# Urdu: vaalidaa



## littlepond

Hello all!

Recently, I watched a few episodes of the hit Turkish TV series _Diriliş: Ertuğrul_ in its Urdu dubbed form* (with the PTV not going for the literal translation, having titled the series as _Ertuğrul Ghazi_). I had been watching the series in Turkish earlier and had not watched the Urdu episodes.

Now, I was quite surprised that the series uses very heavy (at least to my ears) words of Urdu in normal conversation, an example being the word "vaalidaa" that the protagonist Ertuğrul uses to his mother Hayme. Now, it's not a royal family where people probably are expected to use heavy words even to their near and dear ones: it's quite a rough, martial, unrefined environment, actually (not as rough as the Chinese jianghu 江湖 societies, but quite approximate to it). The Turkish original has quite a few rough words, and in this case Ertuğrul simply uses the word "anne"/"annem" (mother, my mother) to Hayme, which is a simple word for mother (like "maaN" in Hindi).

My question is this: do ordinary people use a word like "vaalidaa" so commonly, with their mothers, in everyday life? To a Hindi speaker like me, it is a heavy word; maybe, for Urdu speakers, it's a light word?

Thanks in advance! (If you need to write something in Urdu while answering, then please consider transliterating it, too.)

*The dubbing is quite bad in general, with uninspiring voices, and bad word choices for translation, with bad to absurd translations such as "bey" to "sardaar" and "alp" to "sipaahii."


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## Alfaaz

والد | والدہ - _waalid | waalidah_ are used very commonly when mentioning one's parents or referring to somebody else's parents, even though one might directly address parents as _ammii/abu, etc._ This is similar to _mother _and _father_ in English, even though they might be directly addressed as _Mom/Dad, etc._

The plural والدین _- waalidain - parents _is also very common.

To be more formal, one could use the following: _waalid-e-muHtaram, waalidah-maajidah, etc._


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## marrish

Alfaaz said:


> والد | والدہ - _waalid | waalidah_ *are used very commonly* when mentioning one's parents or referring to somebody else's parents, even though one might directly address parents as _ammii/abu, etc._ This is similar to _mother _and _father_ in English, even though they might be directly addressed as _Mom/Dad, etc._
> 
> The plural والدین _- waalidain - parents _is also very common.
> 
> To be more formal, one could use the following: _waalid-e-muHtaram, waalidah-maajidah, etc._


The words for both parents contain a geminate: a*bb*uu.
ammaa(N) jaan and abbaa jaan - these are said when one's parents are being mentioned, whether by oneself or others — e.g. (to a child) _beTaa aap ke abba jaan kahaaN ga'e haiN?

waalidain_ [वालिदैन] - (NOT **waalidaiN वालिदैं ) is strictly speaking a dual formation, not a word in plural, although it is obviously used for multiple sets of parents as well.
It is indeed a basic word as well.

Some really good suggestions of more formal expressions, I'm adding one which is the most common IMO ie. _waalid saaHib, waalidah saahibah._

One can be more formal than that (e.g. _maadar-e-millat "Mother of the Nation") _but otherwise the word's spoken usage is limited instead to crude language.

I'd bet Premchand must have used it {ED: والدہ / _waalidah/ वालिदा_} somewhere, even in the bucolic settings.


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## littlepond

Alfaaz said:


> والد | والدہ - _waalid | waalidah_ are used very commonly when mentioning one's parents or referring to somebody else's parents, even though one might directly address parents as _ammii/abu, etc._


Thanks, @Alfaaz jii, but my question was about someone directly addressing one's mother at home in everyday life (and that someone is not someone royal, etc.), not mentioning or referring to someone else's parents. Does your answer mean that a word like "ammii" would be the usual word in such a scenario rather than "waalidah"?


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## Alfaaz

marrish said:
			
		

> One can be more formal than that (e.g. _maadar-e-millat "Mother of the Nation") _but otherwise the word's spoken usage is limited instead to crude language.


Apart from the aforementioned, _maadar _is used in other contexts as well. Example: _Medicine:_ _riHm-e-maadar - uterus, mother's womb_. There are other common expressions such as _maadarii zabaan_ and _maadar-pidar aazaad_. 


			
				littlepond said:
			
		

> Does your answer mean that a word like "ammii" would be the usual word in such a scenario rather than "waalidah"?


In general, yes. Of course, there can always be exceptions...! (There was an Urdu drama where one of the characters addressed his mother with _waalidah_. The characters weren't _royal _at all, rather shown as struggling to make ends meet and the dialogues contained slang that is often used in such portrayals.)


