# Hindi/Urdu: becoming



## greatbear

How would you translate "becoming" into Hindi and Urdu in a phrase like this: "Whereas we are transitory, we are becoming, we are potentials; there is no perfection for us, no complete being"? The sentence is taken from Hesse's _Narcissus and Goldmund_ (trans. Molinaro).

Thanks in advance.


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## Alfaaz

English Definition: becoming:


> _adj._ *1. *Appropriate, suitable, or proper.
> *2. *Pleasing or attractive to the eye.





			
				greatbear said:
			
		

> How would you translate "becoming" into Hindi and Urdu in a phrase like this:
> "Whereas we are transitory, we are _becoming_, we are potentials; there is no perfection for us, no complete being" ?


Interesting quote! Attempt for Urdu:
"جبکہ / حالانکہ) ہم (عارضی / غیر مستقل / فانی / وقتی) ہیں، ہم _(مناسب / لائق / معقول)_ ہیں، ہم امکانات ہیں؛ ہمارے لئے کوئی (تکمیل / کمال) ، کوئی مکمل وجود نہیں)"
"(jabkeh / HaalaNkeh) hum (a'arzii / ghair mustaqil / faani / waqti) haiN, hum _(munaasib / laa'iq / ma'aquul)_ haiN, hum imkaanaat haiN ; humaare liye koi (takmeel / kamaal) , koi mukammal wujuud naheeN"


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## marrish

greatbear said:


> How would you translate "becoming" into Hindi and Urdu in a phrase like this: "Whereas we are transitory, we are becoming, we are potentials; there is no perfection for us, no complete being"? The sentence is taken from Hesse's _Narcissus and Goldmund_ (trans. Molinaro).
> 
> Thanks in advance.



Since Hesse belongs to to authors cherished by me and is one of the favourite I'll be trying to get to the original German text for translating into Hindi or Urdu from the source language may prove more accurate and possibly do more justice to the author. Would be highly appreciated if someone's googling knowledge bears fruit before I succeed to dig it up.


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## greatbear

Alfaaz said:


> Interesting quote! Attempt for Urdu:
> "جبکہ / حالانکہ) ہم (عارضی / غیر مستقل / فانی / وقتی) ہیں، ہم _(مناسب / لائق / معقول)_ ہیں، ہم امکانات ہیں؛ ہمارے لئے کوئی (تکمیل / کمال) ، کوئی مکمل وجود نہیں)"
> "(jabkeh / HaalaNkeh) hum (a'arzii / ghair mustaqil / faani / waqti) haiN, hum _(munaasib / laa'iq / ma'aquul)_ haiN, hum imkaanaat haiN ; humaare liye koi (takmeel / kamaal) , koi mukammal wujuud naheeN"



I am afraid you've got it wrong here, Alfaaz: "becoming" means here "honaa, bannaa". The sentence means we are always in the process, never the finished product. We are always "becoming". I could translate this "becoming" as "honaa" but it is not elegant, which is why I was looking for some other solution.

Hope other members and marrish come up with something better than mere "honaa".


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## BP.

Urdu:
If I can be excused for offering a phrase that's in a framework only some people subscribe to, here it is:
ہم ہمہ قت بینِ کاف و نون گردان/رقصاں ہیں


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## greatbear

BelligerentPacifist said:


> Urdu: If I can be excused for offering a phrase that's in a framework only some people subscribe to, here it is: ہم ہمہ قت بینِ کاف و نون گردان/رقصاں ہیں


  Could you also transliterate it in roman script, please?


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## BP.

greatbear said:


> Could you also transliterate it in roman script, please?


sorry for forgetting about it earlier.
"ham mamah waqt bain e kaaf wa nuun girdaan/raqSaan hai.n" - we're perennially locked in a loop between the cleaving (K) and the resonating propagation (N) of creation.


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## Qureshpor

jab kih ham to dam bhar ke liye hote haiN. ham ho jaa rahe hote haiN, ham ho jaane vaale haiN. nah hamaare liye kamaal hai nah hii puuraa honaa.


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## greatbear

Well, I think the translations so far have been quite off the mark - not really what Hesse means. Maybe one should have read Hesse to understand the sentence? I don't know. Anyway, I was merely asking how would you translate "becoming", not the whole sentence. Hopefully there are better replies from others.


