# Urdu: Ba Murawwat



## UrduMedium

What's the most accurate translation of ba-murawwat into English?

Considerate and gentlemanly come close but leave something to be desired ...


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## Qureshpor

mbasit said:


> What's the most accurate translation of ba-murawwat into English?
> 
> Considerate and gentlemanly come close but leave something to be desired ...




Your word "muravvat" is in reality "muruu'ah"/"muruuwa" and its root is connected with "man". According to an Arabic dictionary it encompasses "the ideal of manhood comprising all knightly virtues especially manliness, valour, chivalry, generosity and sense of honour". So, whatever a "knight" is in Urdu, would be the word you are seeking.

How about simply "humane"?


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## Alfaaz

> What's the most accurate translation of ba-murawwat into English?


Not sure, the English Urdu dictionary gives many possibilities (and there could be more...): murawwat and baa-murawwat


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## marrish

The word is mur*u*vvat...


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## Alfaaz

> The word is mur*u*vvat...


Interesting! Platts gives muruwwat and this gives murawwat...

Looks like it was probably pronounced incorrectly in the song: baRe bemurawwat hain yeh Husn waale kaheeN dil lagaane ki koshish na karna


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## UrduMedium

Alfaaz said:


> Interesting! Platts gives muruwwat and this gives murawwat...
> 
> Looks like it was probably pronounced incorrectly in the song: baRe bemurawwat hain yeh Husn waale kaheeN dil lagaane ki koshish na karna



Isn't the ultimate authority on how a word is pronounced is the overwhelming majority of the native speakers? Has anyone ever heard native speakers say muruwwat? Also, it almost does not matter at all what the pronunciation in Arabic was or is. One a word has been absorbed into Urdu, it will have its own authentic pronunciation and sometimes even different meaning than Arabic. For example, although in Arabic the correct pronunciation is Ramadan, in Urdu it is Ramazan. To insist on Ramazan being wrong/inaccurate doesn't make sense. 

Humane may be a good translation too but a ba-murawwat person is more than humane. Its more like someone who puts the rights of others before his feelings, and the feelings of others before his right (stealing from a quote describing gentleman).


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## Alfaaz

> Isn't the ultimate authority on how a word is pronounced is the overwhelming majority of the native speakers? Has anyone ever heard native speakers say muruwwat? Also, it almost does not matter at all what the pronunciation in Arabic was or is. One a word has been absorbed into Urdu, it will have its own authentic pronunciation and sometimes even different meaning than Arabic. For example, although in Arabic the correct pronunciation is Ramadan, in Urdu it is Ramazan. To insist on Ramazan being wrong/inaccurate doesn't make sense.



(The following are only personal opinions and not intended to sound rude, offensive, forceful, or promoting a certain style of enunciation/pronunciation!) 

Sorry, but I would partially disagree with this philosophy! If this is the case, then there are regions in which words are mispronounced by the majority...would that mean that everyone should start mispronouncing those words like them? A speaker should try to correct him/herself rather than just go with the flow...of course there are exceptions.
Since it is an Arabic word (originally), it should be pronounced that way (again there are exceptions to this...); In Urdu, speakers don't even seem to say Ramazaan, rather seem to go for Ramzaan....


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## UrduMedium

Alfaaz said:


> (The following are only personal opinions and not intended to sound rude, offensive, forceful, or promoting a certain style of enunciation/pronunciation!)
> 
> Sorry, but I would partially disagree with this philosophy! If this is the case, then there are regions in which words are mispronounced by the majority...would that mean that everyone should start mispronouncing those words like them? A speaker should try to correct him/herself rather than just go with the flow...of course there are exceptions.
> Since it is an Arabic word (originally), it should be pronounced that way (again there are exceptions to this...); In Urdu, speakers don't even say Ramazaan, rather seem to go for Ramzaan....



OK I see your point. However, but if Mir and Ghalib and Iqbal agree that it is murawwat, then the matter is settled for me. Plus each language has a certain geographical area that maintains its special status in terms of authenticity. So going back a hundred years ago if the people of Delhi pronounced the word murawwat, it would not matter what a regional flavor like that of Hyderabad pronounce it as, the correct pronunciation would remain the same. Also if you try to synch up with Arabic you'll run into many problems on a whole variety of words, not just this one. I disagree with that approach. That is like insisting that the right pronunciation in Urdu is not Amreeka but America because that is how the Americans say it. The authentic Urdu pronunciation is indeed Amreeka, not America.


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## Alfaaz

> I disagree with that approach. That is like insisting that the right pronunciation in Urdu is not Amreeka but America because that is how the Americans say it. The authentic Urdu pronunciation is indeed Amreeka, not America.


