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Talk:Urdu/Archive 11

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Latest comment: 4 years ago by Fowler&fowler in topic Lede
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Lede

Latest comment: 4 years ago77 comments8 people in discussion

User:Fowler&fowler and User:Austronesier, major changes to the lede of this article need to be discussed here before being implemented. Please propose any major alterations you would like to make here. I disagree with the removal of the term "Modern Standard Urdu" from the introduction as it is used by linguists, both to reflect the fact that it was standardized and to distinguish itself from Dhakaiya Urdu and Deccani Urdu. I also disagree with specifically stating that it is a language of the "northern regions of South Asia, now particularly of Pakistan", especially when it is a major language spoke in Hyderabad (both historically and currently), which is located in southern India. I look forward to hearing your thoughts. With regards, AnupamTalk 21:33, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

@Anupam: is there a reason that you are so abysmally rude on Wikipedia? Is it not enough that you have been promoting Hindu-Hindi-nationalism on Wikipedia (see your history on Shalwar kameez for example) for the better part of 13 years, but do you have to invariably interrupt an editor when the "in use" is in place? This is not the first time you have done this. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:43, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
@Austronesier: My latest revert I noticed later is to an edit of yours, but my edit summary is no reflection of your admirable work here; I was speaking generally. Apologies. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:54, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
The OED (June 2020) with its armies of lexicographers and academic advisors has already spoken. The final nail in the coffin will be the Indian census of 2021 when it will be interesting to see in Hindu nationalist India, how many Muslims in the former Urdu heartland, especially Awadh, will now say their mother tongue is Urdu. It is irrelevant that a large proportion of them, especially in rural areas, cannot write Urdu. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:33, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
Your version of the lead has edited the article to have as the first sentence that Urdu is a language particularly of Pakistan, removing any mention of India. In actuality, India has more Urdu speakers than Pakistan.[1][2] Before you edited the article, it mentioned that Urdu is the national language of Pakistan first, then talked about its official status in India. That is a more neutral version. Azuredivay (talk) 23:35, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment I've always thought that WP:BRD stands for "bold, revert, discuss", not "bo...(slap! bang!), revert, do your own thing". My 2 cents about some of the edits:
  1. "Lashkari" in the lede. Remove it. This is actually WP:BLUESKY. Does any other introductory source say "Urdu, aka as Lashkari"? Not really. We could mention all names of the language from Amir Khosrow to the beginning of the Raj, but as we all know, it's Urdu that has stuck, with no commonly used alternative name. Mentioning anything else in the lede is just undue.
  2. "Modern Standard Urdu". Remove it. Linguists do not commonly refer to Urdu as "Modern Standard Urdu". If you want talk about contemporary formal+supraregional speech, one may add the adjectives "modern" and "standard" (like Rehan Ahmed in fact does in his dissertation[3], where the capitalization seems accidental in only one(!) place, or in the quote by Sarwar Alam). But these are just incidental qualifiers to the name "Urdu" which are used in due context. Quite different with "Modern Standard Hindi": this is a commonly used alternative name in the shape of a full phrase. Colin Masica mentions plain "Urdu" and "Modern Standard Hindi" in one breath in many places in his volume the Indo-Aryan languages (1991): "Counted as different languages in sociocultural Sense B (and offic ially), Urdu and Modern Standard Hindi are not even different dialects or subdialects in linguistic Sense A. (p.27", "Is Modern Standard Hindi really Urdu in Devanagari script relexifi ed with Sanskrit tatsamas (see Chapter 4)?" (p.29), "the successful attempts of the Arya Samaj to promote Modern Standard Hindi as a written language among Hindus in the Punjab, the use of Urdu as the official language in the Punjab by the British administration and in Pakistan." (p.59), " strong ties of cultural allegiance in both directions have produced the two modern literary languages, Urdu and Modern Standard Hindi, differentiated mainly at this level and so on. The same is to be found in Cardona&Jain, Indo-Aryan languages(2003), e.g. in the Hindi-chapter by Shapiro: " A different strand in the complex web of early ‘Hindi’ texts is to be found in the compositions of Amīr Khusrau (1253–1325), who wrote in a mixed style of Delhi, that has been claimed to be the precursor of both literary Urdu and MSH. So the peripheral use of "Modern Standard Urdu" is not on par with the established use of "Modern Standard Hindi". Pretending that the former is commonly used is misleading and a fringe position.
  3. Removing the English pronunciation: don't remove it, but replace it with what deems better (help me out, what's wrong with good ol' Webster?) or supplete it with other sources. I am very much in favor for piece-by-piece edits, so we can better evaluate what is going on, but please, no fragmentary edits; that gives the impression of insecurity and thoughtlessness.
  4. Removing India from the beginning of the lede. Not a good idea.

That's all I can say know. I will retreat back to my camp (allow me the pun) and add more when I find the time to dive deeper into the literature. This topic, like Hindi and Hindi–Urdu (= "Hindustani") other related pages, deserves best sources (in the article and in the discussion, so no poor sources please which so often have been brought forward, like YouTube vids etc) and editing pratices. PS: Fowler&fowler, no worries, no offense taken :) –Austronesier (talk) 09:13, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

@Austronesier: 3. RH Webster's has the AmE pronunciation. The OED has: Br. E /ˈʊəduː/, /ˈəːduː/, U.S. /ˈʊrdu/, /ˈərdu/ 4. I wasn't going to remove India from the lead, but I did not get a chance to finish it. Here is the sum total of what the OED (June 2020 update) says:

An Indo-Aryan language of northern South Asia (now esp. Pakistan), closely related to Hindi but written in a modified form of the Arabic script and having many loanwords from Persian and Arabic. ( Note: The official national language of Pakistan since Indian Partition in 1947. On the relationship between Hindi and Urdu, see note at Hindi–Urdu n.

and about Hindi-Urdu (n), the June 2020 update says:

Hindi and Urdu regarded together, or as a unified group or language. Also: the common language from which Hindi and Urdu derive; = Hindustani n. 1. Cf. Hindi n. 2, Urdu n. ( Note: Modern Hindi and Urdu are mutually intelligible in spoken form but developed divergently on religious grounds. Following Indian Partition in 1947 Hindi was established as a main official language of Hindu-majority India, while Urdu became the official national language of Muslim-majority Pakistan.)

I'm not saying that we have to mimic the OED, but it remains the premier authority on words used in English, and when that has changed its definition to acknowledge this fact: although Urdu is a language of northern South Asia, which obviously includes India and Pakistan, it is especially now of Pakistan, it means something. This is another indication (if indication were needed) that the base of Urdu has shifted to Pakistan. Again, that does not mean it is not spoken in India, (of course, it is: Urdu newspapers in India, e.g. this continue to be read). but that it is spoken and written much more in Pakistan and at a higher overall standard. (I said this before somewhere that} Oxford University Press had acknowledged that much earlier—all the instructional material in Urdu published by OUP is published by OUP (Pakistan); none is published in India, though OUP (India) is much bigger than OUP (Pakistan). The Oxford Urdu-English dictionary is published by OUP (Pakistan). The Karachi Literature Festival the major avenue of public Urdu poetry (mushaira) in the world is sponsored by OUP. As I've also said before, I'm the primary author of the FA India. I don't really have an ax to grind other than the NPOV one. I agree with your other points.

