Urdu Hindi: An Artificial Divide (Politics of Language)

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URDU/HINDI: AN ARTIFICIAL DIVIDE

The Politics of Language

URDU/HINDI: AN ARTIFICIAL DIVIDE African Heritage, Mesopotamian Roots, Indian Culture & British Colonialism Abdul Jamil Khan

Algora Publishing New York

© 2006 by Algora Publishing All Rights Reserved www.algora.com No portion of this book (beyond what is permitted by Sections 107 or 108 of the United States Copyright Act of 1976) may be reproduced by any process, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, without the express written permission of the publisher. ISBN-10: 0-87586-437-6 (soft cover) ISBN-10: 0-87586-438-4 (hardcover) ISBN-10: 0-87586-439-2 (ebook) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data — Khan, Abdul Jamil. The Politics of Language. Urdu/Hindi: an artificial divide: African heritage, Mesopotamian roots, Indian culture & Bristish Colonialism / Abdul Jamil Khan. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-87586-438-4 (hard cover : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-87586-437-6 (pbk : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-87586-439-2 (ebook) 1. Urdu language—History. 2. Urdu language—Classification. 3. Hindi language—History. 4. Hindi language—Classification. I. Title. PK1971.K435 2006 491.4'3—dc22 2006010961

Cover Image: Hieroglyphs in stones, Manali, Himachal Pradesh, India Image: © Paul C. Pet/zefa/Corbis Photographer: Paul C. Pet

Printed in the United States

Abbreviations

ABBREVIATIONS Languages AKK - Akkadian ARAB, AR - Arabic ARAM - Aramaic ASY - Assyrian BR - Brahui ELAM - Elamite GO - Gond GR - Greek HEB - Hebrew HIN - Hindi HITT - Hittite HUR - Hurrian HUR-MIT - Hurrian-Mitanni KA - Kannada KUR - Kurux LAT - Latin LEXI - Lingua Extinctorum Indica MA - Malayalam MAL - Malto PERS - Persian PKT - Prakrit SKT - Sanskrit S, SUM - Sumerian TA - Tamil TE - Telugu URD - Urdu Language Families and Types AA - Austro-Asiatic AM - Austric-Munda DR - Dravidian GEAS - Grand Euro-Asiatic Super Family

vii

Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide IA - Indo-Aryan IE - Indo-European LBW - Language of Business and Work LOR - Language of Rearing LRR - Language of Religious Ritual LST - Language of Science and Technology MAF - Mesopotamia Ancient Family MIA - Middle Indo-Aryan MEIA - Middle East Indo-Asiatic MUNDRAVI - Munda-Dravidian (hybrid) NEAS - North-Euro-Asiatic-Super Family NIA - Neo-Indo-Aryan PDR - Proto-Dravidian PIE - Proto-Indo-European PED - Proto-Elamo-Dravidian PII - Proto-Indo-Iranian PIR - Proto-Iranian SAH - South Asian Hindustani SEAS - South-Euro-Asiatic-Super Family SEM - Semitic Language Scripts ABS - Asokan Brahmi Script APS - Arabic Persian Script CFS - Cuneiform Script DNS - Dev-Nagari Script GRS - Greco-Roman Script PAS - Phoenician-Aramic Script Miscellaneous AAA - Aligarh Alumni Association AMU - Aligarh Muslim University BJP - Bhartiya Janta Party DC - Delhi College DED - Dravidian Etymological Dictionary

viii

Abbreviations Desi - term for person from Indian subcontinent EIC - East India Company FWC - Fort William College HMS - Hindu Maha Sabha HPSV - Hearing, Perception, Speech and Vocalization System INC - Indian National Congress IRS - Indian Religion System IVC - Indus-Valley Culture MAOC - Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College ML - Muslim League MP - Madhaya Pradesh PWM - Progressive Writers’ Movement RV - Rig Ved RSS - Rashtriya Soyam Sevak Sangh TB - Tad Bhav (altered Sanskrit word) TS - Tat Sam (pure Sanskrit word) UP - Uttar Pradesh WW - World War

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOREWORD GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY MESOPOTAMIAN LANGUAGES HINDI/URDU LITERATURE URDU/HINDI POLITICS GLOBALISM IN URDU/HINDI

3 5 5 6 6 6

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

9

LIST OF TABLES AND ILLUSTRATIONS

11

CHAPTER I. MESOPOTAMIAN ROOTS AND LANGUAGE CLASSIFICATION 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1 SCIENTIFIC HISTORY: SUMMARIZED 1.2 TEXTBOOK HISTORY 1.3 EVOLUTION OF CLASSIFICATION

13 13 14 16 17

1.3.1 Language Families and Types

18

1.4 POLITICS OF LINGUISTIC SPLITS 1.5 A MYTHICAL DILEMMA IN MODERN LINGUISTICS 1.6 THE MYTHICAL WORLD OF SANSKRIT 1.7 INDOPHILISM AND INDO-EUROPEANISM 1.8 RACISM COAT-TAILED ON SANSKRIT 1.9 LINGUISTIC LIBERALISM 1.10 LANGUAGE AS A UTILITY IN INDIA 1.11 GRAMMAR TYPES AND SYNTAX 1.12 MIDDLE EAST FARMERS: PARENTS OF URDU/HINDI 1.13 CHAPTER SUMMARY CHAPTER II. PHONETICS, LINGUISTICS AND GENETICS — DNA 2.0 INTRODUCTION 2.1 GENETICS BLUNTS LINGUISTIC RACISM

xi

19 20 21 22 23 25 27 28 29 30 33 33 34

Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide 2.2 SPEECH, GENES (FOXP2), AND LANGUAGE EVOLUTION 2.3 GREAT ARAB LINGUISTS 2.4 PHONETICS OF URDU/HINDI AND OTHERS 2.5 GROWTH, GRAMMAR, AND ACCIDENCE 2.6 CLASSIFICATION: A SCIENCE AND AN ART 2.7 RECONSTRUCTION BUSINESS 2.8 EMERGENCE OF SUPERFAMILIES 2.9 ALL CONNECTED — ONE LANGUAGE 2.10 INDO-ARYAN OR INDIAN URDU/HINDI Urdu/Hindi

37 38 39 41 44 45 47 49 49 51

2.11 URDU/HINDI AND THE IE TIMELINE/GLOTTOCHROLOGY Urdu/Hindi and Punjabi Urdu/Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, and Bengali Kashmiri, Urdu/Hindi, and others Persian and IA (Urdu/Hindi etc) German/English, Persian, IA dialects

2.12 PROMOTION OF INDO-EUROPEANIST VIEWS 2.13 URDU/HINDI–DNA SCHEME 2.14 CHAPTER SUMMARY CHAPTER III. MIDDLE EAST: SOURCE OF SEMITIC, DRAVIDIAN AND INDO-EUROPEAN/SANSKRIT 3.0 INTRODUCTION 3.1 WEST ASIAN THEATER (SUMERIANS) 3.1.1 Sumerian Religion and Culture 3.1.2 Sumerian Lingustics 3.1.3 Sumerian Vocabulary in Urdu/Hindi 3.1.4 Sumerian Literature

3.2 THE ELAMITES AND PROTO-ELAMO-DRAVIDIAN (PED) 3.2.1 Elamite “Dravidian” Language of Iran

3.3 CENTRAL ASIAN POLYGLOT (EARLIEST ARYAN-IE) 3.3.1 Languages (Hurrian, Hittite, etc.) 3.3.2 Hittite Phonemes

3.4 AKKADIAN/ASSYRIAN (OLDEST ARABIC) 3.5 EARLIEST PERSIAN 3.6 EARLIEST SANSKRIT (VEDIC) 3.7 MESOPOTAMIAN PHONETICS AND PIE 3.8 MESOPOTAMIAN GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY 3.9 CHAPTER SUMMARY CHAPTER IV. AUSTRIC-MUNDA-DRAVIDIAN AND OLDEST HINDI/URDU 4.0 INTRODUCTION 4.1 PRE-AUSTRIC PHASE 4.2 AUSTRIC PEOPLE’S CULTURE AND LANGUAGE 4.3 RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL CONTRIBUTION xii

53 53 53 53 53 53

55 56 57 59 59 59 61 61 62 64

66 68

70 73 74

74 76 78 79 80 80 83 83 83 84 85

Table of Contents 4.4 THE AUSTRIC OR MUNDA LANGUAGE 4.4.1 Munda and Its Dialects 4.4.2 Linguistic Features 4.4.3 Prefixes and Infixes of Austric-Munda

4.5 MUNDA-SPECIFIC VOCABULARY 4.6 MUNDA GENDER, NUMBER AND SYNTAX 4.7 GENERAL MUNDA VOCABULARY IN URDU/HINDI 4.8 THE DRAVIDIAN PHASE AND ITS CONTRIBUTION 4.9 MIDDLE EASTERN ROOTS OF DRAVIDIAN PEOPLE 4.10 DRAVIDIAN RELIGION AND CULTURE 4.11 PROTO-DRAVIDIAN IN PROTO-URDU 4.12 LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF PDR OR DRAVIDIAN (DR) 4.13 FIRST HYBRID-MUNDRAVI (PROTO-PKT/URDU) 4.14 DRAVIDIAN-SUFFIXES/PARTICLES IN URDU 4.15 VOCABULARY LOANS TO URDU/HINDI 4.16 DRAVIDIAN VERBS IN URDU 4.17 SOUND WORDS (ONOMATOPOEIA) 4.18 MUNDRAVI-PROTO-URDU 4.19 CHAPTER SUMMARY CHAPTER V. SANSKRIT-PRAKRIT AND OLD-URDU/HINDI 5.0 INTRODUCTION 5.1 WRITTEN RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS 5.2 HINDUISM OR THE INDIAN RELIGIOUS SYSTEM (IRS) 5.3 MARCH OF TIME (HISTORY) 5.4 SANSKRIT-PRAKRIT SYSTEM 5.5 LINGUISTICS OF SKT-PKT 5.5.1 SKT’s Inflection and Evolution

86 87 88 89

89 90 91 94 95 96 97 98 98 99 100 105 106 107 108 109 109 109 110 112 114 115 117

5.6 SANSKRIT AND URDU/HINDI 5.7 LOANS INTO SKT 5.8 URDU’S VOCABULARY FROM SKT 5.8.1 SKT – Verbs 5.8.2 Relationships, Flora, Places, and Names 5.8.3 Household Items 5.8.4 Professions and Titles/Ranks 5.8.5 Adjectives and Adverbs 5.8.6 Social-Cultural, and Life of Mind 5.8.7 SKT’s Help in Grammar

5.9 LITERARY LEGACY OF SKT 5.10 PRAKRIT-OLD URDU/HINDI 5.11 LEXICAL EVOLUTION IN OLD URDU/HINDI 5.12 PKT-PALI LITERATURE (WORLD CLASS) 5.13 LINGUA EXTINCTORUM INDICA (LEXI) (IN OLD URDU) 5.14 CHAPTER SUMMARY

xiii

118 118 120 120 122 122 122 122 123 123

124 127 128 129 131 131

Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide CHAPTER VI. ARABIC-PERSIAN: NEW SUBSTRATES FROM THE MIDDLE EAST 133 6.0 INTRODUCTION 133 6.1 HISTORY’S MARCH 134 6.2 THE ROLE OF ARABIC/PERSIAN 135 6.3 ARABIC-PERSIAN CONTRIBUTIONS 137 6.4 ARABIC VERBS IN URDU/HINDI 138 6.5 PERSIAN VERBS IN URDU/HINDI 140 6.6 GENERAL VOCABULARY FROM ARABIC-PERSIAN 141 6.6.1 Relationship Words 6.6.2 Food, Fruits and Edibles, etc. 6.6.3 Household Items/Environment 6.6.6 Body Parts 6.6.7 Adjectives and Adverbs 6.6.8 Social-Cultural, and Life of Mind 6.6.9 Adverbs, Pronominal and Qualifying Particles

6.7 PLURAL MAKING/GRAMMAR 6.8 PERSIAN AFFIXES 6.9 A GLIMPSE OF ARABIC LITERATURE 6.10 GLIMPSE OF PERSIAN LITERATURE 6.11 CHAPTER SUMMARY

141 141 141 144 144 145 145

146 147 148 150 151

CHAPTER VII. LANGUAGE OF SAINTS AND SULTANS 7.0 INTRODUCTION 7.1 EVOLVING HINDIWI-HINDI AND DISPERSAL 7.2 VARIETY IN PHONETICS AND VOCABULARY 7.3 EARLIEST NAGARI-HINDI-URDU 7.4 EARLY POETS – WRITERS OF THE NORTH

153 153 155 156 157 159

7.4.3 Khusro–The Pioneer of the Term Hindi 7.4.4 Some Religious-Liberals of Urdu/Hindi 7.4.5 Some Secular Poets

160 162 164

7.5 GUJRAT AND URDU/HINDI 7.6 LANGUAGE OF THE SOUTH (DECCAN) 7.6.1 Deccani Sufi Poets 7.6.2 Poet King, Mohammad Quli Qutub Shah (1565–1612)

7.7 PRE-MOGHUL HINDI AND URDU 7.8 CHAPTER SUMMARY

166 167 168 169

169 170

CHAPTER VIII. SECULAR MOGHULS AND SECULAR LANGUAGE 8.0 INTRODUCTION 8.1 HISTORICAL MARCH – BABAR TO BRITISH (1500–1900) 8.2 THE MOGHULS’ “SECULAR CULTURAL STATE” 8.3 URDU’S DOSE OF TURKISH 8.4 URDU’S PLACE IN THE MOGHUL PHASE 8.6 URDU: NEW BRAND NAME AND CULTURE

xiv

171 171 171 173 174 175 179

Table of Contents 8.7 URDU’S LINGUISTIC GROWTH 8.8 POETS AND POETRY OF THE 18TH CENTURY – A GLIMPSE 8.8.1 Poets and Poetry of South India 8.8.2 Poets and Poetry of the North (East and West) 8.8.3 Poet Kings of Delhi 8.8.4 Lucknow Poetry and Culture (18th–19th Century) 8.8.5 Poets/Poetry of Other Places

8.9 PROSE: INDIAN UTILITY

180 181 182 183 186 186 189

191

8.9.1 Religious Utility Prose 8.9.2 Secular Prose

192 194

8.10 ADVENT OF LINGUISTIC SEPARATISM 8.11 CHAPTER SUMMARY CHAPTER IX. URDU: OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF BRITISH INDIA 9.0 INTRODUCTION 9.1 LINGUISTIC DEVICES 9.2 THE EUROPEANS’ LOVE OF INDIA 9.3 SURGING BRITISH PHASE 9.4 ARYANISM’S BIRTH – THE IE FAMILY 9.5 COMMUNALISM; DIVIDE AND RULE 9.6 LANGUAGE OF EMPIRE – URDU 9.7 PROSE DEVELOPMENT 9.7.1 Fort William College (FWC) 9.7.2 Professors at FWC 9.7.3 FWC – Authors and Publications

9.8 DELHI COLLEGE (DC)

195 196 197 197 198 198 199 199 200 201 201 202 202 204

205

9.8.1 Urdu’s Evolution at Delhi College 9.8.2 Some Faculty of DC 9.8.3 Delhi Alumni’s Boost to Urdu

9.9 SURGING URDU PROSE

206 206 207

208

9.9.1 Ghalib and Urdu Prose (1797-1869) 9.10 Sir Syed Ahmed Khan/Scientific Society 9.10.1 Syed Ahmed Khan (1817-1898) 9.10.2 MAOC or Scientific Society and Urdu’s Growth 9.10.3 Other (Non-MAOC) Scholars

9.11 REGIONAL SOCIETIES AND URDU PROSE 9.12 URDU POETRY IN THE 19TH CENTURY 9.12.1 North Indian Poets 9.12.2 South Indian Poets 9.12.3 Urdu Poetry of Suburbia/Village

9.13 BRITISH POETS OF URDU 9.14 19TH CENTURY UTILITY, URDU 9.15 CHAPTER SUMMARY

208 209 209 211 212

213 215 215 219 219

220 222 223

xv

Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide CHAPTER X. HINDI’S CREATOR: BRITISH BENGAL 10.0 INTRODUCTION 10.1 SCRIPTS AND EDUCATION IN THE 19TH CENTURY 10.2 HINDI’S SEED IN BENGAL (AT FORT WILLIAM) 10.3 DEFINITION OF NEO-HINDI 10.4 BENGALI’S HELP IN HINDI 10.5 HINDI WRITERS OF THE 19TH CENTURY 10.6 HINDI’S GROWTH 10.7 HINDI POETRY 10.8 HINDI LITERACY AND JOURNALISM 10.9 HINDI/URDU AND POLITICAL “ARYANISM” 10.9.1 Love and Hate in the Aryan Family

10.10 HINDI’S EXTERNAL HELP 10.11 BENGAL VS. HINDUSTAN 10.12 RADICALS OF HINDI MOVEMENT 10.13 SECULAR CONSERVATIVE: SIR SYED AHMAD KHAN 10.14 HINDI-URDU DUEL 10.14.1 Second Round 1870s 10.14.2 Third Round 1880s 10.14.3 Fourth Round 1890s 10.14.4 Fifth Round 1900

225 225 226 226 228 229 230 232 234 235 236 236

239 240 243 245 246 248 249 249 249

10.15 LINGUISTIC RACISM AND FREEDOM MOVEMENTS 10.16 CHAPTER SUMMARY

250 250

CHAPTER XI. PARTITION OF LANGUAGE, LAND, AND HEARTS 11.0 INTRODUCTION 11.1 BRITISH LEGACY AND POLITICS 11.2 MOVERS AND SHAKERS, THE LEADERS 11.3 EVENTS, EPISODES AND EXHORTATIONS 11.4 PROGRESSIVE WRITERS’ MOVEMENT 11.5 URDU/HINDI DEBACLE AND FOLLOW-UP 11.5.1 GANDHI’S TWINS – URDU/HINDI 11.6 STOP HINDI/URDU DEBACLE 11.7 SHOCK AND RECOVERY OF INDIAN URDU 11.8 “ISLAMIC URDU” OF PAKISTAN 11.9 DIVIDED LANGUAGE OF DIVIDED HEARTS 11.10 CHAPTER SUMMARY

253 253 254 254 255 259 260 262 263 265 268 271 273

CHAPTER XII. URDU THROUGH THE 20TH CENTURY 12.0 INTRODUCTION 12.1 MODERN POETS AND POETRY 12.2 MUSHAIRA CULTURE 12.3 MUSHAIRA – ORGANIZERS – POETS 12.4 URDU PROSE/CULTURAL FLOW 12.5 CHAPTER SUMMARY

275 275 275 283 285 288 293

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Table of Contents CHAPTER XIII. HINDI’S EVOLUTION THROUGH THE 20TH CENTURY 13.0 INTRODUCTION 13.1 LANGUAGE EVOLUTION AND STREAMS 13.2 CREATIVITY AND SUBSTITUTION 13.3 PROGRESSIVE WRITERS’ MOVEMENT (PWM) AND HINDI 13.4 MODERN HINDI POETRY 13.4.1 RECENT POETRY 13.5 HINDI PROSE 13.6 PROSE LITERATURE (LIFE-OF-MIND PROSE) 13.7 MUSLIMS’ HINDI 13.8 ISLAMIC CREDENTIAL OF HINDI 13.8.1 HINDI’S RELIGIOUS ISLAMIC LITERATURE 13.9 HINDI’S ARABIC PHONEMES/DEMOGRAPHIC SHIFT 13.10 CHAPTER SUMMARY

295 295 295 297 301 301 306 308 309 310 310 311 312 314

CHAPTER XIV. URDU/HINDI: A SHOW BIZ POWER 14.0 INTRODUCTION 14.1 FILM LANGUAGE – QUALITY CONTROL 14.2 BIRTH OF DRAMA/STAGE 14.3 COMMERCIAL STAGE: EVOLUTION 14.4 DRAMA ACADEMICS 14.5 DRAMA ANTHOLOGY 14.6 URDU OR HINDI OF THE FILM WORLD 14.7 FILM TITLES AND POLITICS 14.8 FILMS AND THE LUCKNOW URDU ACCENT 14.9 SILVER SCREEN ANTHEMS/SONGS 14.10 FILM SONGS, HUMANISM/DEVOTIONALISM 14.11 FILM’S VISION: ‘HINDUSTANIAT’ AND URDU 14.12 CHAPTER SUMMARY

315 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 330 331 332

CHAPTER XV. URDU/HINDI OF AMERICA AND THE WORLD 15.0 INTRODUCTION 15.1 UNITED KINGDOM/EUROPE 15.2 USA AND CANADA 15.2.1 URDU/HINDI – USA 15.2.2 LANGUAGE CENTERS/AUTHORS 15.2.3 URDU/HINDI JOURNALISM 15.2.4 POETRY AND MUSHAIRA CULTURE AND SINGERS’ CONCERT 15.2.5 AMERICAN POETS OF URDU AND HINDI 15.3 URDU/HINDI AROUND THE WORLD 15.4 URDU/HINDI FUTURE IN THE DIASPORA 15.5 CHAPTER SUMMARY

333 333 333 335 336 337 339 339 340 344 346 346

xvii

Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide CHAPTER XVI. URDU/HINDI SCRIPTS: COMMON ORIGIN 16.0 INTRODUCTION 16.1 MYTHS ABOUT WRITING 16.2 A TIME LINE OF WRITING (GLOBAL) 16.3 SOUTH ASIANS’ POPULAR VIEW 16.4 PHONETIC ALPHABETS 16.5 EARLIEST ALPHABETS 16.6 ARAMAIC TO GREEK-ROMAN 16.7 URDU’S ARABIC SCRIPT 16.7.1 Miniature Letters/Connectivity/Vowels

16.8 NAGARI (HINDI) SCRIPT 16.9 ARABIC(-URDU)-NAGARI EXCHANGE 16.10 INDIAN WRITING SYSTEM SYLLABIC/ALPHABETIC 16.11 POLITICS OF SCRIPTS AND INDUS VALLEY 16.12 CHAPTER SUMMARY CHAPTER XVII. MESOPOTAMIAN REALISM AND RE-CLASSIFICATION 17.0 INTRODUCTION 17.1 LINGUISTS AND THE CHURCH 17.2 MESOPOTAMIAN CIVILIZATION 17.3 LINGUISTIC ISSUES AND RECLASSIFICATION 17.3.1 Hypothetical Phonemes of PIE 17.3.2 Features of IE and Semitic 17.3.3 Degeneration and Glotto Chronology

17.4 TATSAM AND TAD-BHAV: DILEMMA/DECEPTIONS 17.5 MESOPOTAMIA ANCIENT FAMILY (MAF) 17.6 NEW CLASSIFICATION 17.6.1 The New Classification: Three Grand Super-Families

17.7 MEINDO-ASIATIC (MEIA) SUPER FAMILY 17.7.1 MEIA Cultural Dimension 17.7.2 Linguistic Links MEIA

347 347 347 349 350 350 351 353 353 356

357 358 358 360 361 363 363 364 366 368 368 368 369

371 372 377 378

381 381 385

17.8 HINDUSTANI-SOUTH ASIAN OR A SUPER FAMILY 17.9 CHAPTER SUMMARY

385 387

BIBLIOGRAPHY

389

INDEX

397

xviii

Transliteration for Urdu/Hindi Words

*Note: Transliteration is based on S. K. Chatterji (1972) pp. XXV-XXXIV

1

FOREWORD The story of Urdu/Hindi, the lingua franca of the Indo-Pakistani people, is the story of one language with two separate scripts and with two names: Hindi, when written in Nagari, and Urdu, when written in Arabic. This book is thorough, complete, and free from religious dogmas, and the theories it elaborates are based solely on evidence derived from studies of evolution, integrated with studies of man’s oldest language, Sumerian. It exposes the Europeans’ policy (led by British India) in pioneering the concept of mythical races linked to linguistic families, i.e., Semitic, and Aryan/IE, which led to anti-Semitism, religious nationalism, and India’s religionbased partition and politics. The story of the division of language mirrors the latter policy, which is unraveled in the book. Adopting the most recent evidence of the evolution of human language, starting from an early base in Africa, the book records its dispersal outward from the Middle East, or Mesopotamia, by farmers, and traces the creation of new names, such as IE, Semitic, and Dravidian. The book presents a cumulative/synthetic plan describing Urdu’s evolution over some 10,000–12,000 years with major contributions from India’s two oldest language families, Austric-Munda and Dravidian, followed much later by others such as Sanskrit, Arabic, and Persian; this apparently unsettles the currently held view of Urdu/Hindi as a daughter dialect of Sanskrit, a 19th-century idea rooted in Hindu religious myth, the German myth of an Aryan race and its supposed hypothetical language proto-Indo European (PIE) — a scholarly invention — the presumed mother of IE, SKT, and grandmother of Latin and other languages which have been said to be derived from them. A major and also unique segment on Mesopotamian languages reveals the origin of Dravidian, Semitic, Arabic, and Indo-European (IE), including Sanskrit, in the Middle East as hybrids of the simplest Sumerian, Elamite, etc., refuting all racial/religious claims of PIE, HEB, and SKT. The evolution of English is cited in parallel in the book, and is shown to originate not from a dissolution of PIE/ Gothic but to be a cumulative from Pictic, Celtic, Latin, Old French, and AngloSaxon German.

3

Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide A new classification based on grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and geography, and free from religion/racial myth, is presented as the other thesis in the book. As a work of history the book carries a message, especially for the Indo-Pakistani people, as it uncovers the very first vector, “mythical/racial” linguistics, as a proximate cause for the partition, and also for escalating Hindu vs. Muslim, and Aryan vs. Dravidian polemics. Urdu’s history is also enmeshed with man’s oldest (written) religious ideas/ terms, which were written down in Mesopotamia, e.g., names of gods, i.e., Indira, Mitra, Siva, Allah, rab, etc., which are shared by Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and Christians, and is enmeshed as well with Mesopotamia’s rich vocabulary and grammar — shared among Arabic, Sanskrit, Dravidian, and Persian; these topics remain isolated in the obscurity of advanced scholarship. The book may be seen as a peace mission with a global perspective, free from mythical dogma. The history of languages, culture, and religion from about 300 BC onwards has divided man into Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and other groups; the history between 300 BC and 3000 BC can reunite him to a common heritage of culture, religious ideas, sciences, and a common linguistic melting pot with a single shared script in Mesopotamia, centered at Iraq, and inclusive of its eastern end (western India) and western (Egypt/Greece) range of influence. Besides this shared heritage, the Indo-Pakistani people will find another scientific perspective in the book, their advent from common genetic parents, termed “Adam # 5 and Eve G,” mutant/migrants from Africa. A synthetic and evolution-based work, the book involves many disciplines. The author, a physician, had already learned six languages: Urdu, Hindi, English, Persian, Arabic, and some SKT before engaging in this effort. Acquiring the requisite knowledge in the other fields implies a rather intensive labor of love, and love of a challenge. Postponing further self-analysis for now, I must highlight some core research findings scattered in the seventeen chapters. The book follows a historic timeline from chapters III to X, including Mesopotamia (chapter III) and India (chapters IV to X), and focuses on the evolution of hybrid Urdu along with a brief cultural review. The first two chapters offer an overview, language classification, and a basic course on phonetic/alphabets and grammar types, i.e., isolating, agglutinating, inflected, and syntax, which are essential in enabling the reader to understand the dialectal differences inside and outside India — knowledge as basic to linguistic analysis as anatomy is to a physician. Chapter X vividly captures British professors (in 1800) in Calcutta deliberately creating Hindu’s “Hindi,” Urdu’s earlier name, coined by a Muslim poet in the 13th century. Chapter XII deals with modern Urdu, and Chapter XIII deals with modern Hindi and its creation through the substitution of Arabic/Persian words by the thousands with terms newly back-formed or created from SKT. Chapter XVI deals with the common origin of scripts, including SKT, and Hindi is another focus, with Mesopotamia as the source. The last chapter, chapter XVII, includes a new classification based on grammar, a basic feature of any language, which was ignored in the creation of the IE/Aryan family. Highly inflected SKT and Latin were equated and placed with the

4

Foreword agglutinating types, Celtic and Armenian; the latter two really should be classified with Dravidian, Finnish, and Turkish, and Sanskrit grouped with Latin and Arabic. Some important highlights of the book are:

GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY Urdu’s “isolating” feature inherited from oldest Austric and its syntax inherited from Dravidian rule out the theory that it consists of alleged dialects of highly inflected SKT. SKT provides only 7–10% of its vocabulary. The bulk of the vocabulary, about 60% (chapters IV and V), are from Austric Munda and DR sources, yet it has remained classified as SKT. Some words are really high profile — Pundit (learned), Brahmin (priest), puja (worship), dharma (religion), mandir (temple), manush (man), nagar (city), nir (water), pushp (flower), megh (cloud), madhu (honey); these were loaned into SKT and Hindi from a verifiable DR source and German scholars blindly believed them to be SKT. Similarly, many words from Munda sources such as Jorna-Ghatana (add-substract), girna (fall), dubna (sink), jal (water), jalna (burn), maha (great), lagana (connect), and others, were also considered SKT. Of the three Urdu words for water (jal, nir, and pani) and four for bread (roti, nan, chapatti, and phulka), none is SKT. Numerous other examples in the book reveal Urdu/Hindi as being much older than and distinct from SKT — a fact which was noted also by Sir William Jones (1786) but was not publicized. Other major sources account for a good 20-25% of the Urdu vocabulary. Most are Arabic-Persian words (chapter VI), which have gone into Indian holy books, i.e., Ramayan and Granth Sahab.

MESOPOTAMIAN LANGUAGES Mesopotamian languages are the oldest sources of Arabic, arising from Sumero-Babylonian (~3000 BC), Dravidian from Elamite (2500 BC), SKT, HurrianMitanni-Hittite (1500 BC), and Persian from Elamite/Hittite, all interactive and having a shared vocabulary and literature. A significant vocabulary of some 100-plus words included in the book in fact suggests that the creation of a separate family would be justified. Some of the every-day words in Urdu/Hindi from this area are: āb (water), rab (chief), gu (cow), banāna (make), calna (walk), parh (read), atal (immovable), rath (chariot), labas (dress), mitra (friend), hisab (calculate), naru (river), karmela (camel), su (good), and maha (great); many of these are in SKT, IE, DR, and Urdu/Hindi. A few others include: mae (I/me), dena (give), and cut, kat, or qit (cut). Both types of grammar, agglutinating and inflected, three types of numbers (SKT, Arabic, and Latin), and the smallest number of phonemes (12–15 consonants and 3–5 vowels), when recognized by European scholars in the 19th–20th centuries, discredited all the linguistic myths — but the mythical classification still lives on.

5

Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide HINDI/URDU LITERATURE Early literature (mainly poetic) from the Pali (Urdu’s oldest name) phase integrates with Sufi literature of the 9–16th centuries to become one language, called Hindi at that time. After 1800–1900, it diverges into a Hindi and an Urdu stream. A voluminous secular literature, both poetry and prose, exist in both. Many of their themes reveal the echoes of Mesopotamia, e.g., Aesop’s animal fable of Badpai, and the Epic of Gilgamesh (chapter III).

URDU/HINDI POLITICS Urdu, as a successor of Persian, was adopted by the British (1835) as the administrative language and a medium of education because of the national and global status of Persian script. Chapters X and XI deal with the synthesis of a new Hindi, by the purging of Arabic/Persian words and the demand and struggle of Hindu nationalists to remove Urdu, declaring it (and everything Muslim) to be foreign. The British, who created Hindi and instigated the development of Hindi nationalism, never removed Urdu and the struggle continued until partition. The role of secular leaders Gandhi, Jinnah, Nehru, also highlighted in chapter XI, reveals that Gandhi (who had favored Urdu’s continuation even after partition), was perceived as pro-Muslim. In India Urdu lost its status as the primary language (to its twin, Hindi, in 1949), but it remained important. In Pakistan it has retained its prime position.

GLOBALISM IN URDU/HINDI Seen from a deeper perspective that recognizes the global substrates in its genesis, Urdu/Hindi has grown to be a global language, true to its heritage. It may be the world’s most widely-used language, if one includes its variants (Gujarati, Punjabi, etc.). Chapter XV provides a unique focus on their status in the USA, the UK, and worldwide with a diaspora of around 20–30 million people. Here Urdu is thriving and Hindi is not, because of Hindi’s rivalry with other branches, like Gujarati, due to differences in the script. The role of the Indo-Pakistani media and film industries has been consistently positive and secular and they never switched to “new Hindi” for commercial reasons; they have retained the quality of pre-divided India. A chapter devoted to media/show biz focuses on its role in maintaining the cultural unity of South Asia. Urdu has retained its hold on the main streets of India but under an altered name, Hindi. Chapter XIII (on modern Hindi) reveals the reversion of a “politically created” Hindi to its same old quality, neither Hindu nor Muslim, but nonparochial, secular, Indian or South Asian. As a New York physician, alien to the humanities, I might seem an unlikely author for such a book. But each person develops in specific circumstances, and my formative years were shaped by the Hindu/Muslim mutual slaughter that accom-

6

Foreword panied the partition of India. I grew up during the 1940s-60s in the high-voltage Hindu-Muslim politics of the pre-partition phase witnessing incessant riots, food/fuel shortages, murders, stabbings, arson, curfews, sirens, and impending death/annihilation. As a Muslim boy in a Vedic-Hindu school I spent five years (grades 3-7) in this volatile atmosphere under the stigma of being a “traitor Muslim, divider of mother India.” Thus stems the intensity of my passion in ferreting out the history and tracing the roots of the divide. Vedic schooling was certainly priceless, as I memorized Vedic hymns and noticed similarities in Islam and Hinduism, and enjoyed celebrating Hindu festivals and learning to be a “good Muslim” and a Vedic Indian. My father, an educator, lawyer, history buff and poet, in fact had encouraged my Vedic education over the much closer and safer Islamic College in Allahabad. He also removed my partition guilt by producing evidence that Pakistan, an accepted compromise, was never meant for all Muslims. A critical milestone of this phase was the removal of Urdu, my mother tongue, from the syllabus and its replacement by Hindi, imposing academic hardship and psychological stress. Hindi and Urdu script were believed to be “Hindu” and “Muslim” everywhere. How could a script be Muslim or Hindu? That had become a challenging question for me, though for the time being I had enough questions to answer, through secondary school, college and medical school. But very soon I became convinced of its political nature. I conducted graduate studies at Chandigarh, Indian Punjab, which found itself split between Hindus and Sikhs, along linguistic lines. For Sikhs, the Gurmukhi script of the Punjabi language is holy, similar to the AR, SKT, and HEB script. A major episode was the removal of SKT’s DNS (Dev-Nagari script), supposedly holy, from South India and Bengal by the Hindus themselves. Politics drives holiness. A message was sent again when Bangladesh split from Pakistan, belying the myth that Urdu’s Arabic script guaranteed national unity. My stay in Punjab taught me a seventh language, Punjabi, before I landed in New York in 1969. During my entire career, ending in a professorship/chairmanship in New York, I have asked language/script questions of thousands of professional émigrés from the subcontinent. Among the educated a common belief is found — that Urdu came from Hindi, which came from SKT and Urdu is “Muslim” because of its Arabic features and script. Arabic is holy to Muslims, and Sanskrit is to Hindus, and Hebrew is to Jews (that, I learnt in New York). The book provides answers to the political perception of “holiness.” Sumerian, as far as we can tell man’s first language, was a secular utility, and so are all languages. But the acquisition of holy literature creates holiness. Modern Hindi created for Hindus now is turning holy for Indian Muslims, a point noted in chapter XIII. A major concept, that languages are an earthly creation free from religion, becomes all too clear. This is my reward — and therapy — for the “psychological trauma” produced by my childhood (as diagnosed by Dr. Faiza Pastula, my daughter). As the work advanced, was read by friends and presented at two university centers in India and South Africa, I perceived difficulties in its acceptance by religious and/or political nationalists, especially Indian, as it undermines all the three prevalent dogmas — Sanskrit’s mythical Indo-centric creation, its Aryan origin from Germany, and India as the oldest independent civilization. But these dogmas really

7

Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide amount to a matter of faith and exist mainly due to lack of a full historical record. Likewise, I foresee difficulties in acceptance among pro-Arabic faithfuls, who may find solace in Quranic views regarding languages as mere utilities, transmitter of ideas/messages (chapter I). However, for many scientific-oriented, English-educated, modern Indo-Pakistani people, some 3% of the population (about 50 million), the book may be a breath of fresh air, and may accelerate understanding among racial and religious groups and countries of South Asia. And Urdu/Hindi may be seen differently, as neither Aryan nor Dravidian, nor Hindu nor Muslim, but as a purely Indian, or South Asian, hybrid of five known linguistic groups, Munda, Dravidian, Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic. The concern for potential emotional distress to the religious faithful has been foremost as I prepare this work. I do regret any hurt that may be felt, but as a physician/scientist I am committed to my own faith of seeking out and sharing the truth, which I believe I have reported here with verifiable accuracy. The reader must note that subversion of the truth has been practiced everywhere and comes with a price; numerous examples are cited in the book. As a matter of fact, this type of book could have been easily authored by someone like the linguist S. K. Chatterji, well before India was partitioned, and it could have easily changed the course of history by healing both religious and racial division. But he had a clear pro-British agenda (chapter XI), which was divisive. This book is focused on inclusiveness and healing, through scientific history. The latter really requires rising above one’s personal bias. This type of attitude is now part of the new English-educated middle-class in Pakistan and India, modern in outlook, with a global and scientific perspective, and an aptitude for self-criticism and reorientation. The book, a reflection of this positive attitude, is primarily addressed to this group. The famous peace process now underway between India and Pakistan may want a page from this linguistic history book, which especially recognizes “Hindustani,” the linguistic super family uniting all in the subcontinent. That is the focus of the last chapter.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A work of this magnitude and diversity indeed required broad support and intellectual inspiration from many specialists in humanities. Dr. Irfan Habib, India’s leading historian and former professor at AMU Aligarh, graciously shared some research data on Semitic languages pointing out the usage of Arabic words as early as Asoka’s time. Dr. Syed Jabir Raza and Dr. Khalil Beg of the history and linguistic departments, respectively, of AMU, extended signifiacnt assistance. My seminar in the Linguistic Department before the faculty and graduate students was a significant confidence builder, as was another seminar at the Ranchi University faculty, organized by Dr. Jawed Ahmad, who, along with Dr. Jamil Akhtar, had very kindly connected me with Munda speakers, and speakers of Dravidian, Malto and Kurux, two basic factors in the creation of Hindi/Urdu. Dr. Karma Oraon and Parkash Oraon, the tribal intellectuals, shared their exciting tribal festival and also provided some material in Munda linguistics. Another prominent academic, a professor of Urdu at Allahabad University (India), Dr. Atia Nishat, provided useful insight on Urdu’s status in India, besides the moral support of a member of my extended family. Naheed Zia of Karachi (Pakistan) collected valuable books and so did my sister Mrs. Siddiqa Burney of Lucknow, an educator and an Urdu major, whose tragic early death has deprived me of a potential translator/collaborator. Prof. Akhtar-ul-Waseh of Delhi, a multi-linguist, in addition to verbal support provided numerous books including his rare ones; rare books were also accessed through Dr. Qazi Inamul Hai, a scientist and former faculty member at Columbia University in New York. Technical support for this “computer illiterate” author, came from several people: Hina Siddiqui, Hafsa Mohsin, Karthi Subramaniam, Subul Niazi, Dr. Leonard Pastula and his wife, Faiza Khan Pastula, M.D., among others. Mrs. Yasmin Alvi, an educator and major in English literature, a teacher at Jericho Public School, really adopted the book as a personal business and challenge, typing, editing, coordinating, and bearing the stress all the way. Ms. Rubina Niaz of New York, who translated a few Urdu verses, also assisted in typing work. Sarah Fazli, of Johns Hopkins,

9

Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide deserves a special thanks; she not only helped with the final editorial polish and proof reading but also in formatting and footnote insertions. Critical reviews by Doctors Pratibha Khare, Ph.D., Dr. Fasih Siddiqui, Ph.D., Dr. Smitha Kumar, M.D., and Bahubal Kumar, M.D. revealed an anxiety for potential difficulties in its acceptance by the religious orthodox. As Dr. Khare observed, this book intends to change history as it has been taught, on the basis of linguistic evidence. Faiz Khan, M.D., my son, provided valuable insight into the pure “mercantile indulgence” of European powers, fitting right into their Indian political ventures and Aryan/Semitic linguistics, clothed in “academic” drapery but mercantile all the same. A critical review by Prof. B.N.S Walia, MD., my professional mentor and former director of PGI Chandigarh, India, helped soften the language on sensitive, religious/political issues. Moral support, inspiration, and tolerance of my monologues have been pretty much expected of most friends and members of my extended family, such as Mr. Riaz Alvi, Mrs. Ayesha Alvi, Alvira Gilani, Drs. Balbir Singh, Surendra Varma, Santosh Khare, and Farooque Khan, Mr. Sarfaraz Khan, Mr. Nasir Farooqui, Mr. Muzaffar Habib, Mr. Husain Imam, Dr. Jamil Akhtar, Dr. Razi Siddiqui, Dr. Irfan Amin and Dr. Ramesh Jhaveri, Dr. Nazia Faiz Qadir and Rabia Siddiqui, all from the U.S.A., Mrs. Shama Hasan of the BBC, London, and Husain Amin, a Lucknow journalist, Prof. Farid Ghani of Malaysia, formerly of AMU, Dr. Abdul Jalil Khan of Allahabad, and Mr. Farrukh Ghani, a professor at AMU, and his son Haris Ghani, have helped with significant research materials and library resources. My understanding of speech and linguistic evolution and its ontological aspect was greatly expanded and reinforced by close observations on Zain, Noah and Layla (my grandkids); these ideas on infants’ acquisition of phonemes are reflected in chapter II. Dr. Shaista Rahman, a former professor of English at City University of New York, was one of the most inspiring enthusiasts. Her premature demise has sadly deprived me of a pat on the back. Her husband, formerly a professor of English at City University, Mr. Asad-ur-Rahman, has provided a useful critique. Ahmad Mutee Siddiqui, M.D., a member of my extended family and a lifelong friend with a deep insight into Urdu’s history and literature, has been consistent in inspiring and reviewing the chapters. His contribution was no less than that of Farida Khan, M.D., my better half, who has absorbed most of the book by daily briefing with morning teas and dinners. She has been the real power, driving the pace of this venture. Mr. Abdul Majid Khan, the prominent journalist from Karachi and archivist of books and other material especially on the Indian mutiny, deserves special thanks. As the eldest first cousin he consistently encouraged me and also critically reviewed the manuscript. Finally, I must express my appreciation for Algora Publishing, who really encouraged this first-time author. Their support in this multi-specialty venture was invaluable, and their staff, interacting with Yasmin Alvi and Sarah Fazli, did help us carry through this commitment. Abdul Jamil Khan, M.D. Hunt Club Jericho, New York.

