions, p. 357
• Culture And Customs of Pakistan, p. 55
• The Twelver Shi'a as a Muslim Minority in India: Pulpit of Tears, p. 29

There may be rebuttals or valid opposition to this perspective. But, disregarding how true this is, the issue of Urdu possibly declining in India has still been a topic discussed in academic sources. It is an interesting debate. But to those who think India deserves to be associated with Urdu more - I think you get the point from what I'm trying to say. Mar4d (talk) 15:11, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Protected

I've fully protected the article for a week due to the edit warring today. If you manage to come to a consensus about whether or how to include the material, just leave a message on my talk page and I'll lift the protection. I see that paklinks.com and beenasarwar.wordpress.com are sites that users can contribute to. Per WP:SPS, we are not allowed to use sites like this unless the content is written by an expert; is there any reason to suspect that this is the case? — Mr. Stradivarius ^{(have a chat)} 13:52, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

update population

Update population fig: — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kwamikagami (talk • contribs)

|speakers = 66 million
|date     = 2007
|ref      = <ref>[[Nationalencyklopedin]] "Världens 100 största språk 2007" The World's 100 Largest Languages in 2007</ref>

No opposition to this, so  Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:27, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

The true origins of the Urdu language

To further distance Muslims from their Persian language and therefore Islamic roots, the British popularized Urdu language as a mass language for Muslims. The reason was that Urdu while sharing the script of Persian happened to be littered with native Indian words, making it more localized in its nature; and inheriting all the class bias of Indian language as well.

Then the British created Hindi language out of thin air as a national language for Hindus. Hindi was spoken like Urdu but had the script of Sanskrit, a Hindu script which had gone extinct centuries ago. Hindi would give Hindus identity making them antagonist to Muslimsand Muslims would be encouraged to abandon Urdu for Hindi, breaking complete contact with Islamic script. A certain John Gilchrist of Fort William College, Calcutta, directed these language politics. Mr. Gilchrist can be aptly called the father of Hindi language. (http://www.rense.com/general53/brith.htm)

If this bears any semblance of truth it is highly interesting and relevant to this article. __meco (talk) 19:55, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Since I only now became aware of the existence of an article on the controversy between the two languages I also posted at Talk:Hindi–Urdu controversy. __meco (talk) 20:01, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I do not find this description of Hindi and Urdu origins to be credible. The British couldn't work such miracles with the languages of so many people. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.202.151 (talk) 06:50, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

its actually very credible. The British were the biggest supporters of Urdu for the Moslems and Hindi for the followers of Hinduism. The famous quote is Urdu and Hindi will be sufficient enough to fool the Mohemedans and the Hindus into thinking they have there own language. The British support of the Urdu and Hindi languages undermined the Brahminical castes and pushed Sanskrit into oblivion. Furthermore, they abolished Persian from the lands that now constitute Pakistan to de-link them linguistically with the Persian empire with whom they shared a border with and had cultural links since ancient time. These are unfortunately, colonial facts that the British committed in the South Asia region. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.228.169.146 (talk) 03:16, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I can't comment on all of the claim, but one part is clearly false, that "Hindi was spoken like Urdu but had the script of Sanskrit, a Hindu script which had gone extinct centuries ago." First, Sanskrit was not a written language; writing was not (re)introduced to India until the time of the Prakrits. Second, AFAIK the script never went extinct. Perhaps there is some truth to the claim, but it's just poorly worded, so as to be false as written? Was Khariboli written only in Persian, with Nagari used for either just Sankrit, or perhaps Marathi, until introduced to Khariboli by the British? But look at the source--an admitted conspiracy theorist. We'd need a reliable source before we add controversial claims like this. — kwami (talk) 20:27, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Urdu language genuinely developed from local north Indian and Persian languages with minor influences from Arabic and Turkic during the millenium of Muslim domination of India. These Muslims were mainly Persianised Turks (from Ghaznavids to Mughals). The word urdu means army in Turkic (compare to modern Turkish ordu) and Urdu language means "the army language" that is to say the language of the ruling Persianised Turkic elites in north Indian environment. During the millenium it became the vernacular language of the north India (Khariboli). Later there was coined a name Hindi language for Sanskritized register of Urdu(Khariboli) to appease Hindu sentiments and coined name Hindustani to include both Urdu and Hindi. While this can be counted as part of the British efforts to divide Hindus and Muslims, the language itself have developed for many centuries and it is not "lttered with native Indian words" but developed from north Indian and Persian languages. On the other hand British certainly applied divide-and-rule policies in India and language politics were part of them. 77.79.144.27 (talk) 11:56, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Partially correct, but: there were no local Persian languages; the names 'Hindustani' and 'Hindi' are older than 'Urdu'; and I'd want to see a good ref that MSHindi was a British conspiracy. — kwami (talk) 12:07, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Hello, Does anybody know Urdu?

