Talk:Urdu/Archive 4

National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language
Company type	Autonomous Regulatory Body
Founded	April 1, 1996
Headquarters	Delhi, India
Area served	Standardisation and promotion of Perso-Urdu language
Website	http://www.urducouncil.nic.in/

This is an archive of past discussions about Urdu. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

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Transliteration of Urdu/Examples/No

no نہ nā casual (archaic - not used in speech anymore) There is no citation for this and as far as I know this is used in speech nowadays so i will delete that little section, but anyone can reverse it if they find a reliable source that shows that it is indeed archaic. --70.246.146.139 (talk) 21:00, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

WildBot fixes

WildBot found links to DAB pages and a broken link to a section in the Pakistan article that needed repair.

Done — Paine (Ellsworth's Climax) 23:34, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Population

Recent claims that Urdu is spoken by 490M people have been added, with the only source being the BBC. First of all, we need a decent source for s.t. like that. But more importantly, such as figure would include all of Hindustani, MSHindi as well as Urdu. While I sympathize, as IMO MSHindi is nothing but a political register of Urdu, common usage treats the two as distinct languages, and we need some discussion before blithely asserting that Hindi and Urdu are the same thing. — kwami (talk) 20:31, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I've deleted the ref, since as Faizhaider correctly notes, the BBC never mentions that they're including Hindi, and so making that claim would be OR. But as it stands, the ref. is clearly spurious: there are not 490M people who ID their native language as Urdu. Of course, if you speak Urdu, you can converse with ~490M people, since Hindi speakers will assume you're speaking Hindi. But it's misleading to claim that Urdu is the 4th most spoken language in the world unless we acknowledge that Hindi is just Urdu with some Sanskrit thrown in, and that's not likely to happen with Hindu nationalists insisting that they don't speak Urdu. (Though, interestingly, there are a number of Hindu nationalists who acknowledge that Hindi and Urdu are the same language, just as long as you don't call it Urdu!) — kwami (talk) 09:53, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Regarding status of Urdu as 4th language I never claimed that, if you see my edit summary I pointed out to the article which lists Hindi/Urdu combination as 4th language as per primary speakers data and this is mentioned in info-box. If you research you'll find out that until late 1990's many countries (especially in West) used to include Urdu speaking population under Hindi, so when they seperated two languages officially there is a but-obvious boom in number of speakers of Urdu when you compare recent data with data of 1990s. I'm providing one such link, i.e. Tower Of Babel. I think recent data should have more weightage and BBC is not a source which can easily be discredited.

And Urdu & Hindi are in essecence same language and this I can say on my own authority as the person who since birth is speaker of so-called both languages and have dwelt in the region which is attributed to the most regourous friction between the two languages & that region is Lucknow region of Uttar Pradesh. But I never forced this stand on the article as it is my personal POV & I am no acamedician.

--Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 12:39, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree that AFAIK the two "languages" are really one, at least colloquially, but we're going to need better sources than what you've provided to demonstrate that there are so many Urdu speakers, or that they were previously counted as Hindi. AFAIK, neither India nor Pakistan have good census data on the matter, which makes things difficult. Also, I assume that the BBC meant total number, whereas we usually indicate number of native speakers in the info box. Total speakers would be a second number, if it's significantly more. — kwami (talk) 13:02, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm reverting info-box edits

Regarding Total speakers, first reference(i.e. H. Dua, "Urdu". In the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., 2006) although cliaming to be of 2006 is not verifiable second reference(i.e. ethnologue.com) is ambigous, old & sporadic in nature , it states following facts :

Language use Official language. Including L2 speakers: 104,000,000 (1999 WA). Used as L2 by most other Pakistanis.
Population 10,700,000 in Pakistan (1993). Population total all countries: 60,586,800.
Population 250,000 in Bangladesh (2003 SIL).
Population 48,100,000 in India (1997).
Population 64,000 in Mauritius (Johnstone 1993).
Population 12,000 in South Africa (2006). 170,000 South Asian Muslims in South Africa (1987).
Total----- 59,126,000

So, this source is very confusing and ambigous as it claims three figures i.e. 59,126,000, 60,586,800 & 104,000,000; also data is based from 1987 to 2006. Above all it leaves western countries like UK, US, etc where there are considerable number of Urdu speakers.

Whereas BBC link in simple words give the data to be 490 million (which although seems to be very inflated but is the only clear reference & which is recent & verifiable & reliable). Also BBC link in itself does not imply any proper interpretation is OR concept so it is a simple POV on part of any editor to interpret in this manner.

Regarding Ranking, 20th rank claim has no reference in its support while wiki article List of languages by number of native speakers clearly lists Hindi/Urdu combo as 4th whic was mentioned in info-box as rank 4th (native speakers of Urdu+Hindi=Hindustani)

And changing referenced content as per POV (contrary to what is said in the refernce) is not an accepted act on Wikipedia; as done with sentence.

from -> Modern Urdu has taken almost 900 years to develop to its present form.
to -> Urdu/Hindustani has existed as a language for almost 900 years.

while reference does not talks about Hindustani or existed words.

--Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 13:39, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Your table, though WP:synthesis, is reasonable, so I don't object. However, the figures add up to 65-66 million, so the pop figure we need to use is 65-66 million. But doubling that figure, you're falsifying data. Do I really need to tell you not to falsify data? And you're back to that ridiculous 490M figure, which you even admit is inflated. This is not editing in good faith. And no, the BBC is not a RS here! You've just admitted that.

I'm changing several other of your edits as well. WP is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a chance for propaganda. Please work out something here on the Talk page rather than edit warring, or I'll need to talk this to WP:dispute resolution.

