# Hindi: Rann of Kutch



## lcfatima

How is Rann of Kutch written in devnagari?


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## marrish

Hi, do you mean the transcription or the translation?


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## lcfatima

Transcription. Nastaliq will also do. I just wanted to know how to pronounce the vowel in Rann.


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## marrish

I believe it is रन ऑफ़ कच्छ in Nagari. I´m afraid I can´t type in _nasta3liiq_ here on the forum but in _nasx_ it will be رَن آف کچّھ (which falls outside of the scope of the language of the thread: Hindi).
I've found two translations into Hindi: कच्छ का रण kachchh kaa raNR and कच्छ का रन kachchh kaa ran on this WP page. It appears that in Gujarati and Sindhi, the languages spoken there, it is the retroflex NR, but the WP article displays both n and NR so I don't know which one is the standard Hindi one, it has to be settled by the Hindi speakers.


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## lcfatima

Okay, thanks.


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## marrish

You're most welcome.


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## greatbear

रण in Hindi.


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## Faylasoof

Yes indeed, in Hindi we write ‘Rann’ as रण !


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## Faylasoof

marrish said:


> I believe it is रन ऑफ़ कच्छ in Nagari. I´m afraid I can´t type in _nasta3liiq_ here on the forum but in _nasx_ it will be رَن آف کچّھ (which falls outside of the scope of the language of the thread: Hindi).


marrish SaaHib I always assumed that 'Rann' was spelt *रण* but you are right and I have to correct myself, i.e. my earlier post above. As you say, *रन *is also used and it seems it has been for a more than a century as an altenative spelling in Hindi! Interestingly, it is the latter spelling that is used in Urdu  as well. 

*S* *रण** raṇa*, vulg. _raṇ_, and *H.* *रन ran*, s.m. Sound, noise; battle, war, combat, fight, conflict; …. —*raṇ paṛnā*, Fight to take place, battle to be fought;—to lie in the battle-field, to be slain in battle…

BTW, the word is still used in Urdu and although everyday, common usage of expressions such as  *ran paRnaa* ( =  A battle / fight to take place; to fall in battle)and *ran par chaRhnaa* ( = to prepare for battle) may have dropped (except perhaps certain households like ours), in Urdu poetry you will regularly come across these particularly in _razmiyah shaa3irii_ ( battle poetry), esp. of Mir Anis (_miir aniis_): 

Use of _*ran paRnaa*_
صدقے گئی، یوں *رن* کبھی *پڑتے* نہیں دیکھا
اِک دن میں بھرے گھر کو اجڑتے نہیں دیکھا
_Sadqe ga’ii yuuN *ran* kabhii *paRte* nahiiN dekhaa_
_ik   din   meN   ghar   ko   ujaRte   nahiiN   dekhaa_

 Use of _*ran par chaRnaa*_
غُل پڑ گیا شاہِ شہدا چڑھتے ہیں *رن* پر
احمد کی قبا آپ نے پہنی جو بدن پر
_Ghul paR gayaa shaah-e-shuhadaa *chaRhte haiN ran par*_
_aHmad   kii   qabaa   aap   ne    paihnii    jo   badan    par_


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## hindiurdu

Are the rann in Rann of Kutch and the raRN meaning 'war' the same? That doesn't make sense. From what I recollect Rann is a Gujarati and Sindhi word for a specific geographical feature of those areas. It is a low lying salt desert that is under the sea during the monsoon and bone dry in other seasons. Might still be the same pronunciation of course but those should be two different words. Please correct me if I am wrong.


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## lcfatima

Yes, I had read that rann meant marshland or wilderness in Kachchhi. 

