Alif Bay Jeem Dal

Answer #2.

There are three characters which can be Consonants and vowels (both) in Urdu: Alif, vao and yay. All other characters are consonants only. Additionally vowels can be represented by zer, zabar, pesh or nothing (in combination with alif, vao and yay).

As consonants the letters Alif, Vao and Yay represent glottal stop (or hamza sound), v and y respectively. So when we write `vote` in Urdu (vao vao Tay), first vao is the consonant `v`, second vao is the vowel (making sound `o`) and then Tay. Similarly, there are words which are written as two Alifs, e.g. Alif alif bay for the word `aab` which means `water`. However, conventionally, this is written as Alif Mad+bay. It is a stylistic variation of writing alif - alif sequence. The first alif is the consonant hamza, the second is the vowel `a` and Bay make `aab` sound.

Yes, mad is borrowed from Arabic, as is all the characters of Urdu. However, in Arabic, Mad is used to elongate a sound and can be used with alif and other characters. In Urdu, it only applies to alif, as mad may not be used with any other character in Urdu.

If it represents two alifs, then it should not be a seperate character at all. In fact, words starting with alif Mad should come within the Alif words (like words starting with Bay-Bay come within the words starting with Bay).

To summarize, alif Mad is not a separate character, but another way to write Alif-alif sequence.

``As an Indian born myself let me assure you HE is Perversion of Indian muslim & no indian muslim is willing to own him .... ``(AE)

Please pause before u make such a sweeping statement about a great Indian Writer Rushdi --

if I may -- please let me rephrase your sentence for the sake of Muslim/Indian diversity --

``As an Indian born myself let me assure you HE is Perfection of Indian muslim & this indian muslim is willing to own him`` ....


hasan

#20 by GhalibZaman
``Khush-amdeed Raghley ba-khair(is that right?). Pakhtoon: The very word means one who values honour above all else. You have enriched CHOWK with your presence. Pakistanis are trading their sense of honour & dignity to embrace slavery for a few dollars more. Please enlghten us with your views``

Pakhair Raghalay is more acceptable form of greeting.

When the rulers of a nation, who itself ruled the world with an Empire so large that the sun never sat within its boundaries (UK) and a nation who had claimed to champion the cause of 3rd world countries by creating the non-align movement (India) have sold their soules and spirit to become lackeys (spelling??) of the super power to make good bucks, what would an ordinary honorable and dignified Pakhtoon do? Let us follow the herd I would say. Few dollars in pocket are always better than Daisy Cutters ;)

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Dear GZ(#16)


1- Absolutely true about ``baol``, but since thats the closest way we can punctuate ``bole``, we stick with it. Its sad that with 36 characters and 15 subcharacter and more than ten marks of punctuation which include vowel sounds, our language still has a lot of limitations. Its the same as starting a ``School`` with Alif.



2- About the two-eyed Hay, some facts:

- BOTH Persian and Arabic use the two-eyed Hay in their scripts.

- Run to your shelf quickly, pick up your copy of the Koran, you`ll notice the two-eyed Hay everywhere.

- Persian and Arabic do not have the ``combined sound`` concept, Urdu & Hindi do.

- In Urdu we use the two-eyed Hay for the combined sound, not as a predefined rule but as a standard that eventually developed. We can use the same Hay for an independant sound too, but will have to punctuate the script to make it readable.

- Sanskrit evolved into Hindustani and eventually into Urdu over centuries, to accomodate foriegn words. Its not other way round.



3- Insha`a is Alif-Noon-Sheen-Alif-Hamza(Jazam)
Masha` is Meem-Alif-Sheen-Alif-Hamza(Jazam)
Inshallah is Alif-Noon-Sheen-Alif-Hamza(Zabar)-- Allah

Give it up, Hamza is an alphabet! There is no margin whatsoever in this... there isnt even one lame reason why it could be treated or comprehended as a punctuation mark :)






Dear Linguist(#12), I saw some re-prints of a hand written religious script of 1880s and I did notice two different Yays in it, but then I also looked at one of the early scripts of an ``abridged`` version ``Daastaan e Ameer Hamza`` written not very long before the former, which used only one form of Yay despite not being punctuated.

