# Urdu: pronunciation of عَوامُ النّاس



## Gope

I wish to know how عَوامُ النّاس is pronounced. Thanks.


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## Qureshpor

3avaamu_nnaas is the plural of 3aam (General) and "naas" is people. Together the phrase means "The general public".


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## Gope

Qureshpor said:


> 3avaamu_nnaad is the plural of 3aam (General) and "naas" is people. Together the phrase means "The general public".


Thanks, QP SaaHib. The last letter is س of course, and not d I presume. And how easy it was all the time to see that 3avaam is the plural of 3aam!


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## Cilquiestsuens

Just a remark by the way. The word is with a shaddah on the meem in Arabic, that seems to be impossible to pronounce according to Urdu standards. I have never seen the word written with the proper Arabic spelling in Urdu so far although Urdu waale love to keep words as identical as possible to the original Arabic.

*عَوَامُّ الْنَّاس*


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## Qureshpor

^ You are right but I am not sure if the word in the singular is pronounced and written as 3aamm. I don't believe it is. If the m is not doubled in the singular then it is unlikely to be doubled in the plural.


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## marrish

C. SaaHib, it is indeed difficult to see Urdu speakers or more rightly, writers, to write it with a geminated [m] because it is obvious these diacritics (a3raab) are not normally used except in words which are foreign/need emphasis about their correct pronunciation/elementary schools.

QP SaaHib says he doesn't believe the singular is pronounced so. I concur. I doubt if it is ever pronounced in this way in Arabic (languages). If it should be, I don't know but my almost only exposure to Arabic is the reading/recitation of the scripture and then, if indicated, I follow it. I never thought about it on the plain of Urdu. I don't believe it has to be geminated in either position. Another reference point are the Persians because grosso modo all the Arabic vocabulary was transferred by them and the fact that Urdu speaking intelligentsia due to historical ruptures has almost died out. There was no continuity of the tradition of the chaste language so we have to depend on literature where the pronunciation is known, for example recordings or poems where the rules of metre exclude some possibilities, general consensus, which is a tad difficult at the moment given the geopolitical situation, families that continue or at least are expected to continue with the legacy of ahl=e=zabaan.

Of course you wouldn't wish for the Urdu language to freeze in a block some a century ago and it is certainly not a case because it is a vivid language spoken by a big proportion of our population, still for the finesses of the language we have to look back to our inheritance. Damn there were no voice recorders then but crucial things about pronunciation were written. Of course we don't have to follow one when tens of thousands say no. That is why whether your argument, surely sound on a theoretical basis, holds stand on the ground of Arabic, I don't know, but in Urdu it is not pronounced with a geminated m.

Remains the question whether it is so in Arabic as spoken.

To note it were not grammarians of Arabic that went along with Muhammad bin Qasim. Perhaps they came later on.


Anyway, I have a hypothesis that it contrary to efficaciousness to be fluent and pronounce both "MM" and "NN". 

Just to remind you, I"m letting my loose thoughts here not related ad personam. And my ignorance about Arabic deserves a rebuttal.

Carthagina delenda est.


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## Cilquiestsuens

marrish said:


