Comparison between Urdu and English - Essay Example

?COMPARISON BETWEEN URDU AND ENGLISH Introduction: Urdu is one of the most popular languages of contemporary world, which is spoken and understood byover ninety million people living in different parts of the world. It is the national and official language of Pakistan, which seeks its origin in the united India under the Sultanate of Delhi, when the religious language of Muslims i.e. Arabic and the Turkish and Persian languages of the Sultans experienced interaction with the local Hindustani language on their invasion on the Indian sub-continent by the beginning of 13th century. However, Urdu flourished during the Mughal Empire, as it was patronised and promoted by the emperors and courtiers alike as the official language of India. The writers, poets, scholars and philosophers of that era created literature in this newly-advent language, and added thousands of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Hindi, Sanskrit, Punjabi and Bengali words in Urdu language. It is therefore it was aptly viewed to be the lashkari or military language, which had sought support and inspiration from divergent armies and militia. Consequently, Urdu won the status of an independent language by 16th century onward carrying distinguished literature, grammar, vocabulary, phonetics and syntax. History: Urdu language remained a matter of great controversy and conflict between the Hindus and Muslims in the aftermath of the fall of Muslim rule in India in 1857. The British particularly aggravated the conflict by declaring it the language of the Muslim community only because of its writing style that takes after Arabic and Persian. During 1860s, the prejudiced Hindus raised demonstrations and demanded for the replacement of Urdu with Hindi alphabetic style. The Hindus declared Urdu as an alien language, which had no roots in Indian sub-continent. Similarly, the British looked for the implementation of their own language i.e. English after dismissing the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar (1837-1857) from the helm of the government. However, the Muslims turned out to be successful in protecting Urdu as one of the most prominent and powerful sources of communication among the Indian subjects, as Rashid Banarsi views: “Agar Urdu pe bhi ilzaam hai baahar se aane ka, To phir Hindustan kis ka vatan hai ham nahi samjhey.” (Translation: “If there are charges against Urdu, that it too is an outsider, Then whose homeland is India? We don’t understand”). (Lee, 1999, p. 337-38) Prominent Urdu Writers: Thus, Urdu remained as one of the most dominant Indian languages till the partition of India in August 1947. The Founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, declared Urdu as the only official language of the then recently established state of Pakistan; however, it was also included as one of the twenty two official languages of the liberated India. Wali Daccani is regarded as the first poet of Urdu language, though Mirza Asad Ullah Ghalib (1797-1869) is unanimously and undisputedly revered as the greatest and the most influential poet of the Urdu language. Somehow, Mir Anees, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Mir Taqi Mir, Daagh Delhvi, Deputy Nazir Ahmad, Haider Ali Aatish, Iqbal, Faiz, Sahir, Perveen Shakir, Saghir Siddiqui and others are also great names in the long list of Urdu poets and writers. Relationship between Urdu and English: English language won unabated applause during 17th and 18th centuries onward, the time when the Europeans started their adventures in the strategically weak countries of Asia and Africa. Being the most powerful naval and military might, England overthrew the monarchies and governments in several Asian and African continents, and captured their wealth and resources by occupying their political and economic systems. Consequently, they imposed their own language in all the occupied lands, and it became inevitable for the indigenous population to learn English language in order to survive in their own motherland. Gradually, the language turned out to be the secondary language of a large number of countries; the same was the case with Indian sub-continent, where the Hindi, Urdu and Sanskrit speaking people witnessed fast trend of learning the language of their British masters in order to communicate with them on the one hand, and for obtaining respectable jobs and positions in the British imperialist India. Thence, English earned unflinching popularity in this highly populated region of the world. Additionally, Urdu speaking people also took great interest in learning English language, which increased the curiosity for comparing Urdu with English while making translations of the Urdu language into English. Thus, exploration of the language, literature, grammar, phrases, verbs and syntax of both these languages got popularity in the educational and literary circles. Moreover, English language became popular in the Middle East and almost all parts of the world in this age of globalisation, which forced the entire globe to learn this most popular language in order to take advantage of the latest developments being made in the fields of science and technology on the one hand, and for combating with the fast growing challenges on the other. “English is recognised as the dominating language in the world as globalisation comes to be universally accepted in political and academic discourse. The development of ‘globalisation’ has been associated with the dominance of the English language.” (Bottery 2000, p. 6). Morphology: Urdu language is written in Arabic and Persian scripts, and shares hundreds of words with both these languages. It is therefore, Urdu is grammatically closer to both these languages than any other language of the world at large. It is therefore the