Canceling Oct. 7 and Oct. 9 classes due to death in my family

Sent at: Tuesday, October 6, 2026 at 09:46:39 PM

Urdū-Hindī wālo, ādāb ‘arz,

I learned this evening that my cancer-stricken father-in-law passed away in his sleep in Karachi. Innā lillāhi wa innā ilaihi rāji‘ūn. As I support my partner through this bereavement and get her to the funeral for Friday, I will have to cancel classes until after the reading break. I’ve just notified Prof. Medani, the Director of the Institute of Islamic Studies.

I’ll see you on Monday, Oct. 19th, inshallah. I’ll still be available via email should you need anything, and you may see some emails and/or announcements from me.

Mukhlis,

Pasha

Election Day Today and Mashq 6 for Oct. 7

Sent at: Monday, October 5, 2026 at 10:38:19 AM

Urdū-Hindī wālo,

As today the provincial elections are being held, there are no classes throughout McGill. Please vote!

For Wednesday, we will take up Mashq 6, which does not involve any written component, by the way. Your questionnaire responses were due last week, so I’ll be spending today reading them!

Mukhlis,

Pasha

Mashq 5 for Oct. 2

Sent at: Wednesday, September 30, 2026 at 05:11:08 PM

Urdū-Hindī wālo,

Please complete Mashq 5 for Friday and be ready to pronounce your retroflex consonants!

Mukhlis,

Pasha

Mashqs 3 and 4 for Sept. 28

Sent at: Saturday, September 26, 2026 at 12:25:49 PM

Urdū-Hindī wālo,

For Monday, September 28th, please be ready to take up both Mashq 3 and Mashq 4.

Mukhlis,

Pasha

Questionnaire form due date extension

Sent at: Thursday, September 24, 2026 at 09:43:37 PM

Dear Students,

Please don’t forget to fill out the questionnaire. Responses were due on Monday, September 21st, but I’ll give you an extension until October 2nd, 11:59pm. After that, I’ll have to penalise late responses.

I’ve now read through all of the responses that have come in, and I appreciate your thoroughness. It’s very helpful for me as an instructor, and also very interesting. I’m going to try to reply to all of them this weekend, inshallah. I just looked up the Gulf Ajami language; I learned something new! Respect to the student who said they’re learning the language as the result of a crush on Zayn Malik. That can’t be easy to admit, but it’s a powerful motivating factor.

Shab bakhair,

Pasha

Absence Form Process

Sent at: Thursday, September 24, 2026 at 09:10:55 PM

Urdū-Hindī wālo,

I’ve just finished hooking up the absence form to my email, so that I can approve explained/authorised absences from my email application (which is aerc—I love it). I’ve just sent approvals for the explained absence requests I’ve gotten so far. See the course outline for details regarding absence requests, and note that the actual grade for an explained absence may vary; usually it is somewhere between 60% and 85%. Ocassionally I’ll evaluate an explained absence as equivalent to an authorised absence and just drop that day’s participation grade from the reckoning. I’ve also finished writing a couple of Python scripts that calculate your participation grade totals. I’ll write more about that later.

So, if you’ve been absent, please don’t forget to fill out the absence form, especially since the submissions now show up in my email inbox directly.

Mukhlis,

Pasha

No Mashq for Friday, Sept. 25

Sent at: Wednesday, September 23, 2026 at 01:20:18 PM

Vidyārthiyo/tālib-i ‘ilmo,

There will be no mashq due this Friday. Be ready to learn more of the script!

Mukhlis,

Pasha

Mashq 2 for Sep. 23, Amendment and Clarification of When Mashqs Are Due

Sent at: Tuesday, September 22, 2026 at 07:48:22 PM

Urdū-Hindī-wālo,

I’ll see you tomorrow, when we’ll be taking up Mashq 2. Please email Mashq 1 to me before then, as a PDF attachment, to pashamkhan+mashq@gmail.com, and from your McGill address (or whatever address I have on file for you). Don’t bother putting your name in the subject line, and don’t write “Mashq #1” or anything like that. “Mashq 1” or “mashq 1” will work, but if PMK-bot sees anything not matching that pattern he may throw an error. My intake script is a bit finicky. It isn’t AI, just plain old shell scripting.

I did fix the issue in which it was sending emails complaining about submissions without PDF attachments even after you’d sent the PDF version correctly. I thought I might program image file to PDF conversion into it today, but on second thought, I don’t know how the script would determine the order of the pages. I’m not a software engineer, just a literature scholar with some hacking skills. Still, the script is solid enough now that I’ve set a cron job to make it run every 5 minutes to check for your submissions.

Looking at the course outline today so that I could justly penalise late submissions (khkhkhkhhhhh!) I realised that the paragraph about late penalties didn’t make much sense. It was a relic from the days when I would have students hand in paper mashqs in class. So I’ve amended the course outline:

Late mashqs will be penalized according to the following scheme: 10% will be subtracted if the mashq is not emailed to me before the class after the one in which it is taken up. A further 15% will be subtracted at the end of each further week in which it is not handed in. Mashqs corrected by the instructor are normally given back to students the Monday after the week they are handed in. Late mashqs will be graded but not corrected.