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:09, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

@Azuredivay: Those Ethnologue numbers are meaningless; they are of so-called "native speakers," which all Muslims in UP certify themselves to be every ten years in the Indian census, though a large proportion, especially in rural areas are not only not able to write Urdu, but are unable to speak it (their vocabulary's proportion of Perso Arabic words being steadily whittled down in India). You can see and hear the difference in how the Bollywood Urdu song writer Javed Akhtar recites his poetry in Pakistan to an audience of adults comprising men and women of all ages (see here, at the 15:45 mark, where they request a poem that no one has requested before and help him out with finding the page number) and the poetry he recites to Indian audiences largely comprising young single men to whom he has to explain every other word of his paeans to Bollywood puppy love. Best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:09, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
Note also more evidence in support of your point 2. @Austronesier:, the OED says "Modern Hindi and Urdu," in the second note above, not "Modern Hindi and Modern Urdu." If there was any doubt, here is the OED on Hindi (also June 2020 update):

An Indo-Aryan language of northern India, descended from Sanskrit and written in the Devanagari script. In early use also: †a Sanskritized register of the spoken lingua franca; cf. Hindustani n. 1 (obsolete). ( Note: Hindi is a diverse language comprising many dialects, including Awadhi, Bagheli, Bhojpuri, Braj Bhasha, Bundeli, Kannauji, and Khariboli. See also quot. 1937. The modern standardized form of Hindi (more fully Modern Hindi or Modern Standard Hindi) evolved from the late 18th cent. onwards based on a Sanskritized register of spoken Hindustani. It was established as one of the main official languages of India following Indian Partition in 1947. On the relationship between Hindi and Urdu, see the note at Hindi–Urdu n.)

I hope it is clear now that the proper usage as you say is: Urdu and Modern Standard Hindi. Also, it is time to be walking out of the Hindustani miasma that the WP articles on these languages have been steeped in. High time. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:18, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
† is the OED symbol for obsolete or archaic. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:21, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

User:Fowler&fowler, I am not quite sure what you mean. I only have asked you to do what you have asked others to do on various articles—gain consensus for major changes to the lede of the article (for example, see Exhibit A and Exhibit B). It is quite inappropriate for you to call me rude when I've been nothing but polite; I actually incorporated additions to the article you made that I thought were helpful in order to try to work together (Exhibit C & Exhibit D). I've explained my reasoning for my edits and so should you. The next step would be to gain consensus for those changes by allowing for the input of other editors and no, that doesn't mean pinging people who might share your point of view. Thus far, many editors have already voiced their opposition to your edits across Hindi-Urdu-Hindustani articles and so you need to be careful and discuss them. As I mentioned, I am willing to work with you. I hope you will do the same. This is a process that may take months to develop a consensus. Thanks for your understanding and cooperation, AnupamTalk 12:19, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

No you have not. You have been abysmally rude, Always interrupting when I have an "in use" tag in place, reverting, then following it up with a quick succession of your own edits. You have been a rude edit warrior of India promotion and Hindi and Hindu nationalist promotion on Wikipedia. No one is fooled by your cold politeness. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:45, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
You're welcome to your opinions, which could only be made if one has a communal lens. However, the fact that you were universally opposed by every editor on Talk:Hindustani language, especially those of a linguistic background, reveals your POV. You tried using an in-use template there too, as if that somehow excuses the wrecking ball you brought to that article and the one you intend to bring here. If you're going to try to interject the same here, you will be reverted. Thanks, AnupamTalk 13:24, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
FWIW, I was very keen to see what F&f was about to turn this lede into (positively and negatively), but didn't expect an emergency shutoff as if this were a vandalism spree or a bot going berserk. Anupam, with all due respect, but that was rude. –Austronesier (talk) 19:36, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
I'm sorry that you see it as rude User:Austronesier, but in my opinion, what I think would have been rude would be to watch Fowler&fowler find sources and put effort to rewrite the lede all to have me revert it if I felt that it was biased. Since I am familiar with User:Fowler&fowler's view on the subject, as evidenced in Talk:Hindustani, I thought to revert from the beginning, especially after seeing that India was omitted from the very first sentence, which is a non-starter, given that it originates and is still widely spoken there. This is a high-traffic article and major changes to the lede need to be discussed. That being said, I'm glad that we're all discussing the changes now and if you have noticed, I have agreed with some of them, which I thought User:Fowler&fowler would take kindly to, but unfortunately did not. I hope this helps. With regards, AnupamTalk 21:02, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
I am in agreement with User:Austronesier and User:Azuredivay with regard to the omission of India in the lede. As of now, the article, with respect to official status, states: "Urdu is the official national language, and lingua franca, of Pakistan. In India, it is one of 22 constitutionally recognised official languages, having official status in the five states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, as well as the national capital territory of Delhi." There is no need to change this longstanding sentence in the article to only stick one of these countries in the lede of the article. What we have now reflects reliable sources that speak of Urdu; Urdu: An Essential Grammar by Ruth Laila Schmidt, published in Routledge, an academic publisher, states:

Urdu is a major language of South Asia which has been gaining in popularity since the advent of independence of India and Pakistan. It is one of the eighteen languages listed in the Constitution of India, as well as the national language of Pakistan. Unlike Arabic and Persian, Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language akin to Hindi. Both Urdu and Hindi share the same Indic base, and at the phonological and grammatical level they are so close that they appear to be one language, but at the lexical level they have borrowed so extensively from different sources (Urdu from Arabic and Persian), and Hindi from Sanskrit) that in actual practice and usage each have developed into an independent language. This distinction is further marked at the orthographic level, where Hindi uses Devanagari and Urdu uses the Arabo-Persian script indigenously modified to suit the requirements of an Indo-Aryan speech.

The lede, as it stands now, reflects this description and can be improved with the wording I suggested: "Urdu (Urdu: اُردُو‎, ALA-LC: Urdū), also known as Modern Standard Urdu, is an Indo-Aryan language of South Asia that is often described as a Persianised standard register of the Hindustani language." The second paragraph devotes itself to explain that the vocabulary base is Indo-Aryan, with copious amounts of Persian loandwords. I also agree that the word "Lashkari" should be removed from the lede; it might be more appropriate for the "History" section. I am opposed to User:Fowler&fowler's suggestion of removing the fact that Urdu is a standard register of Hindustani, as many others have been on the talk page of that article. It properly explains the relationship of Urdu and Hindi to one another and is well-sourced. I hope this helps. With regards, AnupamTalk 12:37, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
Again @Anupam:, you are promoting incorrect notions. It is not Ruth Laila Schmidt who says that, it is Gopi Chand Narang, the plagiarist Professor of Urdu at Delhi University, who says that in his foreword, which is his opinion. Narang has been taken to task by C. M. Naim twice; here is the second time. Ruth Laila Schmidt on the other hand, in the book proper, says,

Urdu is widely spoken not only in South Asia but also in the West. Worldwide, there are nearly 55 million Urdu speakers. In Pakistan it is the national language and is used in instruction in most government schools, at the lower levels of administration, and in the mass media.” The number of Urdu speakers in Pakistan has been estimated at almost 11 million with the largest number in the province of Sindh, followed by Panjab."

