# Urdu: A Tamil’s experience in learning Devanagari and Urdu scripts



## Gop

I wish to start this thread just to put down my experience, the experience of an outsider to both the Devanagari and Urdu scripts, while learning them with the very serious intention of mastering them. Dib SaaHib had observed in his post elsewhere that such an outsider alone would be in a position to set out his difficulties with one script vis a vis the other.

This is not about the superiority of one script over the other. So I would request my friends the forum members to avoid taking the discussion in that direction. The speakers of a language know what alphabet is most suited to their language.

To begin with, my mother tongue is Tamil, and the Tamil alphabet looks like this:
Vowels 12 : அ /ஆ /இ/ ஈ /உ /ஊ/ எ/ ஏ /ஐ/ ஒ/ ஓ /ஔ  corresponding to
अ / आ/ इ /ई /उ /ऊ /short e / ए /ऐ /short o/ ओ/ औ
Short e and short o have no representation in Devanagari.
Consonants 18
க ங ச ஞ ட ண த ந ப ம ய ர ல வ
ழ ள ற ன
क ङ च ज्ञ ट ण त न प म य र ल व
ழ has no equivalent sound in Sanskrit or Hindi
ள ळ
ற r, but described as Trill in Wikipedia. I don’t know what Trill means.. Has no equivalent in Sanskrit or Hindi
ன न , described as alveolar in Wikipedia.


I learnt the Tamil script years before I learnt Devanagari or Urdu scripts. I learnt Devanagari at school with ease because I was very young. I learnt the script for Persian nearly 20 years later. I found no difficulty whatsoever in learning that script. One important factor was that my Persian primer and my Teach Yourself Persian displayed the text in Naskh where each letter stood out distinctly. This was not the case with Urdu primers published in Delhi those days (early 1960s) where the text was handwritten and letters, especially the dots over and under them, telescoped into one another baffling the beginner. Especially in the matter of properly recognising which of the dots over and under the letters belonged to which letters. But now, I can read even Feroz ul lughat with ease. Although it is handwritten, it is in a very clear hand, and in nastaliq. So the script itself, I would emphasise, posed no problems learning.

Another four and a half decades later I started learning Urdu script afresh from the primary class textbooks published by India’s National Council for Educational Research and Training and made available online. The technology by this time has vastly advanced, and the texts were printed in beautiful nastaliq. My only difficulty was confounding خ with ج while reading. Not paying sufficient attention to where ز occurred and where ذ occurred. By paying sufficient attention I have got over these difficulties.

All the above is concerning my reading ability. I am not comfortable with writing Urdu. When one learns an alphabet at school, one gets plenty of writing practice till one can acquire the ability to write correctly and reasonably fast. It is a must. But since I had no writing practice with Urdu at all, no wonder I have some difficulty in forming words like e.g. صحیح . But I  am very good at typing it, and like it too. It is fascinating how the individual letters transform themselves into a beautiful nastaliq word picture as ص ح ی ح into صحیح !

I have read plenty of good Urdu literature almost entirely with the generous help received from forum members. Such committed members! Apart from the great Ghalib, some of the authors are : Ibne Safi (detective novels, in my early reading), Ibne Insha (humorous travelogues), Patras Bokhari (delightful essays), Muhammad Khan (Ba-jang Aamad, his most delightful and hilarious  memoirs of his time in the British Indian Army), Qudratullah Shahab (his very long and amazingly detailed autobiography Shahabnamah), Mumtaz Mufti (his highly evocative travelogue Hind Yatra), Intezar Husain (CharaaGhoN kaa dhuaaN, his memoirs of 50 years in Pakistan), Saadat Hasan Manto. Most of it is sophisticated Urdu language, and I personally find that Urdu authors excel in travelogues and autobiographies/memoirs. I find too for modern communication Urdu is effective.

But one difficulty which is plaguing me even today is the inability to always distinguish between و and د (vao and dal). It could be my poor eyesight. Or it could be the font-maker’s reluctance to differentiate these two letters a bit more distinctly. After all in some older Devanagari fonts it was difficult to distinguish between घ and ध. Not in the modern fonts. Not any longer. I am hopeful that  Urdu also will evolve a better font for و that will clearly stand out from د. This is my hope. I am aware there are plenty of other readers for whom this has never been a problem.


There is one point, however, and I know that this will somewhat make Qureshpor SaaHib chafe. I strongly disapprove of the Urdu printers hanging on to the outmoded ( or rather, what should be considered outmoded) practice of not leaving an obligatory space between one word and the next. After all, for example, we Tamils never used a period after a sentence and before the next, but we now do, because it adds to clarity.
A space between words too adds to clarity, and is perhaps the most important punctuation mark.

