Monday, November 4, 2002 Feature

Net resuscitates Urdu
Ehtashamuddin Khan

THE elegant language Urdu, many say, is dying. But its protagonists Ghalib, Mir, Iqbal and Faiz are now much more accessible to the world than ever before, thanks to the Internet. And it is not only for those who know the script but for all those who love the language that evolved in the 13th century due to a strong Persian influence.

Poems, novels and essays of many leading Urdu scholars are available on Internet sites that also have English translations. Urdu lovers in the US, Pakistan and India have hosted most of these Websites with the intension of popularising the language across the globe.

Ahmad Suhail, a US-based scholar, has portrayed this whole new world of Urdu on the Internet in his essay in a Mumbai-based monthly magazine, Shayar.

He says people were sceptical when the Net became popular, thinking it would hardly be beneficial to Urdu as all its development would be in English.

"But today one can use the Internet without using much of English. And researches are being conducted on how Urdu-knowing people can benefit. And there are so many Websites in this language," writes Suhail.

"There is a Website called Langoo.com from where one can download an Urdu keyboard without paying anything. You can even e-mail in Urdu and post your own poems and write-ups."

Most of the Websites in Urdu have focussed on famous poets like Ghalib, Iqbal and Faiz, whose works have been translated into many languages and are known the world over.

Urdu became popular as a language during Mughal emperor Aurangzeb’s reign in the 17th century. At its peak, Urdu was read and spoken widely across northern India. But Urdu fell from grace in the 19th century during British rule. After

India’s independence in 1947, Hindi became the national language, sidelining Urdu further.

In 1947, millions of Urdu-speaking Muslims migrated to Pakistan, which made Urdu the new country’s official language. In India, according to statistics, just 44 million of the country’s one billion people speak Urdu.

In the last decade, Urdu has slowly been expanding its base to southern

Indian states like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. People who migrated from the Indian subcontinent to other parts of the world have also tried to preserve the language. Many individuals and groups are doing so by capturing space on the Internet.

Says Mohammad Ehsan, a research scholar at Aligarh Muslim University who earlier worked for the Web site urdustan.com: "Our effort was to give a brief introduction of Urdu to those who don’t know it. Some of our contents were in the Roman script. The idea was to just represent the language in the cyber world.

"The Website has debates on different topics and poems and articles of individuals who contributed to the site. But it was difficult to manage because we could not find good writers due to lack of funds. There were not many visitors to our Web site because we could not advertise."

Suhail says most of the Websites do not have serious content and are mostly aimed at the layman.

Arjumand Ara, assistant editor of monthly literary magazine Urdu Duniya, says: "People who know Urdu are not very technology savvy, at least in India. Though we also run short-term training courses of computer operation in Urdu, our students hardly know about Urdu Websites. Even I don’t know much about them." Adds Mohammad Zahid, a research scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University here: "I used to spend a lot of time on the Internet searching for research material. But most of the stuff there are works of famous scholars that are easily available in the market. I could not find any mature academic work."

But he still feels the sites are good for the language. "These sites are good for beginners or those who want to know the language. Most people can speak and understand Urdu but they cannot read it. For them the Internet is really useful because there are many Websites which have Urdu content written in the Roman script," says Zahid.