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List of Tables and Illustrations

LIST OF TABLES AND ILLUSTRATIONS Table I.1 Table II.1 Figure II.1 Table II.2 Figure II.2 Table III.1 Table III.2

Theaters of Urdu/Hindi and Others 15 Speech Phonemes 39 Urdu’s Ancestral Links and Super families 46 Common Urdu/Hindi Verbs and Their Source 51 Metaphorical Schematic DNA/Urdu: Substrate 54 Some Sumerian Words in Urdu/Hindi and Other Languages 63 Proto Elamo-Dravidian, Proto Dravidian and Dravidian Words 67 Table III.3 Hittite Words in Urdu and Other Languages 71 Table III.4 Some Ancient Semitic Words Found in Urdu/Hindi and Others 72 Table III.5 Words of Vedic and Avestan and Urdu/Hindi 76 Table III.6 Mesopotamia Phonemes and Modern Urdu/Hindi Phonemes 77 Table IV.1 Austric Munda - Verbs in Urdu/Hindi 93 Table IV.2A Urdu Verbs from Dravidian 103 Table IV.2B Urdu Verbs from Dravidian 104 Table V.1 Urdu Verbs from Sanskrit 121 Table VI.1 Arabic-Phonetic Package 136 Table VI.2 Arabic Verbs in Urdu/Hindi 139 Table VI.3 Persian Verbs in Urdu/Hindi 142 Table IX.1 Books Published at Fort Williams 203 Table X.1 Examination Results 1864-1885 241 Table X.2 19th Century Job Distribution in NWP or UP 242 Figure XI.1 A Specimen of Gandhi’s Handwriting 264 Figure XVI.1 Cuneiform Scripts 349 Figure XVI.2 Resemblance between Oldest Letters of Aramaic, Brahmi, Greek and their Meaning 352 Figure XVI.3 Urdu’s Arabic Letters 354 Figure XVI.4 Dev-Nagari Letters of Urdu/Hindi 355 Figure XVI.5 Indus Valley Writing/Seals 359 Table XVII.1A Vocabulary of Middle East Farmers 371 Table XVII.1B Vocabulary of Middle East Farmers 372 Table XVII.2 Shared Numerals in IE, Semitic, Dravidian and Sumerian 373 Table XVII.3 Vocabulary in ME-Indo-Asiatic 380

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide

In Memoriam This book is dedicated to the memory of someone who would have been “the happiest man” upon the publication of this work. Abdul Majeed Khan (1905-1967), the author’s father, a multilingual educator, poet, and humanist, belonged to the Peshawar area in Pakistan and migrated with the family to Allahabad (India), where he died. Two of his most critical decisions were essential in giving this author a chance: a preference for an Anglo-Vedic (Hindu) schooling over an Anglo-Islamic, and the choice, at India’s partition, not to migrate back to ancestral Pakistan, thus exposing the author to a multilingual and multi-religious culture. May his soul rest in peace.

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CHAPTER I. MESOPOTAMIAN ROOTS AND LANGUAGE CLASSIFICATION

1.0 INTRODUCTION Urdu, Hindi, and Hindustani are three names for one speech/language, the lingua franca of the Indian subcontinent or undivided British India (prior to 1947). Written in Arabic-Persian script (APS), it is popularly known as Urdu, and in DevNagari script (DNS) as Hindi. Greco-Roman script (GRS), too, has been in use since the 19th century. Under the names Urdu and/or Hindustani (in APS), this was the official language of British India since 1835 and is currently the official language of Pakistan. In India it is still commonly utilized as the second language in many states. Under its second name, Hindi, in DNS, it assumed modest significance after 1900, mainly among Hindus, and replaced its twin by taking on the official status in divided India after 1947. In grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and history, Urdu/Hindi is one language. Besides the difference in the script, another minor difference resides in the variable (10-30%) Persian-Arabic content in their written forms, being higher in Urdu than in Hindi. In speech the two are the same. At the global level, Urdu/Hindi is among the most widely-used languages, a close second after (Mandarin) Chinese. In the subcontinent, about 700 million people claim it as their mother tongue and/or second language. To comprehend the history and linguistic base of Urdu/Hindi, one has to look at the Indian subcontinent or South Asia as a geopolitical and linguistic entity, like Europe, with language-based regional sub-nations and a shared vision of history and culture. Linguistically, as many as four families are identifiable — the largest IndoAryan (IA) branch of the worldwide Indo-European (IE) family, Tibeto-Burmese (TBR) of China, Dravidian (DR), and the large Austro-Asiatic (AA) family of Pacific South East Asia. TBR occupies the extreme northeast bordering China-Burma and the Indian state of Assam, and Bangladesh. The DR family with its four popular languages, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam, dominates the south. The IA family dominates the rest in about three-fourths of undivided India. The oldest family, AA,

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide perhaps 20,000 years old, through its dialects, Munda, Santali, Kol, etc., overlaps all others but is concentrated in the central eastern highlands in the state of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand and Bihar1; its role is more basic in Urdu and other languages, such as Sindhi, Punjabi, Kashmiri, Gujrati, Marathi, Bengali, Assami, Oriya, and Nepali, which are currently grouped as IA dialects of IE Sanskrit (SKT). Urdu/Hindi, the largest among these, is well comprehended in all IA dialectional tracts; all share a common genesis, grammar, syntax, and about 90% of their vocabulary. These dialects appropriately can be called para-Urdu or para-Hindi despite their own regional scripts and political culture. In addition, Urdu/Hindi is not infrequently spoken in these areas as a second language, and its films are equally popular. Urdu/Hindi may be, in fact, the world’s most widely used language, if one includes para-Urdu or regional dialects. As a hybrid, Urdu is like English. However, while English draws from Pictic, Celtic, Gothic, Latin, French, and Greek, all from the IE family, Urdu draws from several families. In its cumulative evolution over some 10,000 years or more, Urdu/ Hindi has absorbed elements from AA, DR, IA (Sanskrit), IE (Persian), Semitic Arabic, as well as from Turkish and English. Its phonetics and vocabulary are, perhaps, the richest, for these obvious reasons.

1.1 SCIENTIFIC HISTORY: SUMMARIZED The scientific history of Urdu covers the entire history of linguistic science, which was initially clouded by various myths but is now identified with the evolution of three major linguistic families, DR, IE, and Semitic (from the Middle East or greater Mesopotamia, including Greece, northwest India, and Syria/Turkey and centered in Iraq, the West Asian heartland). As summarized in Table 1, the four theaters of evolution of Urdu’s ingredients include the Sumero Babylonian theater in Iraq, which created the oldest “Semitic” language, Akkadian, around 3000 BC, which then evolved into Arabic and Hebrew. A second theater was Iran-Afghanistan, which generated Elamite (~3000 BC), Dravidian’s cousin later absorbed into Old Persian. In the theater of Syria/Turkey, Hurrian-Mitanni and Hittite (~1500 BC) came into being and later evolved into various IE branches, Greek, Sanskrit, and elements of Old Persian. Urdu’s home theater, India, or the Indus Valley, is considered to be Dravidian, a cousin of the Elamite of Iran. Socially and culturally, most of greater Mesopotamia for almost 4000 years was interactive, using common scripts, cuneiform, and later Phoenician-Aramaic script (PAS), which, in the historical period, gave birth to the APS, DNS, and GRS. Urdu’s home theater, India, had been (Table 1) layered with AA speakers migrating from West Asia and followed by others also from the west. These layered accumulations from West Asia show up in Urdu/Hindi’s grammar, syntax, vocabulary, culture and religious ideas, as we will see later. This brief statement is fully supported by archaeological discoveries made in the past 125 years 1. S. K. Chatterji (1969), pp. 37–39.

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Chapter I. Mesopotamian Roots and Language Classification or so. But when language classification came into being in the early 19th century, these discoveries had not yet been made, and the science of linguistics was driven by religious and/or racial concepts and their political exploitations. These efforts were led exclusively by Europeans, especially the French, the Germans, and the British, who had seen the world through religious confrontation: Christianity versus Islam, Jews versus Christians, Semitic versus Aryan, and Hindu versus Muslim, and so on, and who had nothing to gain by leaving a sleeping giant intact and ready to feel its strength. This author’s perspective, “Language, just a utility,” secular and independent of religions, is a point of focus in this book’s exploration of the genetics of Urdu/Hindi. But the prevalent or textbook version of the linguistic history of Urdu, Hindi, Sanskrit, and all others, is still rooted in ethnocentrism and myths, e.g., Aryan and Semitic etc. A standard textbook narrative is relevant to provide a context for further understanding.

Table I.1 Theaters of Urdu/Hindi and Others Time Line

West Asia, Iraq, Syria

Iran/Afghanistan

Central Asia, Turkey/Syria

10-8000 BCE

Pre-Sumerian

Pro-Elam-Dr

Hattusi

Elamite

6-2000 BCE

2-1000 BCE

India Indus Valley

Austric-Munda Proto-Dravidian

Sumerian

Elamite,

Hattusi, Caucasian

Munda, Proto-Dravidian

Akkadian

Sumero/Akk

Sumer/Akk

Elamite

Hittite, Akk, Hurrian

Munda, DR

Babylonian

Sumero/Akk

Uratrian

Aramaic, Vedic

Hybrid Pkt (unknown)

Pkt (unknown)

1000 BCE-

Aramaic

Aramaic, Elamite

Pharygian Greek

SKT, Munda, DR,

300 CE

Assyrian

Old Persian

Aramaic, Armenian

Pkt (Pali) Aramaic

100-1000 CE

Aramaic,

Persian, Aramaic

Greek, Turkish

Arabic, Greek

Arabic

Aramaic, Armenian

SKT, Munda, DR, Pkts (Pali) Persian, Arabic

1000-1500 CE

Arabic

Persian, Arabic

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Greek, Turkish

SKT, Munda, DR, PER,

Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide

1600-1900 CE

Arabic

Persian, Arabic

Arabic

Hindi/Urdu

Turkish, Greek

SKT, Munda, DR, PER

Arabic

Arab, Urdu/Hindi, Gujrati, Bengali

18-2000 CE

Arabic

Persian, Arabic

Turkish, Greek

Urdu/Hindi, DR,

Arabic English

Munda, PER, English

1.2 TEXTBOOK HISTORY The history of Urdu/Hindi starts with the arrival of Aryans in India (1000-1500 BC), and SKT is presumed to begin the process. By Buddha’s time (400-500 BC) one finds a highly-developed language, SKT, among the elite and/or “Brahmins,” and another of presumed inferior quality, Prakrit (PKT), used by common folks and having regional variations. The Centro-Eastern variety of PKT, called Pali, became Buddha’s language and was adopted by King Asoka as his official language and was used in his inscriptions (280 BC), making Pali — not SKT — the oldest written language of India. With the decreased status of Buddhism, SKT, appearing in written form first in AD 150, superseded PKT Pali. Pali and other PKTs remained the language of common folks, while SKT became our first known example of the common linguistic double standard: one language for elites only, the other for both commoners and elites. SKT generated an enormous amount of secular and technical literature, not to mention the Hindu religious treatises, and maintained its higher-castes orientation. After the 7th century two new West Asian languages, Arabic and Persian, written in APS, were brought in and assumed to be Islamic since the invaders/immigrants had adopted Islam in the previous century. Indian elites (both Hindus and Muslims) under Muslim rule maintained the double standard. Persian replaced Sanskrit, while PKT acquired the new APS script. The PKT spoken around the Delhi area was named “Hindi” in the 13th century by a Muslim poet, Amir Khusro, and the name Urdu was slowly adopted, around 1800, during the late Moghul period. Urdu in APS remained the people’s language, generating a rich and popular literature for fun and entertainment. The British, who controlled the country after 1767, maintained the double standard, using Persian but later adopting Urdu also for official use (1835). Urdu stayed on course and grew, slowly replacing Persian after 1858, but it faced a new challenge from the English language. Under the British, the Indian elites slowly adopted the English language in the 19th and 20th centuries for higher education and administration, while Urdu retained its parallel official position. But in the 1800s the British also revived DNS for writing Urdu and named it “Hindi,” declaring it to be the language of the Hindus and driving

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Chapter I. Mesopotamian Roots and Language Classification a wedge between the two communities. Urdu was stigmatized as the language of “foreigners,” the Semitic Muslims, by the British and collaborating Hindus. Hindi and Urdu, the twins, then drove the “divide-and-rule” policy of the British, who helped develop Hindi slowly and recognized it (1900) nominally as a second language. When the British left in 1947, a largely Hindu India adopted Hindi as its official language, replacing Urdu, which has maintained its position in Pakistan.

1.3 EVOLUTION OF CLASSIFICATION The evolution of classification is really embedded in the prevalent religious dogmas of the 18th century, such as SKT being the progenitor of all the world’s languages, Semitic (APS), a right-to-left writing system, being Islamic, and DNS, leftto-right, as Hindu or Indian. Additionally, the dogma of the creation of the alphabet (GRS) by the Greeks was part of the mythical baggage. The myth that Hinduism was the oldest religion was embraced by Europe and in 1700–1800 India was declared to have been the ancient homeland of white Europeans, who presumably had migrated out to Europe. The term “Aryan,” picked out of context from the Rig Ved, Hindu’s oldest revealed book, was propagated as being synonymous with Hinduism, and SKT and Indian Vedic culture were presumed to be a common background to all IE-speaking (Indo-European) races. Thus, the idea of the Aryan race/language-script and its rival Semitic race/language-script was purely a European theory, a misinterpretation of the Hindu myth. The Modern language classification emanating from this socio-political race theory has been completely discredited by the deciphering of Mesopotamian inscriptions and by the discoveries of molecular biology and the study of man’s evolution and his migration from Africa. The whole enterprise of modern philology started in India, where the ancient linguist Panini (400-500 BC) had already pioneered the study of phonemes (consonants and vowels) and SKT grammar. It was 1786 when Sir William Jones, Chief Justice of Calcutta, High Court of Bengal, in the service of the East India Company (EIC), learned Sanskrit. Already skilled in ten languages, including Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian, and keenly interested in comparative language studies, Sir William noted the beauty, grammar, and richness of Sanskrit and recognized its close affinity to Greek, Latin, German, and other languages. He hinted in a statement to the Royal Asiatic Society of Calcutta2 that he accepted the antiquity of Sanskrit: The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either; yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could possibly examine all the three without believing them to have sprung from some common source which, perhaps, no longer 2. F. Bodmer (1985), pp. 171–175

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide exists. There is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and Celtic, though blended with a different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanskrit. I can only declare my belief that the language of Noah is irretrievably lost. After diligent search, I cannot find a single word used in common by the Arabian, Indian, and Tartar families, before the admixture of these dialects occasioned by the Mohammedan conquests.

Though several Europeans had earlier noted there was some linkage between SKT and various IE languages, Sir William deserves credit for formalizing the discipline of linguistics. He estimated, via linguistic analysis, that SKT evolved around 1500 BC. In his presentation, he downplayed Noah’s Semitic language which (according to Jewish myth) was presumed to be man’s first language and progenitor of all others (The Hindus, however, regarded SKT as the first). Sir William, unaware of pre-Islamic mixing of peoples in Mesopotamia, attributed Arabic words mixed into Persian to the Islamic invasion. Work in linguistics expanded feverishly after his time, especially on IE languages, and classification followed. The IE language family turned out to be the largest, followed by TB, AA, and others. Subsequent work including linguistic surveys of India led to the placement of Urdu-Hindi under IE SKT, as follows.

1.3.1 Language Families and Types I. Indo-European Family a. Teutonic (Germanic or Gothic) German, Dutch, Icelandic, Danish, English, etc. b. Celtic: Erse, Gaelic (Scottish), Welsh, Breton c. Romance (Latin) French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, etc. d. Slavonic Russian, Polish, Serbian, etc. e. Baltic Lithuanian, Latvian (Lettish) f. Greek g. Albanian h. Armenian i. Persian Dari, Baluchi, Farsi, etc. j. Indic (SKT) Urdu/Hindi, Bengali, Gujrati, Sindhi, Marathi, etc. II. Finno-Ugric Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, Mongolian III. Semitic Arabic, Hebrew, Ethiopian, Maltese IV. Hamitic Somali, Berber V. Tibeto-Chinese

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Chapter I. Mesopotamian Roots and Language Classification Chinese (Mandarin), Tibetan, Siamese, Burmese, etc. VI. Austro-Asiatic Austric dialects of India, Munda, Santali, etc., Malaysian, Indonesian, Polynesian, Australian VII. Turko-Tartar-Altaic Turkish, Tatar, etc. VIII. Dravidians Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Brahui, Gond, Malto, Kurux, etc. IX. Bantu Kafur, Zulu, Congo, etc. X. Caucasian Georgian, Chechen, Ossetic, etc. XI. Ameri-Indian

1.4 POLITICS OF LINGUISTIC SPLITS Besides the racial and religious myths, political expediency perhaps also played its role in the above classification. SKT and Hindi, completely dissimilar languages in grammar and syntax, were grouped in IE/IA, perhaps in deference to the mythical dogma of SKT and DNS. The Aryan homeland theory was shifted by German linguists from India to Germany. But in all fairness the 18th–19th centuries were still the “dark ages,” from a linguistics perspective. Cuneiform decipherment and West Asian archaeology were unknown, the Asokan script was not yet deciphered, and religious books still served to explain much of the unknown history. It is obvious that three political compulsions dominated the European efforts in India: 1) the continuation of the crusade mentality that drove Europeans to undermine or control the two large Muslim empires — Ottoman Turkey and Mughul India; 2) the spread of Christianity among the Hindu majority, then considered heathens, and their recruitment into a European anti-Muslim alliance; and 3) competition between France (Catholic) and Britain (Anglo-Saxon Protestant), and between Germany and Britain. The idea of a wholesale conversion of Hindus failed, largely because of the inherent strength of the Hindu-Buddhist religion and philosophy. But in politics, Europeans did succeed in India. Mughul India by the 18 th –19 th century had developed an “Indian” political-culture personality or psyche that was neither Hindu nor Muslim. Religion existed in a parallel but private realm. The State was secular but supportive of all religions. Muslims, a minority (almost all converts in previous centuries from Hinduism) were among the ruling elites that consisted of a team of uppercaste Hindus and upper-class Muslims. APS was not only the medium of education and politics but it had become the medium even for many Hindu religious books, e.g., Maha Bharata and Ramayan. DNS, however, was still used, mainly for religious work. Urdu/Hindi and others, including Bengali, utilized APS and also, not uncommonly, the regional variants of DNS.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide The above backdrop is crucial to understanding the rise of linguistic racism, the powerful theories of Aryanism, and the rise of Hindu nationalism. The theory posited a racial linguistic “brotherhood” among European Aryans and Hindu Aryans and their ancient Aryan homeland in Europe (Germany), migration of Aryans everywhere, including India, and the “purity and supremacy” of the white race, which had a powerful resonance among Hindus, particularly those of Bengal.3 Creation of an Aryan-Hindu Bengali language first and then the Hindi language were integral parts of the “Hindu Renaissance” of Golden Bengal. The British, as Aryan cousins, were accepted as liberators by the Hindus from the 1000-year tyranny of Muslims, termed as slavery, and the stage was set for the proponents of the separated twin languages to partition the land.

1.5 A MYTHICAL DILEMMA IN MODERN LINGUISTICS The Old Testament myth of Adam and Eve is fundamental to Muslims, Christians, and Jews. Adam and Eve, miraculously delivered in the West Asian theater, had a common language, presumably Hebrew.4 When men and their progeny built the tower of Babel to reach Heaven, god confounded the language, making it impossible for men to understand each other and He scattered them upon the face of the earth (Genesis 11: 6-9). Additionally, the names of various beasts, fowls, cattle, and all living creatures were also given to Adam (Genesis 2: 19, 20). Hebrew thus generated the “Babelled” speech or deteriorated speech of other divided sects/tribes. Noah’s grandsons, through Shem, Ashur, Aram, Heber, and Elam (Genesis 10: 21-31), are linked to linguistic tribes, i.e., Assyrian, Aramaic, Hebrew, all Semitic (a word newly coined by German scholars in the 18th century), except Elam, whose language/tribe is identified with the Elamite language, a fossil language of Iran and close cousin of the Dravidian family. Many faithful still maintain the Hebrew myth. The Hebrew language, like Arabic, is in fact a newer version of the Sumero-Babylonian language and is mixed with Greek and Persian vocabulary. Faithful to the Old Testament, Christian priest-scholars had to accept the “Hebrew” myth; but Jesus spoke Aramaic, the official secular language of the whole civilized world from Pakistan (then a Persian province) to Greece for about 1000 years up to Alexander’s time and even thereafter (Table 1). The New Testament, too, stresses the importance of language (John 1): “In the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was God.” Sir William and other Europeans in India had a problem reconciling their own Judeo-Christian dogma with surging Indo-European ethnic Aryanism among Hindus and the need to build a political alliance with them the majority. They had to go beyond the existing theories to come up with something to support the new goals. Sir William proposed a biblical genealogy5 for Hindu’s prophet or Autar, “Ram,” as 3. S. K. Chatterji (1969), pp. 32–33. 4. L. J. Ludovici (1968), pp. 58–63. 5. S. N. Mukerji (1968), pp. 95–96.

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Chapter I. Mesopotamian Roots and Language Classification progeny of Cush, grandson of Noah through Ham (Genesis 10: 6-14). The French viewed Hindu Aryans a bit differently. In their view Noah’s son Japheth (the presumed progenitor of the white Aryan race) had seven sons in Europe who created linguistic tribes — Latin, Greek, Gothic, etc., and Sanskrit — and migrated to India. The mythical connection with Noah and Hebrew, however, did not go too far, but the dogma of Aryanism and/or a grand Indo-European race and language has endured. SKT was the keystone, and its status in Hinduism must be understood.

1.6 THE MYTHICAL WORLD OF SANSKRIT Sanskrit is an essential element in Hindu’s creation myth, which is cyclical and Indo-centric. Aryan or “noble” Dharma, or religion, presumed as indigenous, eternal (Sanatana), and a dynamic process, was set in motion by god, or “Brahma,” who had created Man in four basic castes or Varna (color): Brahmin (priest), Kshatriya (ruling and warrior caste), Vaishya (worker or business class), and Shudra, or Untouchables (the lowest caste, meant for menial labor). The caste system is work-specific and fundamental. The soul is the real entity of self and it transmigrates at death, leaving the temporary abode or body for a new one, not necessarily in the same life form. The next life might be lived at a higher or lower level, as reward or punishment. The highest merit or Karma (based on virtuous deeds) offers union with almighty “Nirvana,” or rebirth into a higher caste — an upgrade. Bad deeds or sins may bring punishment in the form of subsequent life phases as a lower-caste human, or other (inferior) life forms. This is the concept known as Metempsychosis. The world itself consists of four cycles or yugs, the first being the pure, pristine Satya Yug, or truthful phase, and has already gone through several million years of intermediate cycles up to the present fourth, or last, age called Kali Yug, the black phase, defined as decadent, corrupt, less religious and full of strife, and manipulated by inferior castes, and/or Malecchas, “the foreigners.” Human life and the world are both cyclical, and Kali Yug, now on track for some five thousand years, will end the world cycle. God, or Brahma, will then start a fresh cycle. Other details regarding the Autar/prophets, the holy books including four Vedas, the Upanishad (philosophical book of wisdom), the Puranas with their ancient king lists and two major epics and their commentaries envelope the above basic fundamental. Many other ideas arising from these include Monism or Vedanta, Buddhism, etc., which will be discussed later in context with old Urdu/Hindi. In this grand scheme Sanskrit, a pure language and part of creation in Satya Yug, delivered on golden leaves by Brahma,6 had to deteriorate like everything else, with time, and spun off inferior quality languages and dialects (PKTs) in Kali Yug. People of other lands and faiths are presumed descendants of Hindu ancestors who had left the caste system, e.g., Europeans are fallen Kshatriya, and Muslims are Malechcha, a term equivalent to “barbarian” in Greek. Sanskrit language was meant 6. William Durant (1935), p. 408.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide for Brahmin’s usage only; it had created a massive body of secular, scientific material during the 3rd–7th centuries AD. SKT scholars along with Greek scholars are known to have transferred the sciences into Arabic (7th–9th centuries). Obviously, new discoveries in linguistic sciences regarding Mesopotamia undermine the religious faith in SKT. Many Hindu scholars such as S. K. Chatterji and others, accept the scholarly view with caution, perhaps to avoid offending the faithful. The genetic history of Indian languages, including Urdu/Hindi, thus remains under SKT’s cloud. This is true even in non-Aryan Dravidian tracts.

1.7 INDOPHILISM AND INDO-EUROPEANISM In Europe even prior to Sir William’s pronouncement, the philosophy of Vedanta, or Monism, had impressed the French and the Germans through translation from the Persian Upanishad written by the Moghul prince Dara Shikoh. Sir William, Max Muller, and John Muir, among others, translated SKT texts en masse, which changed the European view about India, for better or for worse. This encouraged and confirmed Hindu self-confidence in the primacy of SKT and also inspired Hindu nationalism and Urdu/Hindi polarization in the 19th century, which will be discussed in chapters 9–11. Linguistic pride and chauvinism in general are well documented in all races. The Greeks are famous for regarding others as barbarians, or speakers of uncouth speech. Barbar (from the Arabic word barbariat, meaning “savagery”) had originated in Sumerian;7 in Urdu, barbarana means “uncouth speech.” In spite of Greek pride, Plato and Socrates had recognized the need for a comparative study of languages, and Socrates even accepted the “barbarian’s language” as being older than Greek.8 Linguistic pride in SKT is different. It is exclusionary of others, as elaborated by grammarians Panini (400–500 BC), Katayana (300 BC), and Patanjali (100 BC), and more recently by Prof. Deshpande of the University of Michigan.9 Manus’ law (the legal code of Hindus) even prohibits the lower caste from reading SKT, but pragmatic Hindus have generally ignored these strictures, spreading SKT among even Muslims, many of whom have become SKT scholars themselves. Among the Europeans, the rationalist/liberal Voltaire (1767)10 was among the earliest to make a clear pro-Hindu/Indian comment when he described India as “the cradle of world civilization and the home of religion in its purest form,” assuring the King of Prussia that even Christianity was solely based on the ancient religion of Brahma. This concept of Christianity being tied to India remained active even in the 20th century among some theosophists.

7. W. Halbfas (1988), p. 176. 8. L. J Ludovici (1968), p. 27. 9. M. M. Deshpande (1993), pp. 17–32. 10. W. Halbfas (1988), pp. 57–61.

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Chapter I. Mesopotamian Roots and Language Classification Polycarp Lyserus, as early as 1716, had argued that the Indians, not the Jews, were the originators of culture. Kant as well noticed the purity of the Hindu religion and its lack of superstitions. William Jones, Kant, and Schopenhauer, impressed by the Vedanta or Monism of Shankara, publicized a positive image of philosophic India. Popular terms such as “eternal orient,” “our eternal home,” “lost paradise of all religions,” and “source of Greek and Egyptian thought,” dominated enlightened Europe in the 18th –19th centuries.11 Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829), besides focusing on Hindu thought, recognized SKT as the mother of all languages, as quoted by Halbfas: “Here is the actual source of all languages, all the thoughts and poems of human spirit, everything. Everything, without exception, comes from India.” In addition, he recognized that Persian, German, Greek, and Roman languages and culture were traceable to India. Schlegel formalized linguistic classification, comparing it with even comparative biology in 1808 and linking it to race. This created a wave of excitement and heightened respect for SKT and led to the burgeoning of SKT departments in universities in Europe, Calcutta, and Varanasi. He attached the highest value to “the inflection” of SKT and German as being indicative of a spiritual origin: “A language devoid of inflection [was] subhuman and animal in type.”12 Unaware that his highly valued inflection already existed 600 years earlier in perfect form in Arabic, Schlegel, in a show of anti-Arab contempt and racism, defined Semitic languages as “the highest form of animal language but possessing lofty power and energy.” Danish comparative linguist Rasmus Rask (1787–1832) took pride in his pure mother tongue (German) with its full flexional system.13 He mocked English as a “mongrel” and “a shameless borrower from other sources,” an obvious expression of jealousy over an insurgent, global English language. The Germans went further and created a hypothetical ancient Proto-Aryan language called proto-Indo-European (PIE), compiled a dictionary, and wrote a German saga in it, painting the imaginary cultural life of an ancient and noble Aryan race.14 This fictional enterprise did indeed become very embarrassing after the discoveries in Mesopotamia revealed that Hittite was a more likely candidate to be credited as the oldest-documented IE-type language.

1.8 RACISM COAT-TAILED ON SANSKRIT The discoveries of the oldest languages, Sumerian and Semitic, on cuneiform tablets, and the oldest IE language, Hittite, also in cuneiform, deflated Indo-Eurocentrism and the status of SKT, since almost all Indian writing in SKT was of recent origin (3–7th c. AD), but had been attributed to a mythical, hypothetical antiquity. Mesopotamia also revealed earlier use of the mathematical concept of “zero,” 11. W. Halbfas (1988), pp. 66–75. 12. Martin Bernal (1987), pp. 203–231. 13. L. J. Ludovici (1968), pp. 94–97. 14. F. Bodmer (1985), pp. 175–190.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide algebra, etc. Indians of the Indus Valley civilization (2500–1700 BC), younger than Mesopotamia but contemporary with Sumeria, are mentioned in Sumerian tablets as trading “Meluha.” Indians left no cuneiform records except the famous “seals,” which remain undeciphered, but the civilization is considered as pre-Aryan Dravidian, a contemporary of their neighbor the Dravidian-Elamites of Iran (Vide, chapter IV). The fact of this “cradle shift” to West Asia and a hidden antipathy toward the Hindus (who were never really accepted as white) and Eurocentrism led to the transfer of the hypothetical Aryan homeland to Germany; India was relegated as the adopted home and SKT was called a daughter of PIE. In a review Halbfas cites, J. A. de Gobineau15 (1816-1882), a French philosopher and the father/author of “Aryan (and/or) white supremacy” who believed that “the Aryans, representing the highest potential of the white race, invaded the Indian subcontinent and began to merge with the native population. He complimented the astute Brahmins for inventing the caste system as a means of self-preservation and the maintenance of superior Aryan values and identity, as compared to other Aryan groups, who were in an advanced stage of decay.” The climax of Aryanism, an apparent reaction to the newly discovered West Asian cultural primacy, helped lead to the evolution of national socialism, or Nazism, around 1900 in Europe and Hindu extremism in India. A German named G. Lanz-Liebenfeb (1874–1954) led the “ariosophic” movement, espousing ideas of dark people or chandalas (an Indian term for vile, inferior, or of lower caste), and white blond Aryans. He, too, praised the caste system in the Hindus’ law book, Manu, as mentioned in the review by Halbfas. His ideas and use of the swastika symbol, and Rosenberg’s book, The Myth of the 20th Century, inspired Hitler. Aryanism’s main targets obviously were the Jews and Gypsies in Europe, but its Indian stream, ever since the 19th century, has been expressed as Hindu extremism against Muslims, who are presumed to be foreigners. Even now it drives much of the politics of the subcontinent. In India, Aryanism currently has two streams, with SKT being fundamental to both: One believes in an Aryan race and SKT that are “foreign,” “immigrant”; and the other sees them as being indigenous Indian. Compulsions driving racial prejudice are political in nature and emanate partly from group consciousness of “inferiority complexes” and/or “insecurity resulting from loss of status.” White supremacist Euro-Aryanism was an expression of inferiority complexes stemming from Europe’s realization that it had had nothing to do with the birth of human civilization in West Asia/Egypt. The debt of Egyptian pharaohs to mother Greece was distinctly visible in every science, and even the oldest piece of philosophy (2880 BC) attributed to Ptah-hotep is 2300 years older than Buddha and Socrates.16 Thus, the newly created hypothetical language, PIE, and Aryanism may be seen as “self-glorification and/or delusion” and a release from both Judeo-Christian dogma and long Muslim (Arab/Turk/Moghul) political domination. The concept of West Asian (inferior) languages and race and the newly coined 15. W. Halbfas (1988), pp. 138–140. 16. William Durant (Vol. I), pp. 193–212.

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Chapter I. Mesopotamian Roots and Language Classification German term, “Semitic,” may be seen in this perspective. Guy Bunnes (1979) has explained the dilemma of the racist historians, as reviewed by Martin Bernal:17 “They maintained that it was unbelievable that nations so important today should have played no role in the past. It was therefore necessary to assert the rights of Europe over the claims of Asia.” Isaac Asimov, too, summed up the issues succinctly in 1991:18 “Historians in the past have been all too willing to give Indo-European and Semitic racial characteristics, and since the historians usually spoke IE languages, they let the Indo-European have all the best of it, making wars between them a combat of good Indo-European versus evil Semites.” In India, too, at least three factors seemed to have converged to create antiUrdu concepts and/or Hindu nationalism: loss of status as “the cradle of civilization”; the discovered status of SKT as a foreign/hybrid language; and the new status of the Dravidians as the authors of the Indus Valley culture. In modern times, Europeans in general have tried to move away from racism, but in India, Hindu nationalists have turned to “changing Indian history” as was remarked by the New York Times. 19 Aryans and their SKT, according to this theory, are indigenous, and the Indus Valley was Aryan, not Dravidian. The Indus Valley seal or script is even proclaimed as Aryan SKT, though it is still undeciphered. In some recent books such as A New Real History of the World, the authors seem to cover millions of years of Indian domination of world history,20 where the great Hindu monarch, “Lord Indra,” is depicted as addressing a European parliament and signing treaties. A global perspective has now definitely shifted to a view of African ancestors as the creators of all languages, with Mesopotamian civilization being the key to collective achievements in the sciences and important languages. Languages certainly serve as a medium of transport of human creativity. They are all good, equal, useful, and serve the human need. Goethe’s fine comment captures this spirit: “Sciences and art belong to the whole world and before them vanish the barrier of nationality.”

1.9 LINGUISTIC LIBERALISM In fact, in spite of the racist focus on SKT by Schlegel, another German, Jacob Grim (1785-1863), famous for Grim’s Law, or theory, of “sound shift,” took a scientific and pragmatic approach to linguistics, blunting the prevalent racism. He defended the general sanctity of all language, citing a sort of human right of language elaborated by Ludovici. He wrote: “It is desirable that even the smallest and most despised dialect should be left only to itself and to its own nature and in no way sub-

17. Martin Bernal (1987), p. 376. 18. Isaac Asimov (1991), p. 39. 19. Kai Friese, “Hijacking Indian History: Hindu Nationalist” The New York Times, Dec. 30, 2002. 20. O. P. Verma (2002), pp. 150–160.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide jected to violence, because it is sure to have some secret advantage over the greatest and most highly valued language.” As a matter of fact, Grim’s point had been addressed most eloquently nowhere else but in the Muslims’ holy book, the Quran, and sayings of their Prophet (6–7th century AD). Islam treats all languages equally and demystifies even Arabic as just a linguistic medium, a carrier of ideas and messages. One quote from the Prophet sets the tone: “O people! The lord is one lord, the father is one father; religion is one religion. Arabic is neither father nor mother to any of you, but is a language; whoever speaks Arabic is an Arab.”21 In some passages, the Quran itself reveals the idea of the multiplicity and use of languages:22 “And among His [God’s] signs is the creating of heavens and the earth and the variations in your languages and your colors…” (Quran 30:22). And the Quran also testifies regarding a multiplicity of languages in context with earlier Prophets/messengers:23 “We [God] sent not an apostle except [to teach] in the language of his own people in order to make [things] clear to them.” (Quran 14:4). The Quran, in fact, assigns the reason for its transmission in Arabic.24 It says (Quran 43:3), “We [God] have made it a Quran in Arabic, that ye may be able to understand [and learn wisdom].” Obviously, Arabs could never comprehend the message in a different tongue; a Quranic passage even deals with this aspect. The stress is on the message/idea/wisdom itself sent earlier in other languages and not only in the Arabic language. Addressing the Prophet, and through him, mankind,25 the Quran (41:43) says, “Nothing is said to thee [Prophet] that was not said to the apostles before thee.” And in the next passage (41:44) it elaborates on the people’s skepticism about language, which is not important in itself. The message is the wisdom: Had We [God] sent this Quran [in a language] other than Arabic, they [the skeptics] would have said, “Why are not its verses explained in detail? What! [a book or message] not in Arabic and [a messenger] an Arab?” Say [God tells the Prophet] it is a guide and healing to those who believe.

These and other passages are explicit in the adoption of a people-specific language for guidance through Muhammad and/or earlier prophets and messengers, e.g., Jesus spoke in Aramaic, Buddha and Mahabeer (400–500 BC), the Indian equivalent of a prophet, or God’s autar, adopted PKT. Other quotations of the Prophet of Islam convey the idea of God’s ability to use languages other than Arabic. “If God intends something gentle, He reveals it to the ministering angels in courtly Persian, if he intends something severe, he reveals it in clarion Arabic.”

21. Bernard Lewis (1974), p. 196. 22. Yusuf Ali, The Holy Quran (1934), p. 1056. 23. Ibid. p. 620. 24. Ibid. p. 1324. 25. Ibid. p. 1299.

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Chapter I. Mesopotamian Roots and Language Classification Muslim society consequently has remained multilingual, with religious literatures in each linguistic family, Austric-Munda, IE, Semitic, Dravidian, abiding, quite early, with the concept of a linguistic human right.

1.10 LANGUAGE AS A UTILITY IN INDIA As a transport medium, languages are just another utility like heat and electricity, in the service of man. Indian grammarians of SKT, though, stand out as a unique group who pioneered another use of language — political control of people via a religious hypothesis of sacred language with presumed magical/miraculous power. By imposing difficult rules of grammar and self-appointment, Brahmins turned SKT from a secular utility into an object of religious worship, reverence, and a political tool against “others and their language,” even to the extent of a total purge. Reaction against Indian Urdu and/or APS (1947), therefore, was not a new phenomenon, more radical political measures having in fact been taken much earlier. The language of the Indus Valley seals was eliminated, with the loss of continuity of history. In the next golden period of Indian history (500 BC – AD 200) religious polemics between Hindus and Buddhists in fact eliminated all written materials, whether in SKT or PKTs, with the result being that the Asokan inscription (280 BC) could no longer be read by any Indian. The British deciphered it in the 19th century, two thousand years after Asoka. Seen from this perspective, the British exploitation of the Indians’ love of SKT and DNS was nothing innovative. Quranic declarations regarding the equality of all language, perhaps, had been addressed to contemporary (6–7th century) exploitations of man through the imposed “religious sanctity” of languages such as SKT, Avestan or Gatha (old Persian), Latin, and Hebrew. Interestingly, Arabic, too, was drafted later on into the “religious language club.” Religious terms for language and culture, i.e., Hindu, Muslim (Islamic), Christian, Jewish, etc., are purely political. The true history of Urdu/Hindi, by necessity, is inherent in the true history of all its ingredients from Mesopotamia, where Sumerians apparently invented man’s first written language and culture as a secular enterprise. But languages, through an accumulation of religious literature, acquire a halo of divinity in the eyes of a political priesthood. The only way to appreciate the historical genesis of Urdu/Hindi is through the concept of utilitarianism, which certainly calls for freedom from religious dogmas, open-mindedness, and a global perspective. India, as a final destination of many tribes, is the richest country in linguistic variety. Most educated Indians use at least two languages and/or scripts — a mother tongue or language of rearing (LOR), and a language of social intercourse, work, and business (LBW). Sometimes they use a third variety, or language of higher education, science, and technology (LST). In addition, another language may serve as a medium for religious rituals (LRR), e.g., SKT and Arabic. Some societies — West Asia, the UK, USA, and China — for better or worse, use one all-purpose language, i.e., Arabic, English, and Mandarin Chinese. The Indians had to adopt the most advanced contemporary LSTs in sequence, i.e., SKT,

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide Arabic/Persian, and then English. And all of these had sported a contemporary label or concept of “foreign language and/or elitist language.” Many educated Indians, historically, have been open-minded bilinguals, conscious of the utilitarian differences in languages. They seem to have quietly heeded Goethe, who wrote: “The man who knows no foreign language knows nothing of his mother tongue.” In fact, an educated middle-class person in India, claiming Urdu as LOR, ends up using three scripts and four languages, and a Pakistani, two scripts and three or four languages. A South Indian Muslim living in the north may be the most multilingual person in the world. He would know Urdu/Hindi, English, Arabic, his own LOR, Tamil or others, and four scripts, i.e., APS, DNS, GRS, and Dravidian.

1.11 GRAMMAR TYPES AND SYNTAX A general idea of grammar, vis-à-vis the above-mentioned classification and relevant ontological perspective, is essential to understanding the true nature of Urdu’s genesis as outlined in later chapters. The terms “Semitic” or “Aryan,” existent only since the 19th century, are used here only for language families and not races. Linguists divide the languages into four sub-types as reviewed by F. Bodmer:26 A. Analytical or isolating; B. Agglutinating; C. Flexional/Inflectional, or with or without root inflection; and D. Classificatory In isolating type, various types of words and/or roots representing verbs and nouns are unalterable units and do not change to express plurality, gender, or tense. Chinese is an extreme example. Others, such as the Austric-Munda family, Urdu/ Hindi, English, French, and even Persian, show these features. The use of auxiliary verb participles, i.e., is, was, and will, or hai, tha, ga of Urdu, is essential. Agglutinating type, i.e., Dravidian, Turkish, Hungarian, Finnish, and Celtic, etc., and fossil languages like Sumerian and Elamite, utilize affixes (prefixes and suffixes) on the root word, e.g., the Urdu word larki (girl) becomes plural by adding the suffix yan: larki-yan (girls). The loosely tagged suffixes, when fully amalgamated, generate the flexional type much romanticized by Schlegel. Examples are Greek, Latin, and SKT. These are called externally inflected, meaning the root does not change. For example, in the words go, going, and gone, the root, go, does not change. More advanced inflection involves root change, called internal or root flexion. Swim, swam, and swum are typical examples where internal vowel change expresses the tense without the use of affixes. Root change, a feature of the Germanic or Gothic branch of the IE family, the pride of German linguists, is, in fact, a feature of the Semitic family. Arabic, for example, reveals the oldest and most advanced known flexional system both externally and internally. The Semitic family uses mostly threeconsonant systems with two intervening vowels, which change to make a new word, and also sometimes uses affixes. 26. F. Bodmer, pp. 189–202.

