# All Indo-Iranian Languages: Religion



## Alijsh

Can you please write me *Hindi*, *Urdu*, and if somebody knows *Sanskrit* for word "religion". As for Persian, it's *din* but it's by no means an Arabic word. It's middle Persian is *dēn* and Avestan is *daēnā*. Avestan is an old Iranian language in which the holy book of Zoroastrians (Avesta) has been written.

- Thanks in advance


----------



## panjabigator

In Urdu, there are several words for it.  /diin/ and /mazhab/ are two of them, but I don't know the difference between them.  In Hindi, the word I'd use is /dharam/.  These words are also indicative of religion, as I doubt a Muslim speaker would say /dharam/ for Islam over /mazhab/.  I think the Sanskrit for religion is the same as the Hindi word, but I am not 100% certain.


----------



## Alijsh

Thanks dear panjabigator. In Persian, *din* and *mazhab* have different meanings. *mazhab* denotes the branch of a religion e.g. din: eslâm, mazhab: shie/sonni; din: masihi, mazhab: kâtolik/ortodoks/perotestân.


----------



## Lugubert

For Sanskrit, the first word given by Monier-Williams is धर्म्मः dharmmaH. Others are more like 'God-worship', for example ईश्वरभक्तिः iishvarabhaktiH, देवभक्तिः devabhaktiH and ईश्वरसेवा iishvarasevaa


----------



## doom9

My mom's from Lasundra village and I'm not sure about my dad, but somewhere in Ahmedabad. 

By the way, how would Gujarati Muslims say religion? Hindus usually say ધર્મ (dharm), but do Muslims also say that? I'm wondering because it says you are a native of English, Gujarati, and Urdu I'm assuming.


----------



## linguist786

doom9 said:


> My mom's from Lasundra village and I'm not sure about my dad, but somewhere in Ahmedabad.
> 
> By the way, how would Gujarati Muslims say religion? Hindus usually say ધર્મ (dharm), but do Muslims also say that? I'm wondering because it says you are a native of English, Gujarati, and Urdu I'm assuming.


We would tend to say દીન (deen), which comes from Arabic. Arabic words are often used when talking about religion.


----------



## panjabigator

/diin o mazhab/, right Linguist?


----------



## linguist786

/mazhab/ isn't really used in Gujarati, but in Urdu. It means "religion" in the sense of a _certain_ religion, or a _branch_ of religion. For instance, /islaam ek achChaa mazhab hai/. Whereas /deen/ means "religion" in the sense of "religiousness".

/mazhab/ comes from the Arabic مذهب, which in Arabic grammar is known as a إسم ظرف (ism Zarf). It shows "time of.." or "place of.." something (which is why its also known as إسم المكان والزمان (ism-ul-makaan waz-zamaan)). The triliteral root of the word is ذ-هـ-ب (dha-ha-ba) meaning "to go". So the word literally means "place of going" (in Urdu/Hindi: /jaane ki jagaa/) which suggests religion.

Interesting, eh?


----------



## Alijsh

linguist786 said:


> We would tend to say દીન (deen), which comes from Arabic. Arabic words are often used when talking about religion.


I wish I had included Arabic and Turkish in my starting post. Can one of moderators please do this?

It's surprising but I have noticed that we use the same Zoroastrianism words. It's because we have already had these. We say *namâz* for daily prayers (Arabic: صلاة). For fasting, we say *ruze* (Arabic: صوم صيام). *deen* (ee is long e as in Dutch) which has later become *din*, means religion in Zoroastrianism and of course Persian. I'm almost sure it's a Persian loanword in Arabic. It can be a coincidence but I say that before Islam, Arabs didn't have "religion" to have a word for it in Arabic. Besides, we have Persian and Hebrew loanwords in Koran e.g. firdaws is from Persian (paradise has also Persian origin) or jahannam is from Hebrew. 

I expected to have something like Avestan *daeena* in Sanskrit but it seems that these two sisters differ in this respect


----------



## Alijsh

linguist786 said:


> /mazhab/ isn't really used in Gujarati, but in Urdu. It means "religion" in the sense of a _certain_ religion, or a _branch_ of religion. For instance, /islaam ek achChaa mazhab hai/. Whereas /deen/ means "religion" in the sense of "religiousness".


We have also kish, âyin in Persian. Is there any word similar to these in Gujarati, Sanskrit or other Indic languages that you know? Thanks.