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## Dinraat

littlepond said:


> Thanks, @Alfaaz jii, but my question was about someone directly addressing one's mother at home in everyday life (and that someone is not someone royal, etc.), not mentioning or referring to someone else's parents. Does your answer mean that a word like "ammii" would be the usual word in such a scenario rather than "waalidah"?


I've never heard anyone directly addressing their mother as 'waalidah'. Ami/ami jaan, mama, mummy, amma/amma ji are the common terms used for that purpose. As for waalidah, people normally use that word while talking about their/ someone else's mothers in third person; آپ کی والدہ کی طبیعت کیسی ہے اب؟
(Aap ki waalidah ki tabiyat kesi hai ab?)


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## Sheikh_14

It's very common for someone to say mere waalid saaHib, aap ke waalid saaHib in everyday Urdu. As common as pitaa-jee amongst Hindi-phones. In fact this is quite strange but although maaN is very commonly used in Urdu, I cannot recall ever hearing pitaa. Is Pitaa reserved for Hindi or also seldom used in Urdu? Similarly aap kii waalida, merii waalida are also very common. However, using waalida to call your own mother is quite uncommon and would be akin to saying mother in lieu of mom, mommy, mamma in English. It would make perfect sense for them to use waalida jaan etc since its a grandiose show on the Ottoman royalty's conquests and ways of life, thence their Urdu would be akin in grandeur and propriety to Downton Abbey or GOT's English. 

These terms when calling someone nonetheless have become somewhat antiquated except in highly polite and elite households where wifes would still refer to their husbands as x SaaHib in lieu of their name. This begs the question would the more polite variants be waalida jaan and waalida saaHiba? I know Waalid-saaHib and Waalid-jaan are used. 

Similarly, I've been meaning to ask this question for maadar as well. Besides in specialised terms like maadar-watan i.e. motherland or set phrases like maadar-pidar aazaad which means being free from parental constraints i.e. footloose and rebellious is maadar-pidar also used as an alternative to waalidain? Secondly, can maadar be used for an individual mother or your mother? 

For example "mother will not be pleased". In this context waalida-jaan/saaHiba/maaN jee/ Ammi jaan/jee, Maamaa, Mom (from English), Mommy jee/jaan, Bii jaan, Ammaa/N(in Ahl E zabaan households this is a formal term for mother especially with jaan, but in Punjabi households Ammaa most commonly without the Nuun ghunaa and on occasion with the honorific jee is used for elderly women I.e. buRhiyaaN) is se bilkul/hargiz/qat'an naa-xush hooN gii. In that context would any term with maadar make sense? Has maadaar or madar jaan ever been used to call out one's or someone else's mother in Urdu?

I've predominately heard Persophones abroad use Maamaan مامان which is the informal term.


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## littlepond

Sheikh_14 said:


> However, using waalida to call your own mother is quite uncommon and would be akin to saying mother in lieu of mom, mommy, mamma in English.



Thanks for confirming that for you, too, calling one's own mother as "vaalidaa" is strange. PTV seems to really suck in dubbing/translations. I wonder why they do it: does it have some political-ideological bent?

Note that calling one's own mother as "mother" is not strange in English: it's a bit old-fashioned, that's all. But many have done it and many still do it.



Sheikh_14 said:


> It would make perfect sense for them to use waalida jaan etc since its a grandiose show on the Ottoman royalty's conquests and ways of life


The series _Ertuğrul_ is on a nomadic tribe, with none of them being much educated. The tribe would spawn in the future the Ottomans, but the tribe is not royalty! Also, my question was about standalone "vaalidaa" as direct address to one's own mother, not about "vaalidaa jaan" (which I haven't heard in the series, anyway).


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## Qureshpor

littlepond said:


> Hello all!
> 
> Recently, I watched a few episodes of the hit Turkish TV series _Diriliş: Ertuğrul_ in its Urdu dubbed form* (with the PTV not going for the literal translation, having titled the series as _Ertuğrul Ghazi_). I had been watching the series in Turkish earlier and had not watched the Urdu episodes.
> 
> Now, I was quite surprised that the series uses very heavy (at least to my ears) words of Urdu in normal conversation, an example being the word "vaalidaa" that the protagonist Ertuğrul uses to his mother Hayme. Now, it's not a royal family where people probably are expected to use heavy words even to their near and dear ones: it's quite a rough, martial, unrefined environment, actually (not as rough as the Chinese jianghu 江湖 societies, but quite approximate to it). The Turkish original has quite a few rough words, and in this case Ertuğrul simply uses the word "anne"/"annem" (mother, my mother) to Hayme, which is a simple word for mother (like "maaN" in Hindi).
> 
> My question is this: do ordinary people use a word like "vaalidaa" so commonly, with their mothers, in everyday life? To a Hindi speaker like me, it is a heavy word; maybe, for Urdu speakers, it's a light word?
> 
> Thanks in advance! (If you need to write something in Urdu while answering, then please consider transliterating it, too.)
> 
> *The dubbing is quite bad in general, with uninspiring voices, and bad word choices for translation, with bad to absurd translations such as "bey" to "sardaar" and "alp" to "sipaahii."