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Chapter I. Mesopotamian Roots and Language Classification The fourth type, the classificatory, not relevant to the genetics of Urdu or its substrate, is exemplified by the Bantu group and uses prefixes and labeled classes as a distinctive feature. Flexional features or rules, if strictly enforced, obviously retard linguistic growth and spread. German, Arabic, SKT, and Latin are either dead or confined to their own homelands or sectarian group. High flexion in Arabic grammar was well studied many centuries before the German linguists and historiographer Ibn Khuldun27 had specifically noted the verb/noun conjugation system as a feature of Arabic, differentiating it from other languages requiring auxiliary verbs. In India, Alberuni had noted the flexional qualities of SKT and had studied it well28 some 700 years before Sir Williams and others. The syntax system, or word order in a sentence, consisting of a verb (v), a subject (s), and an object (o) is another distinguishing feature of various language families. For example, the SVO type, i.e., “Zain (s) eats (v) bread (o),” is a feature of the oldest Austric/Munda family and is shared by younger families, with few exceptions, including Semitic and most IE branches, SKT, German, and English. The other most common type, SOV — subject, object, verb, i.e., “Zain bread eats” — is a Dravidian feature adopted by Urdu/Hindi and shared by others, such as the oldest written languages, Sumerian and Elamite. Among the eight possible combinations of syntax, the most common types are SVO and SOV. Celtic and Gaelic, or Scottish, share a rare VOS word order.

1.12 MIDDLE EAST FARMERS: PARENTS OF URDU/HINDI Man, migrating out of Africa via West Asia, had already colonized all the continents some 20,000–40,000 years ago, dividing into racial and linguistic tribes under long isolation due to physical and geographical barriers, and climate influence. The recession of the Ice Age (15,000 years ago) and the beginning of warmer temperatures that allowed for the development of farming29 (~10,000 BC) led to civilization and the mutual re-discovery of linguistic tribes. Neolithic farmers of West Asia (Iraq), growing barley and wheat, those of Southeast Asia, growing rice and millet, and those of Mexico, growing corn and beans, migrated, carrying their new technology and their culture and language to other places. Farmers from Iraq reached Palestine/ Egypt, Asia Minor/Turkey, and Baluchistan (India) in 7000–8000 BC, and from Southeast Asia to the north and south Pacific and to India, bringing rice in 1500–1000 BC. The oldest evidence of rice in India is found near Allahabad.30 Migrants to Turkey and Europe authored the earliest IE languages, after interacting with older, local paleolithic tribes. In Iran and Baluchistan (India) they spoke proto-Elamo-Dravidian or proto-Dravidian. Farmers entering India, interfacing with 27. 28. 29. 30.

N. J. Dawood (1989), pp. 433–438. Edward Sachau (1971), pp. 17–18. Sforza Luigi–Luca Cavalli (2000), pp. 92–132. Raymond and Bridget Allchin (1983), pp. 117–118.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide the Austric-Munda speakers, must have generated the earliest hybrid (s), Proto-Urdu/ Hindi or Proto-PKT. Linguistic studies supported by archaeology and the decipherment of scripts and most recently complemented by molecular genetics and gene tracking, have exploded many religious myths about “HEB” and SKT, documenting the oldest written version of several families (Table 1), Sumerian (~4000 BC), Semitic (~3000 BC), Egyptian (~3000 BC), Chinese (~2000 BC), Elamo-Dravidian (~3000 BC), IE Hittite (1500 BC), IE Persian (~500 BC), Indian PKT-Pali (~300 BC), and IE SKT (AD 150). In Urdu’s home theater, India, the various ingredients obviously have had a different timeframe for arrival, Indianization and hybridization. Just to repeat, the Dravidian and Austric-Munda hybrid, proto-Urdu, became layered after several thousand years by the invading Aryan language, Vedic-SKT (1000–1500 BC), and then by Arabic and Persian, Persian having evolved as invading Aryans arrived, speaking Old Persian or Avestan (a sister of Vedic), which had been earlier hybridized with existing Elamo-Dravidian and Semitic Assyrian/Aramaic (Table 1). Arabic itself arose as a successor to Sumerian-Akkadian-Assyrian-Aramaic, mutually exchanging elements with Elamo-DR and Persian, before a recent acquisition of its name in the pre-Islamic Middle East (~AD 300). Religious idioms tend to color and even hijack the common human heritage of linguistic evolution for exploitation in racial politics. West Asian culture going back about 12,000 years is now sported as Islamic and/or Jewish; its eastern offshoot, Indian culture (~10,000 years), an Austro-Dravidian-Aryan mixture, is presented as Hindu or Aryan, and the Greco-Roman-European (~5,000 years), a western offshoot of West Asia, as Christian or Western. These purely secular/cultural linguistic entities are best viewed in regional terms, i.e., West Asian/Indian and European culture, etc. Religious terms are certainly non-academic and political. Above all, these cultural centers, in fact, are creations of common ancestors from Africa. Tracking their migration and linguistic division into families are some recent contributions of American linguists and molecular geneticists. Thus, the scientific genetics of Urdu/ Hindi and the shared genes of its speakers — Hindus, Muslims, and others — is a really exciting part of the story of Urdu, as discussed in the following chapter.

1.13 CHAPTER SUMMARY The chapter provides an overview of the genetics of language classification, mainly inspired by mythical and racial world views that espouse two rival hypothetical civilizations and languages, i.e., Aryan-IE and Semitic. Bifurcation of the one language that was common to the people of Moghul India into the Hindu’s Hindi and the Muslim’s Urdu, which served the politics of Great Britain, was noted in the chapter as part of a divisive, racist ploy to partition India. The chapter also notes the unsettling of the race theory by discoveries of evidence of earlier language and culture in Mesopotamia, which revealed the origin of IE, DR, and Semitic languages from the Middle East. The chapter also cites the cumulative evolution of Urdu/Hindi

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Chapter I. Mesopotamian Roots and Language Classification from ancient ingredients from Mesopotamia, including SKT, also from the Middle East, and negates the notion that SKT played a fundamental role in the evolution of Urdu/Hindi, which has an entirely different grammar and syntax. Lastly, the chapter characterizes language as a utility that lacks any divine or religious holiness, any suggestions to the contrary being only a political tool.

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CHAPTER II. PHONETICS, LINGUISTICS AND GENETICS — DNA 2.0 INTRODUCTION Some have rightly compared Urdu/Hindi to a sponge, ever ready to absorb new words — a feature which it shares with English. Thus, man’s oldest written Sumerian words, such as gu (cow), gar (house), rab (God) and also modern European words, e.g. school, stool, rail, jail, fail, class, glass, ticket, wicket, coat, boat, are among several hundred which enliven its dynamic vocabulary of some half a million. The vocabulary comes mainly from Austric-Munda and Dravidian families. Other contributors are also well known — SKT, Persian, and Arabic. The initial classification of Urdu/Hindi as a dialect of IA-SKT was obviously presumptive and, at best, tentative in the 19th–20th centuries. Research on pre-Aryan languages was almost nonexistent and virtually everything except Arabic-Persian words were presumed as SKT. Some of these words, drawn from a much longer list and discussed in chapters III, IV and V, can surprise anybody. They are, in fact, very high profile but are not SKT words: pundit (learned), brahmin (priest), mandir (temple), manush (man), puja (worship), jal (water), nagar (city), etc. Classification, as said earlier, was racially oriented and never peer reviewed. Men in 19th century Europe had a limited view of history, a view influenced by Judeo-Christian myths and a time line of just over 5000 years, precisely starting on October 4, 4004 BC, at 9:00 A.M.31 The hypothetical PIE of German linguists was arbitrarily projected to have existed some 6000 years ago, perhaps to beat the “biblical clock.” PIE itself was hailed as the white man’s rediscovered speech from a glorious past and was proudly cited as an Aryan language, rich, inflected, and superior to Semitic and other languages. These exciting ideas blended smoothly in race-con31. F. Bodmer (1985), pp. 197–203.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide scious Europe, deluded by the idea of the polygenetic origin of man and the Eurasian species having existed for millions of years. Linguistic classification, based on race, was held as the “final end result,” and PIE/IE as a kind of “holy family” not open to further research. Later research did, however, expose the linguistic chauvinism, and linguist Merritt Ruhlen and others have paraphrased this as “simple ethnocentrism.”32 This was no different than the holy myths of HEB/SKT and IA-SKT-Hindi/ Urdu, but was merely an extension of that grand illusion. This illusion was pierced by the decipherment of archaeological finds in Iraq, Iran, and Turkey. But as nothing goes to waste in nature, rules formalized for reconstructed PIE generated other proto languages, and linguistic science has recently revealed a kind of unity of man’s speech, through the work of Merritt Ruhlen and others. Basic rules of phonetics and sound shift help us to understand even Urdu’s variable pronunciations and, for example, why words such as Vajpai and Victoria in cities like Lucknow, and Lahore to London, become Bajpai and Bictoria in places like Calcutta, Manila, Mexico, Hispanic South Bronx (New York) or Chinatown of New York City, and also why an Arab cab driver in New York has to “bark” (park) to let a passenger off. These rules certainly help us to understand the connections between various languages. Complementing this theme even further, Cavalli Sforza and a worldwide team of other biologists and geneticists have connected the speakers of Urdu/Hindi and other linguistic groups to an African ancestor and his language.

2.1 GENETICS BLUNTS LINGUISTIC RACISM Language pride, another term for racism, is apparently much older than the myths of HEB, SKT, or PIE. Like everything else, racism can be traced back to the recorded history of the Sumerians, whose language and culture interfaced with Elamitic in the East, and Akkadian (Semitic) in the West, and still affects all human groups. Myths, which perhaps arose because of a lack of recorded history, had divided society in groups, streaming in the Noah’s ark myth from Noah’s descendant Ham (Blacks), Japheth (Whites), and Shem (West Asian and Semitic). This notion was easy to comprehend, and it was easy to be misled by the physical differences of skin and eye color, hair texture, nasal contours, etc., based on race/region/polygenesis and/or hereditary and genetic factors. Language difference was then just another assumed manifestation of race, i.e., Chinese, African, West Asian (Semitic), and Indian. Medical science now explains the physical differences as a function of heat and fluid/water regulation and adaptation to climate, latitude, and altitude. Man’s origin out of Africa and his subsequent differentiation has gained global acceptance. A recent book by Cavalli Sforza, Genes, People, and Languages, a milestone on the subject, brings it all together.33 32. Merritt Ruhlen (1994), pp. 76-81.

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Chapter II. Phonetics, Linguistics and Genetics — DNA In the last quarter century or so, scientists have been able to study hundreds of thousands of blood specimens from all the major human races on every continent. They analyzed blood group types (A, B, AB, O, Rh+, Rh-), various antibodies (a type of blood protein), various hemoglobin types like those indicating sickle cell diseases, etc., and most importantly, the genetic material of X and Y chromosomes, the determinants of gender, and of mitochondrial genes, which are special genes in each body cell that act like a powerhouse or furnace to burn nutrients, releasing the energy we all need. A short review of X and Y chromosomes is a must for the uninitiated in biology. All body cells, called somatic cells, contain 23 pairs, or 46 chromosomes, including a pair called sex chromosomes designated as X and Y. Females contain two X’s, an XX pair, and in males, the pair consists of an X and a Y. Reproductive cells (sperm and ovum/egg) have only half, or 23 chromosomes, with only one sex chromosome, either X or Y (in the sperm) or X (in the female’s ovum). In a random fusion of sperm and ovum during fertilization, the fused cell, or zygote, with 46 chromosomes, thus may have either an XY or an XX combination, which produces a male or female child, respectively. Mitochondrial genes are only passed on via the X chromosome. Humans have a few thousand genes, which determine physical features besides having thousands of other functions. Genes are structured on the famous DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) model with two coiled or twisted threads, the double helix, joined by four (cross-) chemical bases (Fig II. 2). DNA, individual-specific and used in forensic investigations, may undergo changes called mutations. It is the mutation of the Y chromosome DNA, and of mitochondrial DNA, which is most important in tracking human migration out of Africa, because these mutations are sequential, time-bound, predictable, and can be used as a clock, in a manner similar to Carbon 14 dating. In these rather fascinating studies, Cavalli Sforza and his associates tracked the oldest human to Central East Africa, to about 100,000–150,000 years ago. They tracked the mutation of the Y chromosome representing males and mitochondrial genes representing females into several types, numbering 1–10, “Adams” and 18 types of corresponding “Eves,” designated by letters A–G, H, K, etc., and developed a hypothesis showing modern humans (Homo sapiens) branching out to all continents by roughly 20,000–60,000 years ago, and replacing older Neanderthal man in Europe and Asia around 40,000 years ago. Various divided groups and linguistic families later interacted, exchanging vocabulary, syntax, and grammar, creating hybrids, and also replacing even whole languages. Some excellent examples include English, French, and Spanish as mother tongues among African and American Indian ethnic groups on the American continents. India is another good place to find hybrid languages, as we will see later. Linguistic studies by Ruhlen, and the archaeological and historical data of many authors, such as Collin Renfrew etc., are important to integrate the data of Cavalli Sforza and others. They help explain what happened in the post-Ice Age (6,000–25,000 years), the advent of Neolithic farming in Iraq (~10,000 years BC),

33. Sforza Luigi–Luca Cavalli (2000), pp. 57–82.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide and the spread of languages by agriculture-based societies. One pre-Sumerian culture, possibly early Neolithic, is of special interest. Described by Elliot Smith and entitled “Heliolithic” or “Sun and Stone,” this culture, according to H. G. Wells,34 was based around the Eastern Mediterranean and presumably was developed by a brown race. Its cultigens include the use of massive stones, worship of the sun and the serpent, tattooing, mummification, circumcision, and use of the swastika, or double Gammadion cross, apparently for good luck. These cultural traits, accumulated perhaps from the pre-Neolithic era, were transmitted everywhere including Europe, India, and the Americas, as part of a later secondary dispersal. The language (s) of this group or groups (unknown) must have been absorbed into those of previous and later settlers — Stonehenge, the pre-Celtic culture of England, Peruvians, the earliest phase of Indus Valley (Dravidian) farmers, and (pre-Homer) Greek. They spoke a simple language, isolating, monosyllabic, and/or pre-Sumerian, or perhaps an agglutinative, proto-Dravidian language of India, and proto-Celtic or Pictic of England. A short synthesis of genetics and linguistic ideas from Sforza’s book follows: • Man reached north Africa (presumably from central East) in some 40,000– 50,000 years ago, and a group went into Europe, generating the oldest European man and his language, “Basque.” • The two branches, moving eastward, all descendants of Adam #3, populated the rest of the globe, including Eurasia and the Americas, Europe being populated mainly by migrants later shifting back westward from Asia. • Urdu/Hindi speakers, all descendants of Adam #5 and Eve G, are genetically similar,35 with some minor differences between North and South Indian Dravidian speakers, who were the earliest farmers (~8000 BC) from the Middle East, and had also populated Iran and Afghanistan. • The most ancient language group of the subcontinent, the “Brushaski” speakers of northwest Pakistan, which had defied classification, is found to be genetically related to Basque-speakers of Spain and France. • Speakers of IE are descendants of the farmers from the Middle East migrating north to Asia Minor first and then elsewhere, making Syria/Turkey the most probable homeland of this language family, discrediting all myths of an Aryan homeland. Speakers of IA-SKT-Vedic and old Persian-Avestan are obviously secondary migrants (~1000 BC) after Elamite and Dravidian were well settled. (The evidence described in chapters III to V in essence confirms the work of geneticists.) • Central Asia (northern Mesopotamia, Turkey, and the Caspian area) according to Cavalli Sforza has been crisscrossed by human migrations in all directions36 and has been a sort of racial and linguistic melting pot. Europe and Asia are genetically and linguistically one continent, as is evident from the multiplicity of fossil languages (as many as twelve) including Semitic, IE, DR, Turkish, and Armenian (to be discussed later). 34. H. G. Wells (1971), pp. 120–122. 35. Sforza Luigi-Luca Cavalli (2000), pp. 159–165. 36. Sforza Luigi–Luca Cavalli (2000), pp. 92–132.

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Chapter II. Phonetics, Linguistics and Genetics — DNA There is no such thing as “pure races,”37 which refutes de Gobineau and other Aryanists like Hitler. Moreover, it is really absurd to expect or desire purity of a human subgroup or race. To achieve partial purity, according to Cavalli Sforza, one would need “at least twenty generations of inbreeding or, in other words, brothers, sisters, parents, and children mating repeatedly many times.” •

2.2 SPEECH, GENES (FOXP2), AND LANGUAGE EVOLUTION Sforza’s and Ruhlen’s estimation that the common African language started branching out about 100,000 years ago (Fig 2.1), gets timely support from the new research explaining why humans are the only primates with the ability to articulate speech. The recent discovery of a language gene code, named FOXP2, provides the insight. Dr. Savante Paabo, according to The New York Times,38 identified the gene, which is shared by chimpanzees, which underwent a mutation about 100,000 years ago and turned on human speech. The mutant FOXP2 apparently switched other genes controlling the brain circuits to drive the speech process. Scientists have correlated a lack of this mutant gene (FOXP2) with the absence of articulated speech in 14 otherwise normal persons in a family of 29; the remaining 15 have normal speech but do have the mutant FOXP2. Beyond speech evolution and the development of defined language families as we know them, Urdu’s evolution is really rooted in the decipherment of “fossil languages,” as mentioned earlier. As the earliest recorded history on clay tablets from Mesopotamia and elsewhere was first decoded in 19th century, linguists found man’s oldest language (Table 1.1), “Sumerian,” to be a monosyllabic, agglutinative language with 15 consonants and 5 basic vowels. The history of language, barely 6000 years old, thus began with the simple words of Sumerian such as bi (house), and ap (water), which later became bait and ab in Urdu. In the next four thousand years or so, by the time of Cyrus of Iran (6th century BC) we find evidence of comparative linguistics, bi- and trilingual dictionaries, the appearance of more consonants, the appearance of noun and verb flexions, literature and libraries, and three distinct varieties of languages including the Semitic type (Akkadian/Assyrian-Aramaic) with full flexion, agglutinative (Elamite, a cousin of Dravidian), and IE Hittite, with some verb flexion and the use of auxiliary verbs, i.e. “is,” a notable feature of an isolating language. The Achemenian (AryanPersian) takeover of the Assyrian Empire (6–5th century BC) was another great milestone for linguistic science. Cyrus’ preference for Aramaic and Iranian Elamite helped enrich his own mother tongue, Avestan or Old Persian. There is evidence around this time of the dispersal of Phoenician Aramaic script and its later adoption as Greco-Roman and Asokan script. We find references to numerous languages, but

37. Ibid. pp. 12–13. 38. Nicholas Wade. Language genes traced to emergence of humans. NY Times, August 15th, 2002.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide the Bible’s reference to as many as 127 (Esther 8:9) can be assumed to be intended figuratively or symbolically. Indian languages were represented by some PKT (s), or Pali, as evidenced by almost contemporary Asokan inscription and some of the earliest Dravidian dialects like Brahui, etc. Written history, the modern version, begins about this time with Herodotus, a Persian employee, who is mute about Indian languages. Panini (400 BC), the SKT grammarian, represents a high point for linguistics, deducing some 4000 rules and classifying various phonemes (consonants and vowels). Alexander’s invasion (3rd century BC), warfare in Europe, and religious propagation in the ensuing centuries led to the emergence of Greek, Latin, Gothic, and other languages in Europe and West Asia. Latin, a late intruder in West Asia and Greece, was pushed out by the new Semitic languages. Arabic, which regained the lost territory of Aramaic, went into Europe (Spain), Central Asia, and India by AD 712, and also brought Islam from West Asia. Studies of linguistics and grammar flowered as a secular subject, and Arabic studies became the focus of European universities. While the spread of Christianity propagated the use of the Bible, in German, English, and French, for example, Arabic remained the global language of science. One British Arabist, William Bedwell (1561–1632), recorded its merits in literature and sciences and also its universal values, according to Bernard Lewis39. Besides Arabic, Persian and Turkish shared the prestige of high medieval civilization up to the 18th to 19th centuries.

2.3 GREAT ARAB LINGUISTS Though the world had become polarized between Christian Europe and an Islamic Arab region, Arab linguists became fluent in European languages, especially in Spain, Cairo, and Baghdad. Interestingly, unlike the Romans, who tended to impose the use of Latin, Arabs adopted the local languages, perhaps based on Quranic injunctions, and studied other people’s languages rather than requiring them to learn Arabic. An Arab scholar in AD 906, Ibn al Nadim as reviewed by Bernard Lewis generated a comprehensive survey of non-Arabic literature, listing sixteen languages including those of Lombardi, Saxon, and Greek. Alberuni studied SKT and PKT in India, not to mention Greek, Persian, and Arabic. A Moroccan, in the 17th century, noticed the common features between Arabic and Latin, both having flexion of verbs and similar syntax. Khatib Calebi, a great linguist of his time, pioneered a detailed history of all the European languages from Greek to German and included many minor languages, like Breton, Tuscan, Bosnian, Basque, and Albanian. Another linguist, Evliya Calebi made a great study of German and noted its similarity to Persian in such words as tochter-dukhtar (daughter) and bruder-brader (brother). According to Bernard Lewis he also ventured a guess that Germans were migrants

39. Bernard Lewis (1982), pp. 71–88.

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Chapter II. Phonetics, Linguistics and Genetics — DNA from Persia, not totally wrong, based on the current view about the spread of IE languages by Middle East farming cultures moving to the West. But the works of European linguists were also pioneering, especially when it came to the idea of sound shift and rules of reconstruction. Other “discoveries,” such as flexion in Latin, German, and SKT, exposed their political jealousy and/or ignorance of history. To understand Urdu’s genesis, it is important to review the basics of phonetics and related linguistics. This perhaps seemingly dry subject has been laid out in simple language by authors like L. J. Ludovici and George Yule, to name a few.

Table II.1 Speech Phonemes LEVEL

gutteral

HARD

HARD ASP

SOFT

SOFT ASP

SOFT NASAL

SEMI VOWELS

SIBILANTS

-V

-V

+V

+V

+V

+V

-V

[g]

[gh] [gh]3

[n]

[k] [q]1 [kh] [kh]2

VOWELS

DIPHTHONGS

[h]

[a] [a] (aa)

[e], [ai]

[i] [l] (ee)

palatal

[c]

[ch]

[j]

[jh]

[n]

[y]

cerebral retroflex

[t]

[th]

[d]

[dh]

[n]

[r]

[sh]

dentals

[t]

[th]

[d] [z]4 [dz]5

[dh] [zh]

[n]

[l]

[s]

labials

[p]

[ph] [f]6

[b]

-V=voiceless, +V=voiced Arabic phonemes of Urdu 1. q (quran)

[bh]

[m]

[v] [f]6

2. kh (khomeni) 3. gh (ghalti-error) 4. z (zebra)

[r] [r] [l] [u] [u] (uu)

[o] [au]

5. dz (ramadzan) 6. f+V (fox)

2.4 PHONETICS OF URDU/HINDI AND OTHERS Human speech obviously has undergone evolution from a primitive (unrecorded) to a modern stage. Some ideas of the past, or “footprints,” can be apprehended from the evolution of speech as it develops among infants. A normal speech making system apparently consists of hearing (H), perception (P), or recognition by the auditory (hearing) cortex (a part of the brain, under the temple of the skull), which also initiates speech (S) by its speech center, called “Broca’s area,” on the left side of the brain in the right-handed person and vice versa, and finally a vocalization (V) unit, or voice box or vocal cord, of the larynx or throat (in the Adam’s apple), which regulates the slit size and air flow in the throat, and sound quality. Movements of the tongue, the jaws, the soft palate or uvula, and the lips modify and deliver the final phonemes or syllables. Normal babies with an intact HPSV circuit/system, similar to lower primates, initially make gurgling, guttural vocal sounds called vowels (a, e, u, etc.) but by 6–8 months, their first syllables, ma, mum, um, ab, ad, da, ak, etc., delight everybody. The rest is imitation and repetition, leading to a vocabulary of 3–4 words by 12–15

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide months. By 3 years of age, the child forms simple sentences, e.g., “I want water,” consisting of a subject (S), a verb (V), and an object (O). Words or syllables are always made up of vowels (V) and consonants (C) (Table II.1), and the smallest words or monosyllables must have one of each. For example, the word ma (mother) with consonant m and vowel a is CV type, ap (water in Sumerian) VC type, but water, a polysyllabic word, [C1V1C2V2C3], consists of three different consonants (w, t, and r) and two different vowels (a and e). Human speech, by the Sumerians’ time (~4000 BC) largely consisted of monosyllables built using 15 Cs and 5 Vs as detailed in Chapter III. It is possible that early language possibly had just eight basic phonemes, which would have developed gradually during unknown antiquity. These include k,g,c,j,t,d,p,b (Table II.1). Phonemes, usually written within brackets [ ] as a convention, have multiplied with time to as many as 38 consonants and 13 vowels in Urdu/Hindi. They are categorized (Table II.1), based on the level of articulation, according to the scheme pioneered by Panini. Four levels of articulation, starting from the deepest part of the throat, or gullet, include two gutturals, [k] and [g], two palatals or velars, [c] and [j], spoken with the tongue rising to touch the hard palate, two dentals, [t] and [d], with the tongue touching the dental ridge, and two labials, [p] and [b], articulated by the labials, or lips. Of these, four ([b], [d], [j], and [g]) are assisted by vibration of the vocal cord, and are learned earlier by the infant. These are teleologically older, and linguists refer to them as voiced (indicated as +V Table II.1). The other four ([p], [t], [c], and [k]), called voiceless or unvoiced (indicated as -v), are unassisted by vocal cords and therefore require more sophistication in use.40 A fifth level of articulation, shown in the third horizontal row, called retroflex or cerebrals, are special (inclusive of English hard t and d) to South Asian speech families including Urdu/Hindi (Table II.1). They are generated by the tongue touching the highest point on the hard palate. Six of the 8 [p], [b], [t], [d], [k], [g] are also called “stops,” because they stop abruptly and cannot be prolonged, while the 2 palatals [c], [j] possess some aspiration and are prolonged. Two voiced sounds, [m] and [n], labial and dental, respectively, which accompany passage of air through nose, are called nasals. Other voiced ones: [h],[ y],[ r], [l], [v/f] (Table II.1) are also called semi-vowels, because of the excessive use of vocal cords. [R] and [l] are called liquid sounds. Sibilants, or hissing sounds, such as [s], [s/sh], [zh], [dz], along with [f], [v], [th], [gh], and [kh], are also termed “fricatives,”41 as they tend to generate friction. These are some standard phonemes common to all languages. Urdu/Hindi also uses compound aspirants, i.e., ph, th, kh, etc. Ten of these are shown adjacent to [p], [t], and [k]. Of the 13 vowels, by definition voiced sounds, the basic five (a, e, i, o, u) short and their corresponding longer version â, ç, î, ô, and diphthongs ai, au, etc are most common in Urdu and English as well. The table for transliteration in the beginning of the book lists their usage along with the usage of some important phonemes. These are important to the understanding of various Urdu/Hindi quotations from the literature. A review of this and Table II.1 underscores the richness of 40. L. J. Ludovici (1965), pp. 99–105. 41. George Yule (1997), pp. 45–46.

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Chapter II. Phonetics, Linguistics and Genetics — DNA Urdu’s phonemes, accumulated from antiquity. Beyond the basic 8 consonants and 10 vowels, retroflex or cerebral sounds and nasal n and m that belong to the preSKT phase come mainly from Austric-Munda and Dravidian families; Arabic phonemes, West Asian, or so called Semitic sounds [q], [kh], [gh], [z], etc., are obviously later additions. These are further discussed in chapter 16 and elsewhere.

A teleological perspective and various sound shifts are important to understand the variation between Urdu and para-Urdu and between other dialects. An example of variation is seen in sickness and fatigue, when unvoiced becomes voiced; or a regression to older acquired phonemes, e.g. there is tendency to substitute d for t, and table becomes dable, thirty, dirty, etc., and p, t, and k unvoiced may become voiced, b, d, q. This is also attributable to human laziness, according to Ruhlen.42 For example, pronouncing aba (father) is easier than apa (father), as all 3 phonemes (a, b, a) are voiced — this means using the vocal cord only once — while in apa one uses the vocal cord twice, before and after the stop p, spending more energy/air. Perhaps the same phenomenon encouraged the replacement of [p] by [b] in Arabic. The process is also apparent in the ma, (mother), ba, da, etc., as the infant can easily use both voiced phonemes in a single use of the vocal cord; p appears later.

2.5 GROWTH, GRAMMAR, AND ACCIDENCE Merritt Ruhlen and Cavalli Sforza have reorganized the linguistic families as we know them, which generated Urdu’s ancient families (Fig II–1). But it is impossible from these studies to capture the evolution of grammar and syntax. This is only visible since the Sumerian period, which is not earlier than 6000 years ago. For the growth of any language, however, linguists agree that new words are formed and exchanged on the streets and in the market places; people and not grammarians create and use languages as a utility, as discussed before. Grammar is just a follow up exercise to record created speech, a recorded observation of the process and evolutionary word bank and the deposits made throughout the years. Interference in this cycle retards growth, as the imposition of grammar rules by Panini arrested SKT. For a luxuriant growth of language, no grammar is the best grammar — according to some. The creation of neo-Hindi by the British was another example of interference leading to a regressed artificial language, to be discussed later (Chapters 10 and 13). Accidence is a process of “new word” creation or acquisition, a feature of grammar, of which inflection, or flexion, is one example noted in the earlier chapter. Languages can also be classified on this basis, again into three main types and a fourth one, a mixed type, as follows: Isolating type, requiring the use of auxiliary verb participles like “is,” “was.” Chinese, Austric-Munda Agglutinating type, (using suffixes) includes Dravidian, Finnish-Ugaric, Turkish-Altaic, Caucasian (Georgian, Chechen, etc.) and Celtic and Armenian branches of the IE family. 42. Merritt Ruhlen (1994), pp. 17–31.

41

Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide Amalgamating or inflected type, wherein affixes are fixed completely or amalgamated to the root; also called inflection or flexion. Four sub-types are seen: a. full external flexion of verb and case, i.e., SKT, Latin, Greek b. external verb flexion with partial and no case flexion, i.e., French, Italian, Spanish, German, and Persian c. full external flexion of verb and case plus internal or root flexion of verb, i.e., Arabic d. external flexion of verb plus some root flexion and partial case flexion, i.e., Gothic, German Mixed Type, in which the most dominant features are “isolating,” plus a sprinkle of agglutination and minor inflection, e.g., Urdu/Hindi and English. Most linguists of the past, Shlegal, Rask, and others have equated the presence of flexion with “higher quality” and evolutionary status of a language and its decrease or absence as evidence of decay/degeneration; SKT in this theory exemplified the perfect mother with Urdu/Hindi as degenerated inferior daughter dialects. The same analogy seemed logical for English as a deteriorated, inferior dialect devolving from a more “perfect” Gothic/German, and French and Spanish from Latin. These scholars held up the view that isolation, agglutination, and amalgamation in fact represent stages in language evolution and deterioration; starting from the amalgamate stage downwards to isolation; this was compatible with the mythical view of deterioration of SKT. The IE family with its grandmother PIE was presumed to be the most evolved, having inflection and 52 phonemes with 30 consonants,43a copy of SKT; and in a given tract presumably daughters of PIE (pure Gothic, Latin, SKT) would decay the flexion in stages to develop isolating (inferior) features and become similar to modern English, French, Urdu/Hindi. But the discoveries of fossil languages, Sumerian, Akkadian, and Hittite, having only 13–15 consonants and 5 vowels even as late as 1300 BC, and the presence of full flexion in much older “Semitic” Akkadian, and imperfected flexion in Hittite, the oldest “presumed IE entity,” really unraveled the entire theory of PIE and its daughters and granddaughters in the IE–Aryan family. The alternate theory that language evolves from an isolating type towards becoming an amalgamating type seems to have some logic in the sense that we see evolution generally moving from simple to more complex. A third view holds that these stages run through spiral cycles; this is really most difficult to prove as the entire history of linguistics is just about 6000 years old and none has witnessed a full cycle anywhere yet. Obviously, Urdu/Hindi and English have evolved slowly, retaining their isolating feature, i.e., the use of auxiliary verbs. Linguists don’t seem to know why inflection arose. Based on medical and physiological considerations, it is tempting to theorize that agglutination and flexion may represent degrees of adaptation to conserve water and energy, representing an adaptation to the environment by conservation of scarce resources. The conditions of water and/or food shortage would gear the HPSV system

43. S.K. Chatterji (1969), pp. 267-271

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Chapter II. Phonetics, Linguistics and Genetics — DNA toward conservation, especially of water, critical in Arabian/Syrian/Saharan North Africa. For example, one single inflected verb or agglutinated word is more energy efficient than a full sentence, as these few examples reveal: Inflected (Persian)dadaiti (SKT) dati (Latin) dat (Arabic) akla (Arabic) aklat

Isolated (Urdu/Hindi) voh deta hai voh deta hai voh deta hai voh khata hai voh khati hai

(he gives) (he gives) ( he gives) (he eats) (she eats)

The harshest (desert) conditions would favor maximal flexion, i.e., Semitic Arabic of the Arabian/Syrian desert. Less severe locations, the south (dry) Iran, Eurasian steppes and central Asia, featured agglutinated features; in other words, Sumerian, Elamite, Caucasian, Turkish, Finnish, Celtic, Dravidian, etc., have had agglutinative speech. Flexion once evolved in West Asian deserts had become entrenched. Each type then protected its own mother tongue during the following thousands of years. Flexion and agglutination apparently must have migrated with Middle East farmers to India, Turkey, and Europe, while tertiary invasion and/or admixture by Romans, Germans, Indians, Aryans, etc., led to absorption of some flexion by locals. The oldest lingua franca of Europe, Celtic, was and is agglutinated. In India the oldest people, Austric-Munda (from the pre-Neolithic period), must have maintained their elaborate long sentences (Urdu/Hindi) or isolating features with no incentive to conserve water, as it was always in plentiful supply. This concept of the origin of flexion, coming from a physician, not a trained linguist, is obviously hypothetical and requires further research. Syntax, another element of grammar, reveals variable evolution. Among the eight different combinations of SVO as mentioned in the previous chapter, Semitic Arabic, Austric-Munda, IE SKT, English, and French are SVO type. Syntax is least conservative within the IE family itself; Celtic (Scot) has VSO type, while German uses SOV, SVO, and VSO type in different situations,44 and English too has used VSO and OVS types.45 The oldest type, perhaps, is represented by Chinese, the most isolating language with a continuous record. Here, verbs and nouns may function as interchangeable units or words. For example the word shang, according to Bodmer,46 means 1) above one, or ruler, 2) above, or on, any object etc., and can be used as a noun shang or ruler. But in shang ma (horse), which means to mount the horse, it is a verb and in ma shang (on the horse) it serves as a preposition. Syntax is an irrelevant concept in Chinese. In Urdu/Hindi, the syntax is SOV type, a Dravidian heritage. Gender, number, and tense, important items of grammar, reveal wide variability. Semitic Arabic, SKT, Latin, and Austric-Munda use three number types: singular, plural, and dual; Dravidian, along with Urdu and Para-Urdu and English, have only two. Genders, too, are 44. F. Bodmer (1985), pp.184–185. 45. George Yule (1997), pp. 213–221. 46. F. Bodmer (1985), p. 433.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide three: male, female, and neuter, a feature common in most IE, including SKT and English. But Hittite, the oldest IE, had only animate and non-animate, perhaps an ancient legacy still maintained in the Austric-Munda family. Gender distinction evolved from a common form for both, as in the Chinese and Austric-Munda family, to two in later families, Dravidian and Semitic, and then to three in some members of the IE family. Urdu/Hindi follows the Arabic and Dravidian line of two genders, but some para-Urdus, like Bengali, Oriya, or even Bihari Urdu, have retained single gender verbs. It is obviously wrong to assume that the absence of SKT’s third gender and dual number from Urdu/Hindi is a result of loss or decay as was the presumption for flexion. It is more likely that Hindi/Urdu moved from a single gender (Austric Munda) to a two-gender system under Dravidian influence. These issues will come up later in our discussion on the genetics of the IE/ PIE family and its linkage with Urdu/Hindi.

2.6 CLASSIFICATION: A SCIENCE AND AN ART By initiating linguistic classification, William Jones tended to free languages from religious myth, though Sir William initiated a new rival myth quite similar to Darwin’s projection on evolution articulated a bit later. The classification was based mainly on a commonality of words, not grammar. These were just a handful of words shared between five original members of the IE family, namely, Greek, Gothic (German), Italic (Latin), Celtic, and Indo-Iranian (SKT, Persian). Others were added later. This battery of words consisted of relationship words (mother, father, brother, sister); words for numbers (two, three, seven, eight, nine, ten); pronouns such as me/ my, thou/that or m/t pronouns and a few verb roots (to carry (bear), to give (dena), etc.). Sir William, an astute linguist who knew 28 languages, placed “Noah’s” languages, Arabic and Hebrew, in a separate family, based on a similar idea of common words. The most basic features of grammar (flexion, number, and syntax) he completely ignored, though he was aware that the two groups shared these common features; they were later named as Aryan (IE) and Semitic, not by him or by any Semitic people but by a later German linguist with political views as discussed in the previous chapter. It is most important to remember the socio-political circumstances surrounding the birth of linguistics. In this transitional phase (1760–1810), Western Europe (Catholic and Protestant) dominated much of the world in every science and in literature, and its main adversary, “Islam,” which had dominated world culture via Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, was in its declining phase. And most important, the earliest archaeology and the decipherment of the Rosetta Stone had identified Egypt (~5000 years old) as the source of Greco-Roman (now Christian) civilization. This cannot have been a pleasant revelation for the Eurocentrics; and Mesopotamia, even worse in this context, was not even known. The reconstruction of PIE by August Shleicher (1850s) and associates, was not timed very felicitously. His efforts were unnecessary, as IE family was already well established. He seemed to have had a different agenda. PIE, as noted, was conceived

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Chapter II. Phonetics, Linguistics and Genetics — DNA as having been an ancestral (the oldest) Aryan language of the glorious Aryan civilization (6000 years old), disseminated from its epicenter in Germany elsewhere by the hypothetical invading hordes of blue-eyed, blond, tall, knights/horsemen, urvolk, wiros/hero/SKT-VIR (brave). Aryan-PIE had to outflank, discredit, and outdate both the biblical myth and Egyptian archaeology in one stroke, because for the Europeans and Aryan Hindus, West Asian discoveries clearly meant a loss of prime status to the Middle East.

2.7 RECONSTRUCTION BUSINESS PIE, though, turned out to be a quasi-scientific tool which the reconstruction business adopted enthusiastically, going on to create a hypothetical proto Dravidian, proto Elamo-Dravidian, proto Indo-Iranian, proto Semitic, etc. The process is meant to discover how language might have been, prior to recorded history. Merritt Ruhlen, George Yule, and others identify some important principles to clarify this interesting art by practical exercises to discover common vocabulary, or cognates, between two or more languages. The principles include 1) Majority principle, and 2) Natural development or sound shifts. The majority principle simply compares the words with the same meaning in various members of a family for phonemes, and the majority wins. For example, if in seven North Indian dialects, Urdu, Punjabi, etc., the word vir (brave) is spelled with [v] in 5, including Urdu/Hindi, and with [b] as bir in Bihari and Bengali, one would conclude that in the unknown source, it was vir, and in a minority it has changed. The process, though, cannot tell us when, how, and why of the art. The natural development principle involves sound changes as follows: • Final vowel often disappears. • Voiceless sounds ([p], [t], [c], [k]) become voiced ([b], [d], [j], [g]) between vowels. • Stops become fricatives under certain conditions. • Consonants become voiceless at the end of the word. One might add more shifts, such as the one between retroflex and dentals which is comprised of three categories: r/l, s/sh, and v/b/p, commonly observed among various languages in families in India. This will be revisited in context with SKT/PKT and Urdu’s evolution after 11–12th century. The most important point to remember, and emphasized by Ruhlen, is that sound shifts are unpredictable at best and in many languages they do not occur. Moreover, reconstruction cannot answer why, how, and when questions. Additionally, reconstruction cannot find the reasons for many odd words in a given family. For example, the word dog in English and perro (Spanish for dog) has no cognate in their respective mother sources, German and Latin, where the words are hund and cane. The art of reconstruction did unveil some affinities between families, i.e., McAlpine’s recent creation of protoElamite and protoElamo-Dravidian, a revolutionary step in Urdu’s genesis, to be discussed in later chapters. Cognates between proto-Semitic and PIE have helped in forging larger families. These and many other

45

Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide

Figure II.1 Urdu’s Ancestral Links and Super families (KYA = 1000 years) Urdu’s ingredient-links* similarities discovered via reconstruction otherwise debunked the theory of PIE with the exposure of racism in this linguistic classification (Fig II–2). PIE turned out to be an academic embarrassment or a hot potato. Many linguists don’t believe in this timeline (6000 years) including the arrival of SKT in India around 1500 BC, which is linked to the validity of the PIE timeline, considered fictitious by many linguists including Merritt Ruhlen. Indian linguists seem to have some vested interest in maintaining the PIE/IE/Aryan theory. Prof. Chatterji hailed PIE as evidence of German creativity, obviously because SKT had served as the model of PIE, for its phonemes and grammar, and the assumption of disintegration theory, PIE breaking up into its daughters. In fact, shared vocabulary and grammar between IE/Semitic and others is significant and is utilized in the proposed classification in chapter 17; but linguists have indulged in creating superfamilies, revealing general “inclusiveness” but mainly through reconstruction. Examples are as follow: ProtoSemitic awr (Arabic-sor or thor) *wajn (Heb-yayeen) *Saotar

PIE *Tauro *weino *hastar

sabs-at-u-m (Semitic seven)

*septum

English bull, ox wine, grape star, evening/morning star, Venus (URDU Sitara) seven (URDU sat, PERS Hafta)

2.8 EMERGENCE OF SUPERFAMILIES Linguistic classification, tentative as it is, must evolve in the true spirit of Sir William by finding resemblances or cognates, just as in animal taxonomy (where scientists look at bird and fish groups to discover other mammalian cousins, even in

46

Chapter II. Phonetics, Linguistics and Genetics — DNA unexpected places, like bats, and whales). Progress in this direction is slow because of the efforts of many scholars to protect, according to Ruhlen47, the sanctity of the PIE/IE family/concept. This led to the expansion of the IE family by inclusion of Albanian, Armenian, and Slavonic branches, etc., and also the emergence of a super family, “Nostratic,” proposed by Pederson48 (1924), who put Semitic and UralicAltaic together in this group. Two pioneers, Alfredo Thrombeti and Morris Swadesh, a bit later provided linguistic evidence that all languages were related to single family,49 (a challenging concept in early 20th century). But the protectors of IE, the Indo-Europeanists, were clearly driven by race issues and would only include Semitic. But according to Ruhlen, those others, Uralic-Altaic and Eskimo-Aleut, etc., reveal much greater linguistic affinity to IE than IE to Semitic. Racial biases perhaps also operated in “Nostratic” (which means “our language” in Latin), which had initially excluded Dravidian, a presumed non-Aryan language. Linguistic division between Aryan/IE North and Dravidian South India, overtly based on myth and race, was played up via academic differences in grammar and syntax. Interestingly, this had even duped the Indian linguists, mostly Brahmins (who were either ignorant or played so, thinking it somehow was in their interest) regarding the glaring differences among various IE languages vis-à-vis grammar. Celtic, which shared agglutinative features and syntax with Dravidian, was grandfathered as IE, but Dravidian was left out; Celtic was indeed a pan-European language, as Dravidian was pan-Indian. Both had agglutinating features and were well settled before the arrival of inflected SKT, Latin, or Gothic, etc., both having provided significant loans to new arrivals. Other superfamilies (Fig. II.1) are even smaller than Nostratic. Newer names crowd the field now; “Afro Asiatic,” a new term which includes formerly Semitic and north African (older Hamitic) languages is certainly more correct than racial terms. A new and unique superfamily, “Euro-Asiatic,” also provides IE with its closest relatives, such as Altaic, Uralic, Eskimo-Aleut, etc. (Fig. II.1). With some determined coordination from geneticists, linguists, and archaelogists, the IE family now does seem to have a meaningful time clock, starting from the Middle East, reaching Turkey (7000–8000 years ago), Greece (5000–6000 years ago), Germany/Poland (4000–5000 years), Portugal (4000 years), and England (5000 years). By tracking some 200 words in 63 IE languages, the study by Cavalli Sforza reveals that the oldest IE, Albanian and Armenian, represent the first wave of migrants from Turkey. Celtic, the earliest split, represents the oldest pan-European language. A later split was the Italo-Germanic and the Balto-Slavic branches, dividing later into sub branches. Roman and German tribes had interfaced with the earlier waves of migration, Etruscan, Basque, and Celtic-speakers, and could not completely absorb them, as in the case of SKT and Dravidian. Baltic and Slavic language users interfaced with earlier settlers (Finnish-Uralic) in the east of Europe. The varieties in IE grammar in Europe, the oldest being Celtic (agglutinative), later Greek and Latin, with flexion, and Gothic with root flexion (like Arabic), are 47. Merritt Ruhlen (1994), pp. 126–139. 48. Merritt Ruhlen (1994), pp. 181–190. 49. Merritt Ruhlen (1994), pp. 197–203.

