# Urdu: Putr



## littlepond

Many people on this forum would have dismissed "putr" as a word belonging only to "unnatural" Hindi or to mythological serials. I myself would not have expected its usage in Pakistan!

And yet, in this documentary film, in the village of Hakimwala, 3 hours from Multan, a village family used "putr" and not "beTaa" for son: only the village head in that film uses the word "beTaa", but that is more in the sense of "gaaNv kaa beTaa", not in the sense of one's own son, for which "putr" is exclusively used in the film. The language by the way seems very close to Rajasthani rather than Urdu: I wonder if the dialect has a name. Where exactly is this Hakimwala village, if anyone may know?

My more language-related question is this: how common is the usage of "putr" for one's own son in Pakistan?


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## Alfaaz

littlepond said:
			
		

> Where exactly is this Hakimwala village, if anyone may know?


 According to this link, it is in Gujranwala, Punjab, Pakistan. 

The language seems to be quite similar to Punjabi*, so it could either be a dialect and/or another similar language like Saraiki, Pothohari, etc...? Other forum members who are more knowledgeable about these languages will hopefully be able to elaborate!

* For example, the following sentence (which you have mentioned) would be comprehensible for Punjabi (and even Urdu or Hindi) speakers: _maiN saarii bastii daa putr aaN_.


			
				littlepond said:
			
		

> My more language-related question is this: how common is the usage of "putr" for one's own son in Pakistan?


While it might not be very commonly used in spoken Urdu (as you have mentioned), it is certainly very common in other languages like Punjabi, Saraiki, etc. The pronunciation might be slightly different across regions: _putr, puttar, etc._ 

Here is a Punjabi example of _puttar_ from a popular national song from the 1960s:

ایہہ پتر ھٹاں تے نئیں وکدے، توں لبھدی پھریں بازار کڑے
ایہہ دین اے میرے داتا دی، نا ایویں ٹکراں مار کڑے

ایہہ پتر وکاؤ چیز نہیں، مل دے کے جھولی پائیے نی
ایہہ ایڈا سستا مال نہیں، کتوں جا کے منگ لیائیے نی

صوفی غلام مصطفیٰ تبسّم​
_aeh puttar haTTaaN te na'iiN vikde, tuuN labhdii phireN bazaar kuRe
aeh den ae mere daataa dii, naa aiveN takraaN maar kuRe

aeh puttar vikaa'o chiiz na'iiN, mul de ke cholii paaiye nii
aeh aeDaa sastaa maal na'iiN, kitoN jaa ke mang liyaa'e nii

Sufi Ghulam Mustafa Tabassum
_
Corrections to any mistakes would be appreciated as always!


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## marrish

This is Saraiki language/dialect of Punjabi. The first and second instance of usage in this reportage is pôtr: maiN saarii vastii daa potr_aaN. It is a short 'o', not the long one as in Lah"o"re. puttar/putr is the standard Punjabi and seemingly Saraiki word for 'son' so it has nothing to do with Hindi or Urdu (although there is some Urdu in-between in the documentary).

As you can see from the 1960's Pakistani song, *putr* is there - not only in rural Pakistan but also in literary/popular/urban Punjabi it is *putr* too. (take a listen at Noor Jahaan!), and I taking the opportunity to correct the text:
*
ae putr haTTaaN te na'iiN vikde, 
ae putr haTTaaN te na'iiN vikde,
kíí_h lább(h)nii eN vich bazaar kuRe OR

tuuN lább(h)nii phire bazaar kuRe

éh deNR é mere daataa dii, na aiNveN TakraaN maar kuRe

ae/ve puttr vikaa'uu chiiz na'iiN, mull dai ke ch_hòlii paa'ie nii
é éDDaa sastaa maal na'iiN kitoN jaa ke maNg lyaai'e nii

(For anyone interested in gurmukhi
ਐ ਪੁਤ੍ਰ ਹੱਟਾਂ ਤੇ ਨਈਂ ਵਿਕਦੇ
ਕੀਹ ਲੱਭਨੀ/ਲੱਭਣੀ ਫਿਰੇ ਬਜ਼ਾਰ ਕੁੜੇ
ਇਹ ਦੇਣ ਏ ਮੇਰੇ ਦਾਤਾ ਦੀ, ਨਾ ਐੰਵੇਂ ਟਕਰਾਂ ਮਾਰ ਕੁੜੇ

