# All Indo-Iranian Languages: secular, secularism



## marrish

Hello to all,

In accordance with the recent political developments in India, I would like to ask you about a specific word that appeared in an article I was reading today on the BBC Urdu service.

Here is the sentence: کہیں یہ ملک *سیکیولر* جمہوریت کی جگہ ایک ہندو جمہوریت میں تو نہیں تبدیل ہو رہا ؟۔
Transliteration as follows: कहीं यिह् मुल्क् *सेक्यूलर्* जुम्हूरिय्यत् की जगह् एक् हिन्दू जुम्हूरिय्यत् में तो नहीं तब्दील् हो रहा? *it's Urdu written in Nagari, not Hindi, I am of course aware of some divergent writing conventions in Hindi.
यिह् = यह
मुल्क् = देश
जुम्हूरिय्यत् = गणराज्य
तब्दील् = बदल

As you can see, there is an English-origin adjective having been employed. I would like to have this sentence without it.

I have absolutely no idea what kind of Hindi word would do justice to "*secular*" but for Urdu I can only say that I am aware of the word "*laa-diinii" لا دینی* but I am absolutely not content with it. I also feel quite uneasy with the thought that there would be no Urdu or Hindi word for "secular" and one would have to rely on the English loan.

Any suggestions, friends?


----------



## Chhaatr

^ The word in Hindi is _dharm nirpeksh _and is commonly used in the media and elsewhere.


----------



## marrish

You hit the bull's eye! Thank you so much indeed. We've got the perfect answer so we can close the Hindi chapter now and proceed to Urdu.


----------



## Qureshpor

"*mazhab-darkinaar*" mamaalik xvud ko "secular" zaahir to karte haiN lekiN yih ek DhoNg hai


----------



## marrish

Quite a revelation, QP SaaHib. Directly intelligible but a neologism I think.


----------



## Qureshpor

marrish said:


> Quite a revelation, QP SaaHib. Directly intelligible but a neologism I think.


You are right. Other possibilities..."mazhab-paak", "mazhab-aazaad".


----------



## marrish

_ba3iid az mazhab; mazhab se 3alaaHidah, mazhab se xaalii_... 

I consulted three dictionaries and am totally disappointed because all of them give "_Ghair-mazhabii_, _laa-diinii_" which I believe is a total flop. One glossary from 1940 has "secularisation" - دُنیوی بنانا on basis of which we can have _dunyavii_ for "secular" and it is a far better word than _laa-diinii_. I'm glad though that we are progressing in a similar direction.


----------



## eskandar

How about ghayr-mazhabii ? This phrase turned up some relevant-seeming results when Googled.


----------



## Sheikh_14

Other options would be mazhab-alag as opposed to alag mazhab which would just suggest that one is of another religion, mazhab-3alaahidah or even az mazhab-alag/3alaahidah.


----------



## littlepond

"_Ghair-mazhabii_" is actually very close, or rather a perfect fit, to what secularism actually means: separation of state from the Church. Of course, South Asian societies have invented their own concept of secularism, which translates well through Hindi "dharm nirpekshataa".


----------



## Sheikh_14

I just feel ghair-mazhabii is used very lightly in the sense that someone is not very religious. Naa-mazhab or mazhabii is unambiguously slotted in being separated from religion altogether. Usually ghair is used in a softer sense to laa and naa, laa being the strongest pre-fix of the three.


----------



## fdb

I am surprised that you do not say dunyawī دنيوى as in (modern) Arabic. Or ʻālamī عالمى. ʻālam is in fact the exact Arabic equivalent of Latin saeculum.


----------



## Sheikh_14

Dunyaawii would make sense to any Urdu speaker. Thank you for lending your two cents by confirming Arabic usage of dunyaawii as secular, it only serves to re-inforce one's liking and partiality for the word, in this context.


----------



## marrish

Might someone be so kind as to say which words are used in Bengali for "secular" and "secularism"? It's a hot topic unfortunately nowadays in Bangladesh.


