Talk:Hindustani etymology

Proposed merger

There had been a previous proposal to merge this article into Hindi. Please see the discussion at Talk:Hindi. Agent 86 01:40, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

---

• While my signature appears within the following text, I did not post this material here. It appears to be a cut-and-paste from the Talk:Hindi page and should have been acknowledged as such (and should have included the entire post). Agent 86 23:34, 31 July 2006 (UTC):

This proposal is an alternative to proposing the deletion of the article, Origin of some common Hindustani words. That article seems to be indiscriminate (i.e. no basis for which words were chosen for analysis) and maybe even original research. However, it did seem that it would be appropriate to include some of the information from that article in the "Hindi" article. Normally, I'd have been bold and merged the article myself; however, given how well written this article is and how little I know about Hindi, I thought doing the actual merge (if at all) should be left to those who actually know what they're talking about (in English or Hindi or whatever)! Agent 86 17:46, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

This article is already too long and needs to be trimmed. That article seems salvageable, but it would take some research to back it up. An article on the evolution of Hindi words seems a legitimate one, and could use some researched examples to illustrate points instead of being an indescriminate collection and a title that makes it sound like an indescriminate collection. Does that sound like a reasonable approach? I'll try to go to a research library tomorrow and see if I can find some good sources. I'd like to find enough sources to get this article (Hindi) up to FA status. Short answer is I don't think this article would benefit from merging that in, but I will try to save it. - Taxman ^Talk 22:49, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I oppose the merger, as it would spoil this already long article. I already have a good book listing the origin of words, but I hav no time. Also, there is no need to merge Shuddha Hindi with this article.Cygnus_hansa 14:08, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I also oppose the merge. The Origin of some common Hindustani words article can be further developed and made into an informative and thorough article. This topic deserves an article of its own. For these reasons, I removed the merger tag. Now that this article has been categorized, I'm sure others will be able to see it and edit it. Thanks! Zulfikkur 01:17, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

• I suspected that it might not be prudent to merge the article into this one. However, I still don't think Origin of some common Hindustani words stands on its own or meets the criteria of WP:NOT and other policies, so I have nominated it for deletion. Please see the AfD discussion here. Agent 86 02:06, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[end of cut and paste]

---

Macrons, superscript

Trust me, I love fonts, and I love diacritics... but really, macrons and superscripted "h"s are really inappropriate for plain text in English. They belong in the transliterated or Romanized text from another language. The same problem is being fixed on the Hindi page. --SameerKhan 03:48, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I’m with ya there, dude… Right on.

Now I just need to get off my ass one of these days and attack the pedantic nerds running the Japanese pages. —Wiki Wikardo

Permission

Following the suggestion by User:Jdas07, let me add the following. The text of this article has been placed here with the permission of the original author Y. Malaiya.--Malaiya 23:19, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Selection of words

I did not note the call for deletion. I am glad people voted to keep this.

There was a questions: How were the words selected? A good question actually.

The words selected are some of the most common words in Hindi/Urdu and they illustrate the gradual derivation process nicely.

If someone is curious about some other words, mention them here, and perhaps one of us can find the derivation.--Malaiya 23:25, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

How about putting in the origin of some of the most common Perso-Arabic-derived words? E.g. kitaab. Grover cleveland 07:51, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

what is the scope of this?

this appears to be a fragmentary discussion of the historical development of the Hindustani language. I therefore suppose it should be moved to History of Hindi-Urdu, in keeping with History of English, History of German etc. dab (��) 13:09, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Article title

The name of this entry is unwieldy and redundant for a few reasons. —Wiki Wikardo 19:05, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Bharatendu's line

Isn't Bharatendu's line in Awadhi, rather than in standard Hindustani? Maquahuitl 23:38, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Transliteration

Please try to keep transliteration on this page as simple and consistent as possible.

Transliteration on this page is to aid with understanding the pronunciation of a word rather than conveying the spelling of the word in its original script. Since Hindustani is written with two different scripts, doing so with one romanisation is not even possible. For this reason, redundant symbols should not be used to represent those letters which are not pronounced.

Ideally, a layperson should have little difficulty in interpreting transliteration, so it is better to use 'ch' as opposed to 'c', 'sh' as opposed to 'š' or 'ś', and most especially, 'ḳh' in place of 'x'. Where 'h' occurs immediately after 's', it is possible to separate the two using an apostrophe, or similar.