I also found this in Platts which is of course not on Kachchhi, but the word must be a cognate:



> H
> رنरन_ran [Prk. रणं or अरणं; S. अरण्यं], s.m. Wood, forest; desert, waste, wilderness:—ran-ban, s.m. A wilderness._


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## fdb

I found this entry in Turner:

*áraṇya* n. ʻ foreign land ʼ RV., ʻ desert, jungle ʼ AV. 2. *araṇyaka -- *ʻ *wild ʼ, n. ʻ forest ʼ Yājñ. 3. *iriṇyà -- *ʻ relating to desert ʼ VS., _iraṇyà_ -- MaitrS. [áraṇa -- ]
1. Pa. _arañña_ -- , _ra°_ n. ʻ forest, any country other than town or village ʼ, Pk. _araṇṇa_ -- , _ra°_ n. ʻjungleʼ; H. _ran_ m. ʻ forest, desert ʼ (< *_rān_ after _ban_ ʻ forest ʼ, e.g. in _ran -- ban_ m. ʻ wilderness ʼ; or < áraṇa -- ); G. _rān_ ʻ sylvan, wild, savage ʼ, m.f. ʻ forest, desert ʼ; M. _rān_ ʻ wild ʼ (e.g. *rān*_ -- ã̄bā_ ʻ wild hog plum ʼ), n. ʻ forest, wilderness ʼ; Ko. _rāna_ ʻ forest ʼ; Si. _rana_ ʻ jungle ʼ (or < áraṇa -- ).
2. Pa. _araññaka_ -- ʻ belonging to the wild ʼ, Pk. _araṇṇaya_ -- ; H. _rānā_ ʻ wild, growing spontaneouslyʼ.
3. S. _riñu_ m., _riña_ f. ʻ wilderness, desert, waste of salt earth ʼ; -- _ruña_ f. ʻ desert region ʼ (whence _u_ ?).

This indicates _ran_ in Hindi, but _rān_ in Gujarati.


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## UrduMedium

^ Interesting. Wonder if there's a linkage between this and the surname/clan raana/raaṇa?


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## marrish

fdb said:


> I found this entry in Turner:
> 
> *áraṇya* n. ʻ foreign land ʼ RV., ʻ desert, jungle ʼ AV. 2. *araṇyaka -- *ʻ *wild ʼ, n. ʻ forest ʼ Yājñ. 3. *iriṇyà -- *ʻ relating to desert ʼ VS., _iraṇyà_ -- MaitrS. [áraṇa -- ]
> 1. Pa. _arañña_ -- , _ra°_ n. ʻ forest, any country other than town or village ʼ, Pk. _araṇṇa_ -- , _ra°_ n. ʻjungleʼ; H. _ran_ m. ʻ forest, desert ʼ (< *_rān_ after _ban_ ʻ forest ʼ, e.g. in _ran -- ban_ m. ʻ wilderness ʼ; or < áraṇa -- ); G. _rān_ ʻ sylvan, wild, savage ʼ, m.f. ʻ forest, desert ʼ; M. _rān_ ʻ wild ʼ (e.g. *rān*_ -- ã̄bā_ ʻ wild hog plum ʼ), n. ʻ forest, wilderness ʼ; Ko. _rāna_ ʻ forest ʼ; Si. _rana_ ʻ jungle ʼ (or < áraṇa -- ).
> 2. Pa. _araññaka_ -- ʻ belonging to the wild ʼ, Pk. _araṇṇaya_ -- ; H. _rānā_ ʻ wild, growing spontaneouslyʼ.
> 3. S. _riñu_ m., _riña_ f. ʻ wilderness, desert, waste of salt earth ʼ; -- _ruña_ f. ʻ desert region ʼ (whence _u_ ?).
> 
> This indicates _ran_ in Hindi, but _rān_ in Gujarati.



As indicated in my post above, _raNR_ (_raṇ_) is the form of the word in Gujarati in the requested meaning. The augumented vowel and the loss of the retroflex NR results in the adjectivization, however there is a noun, too, which means a jungle rather than the geographical area, but it seems it is not very widely used.


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## fdb

As I understand it, in Hindi/Urdu, and in other North Indian languages, dental _n_ and retroflex _ṇ_ have merged as /n/. This means that the question of रन versus रण is purely a spelling issue. 