It is only in the third paragraph that the book gets to India. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:05, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Attacking respected academics who disagree with your POV isn't going to help your case here, User:Fowler&fowler; that text was printed by an academic publisher. Regardless, other references are widely available and state the same. Colloquial Urdu authored by Tej K Bhatia and Ashok Koul and published by Routledge states:

Urdu is one of the principal modern languages of South Asia. It is spoken by millions of people throughout North India and Pakistan and is also widely understood in the rest of the Indian subcontinent.

The article, as it stands now, does not promote one country over another and is neutrally worded, as others have pointed out. There is no need to change this in favour of your personal preference. AnupamTalk

Indians again. I rest my case. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:51, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: Much of this is moot as long as we haven't properly addressed the "Hindustani"-issue. But more about that in due time.
For the meantime: Good to see a consensus about Lashkari. But again, I oppose the use of "Modern Standard Urdu" in the lede. I still have to see a good reason to do so when the best Indo-Aryanists don't. –Austronesier (talk) 19:26, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
User:Austronesier, I'm glad that we see consensus about Lashkari too. Feel free to remove that term from the lede if you wish, since no one has objected so far. Kind regards, AnupamTalk 21:02, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
Austronesier asked you Fowler to not use any YouTube videos and you now are still doing that and using anecdotal evidence to support your edits. Three people now say that India shouldn't be removed and you still continue to push for that. Historical and current prevalence of Urdu in India is absolutely undeniable. Azuredivay (talk) 21:37, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
Well at least my youtube links are about real Urdu, not Wikipedia pages appearing on Youtube, as the as the Hindustani page does. Is a Wikipedian doing it? Could the existence of a commercial youtube channel be the reason for the instransigence at Hindustani language? I have no idea, but it seems mighty suspicious, even though Wikipedia can be freely copied etc etc etc Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:36, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment As a linguist, I've been lurking and watching the conversation for a while, but now I'll give my thoughts as an outsider who is indifferent to the India-Pakistan issue.
To be fair, UNESCO and many other reliable scientific sources do consider both Hindu and Urdu to be different registers of the same mutually intelligible language, namely Hindustani or Hindi-Urdu. See for example:
https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/silk-road-themes/languages-and-endanger-languages/urdo
"Linguists consider Standard Urdu and Standard Hindi to be different formal registers both derived from the Khari Boli dialect, which is also known as Hindustani. At an informal spoken level there are few significant differences between Urdu and Hindi and they could be considered varieties a single language."
Similarly, in Nigeria we have various language varieties spoken by opposing ethnic groups that may not like each other, but to linguists, they would still be the same language and part of the same ISO code. So personally, I would go with the proper scientific definition, which would conform to NPOV, rather than what nationalists want to say. Greenwhitedino (talk) 22:02, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
  • At a more practical level, I've observed native Pakistani Urdu speakers and native Indian Hindi speakers in a U.S. office setting chatting transparently with each other. Their respective speeches are therefore mutually intelligible by definition, even without validation of this by scientists. Largoplazo (talk) 23:47, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
I recognize that I'm not a reliable source who can be cited to support this in the article. I'm just sayin'—if you want to know for your own satisfaction whether Hindi and Urdu speakers understand each other, it isn't the sort of thing that requires research to figure out. Largoplazo (talk) 23:55, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
@Greenwhitedino: Do you mean that piece of outdated claptrap written by bureaucrats in India's External Affairs Ministry for the UNESCO Silk Road Program is what linguists think? Please scroll down to view who wrote it. If you don't believe me, read the corresponding claptrap in Basant Kite Flying Festival whose Pakistani bureaucratic origins are given away by the phrase "Hindu and Pakistani food preparations!" Only in the Islamic Republic would Hindu not be a part of Pakistani. @Largoplazo: Of course they are mutually intelligible as long as the speakers are making an effort to be mutually intelligible; otherwise if they want, they can be quite unintelligible. Urdu newspapers, for example, even in India, would be largely unintelligible when read out to Hindi speakers there. The Indians want to hold on to the idea that it is one language, because Urdu, as was spoken in India, is disappearing. It has to, when it is not being taught by the Government in its heartland, it hasn't been for 50 years. That's two generations. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:58, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
I'm trying to imagine what kind of effort would enable an English speaker and an Italian speaker to speak their respective languages to each other in a manner that makes them mutually intelligible. Largoplazo (talk) 04:17, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
Not English and Italian, but English and Scots (not Gaelic), like switching between the Uncle's talk and David Balfour's in R. L. Stevenson's Kidnapped; it is not just the literary languages that are different, ordinary words are different, kinship terms are different, the gaps becoming wider, though the grammar is mostly (not all) the same. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:31, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: FWIW, the situation between Standard English and Scots is more comparable to the one e.g. between Modern Standard Hindi and Awadhi.

@Greenwhitedino and Largoplazo: While there are many linguists that describe Hindi and Urdu as literary variants of the same language, just as many linguists don't, and not only for "political" reasons. It is uncontroversial that at the colloquial and relatively unsophisticated level, Hindi and Urdu are mutually intelligible and structurally almost identical (OR alert: also in sophisticated conversation among technocrats, due to the massive use of English loanwords); but it is equally uncontroversial that at the formal level, Hindi and Urdu vocabularies are quite divergent to the point that texts in one "register" can be unintelligible to speakers of the other "register". The abstand between Modern Standard Hindi and Urdu is not imaginary or an overblown artefact of ideologists (as in the case of the varieties of Serbo-Croatian), but manifest. But without ausbau, their abstand almost is zero.

We must very carefully apply NPOV in the presentation of Hindi and Urdu. NPOV does not mean that we cherrypick a WP:TRUTH that deems us most "neutral". There are many controversial issues, and not just between linguists and non-linguists. To say that the matter is unambiguously settled among linguists is simply not correct. And where controversy exist, we must explicitly state it, instead of presenting a monolithic view (for whatever motiviation; I don't indulge in futile speculation about such things). The only place where we are compelled to make a decision is the page title, and there we have WP:COMMONNAME as guideline.

The following points are controversial, so not mentioning them, or taking side in the controversy would be a violation of NPOV:

  1. The question of Hindi and Urdu are varieties of one language, or two languages derived from a single colloquial source. Both POVs are found in good linguistic sources, and some even remain deliberately vague, and use formulations like "based on xxx... Hindi and Urdu could be considered the same language...".
  2. "Hindustani". In most modern sources, the use of "Hindustani" is restricted specifically to describe the colloquial informal level of Hindi-Urdu. A few sources (e.g. Glottolog and Ethnologue) use it as a higher taxonomic unit comprising Hindi and Urdu (following the Grierson tradition). But few sources use the term in actual technical descriptions of Hindi and Urdu; such a usage is obsolete or obsolescent. In a typological volume for instance, you will hardly find anything about "Hindustani phonology" or "Ergativity in Hindustani". Scholars will refer to either Hindi or Urdu, or when they refer to them as a unit, employ "Hindi-Urdu". The way we use "Hindustani" here is thus quite insular, and we should avoid such terminological oddities which are aped in popular web content, e.g. in the "Hindustani" video on Paul Jorgensen's "Langfocus" channel on YouTube, which occasional is cited here as source (or "exhibit", by Anupam) or corpus delicti (by Fowler²). That's something for a move discussion which I will initiate in due time.
  3. The history of Urdu and Modern Standard Hindi. Some sources describe it as a process of diverging standards, where Khariboli evolved into a persianized variety, viz. Urdu, and a sanskritized variety, Hindi. Other sources consider Urdu to have an unbroken history from the age of Delhi Sultanate until present, whereas Modern Standard Hindi branched off in the 19th century in a concious effort to create a de-persianized literary language purged from elements felt as "alien". Neither position is "wrong" or "true", both can be well-sourced, consequently we should present these POVs as such, instead of creating a stale synthesis, with perennial attempts from both sides to push for "their" POV as the only "truth".

