The Ghost of Urdu

I Congratulate you Mr. Zafar Anjum, not because of good Article, But because of good autobiography. For your kind information let me tell you that as you mentioned ``Thankfully, there are some good Urdu websites now, but there is hardly any new writing going on there. `` There are many Urdu websites but not a single is good(In my opinion) But Many new writings can be seen You can visit www.urdutehzeeb.com, www.urdustan.com,www.urdunet.com,
You can read many new articles over there

When the first I saw the heading The Ghost of Urdu I thought somthing is here about Urdu. But I disappointed there was every thing about only you???

Dear ZA:
``As long as Urdu is alive in Pakistan or elsewhere, we need not worry about its future in general``.
I hope this is true. A taxi driver from Pakistan lamented that Urdu was given more space in Hyderabad, Deccan than in Pakistan where he said, it was considered the language of the Mahajirs. The PTV programs have deteriorated too, in the last few years. during the times of BB with Rana Sheik as the PTV director, the programs had beautiful spoken urdu but now the language is so pedestrian. They even use such words as Somvaar or Budhwaar etc. There is a strong rural and semiurban feeling of not having enough space for Punjabi, Saraiki, Balouchi and Sindhi languages. Certainly, the Engineering/Medicine/Computer Culture of the educational scene in India leaves little breathing space for any linguistic endeavour let alone for Urdu. At least, in Urdu there are many who try to learn Urdu to appreciate urdu poetry in its original form.
The political empowerment of muslims of India in very much possible if there is proper leadership to make it happen. If this should happen, the future of Urdu would be secure.
The influence of Bollywood also is a positive influence in the mean time.
I myself am looking for Urdu Comics and Urdu magazines publishing critical analysis of Urdu Sher Shayari- anyhelp is welcome.
PRK

A Well Written Article on the need of improving and spreading Urdu on a larger scale.
- Regarding Urdu`s survival, it is most appropriate that more seminars, conferences, poetry contests are held in neighbouring countries and in our own countries. Every country now and then visits Pakistan for their respective language seminars etc. so why cant we?
- Most of the people using Urdu are now being restricted to villages. Urdu should be promoted in cities and metropolitan areas.
- Thirdly, Urdu text and materials should be widely available at a reasonable cost for all.

all i wanna say is that the future of urdu depends upon the people who speak urdu,i dont know why is there a big misconception about urdu and hindi,most of the indians speak and interact in urdu calling it hindi.the success of indian cinema relys on this laguage urdu the scripts of the movies and the dialogues are not in hindi so to me it means that urdu is a powerfull medium of communication.

I really enjoyed reading this. As some posters have pointed out, Urdu survives primarily in Bollywood films! All languages grow and change with time if they are to survive, and perhaps this is what Urdu needs to do too, sacrilegious though this may seem.
BTW, I notice that you say that Urdu is your mother-tongue. Then why did your father teach Biology in Bengali and you speak in a dialect of Bengali as a child? This is not just a personal question - are you by any chance a Bengali? If so, your mother-tongue should have been Bengali, shouldn`t it? And your relationship with Urdu closely linked to your religious affiliation, not to your regional/linguistic one? Isn`t this ghettoizing this beautiful language? I`m looking forward to your response.

Found on Internet

``Learn Urdu in 3 hours

You will now be given a series of words. It will take you little more than a minute to see for yourself how quick and easy it is to learn. The words just stick in your memory without effort through VISUAL ASSOCIATION!

INSTRUCTIONS

Hindi Urdu words will be presented like this:

the Hindi Urdu for DUCK is BATTAK. You must imagine a duck pecking your left BUTTOCK in your mind`s eye, AS VIVIDLY AS YOU CAN, for 10 seconds. Unless you picture the image for the full 10 seconds, you will not experience for yourself how amazingly effective the method is.

BEGIN SAMPLE:

The Hindi Urdu for DUCK is BATTAK
Imagine a duck pecking your left buttock`` ..........:-)

Dear Zafar:
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and memories. It brought back some of the old memories of Beeswin Sadi, Shama and Ibn Safi.
Urdu cannot, must not become a ghost in India. And the ever growing popularity of ghazals and urdu dialogues in `Hindi` films tells me that it wont. And it is not only the `urduwallahs` who are lamenting the loss of Urdu poetry from the lyrics of Bollywood product.
I am tempted to make a distinction between the language and the script. While Urdu language seems secure in India, I am less certain about the Arabic-Persian script. But even that script will remain as long as it is patronised by the Muslim Indians. In any case, Roman seems to be the script of html and email and will probably take over all other languages.

