ONE == GENERAL RULES

*1.0 == Why should you learn meter?*
*1.1 == Words, syllables, and letters*
*1.2 == Syllables: two letters or one*
*1.3 == Syllables: start with consonants if possible*
*1.4 == Syllables: follow pronunciation*
*1.5 == Long and short syllables*

 

1.0 == Why should you learn meter?

Because it's there, of course. It was carefully put there by the classical ghazal poets, and was completely expected by their audiences. No poet wanted (or dared) to break the metrical rules; people ridiculed each other for even the smallest accidental mistake. Meter was there because it was indispensable to how the classical ghazal works. Here are some of the things you can do with the help of meter:

*You can memorize verses very easily, because meter creates such strong and consistent rhythmic patterns.

*You can recite verses with proper understanding and intonation, and thus with much more pleasure for yourself and your audience; educated listeners can easily tell whether somebody reciting a verse knows the meter or not.

*You can compose ghazals of your own that are formally indistinguishable from traditional ones.

*You can tell where there must, or might, or must not, be an i.zaafat [i.zaafat]; this is often very important information.

*You can read na:zm [na:zm] and other forms of metrically freer modern poetry with a much more subtle understanding of their technique.

*You can detect many calligraphic or editorial errors, since most of them create unmetrical lines.

*You can often reconstruct half-remembered verses in your mind, and can tell whether they are formally correct.

NOTE: Urdu meter is not like English meter! If you have some intuition and a reasonably good ear-- or with the aid of this practical approach-- you can read English poetry quite well with very little knowledge of traditional metrical theory. This is because there is not, and never has been, any single universally-applied system of English meter. Thus English metrical theory is retrospective fancy icing on the cake. By contrast, Urdu meter is a large part of the cake itself. It tells you exactly and reliably how the verses are made, and helps you enjoy them to the fullest.

Why this handbook? If you are curious about why this handbook was written, take a look at the official Arabic metrical system described in Part One of Urdu Prosody and Rhetoric by G. D. Pybus. You can find other accounts as well in the Bibliography. 'User-friendly' is not the term that springs to mind.

1.1 == Words, syllables, and letters

The basic units of analysis in our system are words, syllables, and letters. Words are made of syllables, and syllables of letters. We don't intend to define "word" in any special or technical way. We mean by "word" what people generally mean in common usage: the smallest independently meaningful unit of language. Given a line of poetry, therefore, the student will have no trouble recognizing its division into words.

The middle layer in the hierarchy, the syllable, is the crucial one for metrical purposes. No line of poetry can be scanned until it has first been broken into a series of syllables. Each word in the line of poetry must be divided into metrical syllables according to the following three criteria.

1.2 == Syllables: two letters or one

The first criterion is that A SYLLABLE MUST CONSIST OF EITHER TWO LETTERS OR ONE. For metrical purposes, LETTERS include:

*All the characters of the Urdu alphabet from alif [alif] to ye [ye], except for the do-chashmii he [do-chashmii he] of aspiration and the nuun-e ;Gunnah [nuun-e ;Gunnah] of nasalization.

*The duplicate letter indicated by a tashdiid [tashdiid] on any letter.

*The madd [madd] which may appear over alif [alif].

*The hamzah [hamzah] sign, )) , when it appears within a word.

Letters do NOT include: the short vowels indicated by zer [zer], or zabar [zabar], or pesh [pesh]; the dotless medial ye [ye] inserted into a word as a "chair" for hamzah [hamzah]; the do-chashmii he [do-chashmii he] of aspiration, and the nuun-e ;Gunnah [nuun-e ;Gunnah] of nasalization.

THE TREATMENT OF do-chashmii h : The do-chashmii h [do-chashmii he] of aspiration, although it affects the pronunciation of the syllable in which it occurs, is metrically invisible. This rule applies to do-chashmii h in its proper modern usage, when it indicates an aspirated consonant. The rule applies whether or not it is actually written in the modern aspiration-marking way, that is, as in khaanaa [khaanaa] rather than as in kahnaa [kahnaa] . (Older texts often use a simple h , gol he [gol he] for both forms.) The consonants which the do-chashmii h of aspiration may normally follow are: b , p , t , ;T , j , ch , d , ;D , ;R , k , g [b, p, t, ;T, j, ch, d, ;D, ;R, k, g].

