Baqrah - cow, goat

[Omeed]

Salam alaikum Mv.   In Urdu Baqrah means goat.  But in Arabic it apparently means cow Re. Surah 2, Al Baqrah.
Am I right.  Kindly confirm.

[N. Truth Seeker]

Walaykom as Salam.  Yes, in arabic "baqrah" means cow .. confirmed.   But I am not sure of its variation in Urdu, so I will have to defer it to one of my Mv colleagues, either Sisters Ruhi or Zainab.  They will InshAllah confirm the second part of your query.  Please wait a while.

[Omeed]

OK thanks, I'll wait.

[Ruhi_Rose]

Walaykum as Salam.   As the brother rightly mentioned, cow in Arabic is 'baqrah' (بقرة ). 

In Urdu cow is 'gae' (گاۓ ).
In Arabic goat is 'maaza' (معزة).
In Urdu goat is 'bakri' (بکری).

So, I think people who don't speak Arabic or those who don't speak Urdu get confused between 'baqrah' and 'bakri.' 

The clarification is, 'baqrah' means cow in Arabic while 'bakri means goat in Urdu.  Though slightly similar sounding, these are both different words if you look carefully.  In addition to the difference of 'rah' and 'ri' at the end, 'baqrah' in Arabic has the letter ق  (qaf) while  'bakri' in Urdu has the letter ك (kaf).

[Omeed]

Thanks a bundle.  I now get it.

Isn't male goat in Urdu also called 'bakrah"?

[Ruhi_Rose]

'bakrah' is basically a slang for male goat.  The standard term for all goats (both genders) is 'bakri' and the word 'bakri' is feminine in the Urdu vocabulary.   Just as the word "billee" is for all cats of both genders, but in slang Urdu one may sometimes refer to male cat as "billa."  However the standard term for all cats in Urdu is "billee" which to is feminine of Urdu grammar.

[Omeed]

Shukriya again.  Well defined. 

Next thing I wanna know is about the Arabic and Urdu alphabets.  Are they exactly the same?  A friend of mine once said there are more letters in Arabic but couldn't mention which ones.  I want to know the differences and similarities of letters of both languages. 

Apology for the trouble.

[Ruhi_Rose]

No problem .. sorry for the delay.

It's the opposite.  It is Urdu that has some additional alphabets not present in Arabic.  But mostly Arabic and Urdu alphabets are common.

Arabic has a total of 28 letters while Urdu has a total of 39, both shown as follows:








Those letters unique in Urdu not found in Arabic are the ones below:

پ (Pey) - Represents the sound p
چ (Chey) - Represents the sound as in "ch"
ژ (Zhe) - Represents the sound like the "s" in "measure"
گ (Gaf) - Represents the sound g
ٹ (Tay) - Represents  sound t
ڈ (Ddal) - Represents the deeper sound of d
ڑ (Ray) - Represents the deeper sound of r


here are no leters in Arabic that are unique in Urdu, not that I know of.  All Arabic alphabets are present in Urdu as well.   

The standard Urdu script is a modified version of the Perian-Arabic script and has its origins in the 13th century Iran. Urdu (as well as Persian) is mostly written in nastalīq script while Arabic is more commonly written in the naskh style.  These are simply the two distinct styles of writing the Arabic script. 

The Noble Quran is in the naskh style.

The basic standard similarily as we all know:   All three scripts Arabic, Urdu, Persian are written from right to left.


Hope this helps, InshAllah.

[armchair traveler]

Interesting.  That says there are 11 extra letters in Urdu compared to Arabic.   The unique Urdu letters you mentioned show only 7 additional ones.

[Ruhi_Rose]

Those remaining additional ones include the dialectical marks such as zair, zabr, hamza etc.  I may not recall all.  The image below shows the important ones always used.





However these consonants for sounds are also in Arabic, so I don't know why some people refer to them as unique to Urdu. 

[armchair traveler]

MashAllah very interesting demonstration.

[Omeed]

It is indeed very helpful.  Gratitude.