English Urdu Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to English Urdu. Here they are! All 32 of them:

Abdul and Mohamed sat down, chilling the conversation at the table. They spoke in Urdu, unaware Lily understood them. When her expression changed subtly, Abdul noticed and switched to speaking English with a mundane comment.
Dennis K. Hausker (Secrets: in a corrupted society)
Afsoos was the word in Urdu. There was no equivalent in English. It was a specific kind of regret - not wishing he had acted differently, but a helpless sadness at the situation as it was, a sense that it could not have been another way.
Fatima Farheen Mirza (A Place for Us)
Pride! In English it is a Deadly Sin. But in Urdu it is fakhr and nazish - both names that you can find more than once on our family tree.
Kamila Shamsie (Salt and Saffron)
I never knew what language they'd lapse into when fucked - Urdu or Telugu or a mix of both (only the techies came in English).
Manil Suri (The City of Devi)
She tries to maintain a nondescript exterior; she learns the sideways glance instead of looking at people directly. She speaks in practised, precise sentences so that she is not misunderstood. She chooses her words carefully, and if someone addresses her in Punjabi, she answers in Urdu, because an exchange in her mother tongue might be considered a promise of intimacy. She uses English for medical terms only, because she feels if she uses a word of English in her conversation she might be considered a bit forward. When she walks she walks with slightly hurried steps, as if she has an important but innocent appointment to keep. She avoids eye contact, she looks slightly over people’s heads as if looking out for somebody who might come into view at any moment. She doesn’t want anyone to think that she is alone and nobody is coming for her. She sidesteps even when she sees a boy half her age walking towards her, she walks around little puddles when she can easily leap over them; she thinks any act that involves stretching her legs might send the wrong signal. After all, this is not the kind of thing where you can leave your actions to subjective interpretations. She never eats in public. Putting something in your mouth is surely an invitation for someone to shove something horrible down your throat. If you show your hunger, you are obviously asking for something.
Mohammed Hanif (Our Lady of Alice Bhatti)
And it is true you write in Urdu, Kashmiri, and English?” “My daughter talks too much,” he said, evidently pleased. “But she is correct. I find that different languages are useful for different things. For instance, it is best to write poetry in Urdu. Urdu words are made for poetry and songs. For stories, Kashmiri is the best.” “And English?” “English?” He smiled. “English is excellent for signboards and maps.
Madhuri Vijay (The Far Field)
Why didn’t you stay?” she had whispered against the unyielding stone. Why didn’t you stay? She pressed the berry against her lips. Why didn’t I ask you just one more time to stay? Sajjad stood up quietly and walked over to her. “There is a phrase I have heard in English: to leave someone alone with their grief. Urdu has no equivalent phrase. It only understands the concept of gathering around and becoming ‘ghum-khaur’—grief-eaters—who take in the mourner’s sorrow.
Kamila Shamsie (Burnt Shadows: A Novel)
The children in my dreams speak in Gujarati turn their trusting faces to the sun say to me care for us nurture us in my dreams I shudder and I run. I am six in a playground of white children Darkie, sing us an Indian song! Eight in a roomful of elders all mock my broken Gujarati English girl! Twelve, I tunnel into books forge an armor of English words. Eighteen, shaved head combat boots - shamed by masis in white saris neon judgments singe my western head. Mother tongue. Matrubhasha tongue of the mother I murder in myself. Through the years I watch Gujarati swell the swaggering egos of men mirror them over and over at twice their natural size. Through the years I watch Gujarati dissolve bones and teeth of women, break them on anvils of duty and service, burn them to skeletal ash. Words that don't exist in Gujarati : Self-expression. Individual. Lesbian. English rises in my throat rapier flashed at yuppie boys who claim their people “civilized” mine. Thunderbolt hurled at cab drivers yelling Dirty black bastard! Force-field against teenage hoods hissing F****ing Paki bitch! Their tongue - or mine? Have I become the enemy? Listen: my father speaks Urdu language of dancing peacocks rosewater fountains even its curses are beautiful. He speaks Hindi suave and melodic earthy Punjabi salty rich as saag paneer coastal Kiswahili laced with Arabic, he speaks Gujarati solid ancestral pride. Five languages five different worlds yet English shrinks him down before white men who think their flat cold spiky words make the only reality. Words that don't exist in English: Najjar Garba Arati. If we cannot name it does it exist? When we lose language does culture die? What happens to a tongue of milk-heavy cows, earthen pots jingling anklets, temple bells, when its children grow up in Silicon Valley to become programmers? Then there's American: Kin'uh get some service? Dontcha have ice? Not: May I have please? Ben, mane madhath karso? Tafadhali nipe rafiki Donnez-moi, s'il vous plait Puedo tener….. Hello, I said can I get some service?! Like, where's the line for Ay-mericans in this goddamn airport? Words that atomized two hundred thousand Iraqis: Didja see how we kicked some major ass in the Gulf? Lit up Bagdad like the fourth a' July! Whupped those sand-niggers into a parking lot! The children in my dreams speak in Gujarati bright as butter succulent cherries sounds I can paint on the air with my breath dance through like a Sufi mystic words I can weep and howl and devour words I can kiss and taste and dream this tongue I take back.