47

Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide apparently a reflection of the variety present in Mesopotamia/Syria/Turkey (~1800 BC) i.e., Mitanni, Hurrian, Hittite, Assyrian, etc. (Table 1.1). Comparative linguistics, which was initially based on just a few dozen words that led to the notion of the IE family, really is a very soft science. There is no correlation with grammar, and modern rules for finding resemblance or cognate words between different languages are dependent on “classical sound correspondence and very strict phonological rules.”50 Applying these rules strictly now can make it impossible to re-establish the “grand IE family”; IE’s birth was really a crude job, perhaps because it was based on fictional romance rather than the academics of grammar. Keeping IE as it is, with known imperfections, modern linguists now classify families based on a timeline and the dispersal of linguistic groups. The diagram (fig. II.1), modified from Ruhlen and Cavalli Sforza’s book,51 reveals the African ancestor creating an Asian progeny (70,000–50,000 years ago), which as one southeast AsiaPacific grand family divides up to produce the Austral and Austro-Asiatic group, whose members gave rise to Austric-Munda, a linguistic/cultural group, as the founding father of the Urdu/Hindi language and a significant portion of Indian culture. This is dealt with in further detail in chapter IV. This group must have come a few thousand years prior to the Neolithic Age and inaugurated rice farming in later Indochina. From the other branch of Asians arose the Eurasian grand family, dividing into two, a Dene-Caucasian (20,000–40,000 years ago), not shown in the chart, but who are the defined ancestors of the Sino-Tibetan and Caucasian linguistic families, and a larger group, the Eurasian-Americans, who about 20,000 years ago generated the ancestor of Dravidian family as well as Afro-Asiatic, also called Semitic. Thus, both the Dravidian family, which arose earlier, along with Semitic Arabic’s ancestor, might have been the first farmers as stated earlier. In fact we do find some common vocabulary between Arabic and Dravidian, which will be discussed later (chapter 17). The Eurasian-American group also generated a common ancestor of Euro-Asiatic, which fathered IE, Uralic, Altaic, and Eskimo Aleut (Alaskan). SKT- and Persianspeaking groups, which we know as “Aryan,” represent a recent tertiary dispersal during 1000–1500 BC The figure (II.1) also shows the Indian theater receiving its oldest Austric-Munda during the pre-Neolithic period, followed by Dravidian farmers, who created the first hybrid, which was layered later with SKT, Arabic, and Persian.

2.9 ALL CONNECTED — ONE LANGUAGE A glimpse of vocabulary from these global colonizers coming out of Africa is now available. Merritt Ruhlen’s pioneering work52 connects all the linguistic families

50. Sforza Luigi–Luca Cavalli (2000), pp. 138–140. 51. Merritt Ruhlen (1994), pp. 164–169. 52. Merritt Ruhlen (1994), pp. 101–124.

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Chapter II. Phonetics, Linguistics and Genetics — DNA through identification of cognates, and among them Urdu/Hindi and para-Urdu words are clearly visible, though he has omitted the details. Three popular words representing relationships: Mama (mother), Papa (father), Kaka (elder brother or uncle, etc.) masquerade everywhere. Mama’s variations in Urdu and its substrates show up as Amma, Ma, Ammi, Umm, etc.; Papa’s includes Apa/Aba, noted in our discussion on phonetics, and Abu, Abba, Baba, etc. Kaka’s variations are also numerous, with Aka/Akka apparently most common; and Aka-> aqa (Arabic) and aga/agha (Persian) are also used in Urdu. A battery of 13 cognates besides the above ones links every superfamily. These include pronouns (who/what), numbers (two and one), water, arm, knee, hair, vulva/ vagina, smell/nose, and verbs for squeeze, seize and fly. Latin’s aqwa (water) connects the IE family with American-Indian, African, and others. The verb par (fly) is special for Urdu as it comes via Dravidian and Persian (a mutual ancient loan). Dravidian par means “get off, “be away,” etc.; as in Urdu, one may give a command, parey hat (“take off!”). Persian provides numerous derivatives in Urdu/Hindi, i.e. par (feather), parinda (bird family), parwana (insect fly), parwaz (flight), and phur (flying sound) as in “phur-se urna.” Urdu’s pari and English ferry have this same root. The other interesting word, “puti/pudi/puda” for female genitalia is now considered a profanity in Punjabi and Western Urdu/Hindi, but it generated a technical word “pudenda” only in Latin and with a p/b change is found as buti/butu in the AfroAsiatic (Semitic) family, linking all cultures. Ruhlen further reveals that the pronouns with [m] and [t] me/thee/ti etc. are widespread and not specific to IE, SKT, or Urdu/ Hindi. His work certainly provides a global perspective and discredits the religious, divisive dogmas. Ruhlen and other linguists, however, ignore the shared vocabulary and grammar of Mesopotamian fossils necessary to any legitimate classification, such as the ones proposed in Chapter 17.

2.10 INDO-ARYAN OR INDIAN URDU/HINDI Modern linguistic concepts and super families, though, are integrative but still not free of myths and dogma. The classification of Urdu/Hindi as an IA dialect (1905–1910) remains within the same Aryan model. Dr. Chatterji’s two books on Bengali and Hindi and the current genetic history of English run on parallel tracks linked to PIE/Aryan ideas, i.e., SKT deteriorated into PKT and German (Gothic) into English with the loss of flexion. The history of English cannot be much revised, as there is no linguistic material prior to Julius Caesar’s invasion (55 BC). So the set historical pattern of old, middle, and modern English is maintained, and Celtic, the major source of its vocabulary, is largely ignored as the starter. The history of English starts with the invasion of Anglo-Saxon, German “Aryan” tribes in 4th century AD. Chatterji, borrowing this idea, also starts with the Aryan invasion, calling it old IA (SKT), which, according to him, created middle IA (MIA) from Buddha onwards, meaning ancient PKT and MIA become the neo-IA or Urdu/Hindi after the arrival of Muslims from the 10th century onward. And, imitating the West, he also ignores the input of Dravidian and Austric.

49

Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide This antiquated view certainly needs a change, as copious material in preAryan language is now available. The history of Urdu/Hindu in this book starts with “proto-Urdu,” the earliest hybrid, generated with Dravidian’s arrival and their interaction with the oldest Austric-Munda people. This hybridization must have continued for some 6000 years or so until the Aryans arrived (1000 BC) and interacted with proto-Urdu, creating the next stage, “old Urdu/Hindi” (PKTs). Mixing with Arabic and Persian after the 8th century AD, the old Urdu hybrid (PKTs) passed into Urdu/ Hindi stage as depicted in fig. II. 1. But the views which led to the origin of the term IA for Hindi/Urdu dialects require a fresh look. Our review here factors in the respective contributions of five main ingredients, facts of grammar, and freedom from mythical belief. We start with what “dialect” means. Webster’s Dictionary (1979, p. 502) defines the concept: “any language as part of a larger group or family of languages, as English is a Germanic dialect.” That may be true for English, for almost half of its vocabulary and most important everyday-use verbs are “Germanic/Gothic,” e.g., come, go, give, find, fly, see, sing, ride, swim, add, begin, bath, etc., besides the pronouns and auxiliary verbs, was, will, etc. The grammar is somewhat similar, except that noun flexion is almost nonexistent and verb flexion is minimal compared to German/Gothic. Noun Verb

book, books go, goes, going, gone give, gives, gave, given

Genders are three, as in German, and numbers are two. The syntax, SVO of English, is seen in many IE languages but German syntax is unstable and variable. English has borrowed significantly from many languages but mainly from Latin/ French and Greek. “Celtic” has fed virtually all of Europe’s languages, including Latin, Gothic, etc., and the original starting source is difficult to establish. Thus, at best, English can be traced cumulatively, starting with Pictic (pre-Celtic) to Celtic, to Latin, to French, to German, to English. English is a typical hybrid and may be called a German dialect because of the large shared vocabulary. The term dialect itself, at best, is relative. English can be even called a Celtic dialect, as Celtic, being older and fed Latin, French and German. The same cannot be really presumed about Urdu/Hindi being a dialect of SKT, which itself had borrowed from the same sources, Austric/Munda and Dravidian, during the same phase of evolution. At the time of classification (1905–10), it may be true that a bulk of Dravidian/Austric words were presumed as SKT. Let us compare the grammar first. Urdu/Hindi is isolating or analytical in type, a feature of Austric-Munda family, like Malaysian and others. It must use auxiliary verbs (is, will, was), while SKT is mostly flexional in both verb and nouns. Some minor verb flexion, as a natural evolution or influence, is seen in Urdu, which borrowed some SKT verbs but used them according to its own grammar. For example, a presumed SKT verb dadami (I give) has dozens of conjugated forms to express gender, tense, and number in SKT. Urdu has replaced the internal vowel “a” by “e” to use it in 5 inflected forms as follows — but with mandatory use of the pronoun and auxiliary verb, due to Urdu’s nature as isolating:

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Chapter II. Phonetics, Linguistics and Genetics — DNA

Table II.2 Common Urdu/Hindi Verbs and Their Source Verbs

English Meaning

Source

Verbs

English Meaning

Source

ana

coming

DR

katna

Cutting

DR

jana

going

DR

bolna

speaking

DR

calna

walking

DR

kahna

Saying

Munda

bhagna

running

DR

puchna

Asking

DR

karna

doing

DR

sona

sleeping

SKT

parhna

reading

DR

rona

Crying

SKT

likhna

writing

SKT

jorna

Adding

Munda

dekhna

seeing

SKT

ghatana

substracting

Munda

khana

eating

DR

girna

Falling

Munda

peena

drinking

DR

torna

breaking

DR

jalana

burning

Munda

larna

quarelling

DR

rokna

stopping

SKT

banana

making

Arab

lagana

attaching

Munda

Urdu/Hindi Deta + aux (he gives) Detey + aux (they give) Deti + aux (she gives) Detein + aux (feminine pl. they give) Diya + aux (gave – all numbers and gender) SKT follows its own grammar/phonetic system. For example, “he gives” or “voh deta hai,” of Urdu, in SKT is the equivalent of just one word — dadati — a word that is meaningless in Urdu. SKT flexion did not degenerate here; Urdu/Hindi, due to its nature, treats all other loans, i.e., from Persian and Arabic, in the same way, as we’ll see in detail subsequently. This is an agglutinating feature from DR; the root verb “dena,” incidentally, is rooted in West Asia and is not a SKT root. SKT has three numbers: singular, plural, and dual, similar to Arabic. Urdu has just the singular and plural; it never had dual, nor does it now. Similarly, SKT has three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter, while Urdu has only two. Urdu syntax is SOV type (Dravidian), while SKT is SVO, like English, Arabic, and Persian. There is almost no resemblance in the grammar of the two languages. To say that Urdu/Hindi started as SKT with “high grammar” and degenerated so that SKT is now Hindi/Urdu is simply illegitimate; it is pure mythology and flies in the face of the evidence showing the roles of pre-Aryan languages and the concept of “cumu-

51

Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide lative evolution.” Beyond this, SKT has made a modest contribution in vocabulary (about 10%); virtually all affixes, auxiliary verbs, and most pronouns are pre-Aryan and the process of making adjectives and plural is mainly Persian driven. (These will be discussed in detail with examples, later on.) Urdu/Hindi, thus, cannot be defined as a dialect of SKT as defined in Webster. Let us look at the prevalence of SKT roots among common Urdu/Hindi verbs. A random sample of 25 common verbs (Table II–3) reveals that SKT makes up just about 20%. An overwhelming majority (76%) are pre-Aryan, with the largest number (52%) from Dravidian, followed by Munda (24%). As a matter of fact, many non SKT verbs were lumped into SKT during the 19th century when IA classification was finalized. But even as late as the 1960s and 70s, linguists had remained mute on this issue. Dr S. K. Chatterji maintained the IA model, since Indian linguists usually do not challenge SKT’s status because of their own taboos, religious beliefs, and academic coercion. SKT’s larger role in literature and the sciences and Urdu’s inspiration from these are well known, but this is an entirely different matter of literature, and not linguistics. Let us take a different approach. We can analzye the words in two literary pieces, one by a modern Hindi poet, Mr. Bajpai, a former Indian prime minister,53 and another from a famous poem by Sir Iqbal, an Urdu poet of the 20th century, for various substrates, SKT (s), Dravidian (d), Munda (m), Persian (p), and Arabic (a). Bajpai’s piece is given first, along with its translation: Bey (p) naqab (a) chehrey (p) hain (m), dagh (p) barey (d) ghehrey (m) hain (m), tutta (d) tilism (a) aj (s) sac (s) se (d) bhai (s) khata (d) hon (m), lagi (m) kuc (d) aisi (d) nazar (a) bikhra (m) seesay (p) ka (d) shaher (p), apnon (s) kay (d) melay (s) mein (d) meet (s) nahein (s) pata (s) hon (m) [Translation: Unmasked faces are there, wounds are really deep, magic is out, today I am afraid of truth, the evil eye got it in the way, and shattered the city of glass, among our own people I do not see a friend.]

Iqbal’s: Sarey (s) jahan (p) se (d) accha (d) Hindustan (p) hamara (d), hum (d) bulbulain (p) hain (m) uski (d) voh (d) gulsitan (p) hamara (d). mazhab (a) nahein (s) sikhata (s) apas (p) mein (d) bair (s) rakhna (s), Hindi (p) hain (m) hum (d) vatan (a) hai (m) Hindustan (p) hamara (d) [Translation: In the entire world, our India is best. We are the nightingale of this garden. Religion does not teach mutual enmity, Indians, we are of our country India.]

The mix of SKT, 25% and 18%, is about the same, but the highest contribution is from Dravidian, 33% and 38%, followed by Persian-Arabic, 25% and 32%, and Munda, 10%. This is representative of literary material, which may contain a higher 53. A. B. Bajpai (1997), p. 146.

52

Chapter II. Phonetics, Linguistics and Genetics — DNA percentage of SKT words than street language. A revision of the concept of the “genetic relationship” between SKT and Urdu/Hindi is obviously necessary and overdue.

2.11 URDU/HINDI AND THE IE TIMELINE/GLOTTOCHROLOGY The evolution of other IA dialects, Punjabi, Gujarati, etc., had run on essentially a similar track. They have a substantially similar grammar, syntax, and word mix, but different orthography. Kashmiri, though, has retained the SVO syntax of the Munda family. How long ago these dialects might have diverged from each other is anyone’s guess, because there are so few written records prior to the Common Era. But IE linguists, much more indulgent than Indians, have devised a method to measure the time distances between their own dialects, because they too lacked records. Fortunately, they have included all IE dialects, some 63 of them, including Urdu/Hindi and others. Developed by American linguists and analyzed by Dr. Sforza, the method tracked about 200 words common to 63 languages/dialects by a computerized process which provides a possible time of separation from a “common” ancestor/source, along with an estimate of the reliability of that calculation. From this rather complicated and busy diagram have emerged some interesting observations, which incidentally coincide fairly closely with a historical timeline. Some extracts are as follows:

Urdu/Hindi and Punjabi • Essentially were one language about 500–600 years ago (AD 1400–1500) (high reliability, 95%).

Urdu/Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, and Bengali • The group originated 1800 years ago from a common source (AD 200) (100% reliability); the thesis of Bengali’s separation from Hindi in AD 700–800 is only 40% reliable, but Gujarati’s separation (AD 900–1000) from Marathi is 76% reliable.

Kashmiri, Urdu/Hindi, and Others • Had a common ancestral source 2500 years ago (500 BC) (calculation is 100% reliable). This was around Buddha’s time.

Persian and IA (Urdu/Hindi etc) • Persian and its dialects and IA dialects (not SKT) had a common source 6500 years ago (44% reliability).

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide

German/English, Persian, IA dialects • The common IE ancestor of Latin, Greek, and parents of Persian and IA dialects separated from each other 7500 years ago (5500 BC); 29% reliable. A reliability of Dinu (judge), seem to presage the pattern that gives Urdu Nehr (river) > Nehru, kala (black) > kalu, Ram > Ramu, etc. They passed on this trend and this type of vowel endings into Akkadian/Assyrian (Table III.4), and it is also noted in many IE. -v

+v

+v

+v

-v

Gutturals

k

g

ng

-

-

Palatals

ch

-

-

-

-

Cerebrals

-

-

-

r

s/h

Dental

t

d

n

l

s/z

Labials

p

b

m

-

-

Gender was absent in Sumerian, but they used the suffixes nita for boy and munus for girl; thus Dumo (child) became Dumo-nita (a boy) and Dumo-munus (a girl). Another suffix, ne, made a plural, i.e., Ama (mother) > ama-ne (mothers). Sumerian syntax is also Urdu/Dravidian SOV type. The Sumerian language remained active up to about 1000 BC and slowly was absorbed mainly into Semitic and Elamitic languages and their successors, and also other languages. An ancient Greek tablet (1 BC–AD 1) also reveals that connection.

3.1.3 Sumerian Vocabulary in Urdu/Hindi Sumerian words have found their way into Urdu both through its Elamite Dravidian neighbor, its Arabic successor, and its IE Hittite neighbor/successor, especially Greek and Latin, SKT, Persian, etc. The list (Table III–1) includes the oldest words for mother, Amma or Umm, father abba or appa, distributed all over in their variations. The same is true for the pronoun mae for I/me and nu, for no/not and gu/gud for cow or gau; gau or cow has enormous scope in Urdu/Hindi culture; in India, there are numerous name derivatives: Gopal, Gopalan, Govinda; place names Gorakhpur, Gopalgunj and even a whole British regiment, the Gorakha (meaning cow keeper), is named using this Sumerian root. Lord Krishna, a Hindu prophet, bears the title Gopal. The Sumerian root “Kar,” as a verb, is found in Persian and Urdu as Karna (to do) and the verb pad or pad/phad and tar or tor, meaning to tear and break, are shared words in Urdu. Others such as gar or ghar (house), bar or bahar (outside), rab (chief), Sir or sha-er (poet), shaqi (cup bearer) are common ones; ab (water) of Persian/Urdu is also part of Vedic SKT. In addition there are some pronouns, i.e., he/ she Be, Bne, ne (this); the word ku (eat) with vowel change and addition of liquid r and l is everywhere, kul or akaul in Arabic, kur, kurdan or khurdan in Persian, and ka, kha, khana in Urdu/Hindi through Dravidian (Table IV.2); the word ku-ra changed to khurak (diet) in Persian and Urdu. An intriguing word mah (presumed SKT, meaning 67. Edgard Do in Jack M. Sasson Vol. IV, pp. 2107–2119.

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Chapter III. Middle East: Source of Semitic, Dravidian and Indo-European/Sanskrit great or mighty), is perhaps a legacy of Austric-Munda people who passed through West Asia in pre-Sumerian times; the word is found all over the Austric-speaking area. Sumerians used this as a suffix. For example, nin (lady) becomes nin mah (great lady). In SKT and Urdu/Hindi, it has wide usage as prefix, i.e., mahajan (great man), Mahanagar (great city), mahavir (great hero), and matunga (great tusk bearer) means elephant. The names of the Sumerians’ numbers were also absorbed by the Semitic language and a few others. Sumerian root words will be revisited in the proposed reclassification (Chapter 17).

Table III.1 Some Sumerian Words in Urdu/Hindi and Other Languages Sumerian

Meaning

Form, Meaning in Urdu and Others

1. abba

old man, elder

Father, in URD, HIN, AR

2. adda

father

Father (sometimes) in URD, HIN

3. amma

mother

Mother, in AR, URD, DR, HIN

4. a, ab

water

PER, SKT, URD

5. ab

cow

“av” in DR

6. bar 7. bar-uru 8. bahar

outside

bahir in PER, URD, HIN

open country

bahir in PER, URD, HIN

potter

in AR

9. e-ne

he/she

ene (him/them) URD, HIN

10. gar

to place, a field

ghar in AM, URD, HIN

11. gud

ox

12. gu

cow

gaey- in URD, and others

13. gu-gal

pea

gu-dana in PER

14. kar

run away, carry off

kardanin PER, karna - URD, HIN, DR, SKT

15. ku

to eat

Khurdan (eat) in PER

16. ku-ra

food

khurak (food) in PER, URD

17. mae

I or me

mein (I or me) in AM, URD, HIN

18. mah

great, mighty

mah, maha (great) AM, SKT, URD

19. nagar

carpenter

najjar in AR

20. ne

this

demonstrative in URD, HIN, AM

21. pad

break in pieces

as pad, pat in DR, AM, URD, HIN

22. sag

slave

sag (dog) in PER

23. sig

wool

suf in AR and suk in AM

24. se 25. shaqe

barley

AR

cup bearer

AR, URD

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide

26. sir

poet

sha er in URD, AR

27. tar

to cut, to break

in DR and URD as tor - tar

28. uru

country

ur - village in DR

URD - urdu, HIN-hindi, AR-arabic, AM-austric-minda, DR-dravidian, PER-persian

3.1.4 Sumerian Literature The Sumerians left all kinds of literature, religious, secular, poetry, satire, hymns, epic eulogies or marsias, besides their own recorded history. Secular literature, stories, and dialogues reveal that many of the ideas reappeared later in all the major languages, Greek, SKT, PKT, Latin, etc. The epic of Gilgamesh is the most celebrated. The hero Gilgamesh represents a legendary ruler of the city state Uruk, or Erech, and is a descendant of the Sumerian’s “Noah,” Shamash-Naphistin,68 survivor of the great flood. The story, like other epics such as the Greek Iliad and Indian Mahabharata, consists of loosely connected events ending in moral outcomes. Gilgamesh, similar to Samson of the Old Testament, is a tall and handsome hero, who is part divine, part human, privy to secrets and wisdom, and a womanizer who spares neither married women nor virgins. His godmother, to control his licentious behavior, creates a male companion, Enkidu, who lives alone in the wild forest among animals, having their attributes of physical power and speed, a prototypical modern Tarzan. Gilgamesh drafts a hunter and a temple priestess, who, through her sexual advances, traps Enkidu for Gilgamesh, who subsequently with this new companion fights a victorious war against the traditional enemy, Elam. But the hunter had to tutor the priestess on how to capture Enkidu. His instructions and their execution by the woman are captured by the writer (s) in this rather explicit poem: There he is, woman! Loosen thy buckle, Unveil thy delight. When he sees thee, he will draw near, Open thy robe that he rest upon thee. She opened her robe that he rest upon her, She aroused in him rapture, the work of woman, His bosom pressed against her Enkidu forgot where he was born.

On his return from victory over Elam, the goddess of love, Ishtar (Venus), proposes to marry Gilgamesh, who reminds her of her infidelity and refuses. Angry Ishtar, unable to succeed in killing Gilgamesh, takes revenge by striking a mortal curse on his friend, Enkidu. The hero’s bereavement, recorded as follows, represents the earliest remaining example of a eulogy or poem of lamentation (called Marsias69 in Urdu): 68. William Durant, Vol. I, pp. 250–252. 69. George Roux (1982), pp. 120–121.

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Chapter III. Middle East: Source of Semitic, Dravidian and Indo-European/Sanskrit Fearing death I roam over the steppe; The matter of my friend rests heavy upon me. How can I be silent? How can I be still? My friend, whom I loved, has turned to clay, Must I, too, like him, lay me down Not to rise again for ever and ever?

The fear of death takes Gilgamesh in search of immortality, to obtain a certain type of seaweed, after going through the ordeals of traversing difficult terrain, rugged mountains, and getting past sea goddesses, giants, etc. The hero falls asleep after the tiresome job and awakes only to find a serpent swallowing the weed. Extremely disappointed, Gilgamesh receives a philosophical discourse from Shamash-Napistim, in the following poem, focused on the philosophy of life: Do we build houses forever? Does the river forever rise up and bring on floods? The dragon-fly leaves its shell That its face might but glance at the face of the sun. Since the days of yore there has been no permanence; The resting and the dead, how alike they are!

Incidentally, Sumerians were really savvy. Their names had meaning or sense, for example Engidu’s three syllables consisting of En (sky god), Gi (earth goddess), and Du, a suffix from Dumo (child) makes him a child of sky and earth. The word Gi apparently became Gea in Greek. Sumerian literature, besides the above epic, includes varieties such as a farmers’ Almanac related to farming and animal fables,70 dialogues between animal and human, disputes between fox and wolf, hound and lion, heron and turtle and even between two trees.71 Sumerians thus created the earliest infrastructure or prototypes for the well-known Aesop’s fable72 or Bidpai fable of India (chapter 5). Other types of disputes, according to Kramer, include those between summer and winter, cattle and grain, bird and fish, and silver and copper. Sumerian literature is quite rich in other areas, such as love poems, satire, humor, and riddles. From a long poetic address of a bride to a bridegroom, a few lines are excerpted:73 Bridegroom, dear to my heart Goodly is your beauty, honey sweet Lion, dear to my heart Goodly is your beauty, honey sweet. Bridegroom, let me caress you

70. Wolfram von Soden (1994), p. 222. 71. Samuel Kramer (1971), pp. 218–226. 72. Ibid. pp. 3–31. 73. Ibid. p. 254.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide In the bed chamber, honey filled Let me enjoy your goodly beauty Lion, let me caress you.

Satirical humor and proverbs from Sumeria reveal a rich human scene with a value system not much different from today’s. Some examples from Kramer are really delightful! He who has much silver may be happy, He who has much grain may be glad But he who has nothing can sleep. The traveler from distant places is a perennial liar. Possessions are sparrows in flight, Which can find no place to alight. A sweet word is everybody’s friend. The desert canteen is a man’s life; The shoe is a man’s eye, The wife is a man’s future, The son is a man’s refuge, The daughter is a man’s salvation, The daughter-in-law is a man’s devil.

These come from remotest antiquity; they were written a few thousand years prior to the earliest glimpses of Greek, Sanskrit, Arabic and Hebrew literature. Sumerian literature and science influenced their contemporary rivals, the Elamites, Hittites, etc., and also their trading partner friends, the Meluha and Dilmun, country/ culture who are mentioned in numerous tablets covering several generations, and in the epics as well. Available evidence cited by Kramer indicates Meluha to be an Indus-Valley-Harrapa culture or Urdu’s home theater in ancient India.74 An Assyrian king, Tukulti-Ninurta, had called himself King of Dilmun (Bahrain) and Meluha (India) in 7th century BC (impossible to confirm, as Indian writing started in around 280 BC). Sumerian cuneiform script, which became an international script, was a revolutionary contribution to civilization. It was syllabic in form and was replaced by an alphabetic form after a few thousand years. The discovery of Sumerian writings, understandably, was revolutionary, and overturned many myths in the 19th century.

3.2 THE ELAMITES AND PROTO-ELAMO-DRAVIDIAN (PED) The Sumerians’ contemporaries, the Elamites, were Urdu’s other ancient resource. This group, termed proto-Elamo-Dravidian speakers by Dravidian linguist David McAlpine, were farmers in Elam-Iran Caspian area prior to the 5th century BC. 74. Samuel Kramer, pp. 281-284.

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Chapter III. Middle East: Source of Semitic, Dravidian and Indo-European/Sanskrit Their common language separated into Elamite or proto-Elamite and proto-Dravidian about 6000–7000 years ago,75 about the time of the advent of farming in Mehrgarh (Pakistan) in the Indian subcontinent. The origin of the Elamites remains clouded in legend and mystery. On the record they go back to Sumerian time (about 3500 BC); beyond this, we have only guesswork — as with their neighbors, the Sumerians, whom most historians now believe to have come from the northeast, thus linking both to a potential common ancestor (s). From strictly linguistic perspectives, around 5000 years BC one can only think of four language groups: (1) Sumerian or a possible proto Sumerian; (2) PED; (3) a Caucasian group ancestor of the Georgian Chechens; and (4) a Turkish-Hungarian-Altaic group, all largely monosyllabic and agglutinative types. That they originated from a common ancestor, i.e., a heliolithic peoples or Austrics in the eastern Mediterranean, remains a disinct probability. Mythically, the Elamites were descended from Elam, son of Shem, son of Noah (Genesis 10:22), and were of Semitic stock, if there was such a thing. Whatever their origin and their language, they remained in the closest intercourse with the languages of their neighbors, Akkadian, Assyrian, etc., and shared their cuneiform scripts, religious ideas, history and culture.

Table III.2 Proto Elamo-Dravidian (Ped), Proto Dravidian And Dravidian Words PED

Elamite

Proto-Drav

Dravidian (Ded #)

Urdu/Hindi

1. * cel (go away)

zile (go away)

* cel (to go)

cel (ta) (to go) (2781)

chal (walk)

2. * cina (small)

zinna (small)

* cinna (small)

cinna (ta) (small) (2594)

chinna (little)

3. * hat (destroy)

hatta (destroy)

* at (beat)

attu (ta) (overcome) (347)

hatana (eliminate)

kat (bed)

* kattil (cot)

kattil (bed) (1145)

khatia (cot)

pera (read)

* parra-ay (speak)

parai (ta) (read) (4031)

parhna (learn)

4. * kat (bed) 5. * peta (speak) 6. * peta (strike)

bet (battle)

* pet (strike)

pettu (te) (beat) (4380)

peetna (beat up)

7. * pot (young lamb)

putu (lamb)

* pot (young)

poda (kui) (child) (4587)

parttha (child)

8. * tuk (push)

tukki (push, engrave)

* tukh (push)

tukkha (kur) (push) (3286)

tokhna (strike)

9. * vit (leave)

mete (separate)

* vit (to leave)

bidu (ka) (separate) (5393)

bida (let go)

cokkam (ta) (excellent) (2829)

chokha (pure)

10. * zuka (excellent)

Zukka (pure)

* reconstrunctions, DED – Dravidian Etymological Dictionary, ta – Tamil, te – Telugu, kur – Kurux, ka – Kanada.

Elam historically had remained autonomous, but as a vassal state of Mesopotamian monarchs, Sargon, Hamurabi, Asurbanipal, etc., but for a significant period it was under Kassite domination (after Hamurabi, around 1700 BC). The Kassites, who came from the Zygros mountains in the north, spoke an agglutinative tongue and perhaps were the Elamites’ distant cousins,76 but they worshiped vedic Indo-Aryan 75. David W. McAlpine, p.134. 76. George Roux (1982), p. 227.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide Gods, i.e. Suryash (Sun) and Marut (wind) gods. In 1300 BC, Elam emerged as a great power and under their kings Shutruk-Nahhunte and Kutir-Nahhunte77 they captured Babylon, brought in stele bearing Hamurabi’s code, and dominated Mesopotamian politics for few generations until the time of Nebuchadnezzar I (1124-1103 BC), when they lost their independence. Asurbanipal, in 640 BC, integrated Elam as a province, which subsequently came under the tolerant rule of Achemenian kings. The Elamites’ skilled bureaucracy helped to govern the large Persian Empire. Elam’s political system is uniquely famous for its matrilineal succession and extreme respect for women. A new ruler had to be the son of a sister or even daughter (rarely) of the royal house, incest being the norm (it is, after all, the only way to keep the power “in the family”). Elamites worshiped their own god and goddesses, Inshushinak Lord of Susa being the principal deity. A prominent fertility goddess named Kiririsha or Kiririshna,78 giver of life, health, death, and disease, was also extremely popular. She is depicted in bronze statues as squatting and giving birth while holding her breast, a scene also found on Indus Valley seals. Other objects of worship included snakes and serpents with human heads. Elamites introduced baked bricks and perfected the art of making beautiful seals, statues, and carved images depicting monsters. The gryphon, a winged lion with the head of a bird of prey, originated in Elam and was later adopted by the Egyptians. The Elamite cultural influence and bureaucratic writing and accounting system extended far beyond Iran and Afghanistan to the threshold of the Indus.79 There is a strong sense of a connection between the Elamites and the people of the Indus Valley.80 The seals of the Indus Valley are quite similar to those of the Elamite culture, and a proto-Dravidian language, Brahui, a close cousin of Elamite, is still alive, with its own literature, in the Indus Valley area in Pakistan. The Elamite language evolved from an early stage of proto-Elamite to a middle and late Elamite stage or Achemenian Elamite 81 and then disappeared, being absorbed into Persian after Alexander’s invasion. Proto-Elamite was pictographic, based on about 150 logograms,82 and evolved into a syllabic linear script in parallel with developments in Sumeria of cuneiform writing.

3.2.1 Elamite “Dravidian” Language of Iran Sandwiched between the Indus Valley (India) and Sumeria, the Elamite people of Iran were well-established linguistic cousins of the Dravidians.83 After their historic role was played, their languages were absorbed into Achemenian Persian.

77. Encyclopedia Britannica (1978) #3, p. 824. 78. A. H. Dani and R. Thaper in Dani and Masson (1992), p. 294. 79. Walter Hinz (1973), pp. 162-164. 80. Jack M. Sasson (1995), pp. 2164-2177. 81. Ibid. pp. 2162-2163. 82. Walther Hinz (1973), pp. 28-33. 83. David W. McAlpine (1981), p. 20.

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Chapter III. Middle East: Source of Semitic, Dravidian and Indo-European/Sanskrit However, decipherment84 and subsequent reconstruction reveal (Table III.2) several Dravidian words, i.e., parna (reading), calna (walking), etc. The Elamite language, as best we can judge based on extant samples of Royal Achemenian Elamite, had only 12 consonants85 and 4 vowels (a, i, u, and e) as shown on the grid. -v

+v

+v

+v

-v

Gutturals

k

-

-

h

-

Palatal

c

-

-

y

-

Cerebrals

-

-

-

r

sh

Dentals

t

z

n

l

s

Labials

p

-

m

-

-

They lacked a voiced b, g, and j, and used p and k instead; they made no distinction between t and d, and used z. Nasalization was a feature in their mono- or polysyllabic script, leading to some discord between the spoken word and the written word, as Semitic scribes ignored nasalization sounds. The following examples of Royal Achemenian Elamite illustrates the point: Spoken:“Hi-in-du-is” is written as “Hidu-is” (means Indian). Spoken:“Hu-um-ba-an” is written as “Hubaan” or Huban (one god).

The nasalization of n and m, perhaps a legacy from Austric and Sumerian influences, later influenced Persian, Dravidian, SKT, and Urdu/Hindi. In Elamite, word types are variable and include cv, v, vc, and cvc types, and the use of suffixes achieves meaningful change. Kusi –build kusi-h –I build hutta – do hutta-k –work (noun)

Sometimes a base is modified to change the sense of the word, as in the following example: kut – (“carry”) is C1VC2 type kukt – (“carry much” or “carry frequently”) becomes C1VC3C2 type

Kut in Tamil is modified to kutira, meaning “carrier”, or “horse.” Their syntax is SOV type, like Dravidian. As mentioned earlier, Elamite languages evolved from PED and therefore the root structure, according to McAlpine, are similar to that of Proto-Dravidian. Significant similarities exist in their etymologies. McAlpine has commented on some one hundred words including many that are traceable to Urdu. A small sample presented in Table III. 2 is exemplary of modern Urdu words such as parna (read), peetna (beat), hatana (remove), thokna (strike), a legacy going back some 3,000 years. A 84. Walther Hinz (1973), pp. 34-40. 85. David W. McAlpine (1981), pp. 93–155.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide discussion on these words, including cel or chalna, meaning “to walk or move” in Urdu/Hindi, is part of a detailed discussion on Dravidian (chapter IV).

3.3 CENTRAL ASIAN POLYGLOT (EARLIEST ARYAN-IE) The historical interactions among tribe (s) known as the Hittite, Hurrian, and Mitanni, during 1700 BC–1200 BC in Syria/Palestine and Asia Minor, among themselves and/or against Mesopotamia and Egypt, as revealed on some 25,000 cuneiform tablets, most from Bogazcoy and written by Mesopotamian scribes,86 were sensational. The written record leads us to the following consensus:87 1) Hittite is the oldest written IE language; (2) the Hurrain language employed by Hurrian-Miltanni kings is a non-Aryan or non-IE type of language; (3) the Mitanni, a distinct tribe, had personal Indian names such as Anitta and Tushratta and worshiped Indira, Mitra, and Varuna, which are also mentioned in the Hindu holy book, the Vedas, and are accepted as “Aryan gods”; (4) the most ancient Veda, the Rig-Veda, represents the earliest specimen of IA language, SKT, and is accepted as a branch of IE; (5) an earlier tribe, the Kassites from northern Mesopotamia, spoke a non-Aryan language as well but worshiped gods including Vedic-Indo Aryan gods (6) also, Central Asia, a crossroads, gives evidence of a polyglot population including “Semitic,” “Aryan,” and Uratian peoples; and tribes using the Hurrian-Mitanni languages and “Hittites,” who worshipped “thousands of gods.” The scribes were mainly Akkadian/Semitic. History in Asia Minor perhaps started with the establishment of Catal Huyuk in Konya, a farming town, by Neolithic farmers from the Middle East. Discovered by archeologists in 1961–1963, the town, a contemporary of Jericho in Palestine and Mehrgarh in Pakistan, revealed the earliest houses made with standard size mud bricks (about 3 x 6 x 12 inches), stones, and wood frames and decorated with imported art of a type that would appear in Greece 3000 years later. A few millennia later, by 3000–4000 BC, the Central Asian area, also called Hattusa, as revealed by Bogazkoy inscription and cuneiform tablets (1906–15), was later inhabited by Hittites speaking an IE type language; the Hittites, perhaps outsiders, invaded and were absorbed locally, and called themselves Hattusa as well. Between 1600 BC and 1300 BC, the Hittite people and their famous kings, including Mursili (1530 BC) and Suppililuma I, ruled Mesopotamia, Babylon and Asia Minor, and battled off and on with adversaries, including the Hurrian and others. The powerful Egyptians had even expected favors from them. King Suppililuma received a written request from Nefertiti, the young widowed Egyptian queen, to send one of his sons to marry her and rule Egypt as Pharaoh.88 His son Zannanza was sent, but was killed on his way.

86. Johannes Lehman (1977), pp. 68–69 and Germot Wilhelm in Jack M. Sasson (1995), pp. 1243–47. 87. Germot Wilhelm in Jack M. Sasson (1995), pp. 1243-47 88. Johannes Lehman (1977), pp. 13–14.

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Chapter III. Middle East: Source of Semitic, Dravidian and Indo-European/Sanskrit

Table III.3 ENGLISH MEANING

Hittite Words in Urdu and Other Languages HITTITE

GREEK

SKT

PERSIAN

URDU/ HINDI

1.

eats

etstsi

edei

atti

khurdan

kha-na

2.

water

watar

hudor

udakam

ab

Pani

3.

air/wind

hwantes

-

vayu

hawa

Hawa

4.

fire

pahhur

pur

agni

atash

ag, atash

5.

horse

* asuwa

hippos

asva

asp

Ghora

6.

dog

suwana

kuon

svan

sag

Kutta

7.

tree/wood

taru

doru

daru

daraxt

daraxt, paer

8.

new

newas

ne (w) os

navas

nau

Naya

9.

foot

pat (a)

pod

pad

pa

pa-er

10.

heart

kart

kardia

hirdaey

dil

Dil

11.

knee

kenu

gond

janu

zanu

Ghutna

12.

is

estsi

esti

asti

ast

ha-ey

13.

in

* anda

-

anda

andar

Andar

14

up

ser/sara

-

-

ser

Ser

15.

go

pai-mi

ei-mi

e-mi

raftan

Jana

16.

who

kuis

tis

kas

kis

ka-on

17.

what

kuit

ti

kim

kih

Kya

18.

* not

* natta

-

na

nah

na, nahien

19.

two

twi

duo

duva

du-em

Do

20.

three

tri

treis

trayas

she

Teen

21.

* seven

* siptam

hepta

sapta

hafta

Sat

22.

feather

pedar

parn

par

Par

23.

god

siu/siwa

deus

khuda

Khuda

zeus

* Some are Sumerian and Semetic loans

They worshiped a large pantheon of gods and goddesses, representatives of the sun and weather,89 as well as the bull. The Hittites left some literature that shows significant influences from Mesopotamia.

89. Ibid. pp. 263–275.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide

Table III.4 Some Ancient Semitic Words Found in Urdu/Hindi and Others WORD

LANGUAGE

MEANING

OTHER FORMS

1.

asabu

AK, ASY, S

to add

hisab in URD, AR

2.

banana

ASY

to make

AR, URD, DR (vanana)

3.

bitu

ASY, AK, S

home

bait, AR, URD

4.

dinu

ASY, AK, S

law

deen in AR, URD (religous code)

5.

karabu

ASY

near

qareeb in AR, URD

6.

kablu

ASY

confront

muqabil in AR, URD

7.

libasu

ASY

garment

AR, URD

8.

mu, ma, me

AK, ASY

water

AR, DR URD

9.

mutu

ASY

death

AR, URD

10.

marsu

ASY

sick

AR, URD (mareez)

11.

naru

ASY

canal

AR, URD (naher)

12.

nuru

ASY

light

AR, URD, DR

13.

nasyaru

ASY

observe

nazar (sight-see), URD

14.

rab

ASY, AK, S

chief

AR, URD (god)

15.

shams

ASY, AK

sun

AR, PER, URD

16.

muskenu

AK, ASY

poor

AR, URD (miskeen) & French

17.

camel

AK, ASY, S

camel

AR, English, SKT

18.

guhlu

AK, ASY

alcohol

AR, English

19.

shirku

AK, ASY

joined

shareek (partner) AR, URD

20.

sassamu

AK, S

sesame

AR, English

21.

