Friday 1 April 2011

Roman Urdu: The Latest Version But Not The Fresh One!


There is much about the Urdu language that the Urdu speakers don’t even know. One of the facts about Urdu is that it can be written in Roman script as well.  Roman Urdu is not new; it was in use during the British Raj as well.  One of the reasons that Urdu was used in the British Raj was the availability and low cost of Roman language printing press and typewriters.
Roman Urdu is gaining its popularity back again, but this time it has hit with a new concept. Now it is being used casually amongst the text message users and Internet users.  The latest version of Roman Urdu is different from the older one. The latest version is developing its own style and its conventions.
Habib R. Sulemani, in one of his news articles, says, "The younger generation of Urdu-speaking people around the world, especially Pakistan, are using Romanian Urdu on the Internet and it has become essential for them, because they use the Internet and English is its language. Typically, in that sense, a person from Islamabad in Pakistan may chat with another in Delhi in India on the Internet only in Roman Urdu. They both speak the same language but would have different scripts. Moreover, the younger generation of those who are from the English medium schools or settled in the west, can speak Urdu but can’t write it in the traditional Arabic script and thus Roman Urdu is a blessing for such a population.”
Though it might seem quite uncomfortable for convention loving people, but in the longer run, it would serve in dissemination of Urdu on a much wider and global scale.

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