# Urdu: lihaazah لہاذا



## teaboy

Can someone explain the little mini-alif hovering between the _he_ and the _daal_ in لِہٰذا "_therefore" _?  How is it to be pronounced?  Why it is there?  Is it like a human appendix - a leftover organ we don't really need anymore?


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## panjabigator

This doesn't _really_ answer your question, but the word looks similar.  Perhaps they are related?  Anyway, Cilqui and Faylasoof discuss the word a bit.

edit: actually, they DO discuss your word.


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## BP.

The vertical dash is a sound modifier, and one of the 5(?) _Harakaat _put above or below the letters, 3 of the rest being short vowels, and the last a glottal stop.

This _k.haRaa zabar_ introduces an _aliph _where it doesn't exist as in _lihaadhaa_-لہٰذا, and overrides any vowel if it occurs over one e.g. the y-ی in _a3laa_-اعلٰی.


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## teaboy

I see.  Why don't we just put a full adult alif in there then?  

Is it that in Urdu it is pronounced with an /aa/sound but in Arabic it wasn't?  

Or was there always an /aa/sound in the Arabic, and if so, then why didn't they spell it with a full grown-up alif in the first place?


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## BP.

It is a fidel carry-over from Arabic. I have no idea why it is spelt this way. Someone with more _3amiiq _knowledge of Arabic might be able help us on this.


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## Faylasoof

We are talking entirely about orthographic convention! When Urdu, Farsi, Ottoman Turkish etc. borrowed this word from Arabic they kept this form (لھٰذا), just like the following forms have been kept:

_muusaa_ موسی 
_3iisaa_ عیسی
_ar-raHmaan_  الرحمٰن

It is wrong to respell these as  موسا , عیسا etc. They are actually موسیٰ ,  عیسیٰ and so on, i.e. with an  _alif maqSuurah _ألف مقصورة ending. 

The use of this short _alif_  on top of a letter – and it is a proper _alif_ (!) – goes back to pre-Islamic times but the best place to look is in the Quran, where you’ll notice many other conventions that we can’t discuss here. 

BTW, some leeway is allowed! For example many people, including Rehman Malik, a Pakistani senator, spell their name in Urdu as رحمان. But we always write الرحمٰن when referring to the Quranic use of this word.

In the end, it is *لھٰذا* and _not_ لھاذا! The latter is not acceptable.


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## BP.

Faylasoof said:


> ...
> BTW, some leeway is allowed! For example many people, including Rehman Malik, a Pakistani senator, spell their name in Urdu as رحمان. ...


Did a www search, and all I got for 'reHmaan with an alif' were written by  people of forums or by Pakistanis. I think it is simply a case of writing convenience and in the Pakistanis' case, of misspelling. Anyway, official texts or the Qur-aan would certainly be written with the correct orthograph so it that there's no confusion.

The wiki link is very unreliable for the spelling for the said person's name. He's being called 'maanaa Hajjaam', maanaa being a corruption of raHmaan, and later in the text referred to as 'rishwat khor'! The person who wrote that shouldn't be trusted with their spellings.


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## Faylasoof

BelligerentPacifist said:


> Did a www search, and all I got for 'reHmaan with an alif' were written by  people of forums or by Pakistanis. I think it is simply a case of writing convenience and in the Pakistanis' case, of misspelling. Anyway, official texts or the Qur-aan would certainly be written with the correct orthograph so it that there's no confusion.



 I too noticed this! But see BBC Urdu link below! Yes, I know!



BelligerentPacifist said:


> The wiki link is very unreliable for the spelling for the said person's name. He's being called 'maanaa Hajjaam', maanaa being a corruption of raHmaan, and later in the text referred to as 'rishwat khor'! The person who wrote that shouldn't be trusted with their spellings.



It is just not here or on Pakistani web sites that the name is spelt like this. Here is a very interesting example of how in the same article on the BBC Urdu web site you see both the correct and the incorrect forms:

*رحمن ملک کو معافی کیوں*


عبادالحق
بی بی سی اردو ڈاٹ کام، لاہور


صدر مملکت آصف علی زرداری کی طرف سے وزیر داخلہ سینیٹر *رحمان* ملک کی سزا معاف کرنے کے اقدام نے اس سوال کو جنم دیا ہے کہ

​ The incorrect spelling is seen 18x the correct only 3x!

