urdo spoken by common Pakistani and indians are kinda funny, deduct the funny accented english vocabulary and nothing will be left. On the other hand, Urdo literature and Official Urdo is so beautiful, although I dont properly speak the language, but i can uderstand it to a greater extent.
Myths about Urdu
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Developereo
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As the home of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, Lucknow deserves that honor. Let's not begrudge them that.
Public schools in Pakistan are pretty bad and everybody who can afford it wants to send their kids to private school, which are English-medium. Thus it started out that people equated English with better education and higher status.
However, by now it has permeated the culture to such an extent that no one even notices they are using English. One example, people use English letters for their initials. i.e "Ay Em Jaffery" instead of "Alif Meem Jaffery". Nowadays, ordinary housewives and businessmen, even rickshaw-walas throw in English words at random in the conversation.
Nalwa
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You spell Urdu as Urdo above. Is that the way you pronounce it as well? I am just curious.
Relation between Urdo and Persian goes back to many many centuries. It is quite natural to develope this tie between them. We shouldnt forget that pakistan's great poet Iqbal had more persian peoms than Urdo.
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Another thing that I have noticed in Indian metros is people (especially girls) using English and Hindi phrases in the same sentence. Or more, starting a sentence in English but finishing it in Hindi. For eg - "Chal GK chalte hai, to check out that new shop" Or another one I heard from my female office colleague - "That guy was cherhofying (from the word cherhna, as in teasing or making a pass) a girl." Do people do that in Lahore and Karachi?
And most often these people happen to be upper-middle class and private school educated.
the spelling might be wrong, but i pronounce it the same as the others.
Originally Posted by bilalhaider
Pakistan does not claim to be the Mecca for Urdu, but the people in Lucknow do claim that.
As the home of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, Lucknow deserves that honor. Let's not begrudge them that.
I agree that all the work Lucknow has done for Urdu, it deserves a lot of credit. But people like Bulle Shah, Javed Iqbal, and numerous other Sufi poets have been born in today's Pakistan territory. Lahore has done a lot of work for the development of Urdu as well, alongside Delhi and Lucknow. No one should claim to be the Mecca of anything.
Nankana Sahib is the birthplace of Guru Nanak, the father of Sikhism. Should Pakistan start claiming it is the Mecca of Sikhism? Likewise, UP being the birthplace of Sir Syed does not mean they can claim it is the Mecca for Urdu.
Pakistan does not claim to be the Mecca for Urdu, but the people in Lucknow do claim that.
As the home of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, Lucknow deserves that honor. Let's not begrudge them that.
I agree that all the work Lucknow has done for Urdu, it deserves a lot of credit. But people like Bulle Shah, Javed Iqbal, and numerous other Sufi poets have been born in today's Pakistan territory. Lahore has done a lot of work for the development of Urdu as well, alongside Delhi and Lucknow. No one should claim to be the Mecca of anything.
Nankana Sahib is the birthplace of Guru Nanak, the father of Sikhism. Should Pakistan start claiming it is the Mecca of Sikhism? Likewise, UP being the birthplace of Sir Syed does not mean they can claim it is the Mecca for Urdu.
Public schools in Pakistan are pretty bad and everybody who can afford it wants to send their kids to private school, which are English-medium. Thus it started out that people equated English with better education and higher status.
I've never studied in a public school in Pakistan, but my father did. Yes, public schools have gone downhill from that time. Even though the lower grades might be bad, I personally know a lot of well-educated kids who did Intermediate in Pakistan instead of A-Level. Many of them are in NUS, Singapore, who got directly accepted there, even though they did Inter instead of A-Levels. Trust me, Intermediate in Pakistan is at a very high level right now than what it has been at in recent times, but it can do even better. Even Metric has improved, not as much as Intermediate. I don't know how different the lower grades have been, so I won't comment on them. I see very little difference between A-Levels and Inter these days, A-Levels has gone down SIGNIFICANTLY in recent times, and Inter has made a huge surge upwards. A lot of people also send their children to A-Levels, and after that to England or the US to get a 'sense of pride.' It's almost like a competition sometimes between families.
I've never studied in a public school in Pakistan, but my father did. Yes, public schools have gone downhill from that time. Even though the lower grades might be bad, I personally know a lot of well-educated kids who did Intermediate in Pakistan instead of A-Level. Many of them are in NUS, Singapore, who got directly accepted there, even though they did Inter instead of A-Levels. Trust me, Intermediate in Pakistan is at a very high level right now than what it has been at in recent times, but it can do even better. Even Metric has improved, not as much as Intermediate. I don't know how different the lower grades have been, so I won't comment on them. I see very little difference between A-Levels and Inter these days, A-Levels has gone down SIGNIFICANTLY in recent times, and Inter has made a huge surge upwards. A lot of people also send their children to A-Levels, and after that to England or the US to get a 'sense of pride.' It's almost like a competition sometimes between families.