Also, the statement "Modern Urdu has taken almost 900 years to develop to its present form" is meaningless. That's like the nonsense about X being the "oldest" language in the world. You could say it, like any other language, has taken 50,000-100,000 years to develop its present form. It was also not known as Urdu, and not distinct from MSH, for most of that 900 years. Since you don't like my attempt at improving it, I'll try another way. But please don't simply revert to gibberish.

You also reverted my consolidation of the info on the name. However, those two sections made conflicting claims, and so should either be merged or deleted. I've moved them to a dedicated section now. — kwami (talk) 20:39, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

You have so much talked about my edits & BBC link but have not provide a single word in response for the two references on whome your edits are relying so much and which are actually old, confusing and ambigous. While you have dedicated your full response in negating the only reference which is most recent and clear on numbers. I have made point wise elaborate case in my above response against your edits while you tend to reply in generic manner & just revert the edits. --Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 07:45, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

What are you talking about? I'm relying on your references. Your references, apart from the BBC, which you admit appears to be wrong, indicate that there are 65-66M Urdu speakers. Yet somehow you conclude from that that there are 172M. The only ref of mine that you are using says that there are 61M speakers, yet somehow you conclude from that that there are 88M. You have yet to explain either figure. — kwami (talk) 08:35, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm talking about H. Dua, "Urdu". In the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., 2006 & ethnologue.com which are being used (specially second one) as primary source for all the data ignoring other references. And I'm not saying that BBC is wrong in contrary I said that ,"it is the only clear reference & which is recent & verifiable & reliable". And its not my table it was already there for a long time. And we are not here to do research on basis of sources we are here to mention them and allow reader to make their own infrences. While you tend to force your POV by eliminating higher numbers (which are sourced) while I never removed lower numbers (even when they were not sourced). Regarding 20th position even the Wiki article List of languages by number of native speakers clearly lists Hindi/Urdu combination as 4th language as per primary speakers data but you insist it to be 20th. And I think 172 number was an error in calculation. And whatdo you mean by saying that, you are relying on my references? Which references are you talking about? --Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 09:42, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought that was your table, so I took them as your references.

You didn't like the Dua ref, so you deleted it. I never contested that. So why are you still making an issue out of it?

You yourself said the BBC figure appears to be inflated, did you not? And how is it that that ref is "recent & verifiable & reliable", but the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics is not? Simply because the BBC gives no context, so it's impossible to evaluate the figure, whereas the ELL is more responsible, and so has more details to nitpick?

"lists Hindi/Urdu combination as 4th language". Yes, but we're not talking about Hindi-Urdu, are we? We're talking about Urdu. Last I checked, "Urdu" was not "Hindi", at least not sociolinguistically. Malaysians, for example, call Pakistanis' language "Bahasa Hindi", which annoys the hell out of Pakistanis. If you want to merge this article into Hindi-Urdu, please post a {{merge}} tag on it, and probably best to make a WP:Request for comment as well. I think it will take some discussion to convince people. Meanwhile, this article is about Urdu, so figures should be about Urdu.

As for the figure of 490M, let me say it again, if it is accurate, you should be able to find it in a reliable reference. After all, the BBC had to get the figure from somewhere, and they're unlikely to have conducted a census themselves. As far as I've seen, the BBC is an outlier; everything else supports ca. 60-70M native speakers. In fact, the BBC never defines what they mean by a "speaker"! Until you find something to substantiate the BBC claim, there isn't much point in continuing this discussion. — kwami (talk) 10:41, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

number of speakers

(similar problem w another editor)

We need references for # of speakers. We can't just make stuff up. If I had my druthers, this article would be about standardization and language politics, and likewise MSHindi. IMO, the spoken language is Hindustani, and no-one speaks "Urdu", except that Urdu is the same as Hindustani. Same with "Hindi". Thus I would only have # of speakers for Hindustani/Hindi-Urdu, and make that the language article. But I imagine that would be upsetting. So, if we're going to pretend that Urdu is a separate language from Hindistani, then the number of speakers can't be that of Hindustani. If we're going to say that there are 400M Urdu speakers, then we're saying that Urdu is Hindustani, and the articles should be merged, leaving only a remnant here for standardization and politics. — kwami (talk) 22:27, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

There is no evidence for the number 65-66 million. And such a narrow range too. Who can figure this out to within 1 million? You can say what you want, but this number is fiction. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.202.151 (talk) 00:15, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

The refs are in the table. If you don't like it, we can go back to the Ethnologue figure, which is 61 million. But we can't just say "I think it's more" and add a few million. — kwami (talk) 01:39, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I think the basic problem is that people who live in India or Pakistan they themselve are in state of confusion over what is Hindi, Urdu & Hindustani; how similar and how different they are. Another source of confusion is that info-box table staes number of primary users i.e. users who have Urdu as their first language means thwy who speak Urdu in home with their family. There are considerable number of hose who speak (or can speak) Urdu as second or third language specially in Pakistan but they at home speak Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto, etc. Its reverse in India people who generally speak Urdu at home will speak Hindi, English or any other local language outside. Usually in Northern-belt of India people never speak Urdu or Hindi (at least not how they are in written form) in general they speak milder language which is called as Hindustani which is understandable by larger number of people. May be the total number of peoplr who understand and speak Hindusatani may be 600 million or so but Urdu as first language as indicated by most of sources is not more tha 100 million (if we extrapolate available data). May be we can wait for 2011 census of India & Pakistan (when???) to get updated data.

I know my edit will not help much but that is the best what I can do as of now ;)

--Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 05:12, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I think you're right. I imagine that the figures reflect self-identification, as with Serbian vs. Croatian, even if the speaker is illiterate and his speech is indistinguishable from the 'other' language. This will naturally cause problems with estimates.

