I think it would be a good idea. Both Roman and Arabic are foreign to Pakistan. Even though Arabic is linked with religion, still Roman is used more often since English has the upper hand in Pakistan. How about giving Urdu a chance to excel in a country where it is the national language? What better way than to write Urdu in Roman?
I’ve heard that switching to Roman helped Turkish become a language of civilisation and scholarship. That’s what Urdu needs as well.
And it’s quite simple for Urdu. All it needs is a few extra signs.
What exactly do you mean to say? Was Turkey not a ‘civilised’ country before this adaptation? or only if you Romanise your language it becomes ‘civilised’? Stop looking for other’s praise to evaluate yourself! Just improve in your own direction which you think is right, sincerity will help it prosper.
wunderkind, I don’t think the roman script does justice to Urdu. The Urdu alphabet covers a variety of sounds and emphasizes certain pronounciations which cannot be gained from the roman script.
As far as it not being used in universities or other places of learning, this is truly sad to hear and I wish it was. It is disappointing to know that it isn’t given the importance it deserves if that is the case.
yes roman Urdu has its benefits on the computer because it links people who can read/write Urdu with those who cannot, as we see right here on Gupshup. But it should not be an excuse to not learn to read and write Urdu. In fact this is one of the areas that Pakistanis should develop and make the Urdu script available for common use even on the computers. I know there are already Arabic keyboards so adding the additional Urdu letters shouldn’t be a problem. Or they could make one that goes with the English letters such as Aliph = A, Bai = B, suad = C, seen = S, etc and for all the extra letters like sheen and toi, the ALT + (number on the number pad) could work the way it does for the French letters with accents.
some of the letters of the Urdu alphabet serve no purpose because they are sounds in Arabic which are not really pronounced by Urdu speakers: e.g. suad and se are the same, zuad and ze, toi and te, etc.
why can’t we develop one baseline for Fonts and develop some translater to make life easier for Urdu lovers? have you seen Chinese and Korean people? Their languages are difficult to write/read by hand yet they are able to communicate using PCs in their own language without retorting to use Roman characters.
Their languages have high status in their own countries. e.g. Chinese is used for nearly all purposes in China, same for Korean. In Pakistan, Urdu is only used by petty officials. It’s not used in business, higher government, law courts, or in university departments.
Even though i disagree with your initial post, this post of yours cracked me up lol. (sorry Prince of Persia :p)
Okay i do agree with you that Urdu gets close to zero importance in Pakistan. English is preferred by everyone from universities to governments to businesses etc. But thats only because WE have let urdu down. There is nothing wrong with urdu. Like someone mentioned chinese is the most difficult language in the world and still they seem to have integrated it in their IT infrastructures.
We have let Urdu down.. that is wrong. But romanizing urdu would be just another wrong. Two wrongs dont make a right. I do believe if there is a step that needs to be taken to revive urdu it is to give it more importance in our everyday affairs in Pakistan.
all of the college level education(classes 11/12 and then perhaps BA/BSc)has urdu as a compulsory subject....so a kid learns urdu language(grammar & literature with poetry) for atleast 12 years of his/her life...so there isn't a question of urdu not being present in schools/colleges....
Urdu-Hindi is already written in Devanagri script in Hindustan, which is efficient and easy enough to have exactly one symbol per sound unlike Perso-Arabic script, which often has multiple sounds per symbol. Instead of Roman, Devanagri script of Hindustan should be adopted.
Urdu-Hindi is a minority language, spoken, as a mother tongue, only by 7% of Pakistan's population. English is a better alterantive for communication. As an identity marker, Urdu-Hindi has no utility because it is the language of 400+ millions of Hindustanis as well.
^Again...how many indians speak hindi as their mother tongue??? 20-30%??95% south indians can't speak a word of hindi.....in which world do u live??Most north indians can't talk to southerners in hindi....India just doesn't have a 400 million population...there are 1110 million people living in india today...of which 700 million can't speak hindi...
Besides 80-85% of pakistanis have some know how of urdu...even if it is not their mother tongue...
Regarding devnagri script…it is foriegn to muslims…& Pakistan was “created for muslims” (ofcourse with religious freedom to minorities)…Urdu being written in arabic script,is naturally being closer to muslims of Pakistan..