–Austronesier (talk) 09:24, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

OK, fair enough, I think—though I don't know Kidnapped. Is that actually Scots, or Scottish English? Either way, I do get your point. Largoplazo (talk) 11:36, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
The WP article Kidnapped (novel) does say Scots. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:49, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

User:Largoplazo, User:Azuredivay and User:Greenwhitedino, I am in full agreement with what you have said, as are the academic references that are currently in the article. Urdu and Hindi are standardized registers of Hindustani that are mutually intelligible. As an individual with both Indian and Pakistani ancestry and one that can speak Hindi and Urdu, what Fowler&fower has stated about the languages is incorrect. Native speakers of Hindi and Urdu do not have to "try" to be mutually intelligible because the speech used on a colloquial level is the same; Hindi and Urdu speakers converse effortlessly. Fowler&fowler claims that "ordinary words are different" but this isn't the case at all; 99% of the words in speech are the same. It is for this reason that you, User:Largoplazo, have observed Indian and Pakistani users conversing in Hindi-Urdu without any difficulty, because when it is spoken it is the same language. Of course, the literary registers do diverge, but the literary registers are not used apart from newscasts and formal speeches; Fowler&fowler presents poetry from Ghalib to claim that the languages are different. However, no one uses that kind of speech on a daily basis just as no one talks like Shakespeare in America, apart from analyzing academic work. Movies from India's Hindi-language cinema, Bollywood, are watched more than those produced by Lollywood in Pakistan, as the spoken language, Hindustani, is the same; this also applies for the popularity of Hindi songs in Pakistan. I appreciate the UNESCO source User:Greenwhitedino; it further buttresses the relationship between Hindi and Urdu and I am thankful that another neutral linguist has joined the discussion to prevent this article from becoming a display of communal POV. Your reference also makes reference to Standard Urdu, a term slightly different than Modern Standard Urdu, but the former will suffice and I have found many other references that speak of Standard Urdu. Thank you for that! With regards, AnupamTalk 15:21, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

User:Austronesier, I have no issues with using "Hindi-Urdu" as opposed to "Hindustani", although the latter term should be defined somewhere as the synonym for "Hindi-Urdu". User:Largoplazo, please check out this article, written by Professor Afroz Taj, a linguist at the Univesity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; it corroborates everything that you have correctly observed in your office. I hope this helps. With regards, AnupamTalk 15:31, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
@Anupam: You definition of "neutral" seems to be anything/anyone that supports your point. Obviously you appreaciate evidence that agrees with your position. Quality of sources (blogs, news outlets) is secondary. The question of the status of Hindi and Urdu is not a display of communal POV, but legitimate encyclopedic content.
Check out this quote from Colin Masica, The Indo-Aryan languages (1991), p.27:

The ultimate anomaly in the what-is-a-language dilemma in Indo-Aryan is presented by the Hindi-Urdu situation. Counted as different languages in sociocultural Sense B (and officially) , Urdu and Modern Standard Hindi are not even different dialects or subdialects in linguistic Sense A. They are different literary styles based on the same linguistically defined subdialect.

At the colioquial level , and in terms of grammar and core vocabulary, they are virtually identical; there are minor differences in usage and terminology (and customary pronunciation of certain foreign sounds), but these do not necessarily obtrude to, the point where anyone can immediately tell whether it is "Hindi" or "Urdu" that is being spoken. At formal and literary levels, however, vocabulary differences begin to loom much larger (Hindi drawing its higher lexicon from Sanskrit, Urdu from Arabic and Persian), to the point where the two styles/languages become mutually unintelligible. To the ordinary non-linguist who thinks, not unreasonably, that languages consist of words, their status as different languages is then commonsensically obvious, as it is from the fact that they are written in quite different scripts (Hindi in Devanagari and Urdu in a modified Perso-Arabic).