Shailja Patel (Migritude)
Why do things always sound sadder in Urdu? Prettier too. She likes that they speak to each other in Urdu, how even speaking it feels like access to their secret world, a world where they feel like different people, capable of feelings she could not experience let alone speak of in English. She turns around and faces him. He looks worried and scratches his cheek. He is only six. First grade has just begun and he has had a hard time adjusting to the longer hours.
Fatima Farheen Mirza (A Place for Us)
British officers arriving in India were supposed to spend up to three years in a Calcutta college, where they studied Hindu and Muslim law alongside English law; Sanskrit, Urdu and Persian alongside Greek and Latin; and Tamil, Bengali and Hindustani culture alongside mathematics, economics and geography.
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
That was the main thing wrong with Mrs. Kamal. She spent such an extraordinary amount of mental energy feeling irritated that it was impossible not to feel irritated in turn. It was oxygen to her, this low-grade dissatisfaction, shading into anger; this sense that things weren't being done correctly, that everything from the traffic noise at night to the temperature of the hot water in the morning to the progress of Mohammed's potty training to the fact that Fatima wasn't being taught to read Urdu, only English, to the fact that Rohinka served only two dishes at dinner the night of her arrival to the cost of the car insurance for the VW Sharan to the fact that Shahid didn't have a 'proper job' and seemed to have no intention of getting one, let alone a wife, to the unfriendliness of London, the fact that it was an 'impossible city,' to the ostentatious way she complained about missing Lahore, especially at dinner time, giving meaningful, sad, reproachful looks at the food Rohinka had cooked.
John Lanchester (Capital)
country in southern Asia occupying the greater part of the Indian subcontinent; pop. 1,045,845,226 (est. 2002); official languages, Hindi and English (fourteen other languages are recognized as official in certain regions; of these, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu have most first-language speakers); capital, New Delhi. Hindi name BHARAT.
Angus Stevenson (Oxford Dictionary of English)
Made in India is just a label coded in your genes. It is random chance that one is born within certain man-made boundaries, or is of a certain race, or of a certain religion, nothing more. So how does being born this side of a border or the other make any group of people better than another group? If God exists, then I doubt if He prefers people on the basis of their knowing Sanskrit or Urdu or English
Twinkle Khanna (Mrs Funnybones: She's just like You and a lot like Me)
Listen: my father speaks Urdu language of dancing peacocks rosewater fountains even its curses are beautiful. He speaks Hindi suave and melodic earthy Punjabi salty rich as saag paneer coastal Kiswahili laced with Arabic, he speaks Gujarati solid ancestral pride. Five languages five different worlds yet English shrinks him down before white men who think their flat cold spiky words make the only reality.
Shailja Patel (Migritude)
The European empires believed that in order to govern effectively they must know the languages and cultures of their subjects. British officers arriving in India were supposed to spend up to three years in a Calcutta college, where they studied Hindu and Muslim law alongside English law; Sanskrit, Urdu and Persian alongside Greek and Latin; and Tamil, Bengali and Hindustani culture alongside mathematics, economics and geography.
Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind)
There is a phrase I have heard in English: to leave someone alone with their grief. Urdu has no equivalent phrase. It only understands the concept of gathering around and becoming 'ghum-khaur'-grief eaters-who take in the mourner's sorrow. Would you like me to be in English or Urdu right now?" There was a moment's hesitation, and then she said, "This is an Urdu lesson, Sensei.
Kamalie Shamsi
The best way to tell whether the Norwegian is a Norwegian is to say: "Are you Swedish?" Regardless whether you say this in English, French, Italian, Japanese, Urdu or Swahili, he will answer: "Swedish? Me? I'm a Norwegian!" Then you will be able to tell.