And, finally, can we hear from other readers who have learnt the Urdu script how difficult or easy they found it?


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## MonsieurGonzalito

Gop said:


> inability to always distinguish between و and د (vao and dal).


For what it's worth, ا also find it terribly annoying.


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## Qureshpor

Gope SaaHib aadaab.

I would like to begin my response by expressing my profound gratitude to you for starting this thread. What a fascinating linguistic journey you have had! I don’t think there will be too many people who would have such an extensive knowledge and experience of scripts and languages, including Sanskrit. Thank you for letting us know about the sounds that exist in Tamil but are not found in Sanskrit or Hindi. What beautiful script Tamil is!

Not only scripts, but you’ve also been reading the relevant language’s literature as well! I can honestly say that even amongst Urdu speakers, there will not be too many individuals, in this day and age, who would have read the quantity, the quality and the variety of Urdu literature that you have! My list is most certainly quite meagre compared with yours. I would however suggest that you extend this range slightly. I notice you have not mentioned Prem Chand, Krishan Chandar, Ismat Chughtai, and Rajender Singh Bedi. I simply love Prem Chand’s short stories such as “gillii DaNDaa”, “Gham na-daarii buz bi-xar”* and “shikvah-o-shikaayat”. They are all from “vaaridaat”. After you learnt the Persian script and language, did you read any Persian literature?

I don’t know about you but I am hoping that Dib, aevynn and Illuminatus SaaHibaan as well as other friends who have learnt the Urdu script will take the trouble to describe their experiences here on learning the Urdu script. There are likely to be some shared experiences.

nasta3liiq is the writing/printing/font style that is commonly used in the Subcontinent for Urdu whereas other languages that have their script based on the Arabic script, such as Persian, normally employ the nasx font. nasta3liiq is indeed beautiful when it is done with care but in terms of additional clarity, my personal preference is for nasx but I think I am in the minority. As for handwriting, I too would struggle in Devanagri and no one seems to write letters through the post these days. So my Devanagri writing skills, sadly, are not going to be enhanced. On the other hand if you wish to write me letters in Urdu, I would reply to you in hand written format that will be legible. Let’s say, I shall take the utmost care!

What words have ت or ط
ظ ، ض ، ز or ذ
س , ص or ث
and ہ or ح, all comes from exposure and experience to the written word. And you have had more than your fair share! 

With regard to و and د, I suspect the difficulty you and others might face would be related to when they are in their separate and not joined form. I don’t disagree with your experience. I am looking at diivaan-i-Ghalib just now and in his second Ghazal, the word دود (duud- smoke) is found and the two letters could be confused. I suppose some in-built mechanism would trigger off. If you saw the word داغ, you would know it must be daaGh and not vaaGh!

You have mentioned spacing between words in Urdu printed works before. I had never thought that there was no space between words. The space is there but what is true is the width does not appear to be consistent. The modern computerised prints no doubt would have consistent spacing (e.g Inpage) but the books you’ve been reading are before the advent of these modern digital systems! ;-) Having said all this I can’t emphasise enough what I said to you in another thread and I shall repeat it here.

گوپ صاحب، مجھے کسی بھی رسم الخط میں مہارت نہیں لیکن میں اتنا کہہ سکتا ہوں کہ اردو پڑھنے والے لفظ کی شناخت اس کی مکمل شکل سے کرتے ہیں بجائے اس کے کہ ہر لفظ کے ہجّے کر کے۔ لفظوں کے درمیان وقفہ ہو یا نہ ہو۔​
I suspect the more modern printing of Urdu works is likely to have consistent spacing. marrish SaaHib and I will put our heads together to see if we can come up with a way to distinguish unambiguously the letters د and و in the nasta3liiq font

* "Gham na-daarii buz bi-xar" is the title of one of Prem Chand's Urdu short stories. It's Persian title means, "Gham nahiiN (hai) to bakrii xariid le". I won't divilge any more!


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## Au101

Gop said:


> To begin with, my mother tongue is Tamil, and the Tamil alphabet looks like this:
> Vowels 12 : அ /ஆ /இ/ ஈ /உ /ஊ/ எ/ ஏ /ஐ/ ஒ/ ஓ /ஔ  corresponding to
> अ / आ/ इ /ई /उ /ऊ /short e / ए /ऐ /short o/ ओ/ औ
> Short e and short o have no representation in Devanagari.
> Consonants 18
> க ங ச ஞ ட ண த ந ப ம ய ர ல வ
> ழ ள ற ன
> क ङ च ज्ञ ट ण त न प म य र ल व
> ழ has no equivalent sound in Sanskrit or Hindi
> ள ळ
> ற r, but described as Trill in Wikipedia. I don’t know what Trill means.. Has no equivalent in Sanskrit or Hindi
> ன न , described as alveolar in Wikipedia.



