Talk:Urdu-speaking people

Urdudaans as an "ethnolinguistic group"?

I see two problems with this new page. First of all its title: "Urdudaan" looks quite like a non-existent term in English-language scholarly literature. Google scholar only yields two hits[1], and both are actually mentions of the blogger Urdudaan. Second, Urdu-speakers do not from an ethnolinguistic group. An ethnolinguistic group is an ethnic group whose members primarily self-identify with the group based on the language they speak. Do Urdu-speakers form a coherent ethnic group? As far as I know, and as this article states, they make up quite diverse communities within India and Pakistan.

Apart from these issues, it may well be useful to have an umbrella article about Urdu-speaking communites, as long as it does not for the most part simply duplicate information from the page Urdu. FWIW, we also don't have articles about Hindi-speaking people (a redirect) or Mandarin-speaking people.

@Fowler&fowler, Taimoorahmed11, Foreverknowledge, Kautilya3, and Uanfala: your thoughts about it? –Austronesier (talk) 09:13, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

To me this term is entirely make-believe it is no where found in RS & academic or even colloquial sources. I'm nominating the article for CSD.--Fz^tc_s 09:32, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Yup, I agree. This doesn't meet WP:GNG. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:43, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

The CSD tag (which was agreed by two other editors) has been removed by WilyD on flimsy ground, he also failed to mention that he is removing it as part of CSD evaluation & declining it. When I re-added it, he come on me with a block-threat.

IMHO, article title is definitely an invented one, as mentioned above by Austronesier.--Fz^tc_s 14:49, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

I agree too, I have never heard of the term "Urdudaan" before. Taking a look at Google Books, two books come back which mention the term "Urdudaan" but neither books are supposed to be linguistic books.Taimoorahmed11 (talk) 14:59, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

@Taimoorahmed11: I too have never heard of the term despite the fact that I'm a native speaker of Urdu and I have lived in major centers of it in India like, Lucknow, Delhi, Hyderabad, etc. Anyways, the term fails WP:Verifiability so, it being title of an article is too far-fetched.--Fz^tc_s 15:09, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

@Faizhaider and Taimoorahmed11: Thank you for confirming my first impression! As for the CSD, it will take longer to contest the contester (who by procedure only needs to voice an opinion without evidence), than to get a WP:SNOWBALL on AfD, I guess. –Austronesier (talk) 15:15, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Urdudaan would literally mean “Urdu knowing” in Persianate usage, but it’s not an accepted ethno-linguistic term. Foreverknowledge (talk) 15:21, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Urdudaan is a notable word for the person who have an expertise an Urdu can be split into to words Urdu and Daan, here Daan refers to Danishmand (دانشمند)Majun e Baqi (talk) 15:18, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

@Majun e Baqi: Is it a commonly used English term? Does "Urdudaan" designate Urdu speakers as an ethnolinguistic group? –Austronesier (talk) 15:21, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

No, it is not a commonly used English term but it is commonly used among the Urdu speakers, for the person who has an expertise in Urdu language, I think the article's title is justified with the word Urdudaan, (actually the word pronounced as urdudaa but here n is silent, because of the word اردوداں — Preceding unsigned comment added by Majun e Baqi (talk • contribs) 15:26, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Agreed with other that there is no such word Urdudaans but exist as Urdudaan(اردوداں) in Urdu language so a case to move the page to the correct title, lolMajun e Baqi (talk) 15:54, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Ok, it is an existing Urdu word, but this is not Wiktionary. For a standalone, it has to meet WP:GNG, and given the zero hits in academic literature, this is still much in doubt. And further does the page claim more than just "Urdudaan" meaning "someone with expertise in Urdu". It claims that this word designates an ethnic group, and I can't see this at all even after your explanations. –Austronesier (talk) 16:01, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

First of all, one can make any new word by adding Persian suffixes like da'n, baan, gar, baaz, etc. that doesn't make them valid words forget about it being notable.

Secondly, by own admission of author,"it is not a commonly used English term", so it anyways fails WP article-title criteria.

Thirdly, "it is commonly used among the Urdu speakers", of where? Pakistan? India? elsewhere? somewhere?, as I mentioned above nobody in India has ever called me by this term, neither by speakers of other languages nor by speakers of Urdu itself (despite the fact that I speak Lucknow version of daqeeq-Urdu (hard/pure-Urdu)), nor have I used it, we do use terms like, science-da'n, etc.