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## marrish

greatbear said:


> Well, I think the translations so far have been quite off the mark - not really what Hesse means. Maybe one should have read Hesse to understand the sentence? I don't know. Anyway, I was merely asking how would you translate "becoming", not the whole sentence. Hopefully there are better replies from others.


Here is the original text:

Das vollkommene Sein ist Gott. Alles andere, was ist, ist nur halb, ist teilweise, es ist werdend, ist gemischt, besteht aus Möglichkeiten. Gott aber ist nicht gemischt, er ist eins, er hat keine Möglichkeiten, sondern ist ganz und gar Wirklichkeit. Wir aber sind vergänglich, wir sind werdend, wir sind Möglichkeiten, es gibt für uns keine Vollkommenheit, kein völliges Sein.

_Hindi:_पर हम तो आने जाने हैं, *हम होते जाते हैं*, हम सम्भाव्यताएँ हैं, परिपूर्णता, सम्पूर्ण अस्तित्व हमारे लिए नहीं. 
_par ham to aane-jaane haiN, *ham hote jaate haiN*, ham sambhaavyataaeN haiN, paripuurNRataa, sampuurNR astitva hamaare lie nahiN.

Urdu:
 پر ہم تو آنے جانے ہیں،* ہم ہوتے جاتے ہیں*، ھم امکانات ہیں، ہمارے حصّے کوئی کمال نہیں، کوئی مکمل وجود نہیں۔ par ham to aane-jaane haiN, *ham hote jaate haiN*, ham imkaanaat haiN, hamaare Hisse ko'ii kamaal nahiiN, ko'ii mukammal wujuud nahiN._


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## greatbear

Thanks all so far for the attempts, though it has not been something I was looking for. At least in Hindi, I would translate "transitory" as "kshaNik" and "potential" as "saamarthy": thus till now I would still go with "jis dauraan ham kshaNik haiN, ham honaa haiN, ham saamarthy haiN; hamaare liye koi sampoorNtaa nahiN hai, koi pariipoorN praaNii nahiN".


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## marrish

What about _ham abhisaNpann hote jaate haiN?
_The German word would be translated as ''possibilities'' rather than ''potential'', which is of course the possibility.


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## nineth

greatbear said:


> ham honaa haiN".



What about "hum hotey/bantey rahteyN haiN" or "hum ho/ban raheyN haiN"? Though "becoming" is honaa/banna, "hum honaa haiN" is completely meaningless for me.


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## marrish

marrish said:


> [...] es gibt für uns keine Vollkommenheit, kein völliges Sein.
> 
> _Urdu:
> ہمارے حصّے کوئی کمال نہیں، کوئی مکمل وجود نہیں۔ _[...]_ hamaare Hisse ko'ii kamaal nahiiN, ko'ii mukammal wujuud nahiN._


I have to correct myself for I was apparently led by the previous suggestion. A hundred times better word instead of wujuud is ہستی hastii. The sentence should then be as follows:-

ہمارے واسطے کمال نہ مکمل ہستی۔  hamaare vaaste kamaal nah mukammal hastii. 

If one is allowed to use another way of expressing things, one could write
_خدا ہے جو مکمل ہستی ہے۔ باقی جو بھی موجود ہے، ، نیم موجود ہے،جزوی طور پر موجود ہے، وہ ہوتے جانے کی حالت میں ہے، مخلوط ہے، امکانات پر مشتمل ہے۔ پر خدا تو مخلوط نہیں، وہ واحد ہے، اُس کے پاس امکانات نہیں بلکہ وہ قطعاً حقیقت ہے۔ پر ہم تو آنے جانے ہیں ہماری سرشت میں بنتے رہنا ہے، ہمارے واسطے کمال نہ مکمل ہستی ہے، 
xudaa hai jo mukammal hastii hai. baaqii jo bhii maujuud hai, niim maujuud hai, juzwii taur par maujuud hai, vuh hote jaane kii Haalat meN hai, maxluut hai, imkaanaat par mushtamil hai. par xudaa to maxluut nahiiN, vuh waaHid hai, us ke paas imkaanaat nahiiN balkih vuh qat3-an Haqiiqat hai. par ham to aane jaane haiN hamaarii sirisht meN bante rahnaa hai, hamaare vaaste kamaal nah mukammal hastii hai.

_Any suggestions/corrections are welcome.