> C. SaaHib, it is indeed difficult to see Urdu speakers or more rightly, writers, to write it with a geminated [m] because it is obvious these diacritics (a3raab) are not normally used except in words which are foreign/need emphasis about their correct pronunciation/elementary schools.
> 
> QP SaaHib says he doesn't believe the singular is pronounced so. I concur. I doubt if it is ever pronounced in this way in Arabic (languages). If it should be, I don't know but my almost only exposure to Arabic is the reading/recitation of the scripture and then, if indicated, I follow it. I never thought about it on the plain of Urdu. I don't believe it has to be geminated in either position. Another reference point are the Persians because grosso modo all the Arabic vocabulary was transferred by them and the fact that Urdu speaking intelligentsia due to historical ruptures has almost died out. There was no continuity of the tradition of the chaste language so we have to depend on literature where the pronunciation is known, for example recordings or poems where the rules of metre exclude some possibilities, general consensus, which is a tad difficult at the moment given the geopolitical situation, families that continue or at least are expected to continue with the legacy of ahl=e=zabaan.
> 
> Of course you wouldn't wish for the Urdu language to freeze in a block some a century ago and it is certainly not a case because it is a vivid language spoken by a big proportion of our population, still for the finesses of the language we have to look back to our inheritance. Damn there were no voice recorders then but crucial things about pronunciation were written. Of course we don't have to follow one when tens of thousands say no. That is why whether your argument, surely sound on a theoretical basis, holds stand on the ground of Arabic, I don't know, but in Urdu it is not pronounced with a geminated m.
> 
> Remains the question whether it is so in Arabic as spoken.
> 
> To note it were not grammarians of Arabic that went along with Muhammad bin Qasim. Perhaps they came later on.
> 
> 
> Anyway, I have a hypothesis that it contrary to efficaciousness to be fluent and pronounce both "MM" and "NN".
> 
> Just to remind you, I"m letting my loose thoughts here not related ad personam. And my ignorance about Arabic deserves a rebuttal.
> 
> Carthagina delenda est.



marrish Sb., I don't mind at all and I find your remarks quite interesting actually.

1. I think, and hope you won't mind that remark, many Urdu speakers perceive Arabic as 'their thing', which has some truth to it, not only talking about the Historical  connections as regard to the (Urdu) language itself, but also the religious one. There are many scholars and experts of Arabic in the Subcontinent and educated Urdu speakers feel some kind of _*apnaa'iy(y)at*_ when it comes to matters related to Arabic language.

2. That doesn't imply that everything is identical. The morphology and phonology of the Arabic language are indeed *extremely* different from the Urdu ones (in the specific present case I think we can talk of 'zamin aasmaan kaa farq. While it comes to pronouncing a geminated '_*mm*_' or '_*nn*_' or '_*yy*_' at the end of a word, this sound almost impossible to even think about it for Urdu speakers, and would be described as an unnatural or a very much forced pronunciation while on the opposite, for Arabic speakers it sounds completely natural and they wouldn't need grammarians to tell them to get their final consonants doubled. Listen to Arabic speakers pronouncing the word :  عربي . In Urdu it is going to be _*arbii*_. While in Arabic _*3arabiyy*_ with the ending -_*yy*_ clearly pronounced and you will hear some speakers pronounce it _*3arabeyy*_. This is actually an unusual feature of this forceful language, many languages, I'd think would simplify those geminated groups at the end of a sentence.

Likewise for 'mm'. *3aamm*; *3amm* (uncle). To the extent that a word by '*dam*' (blood) is pronounced with a shadda on it in colloquial speech, '_*damm*_' which is contrary to what grammarians prescribe!

This was the point I wanted to make in my post above. Most Urdu educated speakers are not even aware of this shadda because this kind of pronunciation is really far-fetched according to Urdu pronunciation standards. And I really don't see why that Arabic pronunciation should be forced on Urdu. *Hyper-correction kii bhii Hadd hotii hai*!

Carthago deletam esse puto!

(Bear with my 'Latin de cuisine'!)


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## Abu Talha

Cilquiestsuens said:


> While it comes to pronouncing a geminated '_*mm*_' or '_*nn*_' or '_*yy*_' at the end of a word, this sound almost impossible to even think about it for Urdu speakers, and would be described as an unnatural or a very much forced pronunciation while on the opposite, for Arabic speakers it sounds completely natural and they wouldn't need grammarians to tell them to get their final consonants doubled.


While I agree that 3awāmmu n-nās is a difficult pronunciation for Urdu speakers, the gemination is pronounced with little difficulty in other places where there is an izaafa with the next word, e.g., ḥadd-e raftār, ḥubbu l-waṭanī.

I think the difficulty with 3awāmmu n-nās lies in the combination of the long vowel and the following gemination.


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## Jervoltage

Interesting! I always thought the final shadda was purely ornamental in عوامّ in Arabic.