This is not some opnionized scribble in a self-published blog, but one of the sources about IA studies, and certainly not "dated". I know that you don't have to be an WP:EXPERT to make meaningful contributions to Wikipedia, but citing the real experts is what I hope helps most. –Austronesier (talk) 15:54, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
User:Austronesier, you will have noted that I cited three very well respected linguists above, Ruth Laila Schmidt, Tej Bhatia and Ashok Koul, in addition to Afroz Taj; these were dismissed due to their ethnic background, with you responding with nothing. Therefore, for you to remark on the "quality of sources", while saying nothing about the anecdotal YouTube video sources that have been mentioned here by the opposition seems strange (though others have properly taken notice). If anyone here has shown their ability to cite reliable sources, work together and compromise, it has been me who has been the one who has done so. I'll also note that the Collected Works of Braj B. Kachru, printed by Bloomsbury Publishing, state that: "The style of Urdu, even in Pakistan, is changing from 'high' Urdu to colloquial Urdu (more like Hindustani, which would have pleased M.K. Gandhi)." In India and Pakistan today, you will note that many English words now are used more than Hindi-Urdu ones; for example, in Karachi, people use the word "table" rather than "mez" or "car" rather than "garri". I am speaking about the language as it is spoken on a daily basis, not with respect to the literary registers. That being said, at least three other users have agreed with what I have said, including another linguist. Thanks, AnupamTalk 16:08, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
User:Austronesier, you'll actually note that the lede as it stands now reflects exactly what Colin Masica states in the quote you provided above. Cheers, AnupamTalk 16:14, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
Anupam, you don't really expect me to explain why I ignore Fowler's rants, which come as such under no disguise. I try as much as possible not to respond to ideosyncratic fits. What bugs me though is that with an air of "neutrality", you brush off any attempt to include content that acknowledges the complexity of the matter discussed here. Why is only spoken language relevant, and literary expression doesn't count, especially with regards to two major literary languages of the world? As for sources, I have repeatedly expressed my hope that we don't have to rely on poor sources in this discussion, when clearly there is no lack of good sources. Good sources include those which voice a clear opinion in this matter, but the best sources (such as Masica) are those which take into account that differing opinions exist.
And no, working together and compromise is different from only ascribing neutrality to editors that agree with you.
So let me again be "partial", and disagree: the current lede only reflects half of what Masica states. I hope others will note this too. "Urdu...is often described as a Persianised standard register of the Hindustani language" is a half-baked sentence which leaves out what Urdu just as often is considered to be—a language in its own right, with a very special and complex relation to Hindi. Even the UNESCO source says: "...[Hindi and Urdu] could be considered varieties a single language" (emphasis mine). This deliberate and well expressed vagueness is much more neutral, than bearishly insisting (= WP:IDHT) that they are. –Austronesier (talk) 18:07, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
The UNESCO link perfectly summarizes what Urdu is. Fowler disqualifying because it is written by an Indian, just like he disqualified Bhatia & Koul, two Indian-origin American linguists who are known for their work in the area of Indo-Aryan languages, is inappropriate. That disqualification can obviously be disregarded per WP:IDHT and WP:BATTLEGROUND. I'm glad we have consensus that Hindi/Urdu are registers of Hindustani and that India will stay in intro. Azuredivay (talk) 17:54, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
User:Austronesier, I agree with you with regard to your statement about the first sentence being half-baked for the reasons you described. I personally think that the first sentence might better be written as "Urdu, also known as Standard Urdu, is an Indo-Aryan language of South Asia." The second paragraph of the lede already mentions that Urdu and Hindi are registers of Hindi-Urdu or Hindustani. Since that is the case, this fact doesn't need to be repeated again in the first sentence. "Standard Urdu" is used in contrast to "Deccani Urdu" or "Dhakaiya Urdu"; plenty of sources exist to buttress this fact, including the one that User:Greenwhitedino provided. B. P. Mahapatra in Constitutional Languages writes that "Modern Urdu is a fairly homogenous language. An older southern form, Deccani Urdu, is now obsolete. Two varieties however, must be mentioned viz. the Urdu of Delhi, and the Urdu of Lucknow. Both are almost identical, differing only in some minor points. Both of these varieties are considered 'Standard Urdu' with some minor divergences." Likewise, Ruth Laila Schmidt mentions in Dakhini Urdu: History and Structure that "“Standard Urdu” refers to the language which developed in North India in Delhi and Lucknow." What are your thoughts? As I mentioned, I am willing to work together and I hope you can see that. User:Azuredivay, thanks for your comment. Yes, I think that both India and Pakistan should be mentioned together as they are now in the second and third sentences. I agree that no changes need to be made there. Kind regards, AnupamTalk 18:36, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
Thank you Anupam, I think that will certainly make the opening statement less murky. The special relation to Hindi must be mentioned as early as possible, I would even prefer to move it into the first paragraph, but it is just as fine in the second paragraph. I have said before why (unlike in the case of Hindi) I think the addition aka "Standard Urdu" is not necessary, but I would like to hear what other editors have to say about it (for quick reference: I have given citations from two standard sources above quite at the beginning of this section under point 2). And we all agree that both Pakistan and India have their place in opening statement, and I trust Fowler² when he said that he was about to do right that. The cradle of Urdu lies in what now is India, most self-identifying first-language speakers live in India, and Pakistan with Urdu as national language is the country where Urdu thrives at all levels. –Austronesier (talk) 19:01, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
You're welcome User:Austronesier, I think we're making progress here! It looks like the discussion can now be focused on whether "Standard Urdu" belongs in the lede as an alternate term in the first sentence. I've stated my reasons why I think it's helpful and I agree that we should hear what others have to say about it. Kind regards, AnupamTalk 19:39, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
Since Partition, Urdu has undergone some Persianisation so MSU in intro. is fine with me. Azuredivay (talk) 10:15, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
And @Azuredivay: Perhaps I could ask you to explain some humorous poems of Mir Taqi Mir about his cat, some Shahr Ashobs of Nazeer Akbarabadi, some children's poetry of Muhammad Iqbal, who died respectively in 1810, 1830, and 1938, which were all pre-Partition? This is not a chat group for waxing. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:24, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

And before you @Azuredivay: dig a deeper hole for your POV, here is the first few stanzas of Mir's children's poem on his cat, Mohini:

ایک بلی موہنی تھا اس کا نام

اس نے میرے گھر کیا آ کر قیام

ایک سے دو ہو گئی الفت گزیں

کم بہت جانے لگی اٹھ کر کہیں

بوریے پر میرے اس کی خواب گاہ

دل سے میرے خاص اس کو ایک راہ


If you think it is un-Persianized Urdu, what business do you think does the an Associate Professor of Persian and Iranian Studies at McGill have writing a translation of it, Cats: Ghazal writers Mir and Ghalib composed these poems about the animal that rules social media? After all, every Hindi-speaking child in India should breeze through it. Same languages right?

(edit conflict, *sigh*) @Azuredivay: That's interesting, since the strongest and decisive wave of Persianisation which usually is considered as specifically pertaining to Urdu is dated in most sources to the 18th century. Do you have a source to support this, including the prominent mention "(Modern) Standard Urdu" in the lede?
I have looked up in another source, the volume Language in South Asia, edited by Braj Kachru, Yamuna Kachru and S.N. Sridhar (2008). In the whole book, Urdu is always called "Urdu", and "Modern Standard Hindi" occurs only twice on 608 pages. @Anupam: Maybe we should better scrap "(Modern) Standard Urdu" here, and discuss the lede of Hindi instead? We certainly have to make clear at some point that the page is about Hindi in the narrow sense, but not necessarily by inflating the first sentence with a technical term. My impression is that the intent of keeping the "Modern Standard..." epithet here comes from a desire to maintain a balanced match between the two pages. –Austronesier (talk) 11:10, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

@Austronesier: Sorry about the edit conflict (my bad). What is the point of presenting more sources, especially not Kachru Squared, both scholars of South Asian English, and not even the best ones? I have already presented R. S. McGregor's introduction in Talk:Hindustani_language/Archive_4#Khari_boli,_Urdu,_lingua-franca,_development_of_Modern_Standard_Hindi,_Hindi-Urdu,_and_styles_of_Hindi-Urdu. He, the author of the definitive Hindi-English Dictionary in English, has stated it clearly. But those posts are archived, and I have to face fresh citations to Afroz Taj's website!!! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:28, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

The other thing is that most India-POV editors here are winging it, in my view. For reasons best known to themselves, they have a vested interest in maintaining a POV here. One presents them with the best sources, they respond with the worst ones—for all sources are equal when the POV is more important. I'm thinking more and more that it is better to confront them with examples of Urdu (rather than sources). At some point, when the evidence becomes overwhelming, all the quoting of exquisitely cherry-picked sources will have to take a back seat. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:46, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