Hi, I just need help to translate an article in Urdu. I have done my bit but the problem is of putting the references, since all the references are in English I couldn't really understand how can I put the references? Please visit my article Rebecca Masterton and help me in compiling the article. Hope to see some enthusiast people. --Lubna Rizvi 11:48, 13 December 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lubnarizvi (talk • contribs)

I will translate it, don't worry! It shall be done very soon. Faizan -Let's talk! 15:58, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Much as been done already, but I will help you with it further. Faizan -Let's talk! 16:00, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Acknowledging and giving liberal Pakistanis their due credit

I am terribly dismayed at the wrong impression the article on Urdu is giving - That all Pakistanis are narrow-minded. People who read Urdu are bound to believe that all compatriots are over-enthusiastically Taliban-style narrow minded. They are all barbaric, especially, when dealing with people of other faiths. When the truth is, as quoted in the article Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the father of the nation said at the time of the nation's independence: "You may belong to any religion caste or creed - that has nothing to do with the business of the state. In due course of time, Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims will cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the state.". Former Pakistani Minister Mushahid Hussain attended Mother Teresa's funeral and prayed for her departed soul. In 2006 the government announced another series of reforms and a Pakistan Education Task Force (PETF) was set up to reduce and reverse the level of Islamization of the education system by keeping Islamic instruction restricted to specifically Islamic studies and out of other general subjects. A revised curriculum guide was formulated whose provisions included, the reduction of Islamic instruction, the introduction of “the role of minorities in Pakistan” for grades 8-10, emphasis on the role of minorities in the creation of Pakistan and its pre-Islamic history. However, textbooks reflecting these changes were not printed.

It was in this context, an effort was made to introduce the following text in the article pertaining to the use of "Marhoom" and "Anjahani": Liberal Pakistanis, however, appear to be disgusted with these nuances. This is reflected in response to the article "Murders Most Foul" in which a respondent posted:

On the condemnable murder of Shahbaz Bhatti ..., they, the government and the media ... showed a better reaction than on the murder of Salman Taseer. But what is all the more condemnable is the immoral discrimination shown by them in case of Shahbaz Bhatti who has been dubbed as ‘Aanjahaani’ instead of ‘Marhoom’ or ‘Shaheed’, perhaps to avoid the risk of his getting into the ‘jannat’ and getting entitled to houries which may perhaps be already in short supply in view of the recent rise in demand for them. What a terrible joke they have made of the religion that they have to think many times about the status of the victim so as to decide whether he is ‘shaheed’, ‘marhoom’, ‘jaan-baahaq’, ‘aan-jahaani’ or simply a ‘jahannam-raseed’.

The source of the quote is a blogposting @ https://beenasarwar.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/murders-most-foul/. Yes, its a "blog", but the effort is quote common liberal man's perception about the discriminatory use of "marhoom", "anjahani", etc. It highlights not all Pakistanis think alike and by chance if you land in the country, don't presume yourself to be in the forest surrounded by wild animals. Rather, you'll find lots of Asma Jahangir, Abdul Sattar Edhi, etc. Also, my friend Kwami is peeved at one particular sentence (What a terrible joke they have made of the religion). I'm sorry if he's hurt, but these are not my words, rather those of a Pakistani. If needed, I can post the above text without these words and use three dots instead. Is that okay to justifiably highlight good-natured rational human beings in Pakistan? Hindustanilanguage (talk) 06:15, 1 November 2012 (UTC).

