We Pakistanis are People of the Mongol Horde
I just watched the movie ‘Mongol‘ which is based on the early life of Genghis Khan, or Temujjin. The movie was shot in the Mongolian language, so I was surprised to spot many words that sounded like their counterparts in Urdu. I always thought the word ‘Urdu’ was from Turkish, but after a bit of research, I found out that ‘Horde’ means ‘Military Camp’ in Mongolian too:
Urdu is a Mongolian and Turkish word meaning “military camp” and is the root of the English word “horde.” When the Central Asian tribal warriors came into northern India, Urdu is the creole that ended up being spoken in the camps so that Hindu traders could sell the Muslim grandees their goods).
Among the Urdu sounds that I recognized were “Aba” for “father” and “Utho” for wake up. I’m sure there are many more common roots, but sadly, most of the mongolian online dictionaries use their alphabet, which I can’t read.
Not a lot has changed since the 12th century – we have continued being a horde, there is something in our nomadic roots that disagrees with settling down mentally and calling a place home. Our military camps are always at the forefront, and like a military camp, we still don’t really care about trashing this piece of land with death and destruction. Like Mongols, we trade and kill our women like animals.
Here’s a podcast on Urdu for you:
So, do you like goat milk too?
Urdu means “Ord” or “Orda” meaning camp, palace in Mongolian. For example Altan Horde Ulus mean. State of Golden Palace or Country of Golden Palace Country in Mongolia. But unlike Pakistanis, we Mongols do not kill our women like animals as you say. Mongols love their women and treat them better than any other cultures. That is why during MOngolian empire there were times when women ruled the entire country.
We Mongols love goat, sheep milk, but we love horse milk best!
Thanks for your comment Mongol. My only knowledge of the Mongol culture is through movies and TV, and so my comparison was with the Mongols of 1000 years ago, the ones that supposedly traded women with horses.
I am sure the Mongolian culture has evolved a lot since the 11th century.
We are taught in schools that when Islam arrived, Mohammad abolished the old practices of killing girls in the Arabs, and women began having equal status to men – muslim women have also ruled in those days.
Somewhere though,things went wrong. Some of us were either left behind in the evolutionary process or have devolved back to the 11th century.
BTW, How do you guys get horse milk outside Mongolia, say, in the west?
Intreting. the indian ambsador in mongolia was a budhist monk who become quite popular among the certain section of buddhist there and was given the tilltle “algin baksha” meaning amsador teacher which seems similar to urdu work algi for ambassador and baksha sound like bakshi a muslim priest or teacher