# Persian, Urdu, Hindi: sibling(s)



## Alfaaz

*Background:* The English word sibling(s) can refer to both brothers or sisters

Sister: ukht اخت , shaqeeqah شقیقہ , khwaahar خواہر , hamsheer/hamsheerah ہمشیر / ہمشیرہ , baaji باجی , aapaa/aapi آپا / آپی आपा , behen بہن बहिन , didi दीदी
Brother: akh اخ , shaqeeq شقیق , baraadar بردار , hamsheer ہمشیر , bhaa'ii بھائی / भाई , veer ویر / वीर

*Question:* Is there such a word in Perisan, Urdu, and/or Hindi that only means "siblings" (including both sisters and brothers)? Could ہم نژاد work......but that doesn't seem precise--as a grandfather and grandson could be hum nizhaad....?


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## Ironicus

Try as I might, I cannot recall any such word in Gujarati, Hindi, or Arabic. This is not as strange as it sounds, because the English word _sibling_ did not originally mean what it means today, but instead merely a kinsman of either sex. _sibling_ was revived as a term used by anthropologists in the early 20th century and then escaped into the wild.


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## Alfaaz

Thanks for answering Ironicus! Let's see what others say...


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## Faylasoof

In Urdu and at least Indo-Pak Persian we can use;
 ہم مادر پدر _ham maadar-pidar / padar _and also ہم بطن  _ham baTn_ to mean sibling. We use the latter but the former can also be used equally well:

_woh sab ham maadar-pidar / padar haiN _
_woh sab ham baTn haiN_ 
_They are all sibs / siblings_

... and you are right! ہم نژاد _ham nizhaad_ is not precise enough to mean sibling! This is more like any blood-relation from a common descent.


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## bakshink

Sibling-Sahodhar- सहोदर. Though I have never used this word but have come across it. I searched for it here 
http://www.shabdkosh.com/translate/sibling/sibling_meaning_in_Hindi_English. It's a beautiful word. I think it is formed by combining (sah+ Udhar). Sah means together,common ( sahvaas- to live together, sahchar- One who walks along etc.) and udhar means stomach. So sahodhar means one who is born form the same stomach...


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## Faylasoof

bakshink said:


> Sibling-Sahodhar- सहोदर. Though I have never used this word but have come across it. I searched for it here
> http://www.shabdkosh.com/translate/sibling/sibling_meaning_in_Hindi_English. It's a beautiful word. I think it is formed by combining (sah+ Udhar). _Sah means together,common _( sahvaas- to live together, sahchar- One who walks along etc.) _and udhar means stomach._ _So sahodhar means one who is born form the same stomach.._.


 I see! So the construct is the same kind we use in Urdu, i.e. ہم بطن  _ham baTn_ = ham ہم (Persian-Urdu for _same / common)_ + _baTn_ بطن (Arabic-Urdu for stomach).


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## marrish

bakshink said:


> Sibling-Sahodhar- सहोदर. Though I have never used this word but have come across it. I searched for it here
> http://www.shabdkosh.com/translate/sibling/sibling_meaning_in_Hindi_English. It's a beautiful word. I think it is formed by combining (sah+ Udhar). Sah means together,common ( sahvaas- to live together, sahchar- One who walks along etc.) and udhar means stomach. So sahodhar means one who is born form the same stomach...


This was the word I could not recall, thank you for sharing it. I believe you must have intended to write sahodar instead of sahodhar. There is no aspiration, barring the h in saha. This word I learnt when I begon reading elementary Sanskrit grammar as a fine example of the phonetical rule applying to vowels when they meet face to face. The word consists of saha (together, with) with a final short a and udar(as) with an initial short u-. They produce a long 'o', hence sahodar(as).


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## bakshink

Thanks and you are right marrish- it should be (sah + udar). Udar (उदर) means abdomen, stomach is different from udhar (उधर) which means 'there'.


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## Sheikh_14

Faylasoof said:


> In Urdu and at least Indo-Pak Persian we can use;
> ہم مادر پدر _ham maadar-pidar / padar _and also ہم بطن  _ham baTn_ to mean sibling. We use the latter but the former can also be used equally well:
> 
> _woh sab ham maadar-pidar / padar haiN
> woh sab ham baTn haiN
> They are all sibs / siblings_
> 
> ... and you are right! ہم نژاد _ham nizhaad_ is not precise enough to mean sibling! This is more like any blood-relation from a common descent.



But doesn't ham-batn give the impression of just being from the same mother? It isn't anywhere near as explicit as ham-madar-pidar


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## PersoLatin

In Persian there’s no single word option for it, it is simply خواهربرادر/xâhar-barâdar, so for ‘they are siblings’, you add اند/ند “are” to the end خواهربرادرند. As you can imagine for ‘s/he is my sibling’ you use brother or sister.

A possible ‘alternative’ could be هم‌خون/same-blood but not very accurate.


