# Hindi/Urdu - ziyaadah vs zyaadaa



## tonyspeed

In another thread, Qureshpor-Ji mentions that the Urdu word for more should be transliterated as ziyaadah and not zyaada.

In Devanagari, the correct transliteration is zyaada where the zy (ज़्य) is a conjunct of two consonant sounds. So when one pronounces it, the sound starts as a z (ज़)  and transforms into a y (य). Technically there is no vowel sound in-between the two.

I am assuming that in Urdu, there must be a short 'i' sound in the writing. Since the short vowel 'i' is usually dropped in Urdu, how do we know a 'i' exists there - from dictionaries? Also, do people actually introduce a distinct short-'i' sound between the z and y that is distinguishable from the conjunct zy (ज़्य).

Thirdly, in Urdu, is there really an 'H' sound added to the end of the word? The Hindi spelling (ज़्यादा ) omits the 'h'.


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## BP.

The h is a terminal short a. Not pronounced. In our transliteration scheme you see here we ran out of representation possibilities for this letter at this specific place in a word. Do you have suggestions?

As for the first issue, I think the pronunciation is _zii aa da_. The y automatically creeps in the transition from i to a.


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## BP.

Does your Hindi spelling i.e. ज़्यादा have a long a at the end? That's what I'm reading from it but I'm not too good with the letters. Thanks.

If it IS a long a then we have a departure from the spelling of the original Arabic loan.


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## Qureshpor

tonyspeed said:


> In another thread, Qureshpor-Ji mentions that the Urdu word for more should be transliterated as ziyaadah and not zyaada.
> 
> In Devanagari, the correct transliteration is zyaada where the zy (ज़्य) is a conjunct of two consonant sounds. So when one pronounces it, the sound starts as a z (ज़)  and transforms into a y (य). Technically there is no vowel sound in-between the two.
> 
> I am assuming that in Urdu, there must be a short 'i' sound in the writing. Since the short vowel 'i' is usually dropped in Urdu, how do we know a 'i' exists there - from dictionaries? Also, do people actually introduce a distinct short-'i' sound between the z and y that is distinguishable from the conjunct zy (ज़्य).
> 
> Thirdly, in Urdu, is there really an 'H' sound added to the end of the word? The Hindi spelling (ज़्यादा ) omits the 'h'.



*Tony SaaHib. I try my best to reflect my "Roman" transcription as accurately as possible the Urdu way of writing.** For this reason I transcribe **زياده as "ziyaadah".** Of course, I don't distinguish te, t'oe; se, siin, svaad; zaal, ze, zwaad, zo'e etc. **

Where does the "i" after the "z" come from? Well, it is part of the word and you will find it in Urdu speaker's speech as well as in Urdu dictionaries. I don't know why the "zi" has transformed to the conjunct "zy" in Devanagri. Perhaps the pronunciation is percieved to be such. In Devanagri the word is written as **ज़्यादा*. *But the actual word neither has a "zy" conjunct nor a final long vowel. 

Having said above, I am not insisting that Hindi writers/speakers should transcribe "ziyaadah" in Roman as "ziyaadah". "ziyaada" **ज़ियाद** would be fine! Please do not forget that there is "ziyaad" too without the final short vowel, i.e. with a "halant".

PS. Please note Greatbear SaaHib had transcribed the word as "jyaada".
*


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## Qureshpor

BelligerentPacifist said:


> The h is a terminal short a. Not pronounced. In our transliteration scheme you see here we ran out of representation possibilities for this letter at this specific place in a word. Do you have suggestions?
> 
> As for the first issue, I think the pronunciation is _zii aa da_. The y automatically creeps in the transition from i to a.



*But BP SaaHib. The "y" in the word "ziyaadah" is* *there anyway! "zi-yaa-dah" and not "zii-aa-dah".
*


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## BP.

Is it? You mean to say the i represents the zeer and the y the yee...in that case yes it is, but I wasn't counting the zeer.


