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Punjabi Language


JRoudh
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The name of our Sahibzada Zoravar Singh jee has been mispronounced by God knows how many people and they don't even know it. Instead of saying ਜ਼ੋਰਾਵਰ(Zoraavar) they all say ਜੋਰਾਵਾਰ(Joravaar)

This was from the early days of Sikhism where names (and names for things) from Iran were extremely popular. As its a common Iranian first name, and nations that are satellites of Iranian culture such as Armenia, the Persian pronounciation of it was never going to be exact for the Punjabi tongue in which the letter 'z' does not exist in everyday colloqial speech. Thus, in Punjabi, this persian name was always pronounced with a J.

Names get sliced up also either that or the poor kid gets saddled with a nonsense 'modern' name like Oceanpreet Singh (aha ji kya baat hai) Sonali Kiran Kaur (a cousin) of course she's doomed to think more like a hindu.

When you say 'nonsense modern' naming you mean in the same way that Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale was named after a French army rank ?

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This was from the early days of Sikhism where names (and names for things) from Iran were extremely popular. As its a common Iranian first name, and nations that are satellites of Iranian culture such as Armenia, the Persian pronounciation of it was never going to be exact for the Punjabi tongue in which the letter 'z' does not exist in everyday colloqial speech. Thus, in Punjabi, this persian name was always pronounced with a J.

When you say 'nonsense modern' naming you mean in the same way that Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale was named after a French army rank ?

Nah i meant what I said

if we following traditional way of reading names it is SIngh or Kaur belonging to / having the Attribute of /or who is (FIRST NAME)

you can still use Jarnail and Major but 'Singh of the love of the ocean/ who loves the Ocean ' isn't exactly inspiring any aspect of sikhi or an aspect of the personality that can help with becoming a better human .

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Nah i meant what I said

if we following traditional way of reading names it is SIngh or Kaur belonging to / having the Attribute of /or who is (FIRST NAME)

you can still use Jarnail and Major but 'Singh of the love of the ocean/ who loves the Ocean ' isn't exactly inspiring any aspect of sikhi or an aspect of the personality that can help with becoming a better human .

I would disagree. My assertion is that if you look at our history the message is that we shouldn't place too much empasis on mere 'names' as it just becomes another ritual. Just look at our entire history as sikhs. The earliest Sikhs favoured Iranian names.....The next lot of Sikhs favoured French army names....Then Indian names were in vogue....and now many English names.

In the bigger scheme of things its not a big deal. Our Sikh forefathers wern't too bothered about it so why are we ?

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I would disagree. My assertion is that if you look at our history the message is that we shouldn't place too much empasis on mere 'names' as it just becomes another ritual. Just look at our entire history as sikhs. The earliest Sikhs favoured Iranian names.....The next lot of Sikhs favoured French army names....Then Indian names were in vogue....and now many English names.

In the bigger scheme of things its not a big deal. Our Sikh forefathers wern't too bothered about it so why are we ?

If mahapurakhs said that the name is to be considered carefully as this sets the tone of the life , then who am I to argue ?

I mean calling a girl Maya Kaur what would be the asar of such a name ? being called by that name , identifying yourself with that name on a subconcious level as opposed to being called Gurmukh Kaur ?

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This was from the early days of Sikhism where names (and names for things) from Iran were extremely popular. As its a common Iranian first name, and nations that are satellites of Iranian culture such as Armenia, the Persian pronounciation of it was never going to be exact for the Punjabi tongue in which the letter 'z' does not exist in everyday colloqial speech. Thus, in Punjabi, this persian name was always pronounced with a J.

It's not just the j and z sound in the name. Most Punjabi people also unnecessarily add kanna after the vava. So instead of it saying ਜ਼ੋਰਾਵਰ(Zoraavar) they all say ਜੋਰਾਵਾਰ(Joravaar)

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It's a big deal because our forefathers were much more committed to Sikhi as compared to us. All children had Singh and Kaur as their last names and tail names and tribal last names were very rarely used and looked down on.

I agree that persian influence was there my great great grand father was called Wazir Singh

My Barzurg and Mum and Dad always were very vocal about staying with Gursikh names and that lesson stayed with me

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i might be abit off but do you guys think tht there could be a possibility of a new punjabi dialect being made based on the punjabi diaspora after a few generations like a dialect with lots of english influence kind of like "spanglish" in america where its pretty much a mix of english and spanish? Or is that a bit to fat fetched

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i might be abit off but do you guys think tht there could be a possibility of a new punjabi dialect being made based on the punjabi diaspora after a few generations like a dialect with lots of english influence kind of like "spanglish" in america where its pretty much a mix of english and spanish? Or is that a bit to fat fetched

Its very real. Not so much in terms of Punjabi though but certainly when it comes to English. You can tell that from this current generation of Sikhs born in Canada and UK cities. If those Sikhs live in white areas than its not so noticeable but if they live in London, Brampton, Birmingham or Vancouver than they almost definately talk in a poorer standard of English than their parents did (if they were also born there). I'm not talking about slang here, I'm talking about not being able to pronounce words correctly, instead pronouncing them with an 'Indian' accent.

When it comes to Punjabi however, I see us overseas Sikhs as the guardians and safeguarders of the language. It is we who are keeping the dialects and unusual words going. For example, whenever I go back to Punjab, I say certain words and everyday says "wow....we haven't heard that word since our grandfather used to say it".

You see, this is not unusual, as the world witnessed the same thing with the English language once America and Canada started to be colonised. The Americans took with them from England English as it used to be spoken in Shakespeare's time. We here in England, like they are doing in Punjab, started to change the language and incorporate new words from foreign languages but the Americans stayed true to the language as it was and safeguarded it (btw I'm not referring to Noah Webster's silly spellings of things). For example we here in England used to call trousers 'pants'....we used to call autumn 'fall'...we used to say words like 'gotten'....even the word 'zee' was at one point used by parts of England as the last letter of the alphabet. In the same way, we the Punjabi diaspora, are safeguarding Punjabi, it's words and it's correct pronounciation.

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