In a few cases it may follow n [nuun], as in nannhaa , or l [laam], as in duulhaa ; all such instances involve Indic words. Sometimes, however, the two-eyed shape of do-chashmii he may be found outside the environment of its proper usage, being written (decoratively) in place of the independent letter gol he . In such cases it is to be treated as though it were gol he .

THE TREATMENT OF ;N : The nuun-e ;Gunnah [nuun-e ;Gunnah] of nasalization, although it affects the pronunciation of the syllable in which it occurs, is also metrically invisible. It is often difficult for the student to distinguish medial ;N the nasalizer from ordinary medial n , since they are written in the same way. We can offer one helpful rule of thumb: in general, ;N the nasalizer can occur only after long vowels. The only exceptions to this rule are a group of mostly Indic words in which ;N occurs in the first syllable. Except for a few rare cases--e.g., andheraa --these words begin with consonants: sa;Nbhalnaa [sa;Nbhalnaa], sa;Nvaarnaa [sa;Nvaarnaa], mu;Nh [mu;Nh], ha;Nsnaa [ha;Nsnaa], pha;Nsnaa [pha;Nsnaa], ba;Ndhnaa [ba;Ndhnaa], etc. Almost all are verbs. Persian nouns, by contrast, more often have the full n : rang [rang], band [band], rind [rind]. (The verb ra;Ngnaa [ra;Ngnaa], however, has only a ;N .) Despite this handful of exceptions, our rule that ;N occurs only after long vowels is generally reliable.

1.3 == Syllables: start with consonants if possible

The second criterion is that A SYLLABLE MUST BEGIN WITH A CONSONANT WHEREVER POSSIBLE. Since it's usually possible, most syllables have one of the following forms:

*consonant + consonant, as in kab [kab]

*consonant + vowel, as in kaa [kaa]

*consonant alone, as in the k of kabhii [ka-bhii]

At the beginning of a word, it is not always possible for a syllable to begin with a consonant. Thus the following forms also occur:

*a + vowel, as in the au of aur [au-r]

*a + consonant, as in ab [ab]

*a alone, as in the a of abhii [a-bhii]

*aa alone, as in the aa of aadmii [aa-d-mii]

It should be remembered that such syllables normally occur ONLY at the beginning of a word. (The few exceptions to this pattern involve alif madd [alif madd]; most prominent among them is the word qur aan [qur-aa-n].

VOWELS: For metrical purposes, all the letters of the alphabet may be considered to be consonants except:

* a , that is, alif , wherever it occurs

* aa , that is, alif madd , wherever it occurs

* o , ii , e -- that is, vaa))o and cho;Tii ye and ba;Rii ye --when they occur as the SECOND letter in a syllable It should be remembered that orthodox Urdu prosody, based on Arabic prosody, recognizes only consonants, and considers all the letters of the alphabet to be consonants. Our use of the terms "consonant" and "vowel" is a practical tactic for mobilizing the linguistic intuitions of English speakers. (Compare the pronunciation of 'one' versus 'no', and 'by' versus 'yes'.)

THE LETTER ((ain -- that is, (( --is usually pronounced as a vowel in modern Urdu; sometimes it is not pronounced at all (as in shuruu(( [shuruu((]. Nevertheless, for scansion purposes it behaves exactly like a consonant.

THE LETTER hamzah : Similarly, the letter )) [hamzah] within a word, though of course it is pronounced as a glide, is to be treated for scansion purposes as a consonant. Thus however problematical its status in Urdu orthography and pronunciation, within our system it is clearly defined as a letter and a consonant. It shares with all other consonants the ability to begin a two-letter syllable, or to constitute a one-letter syllable, within a word. (Vowels as a rule have this ability only at the beginning of a word.) However, hamzah has one property all its own: it can never appear as the second letter of a two-letter syllable.

