Roman Urdu
Roman Urdu is the name used for the Urdu language written with the Latin script, also known as Roman script.
According to the Urdu scholar Habib R. Sulemani: "Roman Urdu is strongly opposed by the traditional
Romanized Urdu is mutually intelligible with
Although the idea of romanising Urdu had been suggested several times, it was General
In India, where the Devanagari script is used, Roman Urdu was widely used in the Indian Army, as well as in Christian mission schools, especially for translations of the Bible.[5]
The Hunterian transliteration system mostly avoids diacritics and non-standard characters.
Sample texts
Zabu'r 23 Dáúd ká Mazmúr
Roman Urdu
Urdu Bible
1Khudáwand merá chaupán hai; mujhe kamí na hogí.
2Wuh mujhe harí harí charágáhoṉ meṉ bithátá hai: Wuh mujhe ráhat ke chashmoṉ ke pás le játá hai.
3Wuh merí ján bahál kartá hai: Wuh mujhe apne nám kí khátir sadáqat kí ráhon par le chaltá hai.
4Balki khwáh maut ke sáye kí wádí meṉ se merá guzar ho, Maiṉ kisí balá se nahíṉ darúṉgá; kyúnkṉki tú mere sáth hai: Tere 'asá aur terí láthí se mujhe tasallí hai.
5Tú mere dushmanoṉ ke rúbarú mere áge dastarkhwán bichhátá hai: Tú ne mere sir par tel malá hai, merá piyála labrez hotá hai.
6Yaqínan bhalái aur rahmat 'umr bhar mere sáth sáth raheṉgí: Aur maiṉ hamesha Khudáwand ke ghar meṉ sukúnat karúṉgá.[6]()
Nastaʿlīq (Perso-Arabic) Script
۱خداوند میرا چوپان ہے؛ مجھے کمی نہ ہوگی۔
۲وہ مجھے ہری ہری چراگاہوں میں بٹھاتا ہے: وہ مجھے راحت کے چشموں کے پاس لے جاتا ہے۔
۳وہ میری جان بحال کرتا ہے: وہ مجھے اپنے نام کی خاطر صداقت کی راہوں پر لے چلتا ہے۔
۴بلکہ خواہ موت کے سایے کی وادی میں سے میرا گزر ہو، میں کسی بلا سے نہیں ڈروں گا؛ کیونکہ تو میرے ساتھ ہے: تیرے عصا اور تیری لاٹھی سے مجھے تسلی ہے۔
۵تو میرے دشمنوں کے روبرو میرے آگے دسترخوان بچھاتا ہے: تو نے میرے سر پر تیل ملا ہے، میرا پیالہ لبریز ہوتا ہے۔
۶یقیناً بھلائی اور رحمت عمر بھر میرے ساتھ ساتھ رہیں گی: اور میں ہمیشہ خداوند کے گھر میں سکونت کروں گا۔(کتاب مقدس کے زبور ۲۳ از داؤد)
Devanāgarī script
१ ख़ुदावन्द मेरा चौपान है; मुझे कमी ना होगी.
२ वो मुझे हरी हरी चरागाहों में बिठाता है. वो मुझे राहत के चश्मों के पास ले जाता है.
३ वो मेरी जान बहाल करता है. वो मुझे अपने नाम की ख़ातिर सदाक़त की राहों पर ले चलता है.
४ बलके ख़्वाह मौत के साये की वादी में से मेरा गुज़र हो, मैं किसी बला से नहीं ड़रूंगा; क्योंके तू मेरे साथ है. तेरे असा और तेरी लाठी से मुझे तसल्ली है.
५ तू मेरे दुश्मनों के रूबरू मेरे आगे दस्तर-ख़्वान बिछाता है. तू ने मेरे सर पर तेल मला है, मेरा पियाला लबरेज़ होता है.
६ यक़ीनन भलाई और रहेमत उम्र-भर मेरे साथ साथ रहेंगी. और मैं हमेशा ख़ुदावन्द के घर में सुकूनत करूंगा.(किताब-ए मुक़द्दस के ज़बूर २३ अज़ दाऊद)
Usage
Christian community in the Indian subcontinent
Urdu was the dominant native language among Christians of Karachi, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan in the 20th century and is still used today by some people in these states. Pakistani and Indian Christians often used the Roman script for writing Urdu. The Bible Society of India publishes Roman Urdu Bibles, which enjoyed sale late into the 1960s (though they are still published today). Church songbooks are also common in Roman Urdu. However, its usage in Christian contexts is declining in India with the wider use of Hindi and English in the states.
Film industry
The similar circumstances are also applied with Pakistan's Lollywood filming industry, where, along with the Urdu name or title of the movie, a Roman Urdu title is always provided for viewers.
Internet
Roman Urdu used on the Internet is non-standard and has irregular spelling. Users who use Roman Urdu on the Internet try to imitate English orthography. In most cases they are unaware of the fact that English spelling is not always phonetic.
