# Urdu: words for wife and husband



## lcfatima

Who is the man of the khaavand? Also, please write the word khaavand for me in nastaliq for me and break down the morphemes if you will.


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## Cilquiestsuens

I don't get your question Khawand is a man....


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## lcfatima

Oops, I thought khaawand is the wife. So who is the wife of the khaavand then?


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## Illuminatus

Is _Khawatoon _the female form?
I am not sure. This is the only Urdu word I know that is similar to _Khavand_.
Please correct me if I am wrong.


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## panjabigator

<khavatiin> means women and is the plural for <khaatuun>.  Don't know if that's the word you refer mean.


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## Cilquiestsuens

Khaavand in Urdu mean husband... Khaatoon is more woman than wife...

I guess we'll have to wait for faylasoof sb. to tell us what is the feminine equivalent of khaawand...

I would myself vote for Begum a polite term for wife (although, etimologically, it is the feminine of Beg), I'm surprised that there are more words for the husband in Urdu than for the wife.. ????

Miyâ.N    >      Bîwî
Shohar   >       Khaatoon ????
Khaawand >     Begum ????

Can any one correct this list


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## lcfatima

Begum and badshah go together too, begum baghair badshah kis kaam ka?---I think that is in a deck of cards. But yes, it is the feminine of baig.

Also, Khan and Khanum. They don't mean husband and wife of course, but I know some Khan men call their wives Khanum (my husband calls me begum, though).

I think Khatoon goes with mard. I have heard people refer to a husband as "iska marad" (adding a second syllable to mard), which really means man, but the connotation is husband.


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## panjabigator

Wife- joru

I don't know its pairing, though.


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## Illuminatus

_Joru
_Hmm, there was a movie by the name _Joru ka gulaam!_


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## panjabigator

I was thinking of that one too.


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## Faylasoof

Doostaan-e-‘azeez Iluminatus, Cilquiestsuens, lcfatima, panjabigator,

I’ve been rather tardy and do apologize. Due to work pressure was not able to take part in this earlier. Hope you don’t mind if I reply to you all more or less together as many of your contributions are interconnected. Sorry if your names get jumbled around but will try to mention them where I can. .


Illuninatus, _Khaatoon _= _Bibi_ = Lady, but we do not use _khaatoon _to mean wife in Urdu so it won’t be used as the feminine equivalent of _khaavand_. This word is used quite normally instead of _bibi _to mean_ lady_, e,g, woh ik bahut paakeezah khaatoon theeN = She was a very chaste woman / lady (funnily in English “chaste woman” would be enough, rather than using “lady” here which might seem something of an overkill to the English). 

The reason for using _khaatoon_ in this way is perhaps entirely due to the usage of _bibi_ itself, as below:

The word _bibi _is used as a mark of respect so used to refer to one’s wife rather than the more literal _biwi_. But you can very often hear people use _bibi _and _biwi_ interchangeably, sometimes even in the same sentence. These two can be used as: 

_woh saahibah onki bibi / biwi hain_ (formal – very polite)
[that lady is his wife]

_woh aurat oski bibi / biwi hai_ (informal – impolite)
[ that woman is his wife]

In fact, in the above context I’ve heard _bibi _a lot more than _biwi_!
Interestingly, _khaatoon_ is less used than its plural _khawaateen_. The latter is often paired with _hazraat_ (plural of _hazrat_), as _khawaateen o hazraat_ = ladies and gentlemen. Apart from this, _khawaateen _is also used by itself to mean “women in general”, in polite form, rather than _aurteiN_ . So you may hear: khawaateen ki yeh yeh khusoosiyaat heiN = these are the characteristics of women = aurtooN ki yeh yeh khusoosiyaat heiN 

Both, _bibi_ and _khaatoon_, are also specifically used in Urdu for revered / religious female figures. So in Urdu poetry _and_ prose, the daughter of our prophet is always referred to as _Bibi Fatimah_ and one of her titles is _Khaatoon-e-Jannat_. Here both words have an especially reverential usage, and mean respectively, Lady Fatimah and The Lady of Paradise. 

