Was Urdu born in Punjab? By Rauf Parekh

Where, when and how was Urdu born? This is the question to which a convincing answer has so far not been found. The genesis and development of Urdu has been a bone of contention amongst scholars since long and with the passage of time a virtual jungle of theories has grown out, through which finding the way is very difficult.
Some scholars surmised that Urdu was an offshoot of `Brij bhasha` or the dialect spoken in the Brij area (districts surrounding Agra and Mathura). Others say Urdu has its origin in `Khari boli` (a dialect called so because most of its words ended with an `a` sound and it differed from other dialects such as Brij, Qannauji and Avadhi etc in which most words ended with an `o` sound and as opposed to `khari`, or standing, boli each of these dialects was called `pari`, or lying, boli). Some believe that Urdu was born in and around Delhi and the dialects of adjoining areas, such as Rajasthani and Haryani, have influenced it. Yet there are some theories that suggest that Sindh or Punjab or Deccan is the cradle of Urdu. There are some abstruse theories as well, such as Urdu is not an Aryan language but a Dravidian one and was born in the South India and not in the North. Another improbable theory suggested that Urdu was a `lashkari zaban` or `camp language` and it was born in the Mughal era as Mughal troops consisted of people who spoke different languages and Urdu came into being as an inter-language.
However, what seems most probable in the light of linguistic research and what apparently has a kind of consensus, too, among the modern linguists is the theory that Urdu has its origin in a Prakrit known as Shaurseni. It was an unrefined vernacular dialect akin to Sanskrit and was spoken in the area known as Shaursen. Later, it spread to other regions and with its regional varieties became a kind of sub-continental lingua franca.
This is, perhaps, one of the reasons why almost every major region of Indo-Pakistan subcontinent has a claim to be Urdu`s cradle or to have played some role in its origin or development. Even Gujarat (not Pakistani town but the Indian province), which seems to be an unlikely contender, rightly claims to have had the earliest recorded samples of Urdu literature. It is very likely that Urdu was born in Northern India but Urdu literature was first committed to writing in the South, especially in Gujarat where some earliest literary pieces were written, even before Deccan that has a claim to be the first to have done so.
Now the question is which one of the myriad sub-dialects developed itself to take the place of the language that had numerous names before it was finally called Urdu. Among the notions that were and are still considered to hold some water is the one that says Urdu was born in Punjab and a dialect spoken in Punjab at that time is Urdu`s mother. Hafiz Mahmud Shirani in his well-known work `Punjab mein Urdu` (1928) premised that Urdu was born in Punjab after Punjab was taken over by the Ghaznavids. Sherani has very clearly mentioned that there were some others too who had suggested the theory before him and it included Grierson and Sher Ali Sarkhush. Grierson had some suggestive ideas in his `Linguistic Survey of India` (1916) and Sarkhush in his `Tazkira Ejaz-i-Sukhan` (1923) had expressed similar views. But Shirani was the first one to put it across in a detailed and logical way, though many scholars have their reservations about this theory of Shirani`s and drawn their own conclusions. But it has been a topic of heated debates for long and was very popular until some other theories were put forward by scholars like Masood Husaain Khan and Shaukat Subzwari.
Let me sum up first what Shirani has said about Urdu and its genesis in Punjab Sindh was the first territory of India conquered by Muslims in 8th century AD. Probably they did not adopt any local language there but after the conquest of Punjab in the late 10th century AD during Ghaznavid era Muslims stayed in Punjab and before conquering Delhi they had lived in Punjab for about 200 years. During this period in Punjab, Muslims must have used a language to communicate with the locals and to run the affairs of government and trade. Muslims must have brought this language with them from Punjab to Delhi after its conquest in the year 1193. We do not know for sure what language or dialect was spoken in Delhi before the advent of Muslims. It was probably Brij or Rajasthani. Urdu has striking similarities with Punjabi as far as grammar and phonetics are concerned. The language from which Urdu emerged was neither Brij nor Haryani. It was a language spoken in and around Delhi and Meerut. Later, it intermingled with the language brought in from Punjab by the Muslims and the by-product was Urdu.
Interestingly, Mohiuddin Qadri Zor was at that time in London and was carrying out research on Urdu`s origin and had independently reached at the same conclusion as Shirani`s but while agreeing with Shirani that Urdu was born in Punjab, Zor said in his `Hindustani lisaniyaat` (1932) that the language spoken in the vast region between north-western India and Allahabad including Punjab in the 12th century AD was very similar with the one spoken in and around Delhi and it had developed much before Muslim conquest of Delhi. It then developed into two different dialects, one of which was Punjabi and the other was `Khari boli`. In other words, he believed that Punjabi was not Urdu`s mother but its sister.
Masood Hussain Khan was the first to object to this theory of Sherani`s. He said Shirani had ignored the dialects spoken in and around Delhi and that his statements about Haryani were contradictory. As for Punjabi`s grammatical and phonetic similarities with Urdu, Masood Khan said there were certain dissimilarities as well and many similarities were common among other languages and dialects too, such as Bengali, Gujarati, Haryani and Khari boli. Others that criticised Shirani for his theory of Urdu`s genesis in Punjab are Shaukat Sabzwari and Gian Chand Jain.