The long ā in G(ujarati) and M(arathi) _rān_ and Ko(nkani) _rāna_ results from a short _a_ which has been lengthened to compensate for the simplification of the following double consonant: _-ṇy- > -ṇṇ- > -n-_ . For the short _a_ in H(indi) _ran_ Turner offers two possible explanations: either the vowel has been shortened by analogy to _ban_, or else the Hindi word comes not from Sanskrit _araṇya-_ but from an unattested *_araṇa-._ The Gujarati and Marathi forms are used both as nouns (“desert”) and as adjectives (“wild”). The Hindi and Konkani forms are nouns only.

The variant रण is a purely historic (Sanskritising) spelling. The spoken form in Hindi is _ran_.


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## greatbear

^ No, the most common spoken form continues to be रण  - in fact, this is the first time, I am hearing _ran_ in Hindi. Also, "araNya" is also a word used in Hindi, and "raN" to my mind has close linkage with "arNya".


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## Wolverine9

So GB, in your experience, ण is not pronounced as न nowadays in Hindi?

There might be variant acceptable spellings for the word.  The entry below from this dictionary spells it as रन:

रन ran (_nm_) a run (in cricket); a reclaimed part of the sea (e.g. कच्छ का रन).


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## fdb

I have probably overstated my case somewhat. Retroflex /ṇ/ is used in “high” varieties of Hindi in Sanskrit loanwords, and in some words which are perceived to be Sanskrit. In “genuine” Neo-Indo-Aryan words, Old Indian /ṇ/ becomes /n/.


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## hindiurdu

^I actually thought you were right for spoken Hindi and Urdu because /ṇ/ is invariably pronounced as /n/. However, in Punjabi /ṇ/ is quite alive and used in much more organic ways than in H/U.


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## marrish

With regard to posts #15 and #19 it would be fine to keep Urdu out of this discussion and this for at least two reasons: the thread is about Hindi and there is no retroflex NR consonant in the former language.


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## marrish

fdb said:


> I have probably overstated my case somewhat. Retroflex /ṇ/ is used in “high” varieties of Hindi in Sanskrit loanwords, and in some words which are perceived to be Sanskrit. In “genuine” Neo-Indo-Aryan words, Old Indian /ṇ/ becomes /n/.


Perhaps you meant to write "Old Indic".


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## hindiurdu

marrish said:


> With regard to posts #15 and #19 it would be fine to keep Urdu out of this discussion and this for at least two reasons: the thread is about Hindi and there is no retroflex NR consonant in the former language.



I was responding to the Neo-IA comment from fdb which I thought broadened the scope. Actually the script may have little to do with actual usage. ण exists but isn't pronounced in everyday Hindi speech while Shahmukhi lacks a consonant for ṇ, yet it is pronounced. Interestingly, Sindhi *does* have a letter for it - ڻ.


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## marrish

hindiurdu said:


> I was responding to the Neo-IA comment from fdb which I thought broadened the scope. Actually the script may have little to do with actual usage. ण exists but isn't pronounced in everyday Hindi speech while Shahmukhi lacks a consonant for ṇ, yet it is pronounced. Interestingly, Sindhi *does* have a letter for it - ڻ.


OK, I understand. Nevertheless my point was not about hte script but about the consonant sound with regard to Urdu. Of course there is no sign in Urdu to represent this as there is no sound which it would have to represent. Shahmukhi. Do you mean the Urdu script? If you do, am I correct in my understanding that you mean that it is nevertheless pronounced?


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## Wolverine9

^ Shahmukhi is a script used for writing Punjabi.  It's an adaptation of the Urdu script.  HU is saying that Punjabi has the NR sound in the spoken language, unlike Hindi or Urdu, but the Shahmukhi script doesn't have a sign for it.


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## marrish

Wolverine9 said:


> ^ Shahmukhi is a script used for writing Punjabi.  It's an adaptation of the Urdu script.  HU is saying that Punjabi has the NR sound in the spoken language, unlike Hindi or Urdu, but the Shahmukhi script doesn't have a sign for it.