I agree that with the current trend that debunks punctuation, things get much easier by seperating the Yay into two, and I also agree that alphabetical listings get easier this way, but the problem is, you can differentiate the two scripts of Yay at the end of a word. Inside a word, there is no way to differentiate between the two.

The fact that there is no way to seperate the two Yays when they do not occur at the end of the word, shows how very strongly the Yay was meant to be a single alphabet, and its evolution could take an very very long time.

It is sad that instead of having a progressive trend towards decreasing the alphabets, we are going the other way round making new ones out of the already complicated list. Dont you think the ``Bhay-Nhay`` list is disappointing. Even english wouldnt be such a simple language if they make ``ph``, ``tch``, ``th``, ``ch``, ``sh``, ``mn`` into seperate alphabets! That can easily give them 50 odd alphabets. I would like to see ``Zuaad, Zaal, Zay and Zoy`` combined, rather than seperating the Yays. And thats what makes me think standardization is not a very good idea, we currently are not at the intellectual level required to formulate rules of language, and if standardization will only give rise to 50 alphabets, its better to stay with unstandardized 36.

#18:ahmedzai
Khush-amdeed
Raghley ba-khair(is that right?)

Pakhtoon: The very word means one who values honour above all else.
You have enriched CHOWK with your presence.

Pakistanis are trading their sense of honour & dignity to embrace slavery for a few dollars more. Please enlghten us with your views

#19:ally

The proper word for spoken urdu/hindi is Hindvee. Hindvee is a farsee term for the language. Hindi is the farsee/arabee term for ``one from al-Hind``.

Urdu entered as name only after 1857 and was used by the British to describe the King`s (Zafar) army---Urdu-e-mualla. Now because the english have this concept of Kings/Queens english as pristine , so should be the King`s (zafar) language.

Rekhtaa & Hindvee are the words used by Mirza Ghalib to identify this language.

Slodhi

i dont think it will be Urdu, but `Hindustani` (or whatever else you want to call it) you know, the easy version of Urdu/Hindi the everyday speak without the big words, they say that this everyday speak is the 3rd most spoken lingo in the world.

English will definatley be there, but i think for everyday speak it will be Hindustani, becasue there is more and more interaction between people of different provinces and states, who need to communicate and this will probably be what they use/are using.

My submission is that I don`t care about the quiz. I am a Pakhtoon from NWFP, but I can read Urdu very well, write Urdu very well and speak it fluently with Pakistanis, Indians, Bangladeshis, Afghans, Iranis, etc. in the country that I live.

3. Is Gol-Tay a character of Urdu? If not, is it a Tay or a Hay? Where does Gol-Tay come, before or after Tay or Gol-Hay?


Gol tay (or hay) is a borrowed character from Arabic. I think pretty soon it will become a standard character in Urdu as well. Whether to pronounce in tay or hay? it depends. It dependes on three conditions. The first condition is that when it is used in a compound word and it is the last alphabet of first world, then it is pronounced tay e.g. ``Madinat ul hikmat``.

The rest of the two conditions are when it is used at the end of a word and it also depends whether you follow the Meccan accent or Medinite accent. Medinites almost always use it as hay eg. Hikmah (for hikmat) whereas a Meccan would pronounce it as Hikamat. There are some possible exceptions eg a Meccan would never pronounce Madina as Madinat.


do aankhoN wali hay or kunday wali hay are one and the same. It is a standard Persian alphabet, and I do think that it was primarily borrowed for Hindi words because none of Hindi word is written with halway wali hay. The only difference between do aankhoN wali hay or kunday wali hay is because of the writing (caligraphy) style. I think Khat-e-Nastalique follows a gol hay convention whereas Khat-e-Nasakh follows a kunda convention (or may be it is vice versa)

All of my answers are the same as PaagalInsaan. Except for the last one.
10. My guess would be 1.5 Million.

Can`t wait for the answers.