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Nalwa
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No offence, but I think you took a wrong example there. Punjabi Sufis like Baba Bulle Shah and Baba Farid composed their poems and couplets in Punjabi or maybe Persian since Persian was the state language during Mughal times..
And I guess the birth-place of Urdu might have been Delhi and Lucknow but the current home can be decided by the number of people who count Urdu as their first language. Another metric, could be the number and volume of Urdu literature produced. Any data or stats on this?
Developereo
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It is true that foreign words are sometimes introduced to differentiate the languages, but it can actually improve cultural understanding because of the shared movies, etc. I am sure most Pakistani know what prem, pita and pati mean.
I think is it a colonial curse with which we are all stuck. This subconscious habit is actually quite dangerous, especially if you live in the West.
Imagine two Indians/Pakistanis in the US talking amongst themselves in Urdu/Hindi because they think no one else can understand their conversation. "Dekh to voh larkee jiss neh blue sweater pehna hai, voh bohat ugly hai".
I am pretty sure anyone nearby wearing a blue sweater will get the message.
LaBong
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I agree about the connection with Persian, however I have a problem with painting it with religious colour.
Just curious, have you read Urdu works by Munshi Premchand?
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No offence, but I think you took a wrong example there. Punjabi Sufis like Baba Bulle Shah and Baba Farid composed their poems and couplets in Punjabi.
And I guess the birth-place of Urdu might have been Delhi and Lucknow but the current home can be decided by the number of people who count Urdu as their first language. Another metric, could be the number and volume of Urdu literature produced. Any data or stats on this?
A lot of Sufi poets did write Urdu poetry as well along with Punjabi. Besides, it's not just people like Bulle Shah: there are other people such as Muhammad Iqbal, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Majeed Amjad, Ahmad Nadeem Qasimi, Faraz, Nasim, Tilok Chand Mehroom, Noon Meem Rashid, Meeraji, Gul Khan Nasir, Zamir Jafri, Jagannath Azad, Aurangzeb Khan, Jalandhari. These poets had nothing to with Punjabi, they were pure Urdu poets born in the region now called Pakistan.
And other than that, there are some linguists who believe Lahore was the birthplace of Urdu, not Lucknow or Delhi. I just read this paper written by an white British author who gave substantial proof to support his claim. To me, it doesn't really matter where Urdu was born, whether it is in Lahore or Delhi. They were all the Indian subcontinent once. Like I said, Pakistan is the birthplace of Sikhism as well, but they don't claim to be the Mecca of Sikhism.
And I guess the birth-place of Urdu might have been Delhi and Lucknow but the current home can be decided by the number of people who count Urdu as their first language. Another metric, could be the number and volume of Urdu literature produced. Any data or stats on this?
A lot of Sufi poets did write Urdu poetry as well along with Punjabi. Besides, it's not just people like Bulle Shah: there are other people such as Muhammad Iqbal, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Majeed Amjad, Ahmad Nadeem Qasimi, Faraz, Nasim, Tilok Chand Mehroom, Noon Meem Rashid, Meeraji, Gul Khan Nasir, Zamir Jafri, Jagannath Azad, Aurangzeb Khan, Jalandhari. These poets had nothing to with Punjabi, they were pure Urdu poets born in the region now called Pakistan.
And other than that, there are some linguists who believe Lahore was the birthplace of Urdu, not Lucknow or Delhi. I just read this paper written by an white British author who gave substantial proof to support his claim. To me, it doesn't really matter where Urdu was born, whether it is in Lahore or Delhi. They were all the Indian subcontinent once. Like I said, Pakistan is the birthplace of Sikhism as well, but they don't claim to be the Mecca of Sikhism.
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The birthplace of Urdu is in Lahore, not Delhi:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/25194119
Citation for the book:
Urdu: The Name and the Language
T. Grahame Bailey
The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland
No. 2 (Apr., 1930), pp. 391-400
(article consists of 10 pages)
Published by: Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland
http://www.jstor.org/pss/25194119
Citation for the book:
Urdu: The Name and the Language
T. Grahame Bailey
The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland
No. 2 (Apr., 1930), pp. 391-400
(article consists of 10 pages)
Published by: Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland
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Nalwa
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Could be. And I as I dont follow Urdu literature I wont be able to tell you names of Urdu scholars in the Indian side. EjazR might be a good bet there. He would surely know about Indian Urdu scholars. Or at least those that resided in pre-partition non-Pakistan areas.
And I dug up this data from Wiki.
The sentence has links as well for both the data points but I haven't checked them. My point here is that it might be Pakistan's national language but by virtue of its larger population, India might have more speakers.
---------- Post added at 04:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:41 PM ----------
Thanks. Let me see if I can find the book in Delhi.
Nalwa
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You're right. And the fact that most upper class people speak this mish-mash way, it inadvertently leads to a sense of inferiority with your native tongue. So much so that to act educated and upper class, its essential one use ones' native tongue the least. I so detest that!!
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