Hazziriin-i-maHfil, aadaab 'arz hai
This topic has been waiting for it to be put to rest; for some form of
resolution or conclusion. The ultimate solution would have been to
cite some treatise by a well known non-Indian Persian poet, who also
happened to be a master 'uruuzii". Alas, it seems that the likes of
"Nizami 'Uruuzii" for example, did not leave such an essay on the
subject of the existence of the "nuun-i-Ghunnah" concept, not only
when reckoning in prosody but also the pronunciation of a long
nasalised vowel in the form of -aaN/iiN and -uuN. I have tried my best
to search for such evidence but perhaps there is n't any.
In the absence of clear irrefutable evidence, I thought I might
present my lay person's perspective from both aspects, i.e from
Iranian/Afghan side and from the Indian side.
It seems rather bizarre that the people who use Farsi in their daily
lives as a living language (in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan) have
had the "memory", if ever there was one, of this nasal nuun totally
and utterly erased from their consciousness!
All the people that I have personally come across hailing from these
countries are totally oblivious of nuun-i-Ghunnah. Indeed, when they
look at a book published in India or Pakistan containing Farsi poetry,
they are dumbfounded when they see a dot-less nuun. When an
explanation is offered, they are not convinced at all. Therefore, I
wonder, if there is another explanation to resolve this issue, in
addition to the fact that when these people recite poetry, they tend
to shorten the long vowel preceeding the n. But, I wish life was as
simple as this. I asked an Afghan friend of mine to recite the
couplets mentioned in this thread.
baa uu dilam ba-mihr-o-mu'addat yagaanah buud
siimurGh-i-'ishq raa dil-i-man aashiyaanah buud
dar lauH Khvaandah am kih yake la'natii shavad
buudam gumaan ba-har kas-o-bar Khud gumaan nabuud
I expected that he would pronounce gumaaN as guman, but he did n't! He
is fully aware of "vazn" criteria in poetry. He read the gumaaN as
gumaan but, to my ears, he just "caressed" the nuun. I had a lengthy
chat with him about nuun-i-Ghunnah but he, expectedly, informed me
that he had never heard about nuun-i-Ghunnah in Persian poetry. In
Qur'aan tajviid yes but not in poetry! After some deliberation, he
came up with the concept of "idGhaam", which is something similar to
"tashdiid" but not quite. The nuun is touched upon so delicately as if
one has n't even pronounced it and then one moves onto the next
consonant. I think Jamil Sahib mentioned a certain Humayun Shirzadeh's
recitation of Iqbal's poetry. I believe he is using both vowel
shortening and idGhaam, hence appearing as if he was using a nuun-i-
Ghunnah in places.
http://youtu.be/3eHBm9H0pJY
زمستان را سرآمد روزگاران
نواہا زندہ شد در شاخساران
گلان را رنگ و نم بخشد ہواہا
کہ می آید ز طرف جویباران
چراغ لالہ اندر دشت و صحرا
شود روشن تر از باد بہاران
دلم افسردہ تر در صحبت گل
گریزد این غزال از مرغزاران
دمی آسودہ با درد و غم خویش
دمی نالان چو جوی کوہساران
ز بیم اینکہ ذوقش کم نگردد
نگویم حال دل با رازداران
I agree with Jamil Sahib that his recitation of the -aan sound is
rather "indistinct" (By the way Jami Sahib, Humayun Shirzadeh's mother
tongue is neither Farsi nor Urdu. He grew up in the area of Edgware
Road, London where there is a high density of Persian {and Arabic}
speakers. From a private communication I know that he is a doctor by
profession but he did not divulge his ethnicity.) A clearer example of
this so called idGhaam and the shortening of the vowel is provided in
the following "recitation". The singer is a young Iranian man called
Pouria Akhavas. It might be unfair and inaccurate to compare
recitation with singing. In any case, below is a link to a Rodaki
poem, beautifully sung by Akhvaas where I can discern what appears to
me to be "idGhaam" and vowel shortening. In my view, this vowel
shortening is longer than a zabar but shorter than a mad. By the way,
my friend could be wrong about idGhaam, so far as Persian poetry is
concerned. Certainly, it is a concept in tajviid which comes under the
overall umbrella of "Ghunnah", i.e nasalization.
http://youtu.be/P7UJkYV3PUY
(ai aankih Ghamginii-o-sazaavaarii—Rodaki)
Please note the shortening of Ghamgiin to Ghamgin. I wonder if this
has any connection with the subject in hand?
