Perso-Arabic Loanwords in Hindustani: Dictionary [1] 9788371881619

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PERSO-ARABIC LOANWORDS IN HINDUSTANI PART I. DICTIONARY

AGNIESZKA KUCZKIEWICZ-FRAŚ

PERSO-ARABIC LOANWORDS IN HINDUSTANI

Part I

DICTIONARY

rilii KSIĘGARNIA AKADEMICKA

KRAKÓW 2008

Persian linguistic material consulted by: Prof. Kinga Maciuszak

Reviewed for publication by: Prof. Andrzej Pisowicz

Cover design: Igor Stanistawski

© Agnieszka Kuczkiewicz-Fras, 2008

The volume was published due to the financial support of Faculty of Philology, Jagiellonian University

ISBN 978-83-7188-161-9

KSIĘGARNIA AKADEMICKA św. Anny 6, 31-008 Kraków tel./fax: (012) 431-27-43, 633-11-67 e-mail: [email protected] www.akademicka.pl

Preface The presented dictionary constitutes the first part of the planned two-volume work devoted to the question of Perso-Arabic loan­ words in Hindustani. The aim of this work was to gather and explain meanings of linguistic units originating in Persian or Arabic, which throughout the centuries penetrated into the biggest common form of language of what is today North India and Pakistan, namely Hindustani, creating a rich and important stratum of its lexis. It is a well known fact that words of Persian and Arabic origin have been entering into Indian vernaculars ever since the first Mus­ lims appeared in the Indian Subcontinent. The process was espe­ cially intensified in the time when Persian, as a language of the Mughal rulers, was the current speech in the courts, schools and offices of Northern India and Deccan. The local speech of Delhi and the area surrounding it has been given the name Hindustani by the Muslim conquerors of India. The name means “belonging to Hindustan”. It soon became a contact language between the two cultures, absorbing large number of Per­ sian, Arabic, and Turkic words. During the next centuries Hindu­ stani became a lingua franca of vast areas of northern India and Deccan, achieving in the Muslim courts - along with Persian - the status of a literary language. In the course of the 19lh century (esp. in the second half), the two main styles of Hindustani became more and more distinguish­ able. One was Urdu (then also called Hindustani), seen as symbol of Muslim cultural identity, using the modified Persian script and bor­ rowing freely from Persian vocabulary and style. The other was Hindi, understood as being the main element of Hindu cultural iden­ tity, written in the Sanskritic Devanagari script and containing the incredible number of words taking their origin from Sanskrit and Prakrits. With the increasing role played by standardised forms of Hindi and Urdu (perceived now by most scholars as separate lan­ guages), the position of Hindustani was weakening, up to the mid-20tfi century, when it officially disappeared after 1947. It is not

— VI —

mentioned in the VIII Schedule of the Constitution of India, in the Census’ records or the official documents of Pakistan. But in a spe­ cific sense, the term Hindustani may be still used to refer to the dialects and varieties current in common speech, a lingua franca, unofficially, but fully functioning as a link language in the Indian Subcontinent (cf. R. L. Schmidt, Urdu [in:] The Indo-Aryan Lan­ guages, ed. by G. Cardona and D. Jain, Routledge, London-New York 2003, p. 291-292). In such a sense the term Hindustani has been used in this dic­ tionary. It denotes the common form of language (R. S. McGregor calls it Hindi-Urdu) - the vernacular intelligible in greater part for users of both Hindi and Urdu (mostly, but not only), cunent in vast regions of contemporary Northern India and Pakistan. It is the tongue which one can hear in the streets and bazaars, as well as in everyday media and movies. It is also this form of a language, in which the whole process of enriching one speech by the elements of another can be easily observed, since from the very beginning of its existence Hindustani has been a subject of foreign influences and borrowed freely from the languages which co-existed with it (previ­ ously mainly from Persian, and through it - from Arabic, nowadays from English).

Sources The range of sources used and quoted in this work comprises se­ lected dictionaries of Hindi, Urdu and Hindustani, covering more or less a period of 200 years. The main basis for the selection of the presented here, most current Perso-Arabic loans in Hindustani, has been the Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary by R. S. McGregor, first published in 1993. Based in greater part on the linguistic material collected in its two great predecessors, namely A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi and English, compiled by J. T. Platts, published in 1884 and Hindi sabdsdgar from 1929, McGregor’s work provides readers with reliable and solid insight into contemporary Hindustani lexis, which justifies the decision of choosing it as a primary source of the linguistic material collected for analysis.