We enumerate mother/home speakers in all language articles. If we include the total number of speakers, that's added as a second figure. In a language like Urdu, which is so widespread, we def. need the number of 2nd-lang speakers. — kwami (talk) 01:09, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

In the Hindi Wikipedia article there is much less controversy: It says 350 million native speakers and 350 million as second language speakers making 700 million and 5th overall in languages. It strikes me as odd that many if not most of these 700 million people are speaking a language that would be called Urdu if they spoke it in Pakistan, but this overlap is not reflected in the Urdu Wikipedia estimate. The box here should at least do the same - that is list number of people for whom Urdu is the first language and the number for whom it is the second language. How many of the 174 million Pakistanis would then be included in the second group (that is their second language is Urdu)? How about Afghans? This present Wikipedia article claims that most Afghans speak Urdu. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.202.151 (talk) 10:38, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

We had a reference for 2nd language speakers, but it was deleted because an editor thought it wasn't enough. Feel free to restore the Ethnologue estimate, or a better one if you have it.

India is a different story, because both Hindi and Urdu are recognized. Because many Indians say that their language is "Urdu", they are not counted as speakers of "Hindi", even though we could argue the language is the same. This is always going to be a problem when nationalists create boundaries that do not exist outside their conceptions. I agree that the situation is odd. IMO, the solution is to merge most of both articles to Hindustani language (which we could perhaps rename Hindi-Urdu), including all history prior to 1947, and have the total number of Hindi+Urdu speakers there. Urdu language and Standard Hindi would then be restricted to issues of language standardization up to and following independence, and not bother with speaker numbers at all. — kwami (talk) 20:01, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I would venture to say that these numbers will not be known without a lot of effort on the part of the India and Pakistan census departments. That's not likely to happen. But we should present the best and most objective picture that can be put together for the Wikipedia readers. So, I would agree that a unified article on Hindi-Urdu-Hinudstani will go a long way towards clarifying the issues and provide a unified estimate and additional data on numbers as appropriate.

Given the large uncertainties I also think it is inappropriate to quote such a narrow range in the box. It gives the false impression that these numbers are well known. Common practice in data reporting is to give the number of significant digits that you can support, which I believe is "one" in this case. I have made minor changes to reflect some of the discussion here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.202.151 (talk) 16:00, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

That depends on how good the figure for India is. The Pakistani figure has a presumed error of 0.5M, and the UK figure 0.35M, which is ±0.85M. The other figures are might bring that up to 1M. So if we can get some idea of the accuracy of the Indian census, we'll know how close we are. But even assuming a total error of ±2M, we'd be at two sig figs, and wouldn't need to round up to 70. Two sig figs is also the general convention for such things, unless there's reason to believe a number is particularly inaccurate.

Sayed, that's two of us who think the articles could use some merging. What about you? — kwami (talk) 22:49, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I have been known to few on Wikipedia as a supporter of "Hindi & Urdu" as same variant of "Hindustani" and will support the amalgamation but I think it needs more discussion and opinion of other editors especially form Pakistan, India & Language groups.--Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 10:00, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

About the significant digits: I think the census uncertainties are much larger than you have quoted, but I am willing to drop this issue because the problem is much bigger. So Mr. Haider, how do you propose we proceed to implement the one article idea? Combining the articles will take some work, but much of the information is already here. Who decides on combining articles? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.202.151 (talk) 03:54, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Urdu derives from arabic, persian and turkic words.

I would request people to be careful of users who POSE as muslims and use muslim sounding names but are hindus working for hindu fanatical organisations like rss.

As for the issue at hand urdu and hindi are completely different and have got nothing to do with one another. urdu derives largely from arabic, persian and turkic. hindi on the other hand derives from sanskrit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.217.74.59 (talk) 10:43, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

You obviously speak neither language. — kwami (talk) 10:54, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I speak urdu.

urdu has a lot of words that are arabic, persian and turkic based. whereas all the words of Shudh hindi are sanskrit based.

That's not what you said. You said it derives largely from Arabic etc. It does not: It derives largely from Indic (Khariboli), with large numbers of Persian words. (Most Arabic words arrived via Persian, did they not?) MSHindi, by the way, also has large numbers of Persian words. It does not derive from Sanskrit, is derives from Urdu, with much of the more formal Persian vocabulary purged in favor of Sanskrit. But the colloquial Persian vocabulary remains. From what Urdu and MSHindi speakers have told me, they cannot tell their languages apart when they speak colloquially. It's only the academic/formal/religious registers that differ.

So: Delhi dialect of Hindi absorbed large quantities of Persian from the Moghul army and court. That's Urdu. Hindu nationalists then tried purging Urdu of its Persian vocabulary, only partially succeeding. That's M.S.Hindi. If you speak Urdu, and think that it has nothing to do with M.S.Hindi, then you must have never seen a Bollywood film in your life. — kwami (talk) 09:28, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

More Numbers Concerns

The table in the article says that there 12 million Urdu speakers in Pakistan. The population is 170 million - that's a mere 7% for a national language. This is just not correct. I understand that there is an issue with the "first language" and "second language" but it does not mean that those who speak it as a second language should not be counted as speakers. Under the circumstances of the Indian subcontinent with the provincial and regional languages, people can speak two or more languages with equal facility and the whole idea of "first" and "second" language is blurred. In any case, if a person can speak and know a language he or she should be counted.