It might be worth underlining that ஐ corresponds to Sanskrit ऐ and ஔ to Sanskrit औ, in Hindi I suppose they would best be represented by अइ and अउ respectively (or आइ and आउ) wouldn't you say? I seem to remember that in colloquial speech ஐ does tend to become more of an எ, for example ஈயை may come out sounding more like ஈயெ, but not really like modern Hindi ऐ

ஞ is equivalent to ञ surely? ज्ञ as you're aware I'm sure is generally pronounced _gya_ in modern Hindi, in Sanskrit its pronunciation varied but ज्ञ and ञ were never equivalent.

A trilled _r_ is a rolled _r_, like ज़र्रा. Of course Tamil ற can also be pronounced like English t/d in places that I never did really get a handle on!

If a sound is alveolar it means it's pronounced with the tongue against the alveolar ridge, which is that hard ridge behind the back of the teeth. Indic _ts_ and _ds_ are famously dental (with the tongue touching the teeth themselves) or retroflex, with the tongue pulled back. Alveolar is somewhere between the two. Theoretically Hindi न is dental everywhere, but in reality I think it probably varies between dental and alveolar. Theoretically Tamil ந is everywhere and always dental and ன is everywhere and always alveolar. I don't know if that accurately reflects reality, but I do know native Tamil speakers who say they cannot hear the difference (but that doesn't mean they don't subconsciously pronounce the sounds differently).


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## aevynn

Qureshpor said:


> I am hoping that Dib, aevynn and Illuminatus SaaHibaan as well as other friends who have learnt the Urdu script will take the trouble to describe their experiences here on learning the Urdu script.


I don't think my thoughts really belong besides @Gop jii's, for at least two reasons: (1) I'm not really an outsider to both scripts, and (2) I'm still extremely far from Gop jii's mastery of the script. I still read Urdu haltingly at best.

But I do at least share the _intention_ of mastery, and you called me out by name, so here are my two five cents! 

First, just echoing some of the struggles that have already been pointed out above:

(1) I agree with @Gop jii and @MonsieurGonzalito that daal and waa'o are often difficult to distinguish. As @Qureshpor jii says, I have to rely on context rather than the shape of the letters to tell them apart. I also wear glasses, but the power on my glasses is not very high, so I don't think it's your "poor eyesight," @Gop jii!

(2) I am in the same minority as you, @Qureshpor jii! nasta3liiq is indeed beautiful when done with care, but I also find nasx far clearer and quicker to read, and it is also my aesthetic preference. (For the sake of comparison, I also prefer English "print" over cursive.) When I find Unicode text in Urdu on a website that I really just want to read quickly, but the website imposes a nasta3liiq font, I often go into my browser settings and enforce a nasx font... But I do try to make a deliberate effort to read in nasta3liiq sometimes and I think I'm slowly getting faster at it.

(3) My spelling when trying to write/type is _atrocious_. I never know whether to use ز/ذ/ض/ظ or س/ث/ص or ہ/ح, as @Qureshpor jii mentions, and I never know when a ع might show up in a word. I also struggle with غ/گ or ک/ق. I can usually infer about خ/کھ in spite of not making a phonological distinction, but only by making educated guesses about etymology and sometimes I'm wrong, and it's the same situation with word-final ـہ (zabar + gol he) vs ا (alif). I'm constantly having to refer to a dictionary to make sure I get spelling right when I'm trying to write/type. But again, I'm hopeful that, one day, after I've had sufficient practice, spelling will not plague me as much.

Here are two "new" things I can add:

(4) As someone who already had a sizable vocabulary before trying to acquire the script, the thing I found most difficult in the beginning stages of learning was the lack of short vowel markings. It was frustrating that it would regularly take me several tries of "inserting short vowels at random" before I recognized the words I was reading, even though it was usually a word I knew. Of course, every now and then it would be a word I _didn't_ already know, in which case this trial-and-error vowel insertion made it feel like it took me a long time just to recognize that I needed to look the word up in a dictionary!

I've gotten better at this over time. I still have to do this trial-and-error vowel insertion sometimes, but not too often. My current feeling is that probably a significant portion of the trial-and-error vowel insertion I have to do could be avoided if _just_ zer and pesh were marked on _just_ the first syllable of each word. Hopefully one day I'll feel like I don't even need this.

(5) One thing that's related to point (4), but is actually something that I've really come to _appreciate_ about Urdu orthographic conventions, is that zabar and jazm are _not_ usually marked! Given the various schwa deletions that happen in Urdu-Hindi, not distinguishing schwas from null vowels actually makes a lot of sense.

