Accents in Urdu

[Saudi]

Unlike English I've never seen Urdu accents being categorised anywhere despite there being quite a lot of accents in Urdu throughout Pakistan and even more if you include Hindi.

Off the top of my head I can think of

Punjabi style Urdu
Paindoo Urdu (like Punjabi but with a twist :ajmal )
Pathani Urdu
Hyderabadi Urdu
Sindhi Urdu
Karachi "Urdu speaking"Urdu

So which category do the Urdu speakers here fall under? Me personally, having never lived in Pakistan I don't really have an identifiable accent.

[Golden arm]

Unlike English I've never seen Urdu accents being categorised anywhere despite there being quite a lot of accents in Urdu throughout Pakistan and even more if you include Hindi.

Off the top of my head I can think of

Punjabi style Urdu
Paindoo Urdu (like Punjabi but with a twist :ajmal )
Pathani Urdu
Hyderabadi Urdu
Sindhi Urdu
Karachi "Urdu speaking"Urdu

So which category do the Urdu speakers here fall under? Me personally, having never lived in Pakistan I don't really have an identifiable accent.

hmmmmmm you might be having saudi style urdu!!

[Saudi]

hmmmmmm you might be having saudi style urdu!!

No I can't speak Arabic unfortunately.

[WNC]

Karachi 'urdu speaking' accent,

on a side note, Pathani Accent is always amusing

[12thMan]

PJ Mir Urdu Accent
not my accent but missing from the list of popular Urdu accents

[Saudi]

PJ Mir Urdu Accent
not my accent but missing from the list of popular Urdu accents

Seems a pretty standard Urdu speaking accent to me.

[Looney]

Karachi "Urdu speaking" Urdu

How can you forget Makrani Urdu :D

[ace_allrounder]

Disclaimer:Not meant to offend any Bangladeshis out there

Toomhara abbu keeya korta hai?
Mai toh yee kom korti korti pagol ho goyii

:P
The Bangali accent.

My favourite accent has to be :aamir 's accent.:D(and also :ajmal)
Lol..

[Qelic]

another accent for urdu is iranian accent . They speak it with real pronunciation of majority of words , because mother of urdu is persian . It has turkish, punjabi , pashto , hindi elements too , but the dominative portion is of persian . This accent is quite similar to pashtun ppl , or balushi ppl of both pakistan and iran .

Zindah Tawaulaani Ba Shakwah o bastani Farsi !

[cricket_fever]

Disclaimer:Not meant to offend any Bangladeshis out there

Toomhara abbu keeya korta hai?
Mai toh yee kom korti korti pagol ho goyii

:P
The Bangali accent.

My favourite accent has to be :aamir 's accent.:D(and also :ajmal)
Lol..
my daada told me that one of his bengali friends asked him
"meri "ghori" kahan hai?"
poor man was wondering where his ghari (watch) was but made it sound like he was searching for a lost female horse!

[cricket_fever]

the south african urdu accent is also funny.....i have heard many safrican muslims try to speak urdu and i try hard not to laugh.......

[12thMan]

The makrani
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBJ9mvYeLFQ

[Chasing Cars]

I come under the BBCD accent. That is the:
BRITISH BORN CONFUSED DESI accent.
A popular accent amongst the new generation of Pakistani teenagers living in the British Isles, the BBCD accent makes the speaker sound like a complete donkey with voicebox issues. Of course those who have been bought up by parents who have hammered nothing but urdu into their brain's since they were born still tend to have pronunciation issues.

But khair, choro :D I can speak some toothi-phoothi urdu and that's all that matters :D

[ace_allrounder]

my daada told me that one of his bengali friends asked him
"meri "ghori" kahan hai?"
poor man was wondering where his ghari (watch) was but made it sound like he was searching for a lost female horse!
:))


I come under the BBCD accent. That is the:
BRITISH BORN CONFUSED DESI accent.
A popular accent amongst the new generation of Pakistani teenagers living in the British Isles, the BBCD accent makes the speaker sound like a complete donkey with voicebox issues. Of course those who have been bought up by parents who have hammered nothing but urdu into their brain's since they were born still tend to have pronunciation issues.

