Urdu website launched by Washington university

PATNA: Washington University on Wednesday launched a user-friendly Urdu website. Called Intermediate Urdu, it is the first website to fully utilize Nastalaq font as a web-based font so that the site natively displays Nastalaq, whether or not it is installed on the user’s computer.

Talking from Saint Louis, US, principal investigator M. J. Warsi said that this website is most useful for people with “a basic knowledge of Urdu or those who have taken two semester of language course in any university system.”

On the importance of the site, he said, “Intermediate Urdu comprises 16 interactive reading passages with corresponding audio and English summaries, dynamic online quizzes, and 13 video interviews of Urdu scholars. All content is directed towards students at the intermediate level and preparing them for advanced level proficiency.”

Among the content to read or listen is a speech of Maulana Azad, Bagh-o-bahaar, stories of Alif Laila and many others. This work has a great significance for development in the field of language pedagogy.

The website is developed with a grant from the South Asia Language Resource Center at theUniversity of Chicago. “We have plans to make ‘Advanced Urdu’ and then ‘Beginning Urdu’ websites to complete the sequence of Urdu learning,” said Warsi.

A gold medalist from Aligarh Muslim University and a West Bengal Urdu Academy award holder, Warsi is a native of Darbhanga district. Presently, Warsi teaches in the department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures at Washington University in St. Louis, the best institution in the world for linguistic matters. It took a year and half to complete the project, said Warsi.