Advanced English Essay

HOW URDU ENCOUNTERED ENGLISH

Urdu encountered English when the British came to India. The relationship between the sub-continent and the British started in the beginning of seventeenth century when East India Company was established in the sub-continent with its much broader vision and long term goals to rule the sub-continent so they had the entire India in view.

When the British came to India, both English and Urdu were influenced by each other. In the later years, Muslim empire became very weak. The Mughal Empire collapsed owing to its own inefficiency, internal strife, uprising of the anti-Muslim forces and the criminal negligence to develop the naval forces and strengthening of rule in the coastal areas. On the other hand, the East India Company had full backing of their government and people in all respects. The British government constantly gave their financial support; sent competent rulers and advisors to achieve their goal of bringing the sub-continent under their rule. Hence in 1858 A.D., the British government made India its colony. As far as the contact of English and Urdu is concerned, it can be traced in three stages:

1.At first, the British tourists started coming to the sub-continent, both languages started influencing each other in a very

The reasoning — if it can be called as such at all — behind the so-called theory is that Urdu is a mixture of words taken from different languages such as Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Hindi. The soldiers who spoke these languages were recruited to the Mughal army and to communicate among themselves they used this new language, and thus Urdu was born. People holding this view cite the fact that ‘Urdu’ is a Turkish word and it literally means ‘lashkar’ or ‘army’ or ‘army camp’. Interestingly, there is hardly any language in the world that has not absorbed words from other