# Hindi: haye qismat. hamari prem katha laila majnun



## sonyajean

I came across this in a story, and I don't understand it at all  could someone please translate this to english??

haye qismat. hamari prem katha laila majnun, jodha akbar ki tarha ittihas men likhi jayegi

is that a reference to jodhaa akbar, the film? i recognize qismat as "fate" and prem as "love"...right?

thank you in advance.


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## lcfatima

_Oh, Luck/fate! Our love story_ (prem katha is Hindi, not Urdu) (is like that of) _Laila _(and) Majnun (sort of like Romeo and Juliet, two famous star crossed lovers), _it will be_ _written in history_ (ittihaas is Hindi, not Urdu) _like_ (the story of) _Jodha_ (and) _Akbar_.

The film Jodha Akbar is a historical revision of a love story...I haven't seen the movie, but I read that there was no actual love affair between Jodha and Emporer Akbar, it was totally made up by the filmmakers and Akbar was like her father in law or some such relation...but the speaker of this line believes that there was.

I don't know where you saw this, but this line is Hindi, not Urdu. Perhaps the moderator could change the title of the query.


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## Illuminatus

The most famous lover pairs in India are probably _Laila-Majnu _and_ Heer-Ranjhaa_. I have almost never seen _Akbar-Jodha_ in a similar context (the historical ground of the story notwithstanding).

Hmm, I frequently see people from the West assuming any Hindu/Urdu text to be Urdu by default. Is Urdu so widespread?


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## SofiaB

I am from the East but here we think of Hindi Urdu as the same language with two scripts.Majnun means crazy in Arabic any relationship here?


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## lcfatima

If memory serves, Majnoon's real name was Qais, but he called himself Majnoon (one who is made crazy???) because he was so nuts for Laila. Majnoon is an Arabic origin word in Hindi/Urdu.


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## Illuminatus

So, is this sentence correct?
Wah uske pyaar mein majnoon tha?


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## lcfatima

I am not a native speaker, but it sounds wrong. I think it should be:

Voh uske pyaar mein majnoon ban gaya.

or 

Voh uske pyaar mein paagal tha.

But not ...majnoon tha.

I am not sure why.


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## Illuminatus

Interesting! 
_Voh uske pyaar mein majnoon ban gaya._

All this while, I had assumed that this sentence had  been inspired by the Laila-Majnoon story. But, now I realize it is just the other way round!


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## cherine

SofiaB said:


> Majnun means crazy in Arabic any relationship here?





lcfatima said:


> If memory serves, Majnoon's real name was Qais, but he called himself Majnoon (one who is made crazy???) because he was so nuts for Laila. Majnoon is an Arabic origin word in Hindi/Urdu.


This is mostly true. Qais was one of the best pre-Islmaic Arab poets, he was deeply in love with his cousin, Laila/Layla, and wrote numerous poems in her love. People called him "majnun Laila" (=the crazy of Laila). They never got married, because her father wouldn't give his daughter to a guy who wrote so much poetry about her, which was considered a shameful and embarrassing thing.

The story of Qais wa laila قيس وليلى is one of the most famous love stories in the Arabic culture. They're like the Romeo and Juliette of this culture.


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## BP.

Joda and Akbar don't make a folk love pair like the other ones mentioned. The movie weaves a story around the married couple of Emperor Akbar and the first wife he married to annex her father's state into his kingdom. He repeated the stratagem several times afterwards.

Heer RaNjha is a love story from Punjab, and Waris Shah made it immortal in his poetry.

Laila, MajnooN, like cherine said, were Arab lovers. Majnoon comes from junoon, adding m before a verb transforms it into the object, eg mashkoor, makhdoom etc.

Interestingly, the word laila itself comes from Lail - night. Laila was so extraordinarily black that her real name was forgotten and Laila survived in history.


Illuminatus, I think its better to say 'maiN uskay 3ishq mein *goya* majnooN thha' -> akin to / like MajnooN.

Does ittihas really mean history? Can somebody confirm Icf.

SofiaB, even here in Pakistan most people think or are made to think that Hindi and Urdu are the same language with two scripts. But we have significant trouble understanding our Hindi-speaking colleagues. In fact Hindi has a huge contribution in the grammar and vocabulary of Urdu, but no they're not exactly the same language.


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## Cilquiestsuens

Itihaas means history and is the equivalent of Urdu Taariikh.

Hindi has started deviating from Urdu during the 1920's... They had to import tons of words from old Sanskrit dictionaries to replace the Arabic Farsi words. That is why written Hindi sounds so artificial and spoken Hindi still brimming with Arabic Farsi words....

