Talk:Urdu/Archive 1

message: Someone familiar with Urdu should transliterate the example phrases into IPA. Jeeves 02:38, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: That's been done. (Not by me!) kwami 01:42, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: IPA

message: Thanks for your guidence Actually only thing which I wanted to say was that in Pakistan ther are number of pakistanis who know urdu better then any other language they can speak although their mothertongue is not urdu. Actually my english is not that good so I think I was not able to edit it in a proper way. Second I am more used to open forums and open source software forums where I Can Enter what I feel without taking considering a lot about its accouracy. Although I tried to be cautious on wikipedia but I think it was not enough. 	
Probably because it was my first day editing Articles and at maximum 2nd day browsing wikipedia.
and plz also help me how to enter the response in thread. so it won't become a new messege but will become a part of the subject.
thanks --Zain 16:06, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thanks for ur guidence and plz also help me how to write in a thread 

message: I solicited the pronunciations shown from a Sindhi speaker who said he had some familiarity with Urdu, and he assured me that he was pronouncing the words in  the correct way for Urdu. However, my transcriptions should be checked if possible by someone who knows Urdu and IPA or someone who knows IPA and a native speaker of Urdu. Jeeves 00:00, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Example IPA 

message: As I have said on the comment on the Hindustani article, the description there and here on the whole issue is about the best I have seen.
However, saying that "So Urdu speakers will find their own language in the Hindi cinema..." is over-simplifying the issue. It is not just because the languages are close that Urdu speakers just happen to find their own language in Hindi cinema. Bollywood started out with and continues to have a major contribution from poets and other literateurs that are also major players in the world of Urdu literature. And I say this not just out of chauvinism (or at least not consciously :D), but because if we get it just right (as Wikipedia seems to have done in the case of Hindustani), it really would help document a side of the South Asian experience that is not recognized properly in most cases.
And the phrase "Hindi Cinema", which I admit is a common way to refer to Bollywood is also problematic. I would recommend using the latter term.--iFaqeer 19:03, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)
Just reverted some POV additions to this section.  "Not doing justice" to Urdu combined with the phrase "[so-]called Hindi speakers" implies a pro-Urdu, anti-Hindi bias that has no place here, in this section especially.  If the Hindi speakers in question think they are speaking Hindi, and other Hindi speakers agree, who are we to say they aren't?  It would be as absurd as saying the actors on Pakistani television were "so-called Urdu speakers" because speakers of Hindi can understand their dialogue.  --Skoosh 22:12, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Urdu, Hindi, Hindustani ... and Bollywood 

message: Mahmud Ghaznavi as founder of Urdu? Never heard of that one. Let's get some documentation before we put that in. Reverting.—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 19:05, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)
:If I can put my 2 cents in as a linguist, that seems extremely unlikely. No constructed language has ever been naturalized, and creating a "natural language" is far beyond the capability of a single person or even a group of people. The person who added that stuff was either yanking our collective chain or is seriously misinformed. Even if e were to produce "documentation", I would be highly suspicious of it. A language created by a committee that went on to become a major natural language...I would think I'd have heard of this in my classes, as it would be quite a singular event. Jeeves 21:53, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Mahmud Ghaznavi

