Posted on 09/25/2011 7:13:32 PM PDT by Just4Him
ABBOTTABAD: It may have been a mere misplaced dot that led to accusations of blasphemy against a Christian eighth-grader, whose miniscule error led to her expulsion from school and uproar amongst local religious leaders.
Faryal Bhatti, a student at the Sir Syed Girls High School in Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF) colony Havelian, erroneously misspelt a word in an Urdu exam while answering a question on a poem written in praise of the Holy Prophet (PBUH). The word in question was ‘laanat’ instead of ‘naat’ – an easy error for a child to make, as the written versions of the words are similar.
According to the school administration and religious leaders who took great exception to the hapless student’s mistake, the error is ‘serious’ enough to fall within the realm of blasphemy, Saturday.
Spelling out her punishment
On Thursday, Faryal’s Urdu teacher was collecting the answer sheets from her students when she noticed the apparently offensive word on her pupil’s sheet. The teacher, Fareeda Bibi, reportedly summoned the Christian girl, scolded her and beat her. Her punishment, however, did not end here. When Faryal’s class fellows learnt of the alleged blasphemy, the teacher brought the principal’s notice to the matter, who further informed the school management.
(Excerpt) Read more at tribune.com.pk ...
Pax Planetaria?
Most of us here are bible believing, and accept an eschatological view that such a thing won’t be possible.
My point is that for America to conquer and rule the rest of the world, we would essentially have to convert ourselves into the Fourth Reich. No other way to do it.
In which case we wouldn’t be America anymore.
With its ties to Sanskrit it would be one of the more literary-capable languages of the world as well, just as most things German could be brought into Yiddish.
What is fake is the direction the language has been taking. Hindustani, as you correctly state, is the lingua franca of non Panjabi north India.
This includes the modern day states of UP, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.
ALL Urdu speakers in Pakistan (bar none!) came as refugees from these states. The original provinces of West Pakistan spoke Pashto, Panjabi, Sindhi and Baluch as their NATIVE languages.
So, in comes this Urdu speaking minority (under 10% by most estimates) and imposes Urdu on the entire Pakistani nation (including erstwhile Bangladesh or East Pakistan)
Not only that, but because they are afraid, people will recognize Urdu for what it is (Hindustani or even Hindi with a Persian script) they start Arabizing it inserting made up Arabic or Persian words
So, now you have Pakistanis speaking this dumb Arabized language that bears no relationship to the Urdu of old.
Another way that Pakistan continues to have excrement in every part of its culture and society
Urdu is every bit as old as Hindi. They evolved together and neither is more "real" than the other.
The two languages exist on a continuum, with extreme Urdu having more Arabic (from the Koran, primarily) and Persian vocabulary, and extreme Hindi having more Sanskrit and Prakrit vocabulary.
Extremists in both camps artificially import words from their respective religious source languages.
Linguists, scientists who study language, just don't use terms like "real" languages. That is the province of nationalists or ethnocentrists (linguocentrists?) out to make a political or ideological point.
If any modern language spoken by a large group of people is "fake," it's the Hebrew spoken in Israel, which was artificially revived for political reasons. They tried the same thing in Ireland, and probably in other countries, but I'm not aware of it having worked anywhere but Israel.
Very simple reason for this. Urdu and English are the two official languages of Pakistan for the logical reason that neither is a "native" language.
If any of the native languages had been chosen as the official language, the others would have objected violently. Urdu and English, being equally foreign to all native Pakistanis, didn't offend anybody by favoring one native language over the others. My understanding is that just about everybody in Pakistan speaks or understands at least some Urdu today, even though it's probably not their birth language.
Sherman,
Urdu was imposed because the populace (most the East Bangladesh) would not tolerate Persian or even Arabic as the official language.
It has NOTHING to do with not choosing a local language and everything to do with the raison d’etre of Pakistan
Pakistan is a fake state with nothing holding it together. Not culture, not language, not values.. nothing.
Their only “bind” was Islam but the problem was that there were 50 other islamic states so the people of West Panjab, East Bengal, Baluchistan, NWFP and Sindh said, why shouldn’t all of us be independent too.
Pakistan will surely collapse into its constituent four “countries” within the next decade. The Baluchi movement has picked up and the Sindhis and Pashtos as burbling again.
The long suppresed West Panjabi identity (suppressed by way of giving them all the leadership roles in Pakistan) will bubble up again too.
Incidentally the biggest target of the Urdu campaign was to kill Panjabi in West Panjab. Sindhi is STILL the official language of the Sindh province, Pashto is an official langauge of NWFP, Baluchi is the official language of Baluchistan but West Panjab with over 100 million native Panjabi speakers only has Urdu
Read about the Bangladesh war and how Urdu was imposed on Bangladesh. It was effectively a dying language that was revived riding the horse of Pakistani nationalism
Once pakistan dies, Urdu will die with it. Sindhi will flourish in Sindh and West Panjab will return to Panjabi/Saraiki/Hindko
Urdu is pretty much already dead in India. Despite Muslims making up 15% of India and despite Urdu being a NATIONAL language of India, less than 2% of India now considers it their native language..
