Comment on Any people who speak Urdu/Hindi on Lemmy?
kurcatovium@lemm.ee 1 week ago
I don’t but I wonder how close these two languages are? Since I sometimes watch Karl Rock on youtube, he apparently speaks both depending on where he is at the moment. Is it like “I understand nearly every word without even trying” or is it more like “If I focus hard enough I get the meaning of what the person is saying”?
Bullybeard@lemm.ee 1 week ago
They’re different languages yes, but for spoken they’re almost interchangeable. Anyone who speaks Urdu will understand spoken Hindi, but each language has specific words unique to their vocabulary. Their vastly different in written too, Hindi is written in sanskrit script and Urdu is written in Arabic script. I speak Urdu but can freely communicate with Hindi speakers and vice versa but cannot read Hindi
gwilikers@lemmy.ml 1 week ago
I honestly never knew this. Thanks for sharing!
otp@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
So the same language, but different writing systems. Like if English were written in binary, it’d still be English, but nobody would be able to read it like they could read English text.
They say that the common definition of “a language” is by borders and military, rather than by any linguistic criteria! Lol
See also: “the Chinese language”
Bullybeard@lemm.ee 1 week ago
I suppose but u also have to take the plethora of words that exist in one and not the other and different dialects E.g the word for family is “parivaar” in hindi and “khaandaan” in Urdu God is “bhagwan” in hindi and “Rabb” in urdu etc etc I’m not sure about Hindi but I think it derives from Sanskrit. but Urdu was called “Rekhta” before as it’s parent language . The word Urdu comes from the Turkish word for army “Ordu”. Urdu was formed after an amalgation of Arabic and Persian and over the years as soldiers from different ethnicities came under one banner in the subcontinent it picked up vocab from old Hindi as well and due to the centuries of living along side Hindi speakers, alot of words are understood between each other. If someone was to speak Rekhta or even “pure” Urdu today as how or is in old poetry, as it was in the beginning, I’m sure no hindi speaker will understand and even modern Urdu speakers will take a minute
kurcatovium@lemm.ee 1 week ago
Nice, thank you.
thebigslime@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Sound very similar to Bosnian-Serbian-Croatian-Montenegrin. A language spectrum divided by geopolitics.