Urdu Language
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State |
Family |
Some Facts |
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ammu & Kashmir |
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Urdu is the most poetic of languages, if one is
allowed to be biased. It is spoken by more than 28 million heads
in India. It is written in the Perso-Arabic script. |
¤ The Origin of The Urdu
Language
The word Urdu (court or camp) stems from the Persianized Turkish word
(Ordu) which meant ‘the camp of a Turkish army’.
North Indian Muslims with their own dialects moved to South and
Central India and settled among the Marathas, Kannadigas and Telugus.
These dialects formed the basis of a literary speech known as Dakhni
or the ‘Southern Speech’, and was spoken in the Deccan.
Later, north Indian Muslims, who came with Aurangzeb for his
conquests down south and some Dakhni writers, saw the possibility of
evolving a new language.
This language would be based on the literary traditions of Dakhni and
have the Persian script alongwith generous usage of Perso-Arabic
words, idioms and theme ideas.
¤ The Great Poets
Shamsuddin Waliullah a famous poet of the Dakhni actually started the
North Indian Urdu. Other poets also joined in this new literary
upsurge and came to Delhi subsequently. Delhi Urdu as a Muslim
language thus took birth. Court circles, Persian and Arabic scholars
and especially the Muslims of Delhi adapted this language with much
eagerness, and from the end of the 18th century the Mughal
house turned only to Urdu.
For the first 60 years or so influence of the Dakhni poets, Sufi
thinking and an Indianness of diction prevailed over Urdu.
The term Four Pillars of Urdu is attributed to the four early poets:
Mirza Jan-i-Janan Mazhar (1699-1781) of Delhi, Mir Taqi (1720-1808) of
Agra, Muhammad Rafi Sauda (1713-1780) and Mir Dard (1719-1785).
During this time Lucknow became a rival centre for the patronage of
Urdu literature, and masters of Urdu poetry received support from the
court of the Nawab.
The most illustrious poets of the pre-modern period were Muhammad
Ibrahim Zauq (1789-1854) of Delhi and Nazmuddaulah Dabiru-i-Mulk.
However, Urdu literature can never be complete without the mention of
Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (1797-1869). A Sufi mystic, Ghalib wrote
both in Urdu and Persian and through his letters he brought in
literary history and criticism. His humane feelings, Sufi sentiments,
simplicity of his lines and the depth of his observations made Ghalib
the greatest Urdu and Persian poet.
¤ Modern Urdu Literature
Modern Urdu literature covers the time from the last quarter of the
19th century till the present day and can be divided into
two periods: the period of the Aligarh Movement started by Sir Sayyid
Ahmad and the period influenced by Sir Muhammad Iqbal. However, Altaf
Husain Panipati (1837-1914), known as Hali or ‘the Modern One’,
is the actual innovator of the modern spirit in Urdu poetry.
Hindu writers of Urdu were not far behind, and among the earliest
writers was Pandit Ratan Nath Sarshar (author of Fisana-e-Azad) and
Brij Narain Chakbast (1882-1926).
One of the most famous poets of modern Urdu is Sayyid Akbar Husain
Razvi Ilahabadi (1846-1921) who had a flair for extempore composition
of satiric and comic verses. After 1936, Urdu picked up a progressive
attitude and leaned more towards the problems of life.
Poetry, novels, short stories and essays were the avenues of the
liberal expression. The main exponents of this new line of approach
were the short story writers Muhammad Husain Askari, Miranji, Faiz
Ahmad ‘Faiz’, Sardar Ali Jafari and Khwajah Ahmad Abbas.
Munshi Premchand, the greatest novelist of Hindi, began writing in
Urdu and later switched to Hindi.
Inspite of Urdu being considered a little tilted towards Islamic
lines, there were some great Hindu writers who made Urdu their very
own, like Krishan Chandar, Rajindar Singh Bedi and Kanhaiyalal Kapur.
Unfortunately, the lyrical language of Urdu no longer enjoys the same
position that it used to in the Mughal courts. However, Urdu is still
encouraged in Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab and Hyderabad. Present day
Hindi borrows a lot from Urdu – for grammar, diction and idiom.
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