This is a point where Devanagari orthography ends up being very inconsistent. The words रस्ता ("path") and बसता ("resides") are pronounced more-or-less the same (except the initial consonant), but in one word the deleted schwa is marked and the other it is not. The second schwa in सड़क is deleted in the plural सड़कें, so again orthography does not actually indicate the deleted schwa. Of course there are _sometimes_ morphological and/or etymological reasons for Devanagari orthography making the choices that it does with regard to marking deleted schwas, but not always. For some words, like वरना / वर्ना, there are two spellings in common usage just because of this inconsistency in marking deleted schwas. Some words like अचरज [ət͡ʃ.ɾəd͡ʒ] are consistently spelled without marking the deleted schwa (for no morphological or etymological reason that's apparent to me!). There's just a lot of inconsistency in how this issue is dealt with in Devanagari orthography.

So I really like how the Urdu orthographic convention of _not_ marking zabar and jazm neatly avoids all of this confusion -- confusion that Devanagari has no good way of avoiding!


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## Au101

aevynn said:


> This is a point where Devanagari orthography ends up being very inconsistent. The words रस्ता ("path") and बसता ("resides") are pronounced more-or-less the same (except the initial consonant), but in one word the deleted schwa is marked and the other it is not. The second schwa in सड़क is deleted in the plural सड़कें, so again orthography does not actually indicate the deleted schwa. Of course there are _sometimes_ morphological and/or etymological reasons for Devanagari orthography making the choices that it does with regard to marking deleted schwas, but not always. For some words, like वरना / वर्ना, there are two spellings in common usage just because of this inconsistency in marking deleted schwas. Some words like अचरज [ət͡ʃ.ɾəd͡ʒ] are consistently spelled without marking the deleted schwa (for no morphological or etymological reason that's apparent to me!). There's just a lot of inconsistency in how this issue is dealt with in Devanagari orthography.



I think generally the reason for this is the incorporation of loanwords. If the word is a _tatsam_ borrowing from Sanskrit the Sanskrit spelling will tend to be preserved and a conjunct will be used if it is used in the Sanskrit original, even if the ordinary rules for schwa-deletion would have taken care of it. _Patnī_ is a nice example of this. पतनी would be pronounced _patnī_ but it's spelt पत्नी with a ligature because it's spelt that way in Sanskrit. Meanwhile native _tadbhav_ words would tend not to use ligatures and would allow the schwa deletion to happen in reading as it must surely have done in the language historically. We see this also particularly where endings are added to stems, as in सड़कें. As someone who has battled endlessly against Sanskrit declensions and the meticulous detail in which the phonological changes were recorded in writing, I think leaving the stem plainly visible in the spelling has its advantages!

The problem is what to do with Persian loanwords and then more recent loanwords from languages such as English and Portuguese and that's where the inconsistency starts to come in. Often we find versions with ligatures and without ligatures existing side-by-side, as in पर्दा and परदा. The ligature-less form is particularly likely to be preferred in cases like गरम and उमर which are the more likely Hindi pronunciations of Persian _garm _and _umr_. But I mean that's not necessarily a problem, it's just variant spellings. In the way that some English writers will spell the word 'standardise' with an 's' and others will spell it wrong! 

What I find intensely bizarre as a Sanskritist, however, is when a Sanskrit word which ends in CCV (like _janma_) is subject to Hindi schwa deletion giving _janm_ which often (see the above paragraph) gets turned into _jan*a*m_. We then have a word spelt with a ligature but pronounced with a vowel: जन्म. The biscuit is then taken in the word जन्मदिन _janamdin_ where there is a ligature between the _n_ and _m_ and yet the _a_ vowel is pronounced, but no ligature between the _m_ and the _d_ and yet the _a_ is deleted! I mean I don't mind at all, but brags about how Hindi spelling is perfectly logical and you just say what you see ought to be reigned in I fear!



aevynn said:


> So I really like how the Urdu orthographic convention of _not_ marking zabar and jazm neatly avoids all of this confusion -- confusion that Devanagari has no good way of avoiding!



In fairness I don't think that's something _Devanagari_ has no good way of avoiding. Hindi could go the way of its Sanskrit forebear and use ligatures and the _virāma_ consistently in the spelling and write the full letter only when the _a_ is to be pronounced (which is how _Devanagari_ was designed to work), it's just that it finds no real need to do so.


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## aevynn

Au101 said:


> In fairness I don't think that's something _Devanagari_ has no good way of avoiding. Hindi could go the way of its Sanskrit forebear and use ligatures and the _virāma_ consistently in the spelling and write the full letter only when the _a_ is to be pronounced (which is how _Devanagari_ was designed to work), it's just that it finds no real need to do so.