When I read your article, a thought occured to me - what you said about Urdu could, with some changes, also be said of Hindi or any other regional languages.

BTW could you clarify the connection between getting admission into an Urdu course and paying for a hostel in Delhi?

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SO very true! With current scenario in mind, there is only one realistic prediction: Urdu or Hindi will have to die. They will only survive if given the room to. These days, practically speaking either of these languages are of no importance save a label `national language` and the surviving literature (the ghost). For Urdu to survive, proper measures have to taken at the primary educational level.

Dear Nasah

You can write Hindi in nastaliq, and Urdu in devanagri, it doesn`t really matter does it??? and purists are always hard to please...

but if u spend a day with me i will guarantee that the next day you will be readin Umrao Jan Ada or Urdu key tera afsaney in the original... it really is that easy... writing takes practice, but my devanagri is as bad as a childs, only because i dont have much opportunity to write it...

Re :Article
Zafar,
Nice article. Unlike you I never learned urdu as part of a school curriculum, just tuitions in the evening. It was only useful in going through my grandfather’s library.
I must say that other hindi dialects are also facing the same fate as urdu. There is very little literature in braj basha, bhojpuri or maithli. In fact tulu in Karnataka is also facing the same fate. We live in a very commercial society. Unless we come up with commercially viable ways for people to write books, plays or even make movies we will watch these languages die.

Regards,

Faruk

Through this discourse on the survival of the Urdu language, I had a great walk down the memory lane. The beauty of this language would never ever lead to its demise. As far as its popular usage is concerned, this is a universal truth that langauges finds its own course, we perhaps cannot move it in the mainstream.

dear ally -- you can start learning the Devnagri alphabet in the evening and read a Hindi book next morning -- it is difficult to claim the same for Urdu Nastaaleeq --

it is another matter for the purists whether Urdu written in Devnagri can still be called Urdu...

#14

though ppl my try to project Urdu as a `Muslim` language, history has shown otherwise, when i did my A level we were introduced to Urdu short stories most of which were written by Hindus and Sikhs, most of these stories were prepartition or not long after... there were numerous authors, like Munshi Prem Chand, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Krishan Chandr, Balwant Singh, Surinder Prakash, Upindranath Ashik etc. I also noticed how in that time, the language of the short stories, be it written by any one, easily chopped and changed between what is now described as Hindi and Urdu as and when required, in terms of the vocabulary used...

those stories have substance and and touch on many issues in ways that hardly anyone does now... i am sure they will survive, be it devanagri or nastaliq...

#13

regarding script, nastaliq is very easy to learn, its not hard at all... many of the authors used to write in both Hindi and Urdu in both scripts, but that was the education system of those people in those days... there are many primers available online even, to teach you how to read and write in nastaliq...

yes it is a difficult one to work with technically but no where near as hard as Mandarin or Cantonese, and there are many web sites (www.bbcUrdu.com) and technical programs written in Urdu, the fact that Arabs did not learn English has helped all languages using Arabic script derivatives also, the Arabs (or Microsoft) have developed standards for right to left scripting etc so this is standard, just as all Indic scripts are also standard now, if u have XP/W2000 and have the Microsoft visual keyboard, you can write Word/Excel/PowerPoint files in devanagri and nastaliq in the same document if u want...

i learnt devanagri script first from a friend after which it got rusty then from watching the indian drama serials that used to come on Zee, they used to have credits in both english and devanagri, i started to pick out the odd characters and then some more and could make out easy names like Raja Ram etc, later i just bought a book to learn devanagri properly, it was refreshing, i could read a book in hindi, another new world opens up we already understand hindi/urdu by learning the script it gives you acces to so much more of it... though i`m back to being rusty with devanagri for now...

anyone can learn the other script, its just finding the time...

re:#13 by nasah
Actually, Hindi does have those guttaral phoenetics. Kaif is written with a usual Ka and a dot below. Z of Zameer is written with a Ja and a dot below and so on. Hindi has borrowed liberally from Urdu but these urdu words are discouraged by puritans. Examiners may not be happy if you use too many of those words in a hindi exam!
Sridhar

and for heavens sake friends -- please dont communalize Urdu --

Urdu is NOT the exclusive jaidad of a language of -- Muslims --

it`s a language that Hindus, Sikhs, Christians AND Buddhist speak -- current Urdu has been enriched MORE or MOST by the Hindus and the Sikhs than by the Muslims.....

I have here in US a Tibetan Buddhist friend from Dhramshala who speaks chaste ``Upean`` Urdu...

so please no communal business with Urdu......