people, with Urdu as their primary language, have to make hard efforts in learning the western languages including German, French, Italian, Spanish and others; the same is the case while learning English language. It is because of the very reality that script, sentence making, alphabets, syntax and phonetics are quite dissimilar in Urdu and English languages. “Bilingualism in itself is a source of creativity in language Such varieties are so widespread and have such a long standing ‘that they may be thought stable and adequate enough to be regarded as varieties of English in their own right rather than stages on the way to a more native-like English.” (Quirk 1983, p. 8) In Urdu language, there is no concept of capital or small letters; consequently, the same alphabetic style is used while writing proper and common nouns. On the contrary, proper nouns e.g. God, Bible, Qur’an, Mecca, Karachi and London etc are started with capital letter. Similarly, Urdu sentences do not start with capital, as capital and small letters do not exist in Urdu language. Moreover, in English language, the male, female and non-living objects have differently categorised, pronouns for which are applied he, she and it respectively. On the contrary, the pronouns “woh” and “yeh” are applied to both the genders and even for their plurals and non-living things while pointing out the distant and closer individuals and objects respectively. Thus, woh and yeh are used in place of he, she, it, that, this, those, these and they. For instance: Arze niyaz ishq ke qabil nahin raha, Jis dil pe naaz tha mujhe woh dil nahin raha (Ghalib: urdunet.com) ???? ???? ??? ?? ???? ???? ??? ?? ?? ?? ??? ??? ???? ?? ?? ???? ??? ???? ?? ????? ? Khushbu Beta rehi hai ke woh raastey mein hai, moj-e-hewa ke haath mein us ka suraagh hai (Shakir, 1976) Wo tou khushbu hai, hawaon main bikhar jaye ga/ Masla phool ka hai, phool kidher jayega?" (Translation: He is fragrance, he will scatter in the air/ the trouble lies with the flower - where shall the flower go)? (Shakir, 1976) Mana woh phir rehey hein liyey haath mein shifaa, apni to aarzu hai ke derd-o-shefa milein (Zaidi, 2008, p. 45) Here the second word of the verse i.e. “woh” (??) does not subscribe whether the person being cited is male, female, singular or plural; or a non-living object even. Somehow, the reader can easily explore and guess the person behind this apparently unclear pronoun. Furthermore, the genders are discriminated in verb part of a sentence, rather than in subject, which is applied in English. For example in “woh kitab perrhta hai”, (He reads the book) and “woh kitab perrhti hai”, (she reads the book), woh is the subject (pronoun), kitab (book) is the object, perrhta/perrhti is the verb and hai (? ?) is the helping verb. Woh does not specify whether the reader is he or she, though perrhta and perrhti clearly identifies the reader as male and female respectively. Thus, unlike English, Urdu makes distinction between the subject through verb or helping verb, though pronoun remains one and the same in sentence making in Urdu. Noun Phrase Construction: “As in other languages, Noun Phrase (NP) in Urdu also ranges from a single word to (theoretically) an infinitely long construction comprising other phrases as its constituents.” (Ali, 2007, p. 2) Noun phrase includes noun, pronoun, adjective, adverb and forms of verb etc. Like English, Urdu language also consists of different types of nouns including proper noun, common noun, abstract noun, material noun and compound noun. However, description of nouns is different from one another in both these languages. The alphabet hamza is applied in compound words e.g. gosha-e-cheshm, nigah-e-qudret, khof-e-Khuda etc, as it has been expressed in the following verse: “Hum senglakh rasta-e-ishq per chaley, menzil-e-murad ka qissa udaas hai.” (Zaidi, 2008, p.28) (We travelled on the rocky path of love; the story of reaching the destination is vehemently painful and gloomy). Syntax: Like English grammar, Urdu and Persian also have first person, second person and third person as addressees. For instance, in English I, my and me are used while referring to oneself; the same is the case with Urdu, where mein (???), mera( )???? and mujhey ???? is applied respectively in place of I, my and me. Similarly, second person is written as tum ??, tumhara (aap ka in formal language) and tumhein in place of you, yours and you. Moreover, helping verb comes at the end of the sentence in Urdu, though it comes soon after the subject in English sentence. For instance, the sentence ‘Milton is very popular for writing his world-famous Paradise Lost’ shows that Milton is the subject that comes in the very beginning of the sentence, followed by the helping verb is and the adjective popular. For is the preposition, world-famous is another adjective while Paradise Lost is both proper noun and object that comes at the end of the sentence in English language. The same sentence would be written in Urdu in these words: ‘Milton apni shohra-e- aafaaq Paradise Lost ki badolat nihayet meqbool hai.’ Here subject Milton is in the beginning, followed by the adjective while shohra-e- aafaaq and meqbool are adjectives. Hai is the helping verb that comes at the end of the sentence. Hence, if we translate an English sentence, word by word in the same sequence into Urdu, it may change the very sense of the statement. For instance, when we say “it is a horse”, it will be translated into Urdu as “yeh hai eik ghorra” (in place of “yeh eik ghorra hai” or “it a horse is” from Urdu into English). Thus, the Urdu speaking learners of English language have to undergo such grammatical problems. Moreover, since in Urdu language, there does not exist any concept of definite or indefinite article (i.e. the and a/an), which creates problems for learners while making translation. Tenses: Unlike Arabic grammar, the forms of verbs i.e. tenses are also three in Urdu, Persian and English languages, where the happening of an event or incident is affiliated with some specific period of time. Hence, verbs and helping verbs are used in Urdu language almost in the same lines as applied in the English language. Thus, all the three tenses have been divided into four forms, which represent twelve different periods of time. Hence, present, past and future consist of the same four periods described in English grammar and syntax. Another important commonality between English and Urdu languages includes the existence of silent alphabets in a word. For instance, the first alphabet i.e. k is silent in the words knowledge and knife; similarly, t is silent in the words subtle and Christmas. The same is applied in Urdu, where the alphabet alif (?) is silent in the word bilkul, bimuqabil and others. Idioms, Phrases and Maxims: The style of idioms and phrases is quite different in Urdu and English. English language clearly gives statement regarding one thing or the other. On the contrary, Urdu language aptly cites the example of animals and birds etc in order to provide instructions in respect of doing an act or avoiding it. For instance, English language manifestly indicates, in the maxim ‘it is useless to cry over spilt milk’, that the past mistake or happening could not be redressed completely. On the contrary, Urdu language seeks the examples of birds and animals while clarifying the statement by saying: “Ab pechhtaaey kya hot jeb chirriyaan chug gaeen khet” (i.e. the protection of the field should have been made before the attack of the sparrows on the crops), and “jeb saanmp haath se nikel geya to lakeer peetney se kya faaeda” (i.e. there is no use of repentance and remorse after the escape of snake from the spot). Hence, Urdu maxims contain ambiguity, which is incomprehensible for the learners. On the other hand, English maxims are clear in meaning and expression; and present a clear picture of the scenario, which are easy to understand even for the learners. Singulars and Plurals: The methodology of making plurals from singulars and vice versa is quite divergent in English and Urdu languages; for in English, singulars are often converted into plurals by adding s or es at the end of the word. For instance, plural of shepherd is shepherds, and plural for tiger is tigers etc. However, plural of man is men, while the same for the wife is wives etc. On the contrary, Urdu also faces problems while making singulars and plurals, as there are also no hard and fast rules for the same. For instance, the plural for the word shai (thing) is ashiya (things), and the same for khatoon (????? ) is khawaateen ?????? etc. Thus, singulars and plurals are very difficult to learn in Urdu language. Phonetics: Phonetics is concerned with the sound of the words; in other words, the movement of lips and tongue determines the sound of a specific alphabet and word. Since every alphabet and word carries different sound, the pronunciation of every word is different from the other; as put and but certainly maintain divergent pronunciation, which may create problems for the learners. Moreover, the name of renowned psychologist Karl Jung is pronounced as Yoong, which creates difficulty for the learners. Somehow, some alphabets of English language pronounce differently at different occasions; for instance, the alphabet C sounds like K in Cow, while it sounds S in Cycle. Moreover, F and Ph sound the same. Similarly, in Urdu language, many alphabets give the same sound, e.g. the alphabets zaal (?), zey (?), zwad (?) and zoein (?) sound in one and the same manner, and the same is the case with tey (?) and toeyn (?) on the one hand, and sey (?), seen (?) and swad (?) on the other. Thus, only regular practice and thorough and wide study can make the speaker able enough to make distinction between the alphabets while reading and writing. To conclude, it becomes crystal clear that Urdu and English differ from one another in all aspects, which make it very difficult for the learners to have command over both the languages. “A language may be considered transplanted if it is used by a significant numbers of speakers in social, cultural and geographical contexts different from the contexts in which it was originally used a transplanted language is cut off from its traditional roots and begins to function in new surroundings, in new roles and new contexts.” (Anwar, 2004, p.410) However, consistent practice, regular reading and writing, dedicated efforts and hard work make it easy for the learners to have dexterity and skill on both these languages under analysis. Bibliography Ali, Aasim. (2007) Report on Urdu Computational Morphology. A report prepared as integral requirement of reading course on “Urdu Computational Morphology”, National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences, Lahore. Retrieved from http://www.cle.org.pk/clt10/papers/Study%20of%20Noun%20Phrase%20in%20Urdu.pdf Anwar, Behzad (2009) Urdu-English code switching: The use of Urdu phrases and clauses in Pakistani English (A non-native variety) International Journal of Language Studies (IJLS), Vol. 3(4), 2009 pp. 406-421 Retrieved from http://ijls.net/volumes/volume3issue4/anwar1.pdf Bottery, M. (2000). Education, Policy and Ethics London: Continuum. Lee, Christopher. (1999) “Hit It With a Stick and It Won’t Die:”Urdu Language, Muslim Identity and Poetry in Varanasi, India Quoted in http://www.urdustudies.com/pdf/15/20StuLeec.pdf Quirk, R., & Greenbaum, S. (1983). A University Grammar of English, Harlow: Longman p. 8 Best of Mirza Ghalib Retrieved from http://www.urdunet.com/roman/romurduadab/ghalib/page03.htm Zaidi, Mujtaba Haider (2008) Mazaaron Ke Phool Ilm-o-Irfan Publishers Urdu Bazaar Lahore pp. 29-94 Read More