| URDU
LANGUAGE-LEARNING RESOURCES |
| =A script-learning site maintained by Hugo Coolens: [site] =Another
script-learning
site, ukindia.com:
[site] =A Hindi/Urdu language
school
in Delhi, "Zabaan": [site];
and
the
Landour
Language
School
in
Mussoorie:
[site] =A script-teaching
video put
together by our own Tyler Williams for his students at
Columbia: [site] =Sean Pue's up-to-the-minute Hindi/Urdu learning site that can be viewed on cellphones and such: [site] =Before you complain about the Urdu script, compare the one you'd have to learn for *Sindhi*, or the complexities of *Pushto* =And if you're vexed
by Urdu
spelling--
be glad you're not learning English. Then you'd have
spelling and
pronunciation
problems like THROUGH -- THOUGH -- BOUGH -- OUGHT --
TOUGH --
TROUGH.
=C. M. Naim: ==>*Naim's most important GRAMMAR and SCRIPT topics*<== from Introductory Urdu, Volume 1 (Chicago: South Asia Language and Area Center University of Chicago, 1999), online through DSAL and linked through this site =FWP: ==>*my own informal Urdu script notes and Urdu/Hindi teaching notes*<==
=For fun, check out
the *Google
Urdu
composer* and the *Google
translator*;
there's
also
a
*Hindi-Urdu
script
transliteration
site* =Barker's wordlist:
Never out
of print, and
never should
be: M. A. R. Barker, et al., Urdu-English
Vocabulary (Ithaca,
NY:
Spoken Language Services, 1991 [1980]): [site].
The best part of it is the frequency count that lets
you know at once
how
widely used a word is. =A special website
devoted to
intermediate-level Urdu readings, housed at Washington
University: [site] =M. A. R. Barker's
helpful
overviews, from vol. 2 of A Course in
Urdu (1967), of the
Persian elements [on
this site] and Arabic
elements [on this site]
used
in
Urdu. =the Bible in Urdu:
beautiful
script, interesting to see how they translate things:
[site] =S. R. Faruqi, Urdu ki na'i kitab
(1986), a
literary anthology for students, with introductory
material in simple,
clear Urdu: [on this
site] =A manual on
letter-writing,
full of useful examples, highly recommended by Amy
Bard: [on
this site] ="Fran's Favorites," a
set of
study
materials (Urdu texts, translations, commentary,
background material)
for
some important literary and historical works: [on
this site] ="The Great Glossary
Fair,"
through which we all help each other: [on
this site] =Ahmad, Rizwan, "Urdu in Devanagari: Shifting orthographic practices and Muslim identity in Delhi," Language in Society 40,3: [site] =Prof. Peter Hook offers us 'Some experiments in the English ghazal'. Unpublished; made available by the author here only, for classroom use and discussion: [on this site] =Iqbaliana: "'Allamah Iqbal: ek mahbubah, tin biviyan, char shadiyan," by Dr. Khalid Sohail, an analysis of Iqbal as a "creative personality," in beautifully readable large nasta'liq, easy for script-learners: [site] =Iqbaliana: An
elaborate
visual and
musical treatment
of Iqbal's famous nazm "Khizr-e rah," suitable for
advanced students: [site] =Library of Congress
readings
of their own work by six writers: [site] =C. M. Naim, Introductory Urdu, Volume 2 (Chicago: South Asia Language and Area Center University of Chicago, 1999), online through DSAL: [site]; and in a *large-format PDF version* =C. M. Naim, Readings in Urdu: prose and poetry (Honolulu: East-West Center Press, [1965]), online through DSAL: [site]=the Narang reader: Back in print and highly recommended as a basic reader: the famous "Narang reader" that my generation learned from: Gopi Chand Narang, Urdu: Readings in Literary Urdu Prose (New Delhi: National Council for the Promotion of Urdu Language, 2001 [Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1968]). You can probably find it on Amazon. It has graded stories, beautiful nasta'liq, and facing-page serial glossaries. Despite the title, it's introductory and simplified rather than seriously "literary" in its scope. Here's an analysis of its good and bad features by C. M. Naim, c.1967: [on this site]. As an illustration of its structure, here's a little story from it, "Marrying a Mouse": [on this site]; with a version for Urdu script learners. =D. C. Phillott (1860-1930) wrote a variety of useful and enjoyable books on Hindustani grammar and idiom: [site] =Pratham Books provides a series of enjoyable children's stories, each read aloud in Hindi, Urdu, and English: [site]. ="Islam" by Fazlur Rahman (1966; 2nd ed. 1979), the work of a distinguished Pakistani scholar who taught at the Univ. of Chicago, translated into Urdu by Muhammad Kazim (Mash'al Books): [site] ="M. de Tassy's History of Hindi Literature," by F.E.H. (1850); for illustrations of many and various ways to misread the Urdu script (including the conversion of a beggar into a donkey), see pp. 27ff.: [site] =NEWS SOURCES IN URDU =The BBC (listenable news, presented in sound files): [site]
=Pakistani national
anthem:
It's surprisingly hard to
find the
text of the Pakistani national anthem, so here it is:
[on
this site]. It
could
almost be in Persian, but notice the decisive ka
that
tips
the balance. Compare the popularly sung Iqbal ghazal
"Indian Song": [on this site].
And here is
the Indian national anthem too, followed by the
notoriously
controversial "Vande Mataram": [on this
site]. =Sean Pue: "Mir in
Cyberspace," a great
script
and reading tool: [site];
and the *ONLINE
GHAZAL READER* created by Sean
Pue and FWP =Christopher Shackle
and
Rupert Snell, Hindi-Urdu
Since 1800:
A Common Reader (London: SOAS, 1990): [on
this
site] =John Shakespear, 1834, an early Urdu textbook: Muntakhabat-e Hindi vol. 2: [site] ==URDU DICTIONARIES: ==Platts, John T. (1830-1904). A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930's impression, online through DSAL: [site]. Still peerless. |
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