Here is a quote from the Wikipedia Hindi article: "Linguistically, there is no dispute that Hindi and Urdu are dialects of a single language, Hindustani/Hindi-Urdu". I agree with this statement. It makes it very difficult to simply ignore the overlap between Hindi and Urdu speakers. In this present article, the editors are ignoring the 10's or perhaps 100's of millions of Hindi speakers whose language is identical to "Urdu" speakers and similarly to my knowledge Bollywood has almost never made an Urdu movie. Yet every Urdu speaker can not only understand them but get the idiomatic usage as well. In my opinion the current number of 65 million is completely bogus.

I am also amused by the significant digit issue. The table has India's Urdu speaking population to the last person! Out of 51 million!

This article would greatly benefit from real editing. There are useless sections such as difficulty of learning Urdu and some sections belong together. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.202.151 (talk) 13:57, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Too Many Articles

While we have been discussing things about this article, many changes seem to have been made in other articles related to Urdu. There are now SEVEN articles on Urdu and Hindi. They are: Hindi-Urdu, Hindustani, Hindi-Urdu Word Etymology, History of Hindustani, Hindi, Urdu (this one) and Hindi-Urdu Grammar. I noted that the number of speakers has been removed from the Hindi article, the article on Hindustani is gone and what remains is a re-direct, and the Hindi-Urdu article has a reasonable number of speakers at 490 million.

I think it is time to combine and cross reference these articles so that people can get some use out of them. I suggest that we eliminate the number of speakers from this article altogether and let it rest with one of the other articles where there is no controversy since the article is about both languages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.202.151 (talk) 14:29, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Urdu

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Urdu's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Ethnologue":

From Talysh language: Ethnologue report for Talysh
From Tat language (Caucasus): Ethnologue report for Tat
From Brahui language: Lewis 2009
From Laki language: Ethnologue report for Laki
From Hazara people: Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/.
From Kashmiri language: "Kashmiri: A language of India". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2007-06-02.
From Kurdish language: Ethnologue figure for Kurdish macrolanguage
From Pashto language: Ethnologue: Languages of the World - Pashto, Southern: a language of Afghanistan

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 15:19, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

lede: Urdu is Indo-Aryan & Muslims are not sole speakers of Urdu

Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language; So why not to depict this reality in lede?
Urdu is not solely spoken by Muslims & there have been various Hindu, Sikh writers, poets, composers in the language; So why to retain this false info in lede? --Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 08:00, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. However, it was developed and patronised by Muslims. The Muslim connection should be mentioned somehow. Mar4d (talk) 08:09, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

The so called Muslim connection is mentioned in detail in the article, I'm only pointing out that it was/is not solely spoken by Muslims so to mention this in lede(or per se matter of fact anywhere in article) is incorrect. It's just a POV while truth is that although in majority of speakers of Urdu are Muslims but good minority is non-Muslim too which is reflected by literrai class of ghe language. The sentence in lede is synonymous to Hindi is spoken by Hindus which also is incorrect. So why to mention a incorrect staement in lede? --Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 08:22, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Those statements are true only if Standard Hindi is seen as a register of Urdu. (Personally, I think that it is.) Historically, yes, Urdu was spoken by all sorts of people, and the majority of Urdu speakers were Hindu. However, since independence (and for some time before) the name (not the actual language) has become restricted to Hindustani (an erstwhile synonym) as spoken by Muslims. If you're a Hindu, then what you speak is "Hindi" even if it's indistinguishable from what Muslims speak.

Standard Urdu of course is a different standard, but differing standards do not make different languages.

At present, the defining feature of Urdu, what differentiates it from "Hindi", is the ethnicity/religion of its speakers. This is discussed in the ref I added to the lead, which IMO is now being misrepresented. My objection to saying it's an "Indic language" is that it puts Hindi and Urdu on par with other Indic languages which actually are separate languages. I wouldn't want to say that Southern American English and West Midlands English are "Germanic languages". Technically, yes, they are Germanic, but only because English is Germanic.

Some excerpts from the ELL2 article:

Urdu is the literary, cultural, and religious language of Muslims in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and other parts for the world ... Urdu in its colloquial form may be considered the lingua franca of one of the largest speech communties in the world [that is, Urdu = Hindi]. Urdu is ... a pluricentric language .... [not just Hindustani is pluricentric]

Urdu [historically] had a wide dialect base that included Braj Bhasa, Haryanvi or Bangaru, eastern Panjabi, and other dialects spoken in the region surrounding Delhi. Khari Boli was present as one of the elements in the formative period of Urdu and it gradually became stronger ... By 1800 [it] could be considered the basic source of Urdu.

The establishment of Fort William College ... encouraged the development of two styles of prose that paved the way for the emergence of Hindi and Urdu as distinct standard varieties.

... the exclusion of Hindu poets and the Hindu community in constructing the history of Urdu literature, on the one hand, and the switching of Hindu writers from Urdu to Hindi on the other. ... This process reached culmination with the complete identification of Urdu with Muslims in the second quarter of the 20th century.

the partition of India led to the development of Urdu ... in India and Pakistan along different lines. ... both the Hindi and Urdu speakers gave up Hindustani on ideological grounds. Although Hindi speakers identified Hindustani with Urdu, the Urdu speakers considered it another form of Hindi.

both Perso-Arabic and Sanskrit words [are] are an integral feature of both Hindi and Urdu.

— kwami (talk) 08:32, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Kwami, your all judgements are if not always then usually centered around the great ELL2, you borrow text form it to prove you POV but that is not sufficient and you have to add brackated text to it (I think this adds to Original Research). The reference you are talking about is non-verifiable as it points to a book which is not available thru link. And Perso-Arabic and Sanskrit words are even used in Dravidian languages atleast in Telugu & Kannada (just like English words).

