Talk:List of English words of Hindi or Urdu origin/Archive 1

Archive 1

Untitled

Pani? This is an English word? RickK 23:26, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Not AFAIK. Have removed it. Ambarish | Talk 18:37, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Revert

Bugs are being adversely affecting - reverting the page shall be in order. --Bhadani 14:31, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Capitalized

I have capitalized each entry (word) as per the general convention in a dictionary entry. --Bhadani 07:15, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Bengali origin?

I believe some of these words came into English through Bengali instead of Hindi. I don't have sources in front of me to give examples, but I think this is somthing that needs to be addressed. Acsenray 20:09, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Be careful of folk etymologies

Not every English word that happens to be similar to a Hindi word was taken from Hindi. Remember that English and Hindi are both Indo-European languages, which means that they will have many cognates. For example, this entry, which I removed, is wrong:

; Cow : is derived from sanskrit 'Gou' meaning a harmless subdued herbivorous cattle female

"Cow" did not come into English from Sanskrit (anyway, isn't this a page about words of Hindi origin, not Sanskrit?). The English and Sanskrit words are both derived from their common Indo-European ancestor. Acsenray 20:14, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

"Words of Indian Origin" more useful

It may be counterproductive or inappropriate to have this as a list of Hindi words for the following reasons: much of the lexicon for North Indian languages is shared - thus leading to disputes about "ownership" as seen here; all Hindi words essentially have their origin in another language - thus the overlap with the Sanskrit and Persian pages; words from any Indian language which have made it into English have almost certainly made it into all other Indian languages - even if through English. Thus it might make more sense to make a list of those words of whatever origin which entered English through India. Each word should get an origin note, and then they could also be included in other lists.

With regards to other comments here: I agree that folk etymologies need to be watched out for. Indian words in use in - for example - Caribbean English are appropriate, but should maybe get a note. This absolutely belongs in the encyclopedia rather than the dictionary, as its purpose is not definition or even just etymology but illustrating a facet of the relationships between languages.

IQAG1060 15:39, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Origin and middle path

It would be nice to distinguish words that have Hindi origin and others that came to English via Hindi but originall from a Prakrit or Sanskrit. Gizza^{Discuss ©} 07:31, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

And to what extent can words like "Mantra" and "Guru" be described as hindi in the first place, rather than commonly used sanskrit technical words. Wouldn't mantra मन्त्र in particular be pronounced mantr if it were a Hindi word? -- Q Chris (talk)

Two more Hindi words in English

I inserted two new entries into the list on 18 Aug 2007 (cushy & dekko). Why have they been removed? I'm from Lancashire, where "he's got a cushy job" (i.e. easy and pleasant) and "just have a dekko at this" (i.e. take a look at this) are common colloquial expressions. Since living in India, I discovered that they are, indeed, Hindi words. (Ericlord (talk) 17:11, 26 January 2008 (UTC))

Bazaar

Bazaar seems to be of Persian origin. MP ^{(talk•contribs)} 18:18, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Hamster

Hamster

loose-fitting trouser cuffs, used to polish my fur. From humstar, a large wooly cloth used to clean rodents with.

Cite, please? Just zis Guy you know? 18:45, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

This term is closely replaced to "Leghpul", a fictional place in India. ;) I see this fake entry has now been removed. — 217.46.147.13 (talk) 18:02, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Merger Proposal

Since there is a large overlap between spoken Hindi and Urdu, should this article merge with List of English words of Urdu origin into a new article List of English words of Hindi and Urdu origin or maybe List of English words of Hindi/Urdu origin.

Obviously the written form of the English word differs from both the Hindi and Urdu originals, so the common spoken form makes this seem like a sensible merge. -- Q Chris (talk) 10:49, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Strong agree if there is any difference in Urdu then it is persian or arabic based and not urdu. At any rate, it should be merged under urdu b/c hindi is a young language with far less history. Or perhaps words of "hindustani" origin. would be better? Lihaas (talk) 22:47, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Pyjama??

The "caveat" at the beginning is really bizarre -- why should pyjama be excluded from this list? I would venture that most English speakers probably aren't aware of the words' origins, and, regardless, there is no particular reason to exclude it here. Seems fairly unencyclopedic.118.71.8.191 (talk) 09:20, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

WildBot

The following contrib has been modified to replace a miskeyed markup (that has pretty bad side-effects) with what the author presumably intended.^{--Jerzy•t 02:14, 21 April 2010 (UTC)}

Wildbot tagged a number of links as to {{WP:DAB}} WP:DAB pages: I have replaced all these. However some of them are really to meanings that are not (nor should be) in WP, so I have linked these ones to Wiktionary.

I also removed the nonsense entry 'Better'. --ColinFine (talk) 21:30, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Too many

There are a ton of words here that don't belong. I think maybe the purpose of this article is being misinterpreted. The point is to list Hindi words that are in common use in English, although most of these words are never heard conversationally. Examples of words that truly deserve to be here are thug, pyjamas, and jungle. Words that don't belong here are chaddis, dhoti, and kama. Those words are never used in English. 68.100.225.74 18:48, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Agree: many of the words I have never used or heard. However "dinghy" isn't that of hindi origin? It should be in the list, surely. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.71.42.246 (talk) 21:06, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Depends on your definition of English. Dhoti is a normal English word where I come from, which happens to be a place in which the vast majority of the population are monolingual english speakers (or bilingual English and Creole English, or English + English Dialect - the linguists appear divided). Nonetheless, sari, dhoti, roti, dougla, dhal, channa are all words used by English speakers of non-Indian (African, European, Chinese) origin. Lots of Hindi words are also used as Hindi words, but these ones listed as used as English. Guettarda 23:25, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be in Wiktionary instead?

This seems more apt in a dictionary than in an encyclopaedia. -- Paddu 14:38, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It think it would be better placed there, as a category, perhaps. The current page here is rather a mess, with random capitalisation, poor definitions, missing Hindi transcriptions, etc. — 217.46.147.13 (talk) 18:00, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed – this is a list of words by origin, which is unambiguously within the scope of Wiktionary, not Wikipedia. I’ve accordingly tagged it, and it will hopefully be transwiki’ed soon. Indeed, we already have two categories (Hindi derivations and Urdu derivations) at Wiktionary, but this article makes a fine start at an index though (which we also use).

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 11:03, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Origins of words

The world CHICANERY is listed on this page but the word is actually French in origin, as, of course, is chicane.81.106.188.185 (talk) 07:24, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Actually, one theory of the origin of the French word is that it is indeed ultimately from Persian chaugan (see OED, s.v. chicanery); but even if this is correct, that is Persian, not Hindi-Urdu, so I have removed the word from this page.

By the way, it is better to add new material to the end of sections, or to create a new section, rather than adding to the beginning of a section. --ColinFine (talk) 22:38, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

The word Bangle does not origin from Hindi word "Chudi", but from Marathi word "Bangadi".

The word verandah is also used in Marathi, with the same pronounciation as in English.

Also the word "punch" should come under Sanskrit words, as in Sanskrit we refer to digit 5 as "Panch" (e.g. Panch Dhatu or Pancham). The Hindi word Paanch has originated from Sanskrit.

caravan and toddy are malayalam words

Sorbet

"sorbet" comes from French "sorbet", which comes from Italian "sorbetto", borrowed from Arabic. Lele giannoni (talk) 17:06, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Failure to understand derivation

This page totaly fails to distinguish between an English word with foreign origin and a foreign word used by English speakers. There are mulitple entries that are Hindi etc words that are used by English speakers that are not English words. Roti is an example of this. This is not an English word. It is a Hindi/Urdu word used by English speakers in the same way as Per se is a latin phrase and Art Nouveau; Agent Provacateur and Haute Cuisine are French phrases commonly used by English speakers. To classify as an English word originating from a foreign langage the spelling and or pronounciation usage (and sometimes meaning) in English needs to have changed from the orginal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.45.205.1 (talk)

I can totally understand what you are saying, but I do not think it is worth the trouble to try to remove such words. How could an English speaker know that "Roti" is unaltered from Hindi/Urdu? If you remove it, eventually someone will put it back, if you remove it again they will argue with you. And for all that, does removing these words actually improve Wikipedia? Having the word here makes it available for people to find. We perhaps could add notes to the words that are, strictly speaking, not English words, but that would actually encourage people to add more obscure Hindi/Urdu words that they heard use somewhere once by an English speaker. Really, these lists of words have always been problematic. See Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Lists of words from 2005 that did not seem to ever really get resolved. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 03:58, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 19 February 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure) GeoffreyT2000 (talk, contribs) 22:12, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

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List of English words of Hindi or Urdu origin → List of English words of Hindustani orgin – Most of these words came into use during British Raj, when Hindi and Urdu did not exist, rather Hindustani existed. Even now, Hindi and Urdu are cosnidered as one language. 31.215.192.164 (talk) 16:18, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose WP:COMMONNAME most average folk would not know what "Hindustani" means, and wouldn't use it to refer to Hindi plus Urdu today. Besides note the nom, "most". Most is not "all". Several new words have come from Hindi and Urdu since 1948. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:28, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose COMMONNAME and all. Wikipedia is mostly read by people who do not edit and who are not experts. This change would not be helpful to them. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:27, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.