Hindi, Urdu: milna

[amiramir]

Hi all,

What is the difference between:

Main usse mila hun

and

Mujhe usse mila hai.

Would both mean "I have met him"? Does one imply that it was a per chance meeting while the other implies meeting for the first time?

Can both of the above Hindi sentences be used with "pehli baar?" i.e. Main usse pehli baar mila hun & Mujhe usse pehli baar mila hai ?

Thank you.

 

[marrish]

Actually the first sentence means 'I have met him/her' but the second one doesn't. The second one means 'I have got from him/her', without saying what has been got. An equivalent to the first one can be formed like this: wuh mujh se milaa hai or wuh mujhe milaa hai.

 

[amiramir]

Actually the first sentence means 'I have met him/her' but the second one doesn't. The second one means 'I have got from him/her', without saying what has been got. An equivalent to the first one can be formed like this: wuh mujh se milaa hai or wuh mujhe milaa hai.

Thank you for your answer. I am consuded, because I often come across constructions as in the second one above, that I think mean 'to meet,' but maybe I am mistaken.

There is a Hindi song called Ek khubsurat ladki mujhe raat ko mili thi -- which I would assume means that the person in question met the beautiful girl at night. Are you saying it should really be: "Main ek khubsurat ladki se raat ko mila tha" instead?

Thanks very much for the clarification.

 

[Qureshpor]

Hi all,

What is the difference between:

Main usse mila hun

and

Mujhe usse mila hai.

Would both mean "I have met him"? Does one imply that it was a per chance meeting while the other implies meeting for the first time?

Can both of the above Hindi sentences be used with "pehli baar?" i.e. Main usse pehli baar mila hun & Mujhe usse pehli baar mila hai ?

Thank you.

This is how I understand these sentences.

1) I met him/I have met him (I would write "us se") or I met up with him/I have met up with him.

2) usse has met me... or

I have found usse

(I have to admit the name is a bit unusual)

If you say..

mujhe vuh milaa hai...then

He has met (up with) me

Yes, one can use "pahlii baar" with all three sentences.

 

[amiramir]

Oh I see, thank you.

So in the song title above, ek khubsurat ladki mujhe raat ko mili thi -- it means the beautiful girl met met, not I met the beautiful woman, correct?

Thanks again

 

[marrish]

Amiramir, this is the same in my perception. maiN us se milaa, vuh mujh se milii. Another is maiN us ko milaa vuh mujh ko milii which is the same as maiN use milaa vuh mujhe milii.

The first, I met someone, the second and third which is the same, I've found, I've got someone. laRkii NOT ladkii NOT laDkii is basicall a girl but a girl can be of any age, can't she?

 

[Stranger_]

A very useful thread to me, but I have some questions to Urdu zabaanaane aziiz:

maiN us se milaa

Why hasn't "ne" been used after "maiN"?

---

Also, could you give some examples on the usage of "milnaa" in the sense of "to get/to find"? I mean I want simple examples from real life, i.e. spoken language, not from poems or prose which are beyond me.

 

[marrish]

There is no "ne" because there are many verbs which don't require it in the past tense. Not really an answer but it may lead you to check it out for yourself.

aap ko jawaab mil gayaa hae? (as to your second point).

 

[Stranger_]

jii haaN, mujhe javaab mil gayaa hai magar maiN aur misaalen chahtaa huuN please.

 

[marrish]

mujhe naukarii mil ga'ii (I got a job). mujhe aap kaa xat milaa (I got your letter). us ko waqt par tanxwaah nahiiN milii (He didn't get his salary on time). aHmad ko kal kaa axbaar nahiiN mil rahaa (Ahmad can't find yesterday's newspaper). ishtihaar kaa jawaab mile nah mile mujhe ko'ii farq nahiiN paRe gaa kyoN kih mujhe gaaRii kaa xariidaar mil chukaa hae. (It won't make a difference whether I get an answer to the ad or not as I've already found a buyer of the car).

 

[Stranger_]

Thank you so much brother.

 

[marrish]

Most welcome, no problem.

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

Sorry for the late observation, but just in order to clarify my understanding of this:
I believe that "not taking ne" is not the best way to frame what happens with milnaa.

Sentences with milnaa seem to adopt an "oblique" sentence pattern, independently of the tense/aspect of the verb.

ahmad ko apnii beTii nahiiN mil rahii hai

So, what happens in the perfective with milnaa, is actually what happens with all such "oblique case" sentences, whether they use milnaa or not.

mujhe buxaar thaa
unheN aap_kaa xat milaa

The "logical subject" of the above sentences is in oblique case, not in ergative (maiN_ne, unhoN_ne), so they were never supposed to take ne anyway.


In other words, the oddity of milnaa is not so much "not taking ne", but "forming sentences with the oblique pattern".

 

[amiramir]

I think that's only partially true.

Because there is a primary meaning of milnaa, which is to meet, rather than to get. In the case of 'to meet'-- sentences aren't formed by an "oblique pattern." In such cases they are formed by an nominative-absolutive pattern aka "not taking ne."