I agree with this (which is why I had said that there are exceptions); since Ramadaan has religious significance...it seemed like it would be better pronounced the "correct" way. Of course there are many other Arabic borrowings in Urdu that are not pronounced like the originals and would probably sound odd/weird if they were...!


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## Abu Talha

Regarding referring to America as amriikaa and ramaDaan as ramazaan, this, in my opinion, is correct. In fact, saying ramaDaan in Urdu would be incorrect, because we don't have the Daad sound. These words were borrowed by Urdu and "Urduized". Regarding Arabic words borrowed into Urdu, there is a standard procedure to Urduize (possibly originally Persianize) them which consists of coverting all ظ,ض,ذ sounds to "z", replacing some hamzas with alif, waaw, or yaa, and some other rules.

However, generally the Harakaat on the individual letters are preserved (there are some exceptions to allow for declension). Sometimes this causes some hardship for the Indic tongue, such as in words like SubH, wajh, Sabr, etc., so in these cases the "correct" pronunciation is only academic.

In other cases, the incorrect pronunciation is, in my opinion, caused by incorrectly assuming that the word is following a common word pattern. The lack of short vowels in written text could be one cause. For example, the mufa33al pattern in Arabic has many words which are borrowed by Urdu. However, there are many others that don't follow this pattern, but were incorrectly lumped under this pattern too, e.g., m*a*Habbat (pronounced m*u*Habbat), m*a*shaqqat (pronounced m*u*shaqqat), and in this case muruvvat, muruu'at.

Also, I'd like to borrow Alfaaz Saahib's disclaimer that these are only personal opinions, and I don't mean to dictate others' usage.


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## UrduMedium

Great comments. Thanks. One good example is mashkoor, which in Urdu means the opposite of what it means in Arabic. How we use this word in Urdu is how Shakir would be used in Arabic. In Arabic mashkoor is the one being thanked and in Urdu it the one thanking. Would that mean mashkoor=one thanking in Urdu is wrong usage? In my view, No. It is the correct Urdu usage, regardless. It has an independent existence in Urdu. The fact that it is originally from Arabic, is a quaint little tidbit for those interested in linguistics and etymologies. Just my $.02.


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## Alfaaz

Yes, great informative comments made by daee SaaHib as always! Of course everyone would have different opinions about some topics...


> However, there are many others that don't follow this pattern, but were incorrectly lumped under this pattern too, e.g., m*a*Habbat (pronounced m*u*Habbat), m*a*shaqqat (pronounced m*u*shaqqat),


Partially agree... many people use the pronunciations that you give in parentheses, but many also use the ones you list as being correct; For example, in an interview Singer Noor Jahan uses maHabbat while speaking, but goes on to sing it as mu/moHabbat in _mujh se pehli si_ by Faiz; Lata Mangeshkar explains this, saying that the correct word is of course maHabbat, but it wouldn't sound good in songs, so Noor Jahan used to sing it as muHabbat and she (Lata M.) followed her (NJ) and then eventually almost everyone (modern singers) began following them....; On the other hand, Mahdi Hassan in an interview to Radio PK said that he first used to sing muHabbat, but when he found out that the correct pronunciation is maHabbat, he started singing it correctly, even though some producers/directors used to get mad at him....


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## BP.

mbasit said:


> Isn't the ultimate authority on how a word is pronounced is the overwhelming majority of the native speakers?...


We've argued this on this board many times over when we were young to it like you are right now. My answer is no, demos isn't an authority, because people have been reverse-educated in language/s and aghlaat ul 3aam have become dominant.


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## UrduMedium

BelligerentPacifist said:


> We've argued this on this board many times over when we were young to it like you are right now. My answer is no, demos isn't an authority, because people have been reverse-educated in language/s and aghlaat ul 3aam have become dominant.



I wonder that _what is_ the authority to determine the correct pronunciation? If Ghalib and Iqbal and Faiz call the word murawwat (just an an example), will we continue to insist that the correct one is muru'ua, becasue in Arabic that is what it is? Languages seldom have central authorities to decide these things. They have an established literary traditions they agree upon to be the source of what words mean and how they are pronounced. Even if there were an authority, that is what they will have to use as the basis of their ruling. How else will they do it. Will they say Muhabbat is wrong even if it is used by towering literary figures? Languages are living entities and puritanism can severely affect their growth and dynamism.

Sorry if I am dragging you folks into something you have already extensively debated. Perhaps someone can post a link to the earlier debate. Thank you all.