Even if Hindi went that route, there would be still be the problem that you pointed out here (and that I also tried to note in slightly different words):


Au101 said:


> As someone who has battled endlessly against Sanskrit declensions and the meticulous detail in which the phonological changes were recorded in writing, I think leaving the stem plainly visible in the spelling has its advantages!





aevynn said:


> Of course there are _sometimes_ *morphological* and/or etymological reasons for Devanagari orthography making the choices that it does...


Anyway, I completely agree that etymology, morphology, and pronunciation are all three legitimate things for an orthography to take into consideration. My point behind the "no good way of avoiding" statement was just that it seems to me that the structure of Devanagari plus the fact that certain schwas are deleted[^1] in UH forces a conflict between etymology/morphology and pronunciation when HU is written down in Devanagari. Urdu orthography can and does neatly avoid this particular conflict just by not marking zabars and jazms.

[^1]: I'm using the word "deleted" ambiguously to mean both synchronically as in सड़क سڑک -> सड़कें سڑکیں as well as diachronically as in Sanskrit naraka -> HU नरक نرک (lost final schwa).



Au101 said:


> brags about how Hindi spelling is perfectly logical and you just say what you see ought to be reigned in





Au101 said:


> But I mean that's not necessarily a problem, it's just variant spellings.


I wholeheartedly agree with both of these points!



Au101 said:


> In the way that some English writers will spell the word 'standardise' with an 's' and others will spell it wrong!


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## Qureshpor

aevynn said:


> (3) My spelling when trying to write/type is _atrocious_. I never know whether to use ز/ذ/ض/ظ or س/ث/ص or ہ/ح, as @Qureshpor jii mentions, and I never know when a ع might show up in a word. I also struggle with غ/گ or ک/ق. I can usually infer about خ/کھ in spite of not making a phonological distinction, but only by making educated guesses about etymology and sometimes I'm wrong, and it's the same situation with word-final ـہ (zabar + gol he) vs ا (alif). I'm constantly having to refer to a dictionary to make sure I get spelling right when I'm trying to write/type. But again, I'm hopeful that, one day, after I've had sufficient practice, spelling will not plague me as much.
> 
> Here are two "new" things I can add:
> 
> (4) As someone who already had a sizable vocabulary before trying to acquire the script, the thing I found most difficult in the beginning stages of learning was the lack of short vowel markings. It was frustrating that it would regularly take me several tries of "inserting short vowels at random" before I recognized the words I was reading, even though it was usually a word I knew. Of course, every now and then it would be a word I _didn't_ already know, in which case this trial-and-error vowel insertion made it feel like it took me a long time just to recognize that I needed to look the word up in a dictionary!
> 
> I've gotten better at this over time. I still have to do this trial-and-error vowel insertion sometimes, but not too often. My current feeling is that probably a significant portion of the trial-and-error vowel insertion I have to do could be avoided if _just_ zer and pesh were marked on _just_ the first syllable of each word. Hopefully one day I'll feel like I don't even need this.
> 
> (5) One thing that's related to point (4), but is actually something that I've really come to _appreciate_ about Urdu orthographic conventions, is that zabar and jazm are _not_ usually marked! Given the various schwa deletions that happen in Urdu-Hindi, not distinguishing schwas from null vowels actually makes a lot of sense.
> 
> So I really like how the Urdu orthographic convention of _not_ marking zabar and jazm neatly avoids all of this confusion -- confusion that Devanagari has no good way of avoiding!


3) and 4) @aevynn Jii, as I have mentioned in my response to Gope SaaHib (# 3), exposure and experience will tell you whether it is ہل a plough or حل a solution; zulm is ظلم, zaruur is ضرور, zaraa is ذرا and zabardast is زبردست.

Any word that has ث as in saabit, ح as in Halvaa'ii, ص as in sanduuq, ض as in zamaanat, ط as in taaqat, ظ as in Zafar (proper name), zaahir, ع as in 3ainak, sham3 (candle), shuruu3, rafii3 (MuHammad Rafii3 - the greatest male singer of the Subcontinent) is of Arabic origins. خ, ذ , ز, ف and ق are common to both Arabic and Persian where as ژ is of Persian origin (and is also found in English words such as Television). پ, چ and گ are common to KhaRii-Bolii and Persian. All the retroflexes and aspirated consonants are from KhaRii-Bolii and the rest are common to KhaRii-Bolii, Arabic and Persian.