But khair, choro :D I can speak some toothi-phoothi urdu and that's all that matters :D
Good one.That should also come under "Different Urdu Accents"

Though its not really their fault.

[cricket_fever]

I come under the BBCD accent. That is the:
BRITISH BORN CONFUSED DESI accent.
A popular accent amongst the new generation of Pakistani teenagers living in the British Isles, the BBCD accent makes the speaker sound like a complete donkey with voicebox issues. Of course those who have been bought up by parents who have hammered nothing but urdu into their brain's since they were born still tend to have pronunciation issues.

But khair, choro :D I can speak some toothi-phoothi urdu and that's all that matters :D
why pronunciation issues? When i speak to my parents i speak in english but if they scold me for forgetting about urdu then i speak urdu with my "home" accent..why do people have this pronunciation prob?

[Chasing Cars]

why pronunciation issues? When i speak to my parents i speak in english but if they scold me for forgetting about urdu then i speak urdu with my "home" accent..why do people have this pronunciation prob?
Well I personally seem to develop some sort of lisp when I speak Urdu :P :))) :))) I dunno why, it just happens by itself :P

[moumotta]

Here is something I have noticed, tell me if it is common and if so any reasons for it.

I have noticed some urdu speakers, also some Punjabi speakers, don't use half- stress letters.

Clinton becomes Kilinton
School becomes Iskool
Pravin Kumar becomes Parvin Kumar

and so on.

[12thMan]

School to Iskool
because sometimes I have seen it written as
اسکول
and it can be Sakool if you take out the alif at start

Pravin to Parvin is because we know Parveen and not Praveen. If spelled in urdu properly it will be Pravin or Praveen

Letter do get stressed and it feels like we have an obligation to do justice with every letter and say it proudly. Listen to some of the cricket commentary - top of my head will be Shiva Rama Krishnan but it is hard to change if you grew up like that

[ace_allrounder]

"Haan mujhe whan khelna bot psaand hey":D
"Wicktain lainey ki kooshish ka'rta hoon"
"Firsst year mai hoon.Jub imthian ho rhe hotay hain to meraa toh dill kaarta hai ke koii tu-or hojjaye"

Mohammad Aamir(Not exact words,though)
It sounds better when you actually hear it.Reading makes it sound weird.
I love this accent.iDone has this exact same accent and heck they both sound so awwdorable when they speak like this.

[saqlain]

School to Iskool
because sometimes I have seen it written as
اسکول
and it can be Sakool if you take out the alif at start

Pravin to Parvin is because we know Parveen and not Praveen. If spelled in urdu properly it will be Pravin or Praveen

Letter do get stressed and it feels like we have an obligation to do justice with every letter and say it proudly. Listen to some of the cricket commentary - top of my head will be Shiva Rama Krishnan but it is hard to change if you grew up like that

Actually saying "اسکول" is totally acceptable in Urdu. In the past, all the cognates (words borrowed from other languages) especially one from English, when written in Urdu alif is placed ahead of them which shows the native speakers that the word has a foreign origin. Words from Persian, Arabic and Hindi are not considered foreign.

[saqlain]

Here is something I have noticed, tell me if it is common and if so any reasons for it.

I have noticed some urdu speakers, also some Punjabi speakers, don't use half- stress letters.

Clinton becomes Kilinton
School becomes Iskool
Pravin Kumar becomes Parvin Kumar

and so on.

In Urdu language, rarely you would find monosyallabic and still having more than 3 letters. Majority of the Urdu words are either disyllabic or trisyllabic. Sometimes the pause is so short that it is hard to tell when it occurs. For example, word school in English, you wont find different levels or stresses but the very same word in Urdu would be pronouce as "Is-Cool". Languages like Urdu and Arabic is based on heavy syllable. Hope this would help.