----------



## linguist786

Alijsh said:


> We say *namâz* for daily prayers (Arabic: صلاة).


We say the say the same in Urdu (نماز) and Gujarati borrows it too (નમાઝ).


> For fasting, we say *ruze* (Arabic: صوم صيام).


In Urdu, we say *rozaa* (The actual fast itself), *rozaa rakhnaa* which is the verb (to fast).
Again, Gujarati borrows this.

In Arabic, there's actually a special verb for "to fast" which is: صام - يصوم (Saama-yaSuumu)


> *deen* (ee is long e as in Dutch) which has later become *din*


*deen* (دين), as mentioned before, means "religion" in Urdu. *Din* (دن) would mean "day". (ek din = one day)



Alijsh said:


> We have also kish, âyin in Persian. Is there any word similar to these in Gujarati, Sanskrit or other Indic languages that you know? Thanks.


Not that I can think of.


----------



## Alijsh

Many thanks. For your information: The middle Persian pronunciation for namâz is namâch. Also ruz / roz (day) from which ruze / roza has been made is roch in Middle Persian. "to fast": ruze gereftan (gereftan / giriftan: to take. it's cognate with grab) so literally: to take fast


----------



## linguist786

Alijsh said:


> "to fast": ruze gereftan (gereftan / giriftan: to take. it's cognate with grab) so literally: to take fast


That's very interesting! In Urdu, the verb used (as I said) is *rakhnaa* which literally means "to put"/"to keep".


----------



## MarX

Hello!

I've been told that the Indonesian word for _religion_, *agama*, comes from Sanskrit, but it has no similarity to _diin, mazhab,_or _dharam_ in Urdu, which is descended from Sanskrit (right?).

Is there no similar word to *agama* in Urdu?
Is *agama* coming from Sanskrit just a hoax?

Thank you!


MarX


----------



## Lugubert

MarX said:


> Hello!
> 
> I've been told that the Indonesian word for _religion_, *agama*, comes from Sanskrit, but it has no similarity to _diin, mazhab,_or _dharam_ in Urdu, which is descended from Sanskrit (right?).
> 
> Is there no similar word to *agama* in Urdu?
> Is *agama* coming from Sanskrit just a hoax?
> 
> Thank you!
> 
> MarX


_Diin_ is Arabic, 'religion, belief'. _Madhab_ (d as in English 'the') is Arabic -> Urdu _mazhab_ 'way, manner of going, religion'. Sanskrit _dharma_ means 'that which is established or firm, steadfast decree, statue, ordinance, ..., virtue, morality, religion,' and so on for the better part of a page.

Sanskrit _a-gama_ means 'not going, unable to go', like in referring to a mountain or a tree. Hindi _agam_ and Urdu _aagam/agam _mean 'coming, approach, advent, ..., the future, the next world, ..., a sacred text, esp. a Veda, ..., a prophet, diviner, fortune-teller'. Not too far from the meaning of 'religion' to inspire Indonesian, I think.

I wouldn't say that Urdu 'is descended from Sanskrit', but that it emerged from descendants of vernacular sister languages of Sanskrit on their contact with Persian (and Arabic) in, say, 1526–1858 C.E.

Try Wiki. Its examples section is way more correct than most phrasebooks.

Also, please note from the Urdu Wiki,


			
				wiki said:
			
		

> Put simply, in the context of everyday casual speech, Hindi and Urdu can be considered dialects of the same language. In terms of their mutual intelligibility in their formal or "proper" registers, however, they are much less mutually intelligible and can be considered separate languages—they have basically the same grammar but very different vocabularies.


 
It's possible to encounter Indian teachers of Hindi who say that they perhaps are speaking Urdu. On the other hand, 'official' translations of the Lord's prayer into Hindi and Urdu have just two or three words in common.


----------



## avok

Alijsh said:


> I wish I had included Arabic and Turkish in my starting post. Can one of moderators please do this?
> 
> It's surprising but I have noticed that we use the same Zoroastrianism words. It's because we have already had these. We say *namâz* for daily prayers (Arabic: صلاة). For fasting, we say *ruze* (Arabic: صوم صيام). *deen* (ee is long e as in Dutch) which has later become *din*, means religion in Zoroastrianism and of course Persian. I'm almost sure it's a Persian loanword in Arabic. It can be a coincidence but I say that before Islam, Arabs didn't have "religion" to have a word for it in Arabic. Besides, we have Persian and Hebrew loanwords in Koran e.g. firdaws is from Persian (paradise has also Persian origin) or jahannam is from Hebrew.
> 
> I expected to have something like Avestan *daeena* in Sanskrit but it seems that these two sisters differ in this respect


 

In Turkish :

Din: religion
mezhep: you know what it means
namaz: you know the meaning
Oruç: fasting


----------



## MarX

Tack saa mycket för din förklaring, Lugubert!