Furthermore, without wishing to go into Persian and Arabic grammar, if one becomes familiar with certain word pattererns, it is easy to remember the vowels within those words, e.g zaalim, naasir, shaa3ir, qaatil etc are all on the pattern of cvvcvc where c = consonant, v = vowel. These are all active participles. Their passive participles are mazluum, mansuur, mash3uur (not common), maqtuul is on the pattern of cvccvvc.

Similarly in Persian we have the active participle ending in "-indah" as in darindah (phaaRne vaalaa), charindah (charne vaalaa), parindah (uRne vaalaa), kunindah (karne vaalaa) etc and the passive participle ends in "-ah" as in "dariid-ah" (phaaRaa hu'aa), "shikast-ah" (defeated/broken) etc

Just looking at a Ghazal of Ghalib (phir mujhe diidah-i-tar yaad aayaa), the first few words that one could term as relatively unfamiliar are نیرنگ, عذر and خلد. I as a reader know that the words are 3uzr, nairang and xuld. But if you don't know, I am afraid a dictionary such as Urdu LuGhat would be the best reference point to turn to.

You don't know how beneficial short vowel-less Urdu can be. I could write علاوہ without worrying about the vowel on the 3 but if I am writing in Roman and have committed the unforgivable error of writing "3alaavah", Alfaaz SaaHib would be down my throat immediately, telling me that it should be "3ilaavah"!

ورنہ varnah by the way is from the Persian "va agar nah" (and if not) where agar has been shortened to just an "r". In poetry we do get agar > gar but agar ending up just as an "r" is extreme to say the least.


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## Gop

Au101 said:


> ஞ is equivalent to ञ surely? ज्ञ as you're aware I'm sure is generally pronounced _gya_ in modern Hindi, in Sanskrit its pronunciation varied but ज्ञ and ञ were never equivalent.


Of course as you say in Sanskrit झ and ञ are never equivalent.
When I put down ज्ञ for the Tamil ஞ, I was not aware of having done so!  I should have put down ஞ as ञ/ज्ञ, because in Tamil, the word पञ्च, and the word ज्ञान are both written using ஞ. As:
पञ्च பஞ்ச as in पञ्चमी
ज्ञान ஞான as in ज्ञानम्
But in Sanskrit, you cannot write *ञानम्.


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## Au101

Gop said:


> Of course as you say in Sanskrit झ and ञ are never equivalent.
> When I put down ज्ञ for the Tamil ஞ, I was not aware of having done so!  I should have put down ஞ as ञ/ज्ञ, because in Tamil, the word पञ्च, and the word ज्ञान are both written using ஞ. As:
> पञ्च பஞ்ச as in पञ्चमी
> ज्ञान ஞான as in ज्ञानम्
> But in Sanskrit, you cannot write *ञानम्.


Very interesting. Sanskrit ज्ञ is of course etymologically _j_ + _ñ_. I believe I've encountered pronunciations as varied as _gya, gna, _and _gña_, but I think its original pronunciation would have been as spelt. I read somewhere once (can't find it now) a description of this sound that described it as being quite similar to ژ + ञ which I find quite a convincing possibility. Regardless I think that accounts for Sanskrit ज्ञान becoming ஞான. Mind you I hadn't really realised that Sanskrit ज्ञ could become Tamil ஞ, so thank you very much for the correction to my slight correction! Nevertheless, I think really ஞ is better described as equivalent to ञ, as in பஞ்ச, also ஞாயிறு, etc. I would rather say that Sanskrit _jña_ becomes _ña_ in Tamil (a bit like Sanskrit _rāma_ becomes _rāman_ in Tamil) than that ज्ञ and ஞ are equivalent letters.


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## Qureshpor

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> For what it's worth, ا also find it terribly annoying.
> View attachment 67667


It looks 100% clear in the example that you have provided. I see the word as Urdu (urduu) and nothing else.


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## Qureshpor

It’s a pity that the discussion has veered more towards Tamil and Sanskrit sound systems than other friends taking the opportunity to express their experiences of learning Urdu and its script.


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## Au101

Qureshpor said:


> It’s a pity that the discussion has veered more towards Tamil and Sanskrit sound systems than other friends taking the opportunity to express their experiences of learning Urdu and its script.


My apologies for that Qureshpor. I hope you'll forgive the sheer cheek for deflecting the blame back towards your good self, but it was actually your expressed admiration for the Tamil script that prompted me to expand a little on Gop's original post.

Let's see if I can redeem myself a little bit.

For reasons I'll not go into here, when I was around 15 I actually began trying to learn Tamil. Not having a teacher, nor any obvious means of finding one, I tried looking around online to see what I could find. And, alas, woe was me, almost at once I discovered that I couldn't even read it! Oh no! So that was step 1, wasn't it? Or step 0.5 perhaps? Despite not really understanding the difference between _n &_ _ṇ_ and _t & ṭ _I slowly but surely got a handle on it, with the help of some painstakingly put together homemade powerpoints that I was using as flashcards.