Cilquiestsuens, in middle and high register Urdu _shauhar_ is much more common than _khaavand_, both words are of Farsi origin. Actually, the use of khaavand is more common amongst the Farsi speakers of Indo-Pak..
BTW, you are right to say that “Khaatoon is more woman than wife”, as I explain above

*So, to complete your list: *

Miyâ.N <> Bîwî
Shohar <> Bibi, Zaujah, Biwi 
Khaawand <> Bibi, Zaujah
Saahab <> Saahiba, Bibi, Begum, Begum Saahiba
Aagha = Agha <> Khaanam (really only for Farsi speakers)
(..and of course, mard <> aurat) 

Lcfatima (and Cilquiestsuens), you are correct that begum is the feminine of baig / beg and khaanam is the feminine of khaan = khan. All of Turko-Mongol origin. In Urdu _begum_ is used as I show above, and means Mrs. / wife. 

The use of _marad_ = mard = man = husband, is only by the uneducated. That why I find it so odd when I hear the following Dutch sentences:

Hij is mijn man = He is my man i.e.husband OR Zij is mijn vrouw = She is my woman i.e. wife. Well, they were mostly farmers until recently!!

Panjabigator, I think in Urdu _joru _is not used. I certainly haven’t heard this from fellow speakers. But the word does get used by less educated people. I too remember that film 

Ciao.


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## Cilquiestsuens

I have word the word  Joru in the following idiomatic expression (proverb?):

*Kaan pyaare to baaliyaa.N*
*Joru pyaarii to saaliyaa.N*


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## Faylasoof

Oh! I never said that it didn’t exist as such. I mean you just don’t hear it used in common speech. Use in proverbs or a simile is a different matter.

So, you _do not_ hear educated people say_: aapki joru aur bachche khairiyat se hein_?

It’ll be more like: _aapki ahliyah / bibi/ zaujah aur bachche khairiyat se hein?_
That exact choice of the Urdu word for wife will depend on whether the it is a formal or slightly less formal address.

Correction: In my post above, I would prefer to use the phonetically more accurate “Shauhar’ rather than “_Shohar_” .

BTW, I forgot to mention that another Urdu word for wife is _ahliyah_. In fact, it is used more than, say, _zaujah_. Good word!


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## UrduMedium

Interesting thread_. khaatuun _is actually of Mongol (and later Turkic) origin. Many of the Mongol women of influence in history had this as part of their name (e.g. Toregene Khatun, Emperor Ogodie's queen). So, in a way _Khan _and _Khaatuun _go together. I believe, _Khaanam _is the Persianized form of _Khaatuun, _and also goes with Khan.


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## Sheikh_14

What would the masculine of ahliyah be any alliteration friendly word there? Btw is there one for Shah the king I.e. a feminine word rather than having to go for maha rani and the arabic malika?


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## Qureshpor

Sheikh SaaHib (agar aap buraa nah maaneN)..if there was a prize for a person who loves going off on a tangent, you must be the most worthy recipient!

I don't know of a masculine equivalent for "ahliyah". Neither am I sure about the Persian word for a queen. "farziin" is the queen in chess. I have heard of "shaah-baano" but I can't be certain if it means a queen. I hope this has been helpful.


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## marrish

Sheikh_14 said:


> What would the masculine of ahliyah be any alliteration friendly word there? Btw is there one for Shah the king I.e. a feminine word rather than having to go for maha rani and the arabic malika?


No, there is definitely no masculine derivative from "_ahliyah_" in the sense of "female spouse". I don't really feel any need for it. Re. second part, I also have no qualms about choosing from the vast Urdu lexicon and saying _malikah_ or _mahaaraanii_. I can even say _sultaanah_-e-Victoria. You would agree that both pairs _maalik-maalikah_ and _sultaan-sultaanah_ are quite similar (as you said, with "alliteration"). I think you are writing some piece of poetry that you need alliteration. Anyhow, for Urdu there are at least these two words which are similar but in English there is only one pair which is also not SO similar: emeror-empress. About the topic of this thread, in English you have identical word (more than alliteration) for both husband and wife but you can't know which is which. But if you really, really need such pair when both husband and wife have almost similar names in Urdu I advise you to go for "_ghar waalaa- ghar waalii_". 'shaah' is btw a special kind of "king" and there have been historically no female "shahs" to the best of my knowledge, so it is not necessary to forcibly coin one. However, there are some people who have "Shah" as their name. Then, it is normal to say "Shah SaaHib, Shah SaaHibah, Shah Begum.


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## marrish

With permission to make another post for it is not in answer to the previous enquiry but to the whole of this thread, what hasn't been mentioned is the way wives often refer to their husbands in Urdu: by using the name of their child = _x (Kishan, Ahmad) ke abbuu _(my husband).