In other words, say that we take up a mashq (go through it in class) on a Monday. You then do your corrections in class and afterward, and email the completed mashq to me before 10:30am on the Wednesday. If we take it up on a Wednesday, send it to me before 10:30am on Friday. If we take it up on Friday, send it to me before 10:30am on Monday. I hope that’s clearer.

Mukhlis,

Pasha

Mashq 1 for Sept. 21

Sent at: Saturday, September 19, 2026 at 11:11:58 AM

Urdū-Hindī wālo,

On Monday, we will take up our first mashq, which you will find on the home page of the website. The audio files have strange filenames: for Urdu, BegUrdu_SSL8Ex2, and for Hindi, BegHindi_SSL8E4. Urdu-learners, in question C, you’re just copying the connected words, with or without diacritics (zabar, zer, pesh).

Note carefully the instructions regarding the mashqs in the course outline. In particular, note that mashqs are not due until after the class in which we take them up. Also note the instructions for submitting them from the email address I have on record for you, to my special email address pashamkhan+mashq@gmail.com, one mashq PDF attachment per email, with the email subject as specified. You probably won’t get a confirmation or error message via email immediately from PMK-bot, who is just my collection of shell scripts. I’m still configuring the code for this term.

Mukhlis,

Pasha

Student Questionnaire is live, plus other website updates

Sent at: Wednesday, September 16, 2026 at 03:58:29 PM

Hindī-Urdū wālo,

The Student Questionnaire for the course is now up on the website. The link under “Assignments” on the navigation bar at the top of the site (which appears as a “hamburger” icon on the mobile site if I remember correctly) should now be working. Please complete it by next Monday, September 21st, 11:59pm. It shouldn’t take long, although I encourage you to say as much as you’d like. In particular, it’s helpful to me to know about any reasons for accommodations, your language background (what languages you already know or have been exposed to), and your reasons for being interested in the course.

I realised today that my Office Hour form was showing incorrect Wednesday slots. I’ve fixed that. Do think about booking an office hour appointment with me (email me if you want an appointment outside of my normal office hours). I teach better when I know who it is I’m teaching.

Finally, the Absence form is live. The details of my absence/accommodations system are there in the course outline. It might look as if I’m not grading participation because I’m not writing your names down in class, but in a course as interactive as this one, I think you can understand that I notice inattention, and I certainly notice when you aren’t there. So if you can’t be in class (as of yesterday; absences before add/drop don’t matter), do fill out the absence form.

I’ll see you on Friday for more script fun.

Mukhlis,

Pasha

One More Spot in Intro Urdu-Hindi (and the correct URL for the course site)

Sent at: Wednesday, September 9, 2026 at 04:17:02 PM

Hindī-wālo! Urdū-wālo!

Since some of you were going to my base website for the URL for the class, I’ve just fixed it. It would be a good idea to bookmark the main page though: https://pashamkhan.com/courses/introurduhindi. I update the site and fix issues often, so if you do run into trouble it can sometimes be because your internet browser has cached the page and isn’t showing the update. So try a hard reset, and if that doesn’t work, feel free to email me.

I notice that there is still at least one spot left in the course, so do let your friends know that there is still time to sign up. Unfortunately I won’t be able to teach Intro next year, so anyone who wants to take it should probably take it now, or they’d have to wait until Fall 2029.

Friday’s class will be a lot of fun for me, as I introduce you to the retroflex consonants, which distinguish most of the South Asian languages (including Pashto, even though it’s classified as an Eastern Iranian language). They have an interesting history too, as they are especially distinctive of the Dravidian languages (Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, etc.), whose existence in South Asia pre-dates the incursion of proto-Indo-European speakers into the Subcontinent around 4000 years ago. Therefore it is likely that speakers of the first Indo-European language in South Asia, Vedic Sanskrit, gradually borrowed these consonants from speakers of proto-Dravidian (which was similar to Tamil as it’s spoken in Sri Lanka/Tamil Eelam). I’m looking forward to hearing your dentals and retroflexes!

Mukhlis,

Pasha

Intro Urdu-Hindi Course Website

Sent at: Monday, August 31, 2026 at 09:03:47 PM

Dear Urdu-Hindi Students, ādāb ‘arz,

It was good to meet most of you today. I’m testing my announcement system; inshallah it works. I wanted to remind you that there is no myCourses site for the course. Everything you will need should be on the course website: https://pashamkhan.com/courses/introurduhindi/. That includes, most importantly, the course outline.

The site is still under construction to some extent. I’ll update you as I add important components. See you on Wednesday, and don’t hesitate to email me if you have any questions.

Mukhlis,

Pasha