Roman Urdu

Roman Urdu is the name used for the Urdū language (as well as the Hindī language) written with the Roman alphabet.

According to the famous Urdū 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 has made a special portion 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)." [The News International, September 8, 2003, [http://web.archive.org/web/20040301145532/http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/sep2003-daily/08-09-2003/oped/o5.htm] ]

Writing system

The following scheme is the system used to write Roman Urdu. This article will use the system described below.

Sample texts

Ibtidäi Hisäb

Roman Urdü

Hisäb ke chär baře qäide hëŋ: jama, tafrïq, zarb, taqsïm

Pehla qäida: Jama

Jama ke qäide par amal karna äsän nahïŋ.
Ķusüsan mehŋgai ke dinoŋ meŋ.
Sab kuch ķarc ho jäta he.
Kuch jama nahïŋ ho päta.
Jama ka qäida muķtalif logoŋ ke lie muķtalif hë.
Âäm logöŋ ke lie 1+1=1½.
Kiüŋke ½ incam tex ("income tax") wäle le jäte hëŋ.
Tijärat ke qäide se jama kareŋ to 1+1 ka matlab hë giära.
Rişwat ke qäide se häsile-jama ör ziäda ho jäta hë.
Qäida wohi acha jis meŋ häsile-jama ziäda se ziäda äe, başart-yeke pölïs ("police") mänê na ho.
Ek qäida zubäni jama ķarc ka hota hë.
Ye mulk ke masäil hal karne ke käm äta hë.
Äzmüda hë.

(Urdü ki Äķri Kitäb az Ibne Inşä)

Perso-Arabic script

ابتدائ حساب
حساب کے چار بڑے قاعدے ہیں:
جمع، تفریق، ضرب، بقسیم
پہلا قاعدہ: جمع
جمع کے قاعدے پر عمل کرنا آسان نہیں
خصوصاً مہنگائ کے دنوں میں
سب کچﻬ خرچ ہو جاتا ہے
کچھ جمع نہیں ہو پاتا
جمع کا قاعدہ مختلف لوگوں کے لۓ مختلف ہے
عام لوگوں کے لۓ 1+1=½1
کیونکہ ½ انکم ٹیکس والے لے جاتے ہیں
تجارت کے قاعدے سے جمع کریں تو 1+1 کا مطلب ہے گیارہ
رشوت کے قاعدے سے حاصل جمع اور زیادہ ہو جاتا ہے
قاعدہ وہی اچھا جس میں حاصل جمع زیادہ سے زیادہ آۓ بشرطیکہ پولیس مانع نہ ہو
ایک قاعدہ زبانی جمع خرچ کا ہوتا ہے
یہ ملک کے مسائل حل کرنے کے کام آتا ہے
آزمودہ ہے

اردو کی آخری کتاب از ابنِ انشا صفحہ 84 تا 85

Devanāgarī script

इब्तिदा-ए हिसाब
हिसाब के चार बड़े क़ाइदे हैं:
जमा, तफ़्रीक़, ज़र्ब, तक़्सीम
पेहला क़ाइदा: जमा
जमा के क़ाइदे पर अमल करना आसान नहीं
ख़सूसन मेहन्गाई के दिनों मैं
सब कुच्छ ख़रच हो जाता है
कुच्छ जमा नहीं हो पाता
जमा का क़ाइदा मुख़्तलिफ़ लोगों के लीये मुख़्तलिफ़ है
आम लोगों के लीये 1+1=1½
क्योंके ½ इन्कम टैक्स वाले लै जाते हैं
तिजारत के क़ाइदे से जमा करें तो 1+1 का मत्लब है ग्यारा
रिश्वत के क़ाइदे से हासिल जमा और ज़ियादा हो जाते है
क़ाइदा वही अच्छा जिस मैं हासिल जमा ज़ियादा से ज़ियादा आये बशर्तेके पोलीस मानि ना हो
एक क़ाइदा ज़बानी जमा ख़रच का होता हे
यह मुल्क के मसाइल हल करने के काम आता है
आज़्मूदा है
"उर्दू की आख़्री किताब" अज़ इब्न-ए इन्शा, सफ़्हा 84 ता 85।

Zabu'r 23 "Dáúd ká Mazmúr"

Roman Urdū

¹KHUDÁWAND merá chaupán hai; mujhe kamí na hogí. ²Wuh mujhe harí harí charágáhon men bithátá hai: Wuh mijhe ráhat ke chashmon ke pás le játá hai. ³Wuh merí ján ko bahál kartá hai: Wuh mujhe apne nám kí khátir sadáqat kí ráhon par le chaltá hai. ⁴Balki khwáh maut ke sáye kí wádí men se merá guzar ho, Main kisí balá se nahín darúngá; kyúnknki tú mere sáth hai: Tere 'asá aur terí láthí se mujhe tasallí hai. ⁵Tú mere dushmanon 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 rahengí: Aur main hamesha KHUDÁWAND ke ghar men sukúnat karúngá. [ [http://www.wbtc.com/downloads/bible_downloads/Urdu19Ps.pdf World Bible Translation Center (pdf file)] ]

