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ISLAMABAD: Shanul Haq Haqqee believed that languages don’t die if new words are added in them. He was of the view that words from Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi and Balochi should be included in Urdu, Professor Jalil Aali told participants of an event on Wednesday.
The event was held at the Pakistan Academy of Letters (PAL) to remember Shanul Haq Haqqee, a recipient of the Sitara-i-Imtiaz and Tamgha-i-Quaid-i-Azam, Urdu poet, writer, journalist, broadcaster, translator, critic, researcher and linguist.
Haqqee was born in 1917 and died in 2005.
Mr Aali said Haqqee knew a number of languages and learned Sanskrit specifically to translate a book from Sanskrit to Urdu.
“He was moderate and used to accept changes. Moreover, he used a number of words of Hindi in his poetry frequently. He said Roman Urdu can be introduced because at that time monotype was not available,” he said.
Poet Iftikhar Arif said Haqqee did the main work for Urdu’s largest dictionary, which was published in 22 editions.
“While I was in PTV, Mr Haqqee used to tell me daily which words were pronounced wrong on TV. Improvement may not be observed on TV but I learnt a lot because of those phone calls,” he said.
Mr Arif said some people criticised Haqqee because he pushed them to become punctual and work hard.
Haqqee’s son Shayan Haqqee said his father never took any job lightly and worked hard, due to which he even could not give proper time to his family.
“I still remember when a doctor told my father that he would not survive more than three months; he just said that he would have completed his work if he got another two years,” he said.
Dr Farhat Jabeen said Haqqee believed that Urdu should be written in Roman because that is how those who can understand Urdu but cannot read it would be able to read and understand Urdu. She said even the Quran was printed in Roman in the 19th century.
Another speaker, Dr Abdul Sattar, said Haqqee’s services would be always remembered, because he did a lot to have a credible Urdu dictionary.
Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2018
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