With the possibility of a job teaching Urdu here in L.A. this summer, it's time to really shape up on those reading skills. I noticed how much just being in Pakistan last month, reading signs, billboards, and glimpses of news items, increased my ability to read Urdu. Today I began a task I had attempted a few years back and had then gotten quickly frustrated with: translating my mother's old copy of Khana Pakana by Hafeez; this time around...success! Still need the help of some Googling skills for random food items like "MooNgraa" (rattail/podding radish) and "kachnaar" (Bauhinia variegate a.k.a Orchid tree/Camel's Foot Tree/Mtn-ebony...kya?!), and working on recognizing particularities of the Urdu script. I've downloaded the Urdu font Nafees Nastaliq for PC (struggled to find one for Mac and not sure if I installed it properly; please help if you know how!) and am enjoying typing up some Urdu as well. Not sure how proud of myself I should feel though, as I'm only on the Table of Contents; we'll see how things go when I actually get to the recipes and cooking directions, da da daaa!
Tweet
Impressive, I can do Arabic, but written Urdu is difficult!
ReplyDeleteThanks dear =) I can't imagine even beginning to learn Urdu without knowing the Arabic script as a basic, ah! Reminds me of a quote from "White Tiger" by Aravind Adiga, "Some books were in Urdu, the language of the Muslims—which is all just scratches and dots, as if some crow dipped its feet in black ink and pressed them to the page," (216).
ReplyDeleteYou did the a great work writing and revealing the hidden beneficial features of
ReplyDeleteislamicart background