SUM

AK, S

garlic

AR

22.

tamkarum

AK

superviser

tamghachi-officer

23.

targemanu

AK

interpreter

tarjuman AR, URD (translator)

24.

yum

ASY

day

AR, URD, yaum

25.

zakaru

ASY, AK

speaker

AR, URD zakir, ziker (speech)

26.

lisanu

ASY

tongue

AR

URD-urdu, AK-akkadian, ASY-assyrian, S-sumerian, PER-persian, DR-dravidian, AR-arabic, HIN-hindi

The Hittites’ chief adversaries, the Hurrians, are also mentioned in Sumerian text (3000 BC). They came from the south of Caucasia, east of Anatolia, and had been famous as the Uratrian who invaded the Syrio-Palestine area around 1800 BC and founded a powerful kingdom later on in coordination with the Mitanni. Three parties, Hittite, Hurrian-Mitanni, and Egyptian, dominated the history of Northern Mesopotamia (Syrio-Palestine), Asia Minor, and Egypt, during the period of the

72

Chapter III. Middle East: Source of Semitic, Dravidian and Indo-European/Sanskrit weakened Mesopotamia after Hamurabi (1700 BC). In about 1500, the HurrainMitanni enterprise defeated the Hittite and formed a powerful kingdom of Mitanni. Mitanni kings had Indic names like Shutarna, son of Kirta, Artatama, Tushratta, etc. Mitanni power peaked after defeating the Hittites, and they made an alliance with the Pharaoh of Egypt by which King Artatama and his descendants married their daughters to Pharaohs. After 1365, due to palace intrigue among the Mitannian kings when a Minor, King Tushratha, took over, the Egyptians scrapped the alliance. The Hittite thereafter dominated the Hurrian-Mitanni. They were finally invaded by the Araemians about 1000 BC, and the Hurrian-Mitanni disappeared from history. The Syrio-Hittite people continued, contemporary of the Assyman king Ashurbanipal. In 600 BC, the whole area came under Achemenian domination. The Hurrians had an established language and their own gods while the Mitanni, though they used Hurrian language, worshiped gods of their own, Indira, Varuna, Mitra (Mithras), and Niasatya. There was no such thing as a Mitanni language. Hurrian gods included Teshub, the storm god, Shauskha (Great One) and Atal (strong one), which in Urdu means “immovable” or “steadfast” (it can be found as a first name, in contemporary usage, for instance Indian Prime Minister Mr. Atal Bajpai). Mitanni gods and kings with Indic names are the earliest recorded evidence of Hindu gods anywhere, including India (the Indian Rig-Veda was written only during the Common Era). The Mitanni were not a separate tribe or a linguistic group and perhaps represented a ruling group or dynasty within the Hurrians. In terms of religion, they probably had some linkage through the gods Marut and Shurya to the Kassites. Their capital city, Wasshukani, has not been identified or located.

3.3.1 Languages (Hurrian, Hittite, etc.) The Hurrian language90 appears to be related to Uratrian, an ancient language of the Caucasus region, and it might have interacted with Elamite, which had extended into the Turkmenistan area. Based on a single letter of about 490 lines, the Hurrian language included words such as asti (wife), sen (brother), tiza (heart), an (and), man (but), pass (send), nir (great), etc.; asti as istri (wife) and nir as nira, meaning pure or exclusive, are identified with SKT. Related more to Urdu in this theater is the Hittite language, with a resemblance to Persian and Sanskrit. Hittite, covering a vast territory, had intermingled with Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, Aramaic, Hattian, Hurrain, Lycian, Lydian, and others, and must have exchanged words and idioms. The Hittite king, Suppliliuma, boasted of knowing twelve languages. Hittite vocabulary is thus quite mixed, but its verb flexion bears a resemblance to some Indo-European languages. It reveals the guttural, or laryngeal, sounds as well as the aspirant h found in other IE languages. Nesli, the Hittites own name for their language, had thirteen consonants (b, d, g, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, w, and y), as well as an s making an sh? sound (as in “show”), ts, kw, and gw, as in cats, queen, and Gwen, respectively, and two harsh h sounds. There are four long and short vowels equivalent to a, e, i, and u. Hittite is an inflectional90. Jack M. Sasson (1995), pp. 2167–68.

73

Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide type language and has singular nouns, plural nouns, a three-person verb with singular and plural, and two genders for animate and inanimate; its pronouns are IE type, wes (we), antas (us), kwis/kwin, who/whom. The discovery of Hittite was indeed revolutionary, as it dethroned SKT from its status as the “oldest language” and also discredited the hypothetical proto-IE. A short list of some twenty Hittite91 words (Table III. 3) shows its obvious linkage with the IE family and Urdu through such common words as hawa (air), naya (new), and andar (in). The table also lists some of the oldest documented words common to the IE family of languages including Greek and English, and Sanskrit and Persian.

3.3.2 Hittite Phonemes These Hittite phonemes, 18 consonants and 4 long and short vowels (a, e, i and u), are presented in the grid. There are consonant clusters, tw (two), kw (queen), ts (cats), and gw (gwen) ; gutturals and the aspirant “h” dominate. -v

+v

+v

+v

Gutturals

k, kw

q, qw

-

h

-v -

Palatals

-

-

-

y

-

Cerebrals

-

-

-

r

sh

Dentals

t, ts, tw

d

n

l

-

Labials

p

b

m

w

-

The discovery of Hittite confirmed the linkage of IE to the Middle East farming cultures, as noted by Ruhlen (chapter II). One Hittite sentence in particular is revealing: Nu ezza-teni watar-ma, ekuteni.

These IE words, nu (bread), ezza (eat), te (you), watar (water), eku (drink), add up in the above sentence to mean “you eat bread and you drink water.” It is clear that nu became na or nan, Persian for bread, and water and aqua are IE word for water. In these three ancestral theaters (around 2000 BC), the earliest forms of Arabic, Dravidian, SKT-Persian interacted, exchanged vocabularies/grammar, and thrived. The Akkadian/Assyrian/Semitic of this triangular melting pot had maintained its position as a lingua franca.

3.4 AKKADIAN/ASSYRIAN (OLDEST ARABIC) The language had 17 consonants and five vowels (a, e, i, u, o), with the use of long and short versions, and utilized a syllabic format in cuneiform92 with inde-

91. Encyclopedia Britannica (1978) I: 834. 92. Samuel A. B. Mercer (1961), pp. 3–5.

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Chapter III. Middle East: Source of Semitic, Dravidian and Indo-European/Sanskrit pendent vowel symbols. The consonant phonemes included in Table II-1 were as follows: -v

+v

+v

+v

Gutturals

k

g, kh

-

h

-v -

Palatals

-

-

-

-

-

Cerebrals

-

-

-

r

sh

Dentals

t

d, th, z

n

l

s

Labials

p

b

m

-

-

The absent palatals >c= and >j= were covered by others like s, g, etc.; kh and other variations, s, sh, and th, were developed; p and b both were present, although p was later dropped in Arabic. Flexion was well developed with the use of affixes, three numbers and a two-gender system, male and female, well set. Sumerian words and affixes were absorbed; one good example is mah (great) discussed earlier; nin-mah (great lady) later became the goddess Ninmah, cohort of god Enki.93 Mah or ma as a suffix became quite common in Arabic as well, i.e., Fati-mah (great conqueror), but since ninmah was a female, this suffix later came to express female gender, i.e., zalimah (female tyrant), khadi-mah (female servant), etc., and appears in female names, such as Salmah and Fatimah. A short list of Assyrian vocabulary in Table III. 4 reveals some 5000-year-old Urdu/Hindi words. Some of them, i.e., banana (to make), mutu (death), nuru (light), etc., were shared with proto-Dravidian. Other words, mareez (patient), deen (law), qareeb (near), hisab (accounting), naher (river), rab (god), zikar (to mention) are used in daily speech. Sumero-Akkadian literature, both religious and secular, reveals a close resemblance with Rig-Ved i.e., hymes on Vedic (Surya) or sun and Akkadian Sun God Marduk. Additionally, a few extracts from a clay tablet show a form which one finds in the Upanishad (see chapter V), a dialogue between two persons to clarify issues of contention. The conversation between a master (m) and a witty slave (s) here is concerned with the topic of politics and revolution:94 Revolution M: Slave, listen to me! S: Here I am, master. M: I want to lead a revolution. S: So lead, master, lead. If you do not lead a revolution, where will your clothes come from? And who will enable you to fill your belly? M: O, well, slave, I do not want to lead a revolution. S: Don’t lead, master, do not lead a revolution. The man who leads a revolution is either killed or flayed, or has his eyes pulled out, or is arrested and thrown in jail.

93. Jean Buttero (1992), pp. 208–210. 94. Ibid pp. 250–255.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide

Table III.5 Words of Vedic and Avestan and Urdu/Hindi AVESTAN VEDIC/SKT

MEANING

OLD/PERS

MEANING

URDU/HINDI/MEANING

1. api

friend

apas

mutual

apas, apna, mutual, our ally

2. toka

offspring

taoxman

seed

tukhm-seed

offshoot

tuxm

seed

-

3. nema

half

naema

half

neem-half

4. rodast

two surface

raodh

face

ru-face, rukh-face

5. kratu

insight

xratu

insight

khirad-wisdom

6. janati

he knows

zana (a)

know

dana-knowledable

7. bandh

bind

band

bind

band-bind, tie

8. abhra

cloud

abra, abr

cloud

abr-cloud

9. pramana

authority

framana

command

Farmana-order

10. sthuna

pillar

stuna

pillar

sutoon-pillar

11. hirania

gold

zarania

gold

zard- (yellow)

12. apam

water

apam

water

ab-water

Tokman

This really reveals a high level of socio-political culture. The long tablet written in this form brings out the pros and cons of love, marriage, business, sacrifice, charity, and others, in a witty format which seems quite modern. Akkadian/Assyrian and its later successors generated modern Semitic i.e., Arabic and Hebrew and other dialects in various regions. The Western branch of Semitic became identified with Hebrew, Phoenician, Aramaic. Its northern branch, and also southern, came together under various terms, i.e., Thamudic, Dedanite,95 and became modern Arabic around AD 400 which later assumed the modern role in Islam. The Eastern branch Semitic developed into various Iraqi dialects. Other phonemes evolved (Table II-1) and the script changed entirely (this will be discussed in the script section). Modern Arabic has an intimate evolutionary and deep historic relationship with modern Persian; this is further clarified in the following.

95. Jack M. Sasson (1995), pp. 21–22.

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Chapter III. Middle East: Source of Semitic, Dravidian and Indo-European/Sanskrit 3.5 EARLIEST PERSIAN It is presumed that the speakers of the South-Eastern branch of IE, termed as (hypothetical) proto-Indo-Iranian (PII), migrated to the Persian highlands and later on split into an Indian branch, which moved into Afghanistan and India (1000-1500 BC), to create the Indo-Aryan (IA) or SKT language. The geographic locations of those who stayed back, the Iranian “Aryan” or Persian speakers, are identified in the Assyrian record as early as 837 BC as Parsua (Kurdistan area). One of these Parsua tribes, Medes,96 became powerful, and their king Cyaxarses captured Nineveh (Iraq) and created an empire, which included Assyria, Elamite Persia, and Media. This short-lived Median empire was captured by the governor of the province of Pars, the famous Cyrus, one of the “greats” of history. After his death, it was taken over by King Darius I (Dara is still a popular Urdu first name), the Achemenian monarch who defined himself in the inscriptions as a “Parsua [Persian] son of Parsuas [Persian],” an Aryan of Aryan descent. His empire, spanning from India (North West) to Egypt, was divided into 20 provinces or “Satraps,” with India being the richest. The empire later extended to include Greece; it was governed in Aramaic, and not Persian as had been presumed. After two hundred years or so, this empire broke up, after Alexander, as stated earlier.

Table III.6 Mesopotamia Phonemes and Modern Urdu/Hindi Phonemes

LEVEL

HARD

HARD ASP

SO FT

-V

-V

+V

Gutturals

[k] [kw]

SOFT SO FT SEMI SIBILANTS VOWELS ASP NASAL VOWELS +V

[kh] [g] [gw]

+V

+V

[ng]

[h]

-V

Palatals

[c] [ch]





[y]

Cerebrals Retroflex







[sh]

Dentals

[t] [th] [ts, tw]







[n]

[l]

[s]

Labials

[p]



[b]

[m]

[vw]

DIPHTHONGS

[a] [a] (aa) [i] [l] (ee)

[e],

[l] [u] [u] (uu)

[o]

* 24 Mesopotamian consonants and 5 long and short vowels enclosed in [ ]. ** 19 additional consonants and 4 vowels enclosed in < >.

As a language, Persian really took shape through the religion of Zoroastrianism, whose Prophet Zarathustra 97 (600–1000 BC) preached among the Aryan hordes who worshiped an assortment of gods and goddesses, including animals, the

96. William Durant (Vol. I), pp. 350–358. 97. William Durant (Vol. I), pp. 364–372.

77

Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide sun, and the earth (not much different from the Babylonians, Elamites, and Hittites). The religion, written in “Old Persian” and called Avesta, taught a sort of monotheism with a supreme god named Ahura Mazda, and a devil, Ahriman, a pioneering concept of the Satan of later monotheistic faiths. According to this new faith, the greatest virtue was piety, which was essential for salvation and was achievable through man’s fulfilling his duty to attempt to make (1) an enemy a friend, (2) the wicked righteous, (3) the ignorant learned, and (4) to worship god with prayer, sacrifice, and charities. Lending was sacred, but interest-free. Also included was an innovative concept of resurrection on the Day of Judgment. These ideas later appear in other religions. The current book of Zoroastrian faith, Zend Avesta, dating to the 4th century AD, has survived through centuries of warfare. It resembles Vedic as well as Babylonian scriptures and is divided into five parts. It contains stories of creation, flood, prayer ritual to worship sacred fire, and rites for priest. One of these five, the “Yasna,” includes 27 chapters or “Gathas,” which consist of prophetic revelations in metric form. The Zoroastrian religion, the state religion of the Persian “Sassanids,” became significantly marginalized with the advent of Islam after the seventh century. The Persian language slowly evolved through Zend-Avesta to Pahelvi, to modern Persian. The bulk of its literature, including poetry, epics, and prose, developed much later. Of importance to the early history of Persian are the presumed reasons for separating from SKT-speaking Aryan. The linguistic similarity between Avestan and Vedic SKT is striking, but divergent views on various divine gods seem fundamental and perhaps caused the split. For example, the Vedic word Deva (god) means “devil or demon” in Old Persian, and the greatest god, Indira, as well as Nasatya of Rig Veda are considered as evil spirits in Avestan, according to T. Burrow.98 The Persian language, under various dialectical forms and names, including Kurdish, Ossetic, Pashto, and Balochi, covers a vast area in Central Asia, western Pakistan, Oman, parts of Syria, Chinese Turkistan, and, of course, Iran. Persian’s 32 letters represent a range of consonants similar to Arabic, plus 3 additional ones representing ch (church), p (Peter), and g (god), but Persian does not use the retroflexes of Urdu, and hard t and d, etc. The vowel system is basically the same as in Arabic and Urdu. Persian is written in modern Arabic script like Urdu, and its inflexion is restricted to verbs. Persian vocabulary is extremely rich due to its origin from Mesopotamian elements, including Semitic, Aramaic, Arabic Sumerian, Hittite, and Elamite. It does have at least fifty percent or more Arabic words because of the cumulative acquisition from pre-historic times.

3.6 EARLIEST SANSKRIT (VEDIC) The IA speakers, having presumably split with their Persian cousins in Iran (a former Elamite-Dravidian territory) passed through Afghanistan, another proto-Dravidian territory (about 1000–1500 BC), and settled in Punjab and Sindh, an estab98. T. Burrow (1973), pp. 1–5.

78

Chapter III. Middle East: Source of Semitic, Dravidian and Indo-European/Sanskrit lished proto-Dravidian country of the famous Indus Valley culture. They had memorized their historical and religious traditions and composed religious hymns and prayers in their Vedic language, all in oral tradition. Their voluminous work, Rig Veda, written down in later centuries of the first millennium CE, represents the oldest specimen of SKT language, called Vedic, with closest affinity to Avestan. Vedic and Avestan, which evolved into SKT and Persian respectively, share a common heritage and a lexical similarity. Their common vocabulary, though archaic, resonates through modern Urdu/ Hindi and other Indian dialects. A small sample from a large list in Table III.5 includes words now extinct in SKT; they came back into India as part of modern Persian after 10th century AD. For instance, tokman (Vedic), Tukhm (seed) Persian, nema (half), and abra (cloud) are still used in Urdu but are extinct in SKT; and # 6 jannati of SKT and Avestan are current in Urdu. Janati is a common expression for knowing — Janna (to know), jano (to learn), etc., and dana (wise), danish (wise), danial (wise), danai (wisdom). Vedic apam (water), a Sumerian loan (see Table III.1) active in Urdu-Persian as ab, was replaced by jal, pani, nir, all Austric-Dravidian loans into SKT. A review of the expansion of SKT by acquisition from Indian languages, Austrics, and Dravidian, is quite important in order to grasp the real contribution of SKT towards Urdu/Hindi. Many such loans (followed up in the next chapter) from Austro-Dravidian via SKT are quite common.

3.7 MESOPOTAMIAN PHONETICS AND PIE A review of Mesopotamian phonetics really confirms the concept of linguistic evolution and cancels out the theory of devolution as the basis for the genetics of Urdu/Hindi, English, etc. Linguistic evolution in Mesopotamia and its scanty phonemes, consonants ranging from 12 (Elamitic) to 18 (Hittite) inclusive of a few clusters with just 5 elementary vowels, contrasts strongly with Romantic PIE, with its 30 consonants, 10 vowels, and 12 diphthongs, mainly a replica of SKT, according to Dr. Chatterji. Indo-Europeanist scholars like Chatterji, T. Burrow, and others, are unable to explain the reason (s) and mechanisms of genesis of simple Mesopotamian fossils from devolution of PIE and/or SKT. But they still tend to maintain the prevalent Aryan model and support the mythical/racial/religious views. Modern languages, SKT, Arabic, Persian, and Urdu/Hindi, apparently had to grow by acquisition and proliferation of phonemes/consonants as noted in Table II–1; a synthetic Table III–6 attempts to show the extent of growth from Mesopotamia onward. Fossil phonemes, all inclusive, a total of 24 enclosed in vertical brackets [ ], had to acquire 19 additional consonants and 4 additional vowels; these are enclosed in angular brackets < >. In the case of SKT, phonetic acquisition had been from Austric Munda and Dravidian, as mentioned before and as will be seen later. While DR had depended on Austric Munda as the main source, Arabic and Persian, more or less, had grown in the Mesopotamian brew itself, as noted above.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide 3.8 MESOPOTAMIAN GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY Greater Mesopotamia clearly reveals three phases of grammar, with inflexion appearing most recently with Akkadian (~2800 BC) of Iraq. The phase of isolating type (Chinese, Austric-Munda group) in West Asia and Central Asia seems to have ended by the Neolithic stage with its speakers settled in China, South-East Asia, and India. The Neolithic phase had featured the agglutinative type, disseminated all over Europe, West and Central Asia, and India. The oldest example being Sumerian, Elamite-Hurrain-Mitanni, Uratrian, Kassite and Celtic, Turkish Finnish, Caucasian group and Indian, proto-Dravidian, this trend was disseminated by the earlier farmers of the Middle East. The flexion, or inflection, phase, beginning in the Syrian desert (~3000 BC), went into Europe perhaps by a second-phase migration from Western Turkey/Syro-Palestine to Eastern and Western Europe. A branch from Eastern Turkey also trekked into Iran and India. So, exchanges between the older agglutinating tongue and newly-arrived inflected one, in all probability, generated Latin, Gothic, Greek, SKT, and Persian. New immigrants, as is usually the case, guarded their grammar but borrowed local vocabulary, e.g., Persian from Elamite, and SKT from Dravidian and others. This clear scheme, obviously opposed to a mythical and/or racial theory of disintegration of SKT or PIE into daughters, is further supported by a larger shared vocabulary in Mesopotamia, which apparently became naturalized via grammar and a changed name. For example, the Sumerian verb dena (give) (Table 17–1) has perhaps reached India three times in succession, through DR, SKT, and then Persian, and Europe via Latin, or even earlier. The same thing happened with Sumerian ab (water), which came with SKT and later Persian. Mesopotamia, in effect, blurs the linguistic fault line proposed in the 19th century, and classification based on cognates loses its validity. A significant portion of Mesopotamian vocabulary, including numbers, relationship words, verbs (i.e., dena etc.), animal names, and colors, binds the immigrant farmers who settled in India, the Middle East, and Europe into one human family, neither Semite nor Aryan nor Dravidian. This is further elaborated on in the classification proposed in chapter 17.

3.9 CHAPTER SUMMARY The chapter reviews the most ancient languages of man — Sumerian, Akkadian, Elamite, and Hittite — and includes linguistic features, phonemes, and vocabularies, revealing a direct link with hundreds of words in modern Urdu/Hindi. The literature of these ancient languages was seen as a prototype, or model, for modern Urdu/Hindi and also other modern languages of the world. A review of Elamite revealed its imprint on modern Dravidian and Persian; the history of Persian reveals an ancient pre-Islamic linkage with Semitic languages and absorption of Semitic vocabulary into Persian, refuting the prevailing view that Islam had imposed the Arabic words.

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Chapter III. Middle East: Source of Semitic, Dravidian and Indo-European/Sanskrit The chapter also reveals a rich Sumero-Babylonian culture, which binds the Western and Indian systems to the Middle East and also refutes the claim that Arabic started with Islam, or that Hebrew is the mother of all. The chapter also provides clear evidence of an obscure SKT language and Aryan gods in Syria-Turkey, refuting the mythical genesis of SKT in India and/or Germany. The evidence is clear, through the grammar, vocabulary, and phonetics shared between IE, Semitic, and Dravidian, and necessitates a new classification, as proposed in chapter 17.

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CHAPTER IV. AUSTRIC-MUNDA-DRAVIDIAN AND OLDEST HINDI/URDU 4.0 INTRODUCTION In recognition of the West Asian roots of Urdu/Hindi and the status of the subcontinent, a refuge of migrants, and a melting pot, the genetics of Urdu/Hindi implies a cumulative evolution from the oldest language. Thus many exhortation (s) of Prof. Chatterji99 supporting the Aryan model of classification have to cede to the realities of six ingredients which fit into the proposed “DNA” type model (fig II.2). Two of the oldest ingredients, Austric-Munda and Dravidian, represent the main “skeletal” coil and a contribution of about 60% of vocabulary. The four “chemical” cross-rungs of the ladder in the model are seen as SKT, Persian, Arabic, and LEXI, or Lingua Extinctorum Indica. The pre-Aryan phase naturally must have generated the hypothetical hybrid speech or proto Urdu/Hindi or proto PKT; termed “Mundravi.” But even prior to Austric-Munda migrants, India did have other paleolithic migrants, as noted by many historian-linguists.

4.1 PRE-AUSTRIC PHASE The most ancient linguistic group of the subcontinent, the Brushaski people, now confined to the northern highlands of Pakistan, most probably came before the last Ice Age. Genetically, they are linked to the oldest inhabitants of Europe, the Basque, according to Cavalli Sforza. The Brushaski language, now mixed up with others, still defies classification. It apparently loaned an important word, sinda, meaning river, to SKT as sindhu,100 carrying the same meaning.

99. S. K. Chatterji (1972), p. 22. 100. R. L. Turner (1973) # 13415.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide Ancient Iranian Elamite, with a consonant change sibilant s to semi-vowel h, created a basic root word HI-in-DU-is, or Hindu, as elaborated in the chapter on PED. It literally meant a person from the land of rivers. The country Hindustan (Land of Rivers), the religion Hinduism, and the language Hindi, are derivatives of this basic root. The Negrithos were essentially the first recognized racial group during the Paleolithic phase. They moved on and are now confined to Andaman Island in the Indian Ocean; they also inhabit North East Assam, and Cochin in the south, and are scattered throughout Bengal, Orrisa, and Sindh. Their contribution to the Indian language system remains unknown. The Bengali word badud is probably a survivor, according to Chatterji.101 Another, sisu, meaning “a boy” in African Bantu102 and “a child” in SKT, Hindi, and Bengali, is perhaps, a coincidence.

4.2 AUSTRIC PEOPLE’S CULTURE AND LANGUAGE The Austric family of languages is the third largest, occupying the whole of South East Asia, the Pacific Islands, and Australia, and is among the oldest linguistic families, having separated from an African ancestral language some 20,000–40,000 years ago, as reviewed in chapter II. The Austric speakers had passed through West Asia and India, leaving colonies and linguistic traces everywhere, to appear later as the rice farmers of the Neolithic age. In India, they lived all over the north and south for several millennia prior to the arrival of Dravidian farmers about 7000 BC. They might even have come in several waves from the west and possibly also moved in reverse from east (the Indo-China area) to west, bringing techniques of rice cultivation. After the arrival of the Dravidians, they were either displaced and/or integrated but contributed their significant share towards Indian religion, culture, and language. They were the co-authors, along with the Dravidians, of the glorious Indus Valley civilization. The subsequent arrival of Aryan people was another push for integration and/or movement into safer locations. Austric-language speakers now live in the hills of central India, in the state of Chattisgarh, in the East Assam Hills, the state of Jharkhand, which includes the Chottanagpur area of former Bihar state, Orissa, etc. Here, they share the land with two northern Dravidian tribes, the Kurux and Malto, and have a status similar to that of the “American Indians.” As the oldest Indians, they are labeled as “Adivasi,” meaning aborigines, who continue with their own lifestyle, including hunting with a bow and arrow. The word ban for “bow” is their loan to SKT. They are the most important and the oldest contributors to the genetics of Urdu, their language providing significant loans to both Dravidian and SKT, besides the hybrid of Urdu/Hindi. According to Kuiper,103 some 40% of the vocabulary of

101. S. K. Chatterji (1969), pp. 31–66. 102. F. Bodmer (1985), p. 205. 103. F. B. J. Kuiper (1948), pp. 7–8.

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Chapter IV. Austric-Munda-Dravidian and Oldest Hindi/Urdu north Indian languages, including Urdu/Hindi, is derived from the Austric family directly or indirectly, through Dravidian and SKT, as we will see later.

4.3 RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL CONTRIBUTION In India the Austrics are described by historians as dark-skinned, with long foreheads and snub noses. As a socio-cultural group, in ancient times they were simple village people and, according to Chatterji, initially had no use for milk.104 They trained the elephant and also domesticated the fowl. They knew cotton farming, the weaving of cloth, and the manufacture of sugar.105 Many agricultural terms for fruits, kadala –“banana,” haldi – “turmeric,” and others are their legacy. They had their own arithmetical system, termed kauri, which counted in units of twenties. The term is still used in Urdu. “Kauri” later on also became the name for small flat seashells, which were used as money even in the Moghul period. It is not uncommon even now to hear the idiomatic sentence , meaning, “not even a kauri (penny) is left.” The Indian money-counting system was based on multiples of 4; the unit called “ana”= 4 pennies or Paisa, discontinued (since 1950s) was also based on 20. Prof. Pryzyski traced the concept of 20 to 5 fingers, four times, and the ratio of 20 with 5 fingers = 4; the Austric culture really runs deep. For recording time, they used the days of the moon, or “Tithis,” a word loaned to SKT meaning “date.” It remains current along with Arabic “Tareekh.” Some religious ideas of the Austric people are included in modern-day Hinduism. They had a concept of the afterlife and soul, and the idea of transmigration of the soul, and rebirth. The essence of modern Hinduism seems to be an Austric legacy106 and not a Vedic-Aryan idea. The concept of the soul sometimes included the plurality of souls, one entering a plant, another an animal, and a third or fourth entering other things. They buried their dead, and their graves customarily consisted of upright stone slabs. Tree burials, as well, were their legacy. According to Prof. Majumdar,107 many legends of Hinduism, religious stories and notions really, originated with the Austric people, who also initiated many rituals of Hindu worship or “puja” ceremonies, such as the use of coconut and its water, rice, and bananas, and the use of vermilion by women. Above and beyond these, two other terms of religious significance might have been their legacy, if not those of later Dravidian. One is the swastika sign, or doubled Gammedian cross, a cultural component of an ancient Mediterranean Heliolithic people, supposedly a good luck sign, which had become disseminated throughout civilization, perhaps by these ancient Austric folks. The emblem, also noticed on Indus Valley seals, is still used on residential entrances, temple walls, and pillars. 104. 105. 106. 107.

S. K. Chatterji (1969), pp. 31–66. R. C. Majumdar (1987), pp. 17–18. S. K. Chatterji (1972), p. 41. S. Levi et al. (1928), pp. 85–89.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide Hitler adopted it in the mistaken belief that it was a symbol of Aryanism and white supremacy. In the great land of rivers, India, the Austric loaned their own word for river, Ganga or Ganges, meaning “any river,” similar to sindh, from Brushaski. Ganga later became the proper noun of the holiest of the holy. Religious myths about its origin, the holiness of its water, and myriads of bathing rituals make up a big chunk of the Hindu religion, a legacy of the Austric people. Incidentally, the word “Ganga,” meaning “a river,” has similar phonetics in many cultures in Indo-China, and China, such as gang, khong, gan, kang, kankai, and chang, etc., involving changes between unvoiced “k” and voiced “g.” In the Indian languages, Bengali and Tamil, this word for river lives on. Linguists like Levi and associates and others really deserve special credit for the resurrection of these languages and aborigines, the oldest Indians. These folks, according to Prof. Levi, are classed as “Maleccha,” a SKT equivalent of “barbarians,” in the Hindu holy books, Mahabharat and Ramayana. The scriptures even predict, says Levi, that these people along with other Malecchas, i.e., Dravidian, Andhra, will rule during Kal-yug, or Kali-age, which is the case today. The hypothesis — or guess, really — seems to be bearing out to some extent. In the two new states, Chattisgarh and Jharkand, Austric-Munda speakers do have some power. And the Dravidians have four states, since the British time.

4.4 THE AUSTRIC OR MUNDA LANGUAGE Long interaction between Austric/Munda and Dravidian over several thousand years led to a significant mutual exchange of features and vocabulary, and later on, the same phenomenon continued with Vedic-SKT. The language changed and was completely marginalized. It was considered as the language of a semi-civilized or uncivilized tribe, until the British arrival in India. Reaction to resurgent Aryanism during the 19th –20th centuries and the linguistic zeal of Christian missionary scholars rediscovered this forgotten language. Prof. Levi, the French linguist, Jean Przyluski, and Jules Bloch, noted borrowings from Austric into SKT and Bengali. Several loans such as maha (great), ghara (house) and a few others, into SKT were even linked to the Sumerian lexicon. It was recognized that Sumerians had played an important role as agents of transmission of cultural elements between Oceania, Europe, and Africa.108 Prof. Levi verbalized his ideas, perhaps reacting to the prevailing intensity of Aryanism-Sanskritphilia, saying: “We must find out whether the legends, the religion and the philosophical thought of India [Aryan India] owe anything to the past. India has been too exclusively examined from the Indo-European standpoint.” Follow-up work by Kuiper had focused on the phonetics, the mutual exchange between Dravidian and Austric-Munda, and a discussion of some hundred words borrowed into SKT and PKT from the Austric family. A significant development had occurred even earlier — Campbell brought out the first dictionary on Santhali, a 108. Levi et al. VII–XII.

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Chapter IV. Austric-Munda-Dravidian and Oldest Hindi/Urdu dialect of Austric-Munda of the Bihar-Bengal area. Its newest edition by McPhail (1983) is now a major resource. Indian linguist-historians have largely remained mute regarding the role of Munda in Urdu or SKT. Dr. Chatterji, however, recognizing the works of Jean Przyluski and others, did show some academic foresight in a speech delivered at Lahore in 1928 and published in Levi’s book.109 Chatterji acknowledged the loans from Austric into SKT and Urdu/Hindi, and underscored their significance as follows: These words demonstrate borrowings from the Austric dialects at a time when they were spoken by the mass of people evidently on the Gangetic plains. The people who spoke those Austric dialects have now merged into Hindu and Mohammedan masses of northern India; they have become transformed into the presentday Aryan-speaking castes and groups of the country.

In spite of this confession, his writing on Bengali and Hindi-Urdu shows a persistent Aryo-centrism. Both the books are centered on SKT as the fountainhead of Bengali and Hindi-Urdu. This tendency, as stated earlier, goes back to ancient times when the Indian linguist employed an interesting term, “tad bhava.” In this, the grammarian would Sankritize a local word, called desi (indigenous or aboriginal), not SKT, inflected through its grammar, a sort of naturalization, and would call it SKT. This, in fact, is seen in all languages, but the loaned words are identified with the source. Thus, hundreds of so-called “desi” words of Austric and Dravidian origin now masquerade through this process of “tad bhava” as SKT and are current in Urdu/ Hindi; e.g., the Dravidian word parna (read or learn) and the Sumerian dena (give) have been cited earlier. The process, beginning with the earliest SKT Rig-Veda, went on for several centuries, building an enormously rich vocabulary. But an average college graduate of the subcontinent, non-conversant with linguistic history, can never believe that SKT would borrow this way; nearly everyone subscribes to the dogma that SKT can only be a “provider-mother” to all others. This idea will be discussed in detail under SKT.

4.4.1 Munda and Its Dialects Munda110 is the general name given by linguists to the Indian branch or subfamily of the larger Austric or Austro-Asiatic (AA) family, covering about 150 million people. The other branch of AA is Mon-Khmer, of which one Indian dialect, Khasi, is spoken in the northeastern hills of the Indian state of Assam. Munda itself has about a dozen or so dialects/languages divided into a northern group comprised of Korku, Santhali, Mundari, Koda, etc; a southern/south-central consisting of Kharia, Juang, Sora, and Gorum; and a western group, Korki, in the western hills of Central India. Of these, Santhali, Mundari, Ho, and Svara are the chief ones. In Nepal, several dialects such as Manchatr and Dhimal are still current. In ancient days, however, Munda had covered extensive areas including further west, up to the southern border of Kashmir, where a dialect, Kanawari, remains current. In the northern Gangetic 109. Ibid. XXV. 110. Encyclopedia Britannica (1974) 2:481–483.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide Valley, one dialect, Kol, has now been absorbed into present-day Urdu/Hindi but has left its name, Kol, to the city of Aligarh, near Delhi. Kol had originally covered a much larger area, up to Cambodia. None of India’s dialects is fully developed to assume a literary status.

4.4.2 Linguistic Features Munda uses 20 phonetic consonants as follows, and about 30–35 vowel sounds, with liberal use of prefixes, inflixes, and suffixes. These are additional consonants with slight aspiration and puffing sounds (ph, th, ch, kh), a sort of semi consonant. But modern speakers do reveal cerebral or retro flexes like Urdu (Table II.1). -v

+v

+v

+v

-v

Gutturals

K

g

-

h

-

Palatals

C

j

-

-

-

Cerebrals

-

-

-

r

-

Dentals

T

d [dh]

n

l

s

Labials

P

b [bh]

m

w

-

-v+v

+v+v-v

Words in the AA family are usually monosyllabic, but in Austric Munda, under Dravidian influence, polysyllabism is seen as well. Prefixes and inflixes are generic to the AA family. The use of suffixes in Munda has conferred some features of agglutination, a characteristic of Dravidian. Another phonetic feature, “nasalization,” has influenced all Indian languages and is perhaps a legacy of the AA family, and is also seen in West Asian fossil languages, Persian, and Arabic as well. The sounds n and m resonate in all, including SKT and Dravidian, e.g., pur > puram, etc. Kuiper provides some insight with examples of this process, e.g, the words bada and da-da would change to ba-nda and da-nda, respectively. Aspiration of consonants is another feature, i.e., g/k > h; the word kekaya of SKT would change to hehaya. Vowels are numerous, as stated, as are free changes leading many derivatives of the root word. One example from Kuiper covers the idea. Kubja, 111 a longaccepted IE (SKT) word meaning “crooked” or “hunch-backed,” used as kubra in Urdu/Hindi and kaj, meaning “defect in a person,” was, in fact, derived from a Santhali root, ka-ba (bent or crooked). With a vowel change, we find kubra, kupre, kubro, kubja, kabjo, etc. There are numerous other examples which cannot be accommodated. Consonant changes between g, k, and h have created a similar plethora of words. One example to borrow from Prof. Levi112 is relevant to Urdu and Punjabi: consonant g/k changes to h, which itself may be dropped totally, as follows: AA words for man: koro, har, koral > hara, hor AA words for woman: kuri, kuri, korri > era

111. F. B. J. Kuiper (1948), pp. 42–43. 112. S. Levi et al. (1929), pp. 129–160.

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Chapter IV. Austric-Munda-Dravidian and Oldest Hindi/Urdu Kuri (girl), a Punjabi word, has as its equivalent gauri, in eastern Urdu; the word hara is used as hari for farm workers, or a subordinate worker, and the word era (woman) perhaps became a suffix in Urdu to create ladies’ names; Munir > Muniera; Saghir > Saghiera.

4.4.3 Prefixes and Infixes of Austric-Munda This is one of the most important features of the AA family. In Munda especially,113 all the consonants, except m, n, y, and w, can serve as a simple prefix. Insertion of another affix usually a nasal n, m, or a liquid r or l between the root and a prefix, is also common; in fact, a common example of vanga or banga, meaning Bengal. Two examples of a common prefix, ma or maha (great), from Levi, are relevant to some Urdu/Hindi words such as mahraj (great King), mahajan (great man, but now means a money dealer), maha-rishi (great sage), maha-vir (great hero). Tracing it to Sumerian and AA roots, Levi has documented its pre-historic usage and ancient connection to the West Asia and East Asia tracks.

4.5 MUNDA-SPECIFIC VOCABULARY Peacock: The words maraka and mayura (Urdu-mor) for “peacock” are an early adoption in SKT, mentioned in RigVeda. They are derived from rak, meaning “to cry” or “weep” in Santhali. Since peacocks make a loud cry, they were named marak. It seems that with a consonant change k to g, we have the words rag, ragni for musical tunes. Elephant: Besides the peacock, an Indian bird, Austric people had to deal with elephants everywhere in India and Indo-China. Austric and Dravidian or SKT names for elephant are derived from root words for either the tusk, also called its hand, or its massive teeth. The word for hand in Urdu or SKT is hasthi > hathi from hast, (“hand” in SKT and Persian). Another word in SKT, matunga, for elephant, is derived from Austric root words for hand, such as tong, tung, tan, etc. With the prefix ma (great), we get matunga. Indian words (Austric or Dravidian) for elephant even generated the Semitic word for the same creature; (Arabic fil, Aramaic pil, Assyrian pilu). The Dravidian word for teeth is pallu (Telugu), pal (Tamil), but in other AA family languages, pal, palo, phluk mean “tusk.” The Dravidian (Kannada) word for elephant is palla;114 men and women with big, ugly teeth are nicknamed pallan or palli; in AA languages, pal, palo, and phluk mean “tusk.” Pronominal Particles Munda has been a major source of pronouns which became part of everyday speech in Urdu/Hindi and other NIA dialects. Some common ones discussed by Levi and others are as follows: ih, ai >– for neutral second person (you) Example sentence: “ai yahan aow, ai (o you), aow (come), yahan (here).”

113. Ibid. p. III. 114. T. Burrow and M. B. Emeneau (DED # 3986).

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide May, mä, mei–“you and thou” — perhaps became amein and mian and were used as follows: “amein” (or “mian”) “yahan aow.” In this example the two are substituted as honorific “you” in Urdu, to mean, O Mister, you come here. In some dialects mein also substitutes for I or me: – ne is another useful particle used with mein (I), i.e., mein-ne diya (gave), other particles are < >; yes , you , which , then , when , where , he , they , so ; sentence: meaning “so where to go?” As for , the sentence: means “just give one.” Some particles accentuate verbs as auxiliaries, such as English “let” , as in the sentence: “Laila ko janey do.” (Let Laila go.) The Munda-Austric family, as a whole, has been called by linguists pronominal governed, and as one of its integral characteristics. Munda, in its evolution to become proto-Urdu, continued to use them. It also borrowed suffixes, etc., to utilize them as particles. Echo Words Two rhyming words used together is also a feature of the Munda family’s legacy in Urdu/Hindi and others. Sometimes, the second piece is apparently meaningless, as in the following example: For example: London–Vondon Farid–Varid Zaine–Vaine Yasmin–Vasmin Town and Place Names Prof. Levi has shown that many suffixes in towns and place names all across South Asia originated with the Austric-Munda people. Some of these are: pura, para, puram, poura or boura, ura, ara; kura, kara, koura, oura; kot, kota, kothi; and gar, ghara, goura. Some of the towns and cities are Selimpour, Nagpur, Nagar Kot, Aligarh, Naroura, Ara, Kara. Being much older than Semitic, IE or Dravidian (Austric), in passing through the West Asian area, must have absorbed/exchanged and/or left a shared linguistic legacy with West Asian languages. Some of these suffixes perhaps went elsewhere as well, i.e., Lenin-grad, Ham-burg, Edinburg, Shapour, Persepolis, etc. Verbs Munda has no flexion, and its languages are of the isolating type, which necessitates the use of auxiliary verbs such as is, will, and was, etc., as in English. Urdu/ Hindi has inherited these characteristics.

4.6 MUNDA GENDER, NUMBER AND SYNTAX Munda has three numbers, singular, dual, and plural, which seem to be another ancient legacy shared with Semitic IE/SKT. In gender, it does not differentiate between masculine and feminine, having a common gender for both, while Urdu has two. An additional gender in Munda is used for inanimate objects.

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Chapter IV. Austric-Munda-Dravidian and Oldest Hindi/Urdu Syntax The generic syntax for the AA family is similar to that of SKT and Semitic SVO type, e.g., Noah eats banana. But the Munda sub-family had been influenced by the Dravidian family and changed its word order to the SOV pattern, a feature of Urdu/Hindi. The sentence would become: Noah banana eats. In summary, the major contribution of Munda towards Urdu includes its isolating or analytical character, its nasal sound, some semi-consonants, many pronoun particles, and several important prefixes and suffixes, especially those denoting city and place names. It’s not surprising then that Munda is a major source of vocabulary including verbs, nouns, and other items in not only the Urdu/Hindi language but the entire South Asian speech system.