Thank you very much, Wolverine9. Let's have hindiurdu SaaHib respond, but when you referred to Punjabi, which uses (I hope it uses it more that it does!), one thread came to my mind which could be a nice reading about it.

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2362509

This is about Hindi, it seems fdb SaaHib has some knowledge of this thread, and if he doesn't perhaps he wouldn't mind to share some sources with us there.

I believe I had taken part of a discussion about the depiction of NR in Shahmukhi for Punjabi but I can't find one at the moment. Shahmukhi has the same as Sindhi does otherwise it is with a circle above an empty nuun. Good opportunity to discuss it further!


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## Qureshpor

marrish said:


> I believe I had taken part of a discussion about the depiction of NR in Shahmukhi for Punjabi but I can't find one at the moment. Shahmukhi has the same as Sindhi does otherwise it is with a circle above an empty nuun. Good opportunity to discuss it further!


You probably have this thread in mind.

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1650403&page=2


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## Qureshpor

hindiurdu said:


> I was responding to the Neo-IA comment from fdb which I thought broadened the scope. Actually the script may have little to do with actual usage. ण exists but isn't pronounced in everyday Hindi speech while Shahmukhi lacks a consonant for ṇ, yet it is pronounced. Interestingly, Sindhi *does* have a letter for it - ڻ.


You are partially right, hindiurdu SaaHib. ڻ to depict the retroflex in the Shahmukhi script for Punjabi is hardly ever used. However, it is used on occasions, especially books printed by the "Lok Virsa" institute in Islamabad, Pakistan, which has published a number of books of Punjabi classics and the compilers have been meticulous in representing this consonant, as well as vowel depictions.

Here is one article which does mention the ڻ

http://www.bioscience.ws/encyclopedia/index.php?title=Shahmukhi_script

In Pakistani Punjab, as you may be well aware, Shahmukhi Punjabi is a rare sight. So in this sense, the comparison with Hindi script and Shahmukhi is not an accurate one. However, I take your point that in the case of Punjabi in Pakistan, the retroflex n is an inherited feature of Punjabi speech and is not dependent upon the script.

Edit: I should add that more and more one hears the dental nuun in place of the retroflex. As an example listen to "Chala by Savera & Ambreen of Kraze" on Youtube.


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## hindiurdu

QURESHPOR said:


> You are partially right, hindiurdu SaaHib. ڻ to depict the retroflex in the Shahmukhi script for Punjabi is hardly ever used. However, it is used on occasions, especially books printed by the "Lok Virsa" institute in Islamabad, Pakistan, which has published a number of books of Punjabi classics and the compilers have been meticulous in representing this consonant, as well as vowel depictions.



Thanks you Qureshpor Sahib, I stand corrected! I feel like I haven't run into ڻ  or even ڰ myself in reading Punjabi - but then I must confess I have not really read that much in Punjabi. When I am looking for poetry, I tend to type the name into Google images and then look for text. I will try and procure some Lok Virsa books. On the decline in this consonant, I relate to it. In Punjabi speech, my family never uses it and neither do I, usually. It is missing from Kashmiri as well and pretty much absent in normal spoken Hindi (kaaraṇ > kaaran). However, it appears to be very strong in Rajasthani (or Rajasthaṇi, as its speakers call it) - I would consider that to be part of the Kutch-Rajasthan-Sindh complex in some ways though.


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## marrish

QURESHPOR said:


> You probably have this thread in mind.
> 
> http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1650403&page=2


Yes, that is it! Thank you so much!


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## greatbear

Wolverine9 said:


> So GB, in your experience, ण is not pronounced as न nowadays in Hindi?



In my experience, ण is well alive and kicking in Hindi, but I am indeed surprised to hear Hindiurdu's opinions, so probably regions get to determine this? After all, if you are in Rajasthan or Himachal Pradesh, then in fact even न changes to ण (रहण-सहण, not rehan-sehan; verb rehNaa; and so on).

In any case, I invariably say GaNesh, kaaraN, or raN, and I have not often heard the न variants of these words.


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