# Urdu: grammatical terms



## Todd The Bod

Does anyone know these terms in Urdu?


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## Faylasoof

Noun = _ism_ اسم
Verb = _fe3l_  فعل
Adverb = _muta3alliq-e-fe3l_ متعلق فعل
Adjective = _Sifat_ صفت


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## panjabigator

I do believe these are the same in Persian (maybe even Arabic, based off their inconspicuous Arabic orthography); my Persian instructor uses these terms in class.


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## Cilquiestsuens

I have the feeling they are a mix of Arabic and English Grammar....
I don't know the grammatical terms of Urdu very well.... Does anyone actually know them???

I am just making the list longer hoping others will do the same:

Pronouns ضمیر
Preposition ????? 
Verb فعل 
Present tense فعل حال
Subjunctive tense فعل مضادع
Perfect tense فعل ماضی
Imperfect tense فعل ماضی استمراری
Conditional فعل شرطیہ
Imperative امر

I actually do them out of memory, can anyone correct me....

I am not sure all tenses of the verb have a name in Urdu....

How do you call 

The Conditional past? *Mai.N ne us se kahaa hota, agar mujhe pataa hotaa*
This secondary form of subjunctive : *ek aisa aadmii chaahiye jo kaam jaantaa ho*
The Present continuous : *woh bol rahii hai*
The Past continuous : *woh bol rahii thii*
The Present Perfect : *Us ne kaam kiyaa hai*
The Pluperfect : *Us ne kaam kiyaa thaa*

And so many other tenses used in modern day Urdu??


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## panjabigator

While we are at it, what is the word for "tense" as in "grammatical tense" or even "mood?"  The subjunctive, indicative, and imperative are all moods and not tenses, an important distinction.

How about extending this dialogue to Hindi as well?


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## Cilquiestsuens

Well good question. Remember that mood vs. tense is a English / Latin grammatical concept... The problem is that Urdu has derived its grammatical concept from Arabic which has a different system altogether while in grammar it may actually be closer to a language like English...

I would say *zaman* or *zamaan* for tense (even *zamaana*).

For mood, I don't know if the word exist in traditional Urdu grammar.... The words you find in dictionaries are here I think to describe English grammar (I have found *wajah, suurat, kaifiyat*, but these are not proper grammatical terms)

I myself think of *Haalat*, as in Arabic, the *7aalaat* of the verb (*raf3, naSb, jazm*) are translated by mood by Orientalist grammarians but this is something completely different from the moods of Indo-European languages....


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## linguist786

preposition: حرف جر (Harfe Jarr)


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## linguist786

Cilquiestsuens said:


> Pronouns ضمیر
> Preposition ?????
> Verb فعل
> Present tense فعل حال
> Subjunctive tense فعل مضادع
> Perfect tense فعل ماضی
> Imperfect tense فعل ماضی استمراری
> Conditional فعل شرطیہ
> Imperative امر
> 
> And so many other tenses used in modern day Urdu??


It might have been a typo but it's فعل مضا*ر*ع


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## Faylasoof

Cilquiestsuens said:


> .....
> I would say *zaman* or *zamaan* for tense (even *zamaana*).
> 
> For mood, I don't know if the word exist in traditional Urdu grammar.... The words you find in dictionaries are here I think to describe English grammar (I have found *wajah, suurat, kaifiyat*, but these are not proper grammatical terms)
> ......



Tense  = زَمانَہ_ zamaanah - pronounced  zamaan*aa*_

Mood =  صورت_ Surat _ (or طرز _T__arz_)

Mood of the verb = _Surat-e-fe3l _صورت فعل   < (=  _T__arz-e-fe3l _طرز فعل  )> 

....and,

Preposition = حرفِ  ربط _Harf-e-rabT / _حرفِ  جار_Harf-e-jaar

Your tenses above are fine but as you know we use many more!! I have a list which needs to be modified to include all the English equivalents. 
_


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## Cilquiestsuens

yes I know it's an incomplete list.... If you have a more complete list, please share it...


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## panjabigator

There is an interesting discussion going on in the Arabic discussion that, in my opinion, is apropos to this one.  Perhaps we'll find some overlap?

Which language to use when speaking about Arabic grammar ?


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## Cilquiestsuens

panjabigator said:


> There is an interesting discussion going on in the Arabic discussion that, in my opinion, is apropos to this one. Perhaps we'll find some overlap?
> 
> Which language to use when speaking about Arabic grammar ?


 
That is an interesting discussion. If you want to study Classical Arabic one day, study it through Arabic grammar and everything will become crystal clear, because all the specific concepts of Arabic grammar are based on the specificites of the Arabic language and explain them very well.

Now, unfortunately, there is no such thing as an Urdu grammatical tradition. Since Urdu has started being grammatically analyzed, there have been tries to cast it the mould of Arabic grammatical concepts - through Farsi -, and English ones.

Unfortunately, 'traditional' Urdu grammar now is therefore partly Arabic, partly English. Most of the time, the terminology is in Arabic but many of the concepts are closer to the English grammar (I should say Western grammar, as initially Latin / French grammatical traditions have left their imprint on the English one).

I just meant to say that while it is very useful for a learner to learn the grammatical concepts of Arabic... You cannot compare Urdu with Arabic, as it has no such thing as a well-grounded grammatical tradition (don't misunderstand me, Urdu has a very old and impressive tradition of rhetoric, but Urdu traditional scholars couldn't care less about Urdu grammar, although they were very well trained in Arabic and also Farsi grammar). The first ever written grammar of Urdu is Daryaa-e lataafat by Insha Allah Khan Insha and it was originally written in Farsi... and it is not really what moderns would call a grammar although it is very informative on the Urdu spoken in the times of Insha Allah Khan.


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## panjabigator

Cilqui, thank you for this post.  I am 100% in agreement with you.  Hopefully there will one day be a better Urdu grammar text, a tool that follows indic/indigenous grammatical paradigms to avoid confining Urdu to Arabic and Persian.


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## Cilquiestsuens

linguist786 said:


> It might have been a typo but it's فعل مضا*ر*ع


 
By the way I forgot to thank you for pointing out the typo....


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## panjabigator

Reviving an old thread here.  Cilqui, does Urdu use the word التزامی for subjunctive as well?


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## teaboy

Thanks, panjabigator!  This is a great resource - I have it bookmarked now...


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## teaboy

What about the words for singular and plural?


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## panjabigator

No Urdu script on this computer, so I'll edit this post later.

Singular: mufrad
plural: jam3


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## teaboy

I can help there:

*مفرد* -- singular
*جمع* -- plural


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