----------



## littlepond

Sheikh_14 said:


> I just feel ghair-mazhabii is used very lightly in the sense that someone is not very religious. Naa-mazhab or mazhabii is unambiguously slotted in being separated from religion altogether. Usually ghair is used in a softer sense to laa and naa, laa being the strongest pre-fix of the three.



Well, I am not an expert on Urdu, so I will take your opinion. I always thought that "ghair" means not "anti-" but "outside of". That's why I thought "ghair-mazhabii" fits well: the scope of religion [Church] and state don't overlap. Note that this is the non-South Asian definition of secularism.


----------



## Sheikh_14

In that regard, you are correct which is why laa-mazhab & naa mazhab is something you'd associate with atheism and ghair mazhabi is merely not religious. A secular form of rule entails not being partial or associated to any one religion. Therefore, ghair-mazhabii is fine as it isn't in the least offensive.


----------



## littlepond

marrish said:


> Might someone be so kind as to say which words are used in Bengali for "secular" and "secularism"? It's a hot topic unfortunately nowadays in Bangladesh.



I think, marrish jii, you may need to ask forum moderators to also include Bengali in the title, so that Dib jii and other Bengali experts can also contribute.


----------



## littlepond

Sheikh_14 said:


> In that regard, you are correct which is why laa-mazhab & naa mazhab is something you'd associate with atheism and ghair mazhabi is merely not religious. A secular form of rule entails not being partial or associated to any one religion. Therefore, ghair-mazhabii is fine as it isn't in the least offensive.



Thanks a lot for the confirmation, Sheikh jii: that is what I suspected earlier.


----------



## marrish

I'm beginning to lean towards "Ghair mazhabii" as discussed by you in the recent posts. Yet to find an instance of it being used that way, which would nicely add it some support.

@littlepond jii and @Dib and others, I've requested broadening up of this discussion to Bengali as well.


----------



## littlepond

I think, marrish jii, that it would be difficult to find the usage of "ghair mazhabii" in the sense of "secular" because the meaning of "secular" itself in South Asia is very different from the "real" meaning of the word. In South Asia, "secularism" is used to mean equal respect towards all religions, whereas in most of the remaining world, it means separation of the profane from the sacred, of the worldly from the spiritual, more particularly of the Church from the State. The French and Turkish states (especially as originally envisaged by Ataturk) are prime examples of secular states in their original (Western) sense. So if you were to discuss, let's say, France using Urdu or Hindi, "ghair mazhabii", in my opinion, would be the best choice: but it would not be an appropriate choice for India, for example. And the Hindi "dharmnirpeksh" can apply to Indian state but not to France.


----------



## PersoLatin

We don't translate 'little' as 'not great', so why use 'qeyre-mazhabi' which is 'non-religious', when there's a perfect word for secular, in dunyawi-دنيوى (as fdb has already said) or donyâii -دنيايى. Not only does دنيوى means secular, it is 'secular' by the fact that it doesn't contain the word 'religion' in it.


----------



## littlepond

By the way, marrish jii, an NGO is often called as a "gair-sanskaarii sanstha" in Hindi: I like it much more than the English "_non_-governmental org." An NGO is not controlled by the govt. - outside of govt.'s scope of administration, but the English "non-" is ambiguous. English, unfortunately, doesn't have a "g(h)air", so it has to make do with "non-".


----------



## gagun

There were better suggestions from other members in Hindi and Urdu, here *लौकिक* is other word which I would suggest as I am not aware about perfect word in Hindi


----------



## Dib

marrish said:


> Might someone be so kind as to say which words are used in Bengali for "secular" and "secularism"? It's a hot topic unfortunately nowadays in Bangladesh.



Sorry, I missed this question before. I am somewhat irregular on the Hindi-Urdu vocabulary threads, and noticed it only after the target language was changed.

The usual Bengali words are same as Hindi - of course with the usual differences in pronunciation: dhɔrmo-niropekkho(-ta)/ধর্মনিরপেক্ষ(-তা)| This is the word used in case of political systems, separation of state and church, etc. However, there is a core philosophical difference from the Western understanding of secularism/laïcité_._ dhɔrmo-niropekkhota does not _necessarily _imply being devoid of or disconnected from religion. It only means that acts of the government, etc. are unbiased towards all religions.* As a result, this word doesn't sound nice to me in contexts like "secular literature", etc. I cannot think of a standard expression for that concept. I'll think a bit, maybe I'll find something.** 

* oops, just noticed that littlepond had already pointed this out.