1. 30 ?
2. its an arabic character...in arabic alif mada is used to refer to a condition where alif is connected to another character and tht character has zabar on it...however alif is khaali...i.e. no harkat on it...
3. nope...not an urdu character...gol tay and gol hay are two different things....however when a word or ayat as in the case of Quran ends at gol tay its pronounced as gol hay...only in waqf ki haalat as they say...
4. yes its an urdu character....i dunno where it comes but i do remember reading it in the urdu ka qaida....
5. nope not a separate character
6. yes...zabar...
7. choti yay...
8. sorry...dunno :(
9. hamza is both....in arabic when a character in a word has hamza on top of it without harkaat (or aeraab)....tht particular part is pronounced with a jhatkaa...i dunno what rule applies to urdu tho...dont think there`s a jhatkaa....no words begin with hamza right?
10. no idea

Peace,
Nice topic for a change. Well that`s the beauty of this language, and a proof that Urdu is a living language, ready to accomodate to the changes of the new world. If the linguists think that by adding new alphabets, or at least by claiming some pre-existing joints as alphabets, it will make easier for some to know better Urdu, then I would say, Go for it. This language had come a long way from its origin and have a long way to go. According to my interpretation of the history of our region our region is getting ready to take its leading role in the coming times, and at the turn of next century I see United States of South Asia, as one of the leading countries of the world. And what I believe is that English and Urdu would be the two languages of choice for the people to communicate. Later
Peace...

Let`s start with Answer # 1:

presenting the development chronologically:

Older dictionaries, e.g. by Platts and Shakespeare, which were published in late 1800`s and early 1900`s include almost the same list as given in reply # 7, with one difference. Though very initially there was a single Yay (chhoti Yay, as in arabic), even these earlier dictionaries differentiate the two Yays. Platt writes Ni, Nay, bi, Bay with chhoti and baRi Yay`s repectively in his dictionary which was published in 1911.

Later dictionaries, which came in the middle of 20th century (e.g. Nur ul Lughat, Feroz ul Lughat), also included alif mad as a separate character (earlier dictionaries considered it as a stylistic variation of writing alif-alif, and therefore placed it within the alif words). These dictionaries put alif mad as a separate character BEFORE alif.

Finally came Government of Pakistan :-) Urdu Dictionary Board was formed in Karachi some 30 years ago, which was commissioned to make a dictionary of Urdu. What came out is perhaps the most comprehensive lexican effort on Urdu to date. 18 of the 23 proposed volumes of Urdu Dictionary (UD) have been published to date by this organization. They decided to take alif-mad after alif (do not ask me why?) In addition, they introduced 15 new separate characters (BHAY, PHAY, THAY, TTHAY, JAHY, CHHAY, DHAY, DDHAY, RHAY, RRHAY, KHAY, GHAY, LHAY, MHAY, NHAY). This is currently also adopted by National Language Authority (Auqtadara Qaumi Zaban).

However, there is currently no STANDARD. The variation continues. Good news is that work is being done to standardize this these days.

More later.

#9:P-I

Won`t a zabar on bay & jazm on pesh would make it Baul as in baul-o-braaz? instead of , as you aver, bole?

The two eyed hay is for hindi words like the ones you yourself quoted. Any farsi or arabie origin words with the two-eyed hay you know?

Regarding hamza: what about Isha`a or Insha`a and so many other words of arabie origin now of urdu as well.

thanks.

Dear A-D (#8),

1- The two Yays have been seperated in the Qaidas quite lately, and that is for the ease of students to differentiate the Ee and Aay sounds. Its a seperate argument whether the technique actually makes anything easier. Different ways of writing the two sounds were developed quite early though, much more than a century ago, but you can only use them at the end of the word. The trend of not punctuating the words helped establish the two-Yay theory, which too, does not argue them to be seperate alphabets. Most Qaidahs will still tell you there are 36 Alphabets in Urdu.


2- No, we do not put a hamza on TOP of a Yay, we JOIN it with Yay, like we join other alphabets together to make a word.


Qaaf - Alif - Daal - Hay makes ``Qaada``

Hamza with a Zer gives the `i sound

Hence Qaaf-Alif = Qaa , Hamza(Zer) = `i , Daal-Hay = Dah

makes: Qa`idah, the correct pronounciation!



Most people who have studied in Pakistan, have written ``Qaida``, ``Quaid e Azam``, ``Gaaey`` etc in their very first year and believe that Hamza is being used as a ``punctuation``. You are not the only one. I noticed in an elementry education school my mother runs, most kids take it to be a punctuation mark, and I also noticed that interestingly, they believe it to have an ``Aye`` sound! Thats one confusion lack of punctuation creates, but we have to live with it becoz the advantages of not punctuating are enormous.