Hindi, by the way, originally meant (til the beginning of the 20th Century) the language now known as Urdu... A major reference about the whole Hindi > Urdu question here

And as far as the topic of this thread is concerned, *Diivaanaa *is another option instead of Majnoon. Maybe are you fed up to hear it in Bollywood songs????


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## panjabigator

<itihaas> is <tariikh>. 

Learned two new words: <mashkoor> - Derived from <shukar>.  Does this mean <shukraguzaar> and how would you use it in a sentence?
<makhduum> - Derived from <khidmat>.  How would you use this in a sentence?  I assume the contexts would be few with a definitition  of "served, waited on."


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## panjabigator

Cilquiestsuens said:


> Hindi, by the way, originally meant (til the beginning of the 20th Century) the language now known as Urdu... A major reference about the whole Hindi > Urdu question here



Urdu/Hindi used to have many names.  Two that come to mind are "Hindvi" and "Rekhta."


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## Cilquiestsuens

panjabigator said:


> Urdu/Hindi used to have many names. Two that come to mind are "Hindvi" and "Rekhta."


 
Hindawi was the first name ever given to Urdu... it is very old... It means the same as Hindi.

Rekhta was originally the name of a style of poetry used in Delhi...

Since the Mughals and even from the time of the Sultanate, inhabitants of Delhi used to write poetry only in Farsi. There was no question of using the 'vulgar' Indian languages (Amir Khusrau is a major exception, but the actually predates the Mughals) 

In the seventeenth century, a new style started to emerge, called the *rekhta, *you would write one line in Persian, and the other one in Urdu.... Or mix both in the same line (misra'), hence the name of this style (meaning _mixed_) which became later (for historically speaking a short period of time) the name of the Urdu language. 

Urdu became the language of poetry of Delhi after Wali Dakkani brought his Diwan there (beginning of 18th Century)... Everybody was so impressed by his verses that they all started writing in Urdu, or rekhta or 'hindi'. Gujarat, where Wali was coming from had had 'Urdu' for court and poetry language while Delhi was only using Farsi.

As for the name Urdu, its first reference in a text as meaning the Urdu language is no older than 1798. The language was most commonly known as Hindi in those times !!

the language had been written only in the Arabic (naskh, taliq, etc.. and later nastaliq or shikasta) scripts since the beginning. 

The first to ever write this language in the devnaagari scripts were the British in Fort William College, and that too 'for fun' because in those time, nobody could have imagined that this language would be written one day in any other script.


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## BP.

'Rikhta', is not to be confused with 'Rikhti', which is poetry with sexual innuendos, usually recited in 'mush'3iray' by cross-dressing poets. Yes Urdu poetry did degenerate to that during the 'tawaif-ul-muluki' (anarchy) period of Delhi when the Mughal Empire was crumbling.

More comments coming.


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## cherine

*Moderator note:*
*This discussion is getting more an more interesting, but unfortunately it's now far off the topic of the original post.*
*Would someone please open a new thread were this discussion can be continued (with a link to this one)?*

*Thanks *


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## Cilquiestsuens

cherine said:


> *Moderator note:*
> *This discussion is getting more an more interesting, but unfortunately it's now far off the topic of the original post.*
> *Would someone please open a new thread were this discussion can be continued (with a link to this one)?*
> 
> *Thanks *


 
Thanks Cherine for bearing with us and our digressions....

What kind of title should we give to this thread though ????


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## Cilquiestsuens

panjabigator said:


> <itihaas> is <tariikh>.
> 
> Learned two new words: <mashkoor> - Derived from <shukar>. Does this mean <shukraguzaar> and how would you use it in a sentence?
> <makhduum> - Derived from <khidmat>. How would you use this in a sentence? I assume the contexts would be few with a definitition of "served, waited on."


 

Makhdoom, I've never seen this word used in a sentence....

Only in titles given to kings and saints....


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## BP.

Thanks for the confirmation gator.

I too learnt a new word for <word>: <shubdh>, in Hindi. What would its plural be? Shuboodh?

Biradarum its <shukr> not <shukar>, though *ahem* illeterate people say that often. You're right, <mashkoor> does derive from <shukr>. It means the opposite of <shukr-guzaar>, actually the person/thing/event/'zaat' whome you're <shukr-guzaar> or <shaakir> too.

You nailed <makhdoom>. But its hardly used, maybe because calling someone makhdoom slightly implies you're a servitor to them, not a very likeable idea. Or simply because people prefer simpler words.


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## panjabigator

Belligerent Bhai,

The plural of <shabd> is <shabd>.  <mai.n ne bahut shabd padhe> = <mai.n ne bahut alfaaz padhe>.

And thanks for the comments (tabsira ?) on the words.


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## BP.

Thanks for the plural. I guessed as much.

<tabsira> is correctly used. Your Urdu is excellent biraaderum.


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