ਵੇ ਪੁਤ੍ਰ ਵਿਕਾਊ ਚੀਜ਼ ਨਈਂ, ਮੁੱਲ ਦੈ ਕੇ ਝੋਲੀ ਪਾਇਏ ਨੀ
ਇਹ ਏੱਡਾ ਸਸਤਾ ਮਾਲ ਨਈਂ ਕਿਤੋੰ ਜਾ ਕੇ ਮਂਗ ਲ੍ਯਾਇਏ ਨੀ

(EDIT:added Gurmukhi and polished the transliteration)*


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## littlepond

Thanks a lot, Alfaaz jii and marrish jii! I was aware of the Punjabi "puttar", as it is the same in Punjabi in India, but I wasn't aware of "putr" (or "puttr") otherwise in Pakistan. But finding it in even literary Urdu is very much surprising for me!

Thanks also so much for telling me the name of the dialect.


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## desi4life

littlepond said:


> But finding it in even literary Urdu is very much surprising for me!



How did you reach this conclusion? Unless I missed something, I don't think anyone indicated this.


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## tonyspeed

desi4life said:


> How did you reach this conclusion? Unless I missed something, I don't think anyone indicated this.



Putr is a Sanskrit word that is not the norm in spoken Hindi but is a part of literary Hindi and,  by extention,  Urdu as well - The difference between Hindi and Urdu was not something even mentioned before the 1800s and the introduction of British "scholarship".  Hindi and Urdu have subsequently grown apart over the years,  Hindi adopting more Sanskrit as time has progressed -  some Sanskrit words in Urdu falling into disuse. Hence,  many tend to oversimplify the Hindi /Urdu difference into one of Sanskrit vs Persian-Arabic word choice. One should note however that while there is a concept of "Pure (shuddh)  Hindi" (one mostly free of Perso-Arabic words),  I have never heard a claim of there being a "Pure (paak) Urdu".  Urdu speakers tend to know their language is very mixed in origin.


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## mundiya

tonyspeed said:


> Putr is a Sanskrit word that is not the norm in spoken Hindi but is a part of literary Hindi and,  by extention,  Urdu as well - The difference between Hindi and Urdu was not something even mentioned before the 1800s and the introduction of British "scholarship".  Hindi and Urdu have subsequently grown apart over the years,  Hindi adopting more Sanskrit as time has progressed -  some Sanskrit words in Urdu falling into disuse. Hence,  many tend to oversimplify the Hindi /Urdu difference into one of Sanskrit vs Persian-Arabic word choice. One should note however that while there is a concept of "Pure (shuddh)  Hindi" (one mostly free of Perso-Arabic words),  I have never heard a claim of there being a "Pure (paak) Urdu".  Urdu speakers tend to know their language is very mixed in origin.



Well, you're starting to take this thread off-topic Tony jii, and you didn't really answer Desi jii's question either. Regarding your last point, such topics have been discussed before and threads closed, so to make it brief there is a similar concept for Urdu that places a greater emphasis on Perso-Arabic words. It's called "saaf Urdu" or "xaalis Urdu".

Getting back to the topic: puttar, putr, etc. are probably more common in Punjabi than beTaa is. Same is true for Saraiki.


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## marrish

Is the discussion finally about Hindi/Urdu or Saraiki or Punjabi?


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## littlepond

The discussion from my point of view is about Urdu: how common is the word in Urdu speakers' tongue? But I am very thankful to know the dialect of the person in the film. Would there be areas where Urdu speakers overlap (come in close contact with) Punjabi speakers, and hence many or some of them are also found to be using "putr" in spoken Urdu?


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## littlepond

desi4life said:


> How did you reach this conclusion? Unless I missed something, I don't think anyone indicated this.



Sorry, my bad: I misread "literary Punjabi" as "literary Urdu" in an earlier posting.


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## littlepond

Alfaaz said:


> The language seems to be quite similar to Punjabi*, so it could either be a dialect and/or another similar language like Saraiki, Pothohari, etc...? ​




Alfaaz jii, do you really feel the language _similar _to Punjabi? What do other members feel? I only detected influence of Punjabi, but I found the language extremely close to Urdu-Hindi. I do not understand a lot of Punjabi: when I watch a Punjabi film, I like subtitles to be there. Whereas in this video, though subtitles were there, I didn't have to look there except for one or two instances, as everything the guy said was not just perfectly understandable to me but even entered my stream of consciousness directly: I didn't need to make any effort, as the guy was speaking more or less my own language (that is what I felt). Of course, there were some oddities, some different kinds of constructions, etc., which led me to wonder what dialect it is.​


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## littlepond

tonyspeed said:


> Putr is a Sanskrit word that is not the norm in spoken Hindi ...