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## fdb

If we are talking about Arabic: عامة ʻāmmatun, plural عوام  ʻawāmmun, is from the triradical root ʻmm. The tašdīd is an indispensible part of the word.  دم damun, plural دماء dimāʼun, is from the biradical root d-m. However, in Persian – and specifically in Persian poetry – you can omit the tašdīd in the former and say ʻāma, and you can add a tašdīd to the latter and say damm, as required by the metre. These are permissible poetic licenses.


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## Qureshpor

Abu Talha said:


> While I agree that 3awāmmu n-nās is a difficult pronunciation for Urdu speakers, the gemination is pronounced with little difficulty in other places where there is an izaafa with the next word, e.g., ḥadd-e raftār, ḥubbu l-waṭanī.
> 
> I think the difficulty with 3awāmmu n-nās lies in the combination of the long vowel and the following gemination.


I would n't say 3awāmmu n-nās is a difficult pronunciation for Urdu speakers but perhaps not natural for them to pronounce final double letters. damm/blood would normally be pronounced as dam, I would guess. So, it is not the long vowel before the double letters but merely the double letters in the final position. We obviously have less time in our lives than Arab speakers to hang about at the end of a word that has a doubled consonant!!


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## marrish

I agree by far and large with Cilquiestsuens and QP SaaHibaan, while I don't agree with Abu Talha SaaHib. "Within" a word or compound it is not difficult at all but it is at ends of words, at least for those Urdu speakers who don't have any connection to Punjabi whether as first or second language speakers.

C. Sb, if you say "Latin de cuisine" I have to say about mine "Latin de salle de bain"! I could even not remember the nominative of Carthagina!

We also have Jervoltage aaqaa's contribution which relates with my loose remarks about Persian's relation to Urdu.

EDIT: _arbii_ is not what is considered proper Urdu. It should be and IS pronounced _3arabii_ (with emphasis on schwa after "r"), however 3ayn is scarce in pronunciation. The final "yy" is never pronounced because it does not form a part of Urdu (neither Persian). _arbii_ is a vegetable ( I remember I argued about it in a thread).

My special thanks go to fdb SaaHib for his explanation about Arabic.


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## Cilquiestsuens

marrish said:


> I agree by far and large with Cilquiestsuens and QP SaaHibaan, while I don't agree with Abu Talha SaaHib. "Within" a word or compound it is not difficult at all but it is at ends of words, at least for those Urdu speakers who don't have any connection to Punjabi whether as first or second language speakers.



I still think Abu Talha SaaHib has a point though since no major Indo-Aryan language, (Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Nepali, Bhojpuri, etc.) can ever have the following combination of sounds : *long vowel + geminated consonant*... And it sets that group of languages apart from other languages which do have it. The ones I know of: Tamil, Arabic, Latin and many others I guess). 



marrish said:


> C. Sb, if you say "Latin de cuisine" I have to say about mine "Latin de salle de bain"! I could even not remember the nominative of Carthagina!



And I had the nominative in my sentence while I should have had the accusative.... (Carthaginem)... Apologies due therefore to all Latin lovers reading this for this amazing display of botched grammar!




marrish said:


> EDIT: _arbii_ is not what is considered proper Urdu. It should be and IS pronounced _3arabii_ (with emphasis on schwa after "r"), however 3ayn is scarce in pronunciation. The final "yy" is never pronounced because it does not form a part of Urdu (neither Persian). _arbii_ is a vegetable ( I remember I argued about it in a thread).



I am completely aware of this and I don't really feel like opening again another Pandora box.

What I would just say is although arabii is the proper pronunciation - agreed with you; it is very very rare to hear it nowadays. We must agree that  it goes against the rules of Urdu phonology (_*voh nahii.n samjhii*_ vs. _* voh samajh ga'ii*_)


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## marrish

Cilquiestsuens said:


> I still think Abu Talha SaaHib has a point though since no major Indo-Aryan language, (Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Nepali, Bhojpuri, etc.) can ever have the following combination of sounds : *long vowel + geminated consonant*... And it sets that group of languages apart from other languages which do have it. The ones I know of: Tamil, Arabic, Latin and many others I guess).


What about for example _maannaa (censere, putare)_? _xair_, _denique censeo Carthaginem deletam ac sepultam esse._ (This time I hope we have jointly refreshed our memories of Latin and this sentence is alright).