TAMIL

Tamil  is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of South India and North-east Sri Lanka. It has official status in the Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It was once given nominal official status in the state of Haryana, purportedly as a rebuff to Punjab, though there was no attested Tamil-speaking population in the state, and was later replaced by Punjabi.Tamil is also a national language of Sri Lanka and an official language of Singapore It is legalized as one of the languages of medium of education inMalaysia along with English, Malay and Mandarin. It is also chiefly spoken in the states of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Andaman and Nicobar Islands as one of the secondary languages. It is one of the 22scheduled languages of India and was the first Indian language to be declared a classical language by the Government of India in 2004. Tamil is also spoken by significant minorities in Malaysia, England,Mauritius, Canada, South Africa, Fiji, Germany, Philippines, United States, Netherlands, Mauritius, Indonesia,and Réunion as well as emigrant communities around the world.

Tamil is one of the longest surviving classical languages in the world. It has been described as "the only language of contemporary India which is recognizably continuous with a classical past." and having "one of the richest literatures in the world". Tamil literature has existed for over 2000 years.

Prakrit

any of the ancient or medieval vernacular 

dialects of north and central India which 

Prakirat Script

existed alongside or were derived from Sanskrit.

SANSKRIT

Sanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, the primary liturgical language of Hinduism and a literary and scholarly language in Buddhism and Jainism. Developing from Vedic Sanskrit, today it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand.Sanskrit holds a prominent position in Indo-European studies

Urdu’s origin: it’s not a ‘camp language By Dr. Rauf Parekh

Some myths are so deep-rooted that one has to work really hard to make people, especially students face facts. One such myth is about the origin of Urdu. Most of our students subscribe to the view that Urdu is a ‘lashkari zaban’ or ‘camp language’. With due apologies, let me add that even some of our teachers, too, believe in this old notion that was proved wrong long ago.​

According to the popular myth, Urdu is a ‘camp language’ or ‘lashkari zaban’ because it originated in the army camps of the Mughals. The reasoning — if it can be called as such at all — behind the so-called theory is that Urdu is a mixture of words taken from different languages such as Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Hindi. The soldiers who spoke these languages were recruited to the Mughal army and to communicate among themselves they used this new language, and thus Urdu was born. People holding this view cite the fact that ‘Urdu’ is a Turkish word and it literally means ‘lashkar’ or ‘army’ or ‘army camp’. Interestingly, there is hardly any language in the world that has not absorbed words from other languages.​

English, being most ‘open’ of them all, has, according to David Crystal, borrowed from over 100 languages, but nobody has ever called English a mixture of different languages.​

It was Mir Amman (1750-1837) who first presumed Urdu was born that way. In his preface to ‘Bagh-o-Bahar’ (1802), he wrote that Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (who reigned between 1628 and 1658 made Delhi his capital and named its bazaar ‘Urdu-e-moalla’. According to Hafiz Mahmood Sherani, what Mir Amman had written about Urdu’s origin was paraphrased by many writers over the next 100 years or so, and it included figures like Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, Muhammad Hussain Azad, Syed Ahmed Dehlvi (compiler of ‘Farhang-e-Aasifya’), Chiranji Lal (compiler of ‘Makhzan-e-muhavraat’), Imam Bakhsh Sehbai and, in the 20th century, Hakeem Shamsullah Qadri. This repetition naturally lent credence to the theory and it became ‘common knowledge’ that Urdu was a ‘camp language’, made up of words from different languages. Even scholars like A.F. Rudolf Hoernle and G.A. Grierson were misled and believed in the theory initially. But when Grierson carried out massive research on the dialects and languages of India he admitted his mistake. After writing in the ninth volume of his famous ‘Linguistic survey of India’ (1916) that “Literary Hindustani [Urdu] is based on the vernacular Hindustani spoken in the Upper Doab and in the Western Rohilkhand”, Grierson adds in the footnotes that “it will be noticed that this account of Hindustani and its origin differs widely from that which has been given hitherto by most authors (including the present writer), which was based on Mir Amman’s preface to the ‘Bagh-o-Bahar’. According to him Urdu was a mongrel mixture of the languages of the various tribes who flocked to the Delhi bazar”.​

