Talk:Urdu/Archive 2

message: Urdu is almost always written using the Nasta'liq style of writing. Does anyone know how to type this and incorporate it into Wikipedia, particularly this article? Thanks. Stallions2010 18:45, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it's possible unless you use a different font, but I'm not sure. Basawala 20:08, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Usage of Nasta'liq 

message: I've added a section on how Urdu influences Bollywood, if anyone can add to it that would help since I'm not a native speaker of Urdu, but it is really influential in Bollywood. 
Basawala 21:18, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Urdu and Bollywood 

message: I say the title should be "Urdu language"; see my comment on the discussion page at Hindi. --Haruo 06:32, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think adding "Language" to either Hindi or Urdu is unnecessary, since for all of the languages mentioned on the Hindi talk page are also used to describe people, like and English lady, or a Marathi boy. Basawala 19:14, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Title 

message: I think that Dehli is a more appropriate city to use as an Urdu example, more than Bombay, since Dehli has a stronger Urdu history.  Please share your thoughts on this before editing it back. Khoda Hafez. 
--Basawala 04:08, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks.  I was actually on the verge of changing it to Lucknow (or Hyderabad), both cities with a great Urdu tradition.  But I chose Delhi instead, since it's basically the city next to the capital.  I will change it to Lucknow, because they have the greatest Urdu tradition.  Basawala 19:50, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change Mumbai to Dehli 

message: I've noticed the terrible condition of the transliteration in this article, and the slightly better one in the Wikitravel Urdu phrasebook and I would like to change that.  
I'm gonna go ahead and change it, since I think the current system is somewhat appalling (except for Urdu song lyrics on a non-Wikipedia site).
The most appropriate transliteration scheme, in my opinion, is the a the IAST system.  
But for the letters  Se, barhi he, KHaa, swaad, zwaad, to'e, zo'e, ain, ghain, and qaaf : 
The letter ﻉ should be transliterate both when it does and does not affect the transiteration.  I would use the AlA-LC system here, but that is up for discussion.  
But since my browser cannot support full Unicode, I cannot write the dotted versions of letters h, s, d, t, and z and therefore cannot fully transliterate these letters, and I will use the non-dotted versions, which I hope are only temporary.
This method, along with a mixture of others, is being used in the Urdu phrasebook on wikitravel (above) and also List of Common phrases in Urdu (section) , and I hope that these sites' transliteration will be cleaned up (I'll get to doing that later), since there are many versions of the transliterated ﺥ, ﺹ, etc, the letter ﻉ is not well represented, and the both the ā form and the aa form are being used.
Also, I think a Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Urdu) should be created, and I'll also try to do that, no guarantees though.  
So for now, here is the transliteration system I will use (I only added the real letters to the more ambiguous letters):
Consonants
b 
t 
ṭ (I actually cannot view that, I had to copy/paste from IAST) 
s ث  
j c, asp. ch (this way is better for works like achcha, so we'd have acchā not achchha) 
h ح 
kh خ  
d 
ḍ 
z ذ 
r 
ṛ 
z 
zh 
s 
sh 
s 
z 
t 
z 
' 
gh 
f 
q 
l 
m 
n 
v 
y 
Vowels:
a ā i ī ai e u ū o au
Please improve upon this by changing some of the ambiguous letters like badi he, khe, se, soaad, doaad, toe, zoe, ghain, etc.  I know that I'm representing 2 sounds each with kh and gh, so please change that (after commenting on this talk page).
Please give alternate transliterations for the ambigious letters Se, barhi he, KHaa, swaad, zwaad, to'e, zo'e, ain, ghain, and qaaf.  I hope alternates are used since this would create a good lossless transliteration.
Hindi is not exactly the same as Urdu (esp. not in writing/transliteration), and for the letter se, we should use the same symbol as the Hindi ष (in IAST, the transliteration of it is ṣ ) since Urdu in Wikipedia should not be molded into the Hindi style.  
---khuda hafiz ---
Basawala 21:46, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have forgotten to address the issue of nasalized n, which should best be a superscript n.
Also, as I realized, the Wikitravel Urdu phrasebook has a perfectly good transliteration table, although inside the table,under the name column, there are even a few mistakes.  Should we use the above system or the system on Wikitravel?
I personally like the above system because of the lack of underlined letters.  But, it has c and sh for parallel sounds, which the Wikitravel phrasebook uses c and ś for.  I don't like the letter ś, since sh is much better fitted for English speakers.
Shukria -- Basawala 22:12, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Actually, nasalized n should be transliterated as a normal n, since it's with the same letter, and I think some words can be pronounced with either nasal or normal n?  Like Jaan Jaa~? Thanks.  Basawala 19:33, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Transliteration 

message: I removed this section, because it is nonsensical:
:  Some scholars think that Urdu has had such an impact on the Hindi of India that Hindi in itself has evolved into Hindustani, a blend of Hindi and Urdu. It is believed that most Indians speak Hindustani.  
See the entries on Hindustani language and Hindi. Hindustani is not a mixture of Hindi and Urdu. Hindi and Urdu are standardized dialects of Hindustani. Anyone who is speaking Hindi or Urdu is by definition speaking Hindustani. Acsenray 16:51, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Hindustanti is not a mix of Hindi and Urdu