4.7 GENERAL MUNDA VOCABULARY IN URDU/HINDI Urdu/Hindi can essentially be called a continuation of Munda speech influenced by others. Its vocabulary is a direct inheritance, as Dr. Chatterji alluded, and is further enriched by loans from Dravidian and others. Mutual exchange between it and Dravidian went on much longer than with SKT, borrowing and re-borrowing having occurred as well. The list of verbs presented in the table (Table IV – 1) is derived from Campbell’s and others’ dictionaries and crosschecking reveals a few overlaps, especially between Munda and Dravidian. The list is enormous, running into several hundred examples, so only a limited number can be discussed here. The Munda names are given in “< >.” Animal Names As they were in a sense the most ancient people, the names they gave animals have gone into the Urdu and also in Dravidian and SKT languages. We have already discussed peacock and elephant; others include pig , dog , ox , bull , deer , lamb , bird , pigeon and crow . Fruits and Vegetables Similar to animals, many fruits and vegetables have very old names: coconut , banana , lemon , cotton , clove , pepper , eggplant , peas , coriander , turmeric , rice . Edibles Some of these words in this category have become known around the world: bread , spicy sauce . Others are well known in Urdu: butter , fried cake/roti , yogurt , water . Body Parts The most popular Munda borrowings in Urdu include foot , arm , leg , mouth , forehead , moustache , beard , skull , throat , stomach , and cheek .

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide Relationship Names Besides the words amma (from Sumerian) in Urdu for mother, and adda for father, Munda provided its own terminology for parents, such as aya, aji, enga for mother, and for father, and for sister. For aunt, the words are . Generic words for boy and girl and , respectively, are current in Punjabi and , boy, , girl in the eastern dialects of Bihar and Bengal. Other generic words for boy are or and , and, for girl, and are also in current usage. The word for wife is usually reserved for daughter-in-law. Household Items and Things Many common terms now in use in Urdu/Hindi are actually Munda words, and some, such as house, were classified as IE words. Others are as follows: place, window, door, bedding, cushion, roof tiles, plank, oven, ladder, hut, brick, lane. Household items include many Mundaderived words such as the following: bucket, water pitcher, bag, water storage in a pot of clay, basket, fan, mirror, string, and coal. Money items include rupee, penny, and some sharp objects, sword and knife. Social Culture and Feelings A limited number of examples will suffice to get an idea: fear , appetite , adversary , good , love , beautiful , distress , gossip , conversation , the last one being more specific to Punjabi. Others are holiday , address , bell , musical instrument , mad , quiet , straight , tall , thin , and elegance . General Adjectives and Adverbs Commonly utilized words in social and intellectual life are as follows: accurate or correct , at once , again , ample , before or first , bent , careless or loose , damp , deep , dim , deaf , enough , few , greedy , liar , burden , light , slowly , open , empty , covered , place (any) , hollow . Munda Verbs Austric Munda verbs in modern Urdu, Hindi, and other dialects, i.e., Bengali, Gujrati, etc., are numerous, and their quantity varies on a regional basis. So-called “wheels” of the language, verbs from Munda, are a basic part of Urdu. As to the degree of antiquity, not much is known. They must have evolved slowly, as languages do, keeping pace with the evolving cultural system. But one thing is for sure: AustricMunda people, because of isolation in the hills, must have retained some significant degree of purity in their language parallel to their relatively stagnant culture. So the effect of outside (Dravidian and Aryan) languages may be relatively small, and others, like Persian-Arabic, just minimal. Interestingly, many of these verbs (Table IV.1) were originally considered as SKT and had surprised most scholars. This list, which might surprise anybody, includes the words to say, to eat,

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Chapter IV. Austric-Munda-Dravidian and Oldest Hindi/Urdu to sink, to swim, and to fear; these words may be several thousand years older than SKT. Most entries (Table IV.1) are still in use throughout the subcontinent. From these verbs, scores of other forms and idioms have had a multiplier effect to help boost the growth of Urdu/Hindi dictionaries. A very useful one is lagana (# 35), meaning “to set” or “fix,” or in fact “sets,” or “a lot.” For example, paer lagana – to plant a tree, is an example of simple work, and makhan (butter) lagana “to flatter” or “curry favor,” is an idiom. Other senses include “desire” or “motivation,” or “to bring two persons or things close together”: lagan may mean “marital engagement.” Lagan is also the word for an agricultural tax. An Oscar-nominated Indian movie, “Lagaan,” 2002, pits British tax collectors against farmers. Other words (# 23, 29) and , “to add” and “subtract” are used in everyday life. Similar to is # 28, “to be”, “become”, or “happen” or “occur”, an extremely useful auxiliary verb. Word (# 1) “to strike”, ‘hit”, “to make sounds”, has assumed the specific meaning “to play a musical instrument.” There is no exact equivalent in English, which uses play for games, and music, and other senses. Bajana, a verb, has created a generic for “musical instruments” and “band”. Other auxiliaries include “to spread” or “expand”, “to catch”, “to burn”, “to destroy” or “wipe (out), ” and “to explain” and “understand.” The Munda lexicon clearly provides the fundamentals of Urdu/Hindi. Dravidian, the second thread of the DNA coil, has been almost equally generous towards Urdu, as we will see next.

TableE IV.1 Austric Munda - Verbs in Urdu/Hindi

VERBS

MEANING (S)

VERBS

MEANING (S)

1. bajana

play musical instrument

27. garna

entangle, fix

2. bacana

save, protect

28. hona

be, become, happen

3. bantna

divide, distribute

29. jorna

add, stick, bring together

4. hugatna

suffer, bear

30. jalna

burn, jealous

5. bhehlana

sooth, amuse

31. jagharna

quarrel, tight

6. bhulna

forget, to error

32. jhutlana

pretend, lie

7. bhejna

to rend

8. catna

lick to eat

33. khara hona 34. kahna

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stand say, tell

Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide

9. cabana

chew and eat

35. lagana

fix, set, implement

10. chantna

prune, separate or remove

36. mitana

erase, eliminate, destroy

11. cirhana

irritate, disgust

37. pakarna

catch, hold, arrest

12. carhana

incite, climb, group

38. pherna

change, reverse, cycle

13. cakhna

taste, eat

39. phelana

spread, expand

14. chorna

separate, depart

40. pehcanna

recognize

15. cirna

split, incise, cut

41. phisalna

slide, slip

16. chuna

touch

42. phansna

trap, entangle

17. dabana

press, curb, overcome

43. phuslana

flatter, make agreeable

18. dahelna

panic, scare

44. raundna

overun, crash

19. dubna

drown, sink

45. ratna

20. dantna

scold, rebuke

21. dundhna

search, find

46. ragarna 47. samajhana

speak aloud, memorize rub, workhard, insist explain, make decision

22. gherna

encircle, surround

48. takhna

tire

23. ghatana

recrease, substract

49. thama

hold, hold to stop

24. galkarna

talk, speak

50. thairna

stay, stop

enter, force in

51. tairna

swim

fall

52. ujarna

destroy

25. ghusna 26. girna

4.8 THE DRAVIDIAN PHASE AND ITS CONTRIBUTION This phase and its remarkable linguistic family, the Dravidian cousins of Elamite, is the second fundamental element in Urdu’s makeup and provides the SOVtype syntax and also about 30% of Urdu’s vocabulary. Together with Munda, Dravidian, in due course, must have created the first hybrid Mundravi or proto-Urdu, as explained in the chronological figure II.1, revealing a cumulative evolution. This evolving blend of languages and brew of two cultures created the so-called Indus Valley civilization (IVC), a prosperous urban enterprise contemporary with Babylonia and Elam. IVC is the first visible evidence of Indian culture; it contributed most to the current Hindu religious system and has been wrongly presumed as Aryan. Historian Majumdar, in his earlier commenting on pre-Aryan Hindu culture, has this to

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Chapter IV. Austric-Munda-Dravidian and Oldest Hindi/Urdu say: “The best in Indian culture is Aryan, and degraded, lowly non-Aryan is wrong.” He is apparently right since this mistaken opinion may be found everywhere from the graduate level classroom to the man in the street. Popular opinion remains Aryo-centric and comes out sometimes even indirectly. Prof. Chatterji, a faithful partisan of the Aryan origin of Bengali and Urdu/ Hindi, provides a glimpse of this when he states, “In our language, we have mainly accepted in the north of India the Aryan speech, but this speech is deeply modified and that on the lines of pre-Aryan languages.” This quotation from the 1960s tells us, mistakenly, that the speech is basically an Aryan speech which was modified. The basic belief on the streets remains strongly Aryo-centric, even among educated Dravidian speakers. Dr. Chatterji does explain this Aryo-centric attitude in his earlier citation (#104) as due to some complex among Hindus, who, according to him, “would find a secret pleasure in finding some kinship with Europeans and thinking themselves to be the descendants of [Aryan] conquerors and civilizers.” Thus, the average man in India, including Muslims, still maintains this warped mindset.

4.9 MIDDLE EASTERN ROOTS OF DRAVIDIAN PEOPLE The first farmers of India, a people of Mediterranean stock, established hamlets at Mehergarh and elsewhere in Baluchistan, Pakistan, and developed the IVC. The IVC space, interactive with West Asia, had a population of about one million and during its peak, around 2500-1800 BC, covered a large area in the east up to Delhi, including Lothal in the state of Gujrat. Its main cities at Mohenjudaro and Harrapa had a significant relationship with West Asian people, who had called India “Melulua.” After its downfall (1700 BC) due to natural disasters and/or Aryan or other invasion, the IVC centers were reduced to thousands of mounds (some as high as 30 meters). Parpola cites Rig Veda authors discussing115 these mounds as “abandoned hamlets,” something that was also mentioned by Greek travelers. In the 1920s, finally, these were discovered to be sites of IVC settlements. Arco Parpola the leading authority on IVC divides its phases. An initial aceramic phase began around 7000 BC when people farmed wheat and barley, herded cattle, and used mud bricks. Two thousand years later, the varieties of cattle had expanded, farming included dates, and large granaries were used to store surpluses. The ability to smelt copper (learned around 5000–3500 BC) brought in the knife, blades, hooks, wheels, irrigation, cotton, pottery, and painted ceramics. In the next phase at Harrapa (a city in Punjab) between 3000 BC and 1800 B.C, one finds population growth, movements of people, and growth of trade with West Asia over land routes. Trade items include necklaces, cornelian jewelry, high-quality ceramics, and baked bricks, an Elamite technology which led to the development of underground sewage systems for cities (the first of its kind in the world). Disruption of overland trade, perhaps due to political disturbances in Elamite Iran, opened the sea trade which is mentioned in recent (1976) Sumerian records, which incidently also men115. Arco Parpola (1994), pp. 3-13.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide tions the presence of Indians in Sumeria. This record even mentions the export of cotton fabrics prized in West Asia. Cotton remains a key export of the Pakistan area even now.

4.10 DRAVIDIAN RELIGION AND CULTURE There is a general academic acceptance inclusive of this author that pre-Aryan peoples, Dravidians included, contributed far more than Aryan people to Hindu religious ideas and culture. Indeed, great many Hindu legends, Puranic myths of Rama and Krishna, the concept of divinities like Siva, holy rivers, philosophical ideas of the soul, and yoga practices have pre-Aryan origins. Aryan people adopted them and recycled them through their language, SKT. The evidence for this, however, is not direct, due to the absence of written records. But it is unthinkable that an advanced culture at the level of IVC (and more urbanized than West Asia) would not leave written records. Indus Valley seals with some writing, most recently deciphered by Parpola, seem to indicate the names of Dravidian divinities and not much more. Elamite seals, similar to IV seals in appearance, have also remained undeciphered. The Elamite, though, had switched to cuneiform; their Dravidian cousins never did. Thus, there is every evidence of continuity of a social/cultural system from the Ganges Valley to the Mediterranean basin, even in those ancient days, as succinctly elaborated by Dr. Chatterji in one of his earlier citations (#104): The Mohenjo-Daro civilization shows noteworthy Mediterranean and West Asian affinities. The wide tract of country from Sindh, Punjab, Baluchistan, and Iran, as well Sumerian Chaldea, shows in the pre-historic times one type of culture, or rather a group of cultures, with some common elements.

Meanwhile, Parpola characterizes IVC as a law-abiding society with a tax system, an organized kingship and religious life based on temple and priests, an extension from West Asia. Indus folks also followed the matriarchal system of their cousins, the Elamite. Marriages among cousins and with maternal uncles were permitted, and are still in vogue among South Indians and modern Dravidians. Their numerical system was a mixed one. They followed a binary, octonary, and a decimal system which even remained in place up to the 20th century. It is reasonable to assume that the sciences, mathematics, algebra, medicine, as discussed under Sumeria were shared with the IVC, but the precise role of Indus Valley peoples in their development is impossible to determine at this time, due to lack of records. The imprints of West Asian affinity can be seen in the powerful priest/temple culture of Sumeria, whose priests controlled temple rituals, material resources, endowed property and even the temple prostitutes. The Indian system shows parallels today, in the Devi-Dasi system of Babylonian temple women. God Shiva a known Dravidian God represented by Shiva lingam stone is reminiscent of biblical Baal as noted earlier. Indus seals reveal a picture of Gilgamesh, the Babylonian epic hero, the swastika cross, and a god resembling Shiva. Some Puranic epics and the story of the flood seem to be quite similar to the Bible. One special goddess of the Elamite, a

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Chapter IV. Austric-Munda-Dravidian and Oldest Hindi/Urdu squatting female giving birth,116 is also found on Indus seals. Her Elamite name, Kiri Rishna117 or Kiri Risha, a fertility goddess, reminds us of Lord Krishna’s name, a prophet of the Hindu epic, and not a Vedic personality. The latter is another direct evidence of West Asia Dravidian affinities. The story of Krishna himself resembles that of historical Sargon who, as an infant, was also placed in the river in a basket, and was found and raised by foster parents, a similar parallel with the biblical Moses, revealing the extent to which West Asian cultural ideas were shared. The great god Shiva (a non-Aryan deity) is seen as Yogi on the Indus seals, the master of animals, pasu pati. According to Chatterji, the Dravidian god of the mountain was Aryanized as Rudra, the roarer. Siva, according to him, is derived from Tamil Sivan, meaning “red,” and sembu means “the red metal [copper].” So, Siva became Shembhu, and a bit later, in the purana epic, he is found as Rudra-Siva or Mahadeva (great god). The term “siva” may even have multiple origins, the oldest being from Hittite (Table III.3). In general, most animal symbols in India are West Asian, so is the worship of cows, bulls, serpants etc., these items of Mesopotamian culture were passed into Hinduism perhaps during this phase. Indus seals are loaded with these symbols. The monkey god, Hanuman of Ramayana epic, Hindu’s holy book derived from Purana’s epic, also seems to have Dravidian roots. The Tamil word for male monkey, anmandi, got corrupted to hanuman (monkey god of Ramayan epic) in due course of time. Elamites, famous for animal figures and snakes as divine, seem to have passed on the cult of snakes, to Hinduism. Another god is Vishnu, part of Hindu’s trinity, and supposedly a creator, in contrast to Siva, the destroyer which began as the Dravidian sky god, vin, meaning “sky” in Tamil, according to Chatterji. The caste system and yoga practices are also supposedly Dravidian contributions to current Hinduism. Above and beyond various terms of Hinduism rooted in a Dravidian past, worship ritual, temple, and , among many others, are from the Dravidian language.

4.11 PROTO-DRAVIDIAN IN PROTO-URDU The proto-Dravidian (PDR) speakers, after splitting from their PED ancestors, moved into the Indus Valley, bringing farming and other high technology and, apparently, a richer language. The hybrid Mundravi might have evolved all over India. Clearly, three language streams, two relatively pure, proto-Munda and its dialects and PDR with its dialects, and the hybrid, interacted with each other for several thousand years. It cannot be ascertained whether Mundravi ever became the lingua franca, but it remains a possibility. The Dravidian family, now mainly confined to the south of India and spoken by about 25% of Indians, had existed as PDR. According to Prof. McAlpine,118 PDR 116. A. H. Dani and V. M. Masson (1992), pp. 294–295. 117. Encyclopedia Britannica Micropedia III p. 824. 118. David W. McAlpine (1981), p. 20.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide gradually differentiated into a northern, central, south central, and southern variant, and covered the whole Indian subcontinent. They still exist even now. Brahui, with some limited literature, is spoken in the hills of Baluchistan and Kurux, Malto in Bengal, and Jharkhand, and Orissa in the east. In the central provinces, we have Kolpa, Kolami, and Parji in the hill tracts. The south central branch of PDR consists of Telugu, Kui, and Gond; Telugu is the largest of the Dravidian languages and has a significant amount of literature. Gond, covering the hilly tract, had extended all the way up to the city of Gonda in U.P. The southern branch has three dialects, Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada, and has an enormous amount of literature. They are designated as the official languages of Tamilnadu (formerly Madras), Kerala, and Karnataka states of India. Most of the PDR dialects of the north were absorbed in UrduPunjabi, Gujrati, etc., but the grammar and vocabulary remain transparent.

4.12 LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF PDR OR DRAVIDIAN (DR) Dravidian languages, being agglutinating types, use affixes, the words consisting mainly of nouns, verbs; and clitics, i.e., a nasal sound, “am,” follows the word, e.g., puram. There are no particles as found in the Munda family. However, Dravidian does resemble Uralic, Turkish, Basque, the Caucasian groups, Celtic, and the language of pre-Aryan Greece, Crete. Its hallmark, agglutination, links it to ancient Sumerian, Elamite, Hurrian-Mittanni, and others. PDR growth in India influenced by the Munda family must have included an increase of consonants from 12 in Elamite (cf. Chapter III) to somewhere closer to 18, seen in modern Tamil. Vowels also multiplied from 4 in Elamite to around 12 under Austric influence. Phonetically it acquired perhaps the new sounds of b and g and also v. But the problem of discriminating b/p, k/g and t/d persisted, as seen in Dravidian successors. Nasalization, a holdover from ancient Austric speakers, seen among West Asians and Elamite, persisted with Munda speakers. PDR later on developed to acquire very distinctive Indian features, the retroflexes, i.e., hard t (time), d (dog) and compound ligatures ph, bh, th, dh, etc., (cf chapter II). Pronominal Dravidian endings with the suffix n for singular and m for plural, and the gender system with suffix i, i.e., Devi for female and ta as in devta for male, are also clearly Indian. An important DR feature shared with Semitic is the use of double consonants, called Tasdeed, in Urdu/Arabic. Many of these features were incorporated and/or modified in the developing hybrid, including Mundravi, as well as in the new arrival, SKT.

4.13 FIRST HYBRID-MUNDRAVI (PROTO-PKT/URDU) This first lingua franca, a hypothetical one, in essence, maintained its Austric grammar, acquired and/or co-authored retro-flex consonants and grew in vocabulary along with evolving cultural and religious practices, and provided Indian loan words for items such as, pig, ox, dog; peacock, crow, water, river (ganga), bread, etc., to Vedic-SKT. It is impossible though to reconstruct this lost hybrid language, which would have taken about 6,000 years to develop out of interaction between DR and

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Chapter IV. Austric-Munda-Dravidian and Oldest Hindi/Urdu Munda (fig. II. 2). But Dravidian linguists119 do identify some trends which accelerated towards its advancements to become so-called Prakrit, after 1000 BC. Relevant to the study of proto-Urdu and Urdu may be the evolution of the future tense, auxiliary particles, ga = will. Prof. B. Laxmi Rai and colleagues,120 working on old Tamil, and Dr. Kota, explain as follows: Old Tamil I will show I will catch

Kota kattu k`en kat-gen Parr k. e-nPat-gen

Gen (will) perhaps changed to ga (will) and its other forms — gi (she will), gein- female plural, and gey-masculine plural — followed. Double consonants, cc, tt, etc., a Dravidian feature absorbed in Vedic-SKT early on, were gradually simplified or reduced in proto-Urdu and Urdu as in the following examples: Dravidian kattiyal (cot) Bhatta muttum kumbbaaro

Proto-Urdu or Urdu katia (cot) bhat (food) moti (pearl) kumhar (potter)

SKT words with this feature went through this process as well: aggi > ? agga (front or next) > ? manassu > ? dhanussu > ?

agni > agra or agla (next) manas > dhanus (bow)

?

ag (fire)

?

man (mind)

4.14 DRAVIDIAN-SUFFIXES/PARTICLES IN URDU Suffixes are used copiously in Dravidian, sometimes even without alteration of the meaning of the basic word. Some of these, perhaps, started to have some sense in proto-Urdu later, and are current in Urdu/Hindi as particles. The suffix -cci added to Akka (elder brother), Akka-cci or anna-cci (elder sister), does not change the meaning.121 But cci, phonetically “see,” serves as a qualifying particle in Urdu now: ma - see – (“like mother”) used for maternal aunt acchi - see – (Good looking) hari - see (Greenish) Another example of this process operates in a slightly different context; in another Dravidian word in Konda, bi pronounced be, meaning “elder sister,” sometimes is doubled up as bibi with no implied change in its sense. In Urdu, bi or biji is still used for “elder sister”, or “elder ladies and mothers,” but bibi or bivi is used for “a wife.” 119. Bai B. Lakshmi and B. Ramkrishna Reddy (1991), pp. 255–262. 120. Ibid. pp. 22–49. 121. Ibid. pp. 13–20.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide Suffixes, such as Ta and Mal, from Dravidian, without implied change, used in addressing the relationship,122 are now absorbed in Urdu as particles. Examples are as follows: jan (people), ? janta (people); sunder (beautiful), sunder-ta (beauty). And in verbs it is used as an auxiliary, i.e., kar-ta (does), kha-ta (to eat), cal-ta (walks), etc. Further modification created the feminine singular, ti and masculine and the feminine plurals, tey and tein, respectively, as in the examples “they (men) walk”, “(she) walks”, “they (women) walk”. Mal denotes “man” or “person” equivalent in English words like waterman, longman, workman. In Urdu/Hindi it may also indicate “some affinity with” or “origin from” etc. Many proper names are common to the two languages, for example: suraj-mal, chand-mal relate to the sun and moon, respectively, and in Todar-mal, the famous finance minister of Emperor Akbar, a caste or clan todar is implied. Mal may even be used to name a non-human. A bug named for its location in the khat or cot or bed frame is famous as khat-mal. Dravidian, though free of particles, has certainly helped in its creation under the influence of Austric-Munda. Besides ta, mal, particles in Persian (chapter 5); a few from DR are: Pronominal Particles ka : his ki : her ko : to him or to her ke : for him Some words and participles as suffixes: “fall” – i.e. “fell” “got up” “to go” – i.e. “to fall” “(you) go” “ate”, “gave”.

4.15 VOCABULARY LOANS TO URDU/HINDI Mutual loans between Munda, Dravidian, and their hybrid daughter, Mundravi or proto Urdu/Hindi, have been a phenomena (fig. II. 2) of several thousands of years. A copious list from DED includes besides, fauna, place, name, nouns, and adjectives, a significant number of verbs which are current today. About one hundred of these verbs, together with another hundred plus from Munda, drive Urdu/Hindi today. A mutual loan between Munda and Dravidian has created confusion among linguistshistorians sometimes, but they represent the antiquity and valued utility in Urdu/ Hindi. Relationship Words Reflection of higher culture does appear here in the relationship of names. The oldest name for mother, Amma, from Sumerian in DR resonates all over, as Umm 122. Ibid. pp. 13-20.

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Chapter IV. Austric-Munda-Dravidian and Oldest Hindi/Urdu (Arabic), mom, etc. Other names of family relationships, together with those from Munda, essentially had completed the list prior to Aryan’s arrival. The SKT word matr has the same root, and the word mata, sometimes used, is a compound of ma and ta (particles discusses above). Examples that follow are all from DED. They are current in so-called Indian culture and need no elaboration. The word is in Urdu followed by its DR equivalent then its English meaning. The names of the DR language and DED number are omitted for brevity. The list is as follows: father, wife, grandmother, elder sister, maternal uncle, maternal aunt, son, daughter, also used for son, daughter, and grandchildren, brother, husband’s sister, and brother-in-law. Besides the words mentioned, we have generic and some adjectives conveying relationships; they are also used as name aliases. These are: small boy and girl, big boy and girl, old man and woman. The word kuri and kura, for girl and boy, in DED discussed under Munda, must be a mutual loan. Another DR word used as slang for boy, though used more in Punjabi, is rooted in the harmlessness of a young calf with no horns; it also conveys baldness. And the Punjabi word , meaning “elder brother,” is also Dravidian. Names, Places, Professions, and Groups Many names like puram, and kot that have been discussed earlier under Munda also appear in DED, but are pre-Dravidian. Others, such as nadu or nad, are DR, i.e., Tamil-nadu or Tamil country is the current name of former Madras state in South India. This word group (DED # 36 and 38), natam, nattam, natvar, nath, is used for a variety of themes, such as county, city, chief (nattam) person, god, boss, etc. A common derivative in Urdu/Hindi, nath, thrives in Hindu surnames, e.g., Rajnath, and name of temples Sar-nath, Somnath, etc. Other important terms are well known and current and are as follows: Brahman priest, city, country, house, gives us kotwal, kotwali, which means police chief and his station, bridge is also shared with Persian; meaning a hamlet, or village. From this word, (DED # 4046) came names, e.g. Patna, Patan, Patiala and title of village official Patwari or patel, a common surname in Gujrat; (DED # 201), meaning King has hundreds of uses, is a mutual loan between DR and SKT, meaning hired laborer and shared with Elamite and Persian, has become specific for railway porters, dealer in small used things, utensils, potter, and cow herd from avu (cow in Sumerian and DR), indicates other professions. From this small sample Urdu/Hindi has spun offs of hundreds of words. Fruits, Vegetables, Edibles, and Animals Dravidian and Munda share almost all the fruits and vegetables name terms; but for the term rice in DED perhaps are Munda words. Some DR samples are as follows:

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide mango, fruit, flower, tree, rice, oranges, sandalwood, pappadam; the last four are universal and are used in every language, sugar cane, radish, seed. Popular food items are: means thin bread, thin wafer made by clapping with dough in between the palms of the hands. The actual meaning is “being slapped, or to clap,” which is shared with Persian; juice, watery soup, a herb sacred to Hindus, a kind of white lentil, cooked rice, curd, flour with soup and spices, (curry is more popular); water, pickle, sugar, common in every Indian language. Common animal names include ass, horse, and cat. Household Things Some of the terms, such as cot has been derived from and is well known. In fact, many common everyday use items and structure are Dravidian in origin. Some are listed: pillar, hut; or home, box, pearl. Some household utensils too have Dravidian names; a large eastern pot to store water, a metal plate, sieve, lock and key, water faucet, underwear, garment from the waist down, lace for borders, shirt border; slipper, sandal, needle, flute, which literally means to sing, make sound, necklace, spiral bangles, stick or stem of plants. Adjectives One of the most widely used Dravidian words is for black (DED # 1395) in Urdu/Hindi with hundred of spin offs; i.e., kala bazar, kala admi (man) etc; it may be of Munda origin or a mutual loan; other common ones are bulley, big in size or status, hollow, pungent, anger, enmity, beautiful, charming (a mutual loan from Arabic/ Semitic), pure, excellent (traceable to PED and Semitic zukka), swollen up. Others are: meaning old, is the root for puran, Hindu’s religious mythical book, dumb person, clever, skillful, smooth liquid or surface, to say something originally but used as equivalent of the same. Other common adjectives are small, big, which have been discussed as above under relationships; another useful one means unripe or uncooked., flower bunch.

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Chapter IV. Austric-Munda-Dravidian and Oldest Hindi/Urdu

Table IV.2A Urdu Verbs from Dravidian URDU

ENG. MEANING

DRAV (LANGUAGES)

DED #

1. ana

to come, be, happen

a, an, ayi (ta)

333

2. jana

move, go

jari (ka), cari (ta)

2360

3. calna

walk, move

cel (ta)

2781

4. bolna

speak, say a word

polo (go) pola (ma)

4304

5. bulana

call, invite

pulavu (ta)

4304

6. pukarna

praise, applaud

pukar (ta)

4235

7. cillana

angry, roar, yell

cilai (ta)

1574

8. bat karna

chatter, converse

vataru (ta)

5244

9. *bayan karna

narrate, reasoning

vayanam (ta)

5256

make, fashion, form

vanai (ta), vanu (te), ban (ka)

5327

11. *bida karna

release, separate

bidu (ka) vitu (ta)

5393

12. parhna

speak, read aloud

parai (ta)

4031

13. puchna

speak, ask, converse

pecu (ta), peccu (ma)

4430

worship

pecu (ta), peccu (ma)

4430

15. dhakna

conceal, cover

dacu (te)

63

16. manna

excellence

man (te), manu (te)

4803

17. muskarana

smile

muskarna (kur)

4904

18. *khareeda

buy, purchase

xendna (kur), quenda (mal)

2001

burn, blaze, to light

daggana (ka), dagna (kur)

2990

20. katna

bite, eat, cut

kati (ta)

1124

21. khana

morsel, mouthful

kadi (te)

1125

22. marna

finish, exhaust

mar (go)

4816

23. hatana

destroy, demolish

atu (ta)

347

24. *karna

to do, act

kar (br), keyta (ka), kiana (go)

1957

25. morna

bend, fold

more (ta)

4645

10. *banana

14. pujna

19. *dagna

* ta-Tamil, te-Telugu, ka-Kannda, to-Toda, ku-Kurux, ma-Malayalam, mal-Malto ko-Kolami, go-Gond, br-Brahui Ded # (entry # in Dravidian Etymological Dictionary) * shared with Arabic and Persian

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Table IV.2B Urdu Verbs from Dravidian URDU

ENG. MEANING

DRAV (LANGUAGES) *

DED #

26. bhagna

Flee, run away

bongna (kur), bonge (malt)

4473

27. uthna

rise, get away

ode (ta)

851

28. urna

fly, rise

od (ta), eru (ka)

851

29. *jhara

Sweep

jaru (ku), caral (ta)

2482

30. chimatna

punch, squeeze

cimintu (ha)

2540

31. upperana

Bloat, rise, boil

uppu (ta)

666

32. ubalna

boil over

ubbu (te), ub (to)

666

33. parna

lie down

patu (ta), padu (ka)

3852

34. kudna

jump, escape

kuthe (ta), gudi (ka)

1705

35. uchakna

lift, move up

ucaram (ta), ocakhe (kol)

646

36. nikalna

occur, pass

nikar (ta)

3661

37. bhokna

perforate, pierce

poku (ta), bokke (te)

4452

38. phulna

blister, swelling

pollu (ta)

4503

39. cheelna

peel a fruit

cilikka (ta), cilna (pa)

2585

40. tairna

swim, float

telu (ta), teler (ga)

3464

41. cugna

pick, borrow

cugna (kur), cug (malt)

2719

42. ladna

spoil, kiss, fondle

londinai (kuw)

3887

43. takrana

Strike, smash

takar (ta)

2999

44. pharna

tear, separate

parte (ta)

3962

45. peetna

strike, beat up

pettu (ka)

4389

46. torna

pound, break

tarna (ku), tari (ta)

3040

47. kutna

strike

kottu (ta)

2063

48. thokna

push, nail

tukkna (kur)

3286

49. khodna

dig

kadi (ka)

1125

50. phenkna

pluck, root out

piku (ka), piku (te)

4212

inspect, discriminate

par (ta), parkka (ma)

4091

51. *parakhna

ta-Tamil, te-Telugu, ka-Kannada, to-Toda, ku-Kurux, ma-Malayalam, mal-Malto ko-Kolami, go-Gond, br-Brahui Ded # (entry # in Dravidian Etymological Dictionary) * shared with Arabic and Persian

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Chapter IV. Austric-Munda-Dravidian and Oldest Hindi/Urdu Body Parts There are only a limited number of words, but they are interesting and surprising as a source; DR meaning “bone” exists only in Brahui; , pot belly, mole or blemish, seems to be shared with Persian, ear, hair lock, tuft of hair, pulp of fruits, but used for bone marrow and brain also. It also occurs in Persian with the same sense. Social-Cultural-Intellectual Life Etymology, with respect to this aspect, is significant and parts of it included in the verb table (Table IV. 2), will be discussed later. But the non-verbal variety of Dravidian lexicon in Urdu is no less. For example, the word meaning religion ( DED # 3543) comes out from the sense of streams, water channels, and corrupted as dhara in Urdu/Hindi. meaning temple (DED # 4776) originally meant house, assembly hall; another sense in it mandi meaning village green, seems to be the basis for the Urdu word , meaning market or mart. The words learned person or scholar, and worship as mentioned earlier have DR root verbs (Table IV. 2. A). There are plenty of other examples: (meaning man) is the basis for the name of the prophet Manu, Hindu’s Adam perhaps from soil in Dravidian (DED # 4666). Others include appearance, looks; and , meaning power and strength, created Urdu’s riot, power-contest and a rioter, etc.; coldness, is familiar; desire, and to seek, has come to mean begging and means beggar; death; flute, originally meant to sing, has a spin off as Murali, an alias for Lord Krishna, who played the flute, and a familiar proper name. But the DR word for a flute itself and/or musical instrument seems to have created the Urdu word tune, good singing voice. Then we have crowd, assembly, night; corner, but also means twisted hook, meaning angle in SKT; other spin-offs (corner, cornice in Greek and English) from the Sumerian root are well known. Three other useful DR words are great “spinners” in Urdu/Hindi. They are a generic for any art or craft, meaning kiss, suck, creates meaning magnet, and the third one meaning love in Urdu is DR ; spin offs are numerous and include meaning lover or love as pronoun and many personal names. Prem Kumar, Preetam Singh, Piyarey Lal and in Priti Patel have the same root. Number eight of IE and also the number one, , (DED #990) are DR.

4.16 DRAVIDIAN VERBS IN URDU A total of about 100 verbs with numerous spin-offs, together with those from Munda, seem to have created the bulk of Urdu/Hindi, everything required for a literary language. Some fifty entries in the table (IV. 2a and 2b) include DR equivalents.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide They all represent common everyday speech and are easily identifiable and straightforward. Many were loaned into SKT also. The first three, ana, jana, and calna to mean coming, going and walking, are basic verbs. These DR roots are shared with Persian as well; # two cari creates a Urdu noun transport vehicle or car in fact an Elamite root cel cal, has other numerous creations i.e., walking, step; manners, driver, a street smart, fast mover; in Arabic and Persian has parallel meanings. Numbers 4-7 have a sense of talking/calling but with # 7 this is done aloud . Verbal root vataru # 8, creates conversation equivalent bat and vatt in Punjabi (cf. Gal in Munda). To narrate, DR gave Urdu the word statement or narrative. , another basic one, an Arabic loan is used as auxiliary for numerous idioms, i.e., roti-banana, makan banana means “making bread, and house,” respectively. to separate or saying farewell creates farewell, means a widow. 12, 14, we have discussed earlier; parna besides the Urdu word Pundit, spins others, i.e. student, study lesson, school, etc. via SKT grammar. Numbers 15-23 are straight forward, #24 meaning, to do, also Persian has numerous spins including or work record with religious undertone. Number 16 is also useful auxiliary, i.e., dislike. Urdu word means to rise and ascend has some root basics and extends to flying as well; same in Persian and similar sense drives # 31 and 32 and include to boil, # 40, meaning swimming is a mutual loan with Munda. Words numbered 43-50 expressing some violence and physical labor, perhaps appeared with farming and require no elaboration. Hundreds of spin offs from these dominate Urdu/Hindi and almost all language in India. meaning to inspect or discriminate has a common surname in Parikh, shared with Arabic, Farq and Farooq, etc. Some words of the table include meaning shedding or shipping, also means sweeping; and its compliment a broom. Another interesting (DED # 2684) verb centers around curling a spiraling and screw, etc. various DR entries are means curl, rolls, wrap around, go around etc; the sense has created Urdu word bangle and screw ridges, and English word cherot, and perhaps suruli created the wrap around for the traditional famous dress of the sari.

4.17 SOUND WORDS (ONOMATOPOEIA) Words generated by copying various sound, i.e., of running water, knocking, animals, etc., in Urdu are quite large and almost exclusively derived from Dravidian; SKT is free of them. Most are utilized as verbs, some examples are as follows: knocking, loud talk, snoring, flying bird, , metal utensil, wind blowing, falling on the floor, thunder, cracking of wood, irritated tone in conversation, the flow of water.

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Chapter IV. Austric-Munda-Dravidian and Oldest Hindi/Urdu 4.18 MUNDRAVI-PROTO-URDU From the preceding review of Munda and Dravidian loans to each other and their hybrid proto-Urdu, it becomes clear that the hybrid must have acquired quite a vocabulary. Having had its own grammar and syntax, it must have been a great evolving lingua franca. With abundant particles and pronouns, and verbs, it must have been an active, free wheeling language. Its accent must have varied in various regions. In the absence of SKT’s intrusion, in fact Mundravi would have grown unhindered. It is really surprising how the linguists in the face of a massive vocabulary, had proposed the origin of Urdu/Hindi, Bengali, and others from Vedic SKT. Chatterji123 starts this from 2500 BC, from IE through PII, down to the NIA stage at more than AD 1000. Obviously he played to an indigenous audience with a mythical faith in SKT. Mundravi speech, however, cannot be captured, but it did provide the farmers and other citizens with enough vocabulary. An average English farmer needs about 800 words and an Indian certainly would not be handicapped with about 500–800. Mundravi must have had more than 800 words (there is a lot more in Urdu/Hindi from Mundravi than analyzed above). A good way to assess Urdu/Hindi is to study the content of pure SKT words or “TatSams” (TS) in some literature. We obviously do not have much data in this regard in Urdu or Hindi literature. Bengali literature, however, has been analyzed by Dr. Chatterji. It does provide the evidence that the role of TS words of SKT has been rather limited, even in the religious literature; although in 19–20th century Bengali was packed with TS words. His results are summarized:124 Bengali words (carya-pada (10-20th century) Total # of words 1957–with 5% TS Shri Krishna Kirittana of Chandidas (After 17th century). Total words 863–with 12.5% TS Bankim Chatterji’s “Indira” (19–20th century) Total 696 words with 20% TS In early Bengali, which was hardly different than eastern Urdu/Hindi, TS were only 5%. With the rise of Sanskrit-philia in 19–20th century, Bankim Chatterji packed up TS words, up to 20%; in his novel, Indira and Tagore went up to 40% in his work. This indeed was artificial and programmed, as in the earlier work of a religious nature, Kirittana; TS count was only 12.5%. Prof. Chatterji recognized that TS words are few and scanty in modern colloquial Bengali. In this assessment, he reports a high percent of even Persian words 7–14% in Bengali. The percentage of TS words in Urdu/Hindi is also small as noted earlier in chapter II. Despite his open position on SKT and NIA genetic linkages, Prof. Chatterji does make a confession regarding the fundamental role of DR in all NIA, in their phonetics, morphology, syntax, and vocabulary;125 and he even admits that the MIA

123. S. K. Chatterji (1972), p. 1053. 124. Ibid. pp. 218–224.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide and NIA languages, i.e., Urdu/Hindi, Gujarati, etc., are not strictly derived from the language of Rig Veda or Classical SKT,126 which itself had been deeply influenced by DR and Austric-Munda, pre-Aryan languages. In conclusion, it is noteworthy that the detailed composition of Mundravi is pretty much in academic concordance with the position of India’s foremost linguist. Thus, based on what is covered in this chapter, this ancient unknown hybrid, Mundravi, can be visualized as a linguistic Indian glue, binding the four corners of India. And because of this pan-Indian ancient speech, Urdu/Hindi, even in south India, is not as alien as many believe. Two great examples of this glue is the ease with which Jain, Buddhist religions and Pali, spread and also Urdu/Hindi in the South after the 13th century. A modern example is the popularity of Urdu/Hindi cinema and music in the south, because of a shared grammar and vocabulary.

4.19 CHAPTER SUMMARY The chapter reviews the first two foreign languages Munda and Dravidian to adopt India, laying the foundations for all modern Indian languages, including Urdu/ Hindi. The chapter recognizes the two fundamental elements, Munda and Dravidian, which must have created the “unknown” hybrid, proto-Urdu/Hindi or Mundravi, which must have served as a glue, binder, or lingua franca of South Asia, prior to the arrival of SKT speakers. Copious example of words from Munda and Dravidian in modern Urdu concludes this chapter on proto-Urdu. SKT, the third foreign language which came a few thousand years later, is discussed next.

125. Ibid. p. 64. 126. Ibid. pp. 36–37.

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CHAPTER V. SANSKRIT-PRAKRIT AND OLD-URDU/HINDI 5.0 INTRODUCTION The arrival of Vedic Aryans from West Asia (~1000 BC) marks the advent of SKT and the evolution of proto-Urdu, or Mundravi, to Old Urdu, better known as PKT (s), (fig. II.1). This phase, running up to almost AD 1000, covers the mutual interaction of the two streams, two grammar types, and also the appearance of Brahminic-Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. The last two had patronized PKT (s) as the oldest divine language, confronting SKT. The evolution of SKT/PKT, the clash between Hinduism and Buddhism, and political linguistics prepared the Indian psyche for the future Indo-Europeanism and Urdu/Hindi division under the mythical mask.

5.1 WRITTEN RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS A basic understanding of Hinduism is essential to grasp these linguistic issues. But its concepts are rooted in Mesopotamia, like other religions; and like many it lacks authentic historical records. The oldest records (280 BC) of the Asokan period in PKT were lost and scripts were forgotten. Records of religion and science that reappeared afresh in 3–5th century AD in SKT were written in a different script (Gupta alphabets), a derivative of PAS. Even the Greek script, although older than SKT and Hebrew, does not precede Herodotus (~450 BC). Thus, in most systems, authenticity and antiquity are essentially based on oral myths and traditions. However, most of the essential ideas, i.e., of god (s), goddesses, sun and moon gods, soul, creation, flood/deluge, afterlife, human right, social justice, rule of law, religious rituals, sacrifices, temple-priest system, idols/icons, and animal worship, ideas of caste system or division of labor (priest, ruler, workers, scribes, slaves (lowest caste), healing art or magic, hymns etc. that belong to the past though current in the Judeo-Christian, Islamic, and Hindu systems, were part of recorded history of some 3000 years but lost by Alexander’s time.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide The period of 500 years (500 BC – AD 1), a critical bridge of history, is marked by Alexander’s invasion and dismemberment of his empire and its consequences. West Asian science had passed into Greek and Indian tradition and/or writings. A medical historian comments,127 “Later, when only Greek languages could be read by scholars, it was believed that Greeks were the father of medicine,” although Herodotus and Greek scholars, such as Thales, Pythagoras, etc., had credited Babylon for Greek learning. Other significant development of this phase is self-awareness of Jews as a sect, collection of Old Testament myths, and the history of Jesus; all were written around AD 200 in Aramaic and Greek in west Asia. Asokan inscription in Aramaic, and its derivative Brahmi and Kharosti (280 BC) of India also belong to this phase. Thus man’s original religious and secular science created in West Asia, with some modifications, reappeared in the scripts derived from PAS. But the most important point to remember is that when the historical continuity or records are lost, men try to fill the gaps by lapsed memories, myths, and hypotheses, and with even claims of originality. Myths, by definition, are non-verifiable and cannot substitute for historical facts. Hindu myths, like Islamic or Jewish myths, deserve respect, but only as myths.

