URDU LANGUAGE-LEARNING RESOURCES
a wide variety of tools

=Another script-learning site, ukindia.com: [site]

=An analytical script site that compares Urdu letters with Devanagari ones: [site]

=Before you complain about the Urdu script, compare the one you'd have to learn for *Sindhi*, or the complexities of *Pushto*

=And if you're vexed by Urdu spelling-- be glad you're not learning English. Then you'd have spelling and pronunciation problems like THROUGH -- THOUGH  -- BOUGH -- OUGHT -- TOUGH -- TROUGH.

=C. M. Naim: ==>*Naim's most important GRAMMAR and SCRIPT topics*<== from Introductory Urdu, Volume 1 (Chicago: South Asia Language and Area Center University of Chicago, 1999), online through DSAL and linked through this site

=C. M. Naim, Introductory Urdu, Volume 2 (Chicago: South Asia Language and Area Center University of Chicago, 1999), online through DSAL: [site]

=C. M. Naim, Readings in Urdu: prose and poetry (Honolulu: East-West Center Press, [1965]), online through DSAL: [site]

=FWP: ==>*my own informal Urdu script and Urdu/Hindi handbook and classroom notes*<==

==URDU DICTIONARIES:

==Platts, John T. (1830-1904). A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930's impression, online through DSAL: [site]. Still peerless.

==Steingass, Francis Joseph (1825-1903). A Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary; Including the Arabic Words and Phrases to be Met with in Persian Literature. London: Routledge and K. Paul, 1892, online through DSAL: [site]; excellent for poetry and older texts.

==CRULP (Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing) has an all-Urdu dictionary, well worth learning to use: [site]. Click on the "Urdu takhti" button at the upper left for a keyboard.

==Shakespear, John (1775-1858). A Dictionary, Hindustani and English; with a Copious Index. 3rd ed., 1834, online through DSAL: [site]

==Sangaji, S., A Handy Urdu Dictionary, based on Shakespeare and the Best Modern Authorities. Madras, 1899; online through Google: [site]

==An English-to-Urdu dictionary, not perfect (no genders of nouns, for example) but not bad for simple searches: [site]

="Mir in Cyberspace," a great script and reading tool by Sean Pue: [site]; and above all the *ONLINE GHAZAL READER* created by Sean Pue and FWP

="Fran's Favorites," a set of study materials (Urdu texts, translations, commentary, background material) for some important literary and historical works: [on this site]

=It's surprisingly hard to find the text of the Pakistani national anthem, so here are two versions of it: [on this site]. It could almost be in Persian, but notice the decisive ka  that tips the balance.

=Akbar Illahabadi: some of his satiric verses, translated and annotated for students by Miriam Murtuza: [on this site]

="'Allamah Iqbal: ek mahbubah, tin biviyan, char shadiyan," by Dr. Khalid Sohail, an analysis of Iqbal as a "creative personality," in beautifully readable large nasta'liq, easy for script-learners: [site]

=An elaborate visual and musical treatment of Iqbal's famous nazm "Khizr-e rah," suitable for advanced students: [site]

=A British textbook from 1834: John Shakespear's Muntakhabat-e Hindi vol. 2: [site]

=Prof. Peter Hook offers us 'Some experiments in the English ghazal'. Unpublished; made available by the author here only, for classroom use and discussion: [on this site]

=Back in print and highly recommended as a basic reader: the famous "Narang reader" that my generation learned from: Gopi Chand Narang, Urdu: Readings in Literary Urdu Prose (New Delhi: National Council for the Promotion of Urdu Language, 2001 [Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1968]). You can probably find it on Amazon. It has graded stories, beautiful nasta'liq, and facing-page serial glossaries. Despite the title, it's introductory and simplified rather than seriously "literary" in its scope. As an illustration of its structure, here's a little story from it, "Marrying a Mouse": [on this site].

=Never out of print, and never should be: M. A. R. Barker, et al., Urdu-English Vocabulary (Ithaca, NY: Spoken Language Services, 1991 [1980]): [site]. The best part of it is the frequency count that lets you know at once how widely used a word is.

=Shackle, Christopher, and Rupert Snell, Hindi-Urdu Since 1800: A Common Reader (London: SOAS, 1990): [on this site]

=News sources in Urdu:

=The BBC (listenable news, presented in sound files): [site]
=The BBC (Urdu homepage): [site]
=Voice of America (Urdu homepage): [site]
=The Gov't of India's Urdu news bureau: [site]
="Jang," a Pakistani newspaper: [site]
="Daily Ausaf" of Islamabad: [site]
="Daily Khabaren" of Pakistan: [site]
="Akhbar-e Jahan" (Karachi), a weekly news magazine: [site]
="Milap" of New Delhi: [site]
="Inqilab" of Mumbai: [site]
="The Siyasat Daily" of Hyderabad (India): [site]
="The Munsif Daily" of Hyderabad (India): [site]
="Tarjuman ul-Qur'an," a monthly religious journal: [site]
="Urdustan" of San Diego: [site]
="The Voice of Toronto": [site]
="Austrian Times": [site]