----

**EDIT: Well, even after some reflexion, no standard expressions come to my mind for this sense of "secular". So, for "Karbi has a rich tradition of secular literature", I'd most likely say something like this: "কার্বি সাহিত্যে ধর্ম ব্যতীত অন্যান্য বিষয়বস্তুর‌ আলোচনারও অত্যন্ত সমৃদ্ধ ঐতিহ্য বিদ্যমান" / "karbi sahitte dhɔrmo bætito onnanno bisɔybostur alochonar-o ottonto sɔmriddho oitijjho biddoman", i.e. literally: "A very rich tradition of discussion of subject-matters other than religion is also present in Karbi literature." In addition, I again realized how incorrigibly Sanskritized our formal parlance has become. Except for the particle -o (also), the ethnonym Karbi and the case endings -e, -r, all the content words in that sentence are Sanskrit loans, and yet it sounds so natural!


----------



## mundiya

Dib said:


> As a result, this word doesn't sound nice to me in contexts like "secular literature", etc. I cannot think of a standard expression for that concept. I'll think a bit, maybe I'll find something.**



Can "laukik" be used in this context in Bengali? In Hindi, secular literature is "laukik saahitya".


----------



## littlepond

Personally speaking, I would never use "dunyawi" or "laukik", which translate more to "worldly", as "secular", as this Cartesian distinction between what is "worldly" and what is not also is a very Western style of thinking, even if translating Western texts, for one is propagating a wrong idea/stereotype through a wrongly well established usage. Why and how is a religion not "worldly"?


----------



## Dib

mundiya said:


> Can "laukik" be used in this context in Bengali? In Hindi, secular literature is "laukik saahitya".



In Bengali, "loukik sahitto" would most likely be interpreted as "folk-literature", though the standard term for that concept is "lok(o)-sahitto". In fact, Bengali regularly uses terms like "loukik dhɔrmo", "loukik deb-debi", etc. for "folk religion", "folk deities", etc. So, it won't work in signaling dissociation from religion. In general, Bengali "lok" simply means "people" or "person" or "man" depending on context (you probably know the term "bhɔdro-lok"?), and the chief Sanskrit meaning of "world" is limited to specialized contexts.* Similarly, "loukik" in Bengali normally signals that something is characteristic of the masses, whether religious or not.

My first instinct for a Bengali counterpart of this sense of "secular" was "oihik" (= Sanskrit "aihika"). But I quickly realized (and edited it out of my post #24) that it really means "worldly". So, basically the same objection as what littlepond has against Hindi "laukik":



littlepond said:


> Personally speaking, I would never use "dunyawi" or "laukik", which translate more to "worldly", as "secular"...



-------

*EDIT: This connotion of "lok(a)" is, however, not completely unknown in Hindi or Sanskrit. Hindi has, e.g. lok-tantra for "democracy" (i.e. rule of the people), which, interestingly, in Bengali is "gɔno-tɔntro", i.e. using Sanskrit gaNRa (गण) rather than loka.


----------



## Sheikh_14

Perso janaab, the following is Oxford dictionary's first certified definition of secular in today's world:

1Not connected with religious or spiritual matters

Thence, Dunyaawii is correct as it favours the worldly instead of the spiritual realm. However, so is ghair mazhabii, since it simply means non-religious as you have indicated yourself. Laa mazhab and laa diin are extreme terms which relate to agnosticism and are inimical to religion. Whereas ghair-mazhabii simply means being respectful of religions but not being fanatical or devout.
I guess we can all agree that ghair mazhabii translates to non religious and not atheistic. In terms of atheism we would turn to harsher prefixes in laa or naa. Whilst holding secular opinions means exactly holding ghair mazhabii opinions. Dunyaawii especially in religious circles takes on a far more derogatory tag than ghair mazhabii for one suggests complete ignorance and the other refers to half-hearted religiosity


----------

