Mir in Cyberspace
Version 1.0b (6/30/04)
(C) 2004 A. Sean Pue (Ph.D. Candidate, Columbia University)

Project Description

Mir in Cyberspace is designed as a teaching unit for intermediate and advanced Urdu students. Its focus is a ghazal by Mir Taqi 'Mir,' one of the greatest Urdu poets. In addition to an interactive version of the ghazal which has several features to help students at different reading levels, this project also has a separate glossary and information about the ghazal genre and the poet Mir Taqi Mir.

The text of the ghazal is shown when "Mir's Ghazal" is selected from the top menu. A number of Reading Assistants and a Vocabulary Assistant can be activated by the reader. The Reading Assistants are triggered when their selection boxes are checked and the reader moves her mouse over a word in the ghazal.

The first Reading Assistant, "Show Letters Separately," is for students still learning the Urdu script. It displays the letters of the word in their independent, "stand-alone" forms. (Urdu letters change their shape based upon which letters precede and follow them.)

The second Assistant, "Show Letters in Transliteration," displays the word in roman characters with diacritics based on how the word is written.

The third Reading Assistant, "Show Phonetically," displays the word in roman characters with diacritics based upon how it pronounced. (Keys to the transliteration and phonetic transcription are found later in this document.)

The final Reading Assistant, "Show in Devanagari," is for students learning Urdu after learning Hindi. It shows the word in devanagari, the script of modern standard Hindi.

The Vocabulary Assistant displays the definition and case of certain words in the ghazal. Words that have vocabulary information available change their color to blue when the mouse moves over them.

Mir in Cyberspace v1.0 was funded in part by a Less Commonly Taught Languages Material Development Mini-Grant provided by the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition at the University of Minnesota.

Suggested Uses for Classroom Teachers

This website will provide students at different levels with enough information and aids to read Mir's ghazal over the web on their own. It can therefore be used as the basis for a homework assignment leading to a classroom discussion. Beginning students will be able to practice fundamental reading skills, while intermediate and advanced classes will have enough familiarity with the material to discuss both the literary aspects of the piece and the process of reading and translating Urdu poetry. The students can also be assigned to memorize couplets from the ghazal and to recite them orally in class or to write them on an exam.

A printer-friendly version of all of the pages on this site is available by clicking here: Printable Version. Once the page loads, use your browser to Print the page (usually you can do this by typing CTRL+P).

Technical Information

All of the text in Mir in Cyberspace is in Unicode, the cross-platform and cross-browser standard for encoding all of the world's languages. In order for the text to display properly, however, you must have a font installed on your computer that properly displays the characters. You can change the font that is used on these pages by clicking on "Settings" above.

Transliteration System