5.2 HINDUISM OR THE INDIAN RELIGIOUS SYSTEM (IRS) Ideas brought by Austric-Munda folks, Dravidian farmers, and Aryan heroes which gelled through millennia along with local metaphysical growth and practices now constitute the Indian religious system. The most important books on the IRS include the four Vedas and their commentaries, the Brahmanas, epics, law book of Manu, Upanishads and Dhampada on Buddhism, besides numerous volumes by grammarians and poets. The author’s understanding of IRS is based on living through the system, personal clarification (s) from teachers, friends, scholars, and also consultations from other resources, including commentaries. Seven essentials seem to constitute IRS. These are: (1) Cyclical view of (Indo-Centric) creation; (2) One all-powerful god, “Brahma,” but with a shared trinity expressing its attributes, i.e., Shiva the destroyer and Vishnu the creator; (3) Primordial creation having started with four human kinds representing the Varana (color) or the caste (hierarchal) system, Brahman, the priest/ educator born from the mouth of Brahma, warrior/ruler, Kshatriya from his arm, Vaishya or Bania (merchant-worker) from his thigh/leg, and fourth, the lowest, Shudra, meant for menial jobs, from the feet; (4) Transmigration of the soul, which represents the essence of the self, or individual, may go through various life form (s) as punishment, until liberated from the cycles as Nirvana, liberation or salvation, which means union with the highest soul or god, the source; good conduct, or karma, (Taqwa in Arabic) according to Dharma (prescribed rules), leads to salvation, liberation, Mukti, or Mokscha; (5) Metem-Psychosis is the term defining the etiology of suffering in this life; this may be due to sin (s) or failings of an earlier life and/or the 127. Richard Hunderfund (1980), p. 76.

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Chapter V. Sanskrit-Prakrit and Old-Urdu/Hindi sins of this life which may have consequences, as suffering in the next life with a rebirth in an inferior life-form or caste etc.; (6) The centrality of Sanskrit as primeval mother; and (7) Non-Hindus and foreigners represent people who had either migrated out of India and/or the caste system, and left the religion for any number of reasons, their re-conversion not being possible, since one is born into a caste, similar to the idea of being born of a Jewish mother. The current phase of history as noted earlier is Kali-Yug, or Dark/Black, and the last phase, which will end the Universe, to be followed by a fresh creation of Brahma and a new cycle. Above and beyond, the IRS subordinates every item to “Karma, or good conduct,” which implies charity, human rights, social justice and rule of law as essential to salvation. Among other commonalities with the West Asian religion, there is a flood survivor, Manu, who presumably formulated or codified the laws. And there is also a concept of Prophets, similar to Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, bringing reforms. In the IRS they are called Autars, or reincarnation of god Vishnu, necessitated by corruption, social turmoil, and lack of morality on Earth. The most important ones are Rama, Krishna, and Buddha, who was the 9th Autar and the 10th is awaited before the end of the world. As mentioned earlier, West Asian inspiration is also visible in the birth/survival of Krishna, like the myth of Moses. Both are rooted in the real historical King Sargon. But the most visible factor in IRS is the power of the Brahmin priest, who dominates and regulates life from birth to death in every ceremony. Peripheral to and surrounding the system is a pantheon of gods/goddesses, idols/icon to focus and to seek intercession and worship, along with enormous superstitions, belief in astrology, holy river, saints, etc. The IRS has been evolving through challenges, both internal and external. The most serious challenges have been against the caste system, e.g., Buddhism, Jainism, and other modern movements. The long Muslim rule after the 8th century created significant mutual understandings, especially through Bhakti-Sufi movements, which will be discussed in a later chapter on the evolution of Urdu. One significant perspective in the IRS is “Aryanism,” a political perspective based on a presumption regarding the oldest book, Rig Veda, considered divine and the basis for the caste system and racial division. But Hinduism precedes the arrival of Aryans as noted earlier. Because belief in one god and Karma are also found in the Quran, many Muslims scholars and kings had accepted Hinduism as respectable and divine. Further evolution in the IRS has lead to a tolerance of other religions, now considered as other paths leading to salvation and the same destination. Powerful reformers, including Ram Mohan Roy, Vivevekananda, and Gandhi, had held these views. The caste system too is yielding to egalitarianism and gender equality under the secular constitution and democracy. With regard to linguistic science, not much has changed. Obviously, the evolution of SKT and PKT along with their literature is a major part of Urdu’s story. A brief review of Indian history is a necessity here. Relevant to Urdu is another sect of the IRS, Sikhism, of the 16th century, regarded as a new religion, but considered by many as a synthesis of Islam and the IRS minus the caste system.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide 5.3 MARCH OF TIME (HISTORY) The arrival of Aryan around 1500 BC, as mentioned, had coincided with the decline of the Indus Valley. The history of this era of some 2000 years still remains in the dark. Evidence from West Asia has in 1976 identified an Indus Valley, or Indian King or Governor “some Jibra” (22542218 BC), who had participated in a rebellion against Narām Sin, grandson of Sargon.128 India does get featured as “Meluha” among Sumerians, as mentioned before. In fact, an Assyrian King, Tukulti-Nirurta, in 700 BC had styled himself as King of Meluha (India), documenting India’s historical linkage with West Asia. Then, we find a King Sudas in Rig Veda, defeating a coalition of Pakthas, perhaps ancient Pathans and Sivas,129 perhaps a Siva worshiper. Rig Veda, of course, is not historically timed. Later Vedic tradition identifies four geographical areas130 relevant to Aryan’s easterly movements after leaving northwest and Punjab, its initial base. In relation to the two rivers, Ganges and Yamuna, they are (1) Kosala (Oudh), north of Ganges, inclusive of the cities of Lucknow and Varanasi; (2) Magadha, inclusive of Bihar and Bengal, centered around Patna in East India; (3) Avanti, south of Jumuna and River Chambal in Madhya Pradesh, or central province, also called Malwa; and (4) Vatsa, from upper Jamuna, or Mathura, to Allahabad, around Kausambi. Aryans later seemed to ignore the northwest area, calling it impure and non-Aryan, perhaps due to local resurgence or foreign invasion. After Buddha’s death, around 400 BC, a large kingdom appeared in the east under a King Maha Nanda, who controlled Magadha Kosala, Orissa, and part of south. This era, contemporary to Persian King, Darius, who controlled northwest India, saw the birth and growth of Buddhism, Jainism in the east. Pali, a PKT, takes a central position. Following Alexander’s invasion and death, the first historical king, Chandra Gupta Maurya of the east, united the northwest with the east after defeating the Greeks and establishing the first large empire based at Patna. Asoka Vardhana (273 BC), a grandson of Chandra Gupta, united all four provinces through Buddhist pacifism. The Maurian period was prosperous and described as a golden period, with Pali as lingua franca. The northwest area around 250 BC, though, remained polyglottic, with Greek, Asokan script, Aramaic, and Kharosthi in use under a general control of Persian Kings or surrogates after Asoka. Nomadic scythians, the famous Shakas, a Persian-speaking Central Asian tribe, invaded and controlled Northwest Gujrat, Malwa, and Mathura. One Shaka king, Rudradaman at Juna Garh, had used SKT (AD 150) inscription. A new Turkish tribe, Kushan, replaced Shakas and their famous King Kanishka patronized art and science at Taxila, near Islamabad in Pakistan, and had extended his territory to Central Asia and Sinkiang in China. Kanishka patronized Mahayana Buddhism but had honored Greek sun and moon gods, the Persian god, and Siva. Charak, the famous Indian physician,

128. Arco Parpola (1994), pp. 3–6. 129. S. K. Chatterji (1969), p. 55. 130. A. L. Basham (1989), pp. 39–48.

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Chapter V. Sanskrit-Prakrit and Old-Urdu/Hindi had lived in this era around AD 300, when Persian Sessanid took over the northwest. In the east and center arose another Gupta Dynasty with Samudra Gupta (AD 335– 376). Creating a large empire extending into the south, his son, Chandra Gupta II, presided over another golden period of India based at Ujjain in Central India. SKT revealed its most significant creativity with plenty of secular and religious literature. Kalidas, the famous poet, belonged to this phase. Most of the written documents of India belong to this and the following era, about AD 300–500, when SKT achieved its classic status written in “Gupta Alphabet.” Between AD 500 and 600, a new Turkish tribe, Huns, replaced the Guptas and ruled for a while, until the time of Harsh Vardhan of Kannauj (a city near Kanpur, U.P). This Buddhist monarch brought some stability around AD 606, but the empire fell apart after his murder. A small band, or tribe, called “Gujarhara,” who had accompanied Huns became prominent in Punjab and Gujrat and filled the void. At this time, while Gurjara-Pratihara-Rajput clans dominated the northwest and center, a new group, “Palas,” ruled Bengal and the East and the Rastrakatas, the south and central area. A triangular contest between them was followed by the Arab conquest of the northwest, Sindh and Multan (AD 712). This followed the capture of the entire Northwest by another Persian-speaking Turk, Mehmoud Ghaznavi, whose descendants ruled a large empire extending from Western U. P. to Central Asia, Iran, and Gujrat from the capital Lahore, until replaced by Ghouri in AD 1200. The latter annexed Delhi as well. Events in South India remained largely insulated from the north, though the Buddhist and Jain influence did bring Pali. Southern tribes, Chola, Chera, and Pandaya had occupied the east coast, the west coast, and the tip, respectively. These Dravidian, sea-faring, aggressive people, like the Phoenicians, had the earliest contacts with Arabs, Persian, Romans,131 and South Pacific ports and people. After the Gupta period AD 500–600, we find Calukha, a dynasty ruling at Mysore Kannada. But Pallava, based at Kanci Puram, had dominated the far south until replaced by Cola, who ruled until 1042. After Khalji (1300) the south was integrated with the north as a large Bimani Kingdom, and later spilt into four linguistic provinces, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada. To the north (after AD 712) came Islam, with its egalitarianism, strict monotheism, and opposition to priesthood, etc., but viewed from a global perspective, it was just a new version of West Asian ideas. The previous ideas from West Asia which had seeded the evolution of the IRS had no label. Under this new label, Islam really represented a modern, reformed version of Sumerian-Babylonian ideas transmitted through the Judeo-Christian and Zoroastrian religions.132 Another point worthy of notice is that the ancient Indian history was put together only in the 19th century by British officers after they had deciphered Asoka’s inscription. Besides the inscription, their resources had consisted of travel and other records in Chinese, Greek, and Persian, coins, and traditional myths. This rather one-sided version apparently has

131. Ibid. p. 63. 132. M. M. Deshpande (1993), pp. 53–54.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide many skeptics, because of the British self-interest in promoting Hindu-Muslim and Dravidian-Aryan and other divisions.

5.4 SANSKRIT-PRAKRIT SYSTEM The concepts that SKT and PKT may not have mother/daughter relationships and that PKT is older, along with Munda and Dravidian languages, are now supported by many and even vaguely confessed by Chatterji. Deshpande of the University of Michigan has most lucidly clarified several such issues, e.g., SKT/PKT relationship compulsions of SKT grammarians in promoting mythical ideas, and use or abuse of the term, “Aryan.” As mentioned earlier, the mythical theory of SKT appeared around 400 BC, when Panini had composed his grammar, but was reaffirmed by later grammarians, such as Patanjali (200 BC) and Katayana (100 BC), according to Prof. Deshpande. Hindu’s Vedic scripture and its medium, SKT language, were designed as eternal entities.133 Katayana had claimed that the correct usage of SKT leads to prosperity. SKT was all eternal, and a newly discovered, or naturalized, word into SKT was defined as “parapati,” or acquisition. Patanjali was shrewd in stating that these words were in fact in ancient usage and now “re-discovered.” Here was the rationale for the process of “Tadbhav acquisition in reverse,” necessary for growth. PKT, naturally, was viewed as an inferior language of melecchas, or barbarians, a deterioration, or fallen version, or Apabhramsha, of SKT, which by then had acquired all its loans. This position is really understandable, since the vocabulary of the two (SKT-PKT) had much in common. Scholars then, including Patanjali, were limited by circumstances and had no way to know about prior ancient languages with just 12–18 phonemes/consonants (Chapter III). An example cited by Deshpande134 is the word “gu” (cow), presumed as SKT by Patanjali, who condemns its sub-standard inferior derivatives: gavi and goni, etc. No one at that time could have known “gu” to be a Sumerian word. Patanjali was focused on the correct usage, pronunciation, via the science of phonetics, and grammar in order to understand and not mispronounce the divine Vedas, Mantras or Hymns, similar to the need of correct recitation of Quran by Muslims. Patanjali’s work, Maha Bhashya, or Grand Language, according to Deshpande, reveals the intensity of competition against PKT, which had already surpassed SKT to become “loka,” or people’s language of the world via Buddhist/Jain religious dissemination. SKT, the language of elite Brahmins, was in a defensive mode. SKT continued with PKT (s) as a second language, like two parallel streams, with their own grammatical forms. But many subsequent writers, i.e., Chatterji, Grierson, etc., out of respect for religion and/or politics, had maintained the idea of the genesis of PKT from SKT and the classification. This attitude obviously involves reading the history

133. Ibid. pp. 66–74. 134. Ibid. pp. 24–26.

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Chapter V. Sanskrit-Prakrit and Old-Urdu/Hindi in reverse and amounts to believing that bricks are created from a fallen building and water, from melting ice. There is no history of PKT as such, according to Deshpande. Always seen through the history and grammar of SKT, PKTs are presented as successive degenerations of SKT at the hands of incapable speakers. PKT was thus given a derogatory name, Apabhramsha (fallen language). The oldest PKT, considered as standard, was Maharastri, and the rest were defined through this. The origin of PKT words were then seen through SKT’s eyes; the term “Tat Sam” (TS) meant “pure SKT loans into PKT, with no sound change,” and TAT Bhav (TB), “born from SKT after a sound change.” Those untraceable to SKT were called “Desiya” (indigenous). For example, “go” (Cow) is a TS, and Urdu’s “ga-ey” is TB. The word “garha” (house) is TS, and PKT’s “ghar” or “Ghara” is TB. The change in sounds must have taken place when the Aryan tribe absorbed local loans into SKT grammar. It was, in fact, a sound shift from PKT to SKT, and not as postulated by Patanjali and company and by later medieval grammarians, Hem Chandra and others, as noted by Dr. S. Bukhari (1997). Obviously, the ancient scholars were not aware of the “earthy history” of SKT and also guarded their mythical faith.

5.5 LINGUISTICS OF SKT-PKT The retroflex or cerebral sounds (tab. II.1) such as t, th, d. dh and compound consonants/aspirants, ph, bh, dh, etc., and the use of double consonants, called tashdeed in Arabic grammar, and known pre-Aryan features, were absorbed gradually into SKT. The Rig Veda, the oldest SKT book, reveals the slow acquisition.135 The later parts of the Rig Veda are more loaded than the initial parts. PKT, naturally was the main source for these acquisition along with Dravidian and Munda. These constitute some solid evidence about the genetic independence of PKT or Urdu/Hindi, besides the enormous loans and grammatical features. In the formulation of both SKT and PKT, by Asoka’s time mutual loans had already been exchanged. PKT too had acquired loans from SKT and also some features, such as consonant clusters (pr, tr, kr), a presumed feature of the IE family. Some scholars, including Chatterji and Bukhari, also include nasalized n and m as acquisitions from SKT. This is not accurate because all ancient languages had nasal sounds (see Chapter III). Vedic (SKT) and Avesthan (old Persian) had arisen from exchanging phonemes, grammar, and vocabulary through common scripts. PKT, or Old Urdu, as stated in an earlier chapter, had its own distinct isolating feature, SOV syntax, two genders, two numbers, and was quite different from inflected (SKT) with its SVO syntax, three numbers, and three genders. We will review a few linguistic (phonetic) traits, with examples, to clarify the misconception of the genesis of PKT from SKT. To understand these, it is important to appreciate the dialectal/phonetic variations prevailing across India, then almost exclusively a Dra135. Ibid. pp. 129–196.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide vidian-dominated country when SKT arrived. These include semi-vowels (r, e, and n), interchanges/variations of p, b, v and their aspirants, s, sh interchanges, distribution of retro flexes, and double consonants. Naturally, a new foreign language, Vedic-SKT, had to accept the role of a second language among the PKT and/or Dravidian-speaking majority. It adapted and grew, but to prevent future rot, rules of grammar and insistence on correct pronunciation and memorization were deemed appropriate. PKT as the mother tongue and SKT as a second language had depended largely on the same word bank, or vocabulary. PKT, like Dravidian, is extremely rich in vowels, and vowel clusters,136 or diphthongs, such as ai and au. Vedic and its Mesopotamian ancestors, Hittite, etc., had lacked these, especially the short ones. To imitate the local words/syllable, it had to use semi-vowels: v, h, y, to replace vowel clusters (underlined) in the following examples: Vedic/SKT Kavan < Lavan < Yavan
> >

Urdu Kaun (Who) Laun (Salt) Jana (Go)

PKT had thus helped Vedic and then was simplified into Urdu by simplifying the Dravidian vowel clusters. Vedic used v, and y, and other consonants, to break vowel sequences. For example, the PKT word pia becomes priya (lover). The reverse is also true when Vedic words changed into PKT, e.g., consonant clusters (underlined) are broken with the help of double consonants or tas-deed (underlined), a DR feature. Vedic/SKT Pakva > Madhyam >

PKT/Urdu Pakka (cooked) madh-dham (medium/slow)

However, with the faith in PKT’s origin from SKT, the grammarians had established rules of converting SKT words into PKT. These consisted of reversing the process as described. The process is reviewed in detail by Bukhari, referring to famous scholars such as Varucci, Hem Chandra, and others. Few examples are extracted from Bukhari’s book. One is the absorption of half nasal/n/ semi-vowel and vowel cluster (underlined) by consonant clusters (also underlined): Urdu/Hindi Gaon < sidhey < sanp
sidh-dhoun > sanp >

Vedic Gram (village) sidh ram (straight) sarp (serpent)

The tendency however lives on even today. Furthermore, PKT consists of words which are bi- or tri-syllabic and only the first consonant of a syllable is voiced and the last unvoiced.137 For example, in the word rām, the m is silent. In SKT, the last letter is usually voiced, as in rama. SKT, unlike PKT, is also a lot polysyllabic. The point to remember is that scholars have posited that the words kaun, laun etc. in the above examples were distorted from SKT to PKT, but the fact is that the process went both ways. 136. Suhail Bukhari (1997), pp. 47–65. 137. Ibid. p. 173.

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Chapter V. Sanskrit-Prakrit and Old-Urdu/Hindi 5.5.1 SKT’s Inflection and Evolution The inflection of verbs and nouns is a most important feature of SKT. A sample of its verb flexion for “to give,” in six forms is presented as follows:138

English

SKT

Old Persian

Greek Didomi

I give

Dadami

dadami

You give

Dadasi

dadahi

Didos

He gives

Datati

dadaiti

Didoti Didomes

We give

Dadmas

dademahi

You give

Data

dasta

Didote

They give

Dadati

datenti

Didonti

But if one accounts for three genders and all tenses, these six-forms of verbs can multiply into hundreds. Similarly, for noun flexion or declension, SKT has seven cases. Thus, just for nominative (subject), accusative (object) accounting for three numbers, one can derive 21 forms, e.g., pustakam (root for book) has three nominatives representing three numbers, pustakam (singular), pustake (dual), and pustakani (plural). German scholars who had exaggerated “flexion” as a sign of high culture, literature, and science (chapter I-II) surely had political motives. Sumerian, Egyptian, Chinese, and Dravidian, all of whom created high civilization, had no flexion; all languages are equally endowed for creativity. It seems that the Vedic language, surrounded by Austric-Munda, Dravidian, and the hybrid Mundravi, did attempt to abandon its flexion, but religious competition during Buddhist time initiated movements to freeze its grammar and phonetic rules, as mentioned earlier. Panini (~400 BC) of Taxila, near Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, had led the way, as noted in his book, Ashtadhayaye (eight chapters). His successors, Patanjali and Katayana, finalized the work and created some 4000 rules and mythical ideas of its genesis. These grammarians used the term, bhasa, meaning “language,” which later on (~AD 700) became known as Samskrita, meaning, “rearranged, reorganized, perfected or cultured, etc. It became restricted by becoming exclusive for priests and/ or elite scholars. SKT’s role had peaked between AD 300–700 with massive creativity in literature, the sciences, and mathematics. But the language itself, a second language was frozen, at best, after Harsha (7th century). Flexion — a disease, according to some linguists — was the handicap. It could only grow by making compound nouns, sometimes consisting of 20–30 components.139 This fashion, then considered meritorious and even a linguistic art, had sometimes created a single sentence covering 2–3 pages. SKT turned into an ornate and extremely artificial language and is now a static language, used by Brahmins only for religious ceremonies and rituals.

138. F. Bodmer (1985), p. 86. 139. A. L. Basham (1989), pp. 388–401.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide SKT’s script (Table XVI.4) is phonetic and alphabetic and an adaptation of Asoka’s Brahmi, a derivative of PAS (Chapter XVI).

5.6 SANSKRIT AND URDU/HINDI SKT is the single most important language in Urdu’s political history. Scholars find SKT originating in Northern Mesopotamia, Syria/Turkey, from Hittite and Hurrian-Mitanni speakers who had interacted with Semetic-Akkaddian-Assyrian and Elamite-Dravidian of Iran around 1500 BC through common scripts. SKT thus reveals loans from Sumerian, Elamite, Akkadian etc. Many Indian/SKT-sounding names here were polysyllabic with consonant clusters. Some cited in Prof. Burrow’s book140 include words such as purusa (man), sutarna, pra sāstar (director or ruler), viryaasūr (hero of valor), ratha (chariot), vrddhasva (large house) etc. These show a Sumerian prefix su (sweet or good), a Dravidian prefix, pra or per (number one or head); double consonants, dd, and aspirant phonemes, dh, th, etc. The most important of these documents, according to Burrow, is a treaty which reveals god’s names as discussed earlier — Indara, Mitra, Uruvanas or Varuna, etc. Sometimes Burrow and other Indo-Europeans exaggerate and try to show IE linguistic features and consonant clusters out of syllabic cuneiform, which is impossible, e.g., sutarna had to be written with four syllables — su, ta, ra, na. The other document by a Mitannian, called Kikkuli, is a horse-training manual, which has used idioms like eka-vartan, meaning “one turn,” and other number words like tera (three), panza (five), satta (seven), and nava (nine). Most importantly, Hurrian-Mitanni was an agglutinative, like Dravidian, and the horse trainer’s name, Kikkuli, also sounds Dravidian with its double consonant, kk. Thus, besides the shared vocabulary, the earliest evidence of SKT reveal a hybrid beginning even in phonemes. The next stage of SKT is from the Rig Veda, with presumed completion around 700 BC, and appearence as written after AD 300, although SKT words had appeared earlier in Asoka’s PKT inscriptions. Rig Veda reveals further growth and hybridization by loan and phonetic acquisition as noted by many scholars besides Burrow. Michael Wetzel of Harvard mentions as many as 300 loans in RV;141 Bukhari142 reviewed the earliest Vedic words and grammar; and Deshpande focused on the gradual acquisition of retroflex phonemes.

5.7 LOANS INTO SKT Besides the Sumerian loans mentioned earlier, i.e., su (good or sweet), maha (great), ab (water), go (cow), ghar (house), etc., SKT’s acquisition from Munda and Dravidian is very large143 and it had behaved exactly like modern Urdu or English, 140. T. Burrow (1973), pp. 27–30. 141. Wetzel, M. (1995), pp. 99–101 in George Erdosy. 142. Suhail Bukhari (1997), pp. 181–203.

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Chapter V. Sanskrit-Prakrit and Old-Urdu/Hindi acquiring several words/phonemes for a given item, e.g., āb, jal, nir, pāni for water, or five words for elephant. Dravidian had been its most important resource. This acquisition process was geared by phonetic alteration and inflection. Later Dravidian studies did, in fact, uncover these loans. The famous dictionary by Burrow and Emeneau on Dravidian reveals about 800 entries in its latest edition (1984), doubling the number since the earlier (1961) edition. Many of these entries, already part of PKT or Mundravi, were reviewed in the previous chapter, the oldest source, of course, being Munda. Some Munda words like kadali (banana), karpasa (cotton), and others went into SKT as well. Others, current in SKT but not Urdu, include langhala (plough), tambula (betel), jumbala (mud), undura (rat), alabu (bottle soured), and a verb jim, jemati (to eat) from Santhali. Even in the early RV period one finds significant numbers of local words for plants, fruits, animals, etc., e.g., for sugar, rice, wheat, sesame, dog, horse, cow, copper, iron, bricks, peacock, tiger, lion, etc., according to Prof. Wetzel; some other words are as follows: anu (particle), kapi (monkey), karmara (smith), gana (band or group), kitara (gamester), nāna (several), nila (blue), pushpa (flower), phala (fruit), shyam (evening). Prof. Burrow provides a list of about 100 Dravidian words. Some of these discussed in the previous chapter are also part of SKT’s acquisition. Some of these, to repeat here, are: kala (black), kuti (house), Kutt (pound), kona (corner), kathin (difficult), kotara (cavity), cumb (kiss), cikkana (slippery), capeta (slap), tadaka (lock), bila (hole), mukta (crow), and mala (necklace). Some other loans from Burrow’s list that do not figure in Urdu/ Hindi are as follows: anal (fire), eda (sheep), tula (cotton), khala (a rogue), panda (enuch), palli (lizard), mina (fish), bal (strength), simka (ant), heramba (buffalo). Many others dug up by this author include high profile words identified with Hindu religion closely: Brahman (priest class), Pandit ( learned), puja (worship), mandir (temple), manusha (man) ; and few others are catur (shrewd), mānya (fame) nal (good), petti (box), anchal (margin of garment), tulsi (sacred herb) etc. Other sources of SKT borrowing are words from Greek, after Alexander’s time; e.g. Khalina or Xaëvo’s (bridle), surunga (tunnel), paristoma (coverlet/blanket), mela, ueëav (ink), kimpala, a musical instrument; words such as Kalamo (pen) and kramelaka (camel) from Greek are originally Assyrian/Aramaic. Some other acquisitions from Greek, e.g. kendra or kentron meaning center; hora (hour), heli (sun). Persian language, especially old Persian, and SKT share a large part of their vocabulary. But several later acquisitions after the achemenian time include lipi (writing) from Dipi, Mundra (seal) from Muhr, Ksatrapa or satrap (governor), khola or kula (helmet), bandi (prisoner), pustaka (book) from Persian post or skin, mihira (sun) from mehr and mochika shoemaker from mochak or mochi. Scholars have known that because of historical affinity between SKT and Persian it is rather easy to interchange words of the two with a slight change in consonant and/or vowels. Besides the short list discussed in chapter III (Table III.5) some

143. T. Burrow (1973), pp. 374–389.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide others quoted by Dr. Bukhari144 are part of Urdu’s lexicon; Persian consonants kh, f, gh are changed to k or s, p and g, respectively, as follows: Persian Khurus (assault-tumult) Khirad (Wisdom) Khusk (dry) Khur (sun) Khuda (god) Khar (thorn) bugh (god) margh (deer) meegh (cloud) farishta (angel) fasang (beautiful) ab (shine) a br (cloud) seprud (custody) sta (stand)

RigVedic Kurus Kar Susk Sur Svadha Sarn Bhagm Marg Megh Paristha Pesang abha abhra Sepradh Stha

5.8 URDU’S VOCABULARY FROM SKT As mentioned earlier, old Urdu or PKT consists of a very limited number of SKT tatsam word 5–20%. Tad bhavs which run in thousands really represent Dravidian and Munda pre-Aryan root words that were reviewed earlier. But both types, TS and TB, had features like double consonants, consonant clusters, polysyllabism, dominance of retro flexes etc; with years of usage some of these phonemes have lost their sharp edges to become “Urdu worthy.” Some examples follow: Tr or tr > t: Word ratri (night) > rat, Gujratha or Gujrastra > Gujrat ri or ri > r: trisna (desire) > tarasna, dris (to see) > darshan. cha > kh: rakhcha (to keep or protect) > rakh.

A review of SKT/TS, especially verbs, clearly shows that without them modern Urdu/Hindi can lose much of its charm and melody, for they are an impressive part of its richness.

5.8.1 SKT – Verbs A short list of 25 TS verbs (Table V.1) is discussed to appreciate their utility and inherent charm. These TS verbs are responsible for hundreds of spin offs, as verbal nouns, adjectives etc. In the field of sports and games, the key words to play, to lose or be defeated, and to win make everyday speech of Urdu/Hindi. The same is true for laughing and crying or weeping , sleeping waking up , etc. to 144. Suhail Bukhari (1997), pp. 185–188.

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Chapter V. Sanskrit-Prakrit and Old-Urdu/Hindi read is DR but SKT/TS for writing is so complimentary. This is also true for SKT originated to sell to match with buying via the DR word and to be born or be alive and for death and dying of DR complement Urdu. SKT to sing has a wide scope; spin off include singer , song , singer feminine etc., and similarly, the verb meaning to wash creates washer man , verbal noun for washing as well as wages for it. For eating we have seen several entries from Munda and DR. But drinking is to be via .

Table V.1 Urdu Verbs from Sanskrit URDU

SKT

ENGLISH

COMMENTS OTHER: DERIVATIVES

1. bechna

bikriyarn

to sell

-

2. dena

dadanam

to gve

in pers, latin, greek

3. dhona

dhavanah

to wash

dhobi (washerman)

4. dekhna

drs

to see

darshan (visitation)

5. gana

gana

to sing

git (song), gita (singer)

6. gaya

gamanam

to go

-

7. harna

praha

be defeated

harana (to defect) hasana (to make laugh)

8. hasna

has

to laugh

9. jagna

jagran

to wake up

-

10. janna

janman

to give birth

janam (birth)

11. jan-na

jn_nam

to know

-

12. jeetna

jay_it

to win

jeet (victory)

13. napna

mapan

to sze

mapna, napnach

14. kapna

kampanam

tremble

-

15. khelna

krida

to play

-

16. likhna

likhitam

to write

-

17. milna

mileti

to meet

-

18. nahana

snanam

to bathe

-

19. peena

pa

to drink

-

20. pakana

pacakah

to cook

pachana (digest)

21. palna

palita

to protect

bringing up or raise

22. rokna

rodha

to stop

Prevent

23. rona

rodanam

cry, weep

rulana (to make one cry)

24. rakhna

raksha

to protect

(style, manner)

25. sunna

sravanam

to hear

sunana to tell

26. sona

svap

to sleep

sapna (dream)

27. tarasna

trsna

tro desire

tarsana (deprive)

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide Another quality entry to meet also generates many tracks meeting, to introduce and a fair etc., meant to protect in SKT, is essentially used with sense of bringing up and the one with meaning of protection is more commonly used as to keep. Others such as to measure or quantify, to look, watch, to give, to hear and to cook, are essential and front line verbs with spin-offs in everyday speech. Many other verbs from Sanskrit TS, not in the table include to learn, to flow, to float, swim, to run, to tie, to weigh and to suffer or tolerate, etc.

5.8.2 Relationships, Flora, Places, and Names Agricultural terminology and the names of fruits, plants etc. in SKT are mostly borrowed from Munda and Dravidian, except for a very few words, i.e., the word for leaf and grass . This is true for relationship words as well. Vedic piter for father is certainly in vogue. Other common ones include people, woman. Body-part names, ear, and eye are popular in Urdu/ Hindi. Terms related to the physical environment include land, and county, sky, light, darkness, moon, daytime, etc.

5.8.3 Household Items Many words of proto-Urdu noted in the previous chapter are supplemented by SKT words such as fire, fire pit for cooking, house, roof, and door. Some popular words for food items include; milk, oil, food and the famous spherical sweet meat. Precious metal silver word is usually used as adjective meaning silver color and the word for silver is derived from moon ; while gold comes from su (good) varna (color); meaning ‘good color.’ A popular toy is from the verb to play or (Table V.1).

5.8.4 Professions and Titles/Ranks SKT though rich in this category, does not constitute a whole lot in Urdu/Hindi. Some are: servant, from Shrestha, meaning exalted or important, is used for a merchant, a rich man or boss as title; also used as surname means oil man and a businessman-merchant. The word meaning a widow spins a word for prostitute ; and the word for another common profession, stealing is the act or verbal noun is also from SKT; means the one who commits the act, i.e., thief.

5.8.5 Adjectives and Adverbs SKT is a rich source for these popular categories. The word that means “a lot,” “very,” “many,” or “much” is ; it is an all-purpose adjective. Other common ones include all of it, pure, beautiful, brave,

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Chapter V. Sanskrit-Prakrit and Old-Urdu/Hindi fool, inferior or low status person, greedy, miser and poor, dirty, dry, cause, reason, always and all or every; e.g means every man. The word means behind; also used for past, old or after etc. Spin off from this creates words for directions; facing the sun drives it all, meaning front is East; behind means West, meaning right is South and is North. Lastly, one of the most popular words meaning good, well/ok, all right, true, is a most discernable word when two Urdu speakers converse. It is getting known in the UK and U.S.A among non-Urdu speakers as a symbol of South Asian speech. Its value is as an all-purpose word and is similar to that of the word .

5.8.6 Social-Cultural, and Life of Mind SKT’s contribution under this category, as well as many of the adjectives seen above, really is the reflection of high culture and civilization it represents. In its Prakritized form, Urdu has inherited a lot. Only popular ones are listed and again without SKT originals to save space; starting with words representing infirmities, we have disease and patient, sorrow and the opposite, comfort, and pain or distress; to serve and its derivative is servant. Other commonly used ones include sleep/sleepiness, spoilt or eliminated, virtue or good deed, sin, luck or fortune, and punishment. The words for time is , which is quite popular along with , a Persian derivative. Few others to mention here are < ānsu> tears, wealth, which sometimes goes with Persian , and blame. The word ‘to pay attention to’ is (or concentrate, or be focused); it is a common adjective as well. But as a noun (meaning meditation, among Buddhists) it got corrupted to ‘Zen,’ the religion of Japanese Buddhism. Marriage is a pretty common word along with Persian in Urdu; it is sometimes used as a verb, meaning marrying off. Finally, the word meaning today, or today’s date, and the word thunder and names of numbers one, two etc. are critical SKT loans to Urdu/Hindi.

5.8.7 SKT’s Help in Grammar SKT basically had no effect on the independent grammar of Urdu/Hindi. It has surely provided some adverbs, particles and conjunctions. Some of the latter are used preferentially by Hindi writers as shown by the following examples: Auxiliary Verb –> tha, meaning was, has led to following Masc. Sing. was i.e. he was Masc. Plu. were i.e. they were Fem. Sing. was i.e. she was Fem. Plu. were i.e. voh thiein> they were (The last one being a process via Persian effect (vide Chapter VI) )

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide Particles , from SKT sahita, means “from,” e.g., from school from SKT sahita, means “along with,” e.g., with Noah. from SKT sarva, means “all,” e.g., all go. SKT language obviously benefited Urdu’s evolution by some lexical enrichment. But its most significant role really lies in its voluminous literature both secular and religious, prose and poetry, themes and ideas; These served as one of the major resources for future literature in Urdu and others.

5.9 LITERARY LEGACY OF SKT RV which represents the earliest variety of literature and considered divine was composed by hundred of sages/poets. It consists of hymns and praises for Aryan gods, Indira Agni (fire), Varuna, Usha (dawn) and Surya (sun); other three Vedas, Sam Veda consisting of hymns and melodies, Yajjur Veda containing formula for sacrifices and Athar Veda medicine and magic were completed by about 500 BC. RV was composed in Afghanistan/Punjab area and the rest in eastern Indo-gangetic plain. This west to east vector supposedly represents the migration of Vedic speakers, through war and peace invoking various gods. Early hymns of RV also reveal gradual naturalization or Indianisation of the languages. RV stands out as speaking with disdain on behalf of some Aryan tribe, struggle against enemies, the inferior Melecchas or barbarian, black, Dasa-Dasyus (slave) or flat-nosed or nose-less tribes, followers of non-Aryan ways culture/gods with inferior non-Aryan speech. NonAryan Melecchas include Yadava, Dravidas, Andhras, Austric-Munda aborigines etc. But later on their oldest base in the west gets declared as non-Aryan as analyzed by many scholars: Center and east being identifiable with the Aryan, culture and/or Aryan religious practice and/or their political comfort/safety. In addition to four Vedas and their voluminous commentaries other important volumes include two major epics, Mahabharat and Ramayana, a law book, Manu’s Smrti; Purana, consisting of mythical generations of Kings from sun and moon dynasties and a book of Wisdom, Upanishad. All of these and many of the other religious and secular works in SKT were written down between AD 300-800. This is a massive boy of literature and runs into tens of thousands manuscripts. Some important secular work includes Arthashastra on statecraft, two volumes on medical science by Charaka and Shusutra, mathematics by Aryabhata, poetry and drama by Kali Das and other materials on philosophy, including Monism, Dualism, Polytheism, and Atheism. A brief glimpse of some of these is relevant. RV hymns are eloquent and reveal high philosophy including Creation. Two pieces are quoted (RV; X, 129.1.7): “Whence this creation arose, whether it created itself or whether it did not? He who looks upon it from the highest space, he surely knows or may be He knows not.” The second quote: “Who knows the truth? Who here will pronounce it whence this birth, whence this creation? The gods appeared afterwards, with the creation (world). Who then knows whence it arose?” One dis-

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Chapter V. Sanskrit-Prakrit and Old-Urdu/Hindi covers three items here, one powerful god, skepticism about creation as well as many gods; Sumerian ideas do percolate clearly here and even in the hymns on Savitr (RV; XXXV, 2–11) or sun; Sumerian-Akkadian hymns145 on or Shamas had similar ideas. RV does provide many secular themes as well, e.g., one dealing with the plight of gambling.146 Upanishad provides beautiful vignettes of philosophy in a conversation format. One popular quote147 is between a son and father, who initiates the dialogue: “Fetch me a fruit of the Banyan tree!” “Here is one, sir.” “Break it!” “I have broken it, sir.” “What do you see?” “Very tiny seeds, sir.” “Break one.” “I have broken it, sir.” “Now what do you see?” “Nothing, sir.” “What you do not see is the essence and on that essence the tree exists. Believe me, my son, in that essence is the self of all that is. That is the truth, that is the self.”

This indeed is the basis of Monism, god’s presence in everything, including human self. Many Sufi poets of Urdu/Hindi picked up this theme as we will see later. The epic poems “Mahabharat,” and “Ramayan,” are massive and accumulated over the years. The main story revolves around a great war fought between Pandavas and their cousin Kauruvas, in northern India around Delhi, where righteous Pandavas kill the numerically superior adversary and win. Embedded in the story is “Bhagawad Gita,” or the “Lord Song” in which Lord Krishna inspires the reluctant hero, Arjun, to perform the duty of his caste as warrior, and kill even his own cousins, propounding the concept of Dharma and/or Karma for salvation. The other epic, a small part of “Mahabharat” is “Ramayan,” attributed to Valmiki. The hero, Ram, a mythical prince who is deprived of his throne and has lived in exile in the forest for 14 years, slays demons and performs other kinds of miracles. His wife, abducted by Ravana, a Brahmin King of Ceylon, or Sri Lanka, stays pious and virtuous. She is finally recovered after a war assisted by Hunuman, the monkey god and his brigade. Returning triumphant to the kingdom, Ayodhya, Ram governs an ideal society. Suspecting his wife Sita’s infidelity, Ram banishes her, and Sita takes refuge with the poet/author, Valmik. Later, when Ram identifies his two sons and attempts to patch up with his wife, Sita prays and is swallowed by the cracked earth and Rama returns to heaven as Vishnu. “Ramayana” is very popular in the north and provides themes for drama, poetry and films.

145. Jean Buttero (1992), pp. 209–210. 146. A. L. Basham, p. 406. 147. Ibid. p. 252.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide Embedded in the “Mahabharata” are the sermons of Krishna, called “Bhagawad Geeta,” or “Lord’s Song.” “In essence, I am never born, I never alter, I am the Lord of all beings, and full master of my own nature; Yet of my own power, I come to be.” “Whenever, the sacred law fails and evil raises its head, I take embodied birth, To quarrel the wicked, to root out sinners and to establish the sacred law. I am born from age to age.”

The basic philosophy of caste system and Brahmical order had always remained challenged. A SKT poet, Brishpati exposed Brahmins as exploitative users and condemned their established religion and Vedas; an English rendering by MonierWilliams (1893) is quoted from Will Durant:148 “No heaven exists, nor final liberation, No soul, no other world, no rites of caste. . . . The triple Veda, triple self-command, And all the dust and ashes of repentance– These yields a means of livelihood for men Devoid of intellect and manliness. . . . How can this body when reduced to dust Revisit earth? And if a ghost can pass To other worlds, why does not strong affection For those he leaves behind attract him back? The costly rites enjoined for those who die Are but a means of livelihood devised By sacerdotal cunning–nothing more. . . . While life endures let life be spent in ease And merriment; let a man borrow money From all his friends, and feast on melted butter.”

This kind of liberalism which permeated SKT literature is now seen in Urdu/ Hindi (Chapter IX–XII). Among the galaxy of SKT poets, Kalidas is re-titled as Maha Kavi (grand poet) and lived during the golden age of SKT at Ujjain. His masterpieces are two long plays “Shakulala” and “The Apple Cart,” the latter played in New York in 1924. Other SKT poets and writers of this classical period include Bhartahari,149 known for his wit and humor, and Dandin, famous for his work of fiction, Tale of Ten Princes.