Well sadly my Tamil now is not really any better than it was when I was 14  but the experience did give me a great interest in different scripts and writing systems. Many was the dull hour spent in English lessons (at the very front of the class, no less!) comparing Tamil and Hindi writing with my friend who sat next to me, doodling all over the poetry anthology that I was supposed to be paying attention to. Of course it wasn't long before I started trying to learn Devanagari as well, and this is what I found.

Already knowing Tamil gave me a huge head-start as I understood the principles of abugidas - I already knew how Devanagari worked. What Tamil couldn't prepare me for, and what caused me hours of pain and suffering (  ) was the ligatures/conjuncts and the dreaded schwa deletion.

In Tamil there are no ligatures to speak of (there are two, but they're not for native Tamil words and are easily learned as separate letters, much like क्ष which is actually one of the ligatures in Tamil). Instead a dot above the consonant called the _puḷḷi _is used, so Devanagari conjuncts were a big shock. Although nowadays I am very familiar with the logic and principles of them and can easily recognise (and generally remember how to make in handwriting) even complicated ligatures, back then I spent hours pouring over tables of combinations looking for ones that struck me as not obvious.

Now schwa deletion was a very big problem for me learning the _script_ purely as a script. Until (many years later) I came across the rule of thumb that says an _a_ in the sequence VC_a_CV will generally be deleted, as far as I could see there was no way of knowing how a word would be read (and therefore how to transcribe it) unless I actually learned Hindi. Of course the situation isn't nearly as bad as it is in English, but it led to many mistakes in the little transcription exercises I used to do for practice, such as writing (in good faith!) _xūbasūrat _as I knew no better! In Tamil this is not a problem at all, as there is no schwa deletion. Furthermore there isn't really such a discrepancy between spelling and pronunciation. It's true that modern colloquial Tamil doesn't quite accord to the spelling everywhere (the rules of which were laid down for a much older and more rarefied form of the language) but even if நான் may be pronounced as नां, transcribing it as _nāṉ_ (exactly how it is spelt) is really the only option.

As for Urdu, despite knowing _nasx_ for Arabic tolerably well, I haven't dared hit my head against the peculiar and fascinating and certainly beautiful obstacle of _nasta3liiq_. Despite that, with my _nasx _and extremely basic knowledge of Hindi, I flatter myself that I can usually work out the words that I know when written in Urdu in _nasx _(as on this forum) and I do enjoy trying to work out the words in the Urdu thread titles. I find it's not too bad trying to guess which vowels and where and where there are no vowels at all. Of course the existence of _baṛī ye_ is a great help (I bring this up as it means there aren't too many vowels represented by the same consonant letter and the same consonant letter does not represent too many vowels). However, obviously if I don't know the word (which is usually the case) I'm pretty stuffed. And I suspect if I knew more words I'd make more mistakes, as I'd be able to guess in more places and therefore get more words wrong!


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## Alfaaz

Qureshpor said:
			
		

> You don't know how beneficial short vowel-less Urdu can be. I could write علاوہ without worrying about the vowel on the 3 but if I am writing in Roman and have committed the unforgivable error of writing "3alaavah", Alfaaz SaaHib would be down my throat immediately, telling me that it should be "3ilaavah"!


On a lighter note: If I were as attentive and strict as marrish SaaHib sometimes is, I could have gone one step further and pointed out the difference between "v" and "w"!  (For new forum members/readers who might not have understood the lighthearted reference or senior members who might not remember, the quote below serves as an example.)


marrish said:


> Taking the lyrics of the song into account I have to say that you are right, _garvaa_ or rather *garwaa* is the correct pronunciation.





			
				Qureshpor said:
			
		

> MonsieurGonzalito said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Gop said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> inability to always distinguish between و and د (vao and dal).
> 
> 
> 
> For what it's worth, ا also find it terribly annoying.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> It looks 100% clear in the example that you have provided. I see the word as Urdu (urduu) and nothing else.
Click to expand...

On a more serious note: It seems that more than _daal _and _waa'o_, a connected _daal _and _raa2/re_ can be difficult for learners to decipher in certain _nasta3liiq _fonts. Example: استدراک in Urdu Lughat's current font.


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## Qureshpor

Thank you @Au101 for your detailed response covering your quest for learning the Tamil and Devanagari scripts as well as touching on the Urdu script. To be honest with you, I didn’t have any particular person in mind for discussing the finer points of Tamil and Sanskrit phonetics but it seems I was the catalyst!😀

Now that I have used a chemical terminology (catalyst), perhaps you would be kind enough to answer a couple of questions.

