Is Urdu our second language?
I FELT very bad when I asked a bright student of mine to write down a number — 66 — in Urdu. She apologised and said she did not read or write Urdu. Where do we stand now? Does mother tongue play no role in the country?
I have learnt from my elders that nations which did not take pride in their literature lost their identity. We witness that nations like Germany, China and Iran which love their language and literature are more vibrant than those which do not do so. I am not against bilingualism or multilingualism but we should be best in our own language. We are losing our identity and becoming a very confused nation.
We should learn international languages but we should know our mother tongue or national language very well. It is full of love, peace and empathy.
I observed once in an institute that teachers were instructed to deliver lectures in English even during the Urdu language period.
Is this not bad? Are we making progress or lagging behind somewhere? Policymakers need to take some necessary action.
HAIDER HANJRA
Islamabad
Urdu was imposed on people of Pakistan after partition as Urdu considered as muslim language. This was one of the reason Bangladesh was separated from Pakistan.
I think language should not be linked with religion. language depend on the region/land you belong to. There are millions of hindus in India who doesn’t speak Hindi and million of muslims in India who do not speak hindi or urdu but other Indian regional langauage like bengali, tamil, telegu, Malayalam etc.
Urdu has nothing to do with me (am a sindhi from pakistan) …….
my pride is sindhi and it is one of the richest language in the world …….
urdu is a third language …which me as a sindhi in sindh don’t need urdu
urdu is a Indian language ,,which originated in awadh(Uttar pradesh) region….
language was a mode of expression…but now it has become mode of prejudice…
Urdu is not our mother tongue. Every province has their own mother tongue
Secondly, English works best as a second language as most of the literature worldwide is written in English and all the official work is conducted in English.
I am sorry to say but Urdu can be very conveniently disposed off
In every country the language of the majority is national language. America had almost equal proportion of English and German speakers. In congress German lost by one vote and English became national language. In Pakistan the language of majority is maligned and considered language of lowly people ignoring the great tradition of punjabi poetry and literature, and the fact that it is over 10,000 years old. But punjabis in Pakistan have not been aware of this truth. In Indian Punjab, our mother tongue is medium of instruction and official business of Government is conducted in Punjabi. People speak Hindustani (mix of Hindu Urdu ) and not Hindi, and English as second laguage. Idian punjab is the most properous province of india.Before partition all punjabi’s took great pride in their language. My ancestral origin is Peshawar, I have never been to Peshawar or Pakistan but to this day we speak peshori at home with the same accent, even though we live in USA.
URDU is the third language after English,Sindhi/Punjabi,Pushto/Sarayeki then come Urdu.
The fallacy here is in believing that Urdu is the mother tongue of all of Pakistan’s citizens. This in fact is not true as Urdu is the mother tongue of a minority. Mother tongue does play an important part in the learning process. However, the writer should be aware that the mother tongues of the Pakistani majority are Punjabi, Sindhi, Balauchi and Pashto, with some Seraiki, Katchi, Gujrati, Brauhi, Hindko, etc. thrown in . Urdu in most cases is the second or third language.
Some of us are products of missionary schools where Urdu Easy was required to pass the exam even at the Intermediate Science stage (FSc). Urdu is not necessarily the mother tongue of all Pakistanis though it is the official language and one must not forget that imposition of anything will be opposed by many concerned as history bears out in former East Pakistan.
Personally I wish my grasp of written Urdu was much better than what it is.
At the time of independence there were 5 provinces each with their own language; Sindhi, Punjabi, Pushtu, Baluchi and Bengali. There was no real need for a Urdu language. But in order to better communicate with people of other provinces, Urdu soon emerged as language that connected people of other provinces. Urdu also happened to be much more advanced than other languages in a literary sense. Because all Provinces had a language of their own, Urdu was neglected and no efforts were made to promote it and nurture it as a unifying force for the country. Many shunned Urdu because Urdu was perceived to be a language brought by migrants from India and being forced upon them.
I think we should create a sense of perspective here. The Urdu language whilst beautiful and having rich poetry and literature is not the mother tongue of a majority of Pakistan. It has been systematically imposed through educational policy and curriculum. A majority of Pakistani’s learnt Urdu because it became a necessity of life in the 60s, 70s and 80s and a common mode of communication of people from different sub-cultures, ethnicity and races who came together under then banner of Pakistan.
But as the world has changed and become globalized English has taken over and Urdu is slowly outgrowing its usefulness and common use especially within the educated middle and upper classes. Hence, alot of people who were born in the 90s and 00s have no affinity to it. Even if they do it is with a form of Urdu written in English. This is happening to many other languages including Hindi.
But saying this we need to preserve the Urdu language as it is a rich and beautiful language. We can learn from the Dutch, French and Germans in this respect who are slowly adopting or going through the same change in lingual terms albeit slower than us to ensure Urdu remains an important part of Pakistani culture.