By defining )) [hamzah] within a word as a full letter, we mean to exclude the )) placed after a word-final alif in certain Arabic words. This kind of Arabic )) is very rare and is almost never scanned at all even if it does appear; see Section 4.4 for further discussion.

THE LETTER madd : The madd [madd] diacritic appears only over alif [alif]. The two together, as aa , called alif madd [alif madd], always form one syllable. The appearance of madd thus always signals the beginning of a new syllable. The syllable consisting of aa is the only all-vowel syllable which may appear medially, within a word. But this is rare; almost always it occurs at the beginning of a word.

1.4 == Syllables: follow pronunciation

The third criterion is that the division into syllables must follow normal standard (prose) PRONUNCIATION as closely as possible. Much of the time the syllable division will be obvious, even in the case of unknown words.

In some cases, however, it will be necessary to ascertain the exact pronunciation. Unfortunately, many Urdu dictionaries don't give sufficiently detailed information on pronunciation to be helpful in scanning. For most words, it's sufficient to ask an educated native speaker and listen carefully to his or her pronunciation. Or you might want to consult the very helpful book .si;h;hat-e alfaa:z , which provides an extensive list of frequently mispronounced words (pp. 9-42), together with their metrically correct breakdown into syllables. Or you could look in your trusty Platts dictionary, or else consult the online Platts version.

THREE-LETTER THREE-CONSONANT WORDS: Especially hard to pronounce and scan accurately are three-letter words composed of three consonants. Most such words are Arabic in origin. The great majority of these are divided into first a two-letter syllable, then a one-letter syllable, as in qism [qis-m], mulk [mul-k], vaqt [vaq-t], farq [far-q]. This tendency is particularly marked in those words which end in ;h or (( , such as shar;h [shar-;h], sa:t;h [sa:t-;h], jam((a [jam-((a], qa:t((a [qa:t-((a]. This division, inherited from Arabic, persists in poetry, even though in many cases colloquial pronunciation has changed. There are only a few exceptions: :tama(( [:ta-ma((], qada;h [qa-da;h], and the convenient :tar;h which can be broken into either [:tar-;h] or [:ta-ra;h] at the poet's pleasure.

Note that words that contain any of the letters ;s , ;h , ;z , .s , .z , :t , :z , (( , ;G [;s , ;h , ;z , .s , .z , :t , :z , (( , ;G ] are almost certainly Arabic in origin. Words that contain p , ch , zh , g [p , ch , zh , g], or aspirated or retroflex consonants, are definitely not.

A minority of three-letter three-consonant words, including both Arabic and non-Arabic ones, are divided into first a one-letter syllable, then a two-letter one, as in varaq [va-raq], qasam [qa-sam], magar [ma-gar], ;Gazal [;Ga-zal], nikal [ni-kal].

Words of this minority group normally change their syllable division when normal grammatical transformations change their pronunciation. For example: nikalnaa [ni-kal-naa] gives rise to nikal [ni-kal], but also to niklaa [nik-laa] and niklo [nik-lo]; na:zar [na-:zar] gives rise to na:zre;N [na:z-re;N] and na:zro;N [na:z-ro;N]. One common exception to this pattern of change: ;Gala:t [;Ga-la:t] goes to ;Gala:tii [;Ga-la-:tii].

Such words as these do not, however, usually change their syllable division when endings from Arabic and Persian grammar are applied: na:zar [na-:zar] goes to na:zariyah [na-:za-ri-yah], :tarab [:ta-rab] goes to :tarabiyah [:ta-ra-bi-yah]. But there are occasional exceptions to this tendency too: qasam [qa-sam] goes to qasmiyah [qas-mi-yah].

1.5 Long and short syllables

In general, any syllable consisting of two letters is LONG, and any syllable consisting of one letter is SHORT. The difference in pronunciation is basically quantitative: a long syllable ideally takes twice as long to say as a short one. In this book a long syllable will be shown as (=) and a short syllable will be shown as (-). A syllable that may be used as long or short, at the poet's pleasure, will be called a FLEXIBLE syllable. It will be shown as (x). A flexible syllable may be treated as long in some instances, and as short in others. But in each individual instance, its value is as fixed as that of any other syllable.