For 'to get," then I agree with you.

 

[aevynn]

Perhaps this has already become clear to you in the intervening 9 years, as this is sort of related to what you've just said above, but... milnaa does carry meanings related to encounters of all sorts, but I think the semantics of the "X Y se milaa" construction differ somewhat from those of "X ko Y milaa" (or "Y X ko milaa"[^1]), in that the former implies some reciprocity between X and Y (and might thus closer to "X met Y" or "X and Y met") while the latter is more neutral on this front (and might thus be closer to "X got/found/encountered Y.") For example, it is only the latter construction that can be used when Y is inanimate (eg, "mujhe chaabii nahiiN mil rahii!"). When X and Y are both human beings, I guess these distinctions are somewhere between small and insignificant, but it's still perceivable to me and my very nitpicky point is just that...

So in the song title above, ek khubsurat ladki mujhe raat ko mili thi -- it means the beautiful girl met met, not I met the beautiful woman, correct?

I feel that the meaning of this line would be better conveyed through a translation like "I encountered a beautiful girl."

---
Footnote:
[^1]: I think the "X ko Y milaa" is probably a more neutral word-order than "Y X ko milaa." This is the word order that appears in all of the examples in posts #8, #10, and the first example of #13. That this is the neutral word-order is in keeping with the discussion about "forming sentences with the oblique pattern" above (which I think most UH linguists would probably call "dative subject constructions" or just "dative constructions").

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

So, if I wanted to say something like: "I only found (used to find) repose upon seeing you"
Would it be:
1. maiN tujhe dekh kar hii sukuun miltaa => myself activating the encountering
or
2. tujhe dekh kar hii mujhe sukuun miltaa => the repose activating the encountering ?

 

[littlepond]

I only found repose upon seeing you: mujhe tujhe (OR tujh ko) dekh kar hii sukuun milaa (one-time action)
I only used to find repose upon seeing you: mujhe tujhe (OR tujh ko) dekh kar hii sukuun miltaa (OR milaa kartaa thaa OR miltaa hotaa) (frequent occurrence in the past)

 

[amiramir]

For " used to" I would have said 'मुझे तुझे देख कर ही सुकून मिलता था.' Is that wrong?

 

[littlepond]

For " used to" I would have said 'मुझे तुझे देख कर ही सुकून मिलता था.' Is that wrong?

That is also an option. Good addition!

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

The song "Billo Raani" says this (a little re-arranged), when a man speaks to a woman:

chaahe sab duniyaa ghum liyaa, ham saa premii na(h) milii tum kabhii

So, (if the sentence is grammatical) what is the rationale for using milnaa in what seems to be a straight "direct object" fashion here (not using any ko or se complement, as opposed to the examples above)?

BTW, my interpretation of the above is: "Even (with) all the world traversed, you have not found a sweetheart like me".

 

[littlepond]

chaahe sab duniyaa ghum liyaa, ham saa premii na(h) milii tum kabhii

I was not familiar with the song but just now listened to it, and I would advise you to listen to it again; there is "ko" very much there! "naa milii hai tumkaa kahiiN" is what the guy is singing. "tumkaa" means "tum ko"--this is non-standard Hindi, as evidenced by the usage "milii" (rather than "milaa").

Note also that the guy is singing "kahiiN" even if the subtitle is putting it as "kabhii": trust always the primary source!

So the lines mean "That you have not understood this so far, that even if you were to traverse the entire world, you would not find a lover like me." I don't see the past tense that you have put in your translation.

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

OMG, you are right! Thanks

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

milnaa does carry meanings related to encounters of all sorts

I guess I lack the "mentality" of the language, because, reading this sentence from a newspaper:

nal lagvaa diye heN, jin_se taazaa paanii logoN ko miltaa hai

I understand that the water somehow "finds its way" to the people. But wouldn't it be more prosaic, less convoluted (for me, at least) to say "jin_se log taaze paanii ko milte haiN"?

 

[aevynn]

nal lagvaa diye heN, jin_se taazaa paanii logoN ko miltaa hai

"... through which people get fresh water."

This is the normal construction and fits squarely into the bolded pattern below with X = logoN and Y = taazA paanii.

... the semantics of the "X Y se milaa" construction differ somewhat from those of "X ko Y milaa" (or "Y X ko milaa"[^1]), in that the former implies some reciprocity between X and Y (and might thus closer to "X met Y" or "X and Y met") while the latter is more neutral on this front (and might thus be closer to "X got/found/encountered Y.")

It's also exactly the same pattern you yourself quoted here:

unheN aap_kaa xat milaa

"They got your letter."

If instead you do this:

But wouldn't it be more prosaic, less convoluted (for me, at least) to say "jin_se log taaze paanii ko milte haiN"?

It is decidedly awkward because it makes the "fresh water" sound like animate [something like, "through which fresh water gets/acquires/... people" (???)].