Also to add to the previous posts where _mard_ was mentioned, _aadamii_ is also used, with the reservations made by F. SaaHib.


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## Sheikh_14

Conventional usage aside begum is merely a mark of respect for a lady and indicates that she is being conferred a status. Thus would it be correct in assuming that it is the Urdu equivalent of "My lady"? Therefore apkii begum is your lady. Some women of high-rank prefix their names with begum, irregardless of their marital status. I know that begum is the feminine variant of beg but is the suffix um here killing two birds with one stone as a dimunitive and act of personalisation?


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## urdumaster_372

Cilquiestsuens said:


> Khaavand in Urdu mean husband... Khaatoon is more woman than wife...
> 
> I guess we'll have to wait for faylasoof sb. to tell us what is the feminine equivalent of khaawand...
> 
> I would myself vote for Begum a polite term for wife (although, etimologically, it is the feminine of Beg), I'm surprised that there are more words for the husband in Urdu than for the wife.. ????
> 
> Miyâ.N    >      Bîwî
> Shohar   >       Khaatoon ????
> Khaawand >     Begum ????
> 
> Can any one correct this list


Mia > Biwi Mia > Begum Shohar > Biwi Khawand > Biwi Khawand > Begum


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## aevynn

Two more spouse words from the vast Urdu lexicon that appear not to have been mentioned so far are _patii_ and _patnii_  Compiling a list, I think the following words for spouses have been suggested so far in this thread:

Feminine: biiwii, biibii, zaujah, SaaHibah, begam, begam SaaHibah, aurat, ahliyah, ghar-waalii, joruu, patnii
Masculine: miyaaN, shauhar, xaawind/xaawand, SaaHab/SaaHib, aaGhaa, mard/marad, aadmii, X ke abbuu/etc, ghar-waalaa, patii

I have a pair of (partly related) questions about these words: 

(1) Which of these words (if any) do you feel are only appropriate when referring to one's own spouse? Which (if any) do you feel are only appropriate when referring to someone else's spouse? 
​For example: I don't really have much personal experience with the _X ke abbuu_ style of talking about one's husband, but I have a vague sense from older movies and the such that this is really only a way to talk about one's own husband and it would be a little unusual to talk about someone else's husband in this way. In contrast, I know that words like _shauhar_ and _patnii_ are just fine for referring both to one's own spouse as well as to others' spouses. I don't know very clearly if any of the above would only be appropriate for someone else's spouse and not one's own.​
(2) Which of these words (if any) would strongly lead you towards using plural markers indicating honorifics?
​For example: it seems like _begam SaaHibah_ would be strange without plural markers indicating honorifics: "X kii begam SaaHibah bhii aa'ii thiiN" is fine, whereas "X kii begam SaaHibah bhii aa'ii thii" is grammatically okay but doesn't really come out naturally (at least to me, but feel free to tell me I'm wrong!). In contrast, if we replace _begam SaaHibah_ with _biiwii_, then both of those sentences feel just fine.​


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## littlepond

aevynn said:


> (1) Which of these words (if any) do you feel are only appropriate when referring to one's own spouse? Which (if any) do you feel are only appropriate when referring to someone else's spouse?



No one uses "begam" in my circle as an everyday word (it's used, of course, but not everyday), so I might be wrong, but in my mind "begam" for another person's wife (as in "X kii begam"), when that wife is not the wife of say a nobleman, is just not that bland/neutral as "X kii patnii/biwii." The choice of using the word "begam" can often indicate some other nuance behind, I feel (e.g., implying that X or X's wife give themselves airs; giving a dramatic air to the whole sentence - that's just a couple of examples, there are other nuances, too, possible).

However, maybe for native Urdu speakers, it's as bland as biwii/patnii?


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## bwac14

aevynn said:


> Which of these words (if any) do you feel are only appropriate when referring to one's own spouse? Which (if any) do you feel are only appropriate when referring to someone else's spouse?


My family is from Karachi, and when referring to one's own spouse, we use _meri biiwii_ and _mere miyaaN_. When referring to someone else's spouse, both _miyaaN_ and _shauhar_ are used for a male spouse, and both _biiwii_ and _begam_ are used for a female spouse, but _begam_ is usually used more when directly talking to a man about his wife: _aapki begam_


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