The grammar and structure of Urdu, Hindi, Sindhi, Punjabi is so similar that they all could well have originated from a single source. That mother language could have been spoken in Indus Valley some 3 thousand years ago or may be more.
Remember that languages change drastically even within a thousand year. Compare old English and old Persian with today’s languages.
Just because today these languages are different, doesn’t mean that they were always separate. For example, both French and Spanish have common mother language but today they are mutually unintelligible.
The structure and common words between Urdu and Sindhi show that the two may very well have had a common ancestor language. Same goes for Punjabi.
Just because Urdu, Sindhi and Punjabi are considered two different languages today, doesn’t mean that their origins must necessarily be different.
For example, Spanish and French are clearly two mutually unintelligible languages, but actually they both were split from a single language.
About pronunciation difference: English and German have many pronunciation differences yet they both share same origin.
About lashkari language: Just because a language absorbed words from others, it doesn’t change the origins of the language. Persian absorbing Arabic words does not mean that Persian is Semitic language. English absorbing French words does not mean that English is Romance language.
This actually is the main point of this thread. Just because Urdu absorbed words from Indo-Aryan languages like Sanskrit and Persian, it doesn’t mean that Urdu be called such an Aryan language.
Not true. Origins of Urdu stem from the invasions of the Indian Subcontinent by the Turk dynasties in th 11th century, I believe.
Advent of Muslims only made the language absorb words from Persian/Turkish and gave it the current name of 'Urdu'. But the language existed before they came. People were already speaking the language.
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Urdu is by inception, a total "camp" language, which continued to develop under the Mughal empire.
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The language was developing before Mughals, it continued to develop during Mughals, and it has been developing after Mughals.
Languages develop all the time. It's not just about Urdu.
But development does not change the origin of a language. And Urdu's origin is neither Sanskrit nor Persian.
I don't know about the other languages, but major work on Sindhi grammar was done in British era, who also promoted other local languages. My point is grammar which is noramlly developed after centuries, can't be taken to prove origin of that language.
One more point Sindhi / Punjabi were mainly written in Devnagri / Gurmukhi style and the Arabic / Persian style has been followed just one/ two centuries ago. I never heard that Urdu was ever written in Devnagri / Gurmukhi style.
I don't know about the other languages, but major work on Sindhi grammar was done in British era, who also promoted other local languages. My point is grammar which is noramlly developed after centuries, can't be taken to prove origin of that language.
By 'working on grammar' here you mean "defining" the grammar of a language. This work does not change the way people speak a language.
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One more point Sindhi / Punjabi were mainly written in Devnagri / Gurmukhi style and the Arabic / Persian style has been followed just one/ two centuries ago. I never heard that Urdu was ever written in Devnagri / Gurmukhi style.
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What does script has to do with the origin of a language?
I don't like to give up Persian script for Urdu but fact is that Persian/Arabic script is foreign to all local languages (Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, etc.) and had to be modified to fit the language. Same is the case with all Northern European languages who modified the foreign Roman script to fit their respective language.
Script is important because it got relationship with written literature of a langauge. Today, Sindhi is spoken in both India and Pakistan, but we can't read the literature of each other due to different scripts. Recently a Sindhi writer from Pakistan visited India and he said that He could not comrehend many words spoken of Indian Sindhi community.
Regarding grammar you said that it does not affaect the way language is spoken. In Sindhi writing, we follow the language spoken in central Sindh, while the Sindhi spoken in areas like Thar is quite different to that kitabi Sindhi :)
True that the word 'Aryan' is synonymous to being white but Aryans were not originally from Europe at all. They are believed to have originated in Central Asia (Caucasia).
From there some of their tribes migrated to west and became Europeans, while some migrated to south and became Iranians (Medes, Persians, Tajiks, Pashtuns). Some of those Iranians went further east to India. They are called Indo-Iranians. These Indo-Iranians were speaking Sanskrit (which is close to Old Persian), and they mixed with locals in this region. These local people were black Indus Valley people.
The mixture of white Indo-Iranians and black Indus Valley people resulted in present population of this region. This is why North Indians and Eastern Pakistanis have so many different shades of skin. It is because we are a mix.
The combining of people also combined the religions of the two people. This resulted in what we now call Hinduism. And since Hinduism has origins from outside India, therefore it shares many gods with ancient Iranians.
