Roman Urdu

Roman Urdu is the name used for the Urdu language written with the Roman script.

The Urdū Perso-Arabic alphabet, with names in the Devanāgarī and Roman Urdū alphabets

According to the Urdu scholar Habib R. Sulemani: "Roman Urdu is strongly opposed by the traditional Arabic script lovers. Despite this opposition it is still used by most on the internet and computers due to limitations of most technologies as they do not have the Urdu script. Although, this script is under development and thus the net users are using the Roman script in their own ways. Popular websites like Jang Group have devised their own schemes for Roman Urdu. This is of great advantage for those who are not able to read the Arabic script. MSN, Yahoo and some desi-chat-rooms are working as laboratories for the evolving new script and language (Roman Urdu)."[1]

Roman Urdu is often used by multinational corporations like Unilever or Pepsi to save money and resources on printing and advertising while marketing their products in both India and Pakistan. The method of writing is would correct understand with the new chart.

Although the idea of romanising Urdu had been suggested several times, it was General Ayub Khan who most seriously suggested adopting the Latin alphabet for Urdu and all Pakistani languages during his rule of the country.[2][3][4] The suggestion was inspired to an extent by Atatürk's adoption of the Latin alphabet for Turkish in Turkey.

In India, where the Devanagari script is used, Roman Urdu was widely used in the Indian Army, as well as in Christian mission schools, especially for translations of the Bible.[5]

The Hunterian transliteration system mostly avoids diacritics and non-standard characters.

Sample texts

Zabu'r 23 Dáúd ká Mazmúr

Roman Urdu

1Khudáwand merá chaupán hai; mujhe kamí na hogí.
2Wuh mujhe harí harí charágáhoṉ meṉ bithátá hai: Wuh mijhe ráhat ke chashmoṉ ke pás le játá hai.
3Wuh merí ján bahál kartá hai: Wuh mujhe apne nám kí khátir sadáqat kí ráhon par le chaltá hai.
4Balki khwáh maut ke sáye kí wádí meṉ se merá guzar ho, Maiṉ kisí balá se nahíṉ darúṉgá; kyúnkṉki tú mere sáth hai: Tere 'asá aur terí láthí se mujhe tasallí hai.
5Tú mere dushmanoṉ ke rúbarú mere áge dastarkhwán bichhátá hai: Tú ne mere sir par tel malá hai, merá piyála labrez hotá hai.
6Yaqínan bhalái aur rahmat 'umr bhar mere sáth sáth raheṉgí: Aur maiṉ hamesha Khudáwand ke ghar meṉ sukúnat karúṉgá.[6]

(Kita'b I Muqaddas: Zabu'r 23 az Dáúd)

Nastaʿlīq (Perso-Arabic) Script
۱خداوند میرا چوپان ہے؛ مجھے کمی نہ ہوگی۔

۲وہ مجھے ہری ہری چراگاہوں میں بٹھاتا ہے: وہ مجھے راحت کے چشموں کے پاس لے جاتا ہے۔
۳وہ میری جان بحال کرتا ہے: وہ مجھے اپنے نام کی خاطر صداقت کی راہوں پر لے چلتا ہے۔
۴بلکہ خواہ موت کے سایے کی وادی میں سے میرا گزر ہو، میں کسی بلا سے نہیں ڈروں گا؛ کیونکہ تو میرے ساتھ ہے: تیرے عصا اور تیری لاٹھی سے مجھے تسلی ہے۔
۵تو میرے دشمنوں کے روبرو میرے آگے دسترخوان بچھاتا ہے: تو نے میرے سر پر تیل ملا ہے، میرا پیالہ لبریز ہوتا ہے۔
۶یقیناً بھلائی اور رحمت عمر بھر میرے ساتھ ساتھ رہیں گی: اور میں ہمیشہ خداوند کے گھر میں سکونت کروں گا۔

(کتاب مقدس کے زبور ۲۳ از داؤد)