message: To a person who has only heard a language spoken on the streets or from movies, the languages may seem similar.  The fact is that the so called 'Urdu' speaking people and 'Hindi' speaking people do not converse in the purest forms of these languages.  Due to Bollywood (Indian film Industry) and the British Invasion, in this era the people use a hybrid language of Urdu, Hindi, and English.
If one were to use complete Urdu and another complete Hindi, they wouldn't be intelligible to one another.  Just because people using a language alter the way they speak and vocabulary they use, it doesn't mean that the language has changed, but they are using a mixture of languages.  Urdu will always remain Urdu (Persian/Arabic derived) and Hindi will always remain Hindi (Sankrit derived).
The grammatic structure in these languages, however, is very similar.  The nouns and adjectives are what are completely different.
The language spoken by most people in this era is neither completely Urdu nor Hindi.  Due to the emphasis of English in Pakistani and Indian schools, the mother tongues are being forgotten.  The primary source that the majority of people turn to for education in their native language is movies.  Bollywood (Indian Film Industry)'s use of a hybrid language consisting of Urdu, Hindi, and English is what is spoken by the majority of people who have not studied Urdu or Hindi.  This fact doesn't change the original languages however. (unsigned by  23:25, 19 August 2005)
: Ah, language politics.  From the point of view of linguists who aren't trying to prove a nationalist point, Hindi and Urdu are two standard variants of the same language (see diasystem, and Historical linguistics#Language evolution and the comparative method, especially the key phrase, "core vocabulary").  It's not just a "similar" grammar that they share - it's the same grammar.  It's not just a similar basic vocabulary - it's the same basic vocabulary, with very few exceptions.  When confined to casual, everyday conversation, the two languages are, as I understand it, practically indistinguishable.  It is only in orthography and technical vocabulary - the kind heard on newscasts - where mutual intelligibility breaks down, and linguists do not consider these to be the central features of languages.  I see little difference between a Hindi speaker being unable to understand the technical, Farsi/Arabic words in a PTV newscast, and an uneducated native English speaker being unable to understand the technical Latin/Greek words in an Oxford academic lecture.  Unfamiliar vocabulary is not the same as a different language.  
: The notion of an "original" and "pure" Urdu and Hindi that predated Hindustani is just ahistorical linguistic nationalism. (What does "pure" even mean here? Is tashrif laie "pure" Hindi or "pure" Urdu? How about maf kijie? Is chaiwala a "Hindi" or an "Urdu" word? Perhaps it's a Chinese word, since that's where chai comes from?) There was Apabhramsa, there was Farsi, and then those two languages intermingled to form Hindustani. There was a continuum, to be sure, but the two poles were originally Farsi and Apabhramsa, not Urdu and Hindi. The latter pair diverged from Hindustani, not the other way around. There was never a "pure" Urdu distinct from Hindi, unless one means Farsi. As for Hindi, scrubbing away the Perso-Arabic words from its vocabulary and replacing them with Sanskrit-derived equivalents is a modern project, born of a political desire to reinforce Hindu/Indian identity versus Muslims/Pakistanis. (see Serbo-Croatian language for a similar situation elsewhere.) In short, it is all POV, and not supported by disinterested linguists. Hindi and Urdu share a common ancestry, a common grammar, and are mutually intelligible when spoken in most situations (e.g. buying fruit, chatting about one's day, hailing a rickshaw, ordering a cup of tea). That information should not be deleted.  --Skoosh 04:07, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  No- Hindi and Urdu are not the same languages 

message: There is one point in the article that I feel is incorrect. It's from the section regarding Roman Urdu. It is from these statements:
Urdu can be proud of having the richest variety of alphabet characters (44 compared to English’s 26) that can represent most of the sounds. Urdu’s own script is far more superior [sic] to the Roman script
1) The statement "Urdu can be proud of having the richest variety of alphabet characters (44 compared to English’s 26" 
While it is not necessarily incorrect, it is a vague statement with nothing backing it up.
 
While there may be more pronunciation sounds in the Urdu language, than those of the English language, this does not have anything to do with the Roman alphabet. The Roman alphabet with only 26 characters is capable of producing words for any sounds made by a human. It's all in the way the letters are arranged as well the specific language itself. 
For example in German, the combination of 'ch' represents a sound not normally used in English, however the letters are from the Roman alphabet. Another example is the Spanish letter 'r'. These letters represent sounds not normally used in English, yet they can be represented using the Roman alphabet.
2) The statement "Urdu’s own script is far more superior [sic] to the Roman script" is misleading.
What makes the Urdu script "far superior"? If you look at the roman alphabet it is superior in ways. For example,it is far more efficient than the Urdu script. With less characters and the ability to perform the same function, this would make it more efficient.
Many languages around the world have voluntarily switched to the Roman alphabet for this very reason (Turkey, Malaysia, etc..)
(unsigned by  17:20, 8 September 2005)
:1) is a POV statement as phrased anyway -- who's to say that having a longer alphabet is inherently good (or bad for that matter)? 2) is utterly meaningless -- a script is only good or bad in relation to how it describes its language(s). Linear A, for example, may have been a decent script for whatever the Minoan language was, but Linear B (which is very similar and seems to work the same way) doesn't work at all well for Greek. That said, it was the major script used in Bronze Age Greece, so it was what it was. And actually reasons for Romanization differ depending on where it happened -- Turkey, for example, considered it a form of modernization, while Vietnam did it under colonial pressure and Hindi/Urdu is in the process of doing it primarily because it represents neutral ground between Devanagari and Arabic scripts. Haikupoet 03:43, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Roman Urdu 

message: Happytime has edited my earlier comment (removing all the evidence I set forth in my argument), as well as significantly changing the meaning of a comment by AMbroodEY, and deleting one of Sukh's comments entirely (as can be seen in this side-by-side comparison).  This sort of abusive behavior crosses the line, and if continued, can lead to serious consequences (e.g. banning).  Let's not force that outcome.  We need to respect each other's words on talk pages so that we can deal with each other in good faith.  
Also, everyone please remember to sign your comments, so we can more easily follow the thread of the conversation.  Four tildes at the end is enough - MediaWiki does the rest.  --Skoosh 09:29, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  There has been some discussion, but there is still a controversy over the changes being introduced; a complete consensus has not been reached.  Or rather, there is a consensus on this issue, save for one editor.  As for where to talk about this: discussion of the edits and reverts of a specific article belong on that article's talk page more than anywhere else.  --skoosh (háblame) 20:15, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  DO NOT EDIT COMMENTS ON TALK PAGES 

message: : I actually first introduced the phrase "scheduled national language" on this page, since, based on List of national languages of India, there seems to be a distinction drawn between Hindi and English, and all the other languages officially recognized by New Delhi.  If that distinction is inaccurate, then that's my mistake.  Also, we should treat all the scheduled languages consistently on their respective pages, including Urdu.  Rereading that national languages page, it seems that Hindi and English can be called official languages, and those two plus the 22 scheduled languages are all national languages.  Is that a fair assessment?  --skoosh (háblame) 02:36, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Urdu's official status in India 

message: can any one explain me whats going on ? WiseSabre 19:49, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Whats going on here 

message: === History of Urdu ===
Lots of crap like :
'Na Badet Yavani Bhasham Pranah Kanthgatepi va' (One should not speak the language of Muslim rulers even at the cost of death) was the slogan often used by an educated section of Hindus. This aversion against Urdu particularly in rural India also affected the unity in Indian society.
First of all "Yavan" here means Greeks and not Muslim and there is no reference to the source of the saying.
: I've tagged the History of Urdu section as NPOV.  "Inherent resilience" of Sanskrit?  "Had the Muslim rulers been honest"?  That's pretty blatant.  --skoosh (háblame) 09:27, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV

message: Lots of crap like :
'Na Badet Yavani Bhasham Pranah Kanthgatepi va' (One should not speak the language of Muslim rulers even at the cost of death) was the slogan often used by an educated section of Hindus. This aversion against Urdu particularly in rural India also affected the unity in Indian society.
First of all "Yavan" here means Greeks and not Muslim and there is no reference to the source of the saying.
: I've tagged the History of Urdu section as NPOV.  "Inherent resilience" of Sanskrit?  "Had the Muslim rulers been honest"?  That's pretty blatant.  --skoosh (háblame) 09:27, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of Urdu 

message: There is no such Subgriup, Urdu is classified under Western Hindi languages by linguists. See Indo-Aryan languages. This article is starting to look more out of Uncyclopedia rather than Wikipedia. This article basically is 500 essay on how Urdu is different than Hindi. AMbroodEY 02:07, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree... Someone's just trying to spread their own agenda.  Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 08:35, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hindustani subgroup??? 