[Taimur]

What about the wannabe Saudi Urdu accent spoken by those guys in Pakistan who wear those red ghutras on their heads but without the black band? I mean those usually crazy guys at JEI protests and stuff.

And they cant speak Arabic or be rich like Arab Sheikhs! :)))

[AZ]

I have the perfect Urdu accent, it is not afflicted by any region.

but my Urdu itself is a bit poor :asif

[Fireworks11]

I have the perfect Urdu accent, it is not afflicted by any region.

but my Urdu itself is a bit poor :asif

Who has the "perfect Urdu accent"? Punjab region?

[AZ]

no idea, don't think there is a perfect region.

[Fireworks11]

Depends on the person, as you say...

[Cricketismylife]

interesting topic....

someone want to put a few examples from youtube showing different accents of URDU?

[Looney]

:afridi - Karachi Urdu
:yk - bohothizyadafastUrdu
:amir - Punjabified Urdu
:akhtar - Lahori Urdu


Memon - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB6a_tI9xF8
Bihari - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT4CKTbnOyA
Punjabi and Pathan Urdu towards the end- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENW6DEQ1Q5Q
Makrani is the guy who plays Marshall - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBJ9mvYeLFQ

[kkmix]

Karachi urdu speaking accent.

[ShehryarK]

:amir - Punjabified Urdu
:akhtar - Lahori Urdu
Pindi is NOT in Lahore!

If anything, both Akhtar and Amir have Punjabi accents. Amir's more rural, whilst Akhtar's more urban.

Neither speak Lahori Urdu.

[kkmix]

So what IS the Lahori urdu accent? :kami

[ShehryarK]

Accents of Salman Butt, Abdul Razzaq, Abdul Qadir etc etc, Wasim before he came Anglo-fied, even Imran to an extent, are all variants of it.

[Khabri420]

Billy Urdu also known as the 'Toomkoo doogna lagaan denaa purreggaa' Urdu

EOf0QvNP1zU

[Looney]

Pindi is NOT in Lahore!

If anything, both Akhtar and Amir have Punjabi accents. Amir's more rural, whilst Akhtar's more urban.

Neither speak Lahori Urdu.

I just thought the way he talks is very similar to Lahoris . I have noticed that there are two kinds of accents in Lahore . One kind is heavily Punjabified and the other is almost the same as Karachi Urdu . Ali Zafar , for example , you cannot even tell where he is from . Same with people who live in Islamabad .

[Looney]

Billy Urdu also known as the 'Toomkoo doogna lagaan denaa purreggaa' Urdu

EOf0QvNP1zU

:))) never gets old

[Fireworks11]

In Pakistan, how do the Punjabi and Lahori Urdu accents differ?

[Looney]

Punjabi : Majay ji aik ghaaaaaaaaaaaaaaantay maiN jaana hai ( Sheikh Rasheed )
Lahori : Maine aik ghaantay maiN jaana hai
Karachi : Mujhe aik ghuntay main jaana hai





Ab yeh na poochna kahaN jaana hai :inti

[Fireworks11]

Punjabi and Urdu do get interchanged somewhat.

[NO 1 AFRIDI FAN]

Living in the UK, I have a normal accent. :)) :)) :))
Seriously dunno!

[Fireworks11]

^ It's the British Urdu Accent.

[Rizie]

British urdu speaker are very funny to listen:yk

[kkmix]

Punjabi : Majay ji aik ghaaaaaaaaaaaaaaantay maiN jaana hai ( Sheikh Rasheed )
Lahori : Maine aik ghaantay maiN jaana hai
Karachi : Mujhe aik ghuntay main jaana hai





Ab yeh na poochna kahaN jaana hai :inti

maiman : Maiko aik ghantay main jana hai.

Behari : Humko aik ghantay mai janaa hai babu.