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## Faylasoof

QURESHPOR said:


> Originally Posted by *tonyspeed*
> In another thread, Qureshpor-Ji mentions that the Urdu   word for more should be transliterated as ziyaadah and not zyaada.
> 
> In Devanagari, the correct transliteration is zyaada where the zy (ज़्य) is a   conjunct of two consonant sounds. So when one pronounces it, the sound starts   as a z (ज़) and transforms into a y (य). Technically there is no vowel sound   in-between the two.
> 
> I am assuming that in Urdu, there must be a short 'i' sound in the writing.   Since the short vowel 'i' is usually dropped in Urdu, how do we know a 'i'   exists there - from dictionaries? Also, do people actually introduce a   distinct short-'i' sound between the z and y that is distinguishable from the   conjunct zy (ज़्य).
> 
> Thirdly, in Urdu, is there really an 'H' sound added to the end of the word?   The Hindi spelling (ज़्यादा ) omits the 'h'.
> 
> 
> 
> …..*
> Where does the "i" after the "z" come from? Well, it is part of the word and you will find it in Urdu speaker's speech as well as in Urdu dictionaries. I don't know why the "zi" has transformed to the conjunct "zy" in Devanagri. Perhaps the pronunciation is percieved to be such. In Devanagri the word is written as ज़्यादा*. *But the actual word neither has a "zy" conjunct nor a final long vowel.
> 
> Having said above, I am not insisting that Hindi writers/speakers should transcribe "ziyaadah" in Roman as "ziyaadah". "ziyaada" ज़ियाद would be fine! Please do not forget that there is "ziyaad" too without the final short vowel, i.e. with a "halant".
> 
> PS. Please note Greatbear SaaHib had transcribed the word as "jyaada".
> *
Click to expand...

 QP _saHeb_, that is how I've always interpreted this change! It was _perceived _to be so hence the <*zy*> conjunct when in fact the Urdu original has a <*z*> followed by the short <*i*>, the _zer_, which *is* pronounced, as you indicate.

 The Hindi lexicons don’t list this (*ज़ियाद*) as the spelling is now fixed as *ज़्यादा(*!) though the former would be more accurate – and an <*–ah>* ending would be even better but *ज़्यादा* is how it is written in  Hindi.

... and just to add this:
 The Hindi ज़्यादा *zyaadaa* (long 'a') is the common / standard way to represent the <-ah> ending in Urdu, as in *زياده ziyaadah. *

Since the terminal* <**h> *(in *-ah* ending) is not really heard (or not heard well most of the time), it _appears_ that there is a terminal long* <a> *when in fact in the Urdu original there really isn't. 

 Hence we have the long <a> in the -*daa* -दा ending, instead of a short <a> followed by an <h> to give *-dah* -दह. The same for पर्दा _pard*aa *_with a *-daa *-दा ending instead of *-dah* -दह, whereas in the Urdu original we have *–dah* دَہ in پَرْدَہ _par*dah*_.


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## BP.

The last part of the above post reminds me of some intentional spelling changes that were made by probably Aurangzeb's court to bring some spellings closer to the Hindi pronunciation. The original spellings and therefore pronunciations of _hiirah_, _khafah, zarah _etc were sacrificed for the sake of Hindi-Urdu harmony. Read that in some paper long ago, so can't recall the author's name.


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## tonyspeed

Faylasoof said:


> Since the terminal* <**h> *(in *-ah* ending) is not really heard (or not heard well most of the time), it _appears_ that there is a terminal long* <a> *when in fact in the Urdu original there really isn't.
> 
> Hence we have the long <a> in the -*daa* -दा ending, instead of a short <a> followed by an <h> to give *-dah* -दह. The same for पर्दा _pard*aa *_with a *-daa *-दा ending instead of *-dah* -दह, whereas in the Urdu original we have *–dah* دَہ in پَرْدَہ _par*dah*_.



Interesting. Now why in these 2 cases do we have a long A when we already have other Hindi words that do have an "ah" ending and  are pronounced as a long A followed by a sometimes sounded "h"?

For example: subah and vajah, spelt सुबह and वजह and pronounced "correctly" as subaa and vajaa, but also pronounced as suba and vaja, subeh and vajeh by various people.


