From: tariqh@dcs.qmw.ac.uk (Tariq Hamid)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan
Subject: Re: Need help with Mongolian (Urdu)
Summary: SCA, Urdu, Mongolian, Mongol
Keywords: SCA, Urdu, Mongolian, Mongol
Date: 20 Dec 92 16:02:21 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept, QMW, University of London

The following was posted on sci.lang:

In <1903@niktow.canisius.edu> salley@niktow.canisius.edu (David Salley) writes:

>Greetings!  I am looking for someone who can answer a few questions on Urdu,
>the language of the Mongols.  I am a member of the Society for Creative
>Anachronism where everybody pretends to be someone who might have lived in
>the middle ages and researches their persona.

>We have a woman in our local group who wants to be a Mongol.  She has chosen
>the name Cori Ghora.  She says that "cor" means thief, "-i" is a feminine
>ending, and "ghora" means horse.  She has no documentation for the name other
>than a primer of the Urdu language.  We need answers to a few questions.

>1.) Is Urdu the language of the Mongols?

You're 2000 miles wide of the mark, buddy. The Urdu language originates from
India. Its creation is attributed to the Mughals (also spelt Mogal, and
pronounced as in the phrase "movie mogal"). It originated from the Deccan plain
,
and is directly based upon the dialect of Indo-European that was spoken in the
city of Lucknow. Hence the original urdu poets are known as Dakkhani (as in
Deccan) poets. This dialect was developed under the auspices of the mughal
emperor Shah Jahan - the king who had the Taj Mahal built for his beloved wife.


>2.) Do the words translate what she says they do?

The words "Cori Ghora" (pronounced "ChoRee GhoRda) translate to: "Stolen Horse"
.

>3.) Is the grammatical construction correct?

The grammatical construction is correct, but it means "Stolen Horse" !

>4.) Is this the type of name Mongols would use?

No, probably Amerindians would use such a name, but definitely not the Mughals.

Typical Mughal/Persian/Indian female names are very beautiful, e.g.:

                Yasmin          - (Jasmine) - pronounced Yasmeen
                Shahnaz         - (King's Delight) . My sister's name.
                Shalimar
                Ambereen
                Ghazala         - Gazelle/Fawn

>Documentation, or a pointer towards it, would be greatly appreciated.  Please
>send e-mail as I normally don't read this group.  adTHANKSvance.

OK, I'll e-mail you an Urdu Dictionary. I'll e-mail the dictionary to anyone
else that wants it.

While we're on the subject the Hindi and Urdu languages are almost identical,
except for the fact that Hindi is written in Devanagri script and Urdu is
written in Arabic/Persian script. This difference is due to the nationalistic
tendencies of the rulers of India and Pakistan. After independence, from the
British in 1947, the Indians decided to write the language known as
"Hindustani" in the Devanagri script, the ancient script in which Sanskrit is
written.

A similar thing happened in the U.S. during the middle of the last century,
when the Americans to emphasize the fact that they indeed spoke a separate
language from the British, decided to introduced American spellings.
Nevertheless I would say that the two dialects of english are very similar,
and are becoming more so.

>                                                       - David

Peace
                                                        - Tariq

--

Tariq Hamid	                 	Internet:  tariqh@dcs.qmw.ac.uk
 Department of Computer Science  	JANET:     tariqh@uk.ac.qmw.dcs
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