Romanization schemes
There are several Romanization standards for writing
There are two main problems with existing Roman Urdu schemes. Either they are not reversible to
Informal Roman Urdu
The system of Romanisation used most often by native speakers differs from the formal systems presented in most English language sources. It contains no diacritics or special characters, usually just the 26 letters of the core English alphabet. Informal Romanised Urdu is mutually intelligible with
While the Urdu alphabet is derived from the Arabic alphabet informal Romanised Urdu is less eccentric than informal Romanised Arabic. Informal Romanised Urdu does not use numerals, and rarely uses mixed case, because the Arabic letters that lack a clear equivalent in the English Latin alphabet (e.g. ء ع ذ ص ض ط ظ) are often silent in Urdu or pronounced identically to other letters (e.g. ت س ز). So, this system of Urdu Romanisation is used in some slightly more formal contexts than informal Romanised Arabic.
One example is the word عورت, ʿaurat. Formal transliterations often include a punctuation mark (') or special character (ʻ) for the ayn ع but this is omitted in informal romanization. Adding the special characters makes it harder to type and would cause things such as Twitter hashtags to break. The discussion on social media about these events is often in informal Romanised Urdu, with frequent code-switching between Urdu and English, but the handwritten or expertly typeset signs at the events are mostly in either English, Urdu in the traditional script, or local languages.
Letter | Nasta‘liq | Name of letter | Informal transcription | IPA |
---|---|---|---|---|
ا | ا | alif | a | /aː/ |
ب | ب | be | b | /b/ |
پ | پ | pe | p | /p/ |
ت | ت | te | t | /t̪/ |
ٹ | ٹ | ṭe | t | /ʈ/ |
ث | ث | se | s | /s/ |
ج | ج | jīm | j | /d͡ʒ/ |
چ | چ | ce | ch | /t͡ʃ/ |
ح | ح | baṛī he | h | /h/ |
خ | خ | k͟he | kh | /x/ |
د | د | dāl | d | /d̪/ |
ڈ | ڈ | ḍāl | d | /ɖ/ |
ذ | ذ | zāl | z | /z/ |
ر | ر | re | r | /r/ |
ڑ | ڑ | ṛe | ṛ | /ɽ/ |
ز | ز | ze | z | /z/ |
ژ | ژ | zhe | zh | /ʒ/ |
س | س | sīn | s | /s/ |
ش | ش | śīn | sh | /ʃ/ |
ص | ص | ṣu’ād | s | /s/ |
ض | ض | z̤ād | z | /z/ |
ط | ط | to'e | t | /t/ |
ظ | ظ | ẓo'e | z | /z/ |
ع | ع | ʿain | ' or ‘ | /ʔ/ [9] |
غ | غ | ġain | gh | /ɣ/ |
ف | ف | fe | f | /f/ |
ق | ق | qāf | q | /q/ |
ک | ک | kāf | k | /k/ |
گ | گ | gāf | g | /ɡ/ |
ل | ل | lām | l | /l/ |
م | م | mīm | m | /m/ |
ن | ن | nūn | n | /n/ |
و | و | vā'o | v/w, o, au or ū | /ʋ/, /oː/, /ɔ/ or /uː/ |
ہ, ﮩ, ﮨ | ہ | choṭī he | h | /h/ |
ھ | ھ | do chashmī he | h | /ʰ/ |
ء | ء | hamza | ' | /ʔ/ |
ی | ی | ye | y, i | /j/ or /iː/ |
ے | ے | bari ye | e or ai | /eː/ or /ɛː/ |
See also
- Hindustani orthography
- Hindustani language
- Urdu
- Uddin and Begum Hindustani Romanisation
- Hindi
- Hindustan
- Pakistan
- India
- Christianity in Pakistan
Footnotes
- ^ "1 - Number One News Resource of Pakistan - The News - Jang Group". 1 March 2004. Archived from the original on 1 March 2004. Retrieved 27 September 2022.
- ^ Paving new paths to romanise Urdu script, Mushir Anwar, Dawn (newspaper), Nov 27, 2008
- ^ The Urdu-English Controversy in Pakistan, Tariq Rahman, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Feb., 1997), pp. 177-207
- ^ The Language Movement: An Outline Archived 2012-11-19 at the Wayback Machine, Rafiqul Islam
- ISBN 9780195652017.
- ^ World Bible Translation Center (pdf file)
- ^ Krishnamurthy, Rajeshwari (28 June 2013). "Kabul Diary: Discovering the Indian connection". Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. Retrieved 13 March 2018.
Most Afghans in Kabul understand and/or speak Hindi, thanks to the popularity of Indian cinema in the country.
- ISBN 9781134380701.
- ^ "Urdu Phonetic Inventory" (PDF). www.cle.org.pk. Center for Language Engineering. Retrieved 19 May 2020.
Bibliography
- Dua, Hans R. (1994b). Urdu. In Asher (Ed.) (pp. 4863–4864).
- Insha, Ibn e. (2002) Urdu Ki Aakhri Kitab. New Delhi: Kitab Wala. ISBN 81-85738-57-2.
- B.S.I. Kita'b I Muqaddas. Bangalore: The Bible Society of India, 1994. ISBN 81-221-3230-8.
- Gupta, Sunil (2022). The Dictionary of Urdu Poetry. Gurgaon: Zorba Books. ISBN 97-893-9302-9-13-3.
External links
Urdu phrasebook travel guide from Wikivoyage Hindi phrasebook travel guide from Wikivoyage
- The Urdu Latin alphabet by Adnaan Mahmood