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## Qureshpor

mbasit said:


> Isn't the ultimate authority on how a word is pronounced is the overwhelming majority of the native speakers? Has anyone ever heard native speakers say muruwwat? Also, it almost does not matter at all what the pronunciation in Arabic was or is. One a word has been absorbed into Urdu, it will have its own authentic pronunciation and sometimes even different meaning than Arabic. For example, although in Arabic the correct pronunciation is Ramadan, in Urdu it is Ramazan. To insist on Ramazan being wrong/inaccurate doesn't make sense.
> 
> Humane may be a good translation too but a ba-murawwat person is more than humane. Its more like someone who puts the rights of others before his feelings, and the feelings of others before his right (stealing from a quote describing gentleman).




Basit SaaHib, the course of this thread has gone off on a tangent, quite unnecessarily I believe. This is what I said in my first post in reply to yours.

"Your word "muravvat" is in reality "muruu'ah"/"muruuwa" and its root is connected with "man". According to an Arabic dictionary it encompasses "the ideal of manhood comprising all knightly virtues especially manliness, valour, chivalry, generosity and sense of honour". So, whatever a "knight" is in Urdu, would be the word you are seeking.

How about simply "humane"?"

Two questions arise:

1) Did anyone suggest at all that the word is or ought to be pronounced as "muruu'ah/muruuwa"? All that is being provided is a bit of (free) etomological background to the word. We all know how the word is pronounced by "natives" and "non-natives" alike. 

2) Did anyone suggest if "humane" was the ultimate equivalent of "baa-muravvat"? In fact the suggestion was put in the form of a question. If it does not marry up to your perception of the word, then that is of course fine with everyone. You have asked for other people's views about the best English equivalent for "baa-muravvat" and this is the best I could come up with at the time. You will find that "Platts", a well known and oft-referred to lexicon also has "humane" as one of its choices. 

As you know, it is not always easy to come up with meanings of stand-alone words. You have mentioned Miir, Ghalib and Iqbal. Perhaps it might have been more helpful if you had quoted from the work of one or more of these masters using "baa-muravvat". The context would then have narrowed down the meaning.


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## UrduMedium

QURESHPOR said:


> Basit SaaHib, the course of this thread has gone off on a tangent, quite unnecessarily I believe. This is what I said in my first post in reply to yours.
> 
> "Your word "muravvat" is in reality "muruu'ah"/"muruuwa" and its root is connected with "man". According to an Arabic dictionary it encompasses "the ideal of manhood comprising all knightly virtues especially manliness, valour, chivalry, generosity and sense of honour". So, whatever a "knight" is in Urdu, would be the word you are seeking.
> 
> How about simply "humane"?"
> 
> Two questions arise:
> 
> 1) Did anyone suggest at all that the word is or ought to be pronounced as "muruu'ah/muruuwa"? All that is being provided is a bit of (free) etomological background to the word. We all know how the word is pronounced by "natives" and "non-natives" alike.
> 
> 2) Did anyone suggest if "humane" was the ultimate equivalent of "baa-muravvat"? In fact the suggestion was put in the form of a question. If it does not marry up to your perception of the word, then that is of course fine with everyone. You have asked for other people's views about the best English equivalent for "baa-muravvat" and this is the best I could come up with at the time. You will find that "Platts", a well known and oft-referred to lexicon also has "humane" as one of its choices.
> 
> As you know, it is not always easy to come up with meanings of stand-alone words. You have mentioned Miir, Ghalib and Iqbal. Perhaps it might have been more helpful if you had quoted from the work of one or more of these masters using "baa-muravvat". The context would then have narrowed down the meaning.



Thanks for your comments Qureshpor sahib. In my later comments I was using murawwat as an example to support my view that divergence of pronunciation from the Arabic origin does not reduce the authenticity of the word (pronunciation). Which is where the debate's focus had shifted. Secondly, I agree that humane is a fine translation. However, just in a conversational manner I put in my commentary on it. I think that is acceptable response in a forum like environment. Did I get it wrong? I agree I'm a newbie here and welcome guidance from senior members like you and others who have opined here. Please advise. Lastly with regard to references, I agree I could have done a better job. However, I'm too lazy to look for them  until someone challenges them. To me they are in the _obvious _category. I have enjoyed this exchange, especially one about the what gives authenticity to borrowed words from other languages. Once again, my thanks and regard to everyone.


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## marrish

mbasit said:


> What's the most accurate translation of ba-murawwat into English?
> 
> Considerate and gentlemanly come close but leave something to be desired ...



Apart from 'humane', which I think is a very good translation, I would convey it as 'magnanimous'.


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## UrduMedium

I like magnanimous a lot. Thanks for sharing.


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## Faylasoof

Both _muruwwat_ and _murawwat_ are used and have been accepted! We always say _muruwwat_!