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## Cilquiestsuens

marrish said:


> What about for example _maannaa (censere, putare)_? _xair_, _denique censeo Carthaginem deletam ac sepultam esse._ (This time I hope we have jointly refreshed our memories of Latin and this sentence is alright).



Aren't _*jaannaa*_ (scire) and *maannaa* '_les exceptions qui confirment la règle_'?

These  are coincidential occurences in Urdu while in Arabic you have a regular  phonemic opposition between words such as, for instance: _*3aam*_ (= _natat_); *3aamm* (= _publicus_) and *3amm* (avunculus aut patruus) and this is just one single example.

_id quod tam deletum et sepultum est quam Carthago eruere non operit..._ (God knows if this one is pravum or rectum? )


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## marrish

Perhaps they are such kind of exceptions but there are of course more and there is no difficulty at all to pronounce them which fact does point out that Urdu and Hindi are able to have long vowel+geminated consonant. This supports what QP SaaHib and myself have been declaring, that it is not a purported difficulty in pronunciation that causes the word under discussion, _3awaam(m)unnaas_, to be pronounced with a single unstressed not geminated "M". The reason is probably connected to the Persian route (cf. post 9). I agree that such situations like "_maannaa_" etc. are not very common and you are right to say that the phonetic system of Arabic is different in this respect, but my point is that it is not difficult at all to pronounce those geminations in word medium positions, which is the case here. Anyway, you will agree that gemination in general is a very common characteristics of Urdu. 

(I can understand this sentence very well! I think it is good but perhaps Carthago should be in the accusative?)


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## Dib

I tend to agree with marrish, that prohibition of "long vowel +  geminate" is probably not active - or at least, not strong - any more.  Historically, it was a major phonotactic constraint of Middle Indic. So,  the New Indic vocabulary also (losely) follows the distribution.  However, a lot of NIA languages have lost distinctive vowel length  anyway (e.g. Bengali, Gujarati, Nepali). Even in Hindi-Urdu, Punjabi,  etc. where the phonological "length" distinction is maintained, it is  realized _more_ as a matter of difference in quality than  duration. So, it is likely even there, that the aversion of  "super-heavy" syllables (so to say) would have become weaker.

Utrum "operit" an "oportet" volebas dicere?


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## Cilquiestsuens

Dib said:


> I tend to agree with marrish, that prohibition of  "long vowel +  geminate" is probably not active - or at least, not  strong - any more.  Historically, it was a major phonotactic constraint  of Middle Indic. So,  the New Indic vocabulary also (losely) follows the  distribution.  However, a lot of NIA languages have lost distinctive  vowel length  anyway (e.g. Bengali, Gujarati, Nepali). Even in  Hindi-Urdu, Punjabi,  etc. where the phonological "length" distinction  is maintained, it is  realized _more_ as a matter of difference  in quality than  duration. So, it is likely even there, that the  aversion of  "super-heavy" syllables (so to say) would have become  weaker.
> 
> Utrum "operit" an "oportet" volebas dicere?



Hic confiteor : prave scripsi et te gratias agere convenit, non operit sed oportet dicere volebam.


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## marrish

Antea "convenit" scriptisti,  Cilquiestsue Sb. Utrumque enim intellegenda.


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## Qureshpor

^ Excuse me gentlemen, the title of the thread is Urdu pronunciation of عوام الناس and not your prowess in Latin!


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## Gope

Qureshpor said:


> ^ Excuse me gentlemen, the title of the thread is Urdu pronunciation of عوام الناس and not your prowess in Latin!


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## marrish

My apologies, it's me who started it. It concerns a rhetorical figure after having made a statement (which can be used in English as "ceterum censeo" which means "but at the end I mean that (Carthagina should be destroyed)".  

I hope my remarks about the topic at hand will be considered with the same attention as the Latin words.


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## bearded

Qureshpor is right, but I would take the liberty of correcting:
- tibi (not te) gratias agere - Cinquiestsuens
- scripsisti (not scriptisti) - marrish.
Friendly regards from Italy, where the Latin language was born.


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