Can you quote the Urdu sentence containing the word "vaalidah" by any chance? If not, please send me a link with rough time in the video in question by PM. Hopefully the context will help.


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## littlepond

Qureshpor said:


> Can you quote the Urdu sentence containing the word "vaalidah" by any chance? If not, please send me a link with rough time in the video in question by PM. Hopefully the context will help.



I will see if I find the time to go to the sentences in question, but they are numerous and they are simple ones: for example, the hero (the nomadic tribe's head) is leaving his mother and telling her "vaalidaa, aap apnaa khayaal rakhiyegaa" and similar.


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## Qureshpor

littlepond said:


> I will see if I find the time to go to the sentences in question, but they are numerous and they are simple ones: for example, the hero (the nomadic tribe's head) is leaving his mother and telling her "vaalidaa, aap apnaa khayaal rakhiyegaa" and similar.


I found two examples of _Ertuğrul _addressing his mother as "vaalidah" (e.g Season 1 Episode 2 around 38:20) and it is perfectly fine usage for the word "mother", bearing in mind his position and his mother's position in the tribe. "maaN" could also have been used. Here is a literary example...

kunbe kii aabruu, mirii sardaar vaalidah
ai mirii saabirah, mirii naachaar vaalidah

Miir Salamat Ali Dabiir

The Urdu used in the dubbing is normal Urdu which any Urdu speaker can understand and appreicate.


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## littlepond

Qureshpor said:


> I found two examples of _Ertuğrul _addressing his mother as "vaalidah" (e.g Season 1 Episode 2 around 38:20) and it is perfectly fine usage for the word "mother", bearing in mind his position and his mother's position in the tribe. "maaN" could also have been used.





Qureshpor said:


> The Urdu used in the dubbing is normal Urdu which any Urdu speaker can understand and appreicate.



Thanks for checking a clip and answering the question. As I have mostly watched the series in its Turkish original, which does not use heavy words, I found the dubbing, including the usage "vaalidah," very strange. But, I guess, one approach of translation/dubbing is to lean a lot to the audience, and your answer suggests that such heavy words in a normal conversation wouldn't be amiss for Pakistani audiences.


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## littlepond

Qureshpor said:


> I found two examples of _Ertuğrul _addressing his mother as "vaalidah" (e.g Season 1 Episode 2 around 38:20) and it is perfectly fine usage for the word "mother", bearing in mind his position and his mother's position in the tribe. "maaN" could also have been used.



I have watched some more episodes, and in fact "vaalidah" is used by every single person in the series in direct address to their mothers, even if it be a non-descript hamlet's poor boy to his poor mother, so nothing to do with the hero's position in the tribe (as I had suspected all along).

Such heavy usage of a word like "vaalidah," even for village boys to their mothers, and not a single occurrence of any other word, such as "maaN," what does it tell us of PTV's language choices?


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## Qureshpor

littlepond said:


> I have watched some more episodes, and in fact "vaalidah" is used by every single person in the series in direct address to their mothers, even if it be a non-descript hamlet's poor boy to his poor mother, so nothing to do with the hero's position in the tribe (as I had suspected all along).
> 
> Such heavy usage of a word like "vaalidah," even for village boys to their mothers, and not a single occurrence of any other word, such as "maaN," what does it tell us of PTV's language choices?


There is nothing "heavy" about the word "vaalidah". It tells us PTV's "language choice" is perfectly natural and long may it continue!


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## littlepond

Qureshpor said:


> There is nothing "heavy" about the word "vaalidah". It tells us PTV's "language choice" is perfectly natural and long may it continue!



In which case, how to understand what you had earlier said: 'it is perfectly fine usage for the word "mother", bearing in mind his position and his mother's position in the tribe'? Why does one have to bear in mind anything at all, then?


