# Urdu-Persian: biraadar vs baraadar



## Qureshpor

In the "Need help with reading caption" thread janaab-i-UM SaaHib wrote this word as "biraadar" and janaab-i-Faylasoof SaaHib sent a strong hint by writing b*a*raadar! As both gentlemen are Urdu mother-tongue speakers, I am curious to find out which is the correct form. Is it a case of "dabistaan-i-Lakhnau" vs "dabistaan-i-Karachi" or, perhaps, has UM SaaHib been keeping "bad company"?


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## UrduMedium

QURESHPOR said:


> In the "Need help with reading caption" thread janaab-i-UM SaaHib wrote this word as "biraadar" and janaab-i-Faylasoof SaaHib sent a strong hint by writing b*a*raadar! As both gentlemen are Urdu mother-tongue speakers, I am curious to find out which is the correct form. Is it a case of "dabistaan-i-Lakhnau" vs "dabistaan-i-Karachi" or, perhaps, has UM SaaHib been keeping "bad company"?


 hahaha! I've had plenty of "bad company" throughout my life. I don't know which one is "right" but this is how I have been guilty of saying!


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## marrish

QURESHPOR said:


> Is it a case of "dabistaan-i-Lakhnau" vs "dabistaan-i-Karachi" or, perhaps, has UM SaaHib been keeping "bad company"?



Along these lines, in post #12 of the Urdu regional: maine [read: Urdu: maiN ne], BelligerentPacifist SaaHib has used _biraadar_.

If Platts can prove to be of any assistance, it could be not irrelevant to note that he lists both forms, with the one in sub-entries as _biraadar_.

My preference goes to _baraadar_, but, again, it might have been caused by keeping ''bad company''!


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## UrduMedium

For whatever it's worth ... The other two Urdu dictionaries on U Chicago website, Fallon and Shakespear (on a quick look) only seem to list _biraadar_. Ditto for Steingass (Persian).


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## Qureshpor

^ Farhang-i-Asifiyyah gives both baraadar and biraadar. Nur-ul-LuGhaat states that "baraadar" is the correct form. My Kitaabistaan's 20th Century gives "biraadar" only. Let's see what our Persian speaking *brothers* (and *sisters*) have to say about this. 

As for "bad company", UM jii, "saaDe naal raho ge te mauj karo ge"!


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## Alfaaz

It's not the best reference, but in the movie Naseeb Apna Apna, they seem to use biraadar, slightly bairaadar and baraadar for "_________ Javed" (Waheed Murad's character).

This Urdu dictionary gives it as baraadar.

Steingass gives the transliteration as bir, but Hayyim gives it as ber.

Edit: Another not-so-reliable reference: The film mere brother ki dulhan was translated as mere baraadar ki dulhan...

So it is biraadari or baraadari or bairaadari....?


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## Qureshpor

Having searched our Forum, aaqaa-ye-arsham (a Farsi speaker) has used "baraadar".


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## searcher123

QURESHPOR said:


> Having searched our Forum, aaqaa-ye-arsham (a Farsi speaker) has used "baraadar".


Yes, in modern Persian it is "baraadar".


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## Qureshpor

I spoke with a Dari speaker yesterday and he said that in official circles as well as literature "baraadar" is the norm but in  everyday speech "biraadar" is used.


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## Sheikh_14

Was it originally biraadar and has morphed to baraadar over time since Platts refers to biraadar as the standard form, and in Turkish the term derived from Farsi is indeed Birader?


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## fdb

In Middle Persian it was brādar (with obvious parallels in English and most other Indo-European languages). New Persian does not allow consonant clusters in initial position, so it normally inserts a vowel, usually <i> either between the two consonants, or before them. Thus, MP stadan becomes NP istadan or sitadan. As for the word for “brother”, the most common variant is definitely birādar, but you can also hear barādar, especially in Afghanistan.


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## PersoLatin

I am sure this has been covered but in mainstream Persian it is _baraadar,_ in some regional dialects it is simply _baraar/beraar_.


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## Qureshpor

fdb said:


> In Middle Persian it was brādar (with obvious parallels in English and most other Indo-European languages). New Persian does not allow consonant clusters in initial position, so it normally inserts a vowel, usually <i> either between the two consonants, or before them. Thus, MP stadan becomes NP istadan or sitadan. As for the word for “brother”, the most common variant is definitely birādar, but you can also hear barādar, especially in Afghanistan.


Thank you fdb for your definitive reply. This settles the matter for me.


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## marrish

Qureshpor said:


> Thank you fdb for your definitive reply. This settles the matter for me.


It is indeed a response that clarifies much on the Persian ground. @Qureshpor SaaHib, how would you apply this knowledge to Urdu?


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## Qureshpor

marrish said:


> It is indeed a response that clarifies much on the Persian ground. @Qureshpor SaaHib, how would you apply this knowledge to Urdu?


The information from fdb SaaHib is that wherever there is a consonant cluster in Middle Persian, New Persian inserts a vowel which is *usually* an "i". This implies that it could also be an "a" even though "the most common variant" is "biraadar". For Urdu, as both variants exist, neither should therefore be considered wrong although "biraadar" might be on a higher pedestal since "i" is more common than "a" and one's company does not affect either spelling!.


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## desi4life

PersoLatin said:


> I am sure this has been covered but in mainstream Persian it is _baraadar,_ in some regional dialects it is simply _baraar/beraar_.



Interesting. Your experience contradicts fdb’s, who states birādar to be more common.


