|
 |
Hindi Urdu Persian Sanskrit | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| pmiller Account terminated Groupie Canada Joined 5676 days ago 99 posts - 104 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 9 of 29 18 May 2009 at 10:19pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
Ashley - I think you're right to choose Hindi for use in India, although the difference between Hindi and Urdu are primarily with the written language. So it seems to me that anyone who just wants to be able to converse with people in India (and Pakistan, should you decide to go there for some reason) would do fine to just listen to some Pimsleur tapes of either language and skip the writing altogether (and maybe use romanized learning materials? Are there such things? I know I like to see words I'm learning written in a phonetic way - maybe a transcript of the Pimsleur tapes written in Latin alphabet would be nice).
If you learn Persian and Hindi, I guess you'll practically already know Urdu as well without even having to study it. I guess what I'm wondering is how far would pure Persian take you in India or Pakistan? Could you converse with Hindi/Urdu speakers? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| lerner Groupie Germany Joined 5820 days ago 51 posts - 79 votes Speaks: Hindi* Studies: EnglishC2, GermanC1, Spanish, Dutch | Message 10 of 29 19 May 2009 at 3:44am | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
i think most people here are assuming a mutual-intelligibility between Hindi and Urdu. and though i really haven't "studied" any of the two languages in detail, i guess i can at least comment on the similarity between the two.
first, i've tried listening to news in Urdu and it was far from comprehensible. most of what i understood was understood from context. therefore, one could presume that Hindi speakers, at least those who haven't "learned" Urdu, would have a tough time following a conversation totally in Urdu. however, as far as the normal everyday language is concerned there are quite a few Urdu words that i use, but again that would vary depending on the region one resides in. i don't think Persian is gonna take you anywhere, let alone how far, in india. though people a couple of generations ago used to learn urdu and Persian (my grandfather can write both) in addition to Hindi and English , people born in the 1980's and later really haven't ever been exposed to Urdu. so i am assuming Urdu has taken a backseat. in fact i have problems understanding Hindi-songs with too many words from Urdu, and I think the situation would the the same for the rest of the people my age. so as far as sanskrit or urdu are concerned, i think i won't understand either. please bear in mind that being a native hindi-speaker, i have never really busied myself with the origin of the words i use. i don't think it'll be correct on my part to comment on the proportion of words from sanskrit or urdu/persian i use on a normal, everyday basis. @pmiller i think if you were to learn the hindi alphabet, your really shouldn't have much of a problem forming an idea of how a the word is written once you know how to speak in correctly and of course vice versea. the problem you'll have is with world where the sound of a character is.... let's just say shortened. for example words like "dharma" (धर्म) where the "re"(र) kinda goes on top. you'll understand what i mean once you start learning how to write. and even tougher will be words like क्रम, where the sound of two character is almost merged together. but these are basically regular, i mean once u know how to say one word, you'll know how to say another word spelled the same way. the pronunciation and spelling is fairly regular. Edited by lerner on 19 May 2009 at 3:56am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| MäcØSŸ Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5811 days ago 259 posts - 392 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2 Studies: German | Message 11 of 29 19 May 2009 at 7:22am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Dravidian languages originally covered all India and formed a substratum for the development of Middle Indo- Aryan languages. There still exist two dravidian languages in North India/Pakistan: Malto and Brahui. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| stephen_g Groupie Canada Joined 6331 days ago 44 posts - 84 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Italian | Message 12 of 29 19 May 2009 at 4:41pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
As lerner has pointed out, "newscast Hindi" and "newscast Urdu" are quite different. It's all at the level of vocabulary, however. A speaker of either of these languages could invest a few hundred hours in the other with the right materials and feel extremely comfortable. With respect to Persian, keep in mind that while the split between the Iranian and Indo-Aryan languages is more recent than the original breaking apart of PIE, it was still thousands of years ago. Grammatically, the languages are quite distinct. I have some Persian friends who can get the gist of an Urdu conversation heavily laden with Persian vocabulary, but I don't know if this works the other way around.
MäcØSŸ, it is not fair to say that Hindi has been significantly influenced by Dravidian grammatical structures. It's a clear and definite descendant of Sanskrit. The most apparent influence of the Dravidian languages are the retroflex consonants. Sanskrit is quite different from Hindi, just as Latin and Italian are distinct. Hindi has two genders instead of three, three cases instead of seven and an extremely simplified conjugation often based off of what were participles in Sanskrit as opposed to individual tenses. There's absolutely no question here: Hindi-Urdu derives from Sanskrit. Period. Persian and Arabic have had significant influence, but so has French upon English. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| pmiller Account terminated Groupie Canada Joined 5676 days ago 99 posts - 104 votes Speaks: English* | Message 13 of 29 19 May 2009 at 5:05pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
|
OK, I guess that settles the language tree classification. Thanks stephen.
Then, can anyone explain how Urdu evolved? And what was the status of Urdu and Persian in India before the British arrived? Were they both official languages, or only one of them? Were they spoken only by a tiny elite, or were they widely spoken? And Hindi - did it only come into existence after Indian independence in 1947? Was it entirely a creation of the Indian government for nationalistic purposes, or did it exist before that? (By Hindi I mean the term itself and also the custom of writing Hindustani using the devanagari script rather than the Perso-Arabic script.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| MäcØSŸ Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5811 days ago 259 posts - 392 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2 Studies: German | Message 14 of 29 19 May 2009 at 6:22pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Well, the Hindi verbal system is really strange for an Indo-European language, and the same goes for the syntax. Naturally Hindi is closer to Sanskrit than to Dravidian languages (otherwise it wouldn't be classified as "Indo- Aryan"). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| stephen_g Groupie Canada Joined 6331 days ago 44 posts - 84 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Italian | Message 15 of 29 21 May 2009 at 3:18am | IP Logged | ||||||||
You're right, my apologies; there have been Dravidian influences. I just didn't want to confuse the topic creator further.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| minus273 Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5767 days ago 288 posts - 346 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Ancient Greek, Tibetan | Message 16 of 29 25 May 2009 at 1:56pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
As far as I know...
Invaders picking up the local language, and converted Muslims trying to persianize their speech (In my native China, for example, Muslims speak with Persian/Arabic vocabulary, and, if they are to show their sincerity of religion, Arabic syntax too) are imaginable scenarios. Just wild guess, though.
Mughal Empire: Persian Late Mughal Empire/Company India: Persian gradually replaced by Urdu British Raj: Urdu, gradually replaced by Hindi in Devanagari (not sure...)
The concept of Hindi dates around the Mutiny, (?) as well as the creation of a new Khariboli-based literary language for the Hindus. Looks like the whole urban middle class is at work here, rather than some solely governmental forces. Before, non-persophone Hindus wrote in Braj Bhasa, and the word "Hindi" just means any North Indian language, especially Urdu. (Well, Urdu proper was called Hindavi, Hindi and Rekhta before. The word Urdu seems later.) For authentic answers, read this: www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00urduhindilinks/shack lesnell/index.html Unfortunately, the Columbia server died. Edited by minus273 on 25 May 2009 at 2:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
