# Romanisation



## bakshink

Dear Faylasoof
Gota (to dive) is not same as Gotta (Sequinning or embroidery work with a metallic thread). Like Peeta(drinks) is different from Peetta (was beaten), Ata (comes) is different from Atta( Wheat flour) and Khota (Loses also means ass in Punjabi) is different from Khotta (fake).

You are so knowledgeable that I hesitate to wrtie it, pardon my impertinence but as you know.

In Hind/Urdu there are three different alphabets T (Tera- yours), TT(TTeRRa- Bent), TTh( TThehra- Stagnant,not moving) while in English there is only one and there is no universal acceptance as to how others will be represented in English.

GoTTa in GoTTa Kinari is with T accented.


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## Faylasoof

Dear Bakshink,

I don't have a lot of time at the moment but let me try to explain this.

The problem we have here is that we are using different rules for writing Romanised Hindi and Urdu! 

Before you and others joined us, we (panjabigator, Icf, BP, illuminatus and myself) had come to an agreement of sorts between us about Romanised Urdu-Hindi, but even that has changed a bit over time. We did this as some of us are not completely at ease with the Naagrii (Nagri) script and others not too comfortable with the Arabic(-Persio-Urdu) script. I nearly always try to give the words in Urdu (as above) but that doesn't help you unless you get an Urdu reader to read these out to you. So let me explain the rules for t/ T / _T_ / etc I'm using:


t <letter te  ت > =  ; as in <taal> تال (the film!) – soft <t>
T <letter Te  ٹ > =  ; as in Topii / Topee ٹوپی (cap) - hard <T>.
_T_ <letter _T_o ط> =  ; as in _T_araf  طَرَف (side / direction) or gho_Ta_h غوطه (pronounced as gho_T_aa - silent <h>).
th =  ; as in thaa  تھا (was) - aspirated soft <t>.
Th =  ; as Thaakur ٹھاكُر, Therao ٹھراٴو, Thernaa ٹھر نا (to stay / remain/ stagnate) - aspirated hard <T>.

....and  gh <letter ghayn  غ> =  ; as in ghareeb  غَریب (poor - in Urdu), gharq غَرق (drown / sink), gho_Ta_h  غوطه (dive) -- _<gh> pronounced like the French <r> in <rouge>._

aa = long <a> ; as in aakaash, aadam, gaanaa (to sing / song), aam (mangoe) NOT <3aam = common>.

Given these rules, what you give above I would write as follows (yours first then mine):

Gota    = gho_T_ah غوطه (pronounced as gho_T_aa - silent <h>)  = dive
Gotta   = goTa or rather goTaa گوٹا ( the <aa> is long, ) = metallic thread embroidery  
[For us <gotta> is phonetically very close to <guTTaa / guTTa = block / cube, as in shakar guTTa / guTTaa = شَکَر گَٹّا   [شَکَر + گَٹ + ٹا] = sugar cubes>]
Peeta = peetaa پیتا (some of us write <piita /piitaa> = drinks
Peetta = peeTaa پیٹا = (was) beaten
Ata = aataa  آتا = comes
Atta = aaTaa آٹا = flour
Khota = khotaa = loses  / is loosing كھوتا (I know thePunjabi khota and khoti !)
Khotta = khoTaa  كھوٹا = fake

[I assume there are no <typos> above- only add to the confusion!]


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## Faylasoof

bakshink said:


> Thanks Faylasoof I will abide by the dictum (sort off) it. There might still be some confusion because of gluttrals,aspirated and accented letters because te' toyein and kaaf, kaaf are spoken and written differently but even though many like me may know the word and yet not know the right spellings and thus falter with our agreed Romanised code. However I am saving your mail and will try to adhere to the code accepted among us



Well, we have no dictum - just guidelines. But we / I try to stick to them. 

  Yes, gutturals, fricatives etc. can be confusing ,e.g. kh when aspirated I / we treat as in <khaanaa (to eat)>, but some use it for the fricative that I (and PG) represent by <x>,as in <xaamosh = quiet>.


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## albondiga

Hmm, I was more active here before there was a separate forum for this family of languages, but now that we have one it would not be such a bad idea to have a sticky post at the top with a suggested romanization for the Devanagari/Urdu alphabets to Roman characters (i.e., for the full alphabets)... I don't think it's something that should be "enforced" by any means, but certainly all regulars could be on the same page and avoid confusion on words like "ghoTaa"...  I'm sure what I myself do now doesn't match everyone else 100% at this point, but I'd abide by a "standard" if there was a clear established one for this forum (one that could easily be referred to at all times, and by all _new _members as well)...

Incidentally, it would also help corrections for the learners (i.e., all of us...  ), as others would notice when I unintentionally used a short vowel for a long vowel, or a dental consonant for a retroflex one (i.e., you would notice that I had made an actual error, and would know that it is not just a divergent method of transliteration)...

Just my thoughts on the matter...


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## Lol999

As someone new to both Hindi and the board may I have an input? I have been using romanised texts such as Snells and McGregors and in Snells in particular he uses the accented characters, such as "āp" instead of "aap". I find the former much easier to use since I can:
a) understand it since I know the accented "a" means a long "a" sound
b) find it in a dictionary if I am not sure.

