Urban Urdu/Pidgin Punjabi

[Devilsadvokat]

The other day my mate asked me how would you spell in English the Punjabi word for father, pyor/peyor/pyo/etc.

Is there a dictionary/reference somewhere that can be accessed to spell corresponding Punjabi words into English? If there isn't, there should be.

Some words would have no debate, others might have two or three variations.

Any thoughts?

 

[Pakistanian]

You gotta write it in shahmukhi

 

[Devilsadvokat]

You gotta write it in shahmukhi

Maybe I wasn't clear, I am talking about using Modern English Alphabet to spell Punjabi or Urdu words, like when writes a text message.

The word for stick, is it danda or dundha or dundah, who/what is the authority in this matter?

 

[Greenstorm]

You might want to tag [MENTION=22846]Nostalgic[/MENTION] here.

 

[Azzurri]

Pyoooo perhaps

 

[introvert]

Just try to spell it as close as original pronunciation of the desired word.

If you can differentiate between s & sh or k & q or j & z or use of a , h , n to build spelling according to original pronunciation of desired word & Also have basic understing of use of vowels then you can easily write in this hybrid languages With 99% accurate spellings imo.

Bye the way what's the word that's similar to "hinglish" for
"urdu-english mix" language ?

 

[Nostalgic]

Here is the de facto standard, meant for Urdu and Hindi, but it shouldn't be too hard to extrapolate it to Punjabi as well:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uddin_and_Begum_Hindustani_Romanisation

Stray too far from this, and you are on thin ice: the ghost of Maulvi Abdul Haq will haunt you till you fix the error of your ways.

 

[Nostalgic]

On the topic of Romanization, the internet and text messaging have wrought havoc on all semblance of standardization. It used to be that even Romanized Urdu had rules one had to adhere to. My grandfathers were both in the British Army, and then the Pakistan Army, and their seniors were invariably British, who spoke some Urdu but couldn’t write it in Nastaliq or anything similar. We still have both grandfathers’ training logs, and the British instructors have underlined spelling errors... of Romanized Urdu.

That’s why the relatively recent introduction of Nastaliq in phone keyboards is such a breath of fresh air. No need to Romanize it, just write it the way God intended. Here’s one bit of doggerel in Urdu, with just that one Punjabi word the OP was curious about:

وہ بھی کیا دن تھے
جب ہم جِن تھے
اب ہم دیو ہیں
جِنوں کے بھی پیو ہیں

 

[Syed1]

On the topic of Romanization, the internet and text messaging have wrought havoc on all semblance of standardization. It used to be that even Romanized Urdu had rules one had to adhere to. My grandfathers were both in the British Army, and then the Pakistan Army, and their seniors were invariably British, who spoke some Urdu but couldn’t write it in Nastaliq or anything similar. We still have both grandfathers’ training logs, and the British instructors have underlined spelling errors... of Romanized Urdu.

That’s why the relatively recent introduction of Nastaliq in phone keyboards is such a breath of fresh air. No need to Romanize it, just write it the way God intended. Here’s one bit of doggerel in Urdu, with just that one Punjabi word the OP was curious about:

وہ بھی کیا دن تھے
جب ہم جِن تھے
اب ہم دیو ہیں
جِنوں کے بھی پیو ہیں

Whenever I hear the word peo I always think of this phrase

 

[Nostalgic]

Whenever I hear the word peo I always think of this phrase

It has a few variants, for instance this one:

وہ بھی کیا دن تھے
جب ہم جِن تھے
وہ اک پری تھی
ہم پر مری تھی

 

[Syed1]

It has a few variants, for instance this one:

وہ بھی کیا دن تھے
جب ہم جِن تھے
وہ اک پری تھی
ہم پر مری تھی

بٹ واٹ عف اعی وانٹ ٹو ڑایٹ انگلیش ان اردو



The tables have now turned

 

[Nostalgic]

This reminds me of my mother’s best friend, who is an Urdu-speaker from Karachi. Her sister’s marriage was being arranged with a gentleman from Punjab. When the “larkay walay” came to “see” the girl, as is the custom, my mom’s friend tried to impress them by how much Punjabi she knew. The trouble was, Urdu and Punjabi have quite a few of what linguists call false friends, i.e. words that sound similar, but can mean very different things in the two languages. The Punjabi word piyo, or father, sounds like it could be derived from the arcane Urdu piya, or beloved, and she therefore assumed piyo meant husband (even through husbands cease being beloved at some point, but I digress). She introduced some lady, and then pointed to that lady’s husband, said “yeh inn key piyo hein.”