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## Qureshpor

tonyspeed said:


> Interesting. Now why in these 2 cases do we have a long A when we already have other Hindi words that do have an "ah" ending and  are pronounced as a long A followed by a sometimes sounded "h"?
> 
> For example: subah and vajah, spelt सुबह and वजह and pronounced "correctly" as subaa and vajaa, but also pronounced as suba and vaja, subeh and vajeh by various people.




*Just to throw a hammer in the works, these two words are correctly "subH" and "vajh".*


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## tonyspeed

QURESHPOR said:


> *Just to throw a hammer in the works, these two words are correctly "subH" and "vajh".*



How does one pronounce it according to that Romanisation?


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## Qureshpor

tonyspeed said:


> How does one pronounce it according to that Romanisation?



*Just as they are spelt, "subh/H" and "vajh".*


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## BP.

tonyspeed, you have a stop on the _b_ and the _j_. 

It is probably easier to pronounce _subH _with less confounding articulation than _wajh_, since you could end up aspirating the j. I'm guilty of pronouncing the latter (i.e. face, reason) _wajah_, otherwise people blank out.


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## souminwé

QURESHPOR said:


> *
> 
> Having said above, I am not insisting that Hindi writers/speakers should transcribe "ziyaadah" in Roman as "ziyaadah". "ziyaada" *[/COLOR]*ज़ियाद** would be fine! Please do not forget that there is "ziyaad" too without the final short vowel, i.e. with a "halant".
> 
> PS. Please note Greatbear SaaHib had transcribed the word as "jyaada".
> *



ज़ियाद in modern Devanagari only reads as _*ziyaad*_ - word-final consonants have de facto *halant*s. You do see ज़ियादह very rarely in books transcribing Ghalib, Faiz etc., but I doubt you'll find it in any dictionary.

As for pronunciation, I would say Urdu speakers are the only ones pronouncing it as _*ziyaadah*_. Unstressed vowels next to stressed vowels are totally elided in speech, and this is reflected in Hindi spelling. The acceptance of this pronunciation in the orthography has given it a place in formal register.

Though I don't want to sound like a TV-obsessed nut, when I saw Veena Malik on Big Boss 4, she kept pronouncing _*maamla*_ (मामला) as _*muaamla/mu3aamlah*_ and _*maaf*_ (माफ़) as _*muaaf*_. Like the collapse of the short vowel in _*ziyaa*_ to _*zyaa*_, so to has the short *u* collapsed from _*muaa*_ to _*maa*_ in Hindi.
Though मुआमला and मुआफ़ are indeed present in good dictionaries, if you Google them, you'll notice many of the results are Islam-related, or poetry.


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## Qureshpor

Faylasoof said:


> QP _saHeb_, that is how I've always interpreted this change! It was _perceived _to be so hence the <*zy*> conjunct when in fact the Urdu original has a <*z*> followed by the short <*i*>, the _zer_, which *is* pronounced, as you indicate.
> 
> The Hindi lexicons don’t list this (*ज़ियाद*) as the spelling is now fixed as *ज़्यादा(*!) though the former would be more accurate – and an <*–ah>* ending would be even better but *ज़्यादा* is how it is written in  Hindi.
> 
> ... and just to add this:
> The Hindi ज़्यादा *zyaadaa* (long 'a') is the common / standard way to represent the <-ah> ending in Urdu, as in *زياده ziyaadah. *
> 
> Since the terminal* <**h> *(in *-ah* ending) is not really heard (or not heard well most of the time), it _appears_ that there is a terminal long* <a> *when in fact in the Urdu original there really isn't.
> 
> Hence we have the long <a> in the -*daa* -दा ending, instead of a short <a> followed by an <h> to give *-dah* -दह. The same for पर्दा _pard*aa *_with a *-daa *-दा ending instead of *-dah* -दह, whereas in the Urdu original we have *–dah* دَہ in پَرْدَہ _par*dah*_.




An interesting aspect of the Urdu "-ah" transformation to the Devanagri "-aa" is that in terms of prosody, a word like "pardah" is of the same "vazn" as "pardaa". This explains the poets' ability to rhyme words having the "-ah" ending with such words that end in "-aa".