Finally, if it is valid term, it can't be applied in generic fashion for all "Urdu-speakers" as mentioned above, "Urdudaan is a...word for the person who have an expertise an Urdu".

So, it is definitely not prudent to create a article under a title which not only is not a widely used term in English but also in Urdu, and also fails to define the subjects it is trying to describe/mention/represent. Again, to mention the term doesn't passes WP:Verifiablity & WP:Notability tests.

Regarding, it moving to other title, as mentioned by Austronesier above, "we also don't have articles about Hindi-speaking people (a redirect) or Mandarin-speaking people."--Fz^tc_s 16:09, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

With good faith, I think this article is about group of urdu speaking people, still not strong but a considerable title for the proposed materials To Faiz, there is no such word in hindi for hindi speaking as far as I know, so no question of creating an article, with love if you have any particular word, you are welcome to create an article on itMajun e Baqi (talk) 16:15, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Actually, there is a term Hindi-bhashi, but again that is not that used like Urduda'n and both tittles fail WP:Verifiablity & WP:Notability tests, so, both are not fit for article. In, addition both are widely covered in their individual articles and string of associated articles.

BTW, I have opened WP:PROD for the article.--Fz^tc_s 16:19, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Now that WP:PROD is contested, I have opened WP:Afd for the article.--Fz^tc_s 16:31, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm on vacation through September, so will not be available for extended discussions. Briefly, Urdu-dan (they are two separate words used together as a collocation) refers literally to "Urdu knowing" (Platts: دان dān (p. 503) P دان dān [fr. dānistan; Pehl. dāneśtan; rt. Zend dā, 'to know'], act. part. Knowing, understanding (used as last member of comp., e.g. qadr-dān, nukta-dān, &c., qq.v.)). It is a historical term, referring specifically to the native-Urdu speaking people or region of British India, which was more or less the North-Western Provinces and Oudh along with some regions of the princely states of Hyderabad State, Rampur, and perhaps a few other regions (small ones). These Urdu-knowing people were the ones for whom Urdu was the mother tongue and the mono-lingual language of the community. The people were pretty much all Muslim. Hindu Urdu poets such as Firaq Gorakhpuri did not have Urdu as their mother tongue, so would not belong to the Urdu-dan. By extension, it cannot be facilely applied to the larger Hindu community in British India which was literate in Urdu, but whose mother tongue Urdu was not. The term cannot also be applied to the Punjab region, Northwest Frontier Province, Sind, or Kashmir—regions of the British Indian Empire in which the mother tongue was not Urdu.

Please listen to the great Pakistani Urdu poet Ahmad Faraz speak about this in this interview with him at the 2:20 mark. (He says that the Urdu-dan, having received the language in the mother's milk, had become set in their ways; the Pakistani poets such as Faiz Ahmad Faiz or Muhammad Iqbal had to work doubly hard, first to learn the language properly and then to write poetry in it. They were, therefore, more open to exploring new avenues in Urdu poetry (and eventually writing the greatest Urdu poetry of the 20th century).)

In my view, the page should exist on Wikipedia but should be properly referenced. Please be particularly wary of India-POV promoters who might try to equate it with "Hindustani" region of Grierson, etc. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:04, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: Thank for your valuable input, as always. I will continue to try with my limited resources to find reliable sources that could back-up the general notability of the page topic regardless of its actual title. But per default, the burden of proof of notability lies with the one who claims it. As for me, I am particularly wary of the POV (which I see behind the creation of this page) that every page about a language or language family per se needs a corresponding ethnicity page (I have expressed my view on several occasions e.g. here). It's characteristic of every world language that the group of its speakers does not make up a uniform community/ethnicity.

This will be my last ping until September. I might drop by on your talk page about something I have in mind but that's not urgent. Enjoy your vacation, I wish you much inspiration for your extra-WP writing! –Austronesier (talk) 15:19, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: Whatever point you have stated I have addressed them previously. Whole point is, there is not much academic referencing available as of now to support usage (forget widespread one) to make it suitable to be title of an article. May be the usage is dated and can only be found in per-partion India and may be later in Pakistan, the term is definitely not in much use and that I can tell based on the fact that I belong to the very category you tried to define in para " It is a historical term....the mother tongue was not Urdu.", I being native of Oudh & Urdu being my mother-tongue, may be this is one of the terms which Pakistanis (esp. Panjabees & Sindhees) called the muhajirs by, that'll explain its prevalence in Pakistan & it's mostly non-existent usage in post-partition India. But, again as of now, the term doesn't passes WP:Verifiablity & WP:Notability tests.--Fz^tc_s 16:18, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Prod

