Urdu – Promoting it in Current Times

Urdu – Promoting it in Current Times

Urdu is a happy amalgamation of many influences down the centuries – primarily the dialects of Hindi like Khari Boli and Braj Bhasha spoken in North India and Persian, Arabic and Turkish spoken by the nobles and soldiers migrating to India since the start of the 11^th Century C.E. It has always been the language spoken by the masses and many Urdu words are common to the spoken Hindi of today. The distinction between Hindi and Urdu may well be in the script (Devanagari for Hindi and Nastaliq for Urdu) but the grammar and lexicography of the two languages is common. 

Urdu is not taught in most schools in India and so the typical Indian is not conversant with the Urdu script. This means that he or she is woefully ignorant of the vast treasure of Urdu prose and poetry. One of the many ways of keeping Urdu alive could be to free it from the Urdu script. One can then be exposed to the treasures of Urdu prose and poetry transliterated into English or Hindi. Who can deny the stature accorded in India to Munshi Premchand or Firaq Gorakhpuri, both of whom wrote interchangeably in Hindi and Urdu.

Sher-o-shaayari is the most popular genre of Urdu writing and is often the first exposure to the Urdu language for most of us. Who can forget the popular Hindi film songs of yester years based on ghazals which have enthralled generations in South Asia. Promoting Urdu through sher-o-shaayari is a low-hanging fruit as far as promoting Urdu is concerned.

Fortunately one can read shers online or offline in any script – Urdu or Hindi or English (Romanized Urdu as it is called). However, one key hurdle comes in the way of one’s enjoyment of the sher. While many of the Urdu words used in shers are familiar even to those North Indians for whom Urdu is not the first language, one comes across some words or compound-words the meaning of which is unknown. And that one unfamiliar word robs the entire sher of its magic!

There are a couple of offline dictionaries which shows Romanized Urdu words with their English meanings exist but they but the vast majority of the words in such a dictionary are well-known and so the shaayari-lover’s predicament is not solved. Online dictionaries are available but the digital option too has issues beyond internet connectivity! Stopping reading the sher midway, going to an online device to search for the meaning of an unfamiliar word and then returning to the sher is an interruption one can do without! 

From my personal experience I can say that reading Urdu shers in any language one is familiar with – Urdu, English or Hindi – and building up one’s vocabulary of Urdu words is a viable route to keep Urdu alive. I learnt the Urdu script a couple of years back and plunged headlong into reading the shers of the Master Shaayars of South Asia from the 1700s upto the modern era in the Urdu script. They have given me hours and hours of unlimited and timeless pleasure. 

 I am a North Indian exposed to the colloquial Hindi spoken by the common man and this day-to-day conversational Hindi abounds with Urdu words. Despite this advantage, and in spite of being able to read in Urdu, the big issue I faced was in enriching my Urdu vocabulary. 

I have been compiling a list of all unfamiliar Urdu words which I encountered while reading shers along with their meanings. It really helped me and it struck me that this poor Urdu vocabulary was the bane of most of us who loved shers. Thus the idea of a multi-lingual dictionary took shape and ‘The Dictionary of Urdu Poetry – For Shaayari Lovers was born!

It is designed to be a handy guide for lovers of Urdu shers. You can keep it at hand while being immersed in reading the shers in any script or device that you prefer. The moment you encounter an unfamiliar word, just pop open ‘The Essential Dictionary of Urdu Shaayari’ and return quickly to the magic of the sher. The Urdu word is transliterated in English and arranged alphabetically for ease of reference, with the word meaning in English. In addition, the Urdu word is transliterated in Hindi since the pronunciation is rendered truer in Hindi.

From my study of over 6000 of the best-known shers of the Master Shaayars I identified 2500+ words which were unfamiliar to me, and I am sure, unfamiliar to most lovers of Urdu shaayari with little or no formal exposure to Urdu. I then published a book ‘The Dictionary of Urdu Poetry – For Shaayari Lovers’ in June 2022 with an aim to solve the No 1 problem faced by lovers of Urdu shaayari who do not know the Urdu script – finding out the meanings of tough Urdu words without learning the Urdu script. I hope this will enable lovers of Urdu Shaayari to enjoy the shers in all their glory, with minimum interruptions due to vocabulary gaps!