...and this is despite goverment support including an asinine Doordarshan Urdu... a goverment channel
Bibi is an Urdu word which might mean “lady” or “wife” - is a common name in that part of the world.
Having said that, isn’t it ironic... Adherents of Islam vigorously assert their rights whenever they are a minority in a country - example, in the US, in Europe etc.
But when the majority of people in a country or region are Islamic, they deny even basic rights to religious minorities. When will our American left wake up and realize that Islam is incompatible with democracy or Western values?
Isn’t “Bibi” similar to the word that set off the crazy Nazi playwright in “The Producers” when he heard Dick Shawn sing “Bebe, Bebe” about Hitler?
“Nobody called Hitler Bebe”.
Now we know, the Paks are just cousins to the Nazis.
Urdu is basically the prakrit language that is written in Arabic script, correct. However, the Pakistanis have been trying to “Islamisize” it further by bringing in more Farsi and Arab words and replacing Hindi words. Of course, Hindi is doing the same by pulling in more Sanskrit words
Of course Iranis and Arabs laugh at this
Pakistan is a schizophrenic society -- it has trashed its past and now has no idea who it is or what it stands for -- all it knows is to fight and kill, forever looking for the "other".
well said.
I think perhaps Welsh might be one where it is working to some extent, but I doubt they have as many with Welsh as their first-language.
w.r.t. Hebrew, to my knowledge, Hebrew was always still spoken by educated Jews: rabbis AND traders and it was a Jewish lingua franca just as Latin was for Western priests
Yes it was revived in the 1800s and early 1900s. That was quite an achievement to basically recreate a bunch of native-speakers
It was absolutely necessary, though, quite apart from “politics”. Ashkenazic Jews spoke Yiddish, Russian or High German. Sephardic Jews spoke Ladino. Eastern Jews spoke Arabic, Farsi, Buchara or Russofarsi. The only single language they all, without exception, knew and identified with was Hebrew, the language of Jewish liturgy and scholarship, similar to Latin and Ancient Greek for most branches of Christianity, Arabic for Muslims, and Coptic for Coptic Christians. So to communicate, they adopted their common literary and liturgical language as the collquial tongue. Ben Yehuda perhaps saw it coming, but neither he nor the Zionist movement were the inspiration for the Hebrew revival, merely the mid-wife at most.
Hmm, what isn’t fake about that. It’s just Hindi with a different orthography!
Cronos my friend,
Thank you for the kind words.
Yes, since President Zia Ul Haq, Pakistan has followed a very aggressive form of “Arabization”. Over 10% of Pakistan has now had some formal Arabic training whether in a Madrassa or a school.
Pakistan had long wanted to become an Arab speaking country and kill any historical ethnic identity. The only place out of their five constituent countries they have succeeded is West Panjab.
West Panjabis are now not allowed to speak Panjabi in ANY official level. It is not officially recognized and the West Panjabi script (called Shahmukhi, which is related to the Persian script) is dying.
The biggest “benefactors” of this are the Sikhs. The Panjabis used to be divided equally between the Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus.
The Muslims have “De-Panjabized” West Panjab. The hindus have “de-Panjabized” the parts of East Panjab that they control (Haryana, Himachal, Uttarkhand). So the net result is that 5000 years of Panjabi heritage now rests on the shoulders of the brave Sikhs, who proudly embrace their Panjabi heritage (witness the worldwide popularity of Bhangra, Panjabi cuisine (mistakenly called Indian cuisine), Panjabi salwar kameez etc)
The irony of the Pakistani racial argument is that invaders made up less than 2% of the muslim population of India. Various genetic tests have proven that. They in fact instituted a caste system in the Muslim community to separate the fact that they were Turks etc.
98% of the Muslims in the Indian subcontinent are Hindu converts and forcible converts under the sword of Islam at that.
Just like anyone else with an inferiority complex, the Muslims most vocal about their ethnic “Turk/Persian” identity are the ones that are the most “Indian” aka the refugees that came from India.
Ironically the Baluchis and the Pashtos have historical intermingling ethnic links with the Persians and Turks.
However the muhajirs (the refugees who came from India, and the idiots who have foisted Urdu) are almost pure Hindu converts. They still carry a lot of Hindu customes with them (like birth charts, lingering caste system, superstitions etc)
Feel sorry for any child living in an uncivilized place...
THIS is what heartlessness looks like.
The “two” languages and their orthography evolved simultaneously. Urdu is no more “fake” than Hindi, and no less.
In fact, for most of its existence it was dominant over Hindi, as it was the version used in government and by the (Muslim) ruling classes.
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