That might or might not be true for spoken Hindi, but spoken Hindi is not what we are discussing here, tonyspeed jii. The word seems to be thriving in spoken language in Pakistan, and that spoken language seems very close to spoken Hindi-Urdu, so your emphatic claim of "putr" being not present in spoken Hindi seems to have been dealt a body blow.


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## tonyspeed

littlepond said:


> That might or might not be true for spoken Hindi, but spoken Hindi is not what we are discussing here, tonyspeed jii. The word seems to be thriving in spoken language in Pakistan, and that spoken language seems very close to spoken Hindi-Urdu, so your emphatic claim of "putr" being not present in spoken Hindi seems to have been dealt a body blow.



I thought we already agreed that the person speaking is a Saraiki speaker not an Urdu speaker? It's actually interesting to note that at 6:30 his mother says beTa then says potr a few seconds later. It would be natural for a non-mother tongue Urdu speaker to use mother tongue words in their Urdu. The fact that the pronunciation is potr and not putr also emphasizes that she is using a Saraiki word.


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## Alfaaz

littlepond said:
			
		

> Alfaaz jii, do you really feel the language _similar _to Punjabi? What do other members feel? I only detected influence of Punjabi, but I found the language extremely close to Urdu-Hindi. I do not understand a lot of Punjabi: when I watch a Punjabi film, I like subtitles to be there. Whereas in this video, though subtitles were there, I didn't have to look there except for one or two instances, as everything the guy said was not just perfectly understandable to me but even entered my stream of consciousness directly: I didn't need to make any effort, as the guy was speaking more or less my own language (that is what I felt). Of course, there were some oddities, some different kinds of constructions, etc., which led me to wonder what dialect it is.


 That is really interesting! As previously stated, my knowledge about the languages is limited, but it is usually the other way around: Urdu and Hindi speakers often find Punjabi easier to understand than Saraiki, etc. due to the different kinds of constructions, which you have pointed out as well. (Note: The speakers in the documentary do switch back and forth between the two languages - Urdu and Saraiki.) I could send a few Saraiki examples to you via PM and perhaps your opinion might be different about being able to comprehend those...?


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## marrish

littlepond said:


> The discussion from my point of view is about *Urdu*: how common is the word in *Urdu* speakers' tongue? But I am very thankful to know the *dialect* of the person in the film. Would there be areas where *Urdu* speakers overlap (come in close contact with) *Punjabi* speakers, and hence many or some of them are also found to be using "putr" in spoken *Urdu*?


I suggest you as the author of the original query might consider to clear things up and request the moderator yourself to change the title to something like Urdu/Punjabi:... or Urdu alone or include Saraiki as it is the basis for the discussion, it's up to you. To be frank using Hindi as title in the first place while referring to rural Pakistan is out of the blue. I'd be glad to address some issues and expand on my posts from a clear understanding of the language scope. Thank you.


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## littlepond

^ I will send a request to the moderator, marrish jii, to change the title, if you feel that would be more helpful. I put Hindi in the thread title simply because there was hardly a word in the documentary which I felt as not belonging to Hindi, so it is confusing for me that why I should not _feel_ the language as much Hindi as Urdu. Though of course with some different constructions, which I have learnt is due to the probable fact that the language spoken in fact is Saraiki.

Alfaaz jii, I'd be glad to hear more of Saraiki. I will send you a PM.


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## savera

don't know about Saraiki, but in terms of the original question "how common is the usage of "putr" for one's own son in Pakistan?", putr is always used in the Punjabi that I have heard and been around. obviously Punjabi still reigns supreme in much of rural Pakistani Punjab (though I do worry about it's decline...but that's a different topic). in fact, it's one of my favorite Punjabi words. 'beta' is obviously used in urdu. "son" (whether Punjabi putr and Urdu beta) is used so often and is a word inherently suffused with emotion whenever it's used, so putr is certainly an important word that means a lot when it is spoken. if anything, putr is even more important to me, as Punjabi is usually spoken when really high emotional intimacy is needed (at least in my family)


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## marrish

^ Do you mean putr or puttar?


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## littlepond

Same question, savera jii: do you mean "putr" or "puttar"? "puttar" is common in Punjabi in India too, and I wouldn't have started the thread for "puttar". It is the usage of "putr" that surprised me.


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## Trico

Hey there, 
Just wanted to say that in Dutch (Indo Germanic language) we have the word peuter, which refers to small children from 1 year up to about 3 years old. It is pronounced w the same emphasis as puttar.


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