Must Read its Something Very important About RAMZAN KAREEM By SYED FARRUKH As the holy month of Ramzan arrives, i fear again for the distortions of its name as we have grown up to hear and read. For several years now I have seen promotions in hotels and even in some print ads in English where the holy month has been referred to as ‘Ramadhan’ or ‘Ramadan’. Please, I don’t want to start a movement against the spelling; it’s a free world. Also the essence is to fast this month and to exercise greater control over evil thoughts, whether you call it ‘Ramadhan’ or ‘Ramzan’, that won’t change. I am also cognizant of the fact that there are far, far greater issues facing us than how to pronounce a word. But just because we have life and death issues in our country doesn’t mean that we should not correct what we can. Just because of the bigger mess that we are in right now doesn’t mean we should stop defending our language, dialects and pronunciations that we have grown up with in our country. How would someone named Razzaq here react to being written as ‘Radhaq’? And even if he is called ‘Rajjak Bhai’ is he spelt that way, say if he is standing for club elections? And how many copywriters and editors would dare to write President Zardari as President Dhardari in the ads they prepare for him? No editor in the world will allow a word of their language to be misspelled in a publication in their own language whether in a magazine, newspaper or book or on a website. Have you ever seen Christmas spelt as ‘Kristmas’ or ‘Chrismas’ or ‘Grismas’ in an English speaking country? Yet we allow a word that we speak to be miss spell deliberately. We should not allow any word to be distorted phonetically; I could understand if it was written as ‘Rumzan’. But writing it as ‘Ramadhan’ is to be discouraged. And before the liberals set on me as creating another controversy please first write ‘Christmas’ any other way in England or the US and see the response. Why do the Pakistani copywriters or editors allow this to happen? I could understand if there wasn’t the alphabet ‘Z’ in the English language, but there is. R-A-M-Z-A-N is available on every keyboard used to write in English language. I believe this practice started in the Middle East and has made its way here. For several years now the advertising industry and media have been influenced by European copywriters who work there and also here; Arabs too have a tendency to sound exotic. There is this school of thought that in Arabic language the alphabet ‘Zuad’ is difficult to pronounce therefore it is pronounced as ‘dhuad’ wherever it is used. If so should we pronounce Sheikh Zaid as Sheikh Dhaid or Crown Prince Aziz as ‘Adhidh’? But even so why are we reverting to using their dialect/pronunciation in our Urdu language? Is it part of the ongoing westernization of Urdu language, deliberately or simply because of fashion? No. I do not think there is anything suspicious about it at all; simply that someone chose to pronounce it that way. Whatever the reason, should we not stop this spelling of a month we have called Ramzan for centuries and possibly over 99% of us still do? But we shouldn’t just cite the Arabic pronunciations. After all the Mumbai industry often writes their Urdu names differently in ‘Roman English’. In Urdu we have an alphabet that doesn’t exist in English, which comes in between ‘Ray” and ‘Zay’. It approximates to what I can write as “Rhay” as in the Pakistani dish ‘Khich-rhi’. Notice the Indian movie by the same name written as ‘Khichdi’ or ‘Main Khiladi Tu Anari.’ Yet the Indians have reclaimed the names of their cities from their English distortions and officially call them Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai from previously Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. i can understand someone calling it ‘Rama-zan’ instead of ‘Ram-zan’ just as some Indians previously referred to ‘Calcutta’ as ‘Culkatta’ or we in Indo-Pak pronounce October as ‘Aktoobar’. But you can’t just change the sound of the alphabet can you? Especially when in our part of the world it has always, always been called Ramzan. If we change the pronunciation of an English word here, will the media in England start writing October as ‘Aktoobar’ or England as ‘Wilayat’? Even though both are acceptable to, say a Pakistani? The English commentators would normally pronounce Wasim Akram as “Wazz-eem” but is that how we write his name here or call him that way? The Australian commentators in 1981 would always pronounce Pakistan’s cricketer Ijaz Faqih as ‘Ijaz Fakih’. Would you pronounce it like that here? Ramzan is spelled (in Urdu alphabets) as ‘Ray-Meem-Zuad-Alif-Noon”. It is a word in the Quran. The spelling can be seen in Surat Baqarah (2nd chapter, verse 184 or verse 185) If anything the Religious Ministry of Pakistan should issue a dictum against any distortion of a word a pronounced in the Quran, for it is said that even a slight mispronunciation of a word in Quran can change the meaning of what is being said. If we have been wrong since as long as i can remember in our pronunciation then there are literary bodies and councils in Pakistan that can issue a correction. If not then the very people who write ‘Ramadhan’ should not complain if their company misspells their paychecks every month and the bank refuses to accept it. And if you would then please write the holy month as Ramzan since all advertising, promotion and communication in Urdu pronounces it as such. I know that even if a copywriter were to read this he may still continue to write the month as Ramadhan in his advertising. After all there is no official dictum against it and I am no authority in their view. That is why I request anyone in the media who writes the copy or who has authority to approve and who agrees with my viewpoint to see if the spelling can be (R-A-M-Z-A-N)To reiterate, writing a word differently in English than how we pronounce it in Urdu is something that needs to be corrected. Or at least restrained from when it comes to our holy month where sentiments are attached to the way we have pronounced it all our lives..! Regards: –•BewãFã•–
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 21:23:05 +0000
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