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SYED Sulaiman Nadvi (1884-1953), a scholar of Oriental Studies, surmised that Urdu was born in Sindh. A number of theories have been proffered as to where, when and how Urdu was born. The theory that Sindh was the earliest cradle of Urdu got support from some scholars and Allama I. I. Qazi (1886-1968), Pir Hassamuddin Rashdi (1911-1982) and Dr Nabi Bakhsh Baloch (1917-2011) supported this theory in one way or the other, but there were some who opposed it.
Syed Sulaiman Nadvi in his book Nuqoosh-i-Sulaimani opined that “every Indian province had its own language but Muslims arrived in Sindh first. Therefore, it can be assumed that Urdu’s earliest sketch or skeleton was formed in Sindh”. Nadvi Sahib wrote that the Arabic-and Persian-speaking Muslim traders and invaders came from different parts of Arabia and Iran in the first century Hijri (7th century AD). Many of them settled here. Sindhis, too, used to travel to Iraq, especially when the seat of Caliphate moved from Syria to Iraq in 132 Hijri, he added, Sindh’s pundits would go to Baghdad and help translate their religious books into Arabic.
It was in this period that many Sanskrit and Prakrit words entered the Arabic language such as ‘sandal’ (sandalwood) was in fact Arabicised form of ‘chandan’. ‘Kaafoor’ (camphor) was derived from ‘kapoor’, according to Syed Nadvi.
It is a common knowledge that ‘Urdu’ is a Turkish word. But Allama I.I. Qazi wrote that Urdu was a word that Aryans brought with them some 3,000 years before Arabs arrived in Sindh. He said the word ‘Urdu’ was used, with a slightly different pronunciation, in modern-day Sindhi and it meant ‘heap’ or ‘pile’ or a ‘bundle of some assorted items’. He did not say that Urdu was born in Sindh, but Qazi Sahib emphasised that though Urdu was an Aryan language it had absorbed many Dravidian words and words from different local languages and dialects as well as Arabic and Persian, hence the name ‘Urdu’ or ‘heap’.
Pir Hassamuddin Rashdi (1911-1982) wrote that during the reign of Tughalqs in 14th and 15th centuries AD, Urdu was a common language in Sindh. He has quoted from historical records that when in 14th century AD Sultan Muhammad Tughlaq invaded Thatta, Sindh, which back then was the capital of Soomro dynasty, Sultan fell ill and died soon. Later, Feroze Tughalq attacked Thatta, but he too had to withdraw his troops. Upon which the people of Thatta rejoiced and attributed this to the blessings of a Sufi, known as Pir Hussain Pattha (560Hijri-606 Hijri), whose shrine still stands near Thatta, and said ‘barkat-i-Sheikh Pattha, aik muaa aik hata’ (“it is the blessings of the Saint Pattha, one died and the other was dispelled”), but some scholars believe the word was not ‘hata’ but ‘nattha’, which is still in currency to say ‘fled’. Rashdi Sahib in one of his articles wrote in unambiguous terms that “Sindh was Urdu’s real place of birth”.
Ain-ul-Haq Fareedkoti in his book Urdu zaban ki qadeem tareek’ emphasised that before the arrival of Aryans, Munda and Dravidian languages were the commonly spoken languages in the Indo-Pak subcontinent. He also surmised that these Munda and Dravidian languages were the real sources from which latter-day local languages such as Urdu, Punjabi and Sindhi were formed. While Fareedkoti’s theory was generally rejected by the linguists, Dr Nabi Bakhsh Baloch penned a favourable review on the book and wrote that the theory needed further research and evidence but he somewhat agreed that Punjabi, Sindhi and Seraiki, all three languages were the “neighbouring languages of the Indus valley” and from their Munda and Dravidian sources Urdu was born.
In his book Sindh mein Urdu shaeri Dr Baloch has quoted many poets from Sindh who composed poetry in Urdu hundreds of years ago.
The fact is linguists believe that no two languages can give birth to a new, third one. So Urdu, or any other language for that matter, could not have been born of other languages. Secondly, Nadvi Sahib’s theory, too, does not hold water as the ancient language in Sindh must have been some old form of Sindhi, an Aryan language, and its intermingling with Arabic, a Semitic language, could not have given birth to Urdu.
Maulana Abu Zafar Nadvi wrote that in ancient Sindh there was no one common language and in the upper Sindh, including Multan, a language known as ‘Ardh Nagri’ (literally ‘half Nagari’) was used while in the southern Sindh there was a different language named ‘Malgari’. According to Al-Biruni, in Mansoora and Brhamanabad a language named ‘sen dab’ was in used, which, perhaps developed into Sindhi.
So it is very unlikely that Urdu was born in Sindh. But there can be no denying that Urdu, like many other modern languages, has absorbed words from different local and foreign languages, though it does not mean that Urdu has evolved from them or any of these languages. Urdu’s roots are in Sanskrit and it evolved from some dialect spoken in and around Delhi, most probably ‘Khari boli’.
Published in Dawn, May 9th, 2016