User:Austronesier, thanks for your comment. For me, I think having "Standard Urdu" or "Modern Standard Urdu" mentioned in the lede is helpful because it contrasts the standard dialect with Deccani Urdu and Dakhiya Urdu, as I've mentioned above. Do your sources mention "Standard Urdu" in the same way that the ones that I have offered do? I would appreciate if you could take the time to look and let me know. Thanks for sharing the poetry, User:Fowler&fowler; as I've stated before, on a daily basis, Urdu speakers seldom use those Persian words of poetry in conversation; besides, out of the forty-two words in that poem, only three would be considered uncommon to colloquial Hindustani. English speakers in the United States would certainly have to look up various expressions used in Shakespeare's poetry, which are not used in colloquial speech here. If highly Persianised Urdu was regularly used, Pakistanis would be watching Persian-language films rather than Hindi-language films; however, that's not the case as I demonstrated here and here (BBC recorded that "70% of the Pakistani movie industry's revenue is earned through Indian films"). Even on an official level, many of the Persian loanwords in Urdu are being supplanted with English ones, a move that will create for a convergence of Urdu and Hindi, as the same thing is happening in India. I hope this helps. With regards, AnupamTalk 11:50, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Anupam, sorry I should have been more explicit: "always called Urdu" in Kachru, Kachru, Sridhar (2008) was meant to imply: "Standard Urdu" (zero), "Modern Standard Urdu" (zero). But: "Standard Hindi/Urdu" (one), "Modern Standard Hindi" (two), "Standard Hindi" (eight). Masica: "Standard Urdu" (one), "Modern Standard Urdu" (zero), "Modern Standard Hindi" (27), "Standard Hindi" (too lazy to count); Cardona-Jain: "Standard Urdu" (23!), "Modern Standard Urdu" (zero). Virtually all instances of "Standard Urdu" are in the section of the chapter "Urdu" by Ruth Laila Schmidt which contrasts standard Urdu with Dakhani. In the other sections (including the introduction), it is just plain "Urdu". Context matters, and you have good point with regards to contrasting what we commonly know as Urdu with Deccani, but does this make "Standard Urdu" an alternative name for the lead? Fowler²: as a linguist, I disprefer to disqualify Yamuna Kachru. Specializing in philology is not a prerequisite for being an excellent linguist. –Austronesier (talk) 12:54, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
As for your Shakespeare example: elaborate prose is still written in English (and luckily also in all other major and minor languages of the world). And often not easily understood by less sophisticated readers. So I wonder if you can succeed to translate e.g. the Satanic Verses into Hindi and Urdu in an stylistically adequate manner without making each version rather hard to read for speakers of the rescpective other language? And what about Harry Potter? (Asking seriously and tongue-in-cheek alike) –Austronesier (talk) 13:03, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
@Anupam: Really only three? Would they know گاہ ? They would not among Hindi-speakers in India, even though they've heard of Idgah. (see Steingass. More importantly, though please don't change the tenets of the argument. We are not talking about colloquial Urdu or Hindi. For that, there is the soon to be Hindi-Urdu page. We are talking about the standardized variety which is called Urdu, just as the standardized variety of Hindi is called Modern Standard Hindi. Here is McGregor, the compiler of the Oxford Hindi-English dictionary again:

Urdu, an earlier specialisation than Hindi of a mixed speech of the Delhi area which had gained currency as a lingua franca, had arisen broadly because of an increasing artificiality in the use of Persian for literary and other formal purposes in Indo-Muslim circles during the later Mughal period. Modern Hindi by contrast arose in the nineteenth century to meet a different need: that for a linguistic vehicle which should allow communication with, and among, a wider section of the north Indian population than had been possible in practice in the case of Urdu.

So what does that mean? It means that it was deemed less artificial than Persian for literary and formal purposes. That is why it became the official language of Company rule after 1837. Do you see specialization? Urdu was the specialization, and a much earlier one than Modern Hindi. Please don't change the argument. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:27, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
Fowler, Urdu was not a “much earlier” specialization but around a 100 years earlier than Hindi. Since you mentioned RS McGregor, here’s what he stated in his essay, “The Rise of Standard Hindi, and Early Hindi Prose Fiction”:
“In these circumstances Persian- and Arabic-oriented Khari Boli underwent a twofold development during the Muslim period. On the one hand, it evolved in the early eighteenth century into a refined and subtle literary style which was adopted quickly by educated Muslims everywhere in north India; to this style, one in which only persons fully versed in Islamic culture could hope to feel fully at home, the name Urdu came to be given. At a lower level, the basic grammar of Khari Boli and many Persian and Arabic words and expressions had earlier become widely known all over northern India, and beyond, to those who came in contact with Muslims, or the Muslim government. Khari Boli as used in this way often came to be called Hindustani, the language of Hindustan, or northern India. As a lingua franca Hindustani was admirable, particularly for the Hindi language area, because of the closeness to Khari Boli of many of the dialects spoken in the area. ... But Hindustani served no general need as a vehicle for literature, unless perhaps at a popular level. For literature the Muslims of north India had Persian, and from the eighteenth century their highly-developed Urdu style, while the Hindus used the Braj Bhasha and Avadhi dialects for the great bulk of their devotional and other poetry. ... The Muslims had given the names Hindavi, Hindui, Hindi to the Khari Boli dialect which had became the basis first of the colloquial Hindustani style and later of literary Urdu.” Foreverknowledge (talk) 23:26, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
PS the literacy rate in India at the time of decolonization was 14%. That is, one in seven Indian could read and write. When we are talking about Urdu, we are not talking about the spoken dialect of their region, for that is what six out of seven Indians were capable of employing. We are talking about the language of the property document they went to the local lawyer to have made. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:35, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
PS And as for Shakespeare, he along with KJV Bible, was the foundations of Modern English. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:42, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

@Austronesier: I am suggesting that the Kachrus are not disinterested academics in the shaping of this narrative. National ideologies play a big role. The best approach in my view is what we have followed in a number of India-Pakistan or Hindu-Muslim related articles. We give much more weight to third-party reliable sources, i.e. those whose origins and affiliations betray no stake in the matter. See for example: Talk:2020_Delhi_riots#Fowler&fowler's:_Developing_the_article_main_body,_and_eventually_rewriting_the_lead_(in_POV-embattled_India-related_articles) It is now six-months since the 2020 Delhi riots and despite much opposition from Indian- and Hindu-nationalists, the text in the lead has held, with nary a change; and I have not even edited it in months. Others have realized the value and have maintained the page scrupulously. It is the same in Indus Valley Civilisation, whose lead and sections 2 and 3 I have written. (There the Indians are miffed that after the partition most major sites went to Pakistan and are attempting to redefine the civilization to lie more in India. The Pakistanis are miffed that a pre-Islamic history exists in their Islamic republic, so are trying to ignore it.) (In other words, in Urdu, the speakers moved after the partition; in IVC, the landmarks moved as it were.) It is the same with other controversial topics such as Indian rebellion of 1857, Subhas Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh and Mahatma Gandhi all of whose leads I have written, and not even one word has been changed in years. Finally, it is true for the India page, whose lead, as well as the history, geography, biodiversity, clothing and cuisine sections I have written and some have been in place for over 10 years, with no change, because the sources are third-party. The Kachrus are not third-party. The problem in Hindi-Urdu related literature is not philology or linguistics, it is the ideology, especially the nationalistic ideologies of two successor nations. The third-party sources are less disagreed than the Indian and Pakistani ones. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:12, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Fowler&fowler: I have long given up to expect that you appreciate when linguists write about syntax and stuff. But I am dispointed that you fail to see the irony that the Kachrus (who were certainly not "neutral" and evidently supporters of the dubious view that Urdu and Modern Standard Hindu emerged simultaneously) provide zero support for using "Modern Standard Urdu" and "Standard Urdu" here. The irony doubles up of course facing the fact that Ruth Laila Schmidt does ;) –Austronesier (talk) 14:26, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