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## tonyspeed

greatbear said:


> How would you translate "becoming" into Hindi and Urdu in a phrase like this: "Whereas we are transitory, we are becoming, we are potentials; there is no perfection for us, no complete being"? The sentence is taken from Hesse's _Narcissus and Goldmund_ (trans. Molinaro).  Thanks in advance.


   The problem is that the translation is ungramatical to my ears if we say becoming means "in a state of transition." That would make becoming a verb. So either he means we are a verb, which makes no sense, or he means we are becoming SOMETHING, but didn't include the SOMETHING.  This is why our fellow board sathis thought becoming meant the adjective meaning. This sentence is just awkward or is intended to be poetic, and poetic license has been utilised.


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## JaiHind

greatbear said:


> How would you translate "becoming" into Hindi and Urdu in a phrase like this: "Whereas we are transitory, we are becoming, we are potentials; there is no perfection for us, no complete being"? The sentence is taken from Hesse's _Narcissus and Goldmund_ (trans. Molinaro).
> 
> Thanks in advance.



We are becoming. => हम परिवर्तनशील हैं.


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## greatbear

tonyspeed said:


> So either he means we are a verb, which makes no sense, or he means we are becoming SOMETHING, but didn't include the SOMETHING.  This is why our fellow board sathis thought becoming meant the adjective meaning. This sentence is just awkward or is intended to be poetic, and poetic license has been utilised.



"becoming" is a very widely used _noun_, especially in philosophy (and even more so in Hindu philosophy). (To make you understand what kind of noun it is, you may have come across phrases such as "The coming of XYZ," including the classic "coming of age" idiom and the Second Coming of Christ.) The sentence has nothing awkward about it and generations of Hesse readers haven't found any poetic license utilised there.


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## greatbear

JaiHind said:


> We are becoming. => हम परिवर्तनशील हैं.



Your Hindi sentence would backtranslate to "we are changeable" - not really "becoming" in my opinion, though the two are surely interrelated.


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## tonyspeed

greatbear said:


> Your Hindi sentence would backtranslate to "we are changeable" - not really "becoming" in my opinion, though the two are surely interrelated.


  हम हैं बदलावट  ham haiN badlaavaT or how about हम बदलती स्थिति हैं


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## panjabigator

nineth said:


> What about "hum hotey/bantey rahteyN haiN" or "hum ho/ban raheyN haiN"? Though "becoming" is honaa/banna, "hum honaa haiN" is completely meaningless for me.



This conversation can be continued here.


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## marrish

tonyspeed said:


> *The problem is that the translation is ungrammatical to my ears if we say becoming means "in a state of transition." That would make becoming a verb. So either he means we are a verb, which makes no sense,* or he means we are becoming SOMETHING, but didn't include the SOMETHING.  This is why our fellow board sathis thought becoming meant the adjective meaning. This sentence is just awkward or is intended to be poetic, and poetic license has been utilised.





greatbear said:


> *"becoming" is a very widely used noun,* especially in philosophy (and even more so in Hindu philosophy). (*To make you understand what kind of noun it is,* you may have come across phrases such as "The coming of XYZ," including the classic "coming of age" idiom and the Second Coming of Christ.) The sentence has nothing awkward about it and generations of Hesse readers haven't found any poetic license utilised there.





panjabigator said:


> This conversation can be continued here.




I understand that the discussion about ''we are becoming'' or ''ham honaa haiN' may be set forth in this place and it is only the issue of nasalization which's got a new place.

Tonyspeed SaaHib, I bet you are talking about the English translation of the German original. I agree all the way with you that there is not enough precision in the translation and that it can be called ungrammatical. Why not, when we consider the fact that in the English sentence 'We are becoming', ''we'' is the personal pronoun and ''are becoming'' is a verbal form, where the auxilliary verb ''are'' constitutes one entity together with ''becoming'' which is the essential element of the verb. This form, correct me if I'm wrong, would be called Present Continuous and logically, ''we are becoming'' should be completed with the answer to the question ''who?, what?'' I agree with all these points which you made.


As you are the one who posed the question about ''becoming'' in this work of Hesse, it gives me a great pleasure to be of service in deciphering the real grammar behind it, which I'm sure in turn shall contribute to the optimal understanding of this phrase _pro bono publico_. The word in the original German text is NOT a noun! So I think any references that are made to ''_becoming_'' as a ''adjective'' or ''a noun'' is not related to the topic of the discussion, which is the proper understanding of the simple sentence from that book, which, as you all are aware of, translations are not always possible to be perfect, no mention matching the grammatical functions of the words.