Note also that some Hindustani speakers say 'kh'/'کھ' if they are unable to make the ḳh/خ sound. For this reason, 'خ' is best represented with 'ḳh' as opposed to 'x'. Likewise, ġ/غ is replaced with g/گ.

Please also keep in mind the following:

1. Word final silent he (ہ) of Urdu should not be transcribed, as this is confusing and misleading. It also contradicts Devanagari orthography. Instead, transcribe the vowel as it is pronounced. Most often, this is 'ā', but can occasionally be 'e' or 'o'. If in doubt, check the devanagari spelling.

2. Hamza (ء) and ain (ع) are not pronounced whatsoever in Urdu. Therefore, they should also not be included in transcriptions. Hamza is used mainly for vowel separation. If transliteration is done correctly, there should be no need to indicate vowel separation in Roman orthography. Where hamza occurs in word final position, it is silent and does not need to be transcribed. Where hamza occurs directly after a consonant, as in 'مسئلہ' and 'جرأت', it simply represents a short vowel; there is no glottal stop sound as there is in Arabic.

Ain is also silent in Urdu. If it comes at the beginning of a word, or directly after a consonant, it represents either a short vowel or the beginning of a long vowel. It essentially serves the same function as alif (ا). If ain-jazm (عْ) comes after a long vowel, this has no effect and is silent. If it comes after a short vowel, it usually changes the vowel length and character. 'ْاَع' becomes 'ā', 'ْاِع' becomes 'e', and 'اُعْ' becomes 'o'. When ain comes between two vowels, it performs the same function as hamza. For example in 'دُعا' - duā. Again, if in doubt about this, check the devanagari spelling.

3. Please do not use redundant diacritics. For example, 'ē' and 'ō' are unnecessary because the corresponding sounds can be represented without the diacritic as 'e' and 'o'. As these letters are not used for any other sounds, there is no room for confusion.

4. When writing words in devanagari, don't make a conjunct with two consonants if this is not done in practice, even if the vowel sound between the two consonants is omitted in speech.

Thanks

Fmc47 (talk) 21:08, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

---

Hello! Thanks for your proposals. Here is what I would like to say about them:

• Agreed. ‘sh’, ‘ḳh’ and ‘ch’ should be preferred over ‘š,ś’, ‘x’ and ‘c’. But I think ‘ġh’ is better than just ‘ġ’, because ‘غ’ is better romanised as ‘gh’ in Urdu.

• The final -ā seems to indicate that the last letter is alif, when the last letter is indeed hē. The sound of -ah is the same as that of -ā in English, Hindi and Urdu. Another additional thing: The final -ā is a bit longer than final -ah. There is a difference. Indicating both using -ā would be ambiguous.

• The aprostophe (') indicates a hamzah, but the problem was not of preserving Arabic orthography, but was of differentiating between a diphthong and a digraph. E.g., ‘ai’ and ‘au’ ligatures can be interpreted as short ‘a’ + short ‘i’  or short ‘u’ vowel sequence. This can be avoided if the ligatures are without an apostrophe and the vowel sequence is seperated using an apostrophe (which indicates a hamzah in Urdu).

• An important point. You have ignored the fact that e and o, both represent two different vowels each, so differentiating them is necessary. Consider the word mehrbānī (مہربانی) and bēkār (بےکار). Here, the two e’s have different functions and representing two different sounds with the same symbol would be ambiguous. Same is the case with o. Take gohar (گہر) and kōbrā (کوبرا)

• Agreed.

Now, implementing the romanisation scheme compatible with both Hindi and Urdu is difficult. So I think the best solution would be to use IPA, rather than any other romanisation system. —Syɛd Шαмiq Aнмɛd Hαsнмi (тαlк) 09:12, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

nāw/nāv (नाव ناو) root word is probably Sanskrit and not Portugese

A similar word (naukā) is used in Telugu for boat. I am guessing it comes from a Proto-Indo-European root (and maybe neither Portugese nor Sanskrit specifically), but for Hindi and other Indian languages, the "origin" would more likely be Sanskrit than from Portugese. Halfwit Genius, The (talk) 18:46, 5 June 2023 (UTC)