User:Azuredivay, I am in agreement with User:Austronesier that most of the Persianisation occurred in the 18th century rather than after the partition; if the latter was the case, that would mean that the Urdu spoken in Lucknow and the Urdu spoken in Karachi is different. In actuality, the Urdu spoken in Karachi was imported from the United Provinces, along with poets such as the one User:Fowler&fowler listed below. User:Austronesier, if you think that Modern Standard Urdu should be removed from the introductory sentence, I'm fine with that as long as the introduction mentions a Standard Urdu in contrast to Deccani Urdu and Dakhiya Urdu, though along with User:Azuredivay, I find it helpful in the lede. If you concur, I think that we've accomplished with this discussion what we set out to do and I can go ahead and edit the lede based on the consensus that we've reached here. Let me know! User:Fowler&fowler, thanks for your comments. However, the point that you're missing is that most of Urdu is indeed Hindi-Urdu; certainly, legal jargon used in courtrooms is not what defines the language as a whole, but how it is spoken on a daily basis and that is what most people speak of when they refer to Urdu. I agree with you that Shakespeare, along with the King James Version of the Bible (one of my favourite translations) is the basis of Modern English. The copy of the King James Version of the Bible that I read is a combination of it (including the Apocrypha) with the 1928 Book of Common Prayer bound in one volume. However, many people today find a tough time understanding it, which is why most mainline Protestant Churches use the New Revised Standard Version with respect to the lectionary (this is descended from the KJV). When American high school students study Shakespeare, a large number of footnotes are given to explain the meaning of antiquated phrases and terms; these are soon forgotten after taking, probably for the last time, a class on English literature. The same is the case with Ghalib and Mir in Pakistan. On the subject of Christianity, in the United States, North Indians and Pakistanis worship together at the same churches and camp meetings, singing the same hymns and hearing the same preaching. Why do you think that is? The answer is pretty obvious—Hindi and Urdu are standard registers of the same language, with the core vocabulary being held in common; it is why this article by the linguist Afroz Taj is so helpful. He explains perfectly the relationship between Hindi and Urdu. It is for this reason that classes on this language at academic institutions in the United States are always Hindi-Urdu (Hindustani) classes (notice that Urdu and Persian are separate classes altogether, with Urdu being an Indic language and Persian being an Iranic language). On a side note, I enjoy my copy of Du'a E 'Amm, the Book of Common Prayer in Roman Urdu, published in 1946 by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, as well as the Kita'b I Muqaddas (Holy Bible), published much more recently by the Bible Society of India. Kind regards, AnupamTalk 15:09, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

@Anupam: But people do read books, and also have to be proficient in a formal register in many important sociological contexts. Not being able to do so can create incredibly harsh social barriers, if we like it or not. I don't know if you have seen my comment earlier.[4] I forgot to ping you, which should I have done given the awkward superimposition of threads. –Austronesier (talk) 15:39, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
Thanks User:Austronesier, you're correct that people do read books. However, the educated gentry of individuals living in India and Pakistan wouldn't read a Hindi or Urdu translation; they would just read the book in its original English version. Those who would actually be educated enough to understand the literary registers prefer to send their children in English-medium schools where all the subjects are taught in English; the same people will read English newspapers like Dawn, not Jang. The youngsters in both nations do not send text messages in Devanagari or Nastaleeq, but in Roman Hindi/Urdu. English, which is a national/official language in both countries has a powerful influence on the populace. Hence, we have Hinglish and Urdish rising in popularity and actually replacing, for many people, the regular use of Hindi-Urdu among the masses (please read this article for context). The author of this article, published in The Express Tribune, a major newspaper in Pakistan, wrote that "During my high school years, most of the students in my class were unable to read even the most basic headlines from Urdu newspapers." I am very well aware of the ground reality in Pakistan and India; it, therefore, seems odd that poetry with arcane words that people never use is being used to drive a certain POV here. I hope this helps. With regards, AnupamTalk 16:03, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
@Anupam: You have cited an English newspaper article written by a Pakistani who studied in an English-medium school. Of the schools in Pakistan, 65.5% are Urdu-medium, 15.5% are Sindhi-medium, 10% are English-medium and the remaining are taught in other regional languages. So, you've found an Anglicized and deracinated Pakistani who can't speak to write Urdu and is taking a course in England on Iqbal to discover himself. That one in ten Pakistanis who go to school, in this instance, English-medium are unable to read Urdu is no surprise. There is an entire class of deracinated people in India who can speak no language with the felicity of monolingual speakers, neither Hindi (like in the Hindi belt), nor Urdu as in Awadh, nor English as in a small town in Alabama or Yorkshire or Perth, Christchurch, or Kingston Jamaica, or Port-of-Spain Trinidad, not even at the level of the Sri Lankans, who are not monolingual. What does that prove? That the whole world is full of inarticulate people? Of course not. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:11, 17 September 2020 (UTC) Updated with ping. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:12, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the ping User:Fowler&fowler. The context that I was speaking of is described in the first article I provided. A plethora of literature regarding the increasing rise of Urdish (and Hinglish) exists in general. Kind regards, AnupamTalk 17:21, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
@Anupam: 90% of the people who have finished high-school in Pakistan have learned to write in some version of the Perso-Arabic script. For every inarticulate Urdu speaker in Pakistan, there are nine articulate Urdu speakers. and there is one Ali Akbar Natiq, who went to an Urdu-medium school and writes poetry in an Urdu that is widely appreciated in Pakistan, though most Indian Hindi speakers (let along the deracinated non-masters of no-language) will find him hard to decipher. Here he is reciting his poems after the 34-minute mark at a tribute to Muhammad Umar Memon the University of Wisconsin (at the front table btw are CM Naim and Ruth Laila Schmidt) So what does that prove? That everyone in Pakistan can recite poetry like Natiq? Of course not, but similarly not everyone is trying to find himself by taking courses in a school in the UK, only some among the English-speaking upper classes are. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:41, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm having a hard time grasping the need for mentioning "Modern Standard Urdu" in the lead. This is not a commonly used term, and it's completely transparent (so readers who arrive following the redirect Modern Standard Urdu will have no trouble understanding why they're here). The fact that Hindi mentions "Modern Standard Hindi" is because that article is about Modern Standard Hindi (to the exclusion of all other things with the name). We don't have a similar situation with Urdu, as far as I can see: this article also attempts to cover, if in a brief way, the history and characteristics of varieties other than the modern standard. Of course, the term can be used in the text if necessary to clarify that a certain point doesn't apply across the board, but there's no need to introduce it in the lede, and doing so in a way that equates it with "Urdu" (as the current version does) is misleading. – Uanfala (talk) 20:15, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
User:Uanfala, you make some good points. Standard Urdu should have some mention in the lede to distinguish itself from Deccani Urdu and Dhakaiya Urdu; at least I think so. It doesn't have to be mentioned in the first sentence, however. Kind regards, AnupamTalk 20:47, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
Uanfala You do realize that [[Deccani language|Deccani Urdu]] is a bit of Easter Egg and that Dhakaiya Urdu was created a few months ago and is now arrogating itself to the lead of Urdu. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:34, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 2