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## PersoLatin

Alfaaz said:


> hamsheer/hamsheerah ہمشیر / ہمشیرہ


I am sure if there ever was an equivalent for the modern meaning of 'sibling', it would be همشیره ‏, because despite the fact that in Persian speaking world همشیره may only refer to 'sister' these days, the ending suffix is not an Arabic feminine marker but a Persian suffix, this means at some point, it was used for sister and brother.


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## Qureshpor

^ I have always thought that the ه in همشیره had its basis in the Arabic  taa marbuutah ة. Are you saying ه is of Persian origins? In Urdu, as far as I know,  همشیره has always meant "sister" and again, to the best of my knowledge همشیر does not mean brother.


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## PersoLatin

Qureshpor said:


> Are you saying ه is of Persian origins?


Yes definitely, like in dast  "hand", dasté/dasta "handle", javân "young" javâné/javâna "bud, new shoot" etc.


Qureshpor said:


> In Urdu, as far as I know, همشیره has always meant "sister" and again, to the best of my knowledge همشیر does not mean brother.


That is the case in Persian too.  This was most probably confused in the past with the Arabic suffix.


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## Qureshpor

PersoLatin said:


> Yes definitely, like in dast  "hand", dasté/dasta "handle", javân "young" javâné/javâna "bud, new shoot" etc.
> That is the case in Persian too.  This was most probably confused in the past with the Arabic suffix.


Thank you. Yes of course دستہ ، استرہ۔ زبانہ، دہانہ، روزہ and many more.


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## marrish

Qureshpor said:


> ^ I have always thought that the ه in همشیره had its basis in the Arabic  taa marbuutah ة. Are you saying ه is of Persian origins? In Urdu, as far as I know,  همشیره has always meant "sister" and again, to the best of my knowledge همشیر does not mean brother.


The late Prof. Shamsul Rahman Faruqi of Allahabad (India) wrote about the ہ, همشیر, and همشیره too. I'm quoting from a book of his (لغت روزمرہ) :
ہمشیرہ
      یہاں "دودھ شریک بھائی یا بہن" کے معنی میں ہاے ہوز زائد ہے، یعنی مذکورہ بالا معنی میں "ہمشیر" اور "ہمشیرہ" ایک ہیں۔ "لغت نامۂ دہخدا" میں وضاحت سے لکھا ہے کہ "ہمشیرہ" یعنی دودھ شریک بھائی یا بہن کے لئے ایک ہی دایہ کا دودھ پینا ضروری ہے، آپس میں رشتہ دار ہونا ضروری نہیں۔ آگے درج ہے کہ "در تداول امروز"، [یعنی اس زمانے کے رواج میں] یہ لفظ "خواہر" [یعنی "سگی بہن"] کے معنی میں برتا جاتا ہے۔ لہٰذا ان معنی میں یہ ایک طرح سے "ہمشیر" کی تانیث ہوا۔ اردو میں "ہمشیرہ" بہ معنی "سگی بہن" بہت زمانے سے مستعمل ہے، لیکن فارسی میں بظاہر اس کا رواج گذشتہ آٹھ دس دہائیوں سے زیادہ پرانا نہیں، جیسا کہ "لغت نامۂ دہخدا" سے معلوم ہوتا ہے۔ یہ بھی ہے کہ فارسی کے کسی قدیم لغت میں "ہمشیرہ" بمعنی "خواہر" کا اندراج نہیں۔ لہٰذا کیا عجب کہ اس معنی میں یہ لفظ اردو سے فارسی میں گیا ہو۔

Roughly translated: 
_hamshîra_(h): here in the meaning "a brother or a sister sharing the milk" the haa-e-hawwaz is s superfluous (zaa'id), i.e. both _hamshiir_ and _hamshiirah_ are the same in the above mentioned sense. Loghatnâmé-ye Dehxodā  clearly says that in order to be a _hamshiirah_ i.e. 'a brother sharing the milk or a sister' one has to drink the same nurse's milk, it's not necessary for a blood relation to be there between them. Farther on it's written that "dar tadaawol-e-emrûz" (i.e. in the nowadays usage) this word is used in the "sister" meaning (i.e. full sister). So it can be called "feminisation"=تانیث of _hamšîr_ in this meaning. In Urdu _hamshiirah_ meaning "full/biological sister /of the same parents" has been in use for very long but in Persian such a usage doesn't appear to be older than past eight to ten decades, as per Loghatnâmé-ye Dehxodā. Besides there is no entry on _hamšīré/(hamšîrah_) in any old Persian lexicon, therefore it could well have been that this word went from Urdu to Persian.