Atish, Mir Hasan, Nazir, Ghalib, Isma'i1, Hali, Igbal, and others) are Muslims, but the contribution by Daya Shankar Nasim, Shafiq Aurangabadi, Chakbast, Suriu, Mabrnm, Firaq, Anand Narain Mulla, and others who are Hindus is equally creditable and cannot be ignored in any history of Urdu poetry. Here are links which show that there are still many Non-Muslim Urdu poets and writers:

Actually Modern Hindi is 135 years old which was invented by Lallu Lal and Dr. Gilchrist. Infact almost all Modern Indo-Iranian languages of Indic (Indo-Aryan) branch are considered as dialect of Hindi with few exceptions like, languages from extreme West (e.g. Gujarati), extreme North (e.g. Nepali), extreme East (e.g. Bengali), extreme South (e.g. Marathi). Lambadi · Gujari · Nimadi · Mewati · Marwari ( Dialects: Godwari · Dhatki) · Mewari · Dhundhari · Harauti · Bagri · Malvi · Braj Bhasha · Hariyanvi · Bundeli · Kannauji · Awadhi (includes Fijian Hindi) · Bagheli · Chattisgarhi · Bhojpuri (includes Caribbean Hindustani) · Garhwali · Kumaoni · Nepali (Palpa) · Potwari etc. are still counted under umbrella of Hindi although most of them have literature older than so called Modern Hindi. It has tried to eat all local dialects from east to west but thankfully that has not happened and locales still remember their languages. Maithali till recent(until 2003, when it was was included in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution) times was treated as dialect of Hindi but now it is a diffrent language. Although there is no Urdu cinema but Bhojpuri exists. If all these are same language then how can you explain such phenamenon.

--Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 08:27, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

You may have a good point about Hindu Urdu poets. That certainly needs to be explored, and perhaps balanced against the general identification of modern Urdu with Muslims. I have no problem with that; it's only a question of reliable sourcing. My problem is with presenting Hindi and Urdu as distinct Indic languages, when they're actually registers of a single language. I think that should be clear for our readers, just as it should be for Serbian and Croatian, Malay and Indonesian, Tagalog and Filipino, Romanian and Moldovan. (My impression is that Urdu is the original and Hindi the derived form, but I'd want to be more confident of that before stating categorically that Hindi is a form of Urdu, rather that more neutrally stating that Hindi and Urdu are formally registers of the same language.)

I use the ELL because it is very well respected and is convenient for me. Most of the time it simply confirms what I already know from other sources I may have read years ago, and which I am often unable to produce for citations. Whether you have access to it has no bearing on its acceptability as a reference. (Hint: it can be found online, if you look hard enough.)

You're using two very different conceptions of "Hindi". The Hindi of Hindi-Urdu/Hindustani is much more limited than the Hindi of the Hindi Belt. Hindi hasn't "taken over", people of very diverse dialects simply identify themselves as Hindi speakers.

Another possibility would be to merge the two articles, as we do with grammar and phonology, rather than trying to maintain this rather artificial distinction. — kwami (talk) 08:45, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

If a Hindu poet wrote in the Khariboli dialect but borrows heavily from Persian and Arabic, and writes in the Nastaliq script instead of Devanagari, wouldn't that be Urdu? Gizza^Discuss ^© 11:08, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Hindi borrows heavily from Persian and Arabic, just as Urdu borrows from Sanskrit, so I'm not sure how much that would matter. Yes, if you write in Nastaliq, that's normally considered Urdu. But then Urdu is also written in Nagari! It seems to be more about identity than language. If the poet says he writes in Urdu, then I think we need to accept him as an Urdu poet. This is all very interesting, and needs to be covered, but AFAIK the primary factor is today religion. — kwami (talk) 22:15, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

(od) The identification of Urdu with Muslims began with the Arya Samaj movement around the turn of the 19th/20th centuries. Writers, like Premchand, who were Hindu and wrote exclusively or mostly in Urdu switched to Hindi around that time. Later, after partition, during the various Hindi movements, sanskritized Hindi became the norm in India and Urdu became confined to the Muslim minority. You'll probably find many older non-muslim north Indians, particularly Sikhs who migrated from West Punjab, who can read, write and speak Urdu, but, excluding this group, I doubt if the language is spoken or understood outside the muslim community in India. --RegentsPark (talk) 15:29, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Hindustani Language does not consist of Urdu.

Urdu is NOT a Hindustani Language. For God's sake stop falling for indian propaganda and their false beliefs that they invented everything and everything originated from them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.234.140.18 (talk) 22:55, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Please read your history. Hindustani and Urdu were synonyms back in the day when Hindus were said to speak Urdu. It was just a name the Moghul court used for the local language. — kwami (talk) 00:03, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I have the impression that we are confusing Hindustani language with Hindustan, which is another common name used to refer to modern day India (even though it is generically meant to refer to the whole South Asia). To the IP above: Hindustani language is just a term that is synonymously used to refer to Hindi and Urdu as one and it has nothing to do with the India Hindustan; please clear this misconception. Mar4d (talk) 09:35, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

The name "Urdu" is a Turkish word meaning 'camp', which symbolizes a language of communication among different groups. [...] One of the earliest authoritative statements about this distinct lingua franca appears in the writing of Amir Khusrow (1253–1325), who calls it "Hindvi," i.e. the language of Hindustan. The name "Hindustani" was used for it in later centuries. Anwar S. Dil, "Urdu", International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, 2nd ed. (Oxford: OUP, 2003), vol. 4, pp. 333–334. -- Hoary (talk) 10:05, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

And Hindustan in this context of course refers to the whole Indian subcontinent. The IP user's issue here seems to be is that he is confusing Hindustan with modern-day India, thereby naturally provoking nationalist sentiment. Mar4d (talk) 07:44, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Why cannot this page be edited?

