Languages of Pakistan

Statistics

Following are the major languages spoken in Pakistan, by number of people that speak them as their first language.

National language: Urdu

Urdu (اردو) is the national language (قومی زبان), lingua franca and one of two official languages of Pakistan (the other currently being English). Although only about 8% of Pakistanis speak it as their first language, it is widely spoken and understood as a second language by the vast majority of Pakistanis and is being adopted increasingly as a first language by urbanized Pakistanis. It was introduced as the lingua franca upon the capitulation and annexation of Sindh (1843) and Punjab (1849) with the subsequent ban on the use of Persian. According to the linguistic historian Tariq Rahman, however, the oldest name of what is now called Urdu is Hindustani or Hindvi and it existed in some form at least from the 14th century if not earlier (Rahman 2011). It was probably the Indo-Aryan language of the area around Delhi that absorbed words of Persian, Arabic, and Chagatai (a Turkic language)—in a process like the one that created modern English. This language, according to Rahman, is the ancestor of both modern Hindi and Urdu. These became two distinct varieties when Urdu was first Persianized in the 18th century and then Hindi was Sanskritized from 1802 onwards.

The name Urdu is a short form of 'Zuban-e-Urdu-e-Mualla' i.e. language of the exalted city. In India the term Urdu, although it means 'military camp' in most Turkic languages, was used for the capital city of the king. In other words, the language of the king's capital was a Persianized form of the language known only by its previous and currently less common name Hindustani. This was shortened to 'Urdu' and this term was used for the first time in written records by the poet Mushafi in 1780 (Rahman 2011: 49). It is widely used, both formally and informally, for personal letters as well as public literature, in the literary sphere and in the popular media. It is a required subject of study in all primary and secondary schools. It is the first language of most Muhajirs (Muslim refugees who fled from different parts of India after independence of Pakistan in 1947), who form nearly 8% of Pakistan's population, and is an acquired second language for the rest. As Pakistan's national language, Urdu has been promoted to promote national unity. It is written with a modified form of the Perso-Arabic alphabet—usually in Nastaliq script—and its basic Hindustani vocabulary has been enriched by words from Persian, Arabic, Turkic languages and English.

Punjabi

Punjabi (پنجابی) is spoken as a first language by more than 44% of Pakistanis, mostly in Punjab. The exact number of Punjabi speakers in Pakistan is difficult to ascertain since there are many dialects, such as Majhi, Saraiki and Hindko.If both are included then 60% of the population speaks Punjabi which is the exact population proportion of Punjab province to the overall population of Pakistan. The standard Punjabi dialect is from the Lahore, Sialkot, Gujranwala and Sheikhupura districts of the Pakistani Punjab, as was used by Waris Shah (1722–1798) in his famous book Heer Ranjha and which is also nowadays the language of Punjabi literature and music. Punjabi language in Pakistan is written in Shahmukhi script with the Urdu alphabet.

Pashto

Pashto (پښتو) is spoken as a first language by more than 15.42% (c. 29 million) of Pakistanis, mainly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and in northern Balochistan as well as in ethnic Pashtun communities in the cities of Karachi, Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Lahore. Karachi is one of the most Pashto speaking cities in the world. Pashto is also widely spoken in neighboring Afghanistan where it has official language status.

Pashto has rich written literary traditions as well as an oral tradition. There are three major dialect patterns within which the various individual dialects may be classified; these are Pakhto, which is the Northern (Peshawar) variety, and the softer Pashto spoken in the southern areas. Khushal Khan Khattak (1613–1689) and Rahman Baba (1633–1708) were famous poets in the Pashto language. In the last part of 20th century, Pakhto or Pashto has produced some great poets like Ghani Khan, Khatir Afridi and Amir Hamza Shinwari. They are not included in the overall percentage.

Sindhi

The Sindhi language (سنڌي) is spoken as a first language by at most 14.5% of Pakistanis, mostly in Sindh province, