Talk:Hindustani grammar

message: Please revert back all the pronunciation to IPA. It is the wikipolicy tyo use IPA, and no calcultta or anything else is entertained. I had already mentioned this very clearly before the merger.Cygnus_hansa 09:18, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm going to be leaving the country in a few hours. Once I land back I will work on reverting the changes. Thank you! Kitabparast 10:52, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Pronunciation

message: Although these were mentioned earlier (specifically, by Moszczynski), I believe these merit serious discussion and consideration.
1. Which transcription system should be used? Cygnus_hansa mentioned IPA, which seems to be Wikipedia policy as well. However, Moszczynski mentioned National Library at Calcutta romanization. The reason I support Moszczynski suggestion is because:
:a. It would be far easier for others (especially those unfamiliar with IPA) to comprehend and replicate the pronunciation of words, and
:b. the Calcutta system referred to by Moszczynski is already in used in academia to transcribe Hindi, Urdu, and Sanskrit.
2. It would probably make sense to replace some of the words used as examples with words common to and mutually intelligible between Hindi and Urdu. 
If there is disagreement or if there would be an interminable debate, perhaps voting on this might resolve the issue. Kitabparast 03:19, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would have to agree, only linguists and a few others know IPA, and only people that already know devanagari and nastaliq can read those scripts. That leaves out a large portion of the potential readers of the article. An article doesn't do us much good if it's only accessible to linguists and those that already know the language. Where is the policy that articles should only use IPA? - Taxman Talk 15:04, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yeah I agree too.  IPA is really hassling to read, and transliteration is far more comprehensible and practical.  Basawala 21:22, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

text:  I found the guidelines for transliteration on Indic languages here.  It mentions several forms of transliterations, none of the IPA.  I really think we should keep Kitabparast's transliteration. Thanks, --Basawala 01:19, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

text: I still oppose any changes from IPA. All other transliteration schemes are horrible. And as a counter-argument, the Calcutta scheme etc. is comprehensible only to Indian/Pakistani persons or Indologists, whereas most of the important dictionaries (eg Oxford) use the IPA. No deviation from IPA is entertainable. For example, ā, th, ph, bh, ee, aa, etc. all have different pronunciations in different European languages. Whereas IPA is the same for all languages. And the link mentioned above is for in-line Indic words while writing a text in English. As for wiki-policy: see here. Cygnus_hansa 20:15, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Many others, including myself, would say that the IPA is "horrible".  It is no doubt useful when comparing languages, which is when the pronunciation in different European languages would matter, but I would think that most people who use the English Wikipedia would be at least semi-fluent in English. I'm not saying the the Calcutta system or IAST is the perfect method for English speakers in general, but IPA would be less welcomed since it is difficult to learn due to the vast amounts of morphographs that exist in all the world's languages.  Calcutta was devised specificly for Indic languages, and would fit this article better than IPA.  Plus, all the non-European grammar articles in Wiki, including Hebrew grammar, Arabic grammar, Chinese grammar, Bengali grammar, and Persian grammar, use a transliteration system and not IPA.  It would really be a divergence if Hindi-Urdu grammar was the only one to not use transliteration and instead IPA.  --Basawala 20:32, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Your proposal would only make this article suitable for certain communities, and not a generalized one. And we are not putting up a transliteration: we are indicating pronunciation. Cygnus_hansa 23:38, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nevertheless, academics around the world consistently adhere to a systematic method for transcribing Hindī and Urdū. They do not use IPA. Far more people are conversant with the transcription system than with IPA. Furthermore, the system used is quite transparent. I disagree with your claim that this system would be comprehensible only to South Asians and Indologists or to certain communities. (If you still adhere to this belief, please expand on what exactly you mean.) Basawala makes an excellent point that grammar articles in other non-European languages consistently use transcription systems, systems when tend to be unique to each language. And yet people conversant with many languages or none can easily make use of such transcription systems. Furthermore, I must agree with Basawala that calling the transcription "horrible" is utterly subjective and all such remarks have no place in this discussion. Additionally, the transcription system is used not to indicate how a word may be spelled (this system makes no differentiation in Urdū among the various letters for "s", for example) but how it is to be pronounced by accurately rendering the vowels and consonants of the word. Kitabparast 00:27, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

text: I think it is easily demonstrable more people can access/read transliterated indic text than IPA. It doesn't matter if they perfectly know which vowels are which (they can look up IAST or whatever for that), but latin characters gives 80% of the information to a huge number of readers whereas IPA only gives the information to a very small number. So while I see the value to a linguist in having the IPA, it's clearly the smaller audience. - Taxman Talk 11:43, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no need of transliteration; that would have been necessary and sufficient if no devanagari/Arabic script were used. Since we have used both for the writing, the same is comprehensible to most South Asians. For the rest, the pronunciation is necessary and sufficient in IPA. Taxman's 80 % thing is very subjective and not acceptable. Having already two scripts for the matter here, adding a third one as English transcription is superfluous. And you are missing one more point. Continued use of IPA in this article was a necessary CONDITION that I had put, being the author of this page, for the merger og Hindi grammar with this article. Or we can do one thing: we can de-merge Hindi grammar from Hindustani grammar. Hindi grammar will use IPA and here you can do whatever you want. And if you want my specific objections to Calcutta scheme, let me tell you that the things that this article was using, such as superscript ʰ, ⁿ, etc are not a part of the Calcutta romanisation at all: they are borrowed from IPA (leading to a quagmire). And ṛ is not for the retroflex flap: it is for the vocalic r as in rishi. So you create a quagmire here and say that you want it because it is simple (to you). Again, as for difficulty etc., if you are not new to wikipedia, you can easily tell that most of the articles on English wikipedia are not at all in simple, easy English and use a lot of technicalities and complex terms. For simple English, we have another wikipedia. And just like one can see IAST page for help, one can also see IPA page for help. Cygnus_hansa 16:25, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The English Wikipedia only needs to be suitable for the English speaking community.  The Calcutta system is suitable for English speakers because English-speakers are familiar with all the symbols used and can easily learn this system.  After all, if you check any English word derived from Hindustani in any well-known dictionary, and you can see that the etymology give you a word in the Calcutta system.  E.g., look up chutney and you'll get "From Hindi caṭnī".  Since the use of this Transliteration system is so widespread, even among English-language dictionaries (both American and British) designed for the masses, it is sure to be accepted by the English speaking community.  In fact, some linguistic books even only use Calcutta Rom. without the Devanagari or Perso-Arabic.  No book on Hindustani grammar would ever use only IPA.  And is the additional English transcription really superfluous?  I would really say no, since this article should let everyone be able to read it, not just those literate in either Devanagari, Urdu, or IPA.  And what is not conform to Calcutta Rom. can easily be fixed or decided about, and is no major problem. And also, this is a grammar article, and it already contains technical terms like past perfect etc., so no one's trying to make the entire thing simple, just more efficiently read and more like like other texts dealing with Hindustani grammar. Basawala 21:06, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Your arguments are not convincing at all. If you have so much problems with IPA, then de-merge Hindi grammar. Cygnus_hansa 22:17, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I do appreciate that you wrote the substantial amount of this article. But that doesn't mean you own it. It's still GFDL and consensus rules. I don't agree with what others feel should happpen with Hindustani language, but even though I wrote a substantial portion of the grammar section there that was borrowed from Hindi, I don't get to over-ride what others think. My 80% number is fairly easy to back up, but even if you don't accept it, it's easy to show the number of people that can understand transliteration is much greater than the number of people that understand IPA. - Taxman Talk 02:39, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation and examples 

message: This article is about Hindi-Urdu grammar, but pretty much all of its religious and kinship vocabulary used here are Hindi-specific (and peculiar to Hinduism), (like caste, guru for teacher, kavi for poet, bahu for daughter-in-law, etc).  All of these words would be very rare in Urdu.  I think we should use either words that are common among both language and do not pertain to any religion or words that represent both Hindi and Urdu and which represents as many religions as necessary.  Thanks, Basawala 19:00, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Explained in the last point in the second declination. And further, I think I have taken great care to include only that vocabulary used in common Hindustani, and the rest very rarely as exceptions (I cannot help listing them). If you want to purge even that out, kindly de-merge Hindi grammar from this. Cygnus_hansa 16:36, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  No.  Many of the words you listed are not even found in good Urdu dictionaries, and it is a wonder why this article is titled "Hindi-Urdu" and not "Hindi and possibly Urdu".  I will make sure all the words here are common to both Hindi and Urdu and not just one, meaning there's no need to de-merge.  --Basawala 21:14, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The "better" the Urdu dictionary is, the more it means that it contains exclusively Perso-Arabic words. How can you find words of Sanskrit origin on so-called "good" Urdu dictionaries? And it seems you have not read the explanation. Cygnus_hansa 22:15, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sorry, but good Urdu dictionary also include the shared Hindustani words common to everyday vocabulary and would not leave out words on purpose.  On the other hand, the Persian/Arabic words in this article (yaad, kaaghaz) are both found in standard Hindi dictionaries.  There are so many Sanskrit borrowings here and only two Persian ones?  Everyday Hindustani has more Persian than direct Sanskrit (compare commonly used Persian words- kitaab (book), baad (after), bacca (child), har (every), taraf (direction), waqt (time) to commonly used Sanskrit ones- raaja (king/raja), ?? aag (fire)).  There are really few commonly used (common to both Hindi and Urdu) Sanskrit borrowings.  Mar de Sin Speak up! 22:58, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vocabulary choice 

message: I changed premi (a lover) to sipaahi (a soldier), since premi wasn't found in the Urdu dictionary but sipaahi was found in both Hindi and Urdu (first entry for both).  That change was necessary to reflect proper Hindustani/ to reflect both languages. I also changed mor (a peacock) to gul (a rose) to reflect the Persian vocabulary under that category (2. All the other masculine nouns). Mar de Sin Speak up! 23:41, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sipaahi is welcome, but gul is not used in everyday Hindi, whereas mor is used in Urdu. Please revert back to mor. Cygnus_hansa 14:00, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  How about gulaab?  That's what I found in the Hindi dictionary for rose, and because we need to use a Persian-derived word as an example there, it's the perfect word. Mar de Sin Speak up! 23:12, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Gulaab is ok. Cygnus_hansa 16:37, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vocabulary change 

message: I just noticed today! Someone had changed the introduction and written that Hini-Urdu are descendents of BOTH SANSKRIT AND PERSIAN ! This is utterly wrong! I am telling you again and again, this is a linguistics article. If you don't have background into it, don't trouble it. People like me can manage with correct, verifiable information and NPOV. Hindi-Urdu is NOT a descendent of Persian. It is in the Indo-Aryan branch, and descendent of Sanskrit alone. Persian belongs to another branch: Iranian branch. English belongs to Germanic branch. Its 80 % formal vocabulary comes from Latin, which is in the Italic branch. This does not mean that English is in the Italic bbranch, or a mixture of Italic and Germanic branches. Suffices to say that Hindi-Urdu has no relation wahtsoever (save of loanwords) with Arabic, which belongs to an entire different family. I have made such changes, with external links as sources, and certainly I am not inviting consensus on this issue. Also, Hindustani does not encompass non-standard registers. The grammar discussed here is invalid for dialects such as Haryanavi, Pahari, Braj, Awadhi, etc. Cygnus_hansa 01:51, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Horrible 

message: Dear Wikipedians,
We apreciate your valuable contribution in article named Wikipedia:Indic transliteration scheme on english WIkipedia.
We at Marathi Language wikipedia do not have enough expertise to update IPA related info in our article, specialy we have been unable to import/update IPA templates and do not know how to use IPA symbols.Please click here-this link- to provide help to update "IPA transliteration for Indic Languages" article for  Marathi wikipedia
We seek and request for help in updating above mentioned article and would like to know relevant resources and refferences in respect of Devanagari and IPA .
Thanks and Regards
Mahitgar 16:08, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done the vowels section. Please feel free to comment on formatting or any confusion.Cygnus_hansa 05:16, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Seeking help and contribution

message: The parts in the conjugation table regarding the past range from slightly to dead wrong. Maybe I'll change it up, maybe not; I have to point this out at least. Tuncrypt 23:27, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The new table is grossly wrong. I am a native speaker and I also have a proper book. Cygnus_hansa 17:26, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Conjugation

message: I'll do these myself if/when I have time, but I'd like to see what others think of these ideas:
* Have a special section for "honaa" - "to be" since it is so crucial to all other verbs.  This should probably go at the beginning.
* Use bolnaa instead of karnaa as the main example since it's a regular verb (as suggested and initiated above)
* Include the personal pronoun where appropriate -- thus "mai(n) bolungaa", not just "bolungaa".  This is especially important for the second person since there are three forms -- right now the "tu" form seems to be omitted sometimes
* For forms that just consist of a participle plus honaa ("to be") we could make things simpler by just giving the masculine singular form, then explaining that the participle declines like an adjective such as "nilaa".  This would apply to the "simple present", and all continuous and perfect forms.
* Section on irregular verbs other than "honaa" -- "denaa", "lenaa", "jaanaa", "karnaa".  This can just say where they differ.
* Clarify the sectio on compound / auxiliary verbs and make its own section.
Comments appreciateed Grover cleveland 08:41, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I appreciate your concern, but the hectic transcription will make everything too much of a work requirement.Cygnus_hansa 04:16, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Verb suggestions

message: Does anyone else think this whole section:
:Hindi and Urdu are variants of each other (i.e., the same language in the linguistic sense); Hindi is constitutionally the official language of the Indian Union, while Urdu is considered the national language of Pakistan and one of the 24 scheduled languages of India. Though some sources (typically nationalists) consider Hindi and Urdu to be separate languages, linguists consider both the languages to be one and the same, since they have essentially the same grammar and the same non-technical and non-formal vocabulary, the grammar itself being derived from  Apabhramsha (a middle Indo-Aryan language). The language has official status in Fiji where it is officially referred to as Hindustani and is a major language in Guyana and Suriname. They are Indo-European languages, and belong to the Indo-Aryan group, which itself is a part of the Indo-Iranian linguistic branch.
is kinda off-topic and should be moved, maybe, to, like, Hindustani? Yeah, I do. —Wiki Wikardo 19:37, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Outside the scope of this article 

message: You've made this page much higher quality that it was previously.  I look forward to making some relatively minor contributions, but you have done all the hard work that needed to be done.  Thanks. Grover cleveland (talk) 23:14, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Great job Tuncrypt

message: I'm familiar with 'infinitive' and 'gerund', but what is 'obligatory' in the verb table ? Could a footnote be put in ? - Francis Tyers · 00:44, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The difference between "deferring" and "deferential" imperatives could also benefit from some explanation. Also, the term "subjunctive" seems to refer to different forms in different parts of the article (in the listing of non-finite forms and in the description of future formation). There is a lot that seems confusing in this section.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 23:32, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Obligatory ? 

message: All in all, the verb section needs to explain how the various forms shown in the table are used in practice, with examples and translations. Some parts (perfective, habutual) may seem obvious from the terms themselves, but, for example, the confusing presence of a thing labelled "perfective present" suggests that things aren't that simple; in other cases (non-finite conjunctive, agentive/
prospective, contingent future, deferred and deferential imperative, subjunctive, presumptive, unspecified finite aspectual), the terms themselves simply aren't clear enough to do without explanation and examples. --91.148.159.4 (talk) 23:32, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: The verb section needs explanations about use

message: The proximal singular demonstrative pronoun is यह /ja/, not "ye" and the non-proximal plural pronoun is वे /ve/, not "vo/vah". Einstein92 (talk) 22:58, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The pronunciation of the demostrative pronouns यह and वह (plurals: ये and वे) can vary. In Western dialects, the singulars and plurals are pronounced /je/ (for यह and ये) and /wo/ (for वह and वे). This is not true of all dialects however most popular speech such as in Hindi movies reflects the ye/wo pronunciation. Biocrite (talk) 22:47, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: The demonstrative pronouns are wrong

message: Hi all, it states here that the Persian ezafe construction is not used in Hindi, but I've heard it being used in a Hindi song. No, I'm not trying to insert OR into the article but as this statement is uncited I'm a little dubious about it and was hoping someone with specialised knowledge could clear this up. I assume this is one of those topics which attracts sectarian extremists but I'm sure there are plenty of level-headed folk out there who know something about this. 203.214.40.99 (talk) 06:44, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello. Actually most songs in Hindi movies use a poetic vocabulary which often includes Perso-Arabic vocabulary and structure. This is not however considered standard in Hindi. Biocrite (talk) 22:41, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Izafat / Ezafe 

message: Since Urdu has been forced with Hindi into one article may as well call it Hindustani grammar, otherwise create to separate articles for Hindi and Urdu grammar. This article implies they are the same language, however there is no such language as "hindi-Urdu" so make it Hindustani then.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.226.203.145 (talk) 00:31, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hindustani or separate articles 

message: I disagree with the following point under the section Differences between Hindi and Urdu:
* In sentences in which a conjunctive participle is used to refer to the first act in a series of two, if the first act is in some sense a 'cause' for the second act, Hindi prefers the conjunctive suffix -kar be dropped and only the root of the first verb used. In Urdu, on the other hand, the use of conjunctive suffix word is always required.
Language                                                             	Transliterated sentence                                              	Translated meaning (in English)
Hindi                                                                	unko dekh ham ro paṛe                                                	On seeing him we burst into tears.
Urdu                                                                 	un ko dekh kar ham ro paṛe                                           	On seeing him we burst into tears.
The following sentence, however, will be same in both Hindi and Urdu:	The following sentence, however, will be same in both Hindi and Urdu:	The following sentence, however, will be same in both Hindi and Urdu:
Hindustani                                                           	un se jā kar mili'e                                                  	Please go and meet him.
Can someone please support the claim that *unko dekh kar ham ro paṛe is a valid sentence in Hindi (i.e. without the kar)? --Biocrite (talk) 23:21, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: No, that sounds incorrect to me. It seems too abrupt without the "kar". Aryamanaroratalk, contribs 21:41, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conjunctive suffix (-kar) drop in Hindi 

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thread_title:  Copyright problem removed 

message: Hindustani only uses masculine and feminine as genders. I'm gonna go ahead and change it to that with a source, unless someone can prove otherwise. Aryamanaroratalk, contribs 18:39, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Three genders → two genders 

message: Someone up there ↑ said that the use of cases is self-evident. That's nonsense. Could you please add something about this? There are two particularly important questions, to which I as a non-Hindustani speaker don't know the answer: 1.) How are the Direct and Oblique cases used? Direct-Oblique systems also exist in Kurdish, Pashto, and Middle Persian, but each of these languages uses the cases differently. 2.) The vocative seems to be distinct only in the plural, but there must be a vocative in the singular, too. I suppose it's the same as either the Direct or the Oblique, but which of them? Thanks in advance.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.93.21.143 (talk) 17:40, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cases 

message: The answer would be Yes or No
115.186.83.74 (talk) 08:01, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kya doesn't always go in the start, think about 'ap ke paas seb hai kya?' 

message: Why isn't the Urdu Script also used in this article as I see no reason not to use it. Danishjaveed (talk) 17:44, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Your first ten words are a fair question but, as for the rest, a reason not to use it would be if adding Urdu script would make the article unreadable. I'm trying to figure out how to accomplish that. I've come up with one idea: switch all the presentations to an interlinear presentation as described at Interlinear gloss and as is facilitated by the template . The only thing is that, with both the Hindi and English being written left-to-right, it would be necessary to arrange the Urdu words from left to right as well, even though each word would be written correctly. However (being barely familiar with either writing system), I also don't know whether word boundaries correspond between the two writing systems. If they don't, then I don't see how that approach could succeed either. Largoplazo (talk) 22:01, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Urdu Script 

message: Both of the current Further Reading links provide Urdu-centric grammar books. The first one does teach (Old) Devanagari, but the Urdu script and sundry Persianate words are used in the main part.
Can someone find an actual grammar reference that uses Devanagari on the most part?
Just a humble request from an Indian wanting to learn Hindi, and not "Hindustani".
BrightSunMan (talk) 15:48, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: That's why it's called further reading. It has stuff that is in the public domain, thus mostly old. Try the Bibliography section. The perfect book for you is: . It's still copyrighted, but this hasn't kept people from uploading it to the Internet Archive. –Austronesier (talk) 16:23, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hindi further reading 

message: I fail to understand why the non-standard phrasings under "Postpositions from English prepositions" are included in an article on standard Hindustani grammar. None of the examples given (such as "ke infront", "ke behind") are part of standard speech in either Hindi or Urdu. They may be used in certain contexts by people who are used to code-switching between English and Hindustani (and, being one of those people, I still think these are awkward and ungrammatical).
I propose to delete this section entirely from the article.Havoc219 (talk) 03:36, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I support your deletion of the section. –Austronesier (talk) 20:14, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Delete section "Postpositions from English prepositions" ?