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Learning Urdu

Urdu isn't the first foreign language I have taken up. In fact, I think it might be the 16th. About a year and a half ago I moved to Bury, Greater Manchester to work as the pastor of a local Christian church, Radcliffe Road Baptist Church. And a large proportion of the local population have Urdu (and/or Punjabi) as their other language. So I thought I should give it a go.

Urdu, like Farsi, is an Indo-European language. That means that it belongs to the same family of language as French, German or Polish. Even though it might seem more distant and less familiar, plenty of words are recognisably the same, such as "naam" (name) or "aat" (eight). Also, the general rules of how the language works seem familiar too. 

At the same time, there are plenty of obstacles/challenges:

1. Urdu is written in a version of the Arabic script called "nastaliq". This requires mastery of the Arabic letters (for example ب is "b"), the direction of the script (right-to-left), the different forms of the letter depending on its position in the word, and the feature whereby words "slope" downwards (top left to bottom right. 

The picture below shows the word "khan" (ruler) in Urdu: 


2. The sounds of Urdu are different from the familiar sounds of other Indo-European languages, such as "retroflexive r" or various glottal stops. 

3. The word order is different; a typical Urdu sentence follows the pattern Subject-object/complement-verb. Hence, "Mera naam Russell hay" would mean "My name Russell is", or, "Meri car saaf karo," would be the command/request "My car clean make".

4. There appear to be an above-average number of exceptions/complications, such as verbs in the past tense agreeing in number and gender with the object, not the subject of a sentence. Also, simple sentences appear to be a long chain of one- or two-syllable words including additional particles without equivalent in other Indo-European languages, such as the particle "se" in the sentence, "Pleased to meet you," namely, "Aap se milkar khushi hui."   

5. Since most local Urdu speakers also speak English, while you can hear Urdu spoken everywhere, it isn't easy to naturally find situations in which to practise the language without appearing condescending or intrusive. 

I have recently been sent a copy of recommended teach-yourself material, have found some decent youtube videos/audios to listen to/watch, and am set up for weekly Urdu lessons with a tutor in Lahore. So let's see how much progress I can make.

Phir melenge! (See you later!) 



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