مروت _muruwwat_ = بہادری   _bahaadurii_ / رعایت _ri3aayat_ / لحاظ _liHaaZ_ / سخاوت_ saxaawat    _
مروت  برتنا _muruwwat baratnaa _= لحاظ سے پیش آنا _liHaaZ se pesh aanaa_
مروت  كرنا _muruwwat karnaa _=   رعایت  \ لحاظ كرنا  _ri3aayat_  / _liHaaZ karnaa_

The most common usage is in the meaning of _liHaaZ / ri3aayat . _


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## marrish

Faylasoof said:


> Both _muruwwat_ and _murawwat_ are used and have been accepted! *We always say muruwwat!*
> 
> مروت _muruwwat_ = بہادری   _bahaadurii_ / رعایت _ri3aayat_ / لحاظ _liHaaZ_ / سخاوت_ saxaawat    _
> مروت  برتنا _muruwwat baratnaa _= لحاظ سے پیش آنا _liHaaZ se pesh aanaa_
> مروت  كرنا _muruwwat karnaa _=   رعایت  \ لحاظ كرنا  _ri3aayat_  / _liHaaZ karnaa_
> 
> The most common usage is in the meaning of _liHaaZ / ri3aayat . _



Faylasoof SaaHib, I beg your pardon, do you say it so or is it a typo? We say it always as _mur*u*wwat,_ even in Urdu.Typo in


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## Faylasoof

marrish said:


> Faylasoof SaaHib, I beg your pardon, do you say it so or is it a typo? We say it always as _mur*u*wwat,_ even in Urdu.


 It was indeed a typo! I meant مروّت  _*muruwwat!*_


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## marrish

I have heard _murawwat_ many a times but in good speech it is always _muruwwat_. murawwat is not good for me. Typical _zeer. zabar, and in this case, peesh nah karne kii tamiiz._


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## Qureshpor

Faylasoof said:


> Both _muruwwat_ and _murawwat_ are used and have been accepted! We always say _muruwwat_!
> 
> مروت _muruwwat_ = بہادری   _bahaadurii_ / رعایت _ri3aayat_ / لحاظ _liHaaZ_ / سخاوت_ saxaawat    _
> مروت  برتنا _muruwwat baratnaa _= لحاظ سے پیش آنا _liHaaZ se pesh aanaa_
> مروت  كرنا _muruwwat karnaa _=   رعایت  \ لحاظ كرنا  _ri3aayat_  / _liHaaZ karnaa_
> 
> The most common usage is in the meaning of _liHaaZ / ri3aayat . _




Thank you Faylasoof SaaHib. Incorporating this meaning into "baa-muruvvat", what would the English equivalent be, since this was the enquirer's original question?


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## marrish

I think it's not an easy task laid on the shoulders of Faylasoof SaaHib since this term is a pre-Islamic Arab term.
However, in Urdu it has the scope of meaning as ''humane'' and ''magnanimous'' and ''chivalrous' as far as I'm concerned.


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## Qureshpor

marrish said:


> I think it's not an easy task laid on the shoulders of Faylasoof SaaHib since this term is a pre-Islamic Arab term.
> However, in Urdu it has the scope of meaning as ''humane'' and ''magnanimous'' and ''chivalrous' as far as I'm concerned.



ham Urdu-vaaloN ke kandhe itne kam-zor nahiiN kih in chhoTii-moTii baatoN kaa bojh bhii bardaasht nah kar sakeN!


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## UrduMedium

Thanks everyone for their posts. Great exchange. I think the translations listed above sound good to me.

Unfortunately, I have heard muruwwat. But I know now this is also acceptable. Great education!


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## marrish

QURESHPOR said:


> ham Urdu-vaaloN ke kandhe itne kam-zor nahiiN kih in chhoTii-moTii baatoN kaa bojh bhii bardaasht nah kar sakeN!


_maiN is baat se saraasar mutafiq huuN tabhii maiN bhii chand tajaaviiz faraahim karne se gurez nah hu'aa. zaruur janaab! phir bhiii hamaare takalluf kii baat hai._


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## marrish

mbasit said:


> Thanks everyone for their posts. Great exchange. I think the translations listed above sound good to me.
> 
> Unfortunately, I have heard muruwwat. But I know now this is also acceptable. Great education!



mukarramii, why unfortunately? This is the one we utter!


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## UrduMedium

marrish said:


> mukarramii, why unfortunately? This is the one we utter!



Sorry my mistake! I meant "I have NOT heard ...". Small typo causes chaos in meaning ...


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## marrish

mbasit said:


> Sorry my mistake! I meant "I have NOT heard ...". Small typo causes chaos in meaning ...


Of course, I see it now. I make mistakes over and over.


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## UrduMedium

marrish said:


> Of course, I see it now. I make mistakes over and over.



Of course, now I see a mistake in my correction. I meant "Unfortunately, I have _never _heard ...". My stone fingers


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