 

[Nostalgic]

بٹ واٹ عف اعی وانٹ ٹو ڑایٹ انگلیش ان اردو

This brings back bad memories of stereotypical Westernized characters in the serialized stories in Urdu digests.

 

[cric_man]

Just try to spell it as close as original pronunciation of the desired word.

If you can differentiate between s & sh or k & q or j & z or use of a , h , n to build spelling according to original pronunciation of desired word & Also have basic understing of use of vowels then you can easily write in this hybrid languages With 99% accurate spellings imo.

Bye the way what's the word that's similar to "hinglish" for
"urdu-english mix" language ?

Unglish

 

[Syed1]

This brings back bad memories of stereotypical Westernized characters in the serialized stories in Urdu digests.

You can't believe how much effort that took trying to find the right alphabet in Urdu for those english words...

 

[Devilsadvokat]

Here is the de facto standard, meant for Urdu and Hindi, but it shouldn't be too hard to extrapolate it to Punjabi as well:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uddin_and_Begum_Hindustani_Romanisation

Stray too far from this, and you are on thin ice: the ghost of Maulvi Abdul Haq will haunt you till you fix the error of your ways.

Thanks for the reference, will look when I have time, I wonder if it can be used to ascertain the standardised spelling for father, piyo, someone has written. Or the standardised spelling for dundah/danda (stick).

You say it would work for Punjabi, what about Mirpuri/Potwari/Pahari? You'd be using a lot of vowels!

 

[Nostalgic]

بٹ واٹ عف اعی وانٹ ٹو ڑایٹ انگلیش ان اردو

I had to rush to meetings at work earlier in the day, but this attempt at transliteration kept gnawing on my mind. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep until I rewrote the Urdu to better approach the cadences and accents of the English original, so here goes:

بٹ وَٹ اِف آئ وانٹ ٹُو رائٹ اِنگلش اِن اردو؟

There. I’m glad that is out of my system.

 

[Nostalgic]

All this mention of the word piyo has inspired me to instruct my children to break into a qawwali every day when I come home from work. It will be called Mera Piyo Ghar Aaya.

 

[GoUgandaCranes]

All this mention of the word piyo has inspired me to instruct my children to break into a qawwali every day when I come home from work. It will be called Mera Piyo Ghar Aaya.

Listen, we need an audio proof of this qawwali, and we need you to play the six string in the background for this.

I also needed to get this outta my system.

 

[DeadBall]

Correct Romanisation could be sometimes tricky. Saying Mai nai us hai chor diya would mean something quite different if spelled correctly.

 

[DeadBall]

Case in point, the current hashtag for the Indian tour of Australia. #Chodnamat

 

[Greenstorm]

Case in point, the current hashtag for the Indian tour of Australia. #Chodnamat

Chornamat* .

 

[Nostalgic]

The ڑ transliterated to a d instead of an rr is an irritating Indian tendency, one that, despite our many faults, we haven’t yet succumbed to, and I hope we never do.

 

[Nostalgic]

Listen, we need an audio proof of this qawwali, and we need you to play the six string in the background for this.

I also needed to get this outta my system.

We’re working on it. I haven’t yet come up with all the lyrics.

 

[Syed1]

Correct Romanisation could be sometimes tricky. Saying Mai nai us hai chor diya would mean something quite different if spelled correctly.

)


Indian's spell their 'r' with a 'd' for some odd reason while I haven't seen Pakistanis spell it with a 'd'

 

[Pakistanian]

The ڑ transliterated to a d instead of an rr is an irritating Indian tendency, one that, despite our many faults, we haven’t yet succumbed to, and I hope we never do.

I've seen some Pakistanis do it too but I think it's cause of the indian influence.

 

[Nostalgic]

I've seen some Pakistanis do it too but I think it's cause of the indian influence.

That’s disturbing news. What next, the head bobbing thing? It’s the thin edge of the wedge.

 

[introvert]

Case in point, the current hashtag for the Indian tour of Australia. #Chodnamat

It's #chhodnamat

 

[DeadBall]

It's #chhodnamat

Don't see how that makes any difference to the subject at hand. One could use DH or RH for the hard Raa, although don't know which of Chodhnamat or Chorhnamat sounds better (or worse).