In Indonesian we also have the word *d(h)arma* which means _virtue_, or _good deed_.

The word for _fasting_ like in Ramadan is *puasa*.

Salam,


MarK


----------



## Alijsh

Lugubert said:


> _Diin_ is Arabic, 'religion, belief'.


Dear Lugubert, let me remind you that diin is a Persian word. We have it even in Avestan. Arabic has taken it from Persian. It's not the only Persian word found in Quran. As far as I know, there are also Hebrew words in Quran.


----------



## Alijsh

avok said:


> In Turkish :
> 
> Din: religion
> mezhep: you know what it means
> namaz: you know the meaning
> Oruç: fasting


Thanks Avok. I really liked to know the Turkish words.


----------



## Kathiawari

This reply is a decade late I know. It is for those that happen upon this thread.  

@ Alijsh. The Persians were (I am told )the first to organize and set out the  Arabic language books of grammar and dictionaries. 

Deen/din are however not likely to be Persian in origin.

Arabic is not the first Semitic language to be spoken in Persia/Iran you see. Aramaic was the official language in the Iranic speaking area and the Fertile Crescent. Din is one such word to be transmitted. 

Indeed the Quran has many Hebrew words by way of the Biblical prophets . (They Being Israelites having Hebrew names. )These names were Arabicised.

But regarding other words also remember the shared vocabulary since Hebrew and Arabic are Semitic.


----------



## desi4life

^ Please see this thread. It discusses the etymology of _dīn_ "religion" from Middle Persian.


----------



## Maharaj

Hello,

We rather say *Dharm* than Dharam. As the people from west can't pronounce Dharm correctly so they say 'Dharma' with 'ah' sound at the end.
*Dharam *is used mostly in poetic sense as in Dharam-karam, it's also termed as very informal when used in conversations.


----------



## Dib

Maharaj said:


> As the people from west can't pronounce Dharm correctly so they say 'Dharma' with 'ah' sound at the end.



Well, that might be true for, say Italian speakers, but why would English speakers (who have the word "harm") or German speakers (who have "Darm") do that? The real reasons is that the word was borrowed by the Western languages in its Sanskrit form, where the pronunciation has a short final -a (dharma-). I'd suppose that South Indian languages would retain this vowel, though probably adding a neuter -m(u)-ending after it? Bengali also retains it, though changes it to -o (dhɔrmo). Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, etc. delete the final short a, and end up with dhar(a)m.

In any case, the Sanskrit meaning of "dharma-" is not exactly "religion" in the modern sense. It has a rather technical meaning in the "Indian religions" (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, etc.) - something roughly covering (ethical) duty as well as (internal) nature, etc. Most modern Indian languages have adopted it for "religion" for the lack of a better word, but also use "dīn", especially in Islamic contexts.

As for Indonesian "agama", I guess it comes from Sanskrit "āgama-", which refers to certain religious scriptures and traditions, among other things.


----------



## Maharaj

@


Dib said:


> Well, that might be true for, say Italian speakers, but why would English speakers (who have the word "harm") or German speakers (who have "Darm") do that? The real reasons is that the word was borrowed by the Western languages in its Sanskrit form, where the pronunciation has a short final -a (dharma-). I'd suppose that South Indian languages would retain this vowel, though probably adding a neuter -m(u)-ending after it? Bengali also retains it, though changes it to -o (dhɔrmo). Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, etc. delete the final short a, and end up with dhar(a)m.
> 
> In any case, the Sanskrit meaning of "dharma-" is not exactly "religion" in the modern sense. It has a rather technical meaning in the "Indian religions" (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, etc.) - something roughly covering (ethical) duty as well as (internal) nature, etc. Most modern Indian languages have adopted it for "religion" for the lack of a better word, but also use "dīn", especially in Islamic contexts.
> 
> As for Indonesian "agama", I guess it comes from Sanskrit "āgama-", which refers to certain religion scriptures and traditions, among other things.


That is some knowledge I'm enlightened, agree on all fronts. Thanks


----------



## Dib

You are welcome, Maharaj.


----------