Contested the prod with good faithMajun e Baqi (talk) 16:18, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

@Majun e Baqi: please don't remove the WP:PROD tag until it is decided and closed.--Fz^tc_s 16:23, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

The whole idea behind proposed deletion is that it is non-controversial. If it is removed by another user, that means that they dispute the possible deletion, so the template cannot be restored. Your option now is to take this to WP:AFD. Continuing to restore the prod template could result in a block for disruptive editing. only (talk) 16:24, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

@Faizhaider: I am not at all interested, dear Faiz now in this article, you can edit as you want, keeping my step back, sorry to disturb you, I will not interfere in any of your work, again sorry dear faizMajun e Baqi (talk) 16:25, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

@Majun e Baqi:, I'm not sure what do you mean by, "I am not at all interested", you have put lot of time above and on article. Anyways, happy editing.--Fz^tc_s 16:31, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

@Faizhaider: means, I think it is better to step back in controversial issues, lolMajun e Baqi (talk)

@Majun e Baqi:, whatever makes you cozy. One advice, please read about WP:Indentation and it's usage in talk-page discussions.--Fz^tc_s

@Faizhaider: ধন্যবাদMajun e Baqi (talk) 17:43, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

@Majun e Baqi: آپ کا بھی شکریہ --Fz^tc_s 18:28, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Afd

I have put article for WP:Afd here [2].--Fz^tc_s 16:28, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Clarification as to Urdudaan(اردودان), Urduwan(اردووان) or Urduban(اردوبان)

None of the terms above is much familiar in English but as to article it refers Urdudaan to native Urdu speakers which I think is not entirely correct. Daan is Persian word which means knower, colloquially Urdudaan is used to denote a person expert in Urdu not just a knower. Similarly Sciencedaan(Scientist) is said to a person who is expert in science not just a knower. Like this article [3] about Patras Bokhari who taught English but was an Urdu writer says that "Angrezi ka naamwar Urdudaan (English's famous Urdudaan). As to Urduwan and Urduban, these are remotely used terms to denote Urdu speakers, 'wan or ban' in Persian means speaker. Like Persian speakers are referred to as Farsiwans or Farsibans and Hindko speakers are referred to as Hindkowans. So this article's content needs to be rewritten. USaamo ^(t@lk) 21:06, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

This clarification was regarding the meaning of the word Urdudaan which was mistakenly attributed to native Urdu speakers but as this article has now been moved to Urdu speaking people, so it's oky to have it now with this title. USaamo ^(t@lk) 07:58, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Page protection against vandalism

This page was vandalised by someone so needed a page protection203.192.225.77 (talk) 09:41, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

@203.192.225.77: Read the edit summary by Uanfala, and you can plainly see that it was not vandalism. –Austronesier (talk) 10:04, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

@Austronesier: I think you can understand meatpuppetry, and needs no further explanation, It is clear from Afd page what you like to do and what unfala is doing, kindly do not try to teach me I understand wikipedia very well, you need to learn that it is not allowed to remove other's comments on talk pages203.192.225.77 (talk) 10:10, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Original research

As I explained earlier once, Urdu-speaking in the sense of the Muslims of "Urdu-dan," is a historical term. It does not apply to people who in the 2021 census of India will merely state they are "Urdu-speakers" as a mark of cultural distinction and pride but a large number of whom are unable to speak Urdu with the felicity of their ancestors before independence. (Maybe the women in rural areas might still as they are secluded somewhat and thus more impervious to the winds of Hindu-majoritarian change that have been blowing in India for nearly 70 years. I mean, they were blowing long before the Hindu nationalists came into power. But that would require major sociological and anthropological work.) What is clear is that the level of functional Urdu-literacy among all ages from elementary school onward in Pakistan is of an order of magnitude higher than in India.

As I've stated before, this disparity becomes obvious in the rare instances of Indian Urdu poets such as Javed Akhtar reciting in Urdu poetry festivals in Pakistan. At the Pakistani festivals, their demeanor changes; the level and choice of poetry they recite changes, becoming more adult and showing more depth; the gender ratios of their audience change, with many more mature women attending, not just young men with no knowledge of Urdu, only a sense that it is "cool."