Austronesier As for your question about Harry Potter, it was officially translated into Urdu by Oxford University Press Pakistan in 2002. See this report on the launch of the translation in Dawn. As you are probably also aware that Oxford University Press, the world's largest academic publisher, publishes Urdu language books in only one of its global branches: OUP Pakistan. You can view them at all levels:

  • Another strange POV being voiced in these pages and sometimes in India more generally is that they (the Pakistanis who speak Urdu) are really transplanted Indians in Sind (mainly Karachi), or their descendants. It fails to take into account 70+ years of a language policy that has given Urdu the pride of place. It speaks in part to the level of discourse. No one in Germany would dare to say that the emigre Jewish scientists, writers, artists who moved to America or Israel in the 1930s or 40s were really our people who have gone and settled in these lands. I'm not equating the two migrations, but a migration it was, the greatest of peoples in the 20th century and a bloody one with both nations and religions guilty of wrongdoing. But at some point, we can't keep looking back. We have to decide how much space we are going to allot to the language's origins and how much to its present state. Urdu is a thriving language and much of that has happened in the last 70 years in Pakistan. The Wikipedia article needs to reflect that. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:43, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: Thank you for these informations about Urdu translations and publications, which however doesn't answer my question to Anupam, who hasn't answered it either. Actually, I asked whether a literary work in the stylistic range from Salman Rushdie to J.K.Rowling (both arbitrarily chosen in their respective stylistic "league"), translated into or originally composed in Urdu, could be fully intelligible to Hindi speakers who are only familiar with their own literary register, and vice versa. Or as a corrollary, whether you could compose writings in this stylistic range in such a way that they are completely bereft of the characteristics that make up Hindi and Urdu, so that apart from the script chosen, you couldn't tell whether it is written in Hindi or Urdu? Reliable sources give us a clear answer about that, but I wanted to hear it from people who are closer to the "ground reality" than I am. But per WP:NOTFORUM, I retract my question.
As for this[5] comment, you're kicking again linguistic scholarship in the groin just because of the dubious quality in which it is reflected in Wikipedia. Ruth Laila Schmidt devotes 6 pages to Dakhanī in her 70-page chapter about Urdu in Cardona & Jain's The Indo-Aryan Languages, and the study of modern Dakhanī is among her outstanding contributions to our field. You can't unexist the fact that Urdu is not and never was monolithic, just as Anupam can't unexist the manifest linguistic gap between Hindi and Urdu.
I self-quarantine from this topic range for a while due to the tiring quality of this discussion. –Austronesier (talk) 08:27, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
@Austronesier: Sorry, I misunderstood your question. I just took a look at an Urdu translation of Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince. It doesn't seem to be OUP though, not very literary, but can be read online at this site. The title is translated as: Harry Potter aur Kam-zaat Shehzadah. Most Hindi readers in the 10 to the 14-year age-group will not know "zaat" and many will likely not know "shehzadah" (prince). As for chapter 1, I will give the details later, but in the first four lines, I counted between five and eight words that will be mostly unfamiliar to pre-teen Hindi speakers: "vazir e azam" (they might have heard the word, but will most certainly not know how to break it down), "lafz" (some might not know, many might), "mafhum" (most will not know), "zahn" (many will not know), "dar asl" (many will know but not in that spelling; in Hindi they pronounce it "darsal"), "sadr" (half will not know), "taweel" (most will not know); "tawajjoh" (most will not know). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:35, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
PS @Austronesier: As for Ruth Laila Schmit's use of "standard Urdu," I'm sorry, I was looking at her Urdu grammar book. There, she speaks of several standards, two very similar standards, Delhi and Lucknow, and an emerging standard, Karachi. She states at the beginning of the book, that when she uses "Standard Urdu," she is referring to the Delhi standard. (See this statement in the introduction) Elsewhere she says, "This is not correct in the standard Urdu of Delhi." (see page 136). In other words, at least in her book, she is not speaking of one standard, or modern standard, just of her adopting one of several standards as the mainstay of her grammar. She doesn't mention Dakhini in that book, perhaps for reasons mentioned in the introduction. I'm aware of her PhD work on Dakhini though. I will take another look at her chapter in Cordona and Jain. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:00, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
Fowler, Urdu is not native to Pakistan. It was brought to Karachi by Muhajirs. You saying Sindhis spoke it before partition is your POV. Everyone here already agreed that India and Pak both should be in intro. No need to repeat same argument over and over. Azuredivay (talk) 12:42, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
@Azuredivay: English was not spoken in the US, Canada, South Africa, and Australia before settlers from England brought it there. So should we derecognize the Nobels of Sinclair Lewis, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Pearl S. Buck, John Steinbeck, Saul Bellow, Toni Morrison, Alice Munro , Nadine Gordimer, Patrick White, and V. S. Naipaul? What Nobel Prize-winning novelists have the English produced, Golding and Kipling? Muhammad Iqbal, the greatest Urdu poet of the modern era, lived his entire life (except for education in Europe) and a few trips to Delhi and Lucknow, in what is now Pakistani Punjab. Faiz Ahmad Faiz the second-greatest Urdu poet of the 20th century is from Pakistan's Punjab. A discussion on Wikipedia is not a vote of people, but an assessment of the strength of reliable opinion they voice. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:45, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
@Foreverknowledge: Sorry I did not see your post of 17 September 23:26. No disagreements with the description of R. S. McGregor you have quoted there. Sorry about "much earlier," but in a history in which every decade is being disputed, one hundred years is a considerable length of time, at least that is what I thought at the time of writing; I should have been more precise. Thanks.
One aspect of McGregor's history bears repeating. Hindustani at the time of Muslim contact was not a language with a well-defined grammar whose equal inheritors are today's Urdu and Modern Standard Hindi. Rather, it was a dialect of Western Hindi spoken in the vicinity of Delhi whose grammar was fleshed out and disseminated as a result of becoming the base of the evolving Urdu, which speakers of various dialects of Hindi could recognize and acquire with minimal adaptation. Says McGregor, "At a lower level, the basic grammar of Khari Boli and many Persian and Arabic words and expressions had earlier become widely known all over northern India, and beyond, to those who came in contact with Muslims, or the Muslim government. Khari Boli as used in this way often came to be called Hindustani, the language of Hindustan, or northern India. As a lingua franca, Hindustani was admirable, particularly for the Hindi language area, because of the closeness to Khari Boli of many of the dialects spoken in the area." Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:41, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
FWIW, against the common prejudice of laypeople, even a "dialect" (or for that matter, any language variety regardless of its literacy status) has a grammar and follows its rules. –Austronesier (talk) 14:05, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

I agree I spoke imprecisely. What I meant to say was: we don't have any proof that the grammar that has become the base of Hindi and Urdu was the spoken grammar of the dialect or the grammar apprehended, explicated, and amended by the Muslims in their speech and writings and passed on to posterity. For the speech of the native speakers of later years (the males anyway) was affected by the Muslim-mediated lingua franca. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:20, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

User:Fowler&fowler, thank you for peacefully and politely implementing the changes that we discussed to the lede today. Both of us were able to work together to improve the article today, without a single revert from either side. Kind regards, AnupamTalk 15:39, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
@Anupam: The pleasure was mine. It shows that the best things cannot be planned. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:57, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
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