Indo-Iranians made their language, Sanskrit, the sacred language of their religion (Hinduism), and looked at the local languages (prakrits) with disdain. Prakrits also accepted the superiority of Sanskrit and absorbed thousands of words from Sanskrit.
Urdu is one such prakrit which has absorbed lots of words from Indo-Iranian Sanskrit language. But this does not change the fact that Urdu is a local language of this region (a prakrit).
As far as I see this aryan invasion thing it has been propagated by the Europeans to prove their superiority. Anyhow the region forming Pakistan and northern India has had many invasions (mainly from central Asia) that's the reason why if we say that aryans were from central asia it makes sense. If you read the earlier scripts about mahabharata, it's about fights between tribes (most probably central asian origin) between current punjab and UP.
Script is important because it got relationship with written literature of a langauge.
Script has no relationship to the origin of any language. Origin is what this topic is about.
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Regarding grammar you said that it does not affaect the way language is spoken. In Sindhi writing, we follow the language spoken in central Sindh, while the Sindhi spoken in areas like Thar is quite different to that kitabi Sindhi :)
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I did not say that grammar does not effect the language. I actually said that the way we DEFINE the grammer of a language does not change how people speak that language. Thus British putting together RULES of Sindhi grammar has no impact on how people speak the language.
You made a nice point about differences which exist in a language from one place to another.
It is a natural process. As the time progresses (hundreds of years), these minute differences start to increase. This ultimately leads to one mother language being divided in two.
This is how Spanish and French separated. This is how German and English separated. And this is how the original mother language of this area divided into current languages of Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, Gujrati etc.
Thus Urdu/Punjabi/Sindhi/Gujrati all came out of the same mother language which was spoken thousands of years ago. Of course there are huge differences between these languages related to grammar, pronunciation, etc. But there are bound to be these differences. Otherwise they would all be one language!
If we want to look at the origins of the language then it is not the **differences **but the **similarities **which are more important to be considered.
As far as I see this aryan invasion thing it has been propagated by the Europeans to prove their superiority.
I think it has been proven now that there really was no "invasion" from Aryans/White people at all. It was more like a migration. And this migration did not happen suddenly. Rather it was a gradual process.
I don't think there was any ethnic cleansing done at all. If there were any ethnic cleansing by either one of the people then we should all be either all White or all Black.
If anyone claims any White superiority in this migration then he is dead wrong.
Agree that languages develope with the passage of time. One language divided into different dialects and there is possibly that the two distinct dialects become two different languages after passage of time. Urdu might exist in some basic forms before the advent of Mongols / Turks / Persian, but the current form of Urdu, we know got influenced by these invasions. Not only Urdu, almost all the languages of the area got huge vocabulary from invader's languages and they lost many original words used in those languages. Like I don't know Sindhi of glass. people started forgetting Maktab for school, etc.
BTW, what do you say about the Urdu known as Rekhta as Ghalib said:
Urdu might exist in some basic forms before the advent of Mongols / Turks / Persian, but the current form of Urdu, we know got influenced by these invasions.
It is absolutely true. In fact if we could get hold of some Urdu scripts before the Muslim invasion then we probably won't be able to understand it much. So yes, it did get influenced tremendously by those languages.
The same thing happened to Urdu (and other local languages) when Aryans (who were originally white and whose religion was Hinduism) came to this land, speaking Sanskrit.
All this influence is true. There is so much influence of these languages on Urdu that it is now called an Indo-Aryan language.
But what I am saying in this thread is that while the influence is tremendous, but this influence does not change the ORIGIN of Urdu. Thus it is wrong to call it an Indo-Aryan language.
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BTW, what do you say about the Urdu known as Rekhta as Ghalib said:
Rekhte ke tum hi nahin ustad Ghalib
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Some people say that by "Reekhta" Ghalib referred to the language itself. Others say that Ghalib used the word Reekhta as a synonym of the word "Ghazal".
they lost many original words used in those languages. Like I don't know Sindhi of glass. people started forgetting Maktab for school, etc.
That is a very interesting topic. I hope to start a thread about the lost words which were replaced by Persian/Arabic language.
For example, the word for salt in Urdu was not "namak" (it was "naun"). And the word for tongue was not "zubaan" (it was "jayp"). And the words for directions were poorab, puchham, uttar, dakkhan.