message: I have gone ahead and british-ized this article, since Urdu and the places where Urdu is spoken has had more impact from British than American English.  I probably have missed many Americanisms here, so please help me in correcting them.  Also, if anyone doesn't like the usage of BritEng here, I would like to hear any suggestions or comments.  Shukriya.  Basawala 21:23, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  American English is not acceptable 

message: What is the IPA equivalent for غ (i.e. ghain) is it ɣ (i.e. v with a voop in the bottom) or it it ʁ (ie. inverted small caps r)? ghain is the one we use for gham and ghalib right? Currently ghain is assigned ɣ (i.e. v with a voop in the bottom) in the page "Urdu" Do we have to change it to ʁ (ie. inverted small caps r)? Also please check the IPA for ط (i.e. the letter to'e) Is it [t] or [ʈ] (longer t) ? Please given the description of the symbol too, as I have given, as the Unicode is not showing on many computersSaurabh Mangal 10:02, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the IPA for 'غ' is ɣ.  I only know this because it corresponds to Gurmukhi ਗ਼ which has that phonetic value in Punjabi. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 10:07, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Could you Give the description of what symbol you suggested? Please hear the IPA at http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonants/course/chapter1/chapter1.html and at http://www.paulmeier.com/ipa/charts.html and read about the IPA from Wikipedia. Saurabh Mangal 10:21, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am somewhat wary of implementing IPA to represent Urdu. Not everything is pronounced as it is written. In order to indicate pronunciation, for example, there is no reason to differentiate between ث, س, and ص. Using dots under the letters to indicate retroflexivity (is that even a word) I think is not only adequate but also allows for readers to process the transliteration swiftly. But if it is official policy *sigh* then what can one do? Kitabparast 05:22, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  IPA equivalents? 

message: I am of the opinion that aspiration must be indicated by some means other than a normal "h". I have taken the liberty of inserting a superscript "h" to indicate aspiration wherever needed. I am willing to do this with other Urdu-related pages as well. I would like to ask, however, whether one ought to use a superscript "h" through code ("sup" in angled brackets, h, "/sup" in angled brackets), as has been done with the nasalized "n" here (and I agree that the nasalized "n" must be represented by a superscript "n") or should the superscripted "h" and "n" be represented by the appropriate character (and thus using no code)? Thus, should it be h and n or ʰ or ⁿ? Once a decision has been made, I would be willing to do my best to implement this in Urdu pages I encounter. Of course, the same can be said about Hindi. Kitabparast 05:16, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Preferably realized through the character as given in the Insert box for IPA.Cygnus_hansa 14:47, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you! Kitabparast 16:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't think the superscript h is necessary.  I have used the IAST system, which seems to be the most widely used academic systems for transliterating Hindi, and it was accepted on the previous archive of this talk page, I believe.  This system has no superscripts.  Of course, Hindi has many different "n"s, and Urdu only has a normal "n" and a nasalized one.  I put the superscript for "n" there, because that is what they did on the Wikitravel Urdu phrasebook.  But I don't think any superscripts are necessary for transcription, since this is an extremely uncommon thing to do.  Basawala 18:11, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Superscript "h" to indicate aspiration: code or character? 

message: Urdu has two different spellings for the word aam, depending on the meaning. Aaam meaning mango is written with alif + madd and aam meaning ordinary and simple is 'Ain + alif. Is there any rule?
 
When we start words with aa sound, should we use 'Ain + alif or alif + madd? I have seen 'Ain + alif in aadat, aasteen, aajzi, aarazi, aadi, aalim and aalishaan. Are there more words which use this, instead of the more used alif + madd? Saurabh Mangal 08:27, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ain stands for the glottal stop. It is not the आ vowel. The glottal stop exists in Ararbic and Persian, but is rarely realized as such in Urdu, who have given it aa sound. For loanwords from Hindi/Sanskrit/English/Persian, one must use Alif+madd (giving the normal aa sound). For certain Arabic words (whose spelling must be learnt), Ain has to be used. Cygnus_hansa 14:50, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  'Ain + alif or alif + madd 

message: Could somebody give examples for the use of ژ (two extra dots on ze(which has one dot)). I know only one i.e. zhuzh meaning a porcupine. Is the currently assigned IPA of /ʒ/ (s as in vision) correct? Or is it pronounced like j with superscript h as in hindi jha. In hindi a porcupine is called jhaau-chooha; with jha as /j with superscript h/. Could somebody give examples to point out the difference between the various /z/ also. Saurabh Mangal 08:35, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: zhe is pronounced as English s as in pleasure. I don't think it exists with this pronunciation in Urdu; probably it is pronounced /z/. In Arabic and Persian, it gives the pronunciation /ʒ/. In Hindi, procupine is called saahi. As I said earlier, the Perso-Arabic script is actually meant for Arabic language, with which it shares one-to-one correspondence. The "proper" /z/ is "ze". Zaal is for voiced dental fricative. Zo is for emphatic voiced dental plosive. Zuaad is for emphatic voiced dental fricative. Jim is for j as in joke. Persian/Arabic do not have aspirated plosives, so no question of Hindi-like jha. Cygnus_hansa 14:41, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  zhe i.e. ژ 

message: I'm currently working on a script intended to create short articles on political parties on a variety of wikipedias simultaneously. However, in order for the technique to work I need help with translations to various languages. If you know any of the languages listed at User:Soman/Lang-Help, then please help by filling in the blanks. For example I need help with Urdu. Thanks, --Soman 15:11, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help with translation