Multilingual Scholars

[Samar Abbas]

On Wed, 14 Feb 2001, Narayan R.Joshi wrote:
> If Urdu spread from the camp of Mahamood of Gazna from
> Afghanistan, then why does Urdu have 80% Sanskrit related words?

 Both Sanskrit and Farsi belong to the Indo-Iranian group of languages.
Often, it is possible to trace an Urdu word to both a Sanskrit source, as
well as a Persian source. So Aryan Hindus and Muslims both use the same
word, Hindus being satisfied with the Sanskrit derivation, Muslims with
the Farsi. Often, one can find a `Hindi' dictionary giving a Sanskrit
derivation for a particular word in common use, while `Urdu' dictionaries
give a Farsi derivation for the same word. Both communities understand the
meaning, and continue to use it with no objection from religious leaders.
What you found to be 80% Sanskrit can easily be transformed into 80% Farsi
by an ordinary Farsi-Urdu scholar.

> Why Urdu was promoted by Turkish kings instead of promoting their
> own different Turkish language?

 Urdu is so full of Turkic words (30-50%) that it would have been easily
understood by Turks - `Urdu' itself is a Turkic word. They would have
treated it as their own language. However, they did not `lose' their own
Turkic tongues. Babur wrote his memoirs in Chagatai Turkic. This is
analagous to some German communities in America.

> To expand Urdu/Hindi market is the constructive activity. However it
> seems to me we lack this kind of constructive thinking. In Marathi,
> there is proverb-"TulA nako, malA nako, ghAl kutrAlA". It means-I do
> not want to eat. I will not allow you to eat. Let us throw it to the
> dog. Are not we people from the Indian heritage doing exactly the same
> in arguing about Urdu,Hindi and Sanskrit?May Allah change our attitude
> and let us hope Urdu will spread all over the middle east from Lebanon
> to Afghanistan!Amen! N.R.Joshi

 Agreed, that this kind of bickering perhaps does not benefit either side.
Perhaps, some kind of agreement may be reached: Hindus accept Urdu is
derived from Persian in Afghanistan and that Urdu was historically the
link language across North India, in exchange, Muslims learn Sanskrit
and assure its propagation. In that case, may Sanskrit spread across to
Afghanistsan as well.

Samar