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## Derakhshan

It is definitely _barâdar_ in standard Iranian Persian. And even in standard Tajiki, apparently: бародар.

So, unless we are caring about dialects, it seems that _barâdar _is correct, at least officially, in all Persian-speaking countries. However, it may be that _birâdar_ is the correct (or more common) classical pronunciation.


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## PersoLatin

fdb said:


> New Persian does not allow consonant clusters in initial position, so it normally inserts a vowel, usually <i> either between the two consonants, or before them.


In case of:
MP *st*un, NP ستون/sotun (column) /o/ is inserted,
MP *st*udan, NP ستودن /sotudan (parise) /o/ is inserted,
MP *st*ôrgâh, NP ستورگاه/seturgâh (stable) /o/ is inserted,
MP *st*urg /NP ستورگ/setorg/sotorg (fierce, strong) /e/ or /o/ is inserted

In the above examples at least, the vowel inserted agrees in sound with the vowel following the cluster.


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## Derakhshan

It seems before -_râ- _the vowel can become either _e_ or _a_:

_frâmōš_ > _farâmūš
grâmīg_ > _gerâmī_


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## PersoLatin

I have a general question, we know MP & NP scripts both lack short vowels, so how do we know these MP consonant clusters are actually clusters?


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## desi4life

Is the Wiktionary description and sound sample correct? برادر - Wiktionary

The Iranian pronunciation is described in IPA as [bæɾɒːˈdæɾ] and the Dari pronunciation as [beɾɒːˈdæɾ]. Neither of those resemble the Urdu/Hindi pronunciation, which in IPA is [bɪ.ɾɑː.d̪əɾ] or [bə.ɾɑː.d̪əɾ]. All three vowels are pronounced differently and even the consonant "d" is not the same.


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## Qureshpor

desi4life said:


> Is the Wiktionary description and sound sample correct? برادر - Wiktionary
> 
> The Iranian pronunciation is described in IPA as [bæɾɒːˈdæɾ] and the Dari pronunciation as [beɾɒːˈdæɾ]. Neither of those resemble the Urdu/Hindi pronunciation, which in IPA is [bɪ.ɾɑː.d̪əɾ] or [bə.ɾɑː.d̪əɾ]. All three vowels are pronounced differently and even the consonant "d" is not the same.


bæɾɒːˈdæɾ/beɾɒːˈdæɾ is the modern day Iranian pronunciation and [bɪ.ɾɑː.d̪əɾ] or [bə.ɾɑː.d̪əɾ] of Urdu is the Classical Persian pronunciation, I suspect. Having said this, I don't know what the d̪ represents. What sound is this? To the best of my knowledge, the Persian دال and the Urdu دال are one and the same. Listening to the video, I do not perceive any difference in the "دال" of برادر.


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## marrish

^ d̪ is the IPA sign of voiced dental stop, i.e. دال, as opposed to voiced retroflex stop /ɖ/ i.e. ڈال (and this applies only to Urdu as in Persian there is no need to differentiate the d's)


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## Qureshpor

marrish said:


> ^ d̪ is the IPA sign of voiced dental stop, i.e. دال, as opposed to voiced retroflex stop /ɖ/ i.e. ڈال (and this applies only to Urdu as in Persian there is no need to differentiate the d's)


Mystery solved! Thank you marrish SaaHib.


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## marrish

Qureshpor said:


> Mystery solved! Thank you marrish SaaHib.


My pleasure to solve it, but let me add what I forgot to say that the English /d/ is neither /d̪/ nor /ɖ/, so perhaps /bæɾɒːˈd̪æɾ/ would be a more exact transcription of the Iranian pronunciation.


desi4life said:


> The Iranian pronunciation is described in IPA as [bæɾɒːˈdæɾ] and the Dari pronunciation as [beɾɒːˈdæɾ]. Neither of those resemble the Urdu/Hindi pronunciation, which in IPA is [bɪ.ɾɑː.d̪əɾ] or [bə.ɾɑː.d̪əɾ]. All three vowels are pronounced differently and even the consonant "d" is not the same.


Yes, it is true that the vowel system of Urdu is different from that of Iranian Modern Persian pronunciation, which is different from, let's say, Classical Persian (temporal) or Eastern (spatial) one. There are even some differences between the vowel system of Classical Urdu and Modern Standard Urdu, while the vowels of Eastern or Southern Urdu are different from the Western Urdu ones.

The short /a/ vowel of Classical Persian and Urdu, but also presumably that of Prakrits, Sanskrit and MP & OP has a different quality and quantity in Modern (Standard) Iranian Persian : æ. In Modern Urdu it's a (short) schwa-sound.
The long /a:/ of the mentioned languages evolved into ɒː of MP in Iran; while it remains /a:/ in Urdu and some non-Iranian Persian varieties.

The consonants are the same (in برادر). Please note also the difference of the word-stress.


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## desi4life

The Persian "d" apparently varies between laminal denti-alveolar and apical alveolar. It didn't sound like a laminal denti-alveolar stop [d̪] in the sound clip to me.


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## marrish

desi4life said:


> The Persian "d" apparently varies between laminal denti-alveolar and apical alveolar. It didn't sound like a laminal denti-alveolar stop [d̪] in the sound clip to me.


I'm sorry I didn't know that. I thought it was the same in Arabic, Persian and Urdu, but you are saying there's variation. I'd be curious to learn if it is an allophone within one person's speech or rather a geographic distinction.


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