— VII —

The other lexicon of great importance for the presented work has been A Dictionary Hindustani and English by J. Shakespear. First published in London in 1817, grounded on the earlier glossa­ ries of J. Taylor and W. Hunter (published in Calcutta in 1808), this voluminous dictionary was the first such comprehensive attempt of introducing Hindustani vocabulary to Western (British) users. Dur­ ing the seventeen years after its first publication Shakespear’s dic­ tionary was thoroughly revised and considerably enlarged, to reach its fullest form in the edition from 1834. This particular edition (re­ printed in 2002 by the Sang-e-Meel Publ., Lahore) was used during the work on Perso-Arabic loans, but it must be remembered that even though the linguistic material taken from it is described here as coming from 1834, its greater part in fact should be dated at least some thirty years earlier. Moreover the 1834 version of Shake­ spear’s dictionary has been enriched by an “additional” portion, relating chiefly to Dakhani, i.e. the southern variant of Hindustani, which varies slightly, both in forms and in meanings, from its north­ ern sister. The part of vocabulary quoted after the “additional”, even though coming from the same book as the rest of Shakespear’s data, has been separately marked (Shak.A instead of Shak.). Later on Shakespear’s work became a valuable source for other Hindustani lexicographers, as D. Forbes or J. Platts. But while Forbes in his Dictionary, Hindustani and English (1858) mostly repeats the material of his predecessor, following him in an exact way, Platts not only verifies most of the words, but supplements them with new words, phrases and meanings. Among the newer dictionaries (compiled after Hindi sabdságar) the main source for checking the forms and meanings of loans has been the Standard Twentieth Century Dictionary Urdu to Eng­ lish, compiled by B. A. Qureshi, revised and enlarged by A. Haq, and published in 1980. This dictionary, comprising over 50 000 phrases and words used in the present-day literary Urdu, constitutes a good approach to Urdu/Hindustani lexicography and is still the latest lexicon of this language. A few words should be also written about the oldest sources utilised in the presented work. First being the John Fegusson’s Dic­ tionary of the Hindostán language..., published in 1773, comprising

— VIII —

a brief grammar followed by a dictionary of words and phrases. Although full of errors and omissions (in the preface the author points out the problems he had to face while trying to unify the mat­ ter of spelling - collecting data probably exclusively from oral sources, he had to follow the way in which native speakers pro­ nounced various words), his book still remains an extremely inter­ esting record of the Hindustani language at the tum of the 19Ih cen­ tury. Unfortunately, a record partly forgotten by scholars. The other 18 -century source of immense use for all those who are working on Hindustani lexis, is The Oriental linguist..., pub­ lished in 1798, the author of which, John Gilchrist, is regarded by many to be the father of Hindustani lexicography. Unlike Fergusson, Gilchrist picked up his material from literary works rather than eve­ ryday speakers and used a strict system of transliteration which he had invented. Finally one more dictionary must be mentioned, the invaluable A Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary by F. Steingass, which has been the basic source for checking the original Persian (and Arabic) forms of the described borrowings. Choosing this work for this particular purpose was rather obvious: this is still the most thorough dictionary of the Persian language - although it was pub­ lished over a hundred years ago - and as such it correlates well in time with this part of Hindustani lexis, which is created by PersoArabic loanwords and which is rather old in its character. Nearly all Persian and Arabic source-words quoted in this work are in agree­ ment with their forms found among Steingass’s vocabulary. The sources in chronological order: Ferg.

OL

= (1773) J. Fergusson, A dictionary of the Hindostán language, in two parts: I, English and Hindostán, II, Hindostán and English...: to which is prefixed a grammar of the Hindostán language, London, [no pagination] = (1798) J. B. Gilchrist, The Oriental linguist: an easy and familiar introduction to the popular language of Hindoostan (vulgarly but improperly called the

— IX —

Shak.

=

Shak.A

-

Forbes

=

Platts

=

Stein.

=

SHS

=

Hayyim

=

Maddah

=

MHK

-

Besk.