Odd Børretzen (How to Understand and Use a Norwegian: A User's Manual and Troubleshooter's Guide [Illustrated])
The reason is that I post, publish my pics, writings, whether as prose or poetry in Urdu and English, for the coming researchers, in the future who will discover me unproblematically on social media.
Ehsan Sehgal
Rakesh Roshan Rakesh Roshan is a producer, director, and actor in Bollywood films. A member of the successful Roshan film family, Mr. Roshan opened his own production company in 1982 and has been producing Hindi movies ever since. His film Kaho Naa…Pyaar Hai won nine Filmfare awards, including those for best movie and best director. When I remember Diana and her activities in the last years of her life, I strongly feel that God sends some special people into this world to perform some special duties. Diana was one of these special people. Advancing on this godly path of love and goodness, Diana was blossoming like a flower, and with her captivating fragrance she started infusing new life in our dangerously sick garden--which was apparently at the brink of a precipice. The irony is that the cruel winds of autumn ruthlessly blew away this rare flower and deprived the world of its soothing fragrance. Diana, Princess of Wales, is no longer present in this world, but Diana, the queen of millions of hearts, is immortal and will live forever. My heart breaks when I think of her last journey, her funeral, which was brilliantly covered all over the world. One could see the whole of England in tears, and the eyes of all the television viewers were also flooded. Thousands of men, women, and children had lined up along the entire route from the palace to the church where the services were held. All the fresh flowers available in the United Kingdom were there on the passage. All eyes were tearful, and one could clearly hear the sobs of people. There were heartrending scenes of people paying tribute to their departed darling. Last, I would like to write here a translation in English of a poem written in Urdu. We hope you will come back…dear friend But why this pervading sadness…dear friend The familiar flavor in the atmosphere is singing… You are somewhere around…dear friend Please come back, Diana; this sinking world desperately needs a savior.
Larry King (The People's Princess: Cherished Memories of Diana, Princess of Wales, From Those Who Knew Her Best)
India a country in southern Asia occupying the greater part of the Indian subcontinent; pop. 1,045,845,226 (est. 2002); official languages, Hindi and English (fourteen other languages are recognized as official in certain regions; of these, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu have most first-language speakers); capital, New Delhi. Hindi name BHARAT. Much of India was united under a Muslim sultanate based around Delhi from the 12th century until incorporated in the Mogul empire in the 16th century. Colonial intervention began in the late 17th century, particularly by the British; in 1765 the East India Company acquired the right to administer Bengal. In 1858, after the Indian Mutiny, the Crown took over the Company's authority, and in 1876 Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India. Independence was won in 1947, at which time India was partitioned,
Angus Stevenson (Oxford Dictionary of English)
In non-Western societies two opposing trends appear to be underway. On the one hand, English is increasingly used at the university level to equip graduates to function effectively in the global competition for capital and customers. On the other hand, social and political pressures increasingly lead to the more general use of indigenous languages, Arabic displacing French in North Africa, Urdu supplanting English as the language of government and education in Pakistan, and indigenous language media replacing English media in India.
Samuel P. Huntington (The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order)
There is a translation of a Persian book into English, not from Persian, but from a French translation of an Urdu rendering of a classical Persian abridgment of an Arabic original.
Idries Shah (The Sufis)
The reason is that I post, publish my pics, writings, whether as prose or poetry in Urdu and English, for the coming researchers, in the future, who will discover me unproblematically on social media.
Ehsan Sehgal
the Maslaks which nowdays promoted by the Ulama e Suu (Preahcers of Evil who preach in the name of God). to understand what is the religion of God one should read the Holy Quran (in English, Urdu and Hindi, I suggest to read the "Translation only" of the Quran by Maulana Wahiduddin Khan) .
Syed Ali Hamza Chishty (Gharib Nawaz: Life and Teachings of Gharib Nawaz also known as Khwaja Moinuddin Chishty)
I suffered from my blunders and loneliness severely; one can realize it in my English and Urdu writings; however, I hide that with my natural smile always on my face.
Ehsan Sehgal
The twelve branches of Indo-European included most of the languages of Europe (but not Basque, Finnish, Estonian, or Magyar); the Persian language of Iran; Sanskrit and its many modern daughters (most important, Hindi and Urdu); and a number of extinct languages including Hittite in Anatolia (modern Turkey) and Tocharian in the deserts of Xinjiang (northwestern China) (figure 1.2). Modern English, like Yiddish and Swedish, is assigned to the Germanic branch.