This is absurd. Urdu is NOT a HINDUSTANI Langauge. HINDUSTANI language ONLY consists of Hindi and nothing more. And this page is locked to promote false views? All the more to show Wikipedia is garbage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.139.114.98 (talk) 02:32, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

It's protected from editing by the kind of person who refuses to read what is written shortly above on this very talk page, and who is keen to edit from the gut rather than from the brain. There is indeed plenty of garbage in Wikipedia; most thinking editors (and readers) don't want the percentage to increase.

Now, if you read and digest what is written in the two sections above, and if you then wish to present a rational argument for why the article is wrong, I for one will read this argument with interest and an open mind.

Mere declarations (such as HINDUSTANI language ONLY consists of Hindi and nothing more) are not at all persuasive in themselves. However, if you can cite academic works about language that make these same declarations, they would then be of interest. -- Hoary (talk) 03:54, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

The Lead of Urdu Page...

The lead of Urdu Page should begin like this.

Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language of the Indo-Iranian branch, belonging to the Indo-European family of languages. It is a standardised register of Hindustani.

This is more appropriate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.75.7.68 (talk) 14:53, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I object because it makes it sound like a separate language, when it's a register of the same language as Hindi. This is a special case, and considering how many nationalists (on both sides!) try to obscure the relationship, IMO the only responsible action on our part is to state this fact up front. This is the same approach I take with other languages where nationalists try to deny the identity of their language (Indonesians who deny they speak Malay, Croats who deny they speak Serbo-Croatian, Filipinos who deny they speak Tagalog, etc. Given FOX "News" in the US, I wouldn't be surprised if some Americans started saying they speak "American" and denying that they speak English, but I'd be opposed to humoring them on WP.) — kwami (talk) 22:10, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if this is perhaps lack of understanding or lack of knowledge, but Urdu is a seperate language. There is no such language as Hindustani proper; just like there is no such thing as Hindustani alphabet, Hindustani literature etc; today, India recognises Hindi while Pakistan recognises Urdu and both are identified as seperate languages with seperate cultures. In definitive terms. Hindustani is like a language family which combines the two languages based on common linguistic similiarities. Academically, Urdu and Hindi are both seperate languages. 124.185.207.138 (talk) 07:50, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

All the cases which you have presented are different; Hindustani is probably a synonymous reference in historical terms. It is wrong to say that Hindi and Urdu are both the same when in fact their only similiarities are the almost-same-words. Urdu uses Perso-Arabic alphabet while Hindi uses totally different Indic alphabet. Urdu, when spoken very formally, sounds a lot like Persianised while Hindi, if spoken very formally, will become more Sanskritized. They are very obscure when spoken formally; in fact, a speaker of one language may even have difficulty recognising some of the words in the other. When the alphabets are different, accents are different, literatures are different, history (although deriving from the same origin some time in the past) is derived slightly differently, and most important of all, there is no such thing as "Hindustani" in the official languages of India but Hindi and Urdu are listed as seperate official languages, I don't see on which bases they are not individual languages. They just happen to have the same origin and are registers of one common parent. 124.185.207.138 (talk) 07:59, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you got it: they're registers of one parent language, which goes by the names "Hindustani" and "Hindi-Urdu".

Who ever said they were the same? — kwami (talk) 08:47, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

They are registers of a family and languages. Not some sort of mere sub-dialects as you seem to be advocating. Read my comments above; 124.185.207.138 (talk) 12:02, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

And as I have said, Hindustani is not a proper language. Its more a synonymous term covering these two identical languages. 124.185.207.138 (talk) 12:04, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're saying. First you say they are the same, then you say they aren't the same. — kwami (talk) 12:08, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

The point is, formally you cannot write or speak Hindustani. You can write or speak either Urdu or Hindi - and both are identified as seperate languages, though are classified together in the Hindustani family. The point being stressed is that they are seperate Indo-Aryan languages. The very term "Hindustani" is a cover-up for linking them together based on their identical similiarities. However, Hindi and Urdu are both still languages. 12:14, 21 October 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.185.207.138 (talk)

Yes, they're separate standards. No-one disputes that. But saying that therefore Hindi-Urdu is not a language is like saying that English is not a language because you have to choose to write "British" or "American", and can't just write "English". — kwami (talk) 12:27, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

English is a language that you can write. It has alphabet, literature, culture, history and status. Hindustani is a language that you cannot write. It does not have a unified alphabet, literature or culture for that matter. It only has historical relevance and it is in fact more of a term loosely used to define two seperate but verbally identical languages ("American English" and "British English" are not languages). Hindi and Urdu are languages (and Indo-Aryan for that matter). You can't write "just Hindustani." You either write Urdu or Hindi. 124.185.207.138 (talk) 12:39, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I hope I have convinced you enough that which 500 million other people would do as well: that the lead for this article should be as follows: "Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language of the Indo-Iranian branch, belonging to the Indo-European family of languages. It is a standardised register of Hindustani." :) 124.185.207.138 (talk) 12:43, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

No, I think the essence of a thing should come first, details later. I wouldn't say "RP is a Germanic language, it is a standardized register of English", I'd just say "RP is a standardized register of English". Urdu has official recognition as a separate language, which makes it special, but it is essentially still a register of Hindi/Urdu. It's not even a standardized register: lots of people speak non-standard Urdu, but they still call their language "Urdu". — kwami (talk) 13:06, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I've made some edits to the lede. Perhaps you'll find them an improvement. — kwami (talk) 13:21, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Why, 124.185.207.138, are you so concerned with "alphabet, literature, culture, history and status"? It would appear to me that all are peripheral to language. Serbs use the Cyrillic alphabet; Croats use the Roman alphabet; they use it to write the one Serbo-Croat language. Vietnamese was Vietnamese before the adoption of the Roman alphabet; it remains Vietnamese after the adoption; and it is still Vietnamese when spoken by the illiterate. Japanese would still be Japanese if the Japanese people had the good sense to adopt and adapt for it the excellent Korean writing system. Et cetera. -- Hoary (talk) 13:57, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Origin of the name Urdu

I can see from the previous section why this page isn't free to be edited by one and all. But it also means I can't edit it benignly to include a sentence on what the name Urdu means. It isn't mentioned anywhere else, and I think it merits inclusion as it's quite illuminating.