=

Moors), comprising the rudiments of that tongue, with an extensive vocabulary, English and Hindoostanee, and Hindoostanee and English..., Calcutta. (1834) J. Shakespear, A dictionary, Hindustani and English: with a copious index, fitting the work to serve, also, as a dictionary of English and Hindusta­ ni, 3rd ed. much enlarged, London (reprinted Lahore 2002). (1834) J. Shakespear, Additional of words, phrases and meanings to A dictionary, Hindustani and Eng­ lish: with a copious index, fitting the work to serve, also, as a dictionary of English and Hindustani, 3rd ed. much enlarged, London (reprinted Lahore 2002). (1858) D. Forbes, A dictionary, Hindustani and Eng­ lish: accompanied by a reversed dictionary, English and Hindustani, London (reprinted Lahore 2002). (1884) J. Platts, A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi and English, Oxford (reprinted New Delhi 2000). (1892) F. Steingass, A Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary, London (reprinted Delhi 2006). (1929) Samksipt hindi sabdsagar [Concise Hindi Vocabulary], NagarTpracarinT sabha, Varanasi (ll,h ed., VaranasT-NaT DillT, 1998). (1934-1936) S. Hayyim, New Persian-English dic­ tionary, complete and modem... Teheran, vol. I-II (digitalised version: http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/hayyim/) (1959) M. M. Kham ‘Maddah’, Urdu-hindl sabdkos [Urdu-Hindi Dictionary], Lakhnau (8th ed., Lakhnau 1997). (1962) R. Varma, Manak hindi kos [Standard Hindi Dictionary], vol. I-V, Ilahabad (2nd ed., Ilahabad 1991). (1972) V. M. Beskrovnyj (ed.), Xindi-russkij slovar [Hindi-Russian Dictionary], vol. I-II, Moskva.

—X—

STCD

Rub.

(1993)

= (1980) Standard Twentieth Century Dictionary Urdu to English, compiled by B. A. Qureshi, revised and enlarged by A. Haq, Delhi (New Edition, Delhi 1999). = (1983) Yu. A. Rubincik (ed.), Persidsko-russkij slovar [Persian-Russian Dictionary], vol. I-II, Moskva (2nd ed.). = R. S. McGregor, The Oxford Hindi-English Diction­ ary, Oxford (11th ed., New Delhi 2003).

The arrangement of entries The dictionary contains ca. 5500 entries, presenting words of Perso-Arabic origin, current in Hindustani and found at the same time in both Hindi and Urdu lexis. The main entries follow McGregor’s vocabulary as far as their form, grammatical designation, stylistic or subject label and meaning are considered, and they are transliterated according to the Devanagari transliteration system. Then the forms and meanings from other sources are quoted, if possible in the fol­ lowing order: Ferg., OL, Shak., Shak.A, STCD. These forms are separately labelled only when there is any discrepancy in relation to the main entry. Finally the Persian source-word of each loanword (with possible indication of its Arabic or - rarely - Turkic origin) and its meaning in the Persian language is quoted.

The order of letters The dictionary has been organised according to the modified Latin alphabet. The order of letters is as follows: a, a, b, c, d, e,f, g, g, h, i, T,j, k, k, kh, I, m (m, m), n (h, n, h), o, p, r, s, s, t, u, u, v, y, z

— XI —

Remarks on transcription and transliteration Roman transliteration used in this dictionary differs slightly for the Devanagari and Persian scripts. As is the accepted norm, the stan­ dard Sanskrit transliteration for Devanagari, and the standard Arabic transliteration for the Persian script, both with some necessary modifications, have been adopted. The systems attempt to be exact, so that the reader should be able to reconstruct the original spelling of transliterated words. All the loan-words cited after the Hindi dictionaries have been transliterated according to the following Devanagari transliteration:

Devanagari

Vowels: 31a

41

an ô

7J u

u

qï r

qe

1$ ai

3Î1 o

3Ù au

Consonants:

k c t t

ch

Tl

q cT q q

p y s

75 15 3 q q> V q

kh ch th th ph r s

q 751

q «T cî 77

g j d d b I s

q ST q El q n s

gh jh dh dh bh V h

31 W q q

n n n n m

Modifications denoting characteristic Hindustani sounds, absent in Sanskrit: k

75 kh

Nasals: anusvâra

5g

r

viz

m candrabindu

rh

m

The Persian and Arabic source-words, as well as the Perso-Arabic loan-words in Hindustani cited after the Urdu dictionaries, have

— XII —

been transliterated in agreement with the presented below transcrip­ tion of the Persian script. Persian script

1

a

Î

â

u

b

Cj

P t s

E

j c

C È

X

j

d

j

z

j

r

j

z

G

s s

s

z

r z

t I

g

>_s

f

5

q k

h

z