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

Perso-Arabic script

خداوند میرا چوپان ہے؛ مجھے کمی نہ ہوگی۔ 1
وہ مجھے ہری ہری چراگاہوں میں بٹھاتا ہے: وہ مجھے راحت کے چشموں کے پاس لے جاتا ہے۔ 2
وہ میری جان بحال کرتا ہے: وہ مجھے اپنے نام کی خاطر صداقت کی راہوں پر چلتا ہے۔ 3
بلکہ خواہ موت کے سایے کی وادی میں سے میرا گزر ہو، میں کسی بلا سے نہیں ڈروں گا؛ کیونکہ تو میرے ساتﻬ ہے: تیرے عصا اور تیری لاٹھی سے مجھے تسلی ہے۔ 4
تو میرے دشمنین کے روبرو میرے آگے دسترخوان بچھاتا ہے: تو نے میرے سر پر تیل ملا ہے، میرا پیالہ لبریز ہوتا ہے۔ 5
یقیناً بھلائ اور رحمت عمر بھر میرے ساتﻬ ساتﻬ رہیں گی: اور میں ہمیشہ خداوند کے گھر میں صکونت کروں گا۔ 6

کتاب مقدس کے زبور 23 از داؤد

Devanāgarī script

¹ख़ुदावन्द मेरा चौपान है; मुझे कमी ना होगी।²वह मुझे हरी हरी चिरागाहों मैं बिठाता है: वह मुझे राहत के चश्मों के पास लै जाता है।³वह मेरी जान बहाल करता है: वह मुझे अपने नाम की ख़ातिर सदाक़त की राहों पर चलता है।⁴बलके ख़ाह मौत के साये की वादी मैं से मेरा गुज़र हो, मैं किसी बला से नहीं ढरूंगा; क्योंके तू मेरे साथ है: तेरे अला और तेरी लाठी से मुझे तसल्ली है।⁵तू मेरे दुश्मनीन के रूबरू मेरे आगे दस्तरख़ान बिछाता है: तू ने मेरे सर पर तैल मला है, मेरा पियाला लब्रीज़ होता है।⁶यक़ीनन भलाइ और रेह्मत उमर भर मेरे साथ साथ रहैंगी: और मैं हमेशा ख़ुदावन्द के घर मैं सकूनत करूंगा।

(किताब-ए मुक़द्दस के ज़ुबूर 23 अज़ दाऊद)

Roman Urdu and Indian Christians

Urdu was the dominant native language among Christians of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan in the 20th century and is still used today by some people in these Indian states. Indian Christians often used the Roman script for writing Urdu. Thus Roman Urdu was a common way of writing among Indian Christians in these states up to the 1960s. 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, the usage of Roman Urdu is declining with the wider use of Hindi and English in these states.

Roman Urdu and Bollywood

Bollywood, India's major film industry, uses a version of Roman Urdu 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. 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. In addition to this situation, a significant number of Indians cannot read the Devanāgarī script as India has a diverse linguistic landscape and some people still resist learning Hindi even though it is an official language of India. English, which is written in the Roman script, often becomes the way to communicate among Indians who speak different languages. For these reasons, the neutral Roman script is used for Bollywood film titles, though some films include the Hindi and Urdu scripts as well.

Uddin and Begum Urdu-Hindustani Romanization

The Uddin and Begum Urdu-Hindustani Romanization scheme is another system of Romanization for Urdu-Hindustani. It was proposed by Syed Fasih Uddin (late) and Quader Unissa Begum (late). As such is adopted by The First International Urdu Conference (Chicago) 1992, as "The Modern International Standard Letters of Alphabet for URDU-(HINDUSTANI) - The INDIAN Language script for the purposes of hand written communication, dictionary references, published material and Computerized Linguistic Communications (CLC)".

There are significant advantages to this scheme of writing system which are noted as follows:

* This scheme does provide a standard which is based on the original works undertaken at the Fort William College, Calcutta, India (established 1800), under John Borthwick Gilchrist (1789-1841), which has become the de facto standard for the Hindustani during the late 1800.
* There is a one-to-one representation for each of the original traditional Urdu and classical Hindi characters.
* Vowel sounds, rather than being assumed, are represented in written scheme, thereby uniquely tying the written form of the language to spoken form of the language.
* Unlike Gilchrist’s scheme which used many special non-ASCII characters, the proposed scheme only utilizes the ASCII characters.
* Since it is ASCII based, all of the resources and tools could be used for Urdu–Hindustani language.
* Liberate Urdu–Hindustani language to be written and communicated utilizing all of the available standards and free us from Unicode conversion drudgery.
* Urdu–Hindustani with the proposed character set would allow its users to utilize paper and electronic print media.

See also

*Urdu
*Uddin and Begum Urdu-Hindustani Romanization
*Hindi
*Hindustani
*India
*Pakistan
*Christianity in India

Footnotes

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.

External links

* [http://www.dictionaryurdu.com/ Roman Urdu Dictionary]
* [http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~navin/india/urdu.dictionary Dinesh Prabhu's Roman Urdu Dictionary:] Includes Grammar, Word Origins, and more
* [http://urdudict0.tripod.com/ Vaneeta's Roman Urdu Dictionary]
* [http://www.lexicool.com/dlink.asp?ID=0FW3HU5663&L1=34&L2=44 Hindi/Urdu-English-Kalasha-Khowar-Nuristani-Pashtu Comparative Word List:] Comparative list of 210 words in South Asian languages
* [http://www.iit.edu/~laksvij/language/hindi.html Romanized to Unicode Hindi transliterator]
* [http://www.urduword.com/ English-Urdu-Roman Urdu Dictionary]
* [http://wikitravel.org/en/Urdu_phrasebook Wikitravel Urdu Phrasebook]
* [http://wikitravel.org/en/Hindi_phrasebook Wikitravel Hindi Phrasebook]