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## Qureshpor

littlepond said:


> In which case, how to understand what you had earlier said: 'it is perfectly fine usage for the word "mother", bearing in mind his position and his mother's position in the tribe'? Why does one have to bear in mind anything at all, then?


That was said for the two scenes I saw in which _Ertuğrul _uses this word to address his mother. vaalidah is a word that can be used for any register.


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## littlepond

Qureshpor said:


> That was said for the two scenes I saw in which _Ertuğrul _uses this word to address his mother. vaalidah is a word that can be used for any register.


I do know that you watched those two scenes, but your earlier response implied that given Ertuğrul's position in the tribe, you didn't find "vaalidah" in direct address as something weird. Your new response seems to cancel that, saying that all that consideration is immaterial: it is normal for everyone to use the word "vaalidah" in direct address to their mothers. In an even earlier response, in post 9, you had even asked for the context. But if "vaalidah" in direct address is always fine, I don't see the point of post 9. Thanks for all the three responses, in any case.


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## Qureshpor

littlepond said:


> I do know that you watched those two scenes, but your earlier response implied that given Ertuğrul's position in the tribe, you didn't find "vaalidah" in direct address as something weird.


I also said "maaN" could easily have been used.


littlepond said:


> But if "vaalidah" in direct address is always fine, I don't see the point of post 9. Thanks for all the three responses, in any case.


I think it's a fair question to ask for the context to get a fuller picture.


littlepond said:


> But if "vaalidah" in direct address is always fine, I don't see the point of post 9. Thanks for all the three responses, in any case.


You are most welcome. I think there is no need to be hung up on "vaalidah" vs "maaN". In one breath, one can use both. "vaalidah" literally is the female procrator, hence "mother".

aataa hai yaad mujh ko bachpan kaa vuh zamaanah
rahtaa thaa saath mere xushiyoN kaa jab xazaanah

ik roz vaalidah se jaa kar kahaa kichan meN
ab chhoRiye gaa ammii yih rotiyaaN pakaanaa

Abdul Qaadir

mujhe maaN kaa pyaar nahiiN milaa magar is kaa baap se kyaa gilah
mirii vaalidah to yih kahtii hai tirii vaalidah ko'ii aur hai

Diawar Figaar


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## desi4life

It seems to me that in Urdu “vaalidah” is as common as “maataa” is in Hindi. So a character in an Urdu television show saying “vaalidah” is likely akin to a character in a Hindi show saying “maataa”. It’s a bit more formal than maaN, mammaa, ammaa, ammii, etc. but people realistically do use it.


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## littlepond

Qureshpor said:


> I also said "maaN" could easily have been used.


But has not been used, not even by one of the dozens of characters peopling the show.



Qureshpor said:


> I think it's a fair question to ask for the context to get a fuller picture.


Even if "vaalidah" is fine in any picture, in the mouth of any character?



Qureshpor said:


> "vaalidah" literally is the female procrator, hence "mother".


I am not doubting the meaning of "vaalidah." What I am finding it weird is the usage of it, given that in the Turkish original, no formal usage is there (but then, you say it can be informal, so let's drop that), plus every single character, even little boys in poor hamlets, are calling their mother as such. A good writer, even otherwise, adds a bit of variety: to imagine that every single person in the series' universe uses the same word for mother, that too a word like "vaalidah," is a bit of a stretch.



desi4life said:


> It seems to me that in Urdu “vaalidah” is as common as “maataa” is in Hindi. So a character in an Urdu television show saying “vaalidah” is likely akin to a character in a Hindi show saying “maataa”. It’s a bit more formal than maaN, mammaa, ammaa, ammii, etc. but people realistically do use it.


The Turkish original uses the common word "anne," not a formal word. In addition, the show shows every character using "vaalidah" when talking to their mothers, not just one or two characters.


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## Qureshpor

^ I think I've said all that needs to be said. "vaalidah" it is in the serial (if you've seen every single episode) and that is what the translator/s has chosen to use. It is perfectly fine and if anyone diagrees with this, that is their point of view, which is also fine.


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## littlepond

Qureshpor said:


> ^ "vaalidah" it is in the serial (if you've seen every single episode) and that is what the translator/s has chosen to use.



I am wondering how many of PTV series in general, when dubbed from any foreign language, use any other word for "mother." As I don't watch PTV otherwise, but in case you do, please let us know it here, so it may give us some idea if it is the translator's doing or PTV's (ideological) doing. I am also wondering whatever happened to the good old "ammii": in many situations in _Ertuğrul_, that would be the perfect choice.


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