I don't see how any of this is relevant to the article. If there are parts of the article that you feel give a bad impression of Pakistanis, perhaps we can fix those directly rather than adding this. Or, if you can find linguistic or sociolinguistic sources which make the same points, they could be added per RS and WEIGHT. Remember, we aim to be an encyclopedia, not a newspaper editorial. — kwami (talk) 17:12, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

1. The wrong impression about Pakistanis is created by the section which mentions the distinction of "Marhoom" and "Anjahani". It is, however, encyclopedic - the source is reliable and the fact is well known.
2. Curious Wikipedia-readers will get a wrong impression that if a people hold these type of views, then do they hold human values and sentiments - especially with regard to rest of the world?
3. The blog posting cited is only intended to reveal that there people within that very country there are people who think otherwise - Of course, I agree that this is not the only view or source - there can be better sources, but till someone comes out with another better one let this be in place as an answer to #2 as it seems sum up many other views contextually.
4. Other Wikipedia articles have cited social networking sites and blog posts to highlight a specific aspect - keeping in mind that these may be quoted as opinions and not historically significant facts / absolute truths. Hindustanilanguage (talk) 05:26, 2 November 2012 (UTC).

Sorry, I lost track of this discussion. Indeed, we do not want to present a biased or stereotyped impression of Pakistanis. The section does not seem to be negative as it is written now, though there are some irrelevant things I'll remove. — kwami (talk) 22:58, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

A particular country is being attacked here, naming its nationals as biased. The Discussion ought to be held on the content instead of that country. And relevancy is to be decided by consensus, not by the decision of a single user. Remaining neutral is the foremost requirement here, and Pakistanis should not be attacked. Faizan -Let's talk! 16:09, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

No country is even mentioned, so how can you say it's being attacked? Is the info factually incorrect? — kwami (talk) 19:04, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

What? Pakistan was menmtioned and repeatedly attacked as "biased" on your talk! Faizan -Let's talk! 07:43, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

This article is about Modern Standard Urdu, not all of Hindustani

[copied from my talk page — kwami (talk)]

As for your edits here, Info regarding Urdu as the register of "Hindustani" is found in the following sections already, please don't move it again to lead. Being a Regster of Hindustani was a history, now Urdu is a "South Asian language in the Indo-Aryan branch in the Indo-Euro pean family of languages"! For more, do discuss it at the articles's talk, Thanks. Faizan -Let's talk! 08:23, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

It's been discussed many times. We generally oppose nationalist attempts to deny history. — kwami (talk) 08:26, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Hello there! This is Wamiq, a user who edited the article Urdu and whose edit you reverted completely. Can you please justify it? Faizan was right when he said that that article was concerned only with Urdu, but that did not mean you remove everything relating to Urdu from before 1900, labelling it as Hindustani or Hindi-Urdu. What you consider Urdu (as being born in 1900) existed much before that (I suppose you already know this, but still?)... So all what you say to be in the realm of Hindustani also comes in the sphere of Urdu (these were synonyms then, Urdu being the official name of the language whereas Hindustani used sometimes in colloquial speech; again I suppose you know this already). Hindi was non-existent before 1867, so calling the language before that as Hindi-Urdu would be an injustice with Urdu. How about replacing that introduction back (after modifications, if you consider appropriate)? Another reservation I have, is regarding your opinion of disregarding Urdu as a seperate language. Urdu should be the broad name of the Hindustani languge as it used to be in the past. This makes Urdu the actual language name as opposed to Hindi and Hindustani. Urdu is not a prejudicial name for a pre-existent language as is Hindi. So it is neither subordinate to Hindustani (in reality being equal to it), nor is equal to Hindi (rather being superordinate to it), which makes it a language in its own right. I hope this is clear now... So would you please review and reconsider your revert? I would be very grateful if you comply with this. Regards.

— Syɛd Шαмiq Aнмɛd Hαsнмi (тαlк) 16:13, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

The article for Urdu/Hindi/Hindustani before the standards split is under the name Hindustani language. That is Urdu. The article we call "Urdu" is for the modern standard language after the split, since people now claim that Hindi and Urdu are separate languages. For most of their history, they were the same language. Since there are three conceptions, we have three articles. The Hindi article too should be about only modern history, even though Hindu activists might want to claim it's 2,000 years old.

When you talk about Urdu before ca. 1900, you're really talking about what we're calling Hindustani. It's rather odd to make the lead to the Modern Standard Urdu article about Hindustani rather than about Modern Standard Urdu. — kwami (talk) 19:41, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Got it. Thanks a lot for making that clear to me! Well, can I ask you one thing? You do not seem to be the native speaker of either Hindi or Urdu. Where are you from and how do you know so much about languages which do not seem to be yours? You have put up nothing on your page and your name is so odd, that one could not make a guess regarding you. Please do tell me. Regards!