Notwithstanding the inherent imperfection of translation, the English translation, to the detriment of all, has proven in this case to be more of an enemy rather than a friend, because of the point which Tony SaaHib and myself raised above.

greatbear, as you surely should know, nouns in German are written with the capital initial letter. Please look again at the original sentence and you will not find any word written with a capital letter! wir sind werdend! No noun there. ''_werdend_'' is present participle, which DOES NOT function together with the verb ''sind'' (_are_) because there is no verbal form on the pattern of the English Present Continuous tense. Is it a bit clearer now?


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## greatbear

Thanks for the clarifications, marrish, but I think in this case your knowledge of German is obfuscating your understanding of the sentence. That's just my opinion. A perfect translation isn't putting a noun for noun and a verb for verb. Hesse is also an author easy to translate, relatively.

Anyway, let's say how to translate _werdend_ here? I still don't see a good option among everything proposed here so far.


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## marrish

greatbear said:


> Thanks for the clarifications, marrish, but I think in this case your knowledge of German is obfuscating your understanding of the sentence. That's just my opinion. A perfect translation isn't putting a noun for noun and a verb for verb. Hesse is also an author easy to translate, relatively.
> 
> Anyway, let's say how to translate _werdend_ here? I still don't see a good option among everything proposed here so far.


I had typed a long writeup but put my finger on the backspace button and the whole page got rewinded so that the text is gone forever.

Could you please comment first on my endeavours?


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## greatbear

marrish said:


> Could you please comment first on my endeavours?



marrish, I never took the English translation as "we are becoming ... something/someone", i.e., in my mind anyway it was never expressing the present participle _sense_, so the German you have unearthed doesn't surprise me. "sind werdend" is not present participle, as you have said, and neither is "werdend" a noun in German: considering that how would you go about translating the sentence in English and in Hindi/Urdu?

Meanwhile, to everyone here, here's Hesse again on his favorite theme in another novel of his (_Glass Bead Game_): "They considered their Games a path from Becoming to Being, from potentiality to reality" (trans. from German by Richard and Clara Winston).

How would you translate "Becoming" and "Being" here into Hindi and/or Urdu? (For Urdu answers, please also write in roman script so I can read them.)


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## Qureshpor

greatbear said:


> Meanwhile, to everyone here, here's Hesse again on his favorite theme in another novel of his (_Glass Bead Game_): "They considered their Games a path from Becoming to Being, from potentiality to reality" (trans. from German by Richard and Clara Winston).
> 
> How would you translate "Becoming" and "Being" here into Hindi and/or Urdu? (For Urdu answers, please also write in roman script so I can read them.)



unhoN ne apne kheloN ko ho jaane se hone kii ek raah samjhii, (ya3nii) imkaan se Haqiiqat tak.

Agreed. This is not an exercise in decoding. The aim is to facilitate understanding. I only wish that one or two Hindi speakers also transcribed their Devanagri into Roman for the benefit of those who are not familiar with it.


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## greatbear

QURESHPOR said:


> Agreed. This is not an exercise in decoding. The aim is to facilitate understanding. I only wish that one or two Hindi speakers also transcribed their Devanagri into Roman for the benefit of those who are not familiar with it.



Examples? You could also raise the point there itself rather than leading this thread astray, please.


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## marrish

greatbear said:


> marrish, I never took the English translation as "we are becoming ... something/someone", i.e., in my mind anyway it was never expressing the present participle _sense_, so the German you have unearthed doesn't surprise me. "sind werdend" is not present participle, as you have said, and neither is "werdend" a noun in German: considering that how would you go about translating the sentence in English and in Hindi/Urdu?



Thanks for the acknowledgement of the above points, in the meanwhile I found the following in Platts: 
_*
hotā* *jānā*, To be becoming; to be going on or progressing; to be in course of formation or preparation.
_
Does it change anything in the context of my attempt at translating ''becoming''? Does this definition fit into your way of approaching the text?


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## greatbear

Thanks for the Platts entry, marrish; it doesn't really fit what I was looking for, mainly because it is too inelegant for me, but I do agree now that you may have translated it well. Thanks, anyway, once again.


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