For those who don't know, the word urdu means "army", since Urdu was originally sponsored as a military lingua franca to allow soldiers in the Mughal army from all the various parts of India to understand each other. The word comes from the Mongolian ordo, and originally meant a nomadic tented palace settlement, whether pitched or in transit; and is related to the English word horde.

Don't you think that merits inclusion? Nuttyskin (talk) 15:23, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

We do include it in one of the other articles, I forget which. I rewrote the history section, but there wasn't an obvious place to plop it in, so I left it out for now. Suggestions welcome. (How would you translate Zaban-e-Urdu-e-Shahi and Zaban-e-Urdu-e-Mualla?) — kwami (talk) 16:50, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

In this revision of the article, it was mentioned that the name was also related to Urdu Bazar. I'm not sure when this was deleted but it might be helpful to reinclude this fact in the article. Also, Zaban-e-Urdu-e-Shahi and Zaban-e-Urdu-e-Mualla mean "Language of the [Royal] Court" and "Language of the Camp" respectively. You can use this link as a source for that statement. Also, could you please reinclude the statements that were lost when the anonymous IP reverted me, particularly the one about the influence on "apabhramshas"? I hope this helps. With regards, Anupam^Talk 17:14, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I figured that the ancestral word for urdu was ambiguous as to army camp vs. palace or court, given that the Turks were nomads, but am not sure if Zaban-e-Urdu in the settled Delhi Sultanate was similarly ambiguous.

Not just apabhramsha, but specifically Sauraseni. I almost added that in, but I wasn't clear if that was an earlier layer than Braj Bhasha, or if (Old) Braj Bhasha was the form of Sauraseni they were talking about. Do you know?

Oh, and Dehalvi: translation? — kwami (talk) 17:22, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

"Dehalvi" means "of Delhi." If you want to write the introduction with a particular apabhramsha, you should write it like this: "its vocabulary developed under Persian and Turkic influence on regional apabhramshas, particularly Brij Bhasha and Sauraseni, of northern India. This language became known as Hindavi, Hindi, and eventually Urdu" (source). You must also mention that it is a literary form of Khariboli (source), along with Hindi. This language was also known as Hindustani (source). Also, you didn't readd anything about the deleted Urdu Bazar. The sourcing and statement for that is found in this revision of the article. I hope this helps. With regards, Anupam^Talk 17:46, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I've added most of that, including Urdu Bazar.

The problem I have with Sauraseni is that AFAICT it was the ancestor of Braj Bhasha, but your wording suggests that they were cousins. — kwami (talk) 17:49, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I understand what you mean - I have once source for Urdu being descended from Sauraseni, which discredits the "pidgin" theory of Urdu. The source is from Encyclopædia Britannica and may be found here. As far as my word choice - I just modeled it off what the source stated. Thanks for adding the information. Best wishes, Anupam^Talk 17:54, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

At last some consesus seems to exist on couple of positive things on this article. Thanks Anupam, Kwami. :) --Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 09:00, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

After seeing the nationalist bullshit that occurs on the Croatian article (there are now even newspapers in Croatia writing on how Wikipedia is practicing cultural genocide against Croats, simply for stating that dialectologically Serbian and Croatian are one language), I approached Urdu and Hindi with some trepidation. I've been pleasantly surprised that, apart from a few cranks, everybody's been quite reasonable. Unfortunately there are enough cranks to protect the article, but please let me know if you think we're giving anything short shrift. (I'm hardly knowledgeable on the subject.) You can always make a proposed revision here on the talk page, and if it seems reasonable we can add it to the article. — kwami (talk) 09:17, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

the muslim connection

First of all, let's get a few facts clear.

Hindi and Urdu are the same at a spoken level. for example a sentence (main ghar ja raha hoon) (I'm going home) is both Urdu and Hindi. Here in Delhi, Muslims of old delhi will often refer to what they speak as urdu, where-as hindus who speak exactly the same lingo will call it hindi.
when it comes to specialized vocab, that's when the difference occurs. for example, a pakistani urdu speaker will easily be able to follow hindi TV shows and bollywood films (and bollywood songs use some very persianized lyrics, as persian words are considered musical :) ). But he'll/she'll have trouble understanding the hindi on a news channel or on Nat Geo.
Urdu is used as a lingua franca in regions where Hindi is the prestige dialect. There are a few exceptions (some people in Maharashtra, eg. ZaK Gujarat, eg. Irfan Pathan) and the Deccan-Urdu speaking Hyderabadi Mulsims.
However, in WB and Assam (where muslims form 25 to 30% of the pop.n), with the exception of Bihari and UP migrants, all the Muslims speak Bengali, Assamese or Bodo.
The same for other states in India. Lakhwadeep, as someone pointed out, is 95% Mulsim and all of them speak Malayalam.