— Syɛd Шαмiq Aнмɛd Hαsнмi (тαlк) 21:36, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

You're right, I don't speak any language from the Subcontinent. I do have a pretty good understanding of linguistics, though, so if you can make a good linguistic argument with good sources you're likely to convince me. I've learned a lot talking to people here, and hardly think I know everything (though evidently more than some do). My user name Kwami is Ghanaian (Akan) for a man born on Saturday, while Kagami is a Japanese joke on my family name. It's not meant to be transparent!

We have a long history of dispute over these articles, going back years, just as we have in other cases where nationalism creeps in, like Serbo-Croatian, Tagalog vs Filipino, Malay vs Malaysian vs Indonesian, Turkish vs Turkic, and minority languages and dialects all over the world. We've also had a difficult time choosing appropriate titles that people can agree on. Personally, I'd like them to be at Hindustani, Modern Standard Hindi, and Modern Standard Urdu. ("Hindi" is an even more difficult name than Urdu, because there is even greater variation as to what people count as Hindi, as you can see in the language section of the Indian census.) I conceive of Modern Standard Hindi as a variety of Urdu, which is the same as Hindustani, but Hindutva activists would go berserk over that just as Serbian nationalists would go berserk if I were to say Serbian is a variety of Croatian (which I think is a fair statement), and just as Indonesians don't like it when I talk to them in Malay and call the language "Malay", though of course that's what it is. And of course Urdu is in turn a Hindi language, but many Pakistanis would throw a fit about that. Though I have met plenty of Hindi and Urdu speakers, as well as Serbs and Croats, who are perfectly willing to accept that they speak the same language as the other. — kwami (talk) 22:36, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, I have understood the classification of Urdu language into three articles here, but many of my friends haven’t, so they keep on reverting your edit. If you would like to keep it as it is, then no problem, but if you want to fix it back, then what do you think about pasting our conversation over the talk page of Urdu, since many people want to discuss this issue? I think this is the only way of stopping this edit war. Another thing done could be renaming the articles Hindi and Urdu to Modern Standard Hindi and Modern Standard Urdu. This would be more appropriate in my opinion as it would remove misconceptions in the minds of people from both sides. What do you think?

— Syɛd Шαмiq Aнмɛd Hαsнмi (тαlк) 14:29, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I did move Hindi to MSH, but there was a vote to move it back on the basis of COMMONNAME. I maintained that we should keep it at the unambiguous name, but lost the argument. — kwami (talk) 19:02, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Further discussion to be carried out at Talk:Urdu. Faizan -Let's talk! 15:54, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

[copied over]

Conflict Resolved, Agreed with Kwami, that text ought to be in the Article of Hindustani language, now I request all, not to make any revert again prior to discussion. Thanking all. Faizan -Let's talk! 07:45, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Is this calligraphy in Urdu?

Following image is of the calligraphy at the Afsarwala mosque, near the Humayun's Tomb in Delhi, see here. It might offer some info regarding the building, if anyone can read it please add the summary to the page Description. Thanks!--Ekabhishek^talk 04:56, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

This calligraphy is arabic and says the kalimah for muslims as "La ilaha il-lallaho Muhammad-ur-Rasoolullah"

 Done —Syɛd Шαмiq Aнмɛd Hαsнмi (тαlк) 10:52, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Changes to translit and transcription

These seem positive, but I don't really know enough about Hindi/Urdu phonology to judge. Can anybody else comment? — Lfdder (talk) 10:34, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

American/British usage

Per MOS:RETAIN we do not switch between British and American usage and vice versa when the existing variety is consistent within the article. One editor is trying to change American to British usage here without justifying that switch based on inconsistent usage within the article. This section is opened to give him the opportunity of demonstrating the need for change. --Taivo (talk) 16:02, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

This article doesn’t use any form of English consistently. E.g., It uses ‘-ize’ forms (standardized, Persianize—US) as well as ‘-our’ forms (flavour, honour—UK/PE). This needs to be standardised to PE as the article is highly relevant to Pakistan.—Шαмıq ☪ _тαʟκ✍ @ 16:11, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Since "-ize" spellings are part of Oxford spelling, and as such acceptable both in US and in UK usage, I'm not convinced they are a problem for Pakistani English. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:21, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