 

[Seen Sheen]

The other day my mate asked me how would you spell in English the Punjabi word for father, pyor/peyor/pyo/etc.

Is there a dictionary/reference somewhere that can be accessed to spell corresponding Punjabi words into English? If there isn't, there should be.

Some words would have no debate, others might have two or three variations.

Any thoughts?

Whatever you write in Roman Urdu/Punjabi kinda becomes your version of standardisation of it. Nobody can really challenge if you use pyo/peyo or even peo since there is no accepted standard of it (I am really grateful infact that there isn't one).

Thankfully, I have long stopped using Roman alphabets for Urdu/Punjabi. My speed of writing Urdu in Nastaliq is now comparable to what it was for Roman Urdu.

If everyone just downloads an Urdu keyboard and perseveres for a week or so, I am sure they'll be so accustomed to using the proper script that they wouldn't want to go back to Roman alphabet.

 

[Seen Sheen]

I had to rush to meetings at work earlier in the day, but this attempt at transliteration kept gnawing on my mind. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep until I rewrote the Urdu to better approach the cadences and accents of the English original, so here goes:

بٹ وَٹ اِف آئ وانٹ ٹُو رائٹ اِنگلش اِن اردو؟

There. I’m glad that is out of my system.

آئ sounds Arabic to me. Isn't آئی better?

آئی ہَیوْ ڈِیوَیلَپڈ دِس نِیُو ہَیبِٹ آف اردونائیزنگ اِنگلش.کَرما آئی گَئس

It's a pretty difficult art to master as with many English words you don't really know which Urdu alphabets would best describe the pronunciation, "Guess" being one example from the above written text.
Also whenever I read Urdu newspapers, they always struggle to write the Anglo Saxon names properly in Urdu. Aaron Finch has been written as ایرون as well as ارون.

 

[Syed1]

Don't see how that makes any difference to the subject at hand. One could use DH or RH for the hard Raa, although don't know which of Chodhnamat or Chorhnamat sounds better (or worse).

Should quit while you are ahead

 

[Nostalgic]

آئ sounds Arabic to me. Isn't آئی better?

آئی ہَیوْ ڈِیوَیلَپڈ دِس نِیُو ہَیبِٹ آف اردونائیزنگ اِنگلش.کَرما آئی گَئس

It's a pretty difficult art to master as with many English words you don't really know which Urdu alphabets would best describe the pronunciation, "Guess" being one example from the above written text.
Also whenever I read Urdu newspapers, they always struggle to write the Anglo Saxon names properly in Urdu. Aaron Finch has been written as ایرون as well as ارون.

Right you are, I should’ve used آئی instead of آئ. The ئ was right there on the keyboard, and I assumed it would render the ء over the ی correctly, but it didn’t.

I’ve found that most English sounds transliterate well to Urdu, but there are a few exceptions. The O in the name Scott, for instance. Is it transliterated سکاٹ or سکوٹ? I suspect the former comes closer, but to someone who doesn’t know how to pronounce the original, it would be an invitation to overpronounce the ا sound. In any case, Aaron should be ایرَن.

As for karma, all I can say is: کرما اِز آ بِچ

 

[introvert]

Don't see how that makes any difference to the subject at hand. One could use DH or RH for the hard Raa, although don't know which of Chodhnamat or Chorhnamat sounds better (or worse).

I think you didn't get differentiation between pronunciation of "ch" & "chh".
Dh or rh are irrelevant here. Urdu speakers may pronounce it differently but meaning remains same in this case.
But That is not the same between ch & chh. Meaning changes according to pronunciation Of it.

 

[Devilsadvokat]

I have come across an example to illustrate my curiosity. The word for good looking has been spelt in English officially (as officially as bollywood) as soni or sonhi, I guess you could have a third, sohni - who/what authority decides?

 

[Devilsadvokat]

The different spellings for the same name is a case in point, a weak one cause English names have a more of a variety, nowadays.

I think the issue is with vowels, my mother's tongue has more vowels than my first language.

Example female name I like could be spelt Madiyah, or Mahdeeyah, why not M'Dia, cooler spelling. Or the name Aksaar could be Axa, Rukhsana, Roxanne etc