ہمشیر  
  اردو میں اب یہ لفظ "رشتے کی بہن" اور "سگی بہن" دونوں معنی میں کبھی کبھی بولا جاتا ہے۔ لیکن اس کے اصل معنی "دودھ شریک بھائی یا بہن" کے ہیں۔ پرانے زمانے میں صرف "بھائی" کے معنی میں بھی رہا ہو گا، جیسا کہ آبرو کے اس شعر میں ہے    ؎

سارے معالجوں میں جلاب خوب تر ہے
ہمشیر ان سبھوں کا پہچانتے ہو ہُر ہے

غالب نے انوار الدولہ شفق کے نام ایک خط میں اس لفظ کو یوں استعمال کیا ہے کہ معنی بالکل واضح ہو گئے ہیں:
وہ میرا ہمشیر بھی تھا، یعنی میں نے اپنی ممانی کا اور اس نے اپنی پھوپی کا دودھ پیا تھا۔
(No translation here, I can't type anymore... Anyone?)


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## PersoLatin

marrish said:


> _hamshîra_(h): here in the meaning "a brother or a sister sharing the milk" the haa-e-hawwaz is s superfluous (zaa'id), i.e. both _hamshiir_ and _hamshiirah_ are the same in the above mentioned sense


According to Loqatnâmé :
همشیره . [ هََ رَ / رِ ] (ص مرکب ) آنکه با دیگری بدون قرابت نسبت ، از یک پستان شیر خورد. (یادداشت مؤلف ). هر پسر و یا دختری که با دیگری از پستان یک دایه شیر خورد. در تداول امروز به معنی خواهر به کار میرود. ج ، همشیرگان : پیغامبر علیه السلام را همشیره ای بود از این دایه ، روزی این همشیره گوسفندان برگرفت و بر کوه برد. (تاریخ بلعمی ).

There are many lines of poetry on that page with both همشیره also همشیرگان which is the plural of همشیره as opposed to همشیران which would have been the plural of همشیر.

Of course همشیر is also listed:
همشیر. [ هََ ] (ص مرکب ) هم شیر. برادر رضاعی . (آنندراج ). دو کودک (دختر یا پسر) که از یک پستان شیر خورند. رضیع. رضیعة.

I am sure the use of همشیره being an unrelated child nursed by the same دایه"wet nurse" (group1) has to be a later development of the word, surely the percentage of group1 compared to full brothers and sister being nursed by their natural mother, over the millennia,  must be 0.0001% to 99.9999%. Dictionaries rarely provide a service when it comes to evolution of a word.


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## Qureshpor

marrish said:


> The late Prof. Shamsul Rahman Faruqi of Allahabad (India) wrote about the ہ, همشیر, and همشیره too. I'm quoting from a book of his (لغت روزمرہ) :
> ہمشیر
> اردو میں اب یہ لفظ "رشتے کی بہن" اور "سگی بہن" دونوں معنی میں کبھی کبھی بولا جاتا ہے۔ لیکن اس کے اصل معنی "دودھ شریک بھائی یا بہن" کے ہیں۔ پرانے زمانے میں صرف "بھائی" کے معنی میں بھی رہا ہو گا، جیسا کہ آبرو کے اس شعر میں ہے    ؎
> 
> سارے معالجوں میں جلاب خوب تر ہے
> ہمشیر ان سبھوں کا پہچانتے ہو ہُر ہے
> 
> غالب نے انوار الدولہ شفق کے نام ایک خط میں اس لفظ کو یوں استعمال کیا ہے کہ معنی بالکل واضح ہو گئے ہیں:
> وہ میرا ہمشیر بھی تھا، یعنی میں نے اپنی ممانی کا اور اس نے اپنی پھوپی کا دودھ پیا تھا۔
> (No translation here, I can't type anymore... Anyone?)


In Urdu, this word is sometimes spoken in the sense of both a "sister by relationship" and a "blood sister". But its original meaning is of "foster brother or sister". In the olden days, it must also have been used for "brother" only, as one finds in this couplet of Abroo.

Amongst all the remedies, purgative is in its own class
"Brother" of all these you may well know is but an ass

Ghalib describes this word as follows in a letter written to Anwar-ud-Dawla in which the meaning has become absolutely plain. He was my "hamshiir" too. That is to say I had drunk my maternal aunt's* milk and he had drunk his paternal aunt's.**

* Mother's brother's wife

** Father's sister

The implication I believe , is that Ghalib's mother's brother's wife was Anwar-ud-Dawla's father's sister.

Edit: I am still trying to find the correct meaning of "har" rhyming with "tar".

P هر *har* [Pārsī *har;* old P. *haruva;* Zend haurva; S. सर्व], pron. adj. Every; each; any; — all: — *har* ān, adv. Every moment, at all times, constantly, always; — whenever; — *har* ān ki, adv. Every time that, whenever; — conj. Whereas, seeing that: — *har-ek* 

 H هر हर _har_ [Prk. हरो; S. हरः, rt. हृ], adj. Bringing, conveying, carrying; taking, seizing; captivating; taking away, removing; depriving (of); — dividing; — s.m. Seizer; — a name of Mahādev or Śiva; and of Agni; — a rogue; — a wag; — an ass;


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## Alfaaz

Thank you to everyone for the valuable contributions!


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