Now let me turn to our side of the planet.
Farsi did not originate in India albeit it has been there for over a
millenium. Most, if not all the rules and regulations would have come
with its speakers. For this reason it is difficult to suggest that
nuun-i-Ghunnah was "injected" into it from the "nuun-i-Ghunnah
saturated"
surroundings. We have in our possession Iqbal's hand written Farsi
kalaam which shows that nuun-i-Ghunnah was certainly part and parcel
of at least Indo-Persian.
It is a fact that before the innovation of the dotless nuun to
represent nuun-i-Ghunnah as in "maaN" (mother), nuun with a dot was
being employed for both purposes. In Urdu there was no dearth of words
with nasalised vowels and so, at some stage which is quite recent, the
dotless nuun was brought into Urdu to distinguish between say "maan"
as in maan lo and maaN. (An analagous situation is for chhoTii ye and
baRii ye). Zafar Sahib, in an earlier thread has said the following.
"I think dropping the "nuqta" from noon e Ghunna is an invention of
the Subcontinental writers and the practice is not very old either.
I've seen books written in the late 19th century where the nuqta is
used for all kinds of noons". Hitherto both Farsi and Urdu had only
one nuun and that was with a dot. The readers of both languages would
need to employ nasalisation with their inherent knowledge of prosody
for the former and accuracy for the latter. One could say that as
India already had nasalization of vowels, it was easy to "preserve"
the nasalization in Persian poetry whereas the Farsi speaking
"natives" who in thier normal speech did not have nasalization, simply
lost it from their poetry too. Then, a new way of reciting poetry
evolved which would take care of the metrical requirements. This is
what Afzal Sahib has suggested in an earlier thread.
"I have a theory which may be completely wrong. The absence of a
written noon-e-GHunna may only be a script aberration. In other words,
the sound did exist, but it was not made clear (in writing) by
omitting the dot ('nuqta').
Possibly, we may have no evidence of how verses involving this sound
were actually pronounced. Is it not possible that people in Iran/
Afghanistan were also in a position to distinguish between the two
sounds (i.e with or without the 'elaan)? The dot might have been
written in all cases, but could have been omitted in apropriate cases,
while reciting the verses?
Allow me to resubmit the "evidence" for the existence of nuun-i-
Ghunnah in Classical Persian poetry.
"Syllable-final n preceded by a long vowel is generally not reckoned
in scansion. Formerly this must have resulted in nasalization of the
vowel; but it is not done in reciting Persian poetry in Iran today,
although the practice is general in the Indian subcontinent." (A
Millenium of Classical Persian Poetry" by Wheeler. M. Thackston.)
Professor Finn Thiesen from his " A Manual of Classical Persian
Prosody" 1982 Otto Harrassowitz Wiesbaden p 41) tabulates his reasons
for the presence of nuun-i-ghunnah in Classical Persian as follows:
a) The fact that the prosodists do not reckon the "nuun". Had "nuun"
been shortened--as in present day recitation-- we should have expected
the
prosodists to reckon the "nuun" and instead not to reckon the
preceding alif, vaa'o, ye.
b) Indo-Persian pronunciation which preserves the nasalised vowels.
c) Most important of all, the numerous Persian loan words in Urdu and
Hindi which have nasalised vowels. Thus "maaNdaa" tired from Persian
"maandah". It is important to notice that there is nothing in the
phonetic
system of Hindi to prevent a form like "maandaa". "He acknowledges"
is
always "maantaa hai", never "maaNtaa hai; thorn is always "kaaNTaa"
never "kaanTaa". Hence, when the Indians pronounce "maaNdaa", not
"maandaa", the reason for this must be sought in Persian itself.
Thiesen goes onto say (page 50)
"Persian does not admit of triple consonant clusters, and even if the
poetry of Moulavi is known to be "sangiin" (heavy), it is not probable
that he should have produced verses with such clusters. Examples of
the above type are therefore very strong evidence for nuun being
realised as suprasegmental nasalisation in the position between long
vowel and consonant, since with that pronunciation the question of
triple consonant clusters no longer arises. The Classical Persian
pronunciation of "pinhaanst" must therefore have been "pinhaaNst".
What are the views of ALUP jury? Are you in a position to come to a
judgement?
Naseer