Forgiveness Research Tool Being Translated into Urdu Language
The Enright Forgiveness Inventory (EFI) and the Enright Forgiveness Inventory for Children (EFI-C), both developed by researcher and psychologist Robert Enright, have become the measurement tools of choice in forgiveness research and have been used around the world. Now, thanks to a Masters Degree student in Pakistan, the children’s version of the EFI is being translated into the Urdu language.
Affaf Rahman, who is pursuing his Masters in Clinical Psychology, is translating the Enright Forgiveness Inventory for Children (EFI-C) as part of his research work on sexually-abused children. Rahman is working under the supervision of Ms. Rabia Iftikhar, Lecturer, Government College University Lahore in Lahore, Pakistan. Lahore is on the country’s eastern border with India.
“This is an exciting development that will make the EFI-C available to
Urdu-speaking researchers in South Asia as well as many other countries around the world,” according to Dr. Enright. “The International Forgiveness Institute will retain the copyright and distribution rights to this new version that will significantly expand usability of the tool.”
Consistent with the definition of interpersonal forgiveness, the EFI is an objective measure of the degree to which one person forgives another who has hurt him or her deeply and unfairly. The EFI-C is a 30-item scale similar to the 60-item adult version. The Children’s Inventory assesses a child’s degree of forgiveness toward one person for one hurtful event. It is presented orally to the child.
Urdu (or Modern Standard Urdu) is a variety of the Hindustani language. It is the national language and one of the two official languages of Pakistan, along with English, and is spoken and understood throughout the country. Urdu is also an official language of six states of India.
Urdu is historically associated with the Muslims of the region of Hindustan. Apart from specialized vocabulary, Urdu is mutually intelligible with Standard Hindi, which is associated with the Hindu community in South Asia. It evolved during medieval times (6th to 13th century).
There are between 60 and 70 million native speakers of Urdu: 52 million in India (according to the 2001 census); approximately 10 million in Pakistan; and several hundred thousand in the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, United States, and Bangladesh (where it is called “Bihari”). However, a knowledge of Urdu allows one to speak with far more people than that, because Hindustani, of which Urdu is one variety, is the fourth most commonly spoken language in the world, after Mandarin, English, and Spanish.
Here is a sample text in Urdu – the beginning of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (by the United Nations):
Urdu text
دفعہ ۱: تمام انسان آزاد اور حقوق و عزت کے اعتبار سے برابر پیدا ہوئے ہیں۔ انہیں ضمیر اور عقل ودیعت ہوئی ہے۔ اس لئے انہیں ایک دوسرے کے ساتھ بھائی چارے کا س
English Translation (grammatical)
Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience. Therefore, they should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Urdu is written right-to left in an extension of the Persian alphabet, which is itself an extension of the Arabic alphabet. Urdu has been one of the premier languages of poetry in South Asia for two centuries, and has developed a rich tradition in a variety of poetic genres.