David W. Anthony (The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World)
The reason is that I post and publish my pictures and writings, whether as prose or poetry in Urdu and English, for the coming researchers in the future who will discover me unproblematically on social media.
Ehsan Sehgal
It is well known that the term ‘Pakistan’, an acronym, was originally thought up in England by a group of Muslim intellectuals. P for the Punjabis, A for the Afghans, K for the Kashmiris, S for Sind and the ‘tan’, they say, for Baluchistan. (No mention of the East Wing, you notice; Bangladesh never got its name in the tide, and so, eventually, it took the hint and seceded from the secessionists. Imagine what such a double secession does to people!) – So it was a word born in exile which then went East, was borne-across or translated, and imposed itself on history; a returning migrant, settling down on partitioned land, forming a palimpsest on the past. A palimpsest obscures what lies beneath. To build Pakistan it was necessary to cover up Indian history, to deny that Indian centuries lay just beneath the surface of Pakistani Standard Time. The past was rewritten; there was nothing else to be done. Who commandeered the job of rewriting history? – The immigrants, the mohajirs. In what languages? – Urdu and English, both imported tongues, although one travelled less distance than the other. It is possible to see the subsequent history of Pakistan as a duel between two layers of time, the obscured world forcing its way back through what-had-been-imposed. It is the true desire of every artist to impose his or her vision on the world; and Pakistan, the peeling, fragmenting palimpsest, increasingly at war with itself, may be described as a failure of the dreaming mind. Perhaps the pigments used were the wrong ones, impermanent, like Leonardo’s; or perhaps the place was just insufficiently imagined, a picture full of irreconcilable elements, midriffbaring immigrant saris versus demure, indigenous Sindhi shalwar-kurtas, Urdu versus Punjabi, now versus then: a miracle that went wrong.
Salman Rushdie (Shame)
I have had an affinity for books throughout my life. Ever since I was little, I used to read children’s books and I loved going to book shops and buying books. My father would give me ten rupees to go to the Raina Book Depot in Srinagar, which was a great delight. When I went to Doon [a boarding school in Dehradun] I started reading more extensively. I remember reading many of the P.G. Wodehouse novels, the Sherlock Holmes and Scarlet Pimpernel series, and I loved the classics: War and Peace, A Tale of Two Cities, The Three Musketeers. I subsequently moved to more serious reading: books on philosophy and politics by Plato, Bertrand Russell, Aldous Huxley, Vivekananda, the Arthurian novels by Mary Stewart and the Cretan novels of Mary Renault are some of my favourites. In poetry, I love Yeats, Wordsworth, Sri Aurobindo, Gurudev Tagore, Robert Frost in English; Ghalib, Faiz and Iqbal in Urdu, Dinkar and Tulsidas in Hindi.
Karan Singh (An Examined Life: Essays and Reflections by Karan Singh)
Throughout Indian history, the thoughts of Muslim women have been ignored, overlooked, regarded with a sense of being ahead of this time, or out of place. This is the conundrum of being invisible, and very much seen. I italicize non-English words because they look more beautiful that way. Since we can’t honor the beauty of their own script and still be legible to most readers of English, I want to give the words their own space. Some think of italics as othering, but I am Other when I speak my mother language. Words in Bangla or Arabic or Urdu have their own weight separate from English. America took my first language, mother language, gave me my life language. I don’t recall the feeling of my first language fading as I learned the language I write, love, and fight in best.
Tanaïs (In Sensorium: Notes for My People)
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Mirza Ghalib (Gufta-Ghalib Deewan-e-Ghalib)
Yes, besides English, I can stutter my way my into Russian, Turkish, Arabic, French, and some Farsi, Urdu, Punjabi and a bit of Kurdish.” He laughed at himself. What he liked best about the next was that she didn’t deny it, yet spoke immediately. “I like the rhythm of your speech. It’s interesting.” She blinked, looking sheepishly sincere, then added, “I, um, have to be careful sometimes or I’d find myself imitating it, answering back in the same rhythm, or some facsimile of it.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t do it as well. But sometimes I know just how you’ll say a sentence, before it’s out, and I want to say it too, like wanting to dance with you.
Judith Ivory (Untie My Heart)