Urdu should be replaced with Farsi - Interesting Read

[Halaku Khan]

What's wrong with chalaana?

drive-kia can be replaced with sair-kia

Chalaana is fine, but that's of Sanskrit origin.

As regards sair-kia, that is an example of the shortage of non-Sanskrit verbs. In fact, "kia" is again from Sanskrit.

 

[TOPGUN]

Urdu is our nations language and here to stay! we are proud of it who ever the nutcase that wrote this needs some help ! its like saying replace the people of Pakistan and put in new ones with everything new give me a break!

 

[Fracker]

Urdu is 90% farsi

You might don't have an idea what is farsi, or you don't know what is urdu..just 20-30% urdu is close to farsi.. while urdu is mix of farsi+sanskrit+arabic.. some other local languages also has their part in urdu emerger

@topic

well, i don't think we should now change our language. Our national Language is Urdu, and we are happy with that. We don't need to change it, or replace it with anyother language. in fact we should promote urdu more then English!!

 

[BATMAN]

^^Fracker! It is you who have no idea about similarity of farsi and urdu.
Basically it depends on your know how of urdu words.
If I compare the Urdu which is used today in our daily life... your claim may stand true but in urdu books specially old.... used lots of words which have roots in Farsi and Arabic but it is also changing slowly.
We cannot understand spoken farsi because it has an accent and grammer but if you are in any street of Iran you can understand 90% what is written on wall and shops etc. (only words)
In many cases we just use the same word for slightly different feeling or meaning.
In most cases we (Pakistani) know all the three versions of a word. the one which is in vogue (in Pakistan) and its arabic and farsi version..all three.
I have Arabic and Persian friends and to your surprise one of my persian friend tested it and he came to the same opinion.
Just give me a list of urdu words and I will translate those to farsi and you will be surprised.
Even simpler way is to buy an urdu - farsi dictionary and see by your self how many words you know.
Arabic word are fewer than Farsi but again Arabic has its roots in Farsi, again both have many similar words.

Never say never.

If Farsi would've been our national language, All the mindless entertainment which is a part of our society now (Thanks to our neighbours to the east) wouldn't have been able to infect our people with the "Identity" crisis syndrome.

Just a theory.

P.S I have nothing against Urdu as it is my national language and Urdu poetry has inspired me throughout my life. We're just speculating here on the topic of "Farsi as a National Language" so please don't take my posts out of context.

Thanks!

Dear Bezerk, I couldn't agree more..
It has commercial reasons also.. we can develop so many softwares our books and news papers would be read by wider world. In similar way we can benifit by the developments of others.
Arabic is a market....every product manual is written in Arabic and Farsi but not in Urdu. We can suddenly be able to communicate large arabic world stretching from west coast of Africa to middleast.
Î think we should made Farsi and Arabic as a compulsory foreign language in our schools.
We should be taught Urdu from Class 1 and Farsi from class 3 and Arabic from class 5. English should remain our official language.
We will be surprised to see how easy it is for a child to master all languages.
In elementry classes we should concentrate more on maths and languages and in secondary classes we should concentrate on science etc.
I had many friends from Peshwar and their children have no problem in switching from Pushto-Urdu-English and they also understand Punjabi, perhaps can speak as well.

Here, I would like to add that when I was child (late 70's ).. French was very popular culture in Lahore... I see my uncles used french languages in their day to day conversation same as we use english, today.
Our old passport (personal info) was printed in three languages 1-Urdu, 2-Arabic, 3-French! not in English.

 

[The Patriot]

bullshit idea.

 

[Khalids]

In my opinion, our language policy and our foreign policy are real sisters. Whenever our bureaucracy felt that it is better for them to switch again to Persian/Arabic (we had Arabic and Persian in our curriculum till independence, even not much literate old people can narrate long poems of Saadi Sheraazi today), they will do it in a 'greater national interest'. To say that Urdu lacks verbs is not an excuse to introduce compulsory English that is totally different from Urdu linguistically. Adopting Persian is much much easier than adopting English. Persian has so many verbs, more than English. So is the case of Arabic, the mother of all languages.

The illusion of lagging behind technologically or scientifically can be dealt with the notion that when Arabs were making advancement in all the contemporary fields of knowledge, they were translating the ancient Greek, Latin and Roman books into Arabic. Are we becoming lazy intellectually, when we say that all the latest knowledge should come to us in a foreign language and we just read it and that sall? I bet majority of our students don't really learn the scientific concepts, they just memorize it. Why? If the same concepts are given to them in a language they better understand, they will be in a better position to apply those concepts in real life resulting in scientific and technological innovation. It is what Japan, China etc are doing. A concept is a concept it doesn't have a particular language. Does any body think that Newton's Laws can not be taught in Urdu? Ridiculous.

