Urdish
Hybrid use of Urdu and English
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Urdish, Urglish or Urdunglish, a portmanteau of the words Urdu and English, is the macaronic hybrid use of South Asian English and Standard Urdu.[1] In the context of spoken language, it involves code-switching between these languages whereby they are freely interchanged within a sentence or between sentences. In Pakistan and India, many bilingual or multi-lingual Urdu speakers, being familiar with both Urdu and English, display translanguaging in certain localities and between certain social groups.[1]
In the context of written language, Urdish colloquially refers to Roman Urdu — Urdu written in English alphabet (that is, using Roman script instead of the traditional Perso-Arabic script), often also mixed with English words or phrases.
The term Urdish is first recorded in 1989. Other less common colloquial portmanteau words for Urdish include (chronologically): Urglish (recorded from 1995), Urdlish (1997) and Urduish (1998).[2]
When Hindi–Urdu is viewed as a single spoken language called Hindostani, the portmanteaus Urdish and Hinglish mean the same code-mixed tongue.
On 14 August 2015, the Government of Pakistan launched the Ilm Pakistan movement, with a uniform curriculum in Urdish. Ahsan Iqbal, Federal Minister of Pakistan, said, "Now the government is working on a new curriculum to provide a new medium to the students which will be the combination of both Urdu and English and will name it Urdish."[3][4][5]
Example
| Language | Sentence (in Latin script) | Remarks |
|---|---|---|
| English | The clouds of our country shower blessings on this land. | |
| Modern Standard Hindi | Hamārē rāṣṭra kē mēgh is bhūmi par vardān varṣātē ha͠i.
(Devanagari: हमारे राष्ट्र के मेघ इस भूमि पर वरदान वर्षाते हैं।) |
Highly Sanskritised variety with tatsama vocabulary (although MSH does also employ native tadbhava vocabulary as well), generally preferred for formal purposes by followers of Dharmic religions, Sanskritists and linguistic purists and puritanists alike. |
| Hindustani | Hamārē dēs kā bādal is dhartī par vardān/barkat barsātē ha͠i. | Colloquial variety with native tadbhava vocabulary, with a substantial number of loanwords from both tatsama vocabulary, as well as from Persian and Arabic (and to some extent, even Turkic), as seen (to some extent) in Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb. |
| Hinglish/Urdish | Hamārē country kē clouds is land par blessings shower kartē ha͠i. | Heavy code-mixing with English words and phrases. |
| Standard Urdu | Hamārē mulk ke abr is zamīn par raḥmat nāzil kartē ha͠i.
(Nastaliq: ہمارے ملک کے ابر اس زمین پر رحمت نازل کرتے ہیں۔) |
Highly Persianised and Arabised variety, mostly preferred for formal purposes by followers of Islam and people in a Persianate culture and setting. |