1. Is your forum name in any way connected with the chemical symbol for gold, i.e Au?

2. Are you a scholar of Sanskrit language?


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## Au101

Qureshpor said:


> 1. Is your forum name in any way connected with the chemical symbol for gold, i.e Au?
> 
> 2. Are you a scholar of Sanskrit language?



It is yes, well deduced. I used to be quite into chemistry at one time.

I have a BA in Sanskrit & Linguistics but that was a while ago and a joint bachelor's degree is barely an introduction. I'm a mere amateur compared to someone like Dib, but I did study it formally yes. And indeed it was in some ways my earlier study of Devanagari that opened the door to Sanskrit. I mean you can't learn Devanagari without coming across Sanskrit now can you?


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## Qureshpor

Au101 said:


> It is yes, well deduced. I used to be quite into chemistry at one time.
> 
> I have a BA in Sanskrit & Linguistics but that was a while ago and a joint bachelor's degree is barely an introduction. I'm a mere amateur compared to someone like Dib, but I did study it formally yes. And indeed it was in some ways my earlier study of Devanagari that opened the door to Sanskrit. I mean you can't learn Devanagari without coming across Sanskrit now can you?


Thank you Au101 SaaHib/Jii for responding to my queries. From what little I know and having seen your posts, you are being utterly humble. Let’s hope Dib Jii enlightens us with his experiences of learning the Urdu script. He probably learnt  the Persian script first.


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## Qureshpor

Qureshpor said:


> You don't know how beneficial short vowel-less Urdu can be. I could write علاوہ without worrying about the vowel on the 3 but if I am writing in Roman and have committed the unforgivable error of writing "3alaavah", Alfaaz SaaHib would be down my throat immediately, telling me that it should be "3ilaavah"!





Alfaaz said:


> On a lighter note: If I were as attentive and strict as marrish SaaHib sometimes is, I could have gone one step further and pointed out the difference between "v" and "w"!  (For new forum members/readers who might not have understood the lighthearted reference or senior members who might not remember, the quote below serves as an example.)


A quote from زبان اور قواعد از رشید حسن خان أ صفحہ 216

علاوہ: آصفیہ میں بہ کسرِ اول ہے۔ یہ اصل کے مطابق ہے مگر اردو والے صرف بہ فتحِ اول استعمال کرتے ہیں اور اردو میں اِسی ظرح صحیح مانا جائے گا۔

I don't think Urdu و is neither v or w but I prefer to write it with a v.


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## Alfaaz

Qureshpor said:
			
		

> A quote from زبان اور قواعد از رشید حسن خان أ صفحہ 216
> 
> علاوہ: آصفیہ میں بہ کسرِ اول ہے۔ یہ اصل کے مطابق ہے مگر اردو والے صرف بہ فتحِ اول استعمال کرتے ہیں اور اردو میں اِسی ظرح صحیح مانا جائے گا۔
> 
> I don't think Urdu و is neither v or w but I prefer to write it with a v.


The topics aren't relevant to this thread, so I'll only present some opinions briefly. 

Quote regarding علاوہ: This again goes back to the discussion we've had in the forum as well as via PM about deciding on which position to take when a scholar presents an opinion like this. You had said that we can use our own بھیجا as well. The scholar's assertion that اردو والے صرف بہ فتحِ اول استعمال کرتے ہیں does not seem accurate, as there are many examples of speakers that still use the مکسور pronunciation. However, there doesn't seem to be a problem with allowing the مفتوح pronunciation - considering it might have become quite "مروج".

Transliteration of و: I was just trying to reply to your humorous comment in a humorous manner. I hope it wasn't viewed negatively.


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## Qureshpor

In the links given below Urdu script came into discussion and may be relevant to this thread.

Urdu: Changed pronunciation of some Arabic letters

Urdu: Alphabet

Urdu: baRii yeh long-short?

Urdu, Hindi: Transliteration Conflict

Urdu-Hindi: Urdu and Devanagri Scripts-A Brief Comparison

Persian / Urdu: The letter qaaf ق

All gendered IIR languages: gender of letters of alphabet and of numbers

Urdu in Devanagari Script

Urdu, Hindi: Indic F-words

Urdu: How do you distinguish between different h sounds هـ، ح

Urdu: Diacritic marks

Urdu-Hindi: Use of iDhaafat / izaafat

Urdu: Script: nasta3liiq or nasx

Hindi /Urdu: Arabic script in Hindi

Urdu, Hindi: Indic Z words

Urdu: Filhaal فی الحال


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