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The Death of the Urdu Script

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Re: The Death of the Urdu Script

#81

Post by contingencies »

cabalamat wrote: post #73
contingencies wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pro tip: Mughul India is not the Middle East, and neither is Pakistan or Iran. There are arabic derived scripts at least as far east as China and the Philippines ( jawi ), but describing them as Middle Eastern is plain wrong - just as you would not describe Balinese or Cambodian as Indus Valley.

> There are arabic derived scripts at least as far east as China and the Philippines (jawi), but describing them as Middle Eastern is plain wrong Is it, though? I'd describe the Roman script as European (since it originated in Europe) without expecting to be corrected, even though the vast majority of people who use it live outside Europe.

Would you describe a page of written Vietnamese or Hanyu Pinyin as European? That's a fairer comparison to the author's turn of phrase.

Re: The Death of the Urdu Script

#82

Post by contingencies »

scrollaway wrote: post #66
contingencies wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pro tip: Mughul India is not the Middle East, and neither is Pakistan or Iran. There are arabic derived scripts at least as far east as China and the Philippines ( jawi ), but describing them as Middle Eastern is plain wrong - just as you would not describe Balinese or Cambodian as Indus Valley.

The article talks about two arabic scripts. Saying "Middle eastern" is more inclusive than saying "arabic" and while it does not include pakistan, it does almost reach it. Kind of like when we talk about Europe and increase the reach a bit more. Or when you say "the United States" when you really mean north america (a much worse offender since you talk about a country). This was my logic when writing it. I'm not a hi…

You seem to be admitting mistake, complaining about being corrected, and dismissing the process all at once. But I'm sure you learned something :)

Re: The Death of the Urdu Script

#84

Post by jdmitch »

616c wrote: post #25

So I skimmed the article once, then read it again. I see the writer is here. I just want to say I understand your sentiment, but your title and content are filled with some annoying misinformation and discrepancies. First of all, Nastaliq is not "the Urdu script". If you even skimmed Wikipedia, you would notice that the script does come oringinally from Arabic (where it is used, but more to your point, sadly not as m…

just a minor correction - the script is naskh from the triliteral root n-s-kh (نسج - copy) not naksh from the root n-k-sh(نقش - engrave)

Re: The Death of the Urdu Script

#85

Post by pramalin »

Rapzid wrote: post #48
pjmlp wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although English is seen as the lingua franca of the 21st century, it wasn't always like that. In the several millions we are able to speak and write, there have been lots of languages taking that role. And even English is not as common as many people think, just traveling around the world will teach people that there are many places where knowing English will be of no help. Besides languages represent culture, not a…

Just out of curiosity, what concept is not expressible in English?

Tamil and probably many other Indian languages have various examples: Love as in parental (anbu), as between couples (kaadhal). "How many -eth" (ethanaiyaavathu) child are you to your parents? Many forms of family relationships: younger brother (thambi), elder brother (annan), etc.

Re: The Death of the Urdu Script

#87

Post by alieteraz »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #76
sampo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently Nastaʿlīq was (a) developed in Iran (which is not an Arab country), and although it was developed as a combination of Nasḫ (Naskh) and Taʿlīq scripts, (b) it was never really used in the Arab lands, but in the Persian, Turkic, and South Asian spheres of influence. So if the people in Pakistan feel that Nastaʿlīq is "their own" writing system and Naskh symbolizes Arab imperialism, in my opinion they have al…

> what matters in this matter is how the people feel about their letters today Sure. It's a political decision. alieteraz even states that the reason he feels strongly about font choice is politics, and observes that current Pakistanis (overall) want to Arabize more than they already have. But for some reason, the article's arguments amount to "naskh is ugly", which is completely irrelevant to the dispute. (There's a…

The "people of Pakistan" are not a monolith. So some of them want Arabization and some do not and some want Westernization and so forth. As for the ugliness of naskh, its not that naskh is ugly, its that the naskh based mutant on digital devices is ugly. Also angular Urdu, generally speaking, is dissonant and hard to read for Urdu speakers. Here is an email I got since last night:

Hey Ali,

I loved your essay on The Death of Urdu Script. Nastaliq was the default script when reading Urdu books in schools. Therefore, I am so used to reading Urdu in Nastaliq that I cannot read properly in Naskh. And because I am a tech entreprenuer who works online, I am forced to read Urdu in Naskh. Therefore, over years I have lost interest in the Urdu language.

If Nastaliq is revived and becomes a common script online, I will be sure to read Urdu more.

Re: The Death of the Urdu Script

#88

Post by scrollaway »

contingencies wrote: post #81
cabalamat wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are arabic derived scripts at least as far east as China and the Philippines (jawi), but describing them as Middle Eastern is plain wrong Is it, though? I'd describe the Roman script as European (since it originated in Europe) without expecting to be corrected, even though the vast majority of people who use it live outside Europe.

Would you describe a page of written Vietnamese or Hanyu Pinyin as European? That's a fairer comparison to the author's turn of phrase.

You seem to be trying very hard to look very smart, yet you (probably purposefully) seem to be missing the point of everyone you reply to. That is not really making you look "smart".

Re: The Death of the Urdu Script

#89

Post by alieteraz »

BTW. I published this piece in fall of last year. Long before it came on Hacker News, it had been passed around the Pakistani and Indian Twittersphere, and no one there was saying that we should let tech companies off the hook for not offering a) the full alphabet and b) the right script. It was, actually, the Pakistanis and Indians that made this article what it was. When I wrote it, I honestly thought I was just some eccentric who was annoyed for very personal reasons. Even as we speak the piece is being retweeted by professors and students at LUMS, in Lahore, and universities in Islamabad.

What's even more interesting is that as a result of writing this piece my own favoritism towards nastaliq actually LESSENED. But by the time my thinking evolved, the nastaliq purists had made the piece their own.

Re: The Death of the Urdu Script

#90

Post by alieteraz »

eshvk wrote: post #50
sharjeel wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sindhi, for example, is a naskh based language. Punjabi, which my parents spoke, on the other hand, prefers nastaliq, and regionally the two places are adjacet. Saying that Sindhi is Naskh based language while Punjabi is Nastaleeq based language is like saying English is Arial based language while French is Times New Roman based.

This is rather confusing. IIRC both Arial and Times New Roman let you express all 26 alphabets. Now if Naskh has Nastaleeq have differing number of characters, is this a mere font issue or is there something more fundamental differing between the two?

There are two issues. One is that some operating systems (ios) don't offer the full alphabet. As for those that do (Android/Windows), they don't offer the right script. Hope that helps.
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