July 05, 2008

It is remarkable how language represents us as in the same way as the details written on the little rectangular-shaped cards in our pockets that we call identity cards. Truly, language is in literature and history, it is the accumulation of culture and evolution over hundreds of years, but it can also relay a lot about a boy/girl and yet say nothing about that person.

If we just observe in, say a marketplace, and see another person standing and bargaining with someone in Urdu or English, we unconsciously surmise to an extent about who this person is. Yet if that same person speaks in a language unfamiliar to us, an aura of mystery will suddenly resonate from him. Who is this boy, he looks Asian, but what is he saying? Is he Turkish? He is certainly not French because French does not sound like that, though he looks very European also. All sorts of questions begin to intrigue us about this person and we just might even stop what we are doing for a few seconds to further analyse him in the hope of finding a clue about his identity.

Coming to our language — Urdu. Once upon a time Urdu was considered the language of the refined and the educated, full of literature and evergreen poetry, admired and endorsed by scholars, a language of beauty. But is this glorious entity still all that?

I know a family who has lived in Karachi all their lives. The young children speak English mostly, however as broken or proper it might be. They do not utter a word in Urdu and later it came to my knowledge that the parents never taught them to speak Urdu, let alone read or write. They didn’t even encourage it and seemed to take pride in this rather than regret; they almost seemed to boast that the children spoke English and not Urdu. What happened here?

In school or colleges, it is becoming an increasingly common tendency amongst English speaking students to look down upon a student who speaks Urdu because of his background. English is “cool” and Urdu is old fashioned. If he/she doesn’t speak English he/she must be poor or unrefined, someone without class. What happened here?

A 12-year-old girl will be in awe of her cousin from London and will try to imitate her manner of speaking yet the English speaking cousin will make no effort to speak Urdu like her. Does the Urdu speaking girl feel insecure about her own language?

“Yo man!” “Wassup?” “Like this is way too hot for me!” “Aray yaar tujay kya hai let’s go out and chill!” This is how many teenagers talk these days.

With time children and people have become unconsciously distant from their language and do not seem to mind it. Well, of course, that distance will grow: the cartoons and movies children watch are in English, Kindergartens and pre-schools hold classes in English, many times the parents speak English at home amongst themselves and the children. Even the scolding comes out in English, so the whole picture ends up with very little exposure to Urdu. Sometimes the exposure lies only in the distorted Urdu of Bollywood movies. The language of films comprises mostly of slang or usually un-refined Urdu, these distortions are exemplified as follows: Tooo is used instead of tum or aap. Abay ja is very commonly heard. Many times their sentences will be broken between Hindi/Urdu and English at the same time: “Main chahti houn that we grab his car, aur hum picnic pe jayen”. This “broken” language is also quite common in our local youth channels. By constantly hearing this break in language consistency the children miss out on relevant grammar and vocabulary and make up for those missing Urdu words with English.

Every new generation that comes possibly knows less Urdu than the previous. While there is no mal intention involved, children and often adults seem to have given Urdu an invisible “cold shoulder”. It’s true that English is very important, especially in the world today where English is dominant. But how about other countries like France, Germany, Thailand, Japan, etc. where it is very difficult to find a Frenchman who can speak English and despite tourism it is almost impossible to find an English-speaking Thai. This is because they take pride in their language and have a sense of loyalty towards it. They don’t feel the need to convert to English language to cope with the world educationally or economically. They hold on to their cultures, evolve and thrive on them. Can we not do the same?

Urdu is beautiful, it is our culture and history, and it can make us something wonderful if everyone dwells into it deeper. Not only that, it also helps to groom a child — in Urdu a situation changes the words and phrases to meet it accordingly. For example aap or tum while having the same meaning become different due to the fact that one is more respectful than the other. In this course and with time a child acquires a natural sense of respect through words and eventually through the heart. While Urdu changes when directed to a particular situation, in English “you” becomes generic and does not resonate the same feeling of respect. Not just grooming but Urdu literature has wonderful lessons to learn and the sound of a good Urdu speaker can be almost musical to the ear. One of the cutest things in the world is to hear a one-year-old girl saying “Paani chahye”.

Keeping this in mind, now we know that we can be more careful about retaining Urdu — as a refined language worthy of a lot of respect and nothing “uncool”.

Recently someone said to me, as an opinion that Pakistanis don’t really have an identity hence their doors are always open to adaptation... from India, from the UK and the rest of the world so losing the true essence of Urdu should not come as a surprise. If this is true let us bring change and re-establish the beauty that was once our language. It is one of the few things in this world that is truly ours, let us not lose it.