Now the question is: why is this theory of so-called camp language incorrect?​

Hafiz Mahmood Sherani and Shams-ur-Rahman Farooqi have described in detail that the word Urdu was in use much earlier than the Mughal period and it had carried different nuances through centuries. The word ‘Urdu’ was used for this language much later, in fact in the last quarter of the 18th century, and in the beginning the word ‘Urdu’ had quite different meanings. Also, the Urdu language has had many names before the present nomenclature came in vogue. Those who are convinced that Urdu was born in Shah Jahan’s era ignore the fact that the Mughal era began in 1526 after Babar’s success at Panipat while poets like Ameer Khusrau (died 1325) had been composing poetry in Urdu much earlier than that. Even in Babar’s writings one can find quite a few Urdu words. In other words, the Urdu language did exist before Shah Jahan and it was there even before the name Urdu was given to it.​

Those who believe in the ‘lashkari zaban’ myth perhaps think that it is possible to form a new language by combining two or more languages. This is not the case. Max Muller, the renowned linguist, has given us two guiding principles in this regard: one, the classification of a language and its relationship with the other language is based on morphological and syntactical structures of that language and vocabulary has very little importance in this regard; two, it is totally wrong and misleading to believe that by combining two or more languages a new, third language can be formed. A language may get enriched and strengthened by obtaining nourishment from the dialects and languages spoken in its surrounding geographical territories, but it is impossible for a language to form a new language by inter-mingling with another one.​

A language takes centuries, even more, to evolve. It is a slow, long, constant, complex and natural process. A language ‘invented’ to serve a specific purpose, such as enabling the troops to communicate with one another, is labelled as ‘artificial’ by linguists. Though there have been hundreds of such attempts, some aimed at facilitating international communication between nations and peoples speaking different languages, none has been successful. Esperanto, a language formed with the basic roots of some European languages, died despite its early success. In other words, experiments to devise a language have failed and no artificial language could survive. Urdu, like other languages of the world, has been classified by linguists on the basis of its morphological and syntactical features. Urdu nouns and adjective can have a variety of origins, such as Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Pushtu and even Portuguese, but ninety-nine per cent of Urdu verbs have their roots in Sanskrit/Prakrit. So it is an Indo-Aryan language which is a branch of Indo-Iranian family, which in turn is a branch of Indo-European family of languages. According to Dr Gian Chand Jain, Indo-Aryan languages had three phases of evolution beginning around 1,500 BC and passing through the stages of Vedic Sanskrit, classical Sanskrit and Pali. They developed into Prakrit and Apbhransh, which served as the basis for the formation of later local dialects.​

Around 1,000 AD, the modern Indo-Aryan era began and with the arrival of Muslims Arabic, Persian and, to a lesser extent, Turkish vocabulary began assimilating into local dialects. One of those dialects later evolved further and became an early version of Urdu/Hindi. Now the only question remaining unanswered is which dialect or dialects developed further to become a language that was basically one and was later divided into two languages, Hindi and Urdu, on the basis of two different scripts.​

Though there are a number of theories about the origin of Urdu (that is, aside from camp language theory) that say, for example, Urdu has its origin in Punjabi, or it was born in Deccan or in Sindh, few have stood up to research based on historical linguistics and comparative linguistic. Of the theories considered to be holding water, the most plausible seems to be the one that says Urdu developed from some dialects spoken in and around Delhi in the 11th and 12th centuries AD. These dialects include Brij Bhasha, Mewati, Khari Boli and Haryani, which, in turn had developed from Apbhransh. The name Apbhransh refers to a number of languages/dialects which were born from Prakrit languages. The question that still requires a precise answer is: from which Apbhransh did Urdu originate? Some linguists believe it was most probably an offshoot of Shourseni Prakrit, spoken in and around Mathura. Dr Gian Chand Jain says it was Khari Boli.​

In brief, Urdu is much older than just a few hundred years and its roots go right back to Sanskrit. At least, it has been established beyond doubt that Urdu is not a camp language

LINGUISTICS

the scientific study of language and its structure, including the study of grammar, syntax, and phonetics. Specific branches of linguistics include sociolinguistics, dialectology, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics, comparative linguistics, and structural linguistics.

Language

Language is the human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, and a language is any specific example of such a system. The scientific study of language is called linguistics.

Estimates of the number of languages in the world vary between 6,000 and 7,000. However, any precise estimate depends on a partly arbitrary distinction between languages and dialects. Natural languages are spoken or signed, but any language can be encoded into secondary media using auditory, visual, or tactile stimuli, for example, in graphic writing, braille, or whistling. This is because human language is modality-independent. When used as a general concept, "language" may refer to the cognitive ability to learn and use systems of complex communication, or to describe the set of rules that makes up these systems, or the set of utterances that can be produced from those rules. All languages rely on the process of semiosis to relate signs with particular meanings. Oral and sign languages contain a phonological system that governs how symbols are used to form sequences known as words or morphemes, and a syntactic system that governs how words and morphemes are combined to form phrases and utterances.