Interesting thing is that the Europe has all the Arabic literature that they translated into English, modified it and made advancements.

Now, an interesting example; Pakistan Higher Education Commission (HEC) sends hundreds of Pakistani students abroad to pursue higher education (MS, M.Phil, PhD), especially in technical and scientific fields every year. Approximately, 80% of the students are selected for the non English speaking countries like France, Germany, Sweden, Holland, Austria, Italy, China, Korea, Thailand. These students go through only three months of language courses and then advance to their courses they are actually selected for. What will be they doing in Pakistan after completing their Highest degrees in a language other than English? Is HEC wasting its money? I wish any advocate of "English=advancement" could answer me.

Calligraphy is an other topic.

 

[BATMAN]

Khalid... those students who went to Europe for higher education (masters on wards) there studies are in English, irrespective of the native language of host country.
They do learn native language but for their daily life.. its advantage specifically to Pakistanis is another debate.

 

[greatsequence]

Are you kidding me? Pakistanis are already bad when it comes to being competitive in the world market, we'll become even more useless if we give up english.

You are right we are bad because we are not adopting our mother tongue. All over the world medium of instruction in schools and universities is in language which is spoken by the kids. It is only the slaves who are teaching their kids the language of their masters. China is an example they can hardly speak English but they are ruling the world now.

 

[greatsequence]

Huh?! Why should Pakistanis be ashamed of their ancestors, and why should they try to be something they are not (i.e. Arabs)?! Seems whomever wrote that article is trying to sever the fabric of Pakistani Identity. Without Urdu as the common GLUE in all Pakistani provinces, Pakistan will become "balkanized".

The achievement of forcing Urdu on every one gave us Bangladesh. This perception that if we will have pashto, sindi, balochi languages pakistan will disintegrate is only in Punjab. Other provinces want their languages to be taught and be alive again. Pakistani Punjabis are the only ones in the world and i mean only in the world who are killing their own language. I have seen some people who were not speaking punjabi infront of their kids just because (according to them) its not civilized.

 

[Khalids]

originally posted by BATMAN
Khalid... those students who went to Europe for higher education (masters on wards) there studies are in English, irrespective of the native language of host country.
They do learn native language but for their daily life.. its advantage specifically to Pakistanis is another debate.

Maybe, there are some exemptions, but I am sure about it because I have friends in France, Germany, China doing higher education. No, they are studying in native languages. But, the basic thing remains. Only English is not equal to advancement.

 

[greatsequence]

Khalid... those students who went to Europe for higher education (masters on wards) there studies are in English, irrespective of the native language of host country.
They do learn native language but for their daily life.. its advantage specifically to Pakistanis is another debate.

Most of them are doing Phd where language of instruction does not really matter.
In germany and sweden I know a lot of universities are offering bachelor and master courses in english. This is because the new generation of germans and swedish kids are not as hard working as their parents and very few of them are choosing the engineering fields which is the main source of income for those countries. So they want to lure students from India, pakistan and africa to work in their companies.

 

[Khalids]

Let me conclude, keeping in mind the debate to this point.

1- Urdu must enjoy the status of national language of Pakistan and the medium of instruction in educational curricula.

2- English should be specified to the educational level when it is necessary, no need to introduce it from Nursery classes. Free the child from a big load of books.

2- If it is necessary to have an other foreign language at school, Persian is a better choice than English.

Have I drawn the conclusions right?

And yes, at the primary level at least, a choice of giving education in child's mother language, i.e. Pubjabi, Balochi, Sindhi, Pashto, Seraiki etc may also be given to children. Our literacy rate can be boosted by this.

 

[Omar1984]

Here's a Farsi poetry written by Allama Iqbal and being presented by Muhammad Ali Shehki & Mehjabeen Qazalbash (both Pakistani singers who were very popular in the 1970's and the 1980's).

And here's an Urdu song by Muhammad Ali Shehki. Notice the difference.

 

[greatsequence]

Sheki was of Iranian decent but their pronounciation of Farsi is just great.

 

[Omar1984]

Sheki was of Iranian decent but their pronounciation of Farsi is just great.

Yes but he is a very patriotic Pakistani. Allama Iqbal was not of Iranian decent and wrote beautiful Farsi poetry.