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## BP.

^Are they really ham wazn?


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## Qureshpor

BelligerentPacifist said:


> ^Are they really ham wazn?



'ishq se tabii'at ne ziist kaa mazah* paayaa
dars kii davaa paa'ii dard-i-bedavaa paayaa

* You will find mazah written as mazaa.

havas ko hai nishaat-i-kaar kyaa kyaa
nah ho marnaa to jiine kaa mazaa kyaa

navaazish-haa-i-be-jaa dekhtaa huuN
shikaayat-haa-i-rangiiN kaa gilaa kyaa

NB mazaa/gilaa for mazah/gilah


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## BP.

Thank you for the quick references. But are they bending the rules a little, since clearly aa has more weight than a?


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## Qureshpor

BelligerentPacifist said:


> Thank you for the quick references. But are they bending the rules a little, since clearly aa has more weight than a?



ma=1, zah=1 or2 (depending on whether zah is considered as za or zah)

kyaa=2


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## BP.

Ah if they count the h as two then that could work. I might have to dig out naanaa's book when I visit next time in which he simplified the 3ilm ul auzaan through the Morse Code.


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## rahulbemba

tonyspeed said:


> In another thread, Qureshpor-Ji mentions that the Urdu word for more should be transliterated as ziyaadah and not zyaada.
> 
> In Devanagari, the correct transliteration is zyaada where the zy (ज़्य) is a conjunct of two consonant sounds. So when one pronounces it, the sound starts as a z (ज़)  and transforms into a y (य). Technically there is no vowel sound in-between the two.
> 
> I am assuming that in Urdu, there must be a short 'i' sound in the writing. Since the short vowel 'i' is usually dropped in Urdu, how do we know a 'i' exists there - from dictionaries? Also, do people actually introduce a distinct short-'i' sound between the z and y that is distinguishable from the conjunct zy (ज़्य).
> 
> Thirdly, in Urdu, is there really an 'H' sound added to the end of the word? The Hindi spelling (ज़्यादा ) omits the 'h'.



I don't know either the forum you refer here or Qureshpor-Ji, but in my knowledge you are right that "In Hindi, the correct transliteration is zyaada where the zy is a conjunct of two consonant sounds." In Hindi, it is not spoken as "ziyaadah".


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## Qureshpor

rahulbemba said:


> I don't know either the forum you refer here or Qureshpor-Ji, but in my knowledge you are right that "In Hindi, the correct transliteration is zyaada where the zy is a conjunct of two consonant sounds." In Hindi, it is not spoken as "ziyaadah".



 Except perhaps when it forms part of a film dialogue or a song, e.g.

chhalke terii aaNkhoN se sharaab aur ziyaadah
khilte raheN hoNToN ke gulaab aur ziyaadah

(Film: aarzuu)


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## Qureshpor

rahulbemba said:


> I don't know either the forum you refer here or Qureshpor-Ji, but in my knowledge you are right that "In Hindi, the correct transliteration is zyaada where the zy is a conjunct of two consonant sounds." In Hindi, it is not spoken as "ziyaadah".



Harishchandra, a well known Hindi writer, wrote an essay written in 1877 entitled "dillii darbaar darpaNR". At least at that time the word was written as "ziyaadaa" and NOT "zyaadaa". See the following link to a number of Urdu and Hindi pieces of literature since 1800. The work is compiled by Christopher Shackle and Rupert Snell and this word is shown in line 33 with an explanation by the authors in the "glossary" part. It is well worth reading the introductions to all the entries.

 It appears that a substantial number if not most of the Hindi writers of the early period of Modern Hindi were proficient in both Urdu and Farsi too. 

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00urduhindilinks/shacklesnell/index.html

[url]http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00urduhindilinks/shacklesnell/305harishcandra.pdf


[/URL]


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## flyinfishjoe

Yes, both ज़ियादा and ज़्यादा were used in the 19th century. Maybe ज़्यादा was decided as the standard version during the spelling reforms in the 50s and 60s.


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