# Hindi:Good Day/ Good night



## jaSsminee

HelloO again!


I would like to say in hindi :

"Good night sweet dreams" and "Good day"

I'll appreciate it your help

Thanks.


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## greatbear

You'd be better off using the English words themselves, as wishing someone good day or good night isn't really part of the Indic culture. We do use them a lot these days - but in English itself. However, just for the sake of answering:
"good day" - "tumhaaraa din achchha biite"
"good night" - "shubh raatri"
"sweet dreams" - "meeThe sapne" (the capital "T" being the hard t)

Note that all above sound really ridiculous to my ears; I cannot imagine someone saying/using them.


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## tonyspeed

greatbear said:


> You'd be better off using the English words themselves, as wishing someone good day or good night isn't really part of the Indic culture. We do use them a lot these days - but in English itself. However, just for the sake of answering:
> "good day" - "tumhaaraa din achchha biite"
> "good night" - "shubh raatri"
> "sweet dreams" - "meeThe sapne" (the capital "T" being the hard t)
> 
> Note that all above sound really ridiculous to my ears; I cannot imagine someone saying using them.



Someone used shubh raatrii with me once, and I started laughing. He was an Indian that learned Hindi.


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## greatbear

tonyspeed said:


> Someone used shubh raatrii with me once, and I started laughing. He was an Indian that learned Hindi.



Yes! And a Hindi speaker from India would laugh even more. However, these could pass maybe once or twice, like a kind of endearing joke between lovers; after all, if someone tries to learn his or her partner's language, it's anyway sweet, regardless of how much are those phrases actually used.


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## jaSsminee

Hahaha okay thank you both ammm and yes in one occasion I Use a phrase in Hindi with the word kiss(in hindi) and he started to laugh a lot, and he told me that they don't use many of these words..
but I don't know, maybe it seemed cute to make the effort to say something in his native language...

Ohh and also excuse my English! :$


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## ihaveacomputer

greatbear said:


> Yes! And a Hindi speaker from India would laugh even more.



They surely don't have the widespread usage of their English counterparts, but I've heard "Shubh Ratri" used by monolingual native speakers!


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## marrish

ihaveacomputer said:


> They surely don't have the widespread usage of their English counterparts, but I've heard "Shubh Ratri" used by monolingual native speakers!


Me too!


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## greatbear

ihaveacomputer said:


> ... but I've heard "Shubh Ratri" used by monolingual native speaker*s*!



Even plural? My goodness: I wonder who were you talking to! Hindutva jargon-spewers? By the way, to find a _monolingual_ Indian is itself a very difficult task (assuming they were Indians).


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## panjabigator

It's interesting. I never hear "shubh ratrī" or even "shubh prabhāt" (good morning) by anyone except in jest, but I've heard "subh bakhair" and "shab bakhair" plenty in Lucknow.


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## ihaveacomputer

greatbear said:


> Even plural? My goodness: I wonder who were you talking to! Hindutva jargon-spewers? By the way, to find a _monolingual_ Indian is itself a very difficult task (assuming they were Indians).



They definitely weren't radical BJP voters or members of the VHP, I assure you! You're actually right to be sceptical of my having called them monolingual, though; they actually were bilingual in Hindi and one of the numerous languages of the Hindi belt. However I must add that monolingual Indians aren't all that difficult to find in villages!


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## Alfaaz

> It's interesting. I never hear "shubh ratrī" or even "shubh prabhāt" (good morning) by anyone except in jest, but I've heard "subh bakhair" and "shab bakhair" plenty in Lucknow.


 This of course is very common in Urdu. Most member's comments about "shubh ratri" were surprising...as it seemed to be used in media and even by many Hindi speakers (that speak the _shudh-er_ version-which can often be a bit difficult to understand for Urdu speakers). Hadn't heard "shubh prabhāt" until now, though...and most reply with "good morning" or "aap ko bhi" if we say "SubH baxair".


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## greatbear

Well, we aren't talking of Urdu here, so that's why I didn't go to "subh bhakhair" - which is of course heard among the Lucknow Muslims. But we are talking Hindi. And I am myself one of those "shuddh Hindi" speakers often - "shuddh Hindi" is something sacrosanct to us and not something constructed in the 1800s as some would have you believe. When we speak words like "charitr", "sanskhipt" and "sookshm", we are not speaking neologisms - it is a beautiful, poetic and elegant language to us, this shuddh Hindi. It exists since much prior to Urdu in the Indian subcontinent. Which this neologism, "shubh raatrii" isn't, and I don't recognise it as shuddh Hindi.


