Spock

^ There was no 'constitution of 1978'. Also from 1977 to 1985, there was martial law in the country, and the constitution of 1973 was held in abeyance.

What you came across on some encyclopedia must be the language in education policy as part of Zia's efforts of Islamization and Urduization of Pakistan. It was done to decentralize the role of English, and was opposed even by Zia's key players, and was retracted in 1987 by Zia himself.

wondergurl

^ duh...i meant Urdu replaced English (as an amendment) as an official language, in 1978...

desi ostrich

still pakistans official language is english

desi ostrich

Islamization and Urduization words used to fool pakistani nation since its birth

Spock

Well, amendment requires a constitution, and a agreement in parliament, and in 1978 we had none of those things (parliament was dismissed before that, and constitution was suspended). It was just a policy concocted by Zia (despite his top advisers warning him against it), which failed, and was retracted later by himself.

pallavpotter

Funny how you ppl fight so venomously over language.
And what was the need for gasit-ing India into this?? you could have used Switzerland as example too.
and in contray to what janab had said earlier, Hindi is not the National Language of India(though the govt is promoting Hindi to grant it the National Language status), its the Official language, along with English. and the talk about S. Indians having to talk in English to talk to their Northern brothers, well, not just them, East Indians generally suck at Hindi too, though lesser than the S Indians. and in S. India, the other language groups complain about Tamil dominance, and its the Tamils only who were/are protesting against Hindi, though the Indian Bengalis protested too.
i think,as a neutral non-Pakistani, Pakistan should give more power to other language groups, both at National and State level. let me give u an example.
the place i live in is called Barak Valley, in Assam. it was once a part of Greater Bengal, so it always had a significant Bong population. after the Independence, even more East Bengali Hindus came over here(though still Muslim Bongs and Hindu Bongs are almost equal in population) instead of going to West Bengal because of the distance. and now, Southern Assam has Bengali majority. in the 70s, the Assamese majority state govt in Northern Assam tried to impose Assamese on the Bengalis. they revolted, and after many struggles, Bengali has been made the Official Language of Barak Valley. so you have Hindi and English as the official lingos in the National Level, Assamese as the state lingo in Assam and Bengali as the "valley level" lingo in Barak Valley.
best of lucks for eradicting your Linguistic and Economical problems soon!

Nadirali

A couple of facts first:
-Urdu being an Indo-European language, is technicly not native to Pakistan. Linguistis, anthropologists seem to have pinpointed the location of the first proto-Indo-European languages in the area between the black sea and the baltaic region. Most likely location is southenr Ukraine as evidence shows.

No one knows what language was spoken in Pakistan/Indus valley before the Indo-European invasions of the 17-15 centuries BC.

A language called Burusho spoken in the the Hunza valley classified by linguists as a language isloate, meaning it has no known relatives, is possibly the last native language in Pakistan. It's speakers live in an extremely mountanious area so it is possible they were safe from foriegn invaders who destroyed most native cultures and languages.

I suggest officialising Burusho. Learning that language can protect us from indian and arab cultural invasions.

Hashmat Usmani

Punjabi language has a script called Gurmukhi which is used by sikhs in Punjab on the indian side of the border while in pakistan urdu is used as the script for punjabi. i think if u speak the language u must learn the script coz phoenetics will never match another language. i hope i made my point across. urdu zabaan shiiriiN zabaan hatta k Bollywood couldn't get rid of it and also the Govt of india.

roulade

this is too depressing. i cant believe there are such hateful pakistanis who even think like this. way to go!! with this waste mentality pakistan is going VERY FAR!!

Dr. LuLworth

qft

Black Mamba

ye hamari har baat maiN politics kahaN se aa jati hai?

sipraomer

I am a Punjabi by the way. But what do you want to prove here. Do you and the thread starter think that we should speak native languages, teach in native languages etc etc in our provinces. But in the national assembly we should talk in urdu because it is our national lanugage.