message: could we make new pages for newspapers published in urdu and t.v channels in urdu?and 
list of urdu poets and writers of urdu? الثاقب (WiseSabre| talk) 13:42, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  urdu and entertainment 

message: This article has been under attack by a POV warrior. I am fairly sure that it is one person. He has been reverting to his preferred, un-scientific, anti-Muslim version as JacobCK (brand new user, only edits here) and two anon IPs. One has already been blocked for 3RR and the other is an AOL anon IP with a long history of vandalism and trolling. The talk page for that IP (which consisted of a long series of complaints re vandalism and trolling) has been blanked and all that is left is a declaration that the user intends to destroy Wikipedia. 
I have used up my 3RR on this article and I hope there's someone else here to hold the fort. Zora 01:53, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've been watching the situation on this article for a couple of weeks now as something of an outside observer with an interest in languages, and what we appear to have here is a case of identity politics taking preference over a regard for established facts. It's sad that nationalism and religion can interfere with sober contemplation of the history of a language, but such are things. (I hadn't even known there was a dispute of any sort -- within linguistic circles there is no dispute at all that Hindi and Urdu are basically dialects of one Hindustani language.) And I don't quite know what to make of the fact that no one has acted on the request for protection, but something is definitely called for. Haikupoet 03:35, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Attack by POV warrior 

message: If you're watching this page, just a note to say you may be interested in editing Pakistani literature both for Urdu influences and Punjabi, Pushto, Baluchi, etc, etc. Please check the talk page for some comments on what's needed there. Lisa 12:25, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pakistani literature 

message: Long enough. --Tony SidawayTalk 22:10, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Unprotecting

message: I hate to protect this page, since it was unprotected only a few days ago. Please try to get to a consensus. Protection is not the solution. Also, the unforutnate edit war makes almost every participant make 3RR violations (Though I'd side with Zora in terming anon 70.*'s edits as vandalism). Anyway, please open an RfC instead of continuing this edit war. Thanks. --Ragib 07:46, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protection 

message: How should be stop this war?  why couldnt we mention in article both parties arguments? الثاقب (WiseSabre| talk) 18:58, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Open an WP:RfC. A discussion there should bring a conensus. --Ragib 19:07, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Just exactly how widespread are Harprit's sentiments? Is it only a few lone nuts who insist that Hindi and Urdu are separate languages, or are there substantial communities of, say, Hindutva activists or champions of Urdu who are preaching a Partition before Partition? Harprit never cites any publications or web pages in support of his views, which is why he's being ignored. Are there any? I'll include notable views that I loathe and reject, but non-notable views (lone kookery) don't deserve the space or attention. Zora 19:54, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: They are the same languages.  His views are unsubstantiated and basically show that he wishes to create a division that isn't there.  This user does not know how to discuss the issues, and by the range of reverts by different editors, it can be seen that only he (and his anonymous IPs) support his own view. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 22:59, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, yes, of course they're the same languages. But the question is, how widely are such views held? We describe widely held views, even if they're grotesquely unscientific. Zora 23:08, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The issue is somewhat more complicated, as it always is when community consensus (in this case the linguistic world) runs up against identity politics. In an ideal world, we'd be able to ignore the identity warriors and simply say "Look, this is what it is, here is why we believe this, and the only thing that can get us to change our minds is a good counterargument." That's how it works among rationalists. The problem is that when you deal with identity politics you're dealing with emotions and propaganda, neither of which deal very well with logic or reason (except when they try to pervert said logic and reason to their own ends, like the creation scientists as an example). The simple fact is that you can talk at an identity warrior until you're blue in the face, present any and every possible well-accepted argument to make your position clear, and you'll still be accused of taking the wrong side in the issue, even if you have no personal stake in the issue. Haikupoet 03:08, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hindi and Urdu are considered separate languages for the same reason Russian and Ukrainian are: mutually intelligible, but with different national standardizations. I know Ukrainians who will admit that their language is really a dialect of Russian, but many or most Ukrainians would find that suggestion offensive (no matter how obvious it may be to a linguist). Yes, by the criterion of mutual intelligibility Standard Hindi is a sub-dialect of Urdu, and Urdu in turn is a dialect of Hindi in the broad sense. But language is more than just intelligibility: it is a social phenomenon. For everyone except linguists not interested in sociolinguistics, and perhaps language learners in a classroom, what a language is is socially defined. Malaysian and Indonesian are considered separate languages, as are Serbian and Croation, Czech and Slovak, Portuguese and Galician, etc, while Arabic, German, Igbo, and Chinese are considered single languages despite a lack of mutual intelligibility. I think a balanced treatment of a language must address both how intelligible it is to other lects, which of course is of interest to anyone who wants to use it to communicate, as well as how it is viewed by its speakers, for to learn a language requires learning a culture, and much of culture is ethnic identity. For the illiterate man on the street, Hindi vs. Urdu may be a label with little practical significance, but many people's identities are strongly bound by whether their language is Hindi or Urdu. kwami 02:02, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the issue is not whether they are the same language or not.  Urdu and Hindi are distinct because of their scripts, and religous, cultural and political backgrounds.  I don't think anyone is suggesting that the same distinction used between Ukranian and Russian cannot be used here.  However the problem is that the 'user' (I'm not sure what to call him/her because of all the sock puppetry) wants to remove all trace of the similarities of the two "languages" - this is simply not on. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 10:01, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  How should be stop this war? 

