BY all accounts, Gregory Maxwell Bruce is a strange fellow: his teaching of Urdu language and literature at the University of California, Berkeley, may not sound so unique since we know of several non-native scholars who teach Urdu at universities in West and elsewhere. What makes, however, Dr Bruce stand out is his total immersion in Urdu language and literature. So much so, that to understand Shibli No’mani and his works, in addition to Shibli’s own works, Bruce methodically examined and read much of the curricula that Shibli would have studied. This level of commitment is rare even among the native scholars of Urdu.

And that’s not all: Bruce composes ghazal in Urdu and Persian and has also participated in mushairas. A PhD in Asian cultures and languages, Dr Bruce has profound interest in intellectual history, Islam, mysticism, literary aesthetics and Indo-Muslim culture in India. His works on classical Persian literature, mantiq (logic) in Arabic and Urdu’s dialects, such as ‘Brij Bhasha’, are testimony to his amazingly wide range of expertise and academic acumen. Known as an extraordinary teacher of Urdu, he is also the editor-in-chief of Journal of Urdu Studies, a peer-reviewed academic journal.

Equally amazing is his textbook of Urdu, titled Urdu Vocabulary, alternatively titled Ganjeena-i-Ma’ani, alluding to Ghalib’s famous couplet in which Ghalib claims to have concealed in each of his couplets a magic treasure of meanings. True to its name, the book is a treasure filled with invaluable information and insight on Urdu words and how languages like Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit have influenced and shaped Urdu’s vocabulary.

Published by Edinburgh University Press, the book is subtitled A Workbook for Intermediate and Advanced Students and is intended to give students the knowledge required to obtain “a large Urdu vocabulary quickly”. Interestingly, before introducing Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit roots of Urdu to the readers Dr Bruce in the first unit examines the English words borrowed by Urdu and draws our attention to the interconnectedness of the two languages. One finds it quite refreshing to read his view when he challenges any exclusivism and says “Urdu, like English, has been part of a long history of global exchange across a range of languages” and “Urdu, like English, cannot be reduced to any particular community (religious or otherwise), geographic region, linguistic tradition, or nation state”.

The second unit, titled The Arabic Element, teaches about 20 patterns on which word-building in Arabic is based. In unit three, Urdu’s Hindi elements are discussed. The fourth unit, while familiarising the students with Persian elements in Urdu, also has a basic introduction to Persian grammar. It introduces the student to the innumerable words, phrases and proverbs used in Urdu’s literary texts and common speech as many of the Persian words have become an integral part of Urdu and even Hindi. Similarly, the Sanskrit and Prakrit elements in Urdu and even Portuguese influence on Urdu vocabulary is also taken care of.

Before the volume under review, there have been a considerable number of works in English on teaching of Urdu as a second language. All of these pedagogical works cannot be mentioned here, but among more well-known of them is A Course in Urdu, compiled by Abdur Rahman Barker and his associates in three volumes. The first volume was published in 1967 and it has become a bit outdated now. Barker’s work emphasises conversation and the Urdu script.

Another notable work, penned by C. M. Naim in two volumes and published in 2000, takes into account phonology, script and grammar of Urdu. Naim’s work is quite well-written and is based on practical experience of long years of teaching Urdu in the US, but it cannot be used for self-instruction and needs a teacher, as mentioned by Naim himself. But Bruce’s book can be used as a help for self-study as well as in the Urdu classroom.

Secondly, contrary to previous works, Bruce stresses etymology and the roots as he says recent studies have found evidence that students of a language who lack etymological and morphological knowledge may face difficulties in understanding vocabulary. Bruce, hence, has designed the book and exercises so as to make student work vigorously on etymology and morphology.

Aside from 16 years of experience of teaching Urdu, it took about 10 years to design compile and edit the book that is based on recent research related to learning and language acquisition.

I would recommend this book to Pakistani students and teachers of Urdu, even if they speak, read and write Urdu as a first or second language, because it offers some basic vocabulary building techniques and etymologies that would increase their understanding of Urdu manifold. But there are a couple of typos that need to be fixed in the next edition.

drraufparekh@yahoo.com

Published in Dawn, December 18th, 2023