Hindi: expressions with izafat

Pokeflute

Pokeflute

Senior Member
English - American
To my understanding izafat (izaafat?) is a productive process in Urdu (and shows up in Bollywood songs like Dard-e-Disco). It's not as much a thing in Hindi to my experience, but there are a few set phrases here and there I'll encounter (even in literature) that seem like they come from it.

For example:
  • sazaa-e-maut (death penalty)
  • saar-e-aam (openly, in front of everyone)
Before I knew about izafat, I just treated these as vocab words (like "coup d'etat" or "coup de grace", where "de" is productive in French but these are set phrases in English).

Are there any other commonly-used set phrases used in Hindi that come from izafat?
 
    • I believe @Pokeflute jii is asking about izafat that have become truly operational in everyday life.

    A different category will would be those izafe from, say, well know poems or songs (jaan-e-man), or from anyone minimally interested in Islam or Mughal history (Gazva(h)'e-hind), etc. I don't know if a Hindi speaker would use this second group colloquially.
    In any case, I am also interested in knowing if there are other examples of izafe whose usage would sound natural (not baroque or erudite) in everyday Hindi.
     
    Pokeflute said:
    ... and shows up in Bollywood songs like Dard-e-Disco). It's not as much a thing in Hindi to my experience ...
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    Questionable premise: what's left behind after amputating out Bollywood is not likely, in my experience, to accord well with the conception that "Hindi" speakers have of the language they speak. But this train of thought leads us into tedious waters, so I stop there.

    Pokeflute said:
    Are there any other commonly-used set phrases used in Hindi that come from izafat?
    Click to expand...
    MonsieurGonzalito said:
    In any case, I am also interested in knowing if there are other examples of izafe whose usage would sound natural (not baroque or erudite) in everyday Hindi.
    Click to expand...
    Izaafats that I recall from the day-to-day language use of people who would identify as Hindi speakers include: sar-e-3aam, Suurat-e-Haal, tah-e-dil, jaan-e-man, jaan-e-jaaN, and a number of the form qaabil-e-X --- including collocations like qaabil-e-ta3riif and qaabil-e-E3taraaz, but also some jokey wordplay once involving qaabil-e-ghanTaa (in context, "worthy of jack squat"), so izaafats of the form qaabil-e-X, at least, may have mild productivity in the active vocabulary of some Hindi speakers.
     
    Ah I forgot "jaan-e-jaan"! (Though child Pokeflute interpreted as it "jaan! hey jaan!" like English "Captain, o captain!" 😅)

    The others are new to me, thank you
     
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    Another commonly used and understood expression in Hindi with izaafat is ustaad-e mauhtaram. The word "mauhtaram" is getting slightly outdated now in Hindi but is still well understood.

    Note that you did mention constructed expressions like "dard-e Disco" in Bollywood but forgot the far more normal "dard-e dil" (a very popular song, again from Bollywood). There is also "dard-e mauhabbat."

    There are some Ayurvedic/herbal massage oils, too, marketed with names like "dard-e sukoon" and "dard-e nijaat." These are all words commonly used and understood by Hindi speakers, so of course one gets the gist of these names, though they sound weird, as it is not the "dard" of "sukoon" or "nijaat" ... I would find it more logical if they had been named "sukoon-e dard" and "nijaat-e dard" ... the oil that is the nijaat (deliverance) or sukoon (relief) of (from) dard (pain).
     
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