Devanāgarī script

१ ख़ुदावन्द मेरा चौपान है; मुझे कमी ना होगी।
२ वह मुझे हरी हरी चिरागाहों में बिठाता है: वह मुझे राहत के चश्मों के पास ले जाता है।
३ वह मेरी जान बहाल करता है: वह मुझे अपने नाम सदाक़त की राहों पर की चलाता है।
४ बलके ख़्वाह मौत के साये की वादी में से मेरा गुज़र हो, मैं किसी बला से नहीं ड़रूंगा; क्योंकि तू मेरे साथ है: तेरे अला और तेरी लाठी से मुझे तसल्ली है।
५ तू मेरे दुश्मनों के रूबरू मेरे आगे दस्तरख़्वान बिछाता है: तू ने मेरे सर पर तेल मला है, मेरा पियाला लब्रेज़ होता है।
६ यक़ीनन भलाई और रेहमत उमर भर मेरे साथ साथ रहेंगी: और मैं हमेशा ख़ुदावन्द के घर में सकूनत करूंगा।

(किताब-ए मुक़द्दस के ज़ुबूर २३ अज़ दाऊद)

Reception
Roman Urdu Bibles are used by many Christians from the South Asian subcontinent

Urdu was the dominant native language among Christians of Karachi, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan in the 20th century and is still used today by some people in these states. Pakistani and Indian Christians often used the Roman script for writing Urdu. The Bible Society of India publishes Roman Urdu Bibles, which enjoyed sale late into the 1960s (though they are still published today). Church songbooks are also common in Roman Urdu. However, its usage in Christian contexts is declining in India with the wider use of Hindi and English in the states. Bollywood, India's major film industry, uses a version of Roman script as the main script for its film titles. This is because Bollywood films have an appeal for viewers across South Asia and even in the Middle East.[7] The Devanāgarī script is used mostly by Hindi speakers while the Perso-Arabic script is used primarily by Urdu speakers. The language used in Bollywood films is often called Hindi, but most dialogues are actually written in Hindustani—they can be understood by Urdu and Hindi speakers alike. Because the film industry wants to reach the largest possible audience, just using the Devanāgarī or Perso-Arabic script would be unfavorable for the Bollywood industry as few individuals are literate in both scripts. For this reason, the neutral Roman script is used for Bollywood film titles, though some films include the Hindi and Urdu scripts as well.[8]

The similar circumstances are also applied with Pakistan's Lollywood filming industry, where, along with the Urdu name or title of the movie, a Roman Urdu title is always provided for viewers.

Roman Urdu used on Internet is non standard and has very irregular spellings. Users who use Roman Urdu on Internet try to imitate English orthography. In most cases they are unaware of the fact that English spellings are not often phonetic.

There are several Romanization standards for writing Urdu among them the most prominent are Uddin and Begum Urdu-Hindustani Romanization, ALA-LC romanization and ArabTeX.

There are two main problems with Roman Urdu schemes which exists. Either they are not reversible to Urdu script or they don't allow pronouncing the Urdu words properly. Another shortcoming is that a lot of Roman Urdu schemes confuse the Urdu letter 'Choti He' which has the sound of voiceless glottal fricative with 'Do Chasham He' which is used as a digraph for aspirated consonants in Urdu script. The digraphs "Sh" for letter Shin and "Zh" for letter Zhe also cause problems as they could be interpreted as the letter Sin and 'Choti He' or letter Ze and 'Choti He' respectively. Most Roman Urdu schemes also do not take much consideration of Urdu orthography and the spelling system.

Criticism

In Pakistan Roman Urdu is promoted by the Liberal, Secular and Westernized sections of the society as an alternate to the Perso-Arabic Script which Urdu uses. In contrast, the adoption of Roman Urdu has stiff opposition from the Conservative classes which see Perso-Arabic Script as the heritage of Indo-Islamic Civilization which Pakistan inherited from the Mughal and other past Islamic empires.

Informal Roman Urdu

The system of Romanisation used most often by native speakers differs from the formal systems presented in most English language sources. It contains no diacritics or special characters, usually just the 26 letters of the core English alphabet. Informal Romanised Urdu is mutually intelligible with Romanised Hindi and the distinction between the languages can be controversial.

While the Urdu alphabet is derived from the Arabic alphabet informal Romanised Urdu is less eccentric than informal Romanised Arabic. Informal Romanised Urdu does not use numerals, and rarely uses mixed case, because the Arabic letters that lack a clear equivalent in the English Latin alphabet (e.g. ء ع ذ ص ض ط ظ) are often silent in Urdu or pronounced identically to other letters (e.g. ت س ز). So, this system of Urdu Romanisation is used in some slightly more formal contexts than informal Romanised Arabic.