message: unesco report stated that hidi+urdu is the 3rd largest language after chinese and english with 437 million speakers  الثاقب (WiseSabre| talk) 14:58, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unesco 

message: I've protected this article on the "language rising out of the neccesity of Muslim Army camps in South Asia to communicate with each other in the 1500's" version because that happened to be where I found it tonight after the latest round in the edit war.  I've added the twoversions template which gives readers a single link to press to see the other version, and another link they can press to see the differences.
Please establish a consensus on a version of the article that will bring an end to this long content editing war. --Tony SidawayTalk 00:19, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no consensus to be had, as far as I can tell, for the individual who wrote the current version does not appear to be willing to discuss the issue. We could hold a vote here, but unless that person agrees to abide by the result, I don't see what good it would do. As someone with no particular interest in either Hindi or Urdu, or in either Islam or Hinduism, it seems to me that the current version is extremely biased, and has little linguistic merit. Phrases like "Had the intention of Muslim rulers been honest" and "Muslim conquerors never cared for the sentiments of the subjugated natives in their attempt to impose their cultural hegemony over them" and "The legatee of feelings expressed can feel the intensity if it is your sweet heart and the orator may be the content one" should be enough to indicate it's rather POV. There is an attempt to deny the obvious similarity with Hindi, saying Urdu "is similar to Punjabi and Hindi due to loan words infused into the Urdu language", and suggesting that Urdu is a mixture of Persian and Arabic, when any linguist could tell us that Urdu and Hindi are essentially the same language in all but their cultured vocabulary. At the least, if a significant number of people vote for the now alternate version, could we swap the places of the current and alternate versions? 
Votes for current version
Votes for now alternate version
#kwami 03:58, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Protected, twoversions template

message: I see no support for the currently displayed version.  I've now switched to the " Indo-European language which arose in the vicinity of Delhi" version without the "twoversions" template in the hope that whoever is insisting on the "Muslim Army camps" version will be drawn to defending his position. --Tony SidawayTalk 14:48, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's rather odd.  I've had a few requests on my user talk page asking me to switch back to the other version, but not one of those people has come here to speak in favor of that version per se. --Tony SidawayTalk 06:50, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, I got a talk-page message from Harprit, who demands to know why I have a vendetta against him, tells me that as a Muslim I shouldn't be watching Indian movies, and warns me that if I ever come to Mumbai, he and his friends will "show me how to play Holi". I think he has something more in mind than colored powder. Interesting. I think I've been threatened. Zora 07:30, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Switching versions

