Re: Arabic or Persian
was Sanskrit easier than Hindi?
Sanskrit to Hindi is same as Persian is to Persianized Urdu or Latin to English. thank God i didn't have to take Sanskrit as a subject ever. i saw my cousins struggling with Sanskrit who were doing their High School through Uttar Pradesh Board of Education. :(
they did a lot of 'raTTaafication' :p
Re: Arabic or Persian
May be Nishat e Sania (revival of Khilafat) may make Arabic necessary :D
Not necessarily khilafat. Anyone who is the economic powerhouse will have their language become an economic necessity for other people.
So Arabs could revive Arabic if they could replace East Asia and Europe as economic superpower. But I see no hope of that happening even in 100 years.
Re: Arabic or Persian
no, learning Arabic would have helped me in understanding the Qur'aan which i think is incumbent on all Muslims to learn Arabic to understand the word of God.
You know that Quranic Arabic is different from current Arabic? In fact there are many Arabics today.
My Palestinian friend told me that they have Quranic Arabic translated in their Arabic itself.
Re: Arabic or Persian
Arabic has not been ignored. Rather people have tried their best to adopt it. Just looking at this thread we can see that there are more people wishing to learn Arabic than Persian. Obviously it is for religious reasons. But lack of adoption of Arabic by masses shows that there are forces more important which force people to learn a language. In my view, economy and then culture. People had to learn Persian because it was the language of the Mughal darbar. It later had so much impact on the local language that fusion of local and Persian language gave rise to the 'language of Muslims', Urdu. So Persian and Urdu are now mixed together. Like I said, even the Arabic words which were introduced in Urdu came through Persian. They did not come Arabic directly.
While our religion is Arab-based, but our culture and history is aligned with Central Asia and Afghanistan. So anyone interested in culture or language will always prefer Persian. He will also find Persian to be much easier to learn because Urdu is based on Persian language and literature. He won't find Arabic as easy because we have no history with Arabs, nor are our culture or language influenced by Arabic.
I don't agree with bold parts 100%. There is possibility that some of the Arabic vocabulary was transferred to Urdu through Persian, but that doesn't mean that local languages of Indus valley (like Punjabi, Sindhi, Saraiki which also contributed to creating a new language i.e. Urdu) didn't have Arabic vocabulary before Persian speaking kings invaded the area. Saraiki got most of Arabic words including names of vegetables like Basal (Piyaz), thoom (garlic), etc.
As far as historical connection between Arabs and sub-continent is concerned, Arabs ruled Indus valley for around 3 centuries, so they might have left effects on languages spoken in the valley (as apparent from above examples in Saraiki)
Re: Arabic or Persian
You know that Quranic Arabic is different from current Arabic? My Palestinian friend told me that they have Quranic Arabic translated in their Arabic itself.
You are right. Contemporary Arabic is different from Quranic Arabic. Quran was revealed in pure language of Bedouin tribes and though people of Makka could understand that language being the basic dialect. Quran didn't use language (dialect) of Makka prevalent at time, because Makka was main trade centre and its language was affected by different dialects of people coming to Makka for trade from distant areas. One of the reasons that people used to send their children with Bedouin tribes for some period to learn pure language.
I would learn Arabic, Persian and pushto and the join the CIA. Too bad Urdu plus broken Arabic is not good nuff sigh
Would pick Arabic purely from a business potential otherwise.
Re: Arabic or Persian
I would learn Arabic, Persian and pushto and the join the CIA. Too bad Urdu plus broken Arabic is not good nuff sigh
Would pick Arabic purely from a business potential otherwise.
Business potential in Arabic. I heard that in KSA, they translates accounts in Arabic.
Re: Arabic or Persian
Arabic has not been ignored. Rather people have tried their best to adopt it. Just looking at this thread we can see that there are more people wishing to learn Arabic than Persian. .
Thus far though, there are more people who learned Persian than Arabic lol
Re: Arabic or Persian
You can be an absolute scholar in Quranic Arabic yet still not be able to string a sentence together in modern Arabic. This is how massive the difference is between the Arabic of Quran and Arabic of contemporary Middle East, and even that Arabic changes from region to region, tribe to tribe etc etc. It's like comparing old Germanic English or even Chaucerian Medieval English with common English of today.
I would love to master Quranic Arabic one day, but if I have to choose between learning contemporary Persian or Arabic, I would go for Arabic simply because it's an official language of at least 25 countries in the world.
Re: Arabic or Persian
Double post.
Re: Arabic or Persian
That above post has so much stuff worthy of a debate, but for now I would like to see a reference of the bold part. Any link?
The Arab invasion of some parts of Sindh lasted for about 200 years but it was a very weak government which was made possible with making allies with local Hindu and Budh rajas. It was due to this weakness that Arabic was not considered an official language of any area they conquered here, and they were unable to move any forward from there.
Arab impact on this place was minimal to none. This is why I saw online it being called a “triumph without result”.
The Arabs had conquered Sind, but the conquest was only an episode in the history of India and of Islam, a triumph without results.
After the first expedition under the ill-fated Mohammad ibn Kasim we hear of no reinforcements, and twenty years after his death the Arabs were still so insecure on the Indus that they built a city of refuge as a retreat in times of jeopardy.
Point is that Arab impact on subcontinent was negligible. It did not even turn the population Muslim.
Islam spread later at the hands of sufis who came from Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asia. It is after the conversion that the culture and language accepted Islamic influence under Persian speaking rulers. Persian was widespread among Western Muslims. Even those whose mother tongue was Turkish or Pashto used to conduct business in Persian.
Re: Arabic or Persian
I would love to master Quranic Arabic one day, but if I have to choose between contemporary Persian or Arabic, I would go for Arabic simply because it's an official language of at least 25 countries in the world.
This is true for someone looking for a job opportunity in the Middle East.
It makes absolute sense due to economic reasons.
Re: Arabic or Persian
dont see that in my lifetime 
Re: Arabic or Persian
u r rite hm sb kc hain bsss muslaman hi ni ha
Re: Arabic or Persian
Instead of using khilafat for spread of Arabic, I think what Jolie said is important. People will learn Arabic if there are job opportunities based on Arabic in the Middle East.
Re: Arabic or Persian
I would just say one thing. Our part of world got more Syeds than Arab world 
Re: Arabic or Persian
Re: Arabic or Persian
I would just say one thing. Our part of world got more Syeds than Arab world :D
On a serious note, why do you think there are no syeds in arab?
Re: Arabic or Persian
On a serious note, why do you think there are no syeds in arab?
I was talking of number of Syeds in sub-continent as compared to Syeds in Arab world.
Coming to the topic, Arabs may not be successful in implementing Arabic as official language in valley, but many Arabs settled in Sindh and Southern Punjab (Saraiki belt as Arab armies went upto Multan). Now these languages contain many Arabic words and their variation, which are not common in Persian. Example is same thoom and Basal/ Basar in Sindhi and Saraiki, these are basically Arabic words. There are hundreds of such words and if one get chance to read sufi poetry, he can analyse Arabic words that became part and parcel of local languages way before Persian impact through Urdu, as Persian was official language, but poetry was done in masses language, which was not Persian.
Re: Arabic or Persian
same with Faarsii...candidates appearing in IAS and IPS competitions often take those subjects in order to score high marks for less effort. i think the examiners are quite lenient in order to promote the language and hence keep their jobs. :)
There is thing called scaling, the numbers are marked according to the scale of student in particular subject. 5 marks of history may mean scoring 15 in Persian.
was Sanskrit easier than Hindi?
No, but through ancient art of Rattafication, I scored 100 :D and still cannot write one straight line in Sanskrit :)