One example is the word عورت "aurat". Formal transliterations often include a punctuation mark (') or special character (ʻ) for the ayn ع but this is omitted but Urdu speakers such as in the context of the annual International Women's Day عورت مارچ Aurat March.[9][10] Adding the special characters makes it harder to type and would cause things such as twitter hashtags to break. The discussion on social media about these events is often in informal Romanised Urdu, with frequent code switching between Urdu and English, but the handwritten or expertly typeset signs at the events are mostly in either English, Urdu in the traditional script, or local languages.[11][12]

A longer example is "Mera Jism Meri Marzi" (Urdu: میرا جسم میری مرضی‎) the Pakistani version of the common feminist slogan "my body my choice", is usually spelled that "MERA JISM MERI MARZI".[13][14]

example
phrase in Urdu in the Latin alphabet MERA JISM MERI MARZI
English version My body; my choice.
word by word translation my body my choice
usual spelling Mera Jism Meri Marzi
Huntarian transliteration merā merī
IPA[15] me:rɑ dʒɪsm mi:ri mərzi
me:rɑ dʒɪsm mi:ri mərzi
Latin letters from usual spelling mera jism meri marzi
Urdu Letters in reverse order [A] میرا جسم میری مرضی
words in Urdu script [A][B]
میرا جسم میری مرضی
میرا جسم میری مرضی
phrase in Urdu script میرا جسم میری مرضی

Footnotes:

^A. Urdu is written from right to left in the traditional script, but the individual words here are ordered from left to right to match the Romanised versions.

^B. The lower row will be in an Urdu style nastaliq script if you have a Nastaliq font installed, e.g. Urdu typesetting or Noto Nastaliq Urdu, the row above will usually display in a simplified modern Arabic font.

See also

Footnotes
  1. The News International, September 8, 2003,
  2. Paving new paths to romanise Urdu script, Mushir Anwar, Dawn (newspaper), Nov 27, 2008
  3. The Urdu-English Controversy in Pakistan, Tariq Rahman, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Feb., 1997), pp. 177-207
  4. The Language Movement: An Outline Archived 2012-11-19 at the Wayback Machine, Rafiqul Islam
  5. Fārūqī, Shamsurraḥmān (2001). Early Urdu Literary Culture and History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195652017.
  6. World Bible Translation Center (pdf file)
  7. Krishnamurthy, Rajeshwari (28 June 2013). "Kabul Diary: Discovering the Indian connection". Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. Retrieved 13 March 2018. Most Afghans in Kabul understand and/or speak Hindi, thanks to the popularity of Indian cinema in the country.
  8. Dwyer, Rachel (27 September 2006). Filming the Gods: Religion and Indian Cinema. Routledge. p. 103. ISBN 9781134380701.
  9. "The Aurat March challenges misogyny in our homes, workplaces and society, say organisers ahead of Women's Day". Images. 7 March 2019.
  10. "#auratmarch hashtag on Twitter". twitter.com.
  11. "Aurat March: خواتین کے عالمی دن پر منعقد ہونے والے عورت مارچ میں مردوں کی شمولیت کی کیا اہمیت ہے؟". BBC News Urdu (in Urdu). 9 March 2020.
  12. "عورت مارچ کی قیادت اور فنڈنگ پر اعتراضات کی وجہ کیا؟". BBC News Urdu (in Urdu). 7 March 2020.
  13. "#merajismmerimarzi hashtag on Twitter". twitter.com. Retrieved 11 March 2020.
  14. Aurat Azadi March Islamabad (8 March 2020). "Poster at #AuratAzadiMarchpic.twitter.com/Pb4CjWwc6S". @AuratAzadiMarch.
  15. "Urdu Dictionary & Translations". Oxford Urdu Living Dictionary. Retrieved 11 March 2020.

Bibliography
  • Dua, Hans R. (1994b). Urdu. In Asher (Ed.) (pp. 4863–4864).
  • Insha, Ibn e. (2002) Urdu Ki Aakhri Kitab. New Delhi: Kitab Wala. ISBN 81-85738-57-2.
  • B.S.I. Kita'b I Muqaddas. Bangalore: The Bible Society of India, 1994. ISBN 81-221-3230-8.
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