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## Alfaaz

greatbear said:
			
		

> Well, we aren't talking of Urdu here, so that's why I didn't go to "subh bhakhair" - which is of course heard among the Lucknow Muslims. But we are talking Hindi. And I am myself one of those "shuddh Hindi" speakers often - "shuddh Hindi" is something sacrosanct to us and not something constructed in the 1800s as some would have you believe. When we speak words like "charitr", "sanskhipt" and "sookshm", we are not speaking neologisms - it is a beautiful, poetic and elegant language to us, this shuddh Hindi. It exists since much prior to Urdu in the Indian subcontinent. Which this neologism, "shubh raatrii" isn't, and I don't recognise it as shuddh Hindi.


If this comment was in reply to my comment above, then: Exactly, which is why I nor any other member brought it up before punjabigator SaaHib mentioned it and in my reply I tried to highlight the point so that there wouldn't be any confusion. I don't think it was suggested in my comment that Hindi isn't a "beautiful, poetic and elegant language" greatbear. (The other parts dealing with "1800's" and "prior" always leads to endless and fruitless debates which probably wouldn't even be relevant to the thread, so won't comment on those.) The only reason to use "shuddh Hindi" was to suggest that there are different kinds of speakers (in terms of vocabulary) just as in Urdu, English or any other language. Some people could have very shuddh and saqeel speech, while others might have simple and salees speech or be influenced by other languages like English. One Urdu speaker might not use/recognize the word "lisaan", but that doesn't mean that _all_ other Urdu speakers wouldn't recognize and use it. Similarly, some Hindi speakers might not use (or have heard others using) "shubh raatri" , but that doesn't mean that all Hindi speakers don't use it or think it is something to laugh about. Also, just to clarify, there was no intention of suggesting that the phrase "shubh raatri" is shudh Hindi, but that people who might not use the English equivalents do seem to use it while speaking Hindi. It certainly may be a neologism as you say. Everyone is obviously free to have and express their opinions _and experiences_, just as you (and tonyspeed, panjabigator) have done and as we (ihaveacomputer, marrish, and I) have done, _which could be very similar or drastically different_!


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## Qureshpor

Alfaaz SaaHib, you are right. subH ba-xair and shab ba-xair are very common occurrences in Urdu.

“shubh-raatri” is indeed a neologism and is most probably a direct translation of the Urdu “shab baxair” and a pretty good one at that, as far as translations go. The latter is attested in Platts’ “A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi and English”. It seems that even by 1874, the date of this dictionary, “shubh-raatri” had yet to be formulated.

Giving sanctity to something is a very personal matter and is irrelevant to our discussion. However assigning some form of “antiquity” to a language, be it “shuddh Hindi” or any other requires corroboration from the pens of esteemed scholars. In the case of Urdu’s vintage and its relationship to the Hindi of the Fort William College, ample evidence has been provided by way of quotes from scholarly works of respected authors. Sadly, there has been no such reciprocation from the Hindi perspective. The current situation can be best described using an animal idiom. “You can take a horse to the water but you can’t make him drink it.” I agree with you that discussing these issues gets one no where. We will just have to grin and bear it!

All the time that I have been associated with this forum, no Hindi speaker has presented anything of the “beauty, poetic characteristics or elegance” of their language, either through their own pieces of writing or literary quotes. I am not suggesting an absolute absence of these characteristics but, as the saying goes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating!


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## panjabigator

May I request that we leave questions of aesthetics and historical relevance aside? Please stick the topic at hand.

Thank you.
Panjabigator
(Moderator)


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## tonyspeed

Alfaaz said:


> Similarly, some Hindi speakers might not use (or have heard others using) "shubh raatri" , but that doesn't mean that all Hindi speakers don't use it or think it is something to laugh about.



I don't think the argument was that no one used it. Only that it sounds awkward because people infrequently use it. In formal settings it probably would sound OK but between friends it seems a bit...ajiib.


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## greatbear

QURESHPOR said:


> All the time that I have been associated with this forum, no Hindi speaker has presented anything of the “beauty, poetic characteristics or elegance” of their language, either through their own pieces of writing or literary quotes. I am not suggesting an absolute absence of these characteristics but, as the saying goes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating!



Since this thread is not the appropriate forum for pursuing this further, I have answered you where we last discussed "elegance" of a language.


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