0
THE colonial heritage handed down to us includes the expressive, practical, lovely and funny language called English.
But during the British Raj, the indigenous people of the Indo-Pak subcontinent were not always comfortable with the vocabulary of their colonial masters as many English words and phrases gave the phonetic faculties of natives a testing time. So some lexical items borrowed, in form or meaning, or both, had to be modified and some others were cast anew to fit into local linguistic mould.
In several such cases, in the process of assimilating into Urdu some English words and expressions have undergone such phonetic and morphological changes that they have been rendered almost unrecognisable.
Tracing the origin and etymology of such words and phrases is fascinating. A random and incomplete list of such borrowings may read like this:
Paanaa (spanner)
In British English, a wrench is a spanner. But the English word spanner was unfamiliar to the native ears and especially the -er at the end sounded like ‘a’ to natives. So they decided it was a paanaa as the letter ‘s’ at the beginning was dropped.
Plaas (pliers)
A pair of pliers, or pincers, used for gripping small things or bending wires, became plaas in Urdu as it is much easier to pronounce rather than the original English word.
Laaltain (lantern)
When the colonials arrived here they held high in their hands the portable lamp, with a protective glass casing, called lantern. The Latin word lantern was borrowed by English via French and we borrowed it from them along with the lamp itself, but only never to return it, as it was much handy than our traditional earthen lamp that burnt oil. But the pronunciation of the word lantern was a bit too much for local vocal chords, so it was turned into a simpler laaltain.
Rangroot (recruit)
In Urdu, now rangroot is a slangy expression, used to scorn someone who is new to the trade and, hence, a novice. But earlier on, it was used in the same sense as in English, that is, a newly enlisted person into armed forces. But pronunciation was adapted to the local norms.
Guldaang (bulldog)
Listed in some Urdu dictionaries, guldaang is a localised form of bulldog.
Tarpaal (tarpaulin)
The protective canvas used for covering objects in open space, or tarpaulin, has simply become tarpaal in Urdu, a much easier form to pronounce than its English equivalent.
Safar maina (sappers and miners)
In British Indian army, officers in engineering corps were named sappers and miners. Because of its phonetic proximity the term became safarmaina in Urdu. This is also recorded by Farhang-i-Aasifiya, an authentic four-volume Urdu-Urdu dictionary.
Pon tooti (town duty)
Another interesting entry in Farhang-i-Aasifiya is pon tooti. It means octroi, or duty levied on goods entering a town. It was called town duty in British Raj, hence the Urdu expression.
Hukum dar (who comes there?)
‘Who comes there?’ was the call of British soldiers or guards controlling the access to a place when they wanted to know who was coming their way from a distance. But when soldiers shouted out ‘who comes there’ at a checkpoint, locals thought it was hukum dar. Interestingly, in one of the situations in Tilisim-e-Hosh Ruba the famous Urdu dastaan, a sentry cries out Hukum dar and the two other characters freeze.
Koltaar (tarcoal)
Tarcoal, the sticky, black material used for paving the roads is simply turned over in Urdu with its retroflex ‘t’ changed into a dental ‘t’. Koltaar is the title of an Urdu novel by Mirza Azeem Baig Chughtai, too.
Laat (lord)
Lord, the aristocratic rank, is pronounced laat in Urdu. Laat Sahib in Urdu is sometimes used sarcastically to pour scorn on someone behaving arrogantly.
Taamlot (tumbler)
As put by Farhang-i-Aasifiya, taamlot, which means a metallic drinking glass in Urdu, is a corruption of the English word tumbler.
There are many other words and phrases borrowed from European languages, especially English, and absorbed into Urdu in some adapted form to suit the local linguistic style.
Muhammad Bin Umar has mentioned many of them in his book Urdu Mein Dakheel Yorapi Alfaaz (European loanwords in Urdu, Hyderabad Deccan, 1955). Some of them are: Kamaan daan (commander), botal (bottle), burjes (breeches), paltan (platoon), teen (tin), sikmaan (sick man), patloon (pantaloon) and teep taap (tiptop).
Another interesting aspect of lexical borrowings in Urdu is hybridity. Some Urdu compounds are in fact portmanteau of Urdu and English words, for instance: lathi charge (beating with baton, often police resorts to it), rail gaari (train), double roti (bread), dhakka start (a decrepit vehicle that needs a push to start), paidal march (walking instead of riding a car etc, often used humorously), anda grabi (boiled egg with gravy), loot sale (loot is originally an Urdu word)... and many more that demand a separate piece.
Published in Dawn, April 3rd, 2023