But -ise is actually preferred... the article uses -ise nowhere lesser than -ize.—Шαмıq ☪ _тαʟκ✍ @ 16:31, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Don't really care if it stays/gets converted to American/Brit/OED, but consistency would be nice, so the easiest thing to do would be to turn the remaining -ise into -ize. — Lfdder (talk) 17:02, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't really care which way it goes as long as it is consistent throughout and we agree here first. --Taivo (talk) 17:31, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia used as source for number of native speakers

Hi to all concerned Nationalencyklopedin is linked to wikipedia I think this not a valid source maybe find a new one? RameshJain9 (talk) 12:01, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

It's referenced correctly. — Lfdder (talk) 12:58, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

I am confused it links to a wiki article however. RameshJain9 (talk) 16:26, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Urdu is not native to Bangladesh

Urdu was and is not the native language of any part of Bangladesh. How can be the language of Biharis native to Bangladesh when Biharis themselves are not native to Bangladesh? Their status in Bangladesh is disputed. Biharies are not Bangladeshi and recognized as Pakistani refugee!

I have alredy included Indian Urdu speaking communities and Pakistani diaspora world wide (Biharis are also included in the list of pakistani disapora) IN THIS EDIT HERE [1] WHICH WAS REVERTED BY User:Faizan , who constantly push and pull POV term in bangladesh related article!

Unfortunately Urdu are used by most of biharis in Bangladesh as their second or third language. and they are native speaker of several Indian languages like Bhojpuri , Maithili, Awadhi, Marathi etc............but that’s not my concern. One can say that Urdu is native to Biharies but it doesn’t mean that Urdu is native to Bangladesh! Don’t push a language, which are used only in refugee camps to a sovereign nation------Samudrakula (talk) 00:33, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

What does it matter if they're refugees? Reverted, per sources. — kwami (talk) 02:48, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Kwami: The history here is that Urdu was at one time imposed as the official language on Bangladesh when it was East Pakistan, a move that led to massive demonstrations, many deaths, and the beginning of the secession movement. This is a sensitive subject. It matters. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:30, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

It matters for sociolinguistics, but not for demographics, unless they're not an established population and the language is not stable. — kwami (talk) 17:46, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Indicating Bangladesh as Urdu native speaker nation is too far! The number of Urdu native speaker Bangladeshi is negligible. i guess less then 0.01% (Biharis are excluded as non Bangladeshi)

That source included almost 24 nations where Urdu is used. Then why only nepal and bangladesh were selected to indicated in infobox as native speaker countries? Including Bangladesh here is a historical, statistical and graphical mistake and new propaganda against Bengali Language Movement!--------Samudrakula (talk) 10:53, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Six countries the source expands on, not 24, with a quarter million speakers in Bangladesh. Now, perhaps Bangladesh and Nepal should be removed, but that is a debate for this talk page, not for edit warring. And it seems clear that your objection is political rather than linguistic. — kwami (talk) 23:12, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Then what about several millions legal pakistani diaspora in saudi arabia; USA; canada; uae etc. About 3 millions Bengali speakers in pakistan and pakistan is not included in bengali language infobox. Political or linguistic , i think we should follow common rules for all language infoboxes. Native to a community (in this case a quarter million illegal from 160 millions legal civilians)and native to a nation are not same thing. You can correct me if I'm wrong.-----Samudrakula (talk) 09:37, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Languages are not native to political entities; they're native to places. Their or their speakers' legal status is not relevant. If Biharis born and raised in Bangladesh are native to Bangladesh, why would their languages not be native to Bangladesh? — Lfdder (talk) 12:30, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Lfdder then include all countries worldwide, where the urdu speaking people live over a decade or century!.Samudrakula (talk) 14:51, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

There is a decent argument for not including refugee pop in Bangla if we don't include immigrants in Britain. I was looking at this as purely a matter of numbers, and Bangla appears to be 3rd. — kwami (talk) 18:07, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't arguing that it should be included. — Lfdder (talk) 18:22, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Is there even a claim that those born and raised in Bangladesh speak Urdu fluently? I consider that unlikely. That their parents and grandparents still speak the language seems plausible, but that it is anything but a handicap to the younger generation would need a solid citation. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 02:44, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

wrong referencing to Persian language in some parts

Dear all

Thanks you for preparing this article. I know Persian it is my first language and I also know Arabic partially as it is the official second language of Iran and everybody in Iran have been tough Arabic for six years. I noticed that some ill-referencing in the article two of them here.