 (_BTW, I didn't present the Wiki link for its judgmental account of this person. Just a convenient link to show the use of this form that you also noted on the net. It would be best to treat the content of this article with the some scepticism_!)

Not surprisingly we also see ہٰذا / لھٰذا  written as لھاذا , here and elsewhere on Urdu websites:

لھاذا  ماحولیات میں بہتری کے ھدف کو مستقبل کی تمام پالیسز میں مد نظر رکھا  جائیگا، چنانچہ تمام پالیسز کو وضع کرتے وقت ماحولیاتی ضرورتوں ترجیح دی  جائیگی۔​


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## teaboy

I think some of the misspellings may be due to deficiencies in the computer fonts.  For instance, I cannot properly type *لھٰذا *in Nafees Nastaleeq.  I have to "insert symbol" in Word in another font, then cut and paste from Word and then highlight and change the font to Nafees Nastaleeq.


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## Faylasoof

I'm not sure if this is _entirely_ an issue about fonts though they may also play a role. 

The BBC Urdu link above suggsets that it is possible for someone in the same article to spell the word correctly and inconrrectly all at once! This doesn't look like a fonts issue to me. Besides, it is OK to spell it like this: < لھذا >. It would be better to have the short _alif_ above the <_he_> but if certain fonts give you problem you can just omit it.


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## teaboy

Can someone instruct me in the correct usage of لہاذا ?


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## Qureshpor

teaboy said:


> لہاذا then. Urdu spelling is as painful as English.


ranj se xuugar hu'aa insaaN to miT jaataa hai ranj
mushkileN mujh par paRiiN itnii kih aasaaN ho ga'iiN

Ghalib

li = for

haazaa = this

lihaazaa = so/therefore

lihaazaa, teaboy Jii, aap himmat nah haareN aur "he" ke uupar ek khaRaa alif likh deN aur phir zaal ko he ke saath milaa deN.


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## teaboy

I see. Thank you, QP Sahib. I'm not sure how to do that on a computer, but I will remember for when I hand write it.


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## greatbear

"lihaazaa" is wonderfully similar to the French "du coup": English doesn't have a precise equivalent, "so" doing the job.


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## Cilquiestsuens

greatbear said:


> "lihaazaa" is wonderfully similar to the French "du coup": English doesn't have a precise equivalent, "so" doing the job.



'*Du coup*' sounds a bit casual to me while _*lihaazaa*_ is rather high register, *TheTh / Thos* Arabic...

I think words like '_*therefore*_' or '*consequently*' are good fits for the job, aren't they?

*PS*: It is by the way spelt لہذا    without the _alif _(although it is pronounced: *lihaazaa*) since it follows the old  spelling conventions of early Arabic. (some people do right a small  detached alif above 'he' or between 'he' and 'daal', like this: لہٰذ )


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## marrish

Cilquiestsuens said:


> *PS*: It is by the way spelt لہذا    without the _alif _(although it is pronounced: *lihaazaa*) since it follows the old  spelling conventions of early Arabic. (some people do right a small  detached alif above 'he' or between 'he' and 'daal', like this: لہٰذ )


Teaboy jii shall be grateful to you to cut the story short. Your final alif seems to have moved forward! لہٰذا


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## greatbear

Cilquiestsuens said:


> '*Du coup*' sounds a bit casual to me while _*lihaazaa*_ is rather high register, *TheTh / Thos* Arabic...
> 
> I think words like '_*therefore*_' or '*consequently*' are good fits for the job, aren't they?



I do agree with you regarding the different registers. "Du coup" belongs to fam., pop. register, whereas "lihaazaa" is certainly "standard", if not "soutenu", register. My point was rather that "lihaazaa" is used when the the consequence is more tightly related to what precedes (just like with "du coup", hence I gave its example): "therefore" and "consequently" are kind of vague, in the sense that you could digress a lot in between and then return back saying a "therefore", "hence", etc.


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