Spelling the words in what I understand to be a phonetic form does not help beginners such as myself since if I did not know what "aap" meant I could spend a long time looking for it in the dictionary! The accented characters are easy enough to find in the Windows software, so could that not be a standard to aim for?

Thanks, Lol


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## lcfatima

I am not tech savvy and I have dinosaur software so I fear using any special diacritics. Kya karoo.n majboori mei.n? You guys can upgrade if you like, but please don't require everyone to do it.


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## Rhman

I have always used ITRANS...here is a key for that: http://www.aczoom.com/itrans/tblall/tblall.html

I feel like it is very intuitive and it is also what Hindi Writer uses.  

In past groups it has been very difficult to adopt a transliteration system, but I agree that especially for beginning learners it is really hard to decipher conflicting systems.


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## albondiga

@Lol: Just my opinion (though I think it would be widely shared among the regulars, although I am not so regular myself...  ): the whole goal is to make things easier, and I think most people would rather just be able to sit down and type their message quickly without having to refer to outside software (as the Snell system would involve)... as a learner myself I kinda understand where you're coming from, but I don't think many here will go for your suggestion... but I think it's perfectly fine for you to use that system when you write (and I think *most* people will understand it as well.)

@lcfatima, I agree 100%... as I wrote above, any "standard" should be (a) "suggested" NOT mandatory or ever "enforced", and  (b) be clear and easy... 

what I was getting at above is the idea that if the regulars have already agreed on certain easy-to-use guidelines/suggestions for differentiating dental/retroflex, long/short, nasal vowels, etc., then these should be published in a clear format with a sticky at the top of the forum so that others who wish to join in can see right away how things work, can be on the same page from the start, can use the same system (if they choose) when engaging in conversations, etc.  again, all with the goals of avoiding confusion and making it easier to learn...


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## panjabigator

It's all very confusing, mainly because they're several good systems and we combine them all at times.  I'll try and look up one of the systems and post a link online, as this has been discussed before in other fora.  

Should anyone be using a mac, PM me and I can tell you how to type with the cool diacritical marks ā, ṭ, etc.


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## panjabigator

Rhman said:


> I have always used ITRANS...here is a key for that: http://www.aczoom.com/itrans/tblall/tblall.html



Thanks Rhman.  I use this one too in the Yahoo group, but I just glanced and saw that the Gurumukhi one is not all correct.  Xabardār.


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## Illuminatus

Probably because I am a native, and because I have been using simple Romanized Hindi since many years, I find ITRANS annoying. I understand that natives find it difficult to know exactly how the word would be written, so I try to make it as clear as possible using capital letters. Of course, while the International Keyboard layout can help me type stuff like é è ß ñ, I haven't found something similar for the _a bar _and others. Going to a third party editor, typing those characters and then pasting here seems too much trouble.


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## bakshink

Let's agree on something and get going then. The problem is not with those who know the language already. We must keep the interests of the learners and the visitors in mind. The code what we agree upon must be easy to use, easy to read (comprehend) and easy to write on a simple text editor. No one, I think is going to go through the trouble of writing on some advanced text editor and pasting it here (with strange results). I am attaching here the alphabet set for Hindi and Urdu taken from a site named http://www.omniglot.com. I hope they are using some standard set of characters. I am using a lap-top here and I am not sure whether I will be able to get all the characters without much botheration. The idea is to keep the interest of everyone sharing the forum, alive.<br>


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## bakshink

I wasn't able to attach both Hindi and Urdu alphabets together with my message because of the size restrictions- Here is the Urdu set attached.


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## BP.

Illuminatus said:


> ...while the International Keyboard layout can help me type stuff like é è ß ñ, I haven't found something similar for the _a bar _and others. Going to a third party editor, typing those characters and then pasting here seems too much trouble.



My thoughts exactly. Copying out of a text editor just to put a bar atop an a or an o is simply overkill.

Unfortunately I'm even deprived of the Intl. Keyboard Layout since I'm using an English keyboard on top of French-only Windows that lack this feature.


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## Illuminatus

The International Layout is a software setting. You don't physically need a different keyboard.


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## BP.

^I know that, the thing is my Windows at home are monolingual and do not have this feature.


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## panjabigator

Perhaps after something is decided, the romanization rules can be appended to the forum rules.


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## Lol999

albondiga said:


> @Lol: Just my opinion (though I think it would be widely shared among the regulars, although I am not so regular myself...  ): the whole goal is to make things easier, and I think most people would rather just be able to sit down and type their message quickly without having to refer to outside software (as the Snell system would involve)... as a learner myself I kinda understand where you're coming from, but I don't think many here will go for your suggestion... but I think it's perfectly fine for you to use that system when you write (and I think *most* people will understand it as well.)



Albondiga I'm happy just to be here and will fit in with whatever the experienced majority sees fit. I was just talking from a personal perspective and the fact that the character map appears in Windows from the 95 issue, the mimimum required for internet access. As for Linux and mac users......get Windows! 

Cheers, Lol


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