The Hindu : New Delhi News : Jamia doing its bit for Urdu

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jun 22, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Jamia doing its bit for Urdu

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, JUNE 21. From a language that moved India for decades to one that a few thousands can read or write today, Urdu, one of the official languages of the Capital can surely do with a few more followers in the city. While the performance of the Capital's Urdu schools shows little signs of improvement, the courses at the under-graduate and post-graduate level have seen little change over the years.

But making its own little contribution towards popularising the language here is the University of Jamia Millia Islamia which has for over three decades now been trying to reach out to Urdu lovers by offering them a short correspondence course that can be finished in as much time as they want, and costs just a little over Rs. 50.

Aimed at popularising the language among the young as well as old, the Jamia course in elementary Urdu is strictly for those with a love for the language and has now been incorporated into the new Centre for Distance and Open Learning, with admission to the course available through the year in both the English and Hindi medium. "There has been an increase in the interest for the language in recent years, specially after the launch of private radio channels, which is making people listen to more Urdu and want to learn the language too. The channels may have a lot of bad points too, but by and large they have helped people realise the sweetness of the language. And this is helping us,'' feels the Director of the Urdu Correspondence Course, Mohd. Miyan. It may be short, but is designed for students who have no knowledge of Urdu.

Beginning with the recognition of alphabets the course tries to teach the sound with the help of the English or Hindi medium explanations. It then moves on to the formation of simple words and from there to the formation of complex ones before shifting to teaching the formation of simple and then complex sentences.

According to the University, it takes about 40 classes for students before they can start reading paragraphs. "The idea is to encourage interest in reading Urdu among the students. Since writing the subject is slightly more complicated, we like to promote reading more among the students,'' says Prof. Mian. From a modest beginning of just about 150 students per session to about 500 students between the age group of 18 to 70, the University is hoping to help popularise the subject a little more in the coming years.

"As of now we are trying to come up with a profile of the kind of students interested in learning the language to help us broaden our base. What we do know, however, is that the course caters to people from different professions and regions of the country even now,'' adds Prof. Mian.

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