Prosodic Analysis: It's Symbolic Method, Recommendations and Principles for Urdu

Abstract

The present work summarizes some very practicable rules of verse segmentation which have been employed by Urdu poets to balance the musical and fluency aspects of one verse with other ones within a poem. An attempt has been made to construct symbols for different parts of a words or speech having varying sounds impacts. The mathematical / symbolic way may be fruitful for some incipient poets. In this new symbolic phonetic system the words or their parts thereof have been described by only two symbols. One is used to indicate a moving alphabet, whereas another to highlight "sabab"; which comprises of one moving alphabet followed by a silent alphabet.  While summarizing instructive rules for urdu poetry, some tips which I learned from my teacher the late Sheikh Muhammad Akhtar Hussain, who was a student of Hazrat Ihsaan Danish are being published for the first time. 

Keywords

• urdu poetry, meter, prosody, symbolic way of prosody principles of urdu poetry