What is also clear is that most "native" Urdu speakers in India (i.e. those who report being so in the ten-yearly census) will be unable to understand most Urdu-language news in Pakistan in any comprehensive fashion. But the Pakistani's will have no issue understanding the occasional special Urdu programs in India. As I've shown somewhere else, only 5% of comments in the BBC Urdu program come from India. The British program managers said that it speaks to the growing inability in India to be able to write (let alone to analyze and communicate with nuance) in Urdu.

In other words, it is nonsensical to claim very early on in the lead that "Urdu-speaking" means (the dubious) "native" speakers and they are in India. It is nothing but a hollow boast. Pinging only @Austronesier: and @Foreverknowledge: and looking forward to some wisdom from them. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:20, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: It's good that you have brought up these points. Your strong position about what constitutes Urdu and what defines an Urdu-speaker deserves a well-argued reply, or rather: a dialectic deconstruction, but this requires time to think and formulate (I know you work by the same principle, but you should get at least a "receipt" now to inform you that you have kindled my interest). I'll come back to this discussion in a couple of days. –Austronesier (talk) 09:52, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler:Those are good points. I agree with much of what you wrote. There is an overemphasis on mentioning the larger number of “native” speakers of Urdu in India. As you mentioned, the census numbers are a reflection of a socio-cultural tendency of identifying with Urdu. More important than the number of so-called native speakers is the number of people who actually know Urdu, whether as a first or second language. There are far more people who know Urdu in Pakistan. 70 years of Urdu education in post-colonial Pakistan has spread the language all across the country, to the point that many “native” speakers of Punjabi, Sindhi, or Pashto are actually more knowledgeable in Urdu. So focusing on “native” speakers of the language can be very misleading vis a vis India and Pakistan. One point that I disagree with is your suggestion that rural (Muslim) women in India might know proper Urdu. Traditionally, Urdu has been a mostly urban language cultivated in areas with a strong Muslim political or cultural presence, or areas with a Muslim majority. People in rural areas, especially women, would generally speak their local dialect, or a basic Hindustani influenced by the local dialect, not proper Urdu. Even in Pakistan today, many women in rural areas would struggle with proper Urdu. Foreverknowledge (talk) 00:00, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

On the state-sanctioned decline of Urdu in India, Khalidi (2010) is interesting.

Your assumption about higher levels of Urdu literacy among rural women is wrong - at least in Uttar Pradesh. Maximum proficiency is seen among the elite sections of urban Muslims. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:47, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

@Foreverknowledge and TrangaBellam: Apologies if I did not make myself clear. In respect of women, I was not talking of high Urdu, but home Urdu (and it is not quite the same as Hindustani), whose kinship terms are different, whose marriage songs are different, and, in other words, whose names for ordinary things around the house (door hinges, foods, clothes, makeup, and so forth) are different from anything speakers of Hindi were generally familiar with. I forget who it was, it may have been C. M. Naim, who once told me that the special language of Muslim women (especially the ones still in purdah, who are now mainly in the some surrounding rural regions of urban UP) may have survived the post-colonial dismantling of Urdu, but that no one has looked at it in detail. As for Omar Khalidi's article, I'm not really aware of his work, but it seems like a bit of a takeoff on Syed Shahabuddin's the Status of Urdu in India in India based on the 2001 census and published in Mainstream in 2007. Also, I don't know what "Urdu report," written in the Perso-Arabic script is, the name of the article or the name of a journal; if the latter, I'm not aware of it either. The decline of Urdu being what it has been has received comments from many scholars over the years. Some are listed in my Talk:Urdu/Archive_9 in Third-party sources; among the better known ones are Ralph Russell, Barbara D. Metcalf and David Matthews. Obviously, literacy among rural Muslim women overall even at the time of independence was very low. Shahabuddin's point is that the males are losing the language in separate waves, each engulfing a generation after independence: first the script, then the spoken language, then the vocabulary (of home Urdu). Of course, it is not happening everywhere. There are many places in UP where Urdu has not only survived, but the Muslims themselves have taken the initiative to promote it in private ventures. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:44, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Page scope

Meno267, please obtain WP:CONSENSUS for your changes here. Note that this page is about the native speakers of Urdu only. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:32, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Urdu-speaking people

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Urdu-speaking people's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Dawn":

