Officially Recognised Romanised script version of Hindi ( and Punjabi )

roma

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Hi ALL,
my desire is for an officially recognised ( and in daily use too ) romanised version of hindi ( and punjabi ) with daily usage alongside the original script version (devanagiri or gurmukhi ).
the objection from most folks would be that by using a romanised version , the ancient and rich culture would be either lost or at best diluted and so an erosion in values etc. However i am propsing that both exist so that the person who can handle the original still has access to all the trasure of culture of the ages and can also communicate with a foreigner or another fellow citizen whose mother tongue may not be hindi, more easily.
It might actually be a UNITING FACTOR for the various indians speaking different regional languages and even on this point alone should be a good reason for the said romanization.
Well i didnt just dream about it but actually contacted a few universities but it seems they didint take to it . they thought it was a good idea but replied that the few attempts in the past did not succeed . i didnt really get a proper response . i suppose an authoritive directive from "on high" (GOI ) might be called for.
It would be really great to hear your esteemed opinions .
 

tarunraju

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Well Indian Facebook / Myspace users already use Romanised Indian languages (since EN-US_QWERTY is the most common keyboard in India). To standardise is going to be a big task. Romanisation will not be able to convey the phonetics properly.

"Dha" in "dhanush" sounds different from "dha" in "Dhaba". How will romanisation help a Tamil see the difference between the two?

In Hindi/Devanagiri, नुष and ढाबा convey the difference.

South Indians who can't read Devanagiri read the romanized "Dhaba", and think it's pronounced/spelled as धाबा, which is incorrect.
 

roma

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Well Indian Facebook / Myspace users already use Romanised Indian languages (since EN-US_QWERTY is the most common keyboard in India). To standardise is going to be a big task. Romanisation will not be able to convey the phonetics properly.

"Dha" in "dhanush" sounds different from "dha" in "Dhaba". How will romanisation help a Tamil see the difference between the two?

In Hindi/Devanagiri, नुष and ढाबा convey the difference.

South Indians who can't read Devanagiri read the romanized "Dhaba", and think it's pronounced/spelled as धाबा, which is incorrect.

tarun - thanks for your response
pronunciation issues exist in all languages and both english and french are good examples of words spelt one way and pronounced another way , more notoriously in french especially !!

it shouldnt be a problem nor obstacle.

as you rightly said some bulletin boards such as facebook already use the rominised form . we all know bollywood does too and more internationally in many countries

its a matter of getting an official committee going , fight the lethargy and do what the turks did decades ago except that the original script can still be kept alive and official too.
 

amitkriit

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We must rather preserve our script, once India grows economically/culturally and people gain faith in Iindigenous traditions, Indians will revert back to the basics, so will the world, as foreigners will find it worthy to learn our scripts and languages to survive our market. Devanagri script supports all North-Indian languages perfectly, why must we be tempted to find an alternative, when the solution that exists works best for us? Majority of Indians are still using native script for regular communication.
 

S.A.T.A

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Complete waste of time and for very little advantage in terms of usability or even convenience.This is not a new idea,attempts to develop a romanized script for the vernacular languages of India have been made by Christian missionaries during the raj days,however their attempt to force the govt of India(Raj)to adopt such versions officially were unsuccessful(even though some Indian scholars too empathized with such proposals,all that was blown away in storm that followed the freedom movement)

The problem with improperly reproduced phonemes has already been raised,besides it offers no significant advantage for its users,who will(and still are)a significant minority in this country.There are other practical difficulties in its adoption,like the lack of any already extant standard script or any quality literature in this version.

Infact if it were possible,national cause would have been better served if Nagari script could have been developed for all the official languages of India.Nagari's evolution over the ages makes it the best candidate to comprehensively incorporate the complex phonetic & dialectic variety of the major language groups of India.

And we have made little or headway even on that front !
 

roma

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Looks like there is a strong feeling about keeping the original script mainly due to literature and the past , my suggestion was to exist along side the original - in fact in Fiji and Dutch Guyana ( Suriname ) where there are large hindi -speaking populations, romanised versions do exist
 

musalman

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I am for the Romanized script for Punjabi along with Arabic and Gurumukhi scripts
 

roma

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I am for the Romanized script for Punjabi along with Arabic and Gurumukhi scripts
Hello there Musalman,
in fact i am also thnking of contacting some of the Pakistani Universities on that matter . I believe during the british times there was a language called hindustani and it was a roanised formof Urdu , if i'm right there ? and i thinik to romanise Punjabi may have spone following becasue of improving cross-border friendship .
and regarding romanising arabic , the maltese language is in a sense a romanised form of lebanese, But ley's see if i can contact any of the institutions in Lebanon.
 

roma

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romanised version already in use

www.outlookindia.com | 'The Dalai Lama Is Our Honoured Guest'

part of the interview written in romanised form

Sir, main Hindi mein sawal poochhunga aur chahunga ki aap Hindi mein jawab dein. Mera sawal desh ki samasya se juda hua hai, Sir. Commonwealth Games ko le kar Dilli mein bahut zyada utha-pathak machi hai. Sawal khade ho rahen hain ki Commonwealth Games theek se ho payenge ki nahin ho payenge. Congress ke ek faction ne, bahut saare MPs ne, demand kiye public mein ki Rahul Gandhi ko yeh zimmedari milni chahiye taaki jaise Rajiv Gandhi ne Asiad successful karaye the Rahul Gandhi usko kara sake. Kya aap bhi is rukh se sahmat hain?