message: The intro summarizes the history of the language twice, when it's arguable whether it needs to be stated there even once.  We should combine the summaries into one, and rearrange the paragraphs for a more a logical flow.  skoosh (háblame) 16:31, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The introduction 

message: There's a serious need for sourcing and the removal of stray POV sentiments here.  I've done some, but there's more to be done yet.  skoosh (háblame) 16:31, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  History 

message: I thought there was some merit in Harprit's complaint, conveyed through Kwami, that the "Urdu = Hindi" arguments ought not to be the first topic of the article. I therefore extensively rearranged the article so that the "positive" aspects came first -- classification, geographic distribution, grammar, writing, literature -- and then Hindi/Urdu stuff and finally the Romanized Urdu. I have done some rewriting, but not as much as the article needs. I think it could be much more succinct than it is. I hope that the other editors will approve this reorganization and help with further rewriting. Zora 21:35, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Zora's revision 

message: The two diacritic-R letters are reversed: the R-dot is [z] (as in Arabic and Persian), while the R-toay is the retroflex [r] (allophone of retroflex /d/), which is only Indic. kwami 07:16, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  error in alphabet image 

message: Things seem to have settled down a bit. The only thing still being reverted is the classification in the table, which for some reason someone hiding behind an anonymous IP address doesn't like. It can, however, be substantiated with Ethnologue or any other number of references. But even if it's wrong, that's a pretty minor point which could easily be cleared up if anon. is willing to present any evidence. 
What say we give it five days for everyone to comment, and then remove the warning if there are no substantial objections? 
Remove warning
#kwami 19:23, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  remove warning? 

message: I sat down and read the article, instead of just looking at the diffs, and realized that Justicelaw's edit was OK. It is misleading to call Hindi a dialect of Urdu. I think the standard formulation is that they're both dialects of Hindustani. I'm sorry I've been a pain. I'm so rattled by Harprit attacks at this point that I'm not being fair. Zora 08:46, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Actually, Justicelaw was right 

message: Urdu is not a subcategory of Hindi or Hindustani.  Hindustani would be both under Urdu and Hindi.  Indo-Iranian is what is in most places, but it can be further classified as Indo-Aryan and that should be enough.--StephenCox 22:10, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Urdu was a synonym for Hindustani until Partition. Check the OED. Hindustani is not a 'mixture' of Urdu and Hindi, as you put it. After partition, the term Urdu was used for the new official language of Pakistan, which is a register of Hindustani. Currently, Urdu means both this official language, and also all forms of Hindustani except for Standard Hindi. If you want to say that Hindustani is a mix of Urdu and Hindi, please provide a reliable reference. (That is, not some political or nationalistic tract.) kwami 22:11, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Classification 

message: The problem with genetic classification of languages is that it ignores a lot of complexity. While I don't agree with Harprit? Justicelaw? in dividing Urdu utterly from Hindi, I would admit that the nationalistic drive to erase the Hindustani roots of Urdu has clearly had effects on the level of vocabulary, and may be having other effects too. I'm NOT a linguist, but I'd assume that there are linguists who challenge the usual genetic classifications. (Especially when it comes to pidgins and creoles -- doesn't Derek Bickerton, the Hawaiian creole specialist, have something on this?) 
However, Justicelaw has not been able to find any academic texts that support his position. A pdf of a handout by a professor at a small lower-tier college with Hindi and Urdu side by side doesn't constitute a convincing argument -- especially since this professor is not a specialist in Hindustani. 
I'd suggest that we put an asterisk in the classification box and then add "disputed" and then have a para in which we outline the dispute. The onus is then on Justicelaw to come up with something substantive. Zora 05:21, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The classification isn't disputed by any evidence. The handout does not support Justice's claim; it merely gives Hindi and Urdu as representative Indic languages, which they are. No one disputes that (well, except for Harprit, who seems to think that Urdu is Iranian). kwami 20:06, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