148. William Durant (1963) Vol. I, p. 418. 149. A. L. Basham (1989), pp. 421–445.

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Chapter V. Sanskrit-Prakrit and Old-Urdu/Hindi 5.10 PRAKRIT-OLD URDU/HINDI Buddhist and Jain adoption of PKT started the written linguistic history of India. But there must have been a pre-Buddhist hybrid PKT, something the equivalent of “Mundravi”; this is perhaps what was first called PKT by linguists. Buddha had preferred this language by forbidding his Brahmin disciples Yampai and Utekeel;150 who had requested to capture his sermon in SKT since people of the inferior caste, in their opinion, were “defiling the sermons” by repeating them in inferior (PKT) speech. Buddha is reported to have said, “O Bikkos (monks), never write in SKT; anyone doing this will insult me; try to understand the sermons in your language.” PKT-Pali was the official language and lingua franca of the eastern Maghadhian empire based at Patna, to which Asoka had succeeded. Through this new religion, Pali spread almost over the whole of India and even assumed a divine status “god created;” but remained a utilitarian language. Based on the dialectal features, linguistics recognize two varieties during the Asokan period: (1) Western variety centered around Mathura/Agra area called Sauerseni by the natives of this region. (2) Eastern variety of South Bihar called Maghadhi, which was dominated then as now by Austric-Munda and two Dravidian Malto and Kurux speakers; It had less SKT-TS than the western variety. An in-between variety, “Central” called ardh (half) Maghadhi had dominated Eastern UP and North Bihar, and became a preferred medium for Jain writers. The western variety was the PKT-Pali of Asoka’s inscription. Following the classical period of SKT, Harsha (AD 700), the Buddhist king, supported both PKT-Pali and SKT; the PKT-Pali became the medium for western Buddhism “Mahayan” or a (greater vehicle) and eastern variety with the Hinayan (lesser vehicle) Buddhism. By AD 600–700 linguists identify five regional varieties of PKT overlapping each other:151 Maharashtri: the most developed in literature had linked Dravidian south and Sauerseni area; Its descendant, “Marathi,” has the richest mix of Dravidian word; some regard this as true predecessor of Urdu/Hindi. Sauerseni, a continuation of PKT-Pali covering Indo-Gangetic plain, U.P., eastern Punjab and central India Malwa or Avanti; predecessor of Urdu/Hindi. Magadhi, the continuation of eastern PKT and of south Bihar was taken to Sri Lanka with Hinayan Buddism; it is often also called Pali. Ardh-Magdhi, a mixture of the above two extended from northwestern Bihar to the west up to the city of Allahabad. Pishachi Prakarit, which covered west Punjab, Kashmir and parts of Afghanistan had been recurrently under Persian domination. It seemed to be neither pure Indian nor pure Persian but a sort of a crossbreed.

150. Masood Hasan Khan (1999), pp. 16–18. 151. Ibid. pp. 24–31.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide As PKT slowly took literary form under Jain and Buddhist, it developed some rules. As the people’s language, always ahead of literature, it evolved much faster, breaking down rules, towards a so-called “decayed, or fallen, state” — literally, Apabhramsa. The latter became the name of the next phase, or line, of PKTs. The ensuing civil war after Harsh (AD 700) and the arrival of Arabic and Persian accelerated the linguistic growth as well as regionalism. But Sauerseni PKT or Sauerseni-Upbhramsh by 10th –11th century at Kannauj became the lingua franca/ literary language of entire North India, from Punjab to Bengal, including Gujrat, and a major vehicle for Janin and Buddhist religions and other minor sects such as Gorakhpanthies in Punjab and Suddahas in Bengal-Bihar. Modern Urdu/Hindi, in fact, is a continuation of Suerseni-Upbhramsh, now differentiated by linguists as Khari boli, Brij bhasha, Eastern Punjabi, Gujrati/Rajasthani, etc., based on accents and dialectal features. Four other regional PKTs evolved their own Upbramsh, e.g., in the West, Prachad Upbramsh became Sindhi; Maharshtri became Deccani, or Hyderabadi152 Urdu, and Marathi; Maghadi created Bengali, Orriya, Maithli-Bihari, etc.; and ArdhMaghadhi is seen as Eastern Hindi, or Oudhi. PKT-Pali, Sauerseni-Upbramsh or old Urdu/Hindi evolved into the Hindi/Urdu phase, with the absorption of Persian/Arabic. This will be discussed in the next chapter. But the lexical evolution of PKT itself before the next phase is also critical toward modernity.

5.11 LEXICAL EVOLUTION IN OLD URDU/HINDI The regional differences between various types of PKT were not much in the syntax or grammar, but in phonetics; pronouns and prepositions and least of all in vocabulary. These differences are still visible. But with in the northern PKT one can find the persistence of features such as double consonants, clusters of vowels and consonants, and too many retroflex etc. These changed over the centuries. A short review of some words is relevant here: PKT Old Urdu/Hindi

Modern Urdu/Hindi

bitth

baitho (sit)

valattam

ulta (repeat, reverse, upside down)

awagl

uglo (spit out)

uccal

uchla (jumped)

ghram

ghara (formed/made)

udde

ura (flew)

rokkaam

roka (stopped)

roodh

raundha (trampled/crushed)

gatt

gaya (gone)

mareya

mara (dead)

ankeyam

ankh (eye)

152. S. K. Chatterji (1969), pp. 91–99.

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ukkareyam

ukhra (uprooted)

aveyam

aya (come)

jharya

jhara (swept)

pasalleya

phisla (slipped)

These words, compiled by Dr. Bukhari,153 represent changes over several centuries. But many of these words still have similar old phonation in the Dravidian dictionary.154 One must recognize here that the PKT-type of pronunciation still exists in the villager’s speech in many places; modern Urdu/Hindi essentially represents an urban/ city culture much influenced by literacy; this issue is elaborated in detail in later chapters. PKT’s pronunciation does, however, reveal a basic linguistic/phonetic indigenous tendency to simplify the consonant/vowel clusters of all acquisitions, be they SKT, Arabic, or English, by ignoring difficult phonemes f, z, kh, gh, and maintaining the V/B/P, r/l, s/sh differences. For example, the English word film becomes filam or philam, form > pharam or faram, bulb > balab, etc. The same is true with Persian-Arabic words such as vaqt > wakat (time), zulm > zulam or julam (oppression), sharm > sharam or saram (shyness), etc; and also with older SKT/Dravidian words such as Indra > Indira or Inder (god), putr > putter (son), prem > perem (love), pramukh > permukh (chief), shaktri > chatri (warrior class) etc. Let us review a specimen of Old Urdu from Hem Chandra as quoted by Dr. Bukhari; the language was still free from Persian or Arabic: “Saer aek jo paoun ghitta manda vaes pakaoun nitta.” Urdu:“Jo aek saer ghee paoun, to rozana bees rotiyan pakaoun.” [English translation: If I get a one seer (2 pounds in weight) of ghee (butter), I will cook twenty rotis, or bread, every day.]

5.12 PKT-PALI LITERATURE (WORLD CLASS) PKT language in the early days, had a different dialectal flavor, as is apparent from the above reviews; SKT and PKT both had kept pace in the literary field. In the mixed stage plays PKT dialogue was allotted to the less educated, women, or inferior characters, while main characters as Kings and Brahmins spoke SKT and people got a general sense because of the shared vocabulary. Literary compositions in PKT itself, both religious and secular, are also plentiful, some even with global fame. The most famous work is Panchtantra (Five Treasures). This collection of animal fables with moralistic vignettes, or episodes, by Vidyapathi was translated in Arabic, Persian, and almost every European language. The fable of La Fontaine and 153. Suhail Bukhari (1997), pp. 127-128. 154. Ibid. p. 269.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide the stories of Reynard, The Fox, are well known derivatives from Indian Pali.155 The English version of these “moral philosophies of Doni” was edited by Sir Thomas North in 1570. Essentially, Panchtantra was meant as a book of instruction for the Kings and rulers, set with short moral vignettes in narrative form. Historians sometimes doubt that they originated in India because the Sumerian literature (Chapter III), the oldest, does have such themes. But given the setup of a forest, where both animals and humans are at risk, human minds could create such stories anywhere. The important point to remember here is that for Urdu/Hindi it is a direct inheritance from PKT. Another significant one is Hitupdesh (salutary instruction) in Eastern PKT. A short vignette about a certain lion with three advisors, a crow, a tiger, and a jackal, is delightful to reproduce. In time of plenty, a camel gone astray is taken in as a protected friend by the lion. As severe famine and hunger overtakes the jungle and options are few, his advisors tell the lion to eat up the camel. The lion refuses but would accept only if his friend made a voluntary offer. In a plot, three advisors and the camel go to see the sick and weak lion. Each advisor first offers himself to the lion but the offer is turned down by the gracious lion. The poor camel, under moral pressure, offers himself. Expecting a refusal from the lion, he becomes a meal for the four animals. There are some beautiful poetic, moralistic couplets interspersed in the story as follows: . . . A crow telling his two friends that a master, king, or anybody weak and hungry would not hesitate in committing a sin; “. . . A woman torn by hunger will abandon her child. . . . A snake torn by hunger will eat its own eggs. . . . what evil will a hungry man not do? Lean men are always pitiless.”

The crow continues. . . “A drunkard, an imbecile, a lunatic, A man tired out, an angry man, a hungry man, A greedy man, a frightened man, a hasty man, and a man in love never do the right thing.”

Pali literature is both quite profound and extensive in covering Buddha’s story of seeking and finding the truth, as succinctly commented upon by Prof. Basham. Among women poets, not unfamiliar in India, one Ambapali is attributed with the following on “The Transient Nature of Women’s Beauty;” translated in English: “Black and glory as a bee and curled was my hair; now in old age it is just like hemp or bark-cloth. Not otherwise is the word of the truthful. . . . “My hair clustered with flowers was like a box of sweet perfume; now in old age it stinks like a rabbit’s pelt. Not otherwise is the word of the truthful. . . .

155. A. L. Basham (1989), pp. 451–480.

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Chapter V. Sanskrit-Prakrit and Old-Urdu/Hindi “Once my eyebrows were lovely, as though drawn by an artist; now in old age they are overhung with wrinkles. Not otherwise is the word of the truthful. . . .

These literary examples including one of a woman poet reveal a woman’s high status in the culture of ancient India and the tradition still continues; Urdu/Hindi poetry or prose literature has never been short of women poets as will be seen later.

5.13 LINGUA EXTINCTORUM INDICA (LEXI) (IN OLD URDU) There is a consensus among linguists that a group of words in Indian lexicon does not belong to DR, Vedic, SKT or Munda language families; and an unknown source has died out and its speakers merged into Indian multitude. The numbers of such words are quite large, about 450 and constitute about a third of agriculture nomenclature in Urdu/Hindi and others. In Urdu’s DNA, this extent language with acronym LEXI is definitely older than Aryan Vedic and represents another base of the DNA. The words, fished out by Chatterji156 from the dictionary of Nepali Language, are of everyday use. Some examples follow: meaning screen or a temporary partition or hedge, means an unskilled person, a new recruit or plainly foolish, stopped, entangled or obstructed, and blank or rough, i.e., means blank paper, a common idiom. The word for foot , originally thought to be Munda is usually used by village folks but the word for bosom or lap is found in all languages of north India e.g. common idiom < gōdh mein lena> to pick up, usually a child, in the lap or gōdh, blemished or unreal, forged, e.g. khota dollar, forged dollar bill. is a most common verb which means to search or look for; other substitute for it or needing auxiliary are new substitutes. Another word with no substitute is means bland, expressing deficiency e.g. inadequate salt in a soup or curry is expressed as “namak” (salt), pkheeka hai (is); the opposite is Persian for excessive. An interesting verb or means lying around or rolling on the floor at leisure, and to hide. Many others from this dictionary include: a lane, a towel or wrapping sheet below waist, piece of cloth to wrap around as skirt or around forehead as a scarf; a pit or hole, used as a verb to mean springing up or coming on aggressively, e.g., clouds surge.

5.14 CHAPTER SUMMARY The chapter reviewed the emergence of the oldest Urdu/Hindi, or PKT, with the integration of the third foreign language, SKT, and its regional variation. It also reviewed the origin of SKT from West Asia, its growth by loan in India, and its dom156. S. K. Chatterji (1969), pp. 91-99.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide inant cultural and literary role, laying the foundation for Urdu/Hindi. Both SKT and PKT, having had world-class literature, created a sound basis for a modern language. SKT/PKT relationship, discussed in the chapter, also clarified their independence and interdependence. It also defined the lack of evidence for the genetic birth of PKT from SKT. The chapter reviewed various literatures and highlighted its linkage with West Asian culture, religion, and ideas. And finally it examined the contribution of the linguistic element, LEXI, part of Urdu’s DNA molecule. Further evolution of old Urdu involves infusion of Arabic and Persian from the oldest source, Mesopotamia.

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CHAPTER VI. ARABIC-PERSIAN: NEW SUBSTRATES FROM THE MIDDLE EAST 6.0 INTRODUCTION Arabic and Persian, the twin languages identified with Islam, may really be featured as “old wines” in new bottles from the grand linguistic winery, “Mesopotamia.” Their evolution, as hybrids from various fossil elements, had run a parallel interactive course since about 1000 BC. Just to recap, Arabic arose from Semitic type Akkadian, Assyrian, and Aramaic, which had absorbed Sumerian, while Persian arose from Hittite, absorbing Elamite, and elements from Arabic’s ancestor, Assyrian and Aramaic, before achieving its final shape. The arrival of Arabic and Persian did bring some old shared vocabulary in altered phonetics and also a lot of newly created ones. Besides this, they brought the newly reformed PAS script, the APS, which had developed around AD 300. Although the evolution of Arabic, Persian, SKT, and PKT has been purely a secular phenomenon of utilitarian value; SKT and PKT as noted had acquired religious labels. The same happened to Arabic, though much later. Despite various Quranic exhortations (chapter I), Arabic, a utilitarian hybrid of West Asia, came to be viewed as Islamic. Likewise, Persian, having been initially christened as the Zoroastrians’ divine language, had also achieved an “Islamic status,” only because of Iranian adoption of the new faith, again revealing the fact that languages have no religion but are given a label. The “Islamic religion” which arrived with Arabic and Persian speakers had arisen in the Middle East from the same ancient Sumerian-Babylonian ideas, which had earlier evolved into IRS in India and Judeo-Christian religion in the west. Islamic concepts consisting of “Human right egalitarianism, social justice, rule of law, Karma (deeds) based salvation under one god,” a package of ideas that according to the Quran itself had been delivered to all people in all regions through regional languages since creation which happened in an unknown antiquity.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide Further evolution of Urdu/Hindi is intimately related to the interaction of Islamic ideas and IRS and with the evolution of “secular Indianness” and relegation of religion to the private realm. This hybrid, “Indianness,” though viewed by most historians as a synthesis of two streams, Hindu and Muslim, was indeed concordant with the world view around AD 1000, polarized as Islamic West Asia, Christian Europe, and Hindu India etc. But based on revelation in Mesopotamia, this was largely erroneous. Languages and culture are a geographic phenomenon, distinct from religious evolution. Indian language and culture are India-specific, and not Hindu, and likewise, Arabic and Middle Eastern culture of some 10,000 years is incorrectly labeled Islamic; it is West Asian or Arabic culture. People change their religious belief but maintain their language and culture. Good examples are Turkey, Indonesia, and Pakistan, all Islamic but with diverse languages and culture. Realistically speaking, a composite hybrid evolving language and culture system in India of some 10,000 years had kept its momentum after this new dose, also from West Asia. A short review of history provides the essential context for the next stage of Urdu’s evolution.

6.1 HISTORY’S MARCH Arabic and Persian as noted arrived with the invasion of Mohammad-binQasim, the Arab General (AD 712), who occupied the whole of Sindh and Multan and brought in both Arabic and Persian speakers. Further social evolution created “Indian Muslims” by conversion and intermarriages. Sindhi language acquired Arabic script and enriched its vocabulary; an important contribution of this phase is an Arabic translation of the Mahabharat,157 the first in any language after SKT. Mehmud of Ghazna (an Afghan city 30 miles from the Pakistan-Afghan border), a Muslim Turk in 900 AD replaced the Arabs and took over all of Western India, including Gujrat, Punjab, and parts of Western U.P. This large segment of India was the eastern end of a very large empire covering Central Asia and Iran. The capital later shifted from Ghazna to Lahore. Mehmud is one of the most hated kings among Hindus, known as idol breaker of many temples. But he is also well known as a patron of culture and learning. Two famous names, Alberuni, a scientist, mathematician, and a SKT scholar, and famous Firdausi, had belonged to his court. Firdausi, by writing Shahnama, the Persian epic, laid the foundation for modern Persian. Several historians, Nehru, 158 Romilla Thaper 159 and others, have lauded about Mehmud’s contributions in arts and culture. Alberuni pioneered the first book on India’s religion, languages, and culture, and had noticed similarities between the IRS and Islam. It was a creative phase in its own way with alliances with neighboring Hindu kings which lasted about two centuries evolving a bureaucracy and army inclusive of both Muslims and Hindus and 157. S. K. Chatterji (1972), Vol. III, p. 7. 158. J. L. Nehru (1997), pp. 234–37. 159. R. Thaper (1990), pp. 229–240.

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Chapter VI. Arabic-Persian: New Substrates from the Middle East even Hindu generals. But another Muslim, Mohammad Ghouri, defeated Ghaznavids and also their Hindu ally, Delhi’s Hindu king, Prithviraj, and established a Sultanat (government) at Delhi (1192). Ghouri returned and died, but his appointed governor, Qutub Uddin Aibak, became the first Muslim king of Delhi. The defeat of Prithviraj is remembered with grief in the literature as a defeat of Hindu king by a Muslim foreigner, apparently without realization that Prithvi Raj was himself an ally of the Ghaznavids, who were Muslims. And he himself was not anti-Muslim; many Muslim Sufis, like Chisti, lived under his care. This “slave dynasty” lasted for 100 years and covered all of Northern India. This phase was followed by the Khiljis, another Turkish group. Allauddin Khilji conquered the south, taking the north Indian hybrid Hindi language to the south; later on another King Tughlaq did the same by moving his capital to the south with his army and civil servants. Tughlaqs, another Turkish group, was replaced by Lodis (also Muslim) of Punjab; Ibrahim Lodi was defeated by another Turk, Babur (1525), who founded the Mughal Empire famous for its composite culture that had Hindu and Muslim participants in every sphere as Indians as noted by Oxford historians160 and many others.

6.2 THE ROLE OF ARABIC/PERSIAN After arrival of Islam, Arabic Persian interfaced with Old Urdu/PKT’s and the latter began its Hindi phase. Arabic of this era (7–16 century AD) had become the world’s richest language by acquisition of sciences, with the help of SKT and Greek scholars at the Universities at Baghdad. Arrival of Arabic was like the arrival of English in 19th century India. The quest for learning by Indians from Arabic has been recorded by Alberuni,161 who had spent years with Hindu scholars and students. He has recorded as follows: . . .on having made some progress (socially), I began to show them the elements on which science rests, to point out to them some rules of logical deductions and the science of all mathematics, and then they flocked together around me, from all parts, wondering and most eager to learn from me, asking me at the same time from what Hindu master (Guru or teacher) I had learnt those things. . . they almost thought me to be a sorcerer.

The basic human nature to learn, even from foreigners, thus set the stage for teachers like Alberuni and perhaps countless others unknown towards the grand synthesis. The status of Old Urdu or Upbhramsha during AD 1000–1100 in earliest hybridized form is hardly known, but Alberuni, the polylinguist, did not have much optimism for it. In commenting on the language science he had noted some difficulties and problems. He stated:

160. Percival Spear (1994), pp. 235–242. 161. Ainsille T. Embree (1971), p. 23.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide “The Hindus, like other people, boast of enormous range of their language, whilst in reality it is a defect. Further, the language is divided into a neglected vernacular one, only in use among the common people, and a classical one, only in use among the upper and educated classes, which is much cultivated and subject to the rules of grammatical inflection and etymology and to the niceties of grammar and rhetoric.”

Commenting about PKT’s and SKT apparently, he goes on to characterize the phonetics and writing problem: “Besides, some of the sound (consonants) of which the language is composed are neither identical with the sounds of Arabic and Persian, nor resemble them in any way. Our tongue and uvula could scarcely manage to correctly pronounce them, nor our ears in hearing to distinguish them from similar sounds, nor could we transliterate them with our characters (alphabets/letters).”

Not withstanding the problem of difficult phonemes and retro-flex sounds lacking special alphabets in Arabic, Old Urdu continued making progress with expansion and the change of political scene in Indian life. The two languages of Alberuni, Persian and Arabic, after all, helped enrich the evolving Upbramshas into Modern Urdu, which created its own alphabets. Arabic, because of its high inflections, including root inflections, was an alien as much as SKT, for the same reason. It enriched the evolving hybrid, but never became a conversational language.

Its inflectional power, accounting for three numbers, two genders and tenses, could create numerous words from a root; e.g., root meaning exchange could generate 109 forms; Urdu/Hindi could use only two, change, exchange, revenge and transfer or exchange, to suit its own grammar.

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Chapter VI. Arabic-Persian: New Substrates from the Middle East 6.3 ARABIC-PERSIAN CONTRIBUTIONS The twins, which provide about 20–25% of Urdu’s vocabulary, are still taught as second languages throughout the subcontinent. History had these two intertwine since ancient times. Modern Persian has almost 50% of its vocabulary from Arabic and/or its predecessors. Arabic has a rich literature; and dominates much of Muslim people (pop. 1.5 billion) as an L.R.R. Persian, which always had some influence in the northwest, served for almost a thousand years as an administrative language of India. The evolution of Persian, through absorption of PED, discussed in chapter II and III, has impacted its linguistic features. Its phonetic system, similar to Urdu, as discussed in chapter III, does include Arabic sounds. Persian does have verb flexion but almost no case flexion; it utilizes a lot of auxiliary verbs, e.g., do or does or is, similar to Urdu. In syntax, Persian uses SOV type, a legacy of Sumerian and PED and a feature of modern Dravidian as well as Urdu. Another feature of the Dravidian family, in Persian, includes a liberal use of suffixes, with a tendency to agglutinate. Suffixes from Persian dominate Urdu/Hindi; we will review later. Persian’s dominant consonants [p], and [c], seem to be another PED Legacy. Because of its significant resemblance with Urdu/Hindi and Dravidian, Persian perhaps did not encounter much difficulty in its Indian career. Persian still enjoys the status of LRR for the Zoroastrian community in Iran, Bombay, Karachi, and elsewhere. Avesta,162 the holy book of Zoroastrians, does resemble Hindu’s Rig Veda and contains Babylonian legends. It’s divided into five parts as follows: 1) Yāsna with poetic gathas; 2) Vispred, 3) Vedidad, having priestly codes, 4) Yahsts with songs and praises, and 5) Khordab Avesta, containing prayers for various occasions. Compared to Persian, Arabic never attained a literary or conversational status in India, except in a few religious institutions like Deoband and Nadwa (Lucknow) in U.P. The Quran and its numerous commentaries, Islamic jurisprudence, and prophets’ tradition existed mainly in Arabic and later in Persian until 17–18th century; its position as a language of Islam is well respected. But as LBW and LST of Arab world, Arabic did accumulate voluminous literature as we will see. The Arabic alphabetic system, based on phonetics, as noted in earlier chapter II and III, is similar to Urdu, minus retro-flexes, [c], [g] and [p] sounds. As many as six special sounds listed (Table VI. 1) are part of Urdu/Hindi. Persian also uses them, except qaf [q], which it substitutes with ghaien [gh]. Their correct pronunciation is dependent on early training, parental usage, and cultural factors. These are difficult sounds for an untrained speaker; children do adopt them effortlessly even as a second language. The uninitiated, or untrained, speaker uses close substitutes (Table VI. 1), e.g., jebra for zebra, and pox for fox. Of some 500,000 words in Urdu, about one fifth, or 100,000, from ArabicPersian, resonates everywhere in the subcontinent. We hear, see, and read them through the utilitarian Urdu/Hindi. Even the illiterate villagers in the remotest of Indian villages use Arabic-Persian words in daily speech, e.g., man, 162. William Durant, Vol. I (XIII), p. 366.

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide woman, pen, laborer, must, more, less, and thing. Food items, such as a sweet snack, or salty, a pyramidal snack, etc., are also common words. Thousands of street friendly ArabicPersian words are the secret of show business, Urdu/Hindi films, stage plays, songs, and Hindi-Urdu poetry. Persian-Arabic words, in fact, became popular quite early on and even found a way into religious compositions, such as “Ramayan.” In the review of etymology of Arabic-Persian, we will discuss the Arabic and Persian verbs separately (Table VI. 2, Table VI . 3) as their numbers run into several hundreds. Many more from Persian than Arabic, they have created spin-offs, running in thousands. Other elements, nouns and adjectives from the two will be discussed together with socio-cultural perspectives. Review and recognition of these loans in everyday use of Hindi and Gujrati, etc., may surprise those who believe that Arabic/ Persian words are to be found in Urdu only.

6.4 ARABIC VERBS IN URDU/HINDI Arabic verbs have generated an enormous number of words for Urdu/Hindi as well as Persian. A small sample of some twenty-five are chosen from John Mace’s book163 on Arabic and also from the Persian-English dictionary,164 a classic of 1885 having some 50,000 entries with almost half of them Arabic. The entries in the table include the Arabic root, its meaning and a few spin-off words current in Urdu. They are part of the current street speech, print media, and show business. Most words and derivatives are clearly identifiable by people of the subcontinent. Some very common ones include gather, collect, which gives us an Urdu verb to freeze, book, news, face, picture/photograph, alcohol drink, journey, tyranny, more, and necessary. Many of them have created quality spin-offs, such as loved, love, beloved, and learning, creates learned, teacher. For show business and the film industry the key words Muhabbat, love; haseen/ hasina, beautiful, murderer, eye, alcoholic, and revenge provide a wide assortment in the table. The word represents a mutual loan, with unknown direction between Arabic and Dravidian. The word nazar, meaning eye, or sight, is part of the cultural idiom — , meaning “evil eye effect,” and used in the whole subcontinent. The word from, number five 5, meaning “profit” enjoys extensive use, as does all other derivatives, and “profitable” and “non-profitable,” respectively. The root meaning “country” does extend into other senses, creating owner or boss, used as a surname, and transcending all regions, religions, and languages of the subcontinent, e.g., Suresh Malik and Salim Malik are common Hindu and Muslim names, respectively.

163. John Mace (1999). 164. Fazli Ali (1999).

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Table VI.2 Arabic Verbs in Urdu/Hindi

URDU

ARABIC ROOT

ROOT MEANINGS

OTHER URDU FORMS (MEANINGS)

1. aman

aman

safety, peace

aman (secure), ameen (trust)

2. akheer

akhr

delayed

takheer (delayed), akhir (last)

3. badal

badal

exchange

badla (revenge), tabadla (transfer)

4. dawa

da-ou

allege, invite

dawat (feast), dawa (lawsuit)

5. mufeed

feed

benefit, useful

faida (profit), efad (to benefit)

6. ghai-r

ghai-r

other, alien

waghai-ra (etc.), be ghai-r (without)

7. habeeb

hab

love, loved

muhabbat (love), mehboob (beloved)

8. hasan

hasn

good, well

haseen (beautiful), ahsan (favour)

9. ilm

ilm

learning

alim (learned), malum (informed)

10. jama

jama

collect, gather

majma (crow), jamana (freeze)

11. kitab

kutub

book, to write

katib (writer), maktab (school)

12. kasir

kasr

excess, much

kasrat (excess), aksar (often)

13. mulk

mulk

acquire

malik (owner), mulky (country man)

14. intizar

nazr

await, see

nazar (see), nazeer (observer)

15. qatal

qatl

to kill

qatil (killer), maqtul (one, killed)

16. qaum

qaum

reside, nation

muqam (site), qayam (stay)

17. khabar

khabar

inform, news

akhbar (newspaper), mukhbir (informer)

18. surat

sur

image

tasvir (picture), tasawwur (imagination)

19. sarab

sarab

to drink

sarabi (alcoholic), sharbet (juice)

20. safar

safar

travel, journey

musafir (traveller), safir (ambassador)

21. waris

waras

inherit, heir

warsa (legacy), warisi (heriditary)

22. wajud

wajd

existence

maujud (present), ejad (discovery)

23. ziyada

zaid

more, excess

mazeed (more), ziyadati (excess)

24. zulm

zulm

oppression

zalim (oppressor), mazlum (sufferer)

25. zikar

zikr

mention, speech

zakir (speaker), tazkira (talk)

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide 6.5 PERSIAN VERBS IN URDU/HINDI Persian verbs are much more numerous in Urdu, and impact all Indian languages, because of long historical traditions. Persian, or its predecessors, Elamite and Aramaic, in fact, had always maintained its influence in the northwest. Besides Arabic, Persian too provides the continuity of the few oldest known verbs of mankind to do, eat. These Sumerian words (Table III.1) became Persian passed into Urdu and to eat and āb for water, etc., and another word for moving or walking , from the PED is shared with the Dravidian family (Table III. 2). It does have other Dravidian words passed into Urdu directly through the Mundravi stage. Persians IE connection (Table III. 5) gives us the Persian to know and to tie. Persian has naturalized some loan verbs e.g., Dravidian loan and Arabic became the Persian root or “masdar” to move or walk and to understand (Table VI. 2 . A -#’s 8 and 16). Persian verb loans to Urdu/Hindi are really quite extensive, almost as much as from Munda and Dravidian. A sample of fifty is a fair representation (Table VI. 2). Alphabetically arranged with the lead Urdu word followed by its Persian root, its meaning, and some derivatives, the verbs really speak for themselves. An Urdu/ Hindi speaker should have no problem in their identification. They are commonly spoken words of Urdu or Hindi and also other languages (IA dialects). Bengali, estimated by Dr. Chatterji, had some 20,000 words prior to its purification or regressive process during its national renaissance. Each of these verbs, if not used as verbs, has a derivative in current speech; for example, to come, created flattery, created estimation or guessing, and created many spin-offs like street-smart/clever/shrewd, character, a government invoice for a fine or other payment, and clever. The SKT word for clever is also current. Number 9 and 10 may surprise many. “Election” in Persian to pick is current, and so is “to collect money as contribution” . Persian verb run the business through buying (#23) and selling (#15). Numbers 24 and 26, as masdars, are not current, but their derivatives are popular, e.g., meaning suicide, and desire, to strive are commonly used. , to show, is used a lot, but , exhibition, is more popular. The word (#31) has important derivatives: screw, screw driver, dysentery for intestinal, colic or contortion. From its sense of turning comes complicated, complication. Some other current ones in popular speech include birth (# 38), distress (# 37), to like or approve (#33), to search (#44), receipt (#41). Words such as to hear (#49), desire (#45), are shared with SKT. The word pure, or clean, is the basis for the name Pakistan. Lastly, the word a patch to cover a torn garment is unique and currently used. Many others in the table really do not need elaboration, and there are still others that will come up for discussion later.

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Chapter VI. Arabic-Persian: New Substrates from the Middle East 6.6 GENERAL VOCABULARY FROM ARABIC-PERSIAN 6.6.1 Relationship Words As noted earlier, most of the basic lexicon of family systems come from Munda-Dravidian, and Persian-Arabic only provide a limited number of originals to beef up the variety for the poets. Originals include maternal grand parents, grandchildren from a daughter, and the word for son-in-law . Some additional words are from Arabic; they include maternal aunt and uncle, father-mother, progeny; and from Persian infant boy and girl, plural form being a generic term for children. The word for man-woman and and meaning human being, seem to be more popular than the Dravidian manush or manai.

6.6.2 Food, Fruits and Edibles, etc. The entire menu of an Indian restaurant is full of Arabic-Persian names; , bread, and aromatic fried rice with meat, minced meat, meat, meat curry, cheese, and — “green” in Persian — vegetables. On the dessert side, we have Arabic words, too, such as, and in Persian sweet snack. Other names are specific in Arabic due to the various kinds of sweet, i.e., , and in Persian white fudge. A popular triangular pattie which is now an international name or < sambosa> is Persian via the prefix sa, meaning three. However, others such as pickles, butter, and a drink are familiar, but the Persian word is the only one for ice in Urdu/Hindi. Many nuts and fruits bear Persian labels, for example, grapes, a kind of orange, apple, apricot, melon, water melon, fruits, pomegranate, and raisins, pine nuts. Many others have to be excluded for brevity.

6.6.3 Household Items/Environment Many items associated with cooking and serving are also related to Persian names. These are: spoon, knife, cup, plate, tray, cooking pot, hot iron plate, mixing/serving spatula, metalic plate, cooking utensil, cook, and the kitchen. The Persian word for oven is < tandūr/tanūr>, with the famous tandoori bread, or chicken, or kabab as a spin-off.

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Table VI.3 Persian Verbs in Urdu/Hindi

URDU WORD

1

Amad

2

Asan

3

Andaz

4

Afsana

5

Afrid

6

azmana

7

Bakhsna

8

Calna

9

Cunna

10

Canda

11

Dena

PERSIAN ROOT (meaning)

amdan (to come) asanidan (ease) andazidan (estimate) afsanidan afridan (create) azmudan (test) Baksh (excuse) calidan (move) cunidan (elect) ceedan (seek) Dadan (to give) deedan (seek) danistan (to know)

OTHER URDU DERIVATIVES

URDU WORD

PERSIAN ROOT (meaning)

OTHER URDU DERIVATIVES

khus-amad (flattery)

27

nasisht

nashistan

nasisht (sit, rest)

asani (ease)

28

numa

namoden

numaish (show)

andaza (measure)

29

pukhta

pukhtan

pukhta (firm)

fasana (table)

30

poshida

pushidan

poshida (hidden)

farid (creator)

31

pecida

pecidan (wrap)

pecida (wrap)

azmaya (tested)

32

parwaz

parwazidan

parwaz (fly)

bakh sis (forgiven)

33

pasand

pasandidan

pasand (like)

calu (fast mover)

34

parwarda

parwardan

parwarda (raise)

cunao (election)

35

pak

pakidan (pure)

pak (pure land)

paindan

paidar (firm)

canda (contribution)

36

painda

diya (given)

37

parishan

chasm deed (eyewitness)

38

paida

parishanida n paidai (bore)

paresani (stress) paidaesh (birth)

12

Deed

13

Danis

danis (wise)

39

paiwand

paiwandan

paiwand (patch)

14

farmana

farmudan

firmaesh

40

paimaish

paimudan

paimaish (measure)

15

Farokht

farokhtan (sell)

farokht

41

rasid

rasidan (reach)

rasad (supply)

16

Faheem

fahmidan

fahmida (wise)

42

rasai

rasunidan

rasai (approach)

17

Farefta

fareftan

fareb (deception)

43

tapna

tapidan

tapish (heat)

18

Farakh

farakhidan

farakh (expansive)

44

talash

talashidan

talashi (search)

19

Giraft

giraftan (arrest)

giraftar (arrested)

45

tarasna

tarsidan

tarsa (desired)

20

Guzar

guzardan

guzarna (to pass)

46

tarashna

tarshidan

tarashna (shave)

21

Josh

josidan (boil)

josila (excited)

47

uftad

22

Khwab

khwabidan

khwab (dream)

48

varz

Kharid

kharidan (buy)

kharida (bought)

49

sunna

sunidan

suna (heard)

kashi

kashidan (pull)

Khudkashi

50

shikast

shikastan

shikast (defeat)

25

Koshish

koshidan (strive)

koshan (striver)

shusta

shustan (wash)

shaista (clean)

26

Khwahi

khwastan

Khwahish

23 24

51

uftadan (fall) varzidan (sport)

varzish (workout)

Among numerous terms related to household and general physical environmental items are: a house and its various parts, wall, door, story/levels, bathroom, toilet, the

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Chapter VI. Arabic-Persian: New Substrates from the Middle East floor. Household furniture and accessories include a lot of Persian-Arabic words: bed/bedding, bed, / chair, carpet, comforter/quilt, mattress, pillow, and bed sheet, etc. For outside the house, we also have plenty of words; these are Arabic-Persian for the world, market, shop, road or way, river, pond or pool, tree, forest, country, city, town, village/villager, all mean garden, and also garden which corrupted as paradise in Greek to mean heaven, sky, earth/ground, sun, moon, light, air, water, cloud, all for stars, and soil which creates khaki, famous slacks, playground, bridge, and a mansion, a palace, a suffix used in the famous Taj Mahal, a hamlet or neighborhood which has another word . The Persian suffix -ganj, -ābad, -astan, make thousands of places, i.e., Hazaratganj, Allahabad, and Turkistan, etc. This list is certainly not exhaustive. Other common household words include silk, garment, shirt, trouser, pocket, handerchief, sleeve, electricity/electric, cord/wire, mirror, perfume, lamp, candle, and color. Animal Names Popular words for animals are: lion, in every jungle/animal story, also lion, chicken, generic for cattle and for birds, and for all animals. Persian for rabbit, is a compound word from khar meaning ass and goşhear; Rabbit does have ass like ears. Hunting as a sport is called to hunt, a hunter and a gun. Professions, Titles, etc. The words related to education in daily usage are: book, paper, pen, paper leaf, lesson, grade, question, answer, math, school, teacher, student, exam, result, and reward, prize. In the medical field some current ones include physician, prescription, treatment, patient, illness or disease, medicine, precaution during therapy, fever, pain, wound, ointment, cold and flu, diarrhea, and vomit. These common words are part of daily speech. However, many other diagnostic terms are excluded for brevity. Most terms in the legal professions are really Arabic-Persian driven; they are numerous; some of these are: lawyer, court, a judge, justice, law, prison-prisoner, punishment, release, and a criminal. In every conceivable profession/business, one can find Arabic-Persian terms, a natural outcome of centuries of cultural intercourse. From the large list, some are: government, with hundreds of spin-offs, servant,

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Urdu/Hindi: An Artificial Divide porter, leader, enemy-friend, wrestler, laborer, weaver, from Persian, spider, poet, actor, astrologer, boatsman, pickpocket, < dalāl> middleman or agent, soldier, peddler, cloth merchant, watchman, and tailor.

6.6.6 Body Parts Most names really are from Dravidian, Munda, and SKT, but Persian-Arabic provides some additional ones, with differing phonetics, which are useful in literature and poetry. The two words for body and along with SKT is one such example. The words heart, or brain, blood, tongue, nail, and chest are common in daily usage. Others, such as skin, lips, forehead, hair locks, hand, are also fairly common but in literary writing. Two words for eyes, in Persian, and Arabic, are more literary, but provide spin-offs for eyeglasses, and .

6.6.7 Adjectives and Adverbs Making adjectives and verbal nouns from verb roots has been the skill of the man in the street, creating a voluminous bank of words which drives every business of the Urdu/Hindi speaker. Persian-Arabic has their linguistic features that helped Urdu. Arabic does not have a separate class of words called adjectives as we know in Urdu or English. Nouns and adjectives are interchangeable; e.g., in rich person; ghaniey (rich, by itself) means a rich person. Another word like , meaning “beautiful,” can be a proper noun. Persian, however, does have adjectival degrees; Urdu is the beneficiary. Two example will suffice: < beh> good, better, best; bad, worse, worst. Clearly, the process is quite orderly, unlike the mixed-up English language. Some commonly utilized adjectives in everyday speech include: less-more, and nouns from it, kami and ziyadti, happy-happiness. Several words convey sadness , , , , , and the last one means difficulty or bad time. Good time and comfort words include rest, comforts. There are many spin offs from all of these; others are, and soft, easy, and hard and difficult. Praise words include good, capable, or qualified, well-mannered, better, gentle/humble, and noble, etc., and to confer negatives, some are, bad, ill-mannered, incapable, foolish, of bad character, vagabond, and shameless, inferior person, etc. One can appreciate the wide range of phonemes that convey the similar feeling which drive the richness of Urdu/Hindi poetry and songs.

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Chapter VI. Arabic-Persian: New Substrates from the Middle East 6.6.8 Social-Cultural, and Life of Mind In the business world, one finds a lot of Arabic-Persian words spoken on the street, i.e., loss, profit, gain, business, goods, owner/boss, cash, loan, salary, income, bribe, honest, dishonest, greedy, and charitable. For expressing richness or poverty, we have quite a few words, such as, , rich, wealthy, rich, poor, beggar. When expressing appearance, one has words such as beautiful, ugly, good/good-looking man, and good-looking ladies. For poets, these particular words are very useful. Poets use a lot of words related to wine as well; some of them are Arabic rooted: wine, drinker. Besides these, we have wine, or spirit, and for the bar or pub we have , and is for wine cup/glass; the word for cupbearer is , which comes all the way from Sumeria (Table III.1). Many words that are used for occasions of marriage and death in Urdu/Hindi are from Persian-Arabic, some include marriage, legal part of marriage among Muslims, a judge who conducts legal marriage, invitation, relationship, or departure of the bride, or dowery to bride, gift, dinner from the bridegroom among Muslims. Some death words, besides , include travel, ; burial, shroud, grave, burial ceremony, and graveyard, or hell, heaven, good credit, divine punishment, sin. Many other words in cultural life include day, date, year, yesteryear, summer or heat, winter/cold, tradition and customs, glory, pride, arrogance, respectful status, power, strength, dirt/mess, cleanliness, religion, principles, war, satisfaction, back biting, participation. Honorifics, prefixes include Mr., or Sir, and suffix for male and female are well known. The suffix goes with ladies’ names and , as a generic, for elder relatives, i.e., ammi-jān and bhāi jān, mother and brother respectively. There is a whole lot more and certainly beyond the scope of this book.

6.6.9 Adverbs, Pronominal and Qualifying Particles As a matter of fact, it is hard to make conversation without many of these particles from Persian/Arabic: if, but, after, afterwards, but, certain (person), perhaps, often, more often, full, empty, towards (directional), for, certainly yes, but this or that or instead, immediately, quickly, this, not that, much more, again and again, continuous, evened out, always, near, near, far, until. Small particles or conjunctions mainly from Persian include the following: or, every, and, and, anymore, what, thou, then or so, whether, those, they, etc. Words showing spead are: slow, and fast. Urdu/Hindi speakers use these as part of their mother tongue, without thinking and regarding the source.

6.7 PLURAL MAKING/GRAMMAR This involved nouns and adjectives, which under went a Persianization process, making the speech flexible and rich. The following example illustrates the words ending in a consonant suffix in or ān: Singular woman → women women English singular word for car→ cars For words ending in a vowel the suffix is -gān: person → person. But Urdu speakers use this rule very rarely and they use the earlier rule for words ending in a vowel as well; examples are: van/car → cars/vans girl → girls More twists in the plural making had followed generating third person plural such as, , , meaning those women, cars, and girls, respectively. Arabic plural making, which had impacted Persian did influence Urdu/Hindi also. But the style is largely confined to literary modes; three types of examples are as follows: Singular person, companion → religion → destination → school →

Plural



In popular Urdu/Hindi speech these words would tend to use Persian rule to make , etc. Plural making in PKT was limited and used numbers as modifiers, i.e., PKT → eye → two eyes Urdu/Hindi → eyes In Arabic, for females they add the suffix āt, but Urdu uses this suffix to make plural for non-animated of either gender; examples follow: Singular Plural question→ questions forest→ forests

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Chapter VI. Arabic-Persian: New Substrates from the Middle East For masculine Arabic uses –een or –ien, but Urdu uses it for general purpose. Singular Plural ruler → rulers expert → experts.

6.8 PERSIAN AFFIXES A significantly large group of Persian affixes modify adjectives, verbs, nouns and adverbs. They decorate Hindi-Urdu speech with a variety of phonemes used by Hindi and Urdu poets and writers. There is a large list and some examples are as follows. Urdu words are in angle brackets “” with the English meanings underneath. SuffixWords 1. Gi: Zinda (alive) = life, banda (servant) service 2. Mi: garm (hot) = heat, Nirm (soft) = softness 3. Gār: madad (help) = helper, khidmat (service) = servant 4. Bar: (carrier) dil (heart) = lover (message) = messenger 5. bān or vān: