21.3535, Disc: Re: Etymology of 'Urdu'

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LINGUIST List: Vol-21-3535. Sun Sep 05 2010. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 21.3535, Disc: Re: Etymology of 'Urdu'

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1)
Date: 03-Sep-2010
From: Nicholas Kontovas < kontovas at gmail.com >
Subject: Re: Etymology of 'Urdu'
 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Sun, 05 Sep 2010 19:39:22
From: Nicholas Kontovas [kontovas at gmail.com]
Subject: Re: Etymology of 'Urdu'

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Syed-Mohsin Naquvi <mnaquviyahoo.com> wrote:

'The word Urdu itself is a word from the Turkish language akin to the 
English word Horde. However, the word Urdu which means an army, in 
Turkish,is actually spelled Ordu in modern Turkish with an umlaut on the 
initial O. I am trying to ascertain as to how and when this vowel-shift has 
taken place. '

Actually, the word in Turkish is just 'ordu' -- no umlaut on the 'o'.

As for how the sound changed from Turkish 'o' to Urdu 'u', I'm not too sure. 
The Ottoman script version of this word ('elif-re-del-vav') would similarly 
be read in (Iranian) Farsi 'ordu', which would normally correspond to Tajiki 
and Urdu 'urduu' ('uu' = long 'u'). Not sure what that means, but it's a start. 


Linguistic Field(s): Historical Linguistics




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