Manmohan Singh: Dekhiye, jo bhi problems Games ke smooth functioning ke liye hone chahiye thodi si deri hui hai kuchh projects ko implement karne mein. Lekin mujhe vishwas hai ki jo mechanism hamne ab put in place unse yeh dar door ho jaana chahiye ki Games theek tarah se nahin ho sakengi. Mujhe poora vishwas hai ki Games theek tarah se hongi, shaandar tarike se honge, aur jo bhi spectator aayenge, they are going to see a spectacular show.
 

musalman

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Hello there Musalman,
in fact i am also thnking of contacting some of the Pakistani Universities on that matter . I believe during the british times there was a language called hindustani and it was a roanised formof Urdu , if i'm right there ? and i thinik to romanise Punjabi may have spone following becasue of improving cross-border friendship .
and regarding romanising arabic , the maltese language is in a sense a romanised form of lebanese, But ley's see if i can contact any of the institutions in Lebanon.
There used to be Roman Urdu used by British Indian Army before partition. U can contact Punjab University may be they can help.

My Grand Father wrote an artcile in Pakistan Times during early eighties in which he advocated for latinization of Urdu based on Turkish model
 

johnee

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Looks like there is a strong feeling about keeping the original script mainly due to literature and the past , my suggestion was to exist along side the original - in fact in Fiji and Dutch Guyana ( Suriname ) where there are large hindi -speaking populations, romanised versions do exist
Roma,
the idea is really not worth pursuing, atleast it is not in the interests of India. As India rises, Indian languages(particularly Hindi) will be in vogue and learning them will be in fashion. There is absolutely no need for a romanised version, such a version will only dilute/degrade the language and the rich literature in it. Also a language is really a window to the culture and literature. So by degrading or diluting the language, we would be indirectly causing a great amount of unintended damage to India's culture and literature.

As for both existing along side, it sounds good in theory but in practice only one will survive. If, god forbid, the devanagri script dies because of its romanised version, that would be an unreparable loss.
 

roma

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There used to be Roman Urdu used by British Indian Army before partition. U can contact Punjab University may be they can help.

My Grand Father wrote an artcile in Pakistan Times during early eighties in which he advocated for latinization of Urdu based on Turkish model
good ideas there, thanks sir .

indeed pakistan , being closer to the turkish republic for various reasons may be an easier route to see the value of romanisation or as you preferably say latinization.
 

roma

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Re: Officially Recognised Romanised script version of Hindi ( and Punj

well im about to start learning on my own via google translate .....from time to time i will need
help from many of you on this forum .
 

pmaitra

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Re: Officially Recognised Romanised script version of Hindi ( and Punj

Hi ALL,
my desire is for an officially recognised ( and in daily use too ) romanised version of hindi ( and punjabi ) with daily usage alongside the original script version (devanagiri or gurmukhi ).
the objection from most folks would be that by using a romanised version , the ancient and rich culture would be either lost or at best diluted and so an erosion in values etc. However i am propsing that both exist so that the person who can handle the original still has access to all the trasure of culture of the ages and can also communicate with a foreigner or another fellow citizen whose mother tongue may not be hindi, more easily.
It might actually be a UNITING FACTOR for the various indians speaking different regional languages and even on this point alone should be a good reason for the said romanization.
Well i didnt just dream about it but actually contacted a few universities but it seems they didint take to it . they thought it was a good idea but replied that the few attempts in the past did not succeed . i didnt really get a proper response . i suppose an authoritive directive from "on high" (GOI ) might be called for.
It would be really great to hear your esteemed opinions .
You do know that a subset of the Roman Alphabet, i.e. 26 symbols that we use (29 symbols, counting the dipthongs), is insufficient to represent all the sounds.
 

The Vikas Sharma

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Re: Officially Recognised Romanised script version of Hindi ( and Punj

Indian Army has to train people of a few tens of native languages and a few hundred dialects. Since Independence the training manuals have been in Roman Hindi/Urdu (also called Hindustani). The Urdu phrases have reduced considerably due to the Hindi push by Govt. Pamphlets cannot and should not be in regional tongues as the Army is a single organisation and should have single systems for all routine things.
Today mobile phone usage with Roman keypad has led to Roman Hindi/Punjabi/Tamil/Malayalee/Assamese/etc gaining popular currency across the country. This is manifest in Facebook posts, SMS etc. The lesser we have 'Official' things the better it is for us.
 

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