text: The powers-that-be seem unalterably opposed to more stringent editor identification policies, but they're not in the trenches dealing with problem users. I wish we had a user ID system that made it absolutely impossible to use sockpuppets and set up multiple accounts under different usernames. There are editors who actively seem to enjoy conflict and confusion, and as soon as they're banned under one username (which takes a lot of time and energy on the part of other editors) they just hop right back on under another name. Aargh. Zora 09:04, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Perils of genetic classification 

message: here are some things in case anyone wants to do the research:
* Deshpande, Madhav. (1979). Sociolinguistic attitudes in India: An historical reconstruction. Ann Arbor: Karoma Publishers. ,  (pbk).
* Dyen, Isidore; Kruskal, Joseph B.; Black, Paul. (1992). An Indoeuropean classification: A lexicostatistical experiment. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. .
* Erdosy, George. (1995). The Indo-Aryans of ancient South Asia: Language, material culture and ethnicity. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. .
* Georgiev, Vladimir Ivanov. (1981). Introduction to the history of the Indo-European languages (3rd ed.). Sofia: Pub. House of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
* Jain, Dhanesh; & Cardona, George. (2003). The Indo-Aryan languages. London: Routledge..
* Kobayashi, Masato.; & Cardona, George. (2004). Historical phonology of old Indo-Aryan consonants. Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. .
* Masica, Colin P. (1991). The Indo-Aryan languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
* Misra, Satya Swarup. (1980). Fresh light on Indo-European classification and chronology. Varanasi: Ashutosh Prakashan Sansthan.
* Misra, Satya Swarup. (1991-1993). The Old-Indo-Aryan, a historical & comparative grammar (Vols. 1-2). Varanasi: Ashutosh Prakashan Sansthan.
* Vacek, Jaroslav. (1976). The sibilants in Old Indo-Aryan: A contribution to the history of a linguistic area. Prague: Charles University.
peace – ishwar  (speak) 23:25, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: biblio start

message: I am sorry, but a daily sequence of 3 or more reverts means there is something still problematic with the page. Personally, I agree with the detailed classification from Ethnologue, and don't see any reason as to why we should not provide such a detailed one. So far, I am yet to see any justification from JusticeLaw (and/or the suspected socks) regarding this. The Ethnologue classification is a superset of JusticeLaw's classification, so the superset should be used. If the Ethnologue classification is wrong, JusticeLaw should provide a correct detailed classification. Otherwise, the frequent blanking of the details of the classification can only be considered willful vandalism. Thanks. --Ragib 19:53, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protection 

message: I was wondering why we are using Bollywood (or Lollywood if you prefer) transliterations. Better is UTrans, and better than that is the academic approach like IAST. I won't  go too much into detail, but for example, there is no excuse to have badee for بڑى and it would be better represented by baṛī. The problem with Urdu though comes with the diacritical marks which are shared by both Arabic and Devanagari transliteration. I.e. ṣ would represent ष in Devanagari and ص in  Arabic. These might cause edit wars in themselves, but as Urdu is an Indic language I think s is a better solution - even though since there is no retroflex 'ś' in Urdu this does not really matter - just a matter of form. Problems also occur due to unicode limitations, because I don't know of a unicode character for the "umlaut" under 'z' for ظ, etc. 'ż' would work just aas well perhaps. In any case, if anyone has a Ferozsons dictionary, follow that or go to Hugo's Urdu Page. The phrases need alot of work as well. My Hindi-Urdu Phrasebook isn't exactly great either, and still incomplete too, but if anyone was wondering where to find examples of what I'm talking about check it out and help me finish it as well! ;-) But in general the transliteration of the phrases are really shaky. Why is اچھی achchhhee but جى ji? Things are more accurately represented (and æsthetically pleasing) by writing acchī and jī. The nasals are a problem but I like using a superscript 'n' or regular 'ṅ'. The IPA is good, I was just wondering why the Roman Transliteration hasn't followed suit. 
Also, as an Hindi student interested in Urdu, I would love a section on the differences of Urdu grammar with repect to Arabic and Persian elements, etc. 
: You seem to be THE expert here. You can write it! We'll copyedit <g>. Zora 23:18, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad's name has the zh in it. However his name is not really Urdu, but it's the only time I've ever seen this letter used. Vpendse 10:10, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

