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I am used to viewing #translation as the rendition of a foreign text into one’s mother tongue. But then there is Hindi-Urdu translation. 1/6 https://twitter.com/ShirazHassan/status/1347925778185510912
Take the first paragraph from Bhisham Sahni’s short story Amritsar Aa Gaya Hai (retrieved from Google Books 
and @Rekhta 
). 2/6
https://www.rekhta.org/ebooks/hindi-kahaniyan-1-ebooks?lang=ur
and @Rekhta ). 2/6 https://www.rekhta.org/ebooks/hindi-kahaniyan-1-ebooks?lang=ur
The Urdu translation (ترجمہ) is by Khursheed and Taj Kayamkhani, so it may differ from the latest one by Inam Nadeem. Still, out of these 157 Hindi words, how many do you think will remain unchanged in Urdu? Take a guess and scroll down. 3/6
150 words were left untouched, ie Urdu is 96% identical to Hindi in this passage. Here is the exhaustive list of the words that did get changed.
laam
muhaaz-e jang
bhaag hissa
khilli mazaaq
dayeen or bain 
taraf
sambhav mumkin
spashtatah theek tarah
4/6
laam
muhaaz-e jangbhaag
hissakhilli
mazaaqdayeen or
bain tarafsambhav
mumkinspashtatah
theek tarah4/6
What’s the point? If you don’t know Hindi or Urdu, the point is that they’re very, very similar. If you know either of them, the point is that they’re distinct scripts, basically, not languages. And if you know both, well… you got my point already. 5/6
This, of course, is not a linguistic study. If it’s of any interest to you, you can see a similar comparison I did on a longer sample by Premchand. 
6/6 https://twitter.com/fxdurandy/status/1328048146656714752?s=20
6/6 https://twitter.com/fxdurandy/status/1328048146656714752?s=20