• From Abdul Qadeer Khan: "Nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan given state funeral, laid to rest in Islamabad". Dawn. 10 October 2021. Archived from the original on 11 October 2021. Retrieved 10 October 2021.
• From Agha Shahi: Agha Shahi passes away (obituary and profile) Dawn (newspaper), Published 7 September 2006, Retrieved 24 November 2018
• From Ghulam Mustafa Khan: "Dr Ghulam Mustafa Khan passes away". Dawn (newspaper). 26 September 2005. Retrieved 27 April 2018.
• From Ebbu Ghazali: Ahmed, Qamar (30 January 2020). "Former Pakistan fast bowler Munaf passes away". DAWN.COM.
• From Mohsin-ul-Mulk: Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu – the movement lives on Dawn (newspaper), Published 3 April 2011, Retrieved 1 September 2019
• From Urdu Defence Association: Rauf Parekh (23 May 2017). "National language and Pakistani languages: the only way out". Dawn (newspaper). Retrieved 1 September 2019.
• From Silawat: Muhammad Hashim Gazdar - Dawn
• From Altaf Hussain Hali: Maleeha Hamid Siddiqui (28 December 2014). "Hali and Shibli rescued Urdu poetry". Pakistan: Dawn. Retrieved 15 August 2018.
• From Hakeem Muhammad Saeed: 'Tribute: Hakim Mohammad Said: Serving humanity' Dawn (newspaper), Published 16 October 2011, Retrieved 24 August 2019
• From Josh Malihabadi: Biography of Josh Malihabadi on Dawn (newspaper) Published 19 February 2011, Retrieved 18 January 2021
• From Pervez Musharraf: "Musharraf imposes emergency rule". Dawn. 3 November 2007. Archived from the original on 6 November 2007. Retrieved 17 December 2019.
• From Shah Ahmad Noorani: "Leaders vow to continue Noorani's mission". Dawn (newspaper). 19 January 2004. Retrieved 15 August 2022.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 07:16, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Merger of the article into main Urdu article

The Urdu language has a wide and diverse group of fluent speakers, just like Hindi. This article complicates things instead of being useful, as there is no ethnic or ethnolingusitic group of Urdu-speakers as they are wide spread diverse group of people with various ethnic and regional identities. I suggest the merger of this article into the Urdu article, its situation is exactly like Hindi's, whose speakers do not form an ethnic or regional identity as other neighbouring regions. PeoplesRepublicOfChina01 (talk) 12:03, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Merger has been completed. Now a new section has been added to the Urdu article. PeoplesRepublicOfChina01 (talk) 12:32, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Meh. The merger has been undone by Fowler&fowler. This is good. A merger such as this needs an in-depth talk page discussion and consensus among multiple editors, not you making unilateral decisions. Cheers! SN54129 13:10, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

The merging of this article to Urdu seems irrelevant, because, this article is much helpful for distinguishing between the Muhajirs, Indian Muslims, and the speakers of Dhakaiyya Urdu. Also, it worth more than a section to describe the Urdu-speaking people, including, their clans, history, etc.  182.183.153.119 (talk) 13:47, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

I think this article is confusing. The Urdu-speakers are of wide variety. Some speak it as their first language in Northern India and parts of Pakistan, while some speak it fluently as their second language, still regarding themselves as natives in Pakistan. It's situation is similar to Hindi, as the main subject mentions. Hindi is also spoken by a wide variety of speakers. They don't form form an ethnic or ethnolingusitic group. Urdu language doesn't have an ethnic group related to it, so reffering to the respective people of the regions is better than this article. We can add a new section into the Urdu article, just talking about the "Urdu-speaking clans of Northern India" and as far as Muhajirs, Indian Muslims and Dhakaiyyas are concerned they have their own articles of linguistic nature, as Urdu itself is just a linguistic identity tied with the language itself. Thanks :) UnionOfEditors (talk) 21:48, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

• I am striking out the nom's proposal considering it is a blocked account. Anyone is welcome to initiate a new discussion if they feel they have a point; however, the proposal as it stands is not tenable; the Urdu article is too long and there's no way such content can be accommodated, let alone merged into that page. Furthermore, I haven't seen any sources presented to back up the claim that "there is no ethnic or ethnolingusitic group of Urdu-speakers"; surely, the articles on Muhajir (Pakistan), Hyderabadi Muslims etc. would strongly suggest otherwise. Happy to engage in that debate further when it presents itself. Mar4d (talk) 13:11, 24 June 2023 (UTC)