text: All the symbols you want are supported by Unicode. However, they may not display properly on all browsers (I'm thinking IE in particular.) Please go ahead and use whichever romanization you feel is the way to go. (Bollywoodese really isn't appropriate.) If you can talk JusiceLaw into stopping his reverts until he has some evidence for his claim (something that everyone can accept as evidence, such as a reputable source with a contrary classification), then we can unlock the article. kwami 23:02, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Transliteration 

message: I have major problems with this image!  It shows Urdu as being the official (or even widespread enough to be mentioned) in Indian Punjab.  It also shows its widespread use among the Hindi heartland and West Bengal (Bengali anyone?).  Also, there is absolutely no evidence indicating what source was used to make the image.  Sukh 17:31, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I for one can say that Urdu is not prevalent in Bengal (both West Bengal and Bangladesh). There are some Urdu speaking pockets in Kolkata and in Dhaka, but that's not significant. --Ragib 18:10, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks as if the author located Urdu-speaking communities, then filled in the entire state. So if there's an Urdu community in Dhaka, then all of Bangladesh is filled. (I guess Bangladesh is considered the equivalent of one Indian state.) This is a very common way of making maps, because often people have only verbal descriptions to go on, and because census data is only broken down by state. I relabeled the map, but hopefully someone can do better. kwami 22:59, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm for removing the map.  Not only is there not even a hint as to where the information came from but some of it seems farcical.  There are probably as many Urdu speakers in East Punjab/West Bengal as there are in the UK.  Why not colour the UK in green too?  While we're at it, I'm sure we can find bits of the Middle East to colour in too!  I know I'm being facetious , but the map is incredibly misleading!  Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 23:33, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

text: I know the map concentrates on South Asia, but I'm sure Urdu is found across the entire subcontinent.  Colouring bits in green for a whole state where there *may* be pocketed communities is very misleading.  Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 23:40, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image:UrduSpeakingRegion.gif 

message: hi. i typed up some stuff from a quality encyclopedia here: Talk:Hindustani language#more sources. in case anyone is interested. peace – ishwar  (speak) 02:18, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: encyclopedia quotes about Hindi/Hindustani/Urdu

message: Siddiqui, you erased all mention of tensions re the use of Urdu in Pakistan, conflicts between Muhajairs and Sindhis, small percentage of population who speak Urdu, and turned that section into a rah-rah rendition of "millions of people speak Urdu". Wikipedia has a duty to notice controversies, not sweep them under the rug. Please don't try to whitewash conflict. Zora 21:48, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reverting Siddiqui's version 

message: I have issues with some of the countries listed in the "Countries with large numbers of first-language Urdu speakers:" section.  Some, for example the UK rely on all the Pakistanis speaking Urdu.  This is simply untrue and most will speak Punjabi.  There are no references to many of the figures in general.  Others, for example South Africa are listed as "200,000 South Asian Muslims, many of which speak Urdu" and are simply idle speculation.
The countries that do not have verified figures need removing.  Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 11:22, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Issues with number of Urdu speakers around the world 

message: According to Delhi Official Language Bill, 2000, Urdu is one of the four official languages of Delhi, other languages being Hindi, Punjabi and English. deeptrivia (talk) 23:31, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Urdu as an official language of Delhi 

message: In the alphabet, what does the "chotee" and "badee" description mean? If they have a meaning like "long" or "short", or "initial" or "final", could that be included in the table for the alphabet? 
TIA --Uncle Davey (Talk) 17:03, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question on alphabet 

message: This page is almost completely incorrect. The majority of the material is not credible. It says that Urdu influenced Hindi. This is not factual as Urdu in itself was a concept of a mere half century ago. The differences are purely political, such as with the use of the nastaliq script and the heavy use of arabic loanwords. However, the language itself is rooted the same way as Hindi.
:This page is much of rubbish. I have corrected certain things.Cygnus_hansa 15:48, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incorrect