I suggest that we should reform urdu. Instead of changing our national language we should change our attitude. Ban the indian Media. Make some laws about our own media and practice them. We will still destroy our culture by watching Indian movies even if we speak, listen, read or write our provincial languages. Our culture will still be destroyed. I strongly believe that Urdu will unite us if we behave ourselves and ban the Indian propagating attitude of Media by punishing the Media.

sipraomer

Joke has a point . So which language should be used for cross communication. I believe that local languages shouldn't even be taught in schools. I believe that Punjabi, Sindhi, Balochi and Pashtu should be reduced to oral only. I believe only urdu and english newspapers should be there. I believe that all of the non urdu literature in Pakistan be translated in urdu and the manuscripts of non urdu language be brought to the museums and non urdu writings should be prohibited.


I am a Sipra Jatt from Punjab. I speak punjabi in my home. But I want unity in this country. Don't we have enough differences that we add one more difference. I believe that enough education should be given to all provinces first on the importance of unity. Then eliminate the local languages al-together. And then set out one national language. That can be persian or Arabic but now many people have learnt urdu so why go through the hassale of learning a new language altogether. You may change the accent or style of urdu in different provinces for separate identity sake.

But unity of language at least is must. China is China because of one nation one language. Iran is Iran because of one nation one language. Even if they are not united on the base of religion, they are at least united on the basis of ethnicity and language. No country is there but India and Pakistan which has more than one language. India and Pakistan are not progressing because both of the countries consist many many nations in it, and not one nation.

I believe that Pakistan was founded because of Urdu. Iqbal did his poetry in Urdu which triggered the Pakistan Movement.

sipraomer

Qaumi Tarane ka urdu tarjamah kia jae.


Pehla misrah meh bata deta hun.


Pakistan azeem mulk haiiii!

kakaballi

"Pakistan" is not an urdu word.

sipraomer

New National Anthem




Pak sar zameen umdagi ka nishan
Allah rakhe zinda tera naam
Ooncha ho hamara nakhlistan
Zameen pe jannat ka yeh makaam

Sab sey alah hai Pakistan
Muttahid hain yahan ke awaam
Sitare aur Chand ke parcham talay
Chal rahe hain akhtay eik raah pey

Chale ga yahan Nizam e Islam
Taraki Khushali ka hai pegham
Nahin hai hamain jaan ki parwa
Sab se zaroori hai mulk ki bakah

Pak sar zameen taraki ka jahan
Banain gey isko dunya ki shaan
Mazboot se mazboot tar ho meri jaan
Banain gey isko aman ka pegham

sipraomer

It was more of a rights problem than language one. We were treating them unfairly.

Spock

- Firstly, Urdu does not represent Pakistan or Islam, it is just a language. Secondly, Urdu was spoken by only 4% of the population, it maybe an excellent language, but its certainly wasnt a wise decision to impose it as the national single language just because some influential migrants spoke it. Lastly, for the gentlemen here thinking provinces asking for the imposition of their own national/official languages is anti-pakistani, buddy you did the same thing with Bengalis when they demanded their own national language in East-Pakistan and instead they ended up demanding their own country because of this childish attitude. In my opinion this debate is good, but its way too late. We screwed up with this, and there alot more that is causing alot of provincial disharmony. As damage control, those who want to learn or teach their kids punjabi, sindhi, saraiki, or whatever, it is prudent at this juncture not to point guns at them and make them learn Urdu anymore by force. That is the least you can do after imposing a language alien to them, so that they infact dont feel alienated.

Spock

Yeah, the RIGHT to speak/use their own language. West Pakistan killed the first East Pakistanis in the 50s, and it was when the East Pakistanis demanded their own language be given official status (them asking for their right).

sipraomer

By rights I mean more economic ones. Any way, every disease has a cure. Its not too late and we can still do something. Do you suggest that we should make every language spoken in Pakistan a national language.

What common language we will use then for cross communication.

What is the exact solution you can give.