User:Upamanyuwiki —Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.224.126.182 (talk) 14:29, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Innotata, 5 November 2010

{{edit protected}} Please add interlanguage link to Piedmontese stub pms:Lenga urdu. Also doesn't look like interwiki links follow either of the two acceptable orders. —innotata 15:21, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

—innotata 15:21, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Done. Had a go at reordering them as well. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:43, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Usman.shamim, 7 December 2010

{{edit protected}}

In Urdu Poetry example section someone has inserted this:

1- Iqrar ma kaha onke inkar se lazzat

  bardta ha shoq Ghalib on ke nahe nahe se.
       (by Riaz Dukhi from Swat.)

It is totally irrelevant, before the translation of Ghalib's sher. Please remove it or place it somewhere else in the article.

Usman.shamim (talk) 07:31, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Removed — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:37, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Urdu Belt

{{edit protected}} Please add a link to Urdu Belt in this article. About two-fifth of the Indian Muslim community live in this region. Katheeja (talk) 18:20, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Removal of section

Section 12, "Difficulty in learning Urdu" is poorly written and full of mostly redundant information, which seems to all be culled from a single dubious (commercial) website. I strongly recommend it either be cleaned up or just outright deleted. - AlexanderKaras (talk) 08:08, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I moved the section up to the writing system section and retitled it since it doesn't seem to be about difficulty. If someone can suggest an appropriate rewriting, and there are no objections, I'll go ahead and make the changes. --RegentsPark (talk) 13:43, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 110.37.134.126, 16 December 2010

{{edit protected}}

Please change "native speakers of both Hindi and Urdu frequently assert them to be completely distinct languages, despite the fact that they generally cannot tell the colloquial languages apart."

To

"native speakers of both Hindi and Urdu frequently assert them to be completely distinct languages".

That is, omit the part "despite the fact that they generally cannot tell the colloquial languages apart", as this is not a fact at all. Urdu and Hindi speakers can very well differentiate between their respective colloquial languages; not only the vocabularies are different at times, so are the pronunciation styles. Any Urdu or Hindi speaker could confirm that.

110.37.134.126 (talk) 16:48, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, from what I've heard they can't. A Hindu and Muslim who say they speak Hindi and Urdu, but who grew up in the same city, will think the other is speaking their language if they don't know he's of a different religion. Unless of course they're speaking in a formal register, where the languages have been made distinct. — kwami (talk) 22:31, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Protected edit declined. Please obtain consensus for a proposed change before making the edit request. Sandstein 11:40, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Concur with Kwami. Hindi and Urdu only differ in the standardised registers. On a daily basis you cannot say definitively that a person is speaking Hindi or Urdu only. --Deepak D'Souza (talk) 18:14, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

That is correct, sometimes they can make out difference and sometimes they can't and intrestingly at times a listner will percive that conversation is going in Urdu & another will think that its in Urdu and when you'll ask speakers one will say they were speaking Hindi other will say in Urdu. Pronounciation of alphabets changes with region e.g. most of the speakers of Lucknow (Hindu or Muslim, Hindi or Urdu speaker) will say Bazar and not Bajar. Anyways, this is my experience as a person who since birth has lived with two languages and travelled across to find that one area's Hindi may be Urdu to other areas (that may sound wiered but its true). ;) --Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 23:11, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from AnonyLog, 24 December 2010

{{edit protected}} In the article it defines Urdu as "a register of the Hindustani language identified with Muslims." I completely disagree with this statement; the millons of Hindu, Sikh and Christian Urdu speakers in Pakistan, and Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Hyderabad and other regions of India I am sure would disagree with this statement as well.--AnonyLog (talk) 16:49, 24 December 2010 (UTC) AnonyLog (talk) 16:49, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Can you please make a specific suggestion - ie "Change XXX to YYY" - and re-request for consideration. Otherwise, we cannot guess what you would like. Thanks, Chzz ► 20:11, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

May be AnonyLog wants "a register of the Hindustani language identified with Muslims." to be reduced to "a register of the Hindustani language." to drop association of Urdu with Muslims.--Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haider^tc_s 22:59, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

User:Faizhaider is correct, the identification soley with Muslims is not appropriate for the article. The language is very popular among non-Muslims in India, especially in Hyderabad. --AnonyLog (talk) 16:35, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

You mean Hindus speaking Dakhini? Maybe we need to think about this. In Delhi, the only way to know which colloquial language someone is speaking is to ask, as they can't tell them apart themselves. But regional dialects like Dakhini may be more specifically Urdu. Do we have a refs that discusses this? Regardless, the identification with Muslims still broadly holds up, doesn't it? — kwami (talk) 01:32, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Fixing the location of the "Transliteration of Urdu" section

(editrequest)

The one-paragraph section "Transliteration of Urdu" is about the ad-hoc ways that 7-bit Urdu is used on the Net... And under it, there's a table of Examples that shows anything but-- because it's examples for the "Roman Script" section, further up. Can someone bump that "Transliteration of Urdu" section to after the Examples table, to put things in the right order? Sean M. Burke (talk) 13:59, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Done. The transliteration section didn't have any real content, so I just deleted it. Phrases moved to the end of the article, where they will probably eventually be deleted as well. — kwami (talk) 14:53, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language, India

The National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language is an autonomous regulatory body under the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD), Department of Higher Education, Government of India. It was established on April 1, 1996 to support the advancement and promotion of Urdu which one of the languages of India. It was set up to promote, develop and propagate the Urdu language, and today is the principal coordinating and monitoring authority for promotion of Urdu language and Urdu education.^[1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.12.69.168 (talk) 20:24, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

References

^ http://www.urducouncil.nic.in/

Effort to destroy the identity of Urdu

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) 14:57, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

[1] ttp://www.urducouncil.nic.in/

[1]