First, in the "levels of formality" section, it is written,

"The etymology of the word used in the Urdu language for the most part decides how polite or refined one's speech is. For example, Urdu speakers would distinguish between پانی pānī and آب āb, both meaning "water" for example, or between آدمی ādmī and مرد mard, meaning "man". The former in each set is used colloquially and has older Hindustani origins, whereas the latter is used formally and poetically, being of Persian origin."

In fact, آدمی ādmī and مرد mard both are Persian. mard is from old Persian languages, while ādamī is adapted in the Persian literature which is considered the modern Persian language.

Second, in the "poetry" section, for the figure of the manuscript which had the caption "illustrated manuscript of one of Amir Khusrau's". The poem is in defiantly in Persian as I can read it and there is no non-Persian word in it.

I would be more than happy the help you with the Persian related aspects of the article. Anooshahpour (talk) 20:16, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

@Anooshahpour: Regarding ab and mard: What if they are Persian? They are used in Urdu they are in Persian... They are both long-established loanwords. Urdu is heavily loaned with Persian... So much that the national anthem of Pakistan, the Qaumi Taranah, whose lyrics are in Urdu, can be easily understood by any Persian speaker. Amir Khusro is regarded the first Urdu poet, so his Urdu poetry may well sound to Persian ears as Persian itself... —ШαмıQ✍ @ 22:37, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

@Syed Wamiq Ahmed Hashmi:Regarding Amir khosro's poem, Can you thoroughly understand the one which is demonstrated in this article? If no, it is not Urdu. It it not just a matter of words, but the grammar and structure of the language which is different in Persian. The posted illustration manuscript is Persian as I can read and understand it all and can confirm its Persian grammar.

We already say the poem is in Persian. Evidently someone else caught that, but we didn't have an illustrated Urdu poem to replace it.

Deleted the "man" example, left "water". — kwami (talk) 04:18, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

constants and vowels

why constant and vowels(IPA) chart/table isn't included in Urdu article? but it is present in other languages articles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.63.143.104 (talk) 18:02, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Because Urdu is a standardized form of Hindustani. Its phonology is discussed at Hindustani phonology. --JorisvS (talk) 09:56, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Decline of Urdu in India

The paragraph discussing the Decline of Urdu in India has been reverted by two contributors. The paragraph discusses that Urdu developed in Delhi-Lucknow region it is not taught in schools in both cities. It is regarded as Muslim language and taught to Muslim students living in Madhya Pradesh. There was deliberate official policy in India to lower the status of Urdu language. There few paragraph in this article that do not have any references such as Prose section but I am required to provide reference for each line. May be all sentences without any reference could also be removed. I am ready to discuss the issues but reverting referenced paragraph without discussion is censorship. Nestwiki (talk) 22:35, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

If it is referenced using reliable sources and written in a neutral manner, then it could be fine. So far, it has looked more like a motivated essay. Moreover, the development of Urdu has no place in such a section (it is already discussed in the Origin section). --JorisvS (talk) 09:51, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

When his edits have been reverted with the edit summary vandalism, I hardly see any credibility in such a revert. It actually seems to be well cited, maybe to a blog as well. Last line may not be required. I think there should be some kind of re-work, under a section which may include other Indian affairs. Bladesmulti (talk) 17:13, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

I personally wouldn't want to call it vandalism either. If reworked and properly placed, it can be okay. --JorisvS (talk) 18:27, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Urdu (its status as official language & general use) has declined especially in so called Hindi belt of Northern & North-Western India. We surely can find number of citations for that, but until we have properly cited & written content we should not add a major chunk like it is being added as of now. ALthough we may have couple of sentences for now. Meanwhile I have restored some content which I think is referenced and harmless.--Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 05:35, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Note that you undid some straightforward copyediting of mine and only partially restored it. --JorisvS (talk) 09:16, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Improved translation of verse in Urdu poetry example

Please change

(They) say that in the past there also was someone (named) Mir.

to

It is said that in the past there was also a Mir

Thanks,

SN 1054 (talk) 20:43, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. I oppose the new wording that is less encyclopaedic (dull, grey, factual). As such, you will need to establish a consensus to make this change. Thank you for your interest in contributing to the English Wikipedia! — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 20:53, 13 December 2014 (UTC)