Word splitting & hyphenation conventions in roman transliteration

[Aditya, the ]-[indu $kepti¢]

On 14 Feb 99,  Robert Zydenbos wrote:
> A Pakistani visiting professor of Urdu at Heidelberg mentioned in a
> lecture that the oldest mss. of Tulasi Dasa's Ramayana (in so-called "Old
> Hindi") are written in Urdu script. Has anybody looked into the matter
> sufficiently to confirm whether this is so?

I may not hold an academic position in Indology but I have studied Hindi at
Sahityaratna level and have enough first hand knowledge about Tulsidas
and all his works and feel very frustrated that some one would even
mention such  a possibility on the basis of a Pakistani professor. This is the
kind of ridiculous insinuations that have resulted in the allegations about the
lack of honesty and integrity on this list  recently about Christians and
missionaries having ulterior motives.

I know that Tulsidas did not write any manuscript in Urdu script and  3 or 4
original manuscripts in Tulsidas' own handwriting are still available.
Therefore even if some one else had written Ramchartimanas (Not
Ramayan which was written by Valmiki in Sanskrit and not by Tulsidas in
Urdu) in Urdu script, it could not be the oldest manuscript by any stretch of
imagination. The Pakistani scholar does not even seem to know the
difference between Ramayan and Ramcharitmanas.

Urdu and HIndi are essentially the same languages grammatically except
that those who write in Urdu seem to prefer vocabulary derived from
Persian or Arabic even if vernacular local word is available. I must admit
that many Hindi writers have also made it a point to coin or use Sanskrit
word in their works but they have not become popularly accepted and
Tulsidas was not one of them.

Urdu is not a native language of  even Pakistan and secession of
Bangladesh was the primarily a result of the imposition of Urdu by the
Muslim leadership raised in UP or Bombay. The Urdu speakers of Pakistan
are still known as Refugees (Mujahirs) in Pakistan and have not been
assimilated in Pakistan even after 53 years and are resented by the local
people because they think they are superior to the native Pakistanis. It is
sad situation for muslims both in Pakistan and India. While Indian muslim
were left with no capable leadership after 1947 since they left to take over
most the government jobs in Pakistan. The leaders who went to Pakistan
could never be accepted by the local citizenry and are still suspect of
disloyalty.

The muslim leadership in India is still harping on special status for Urdu in
UP, Hyderabad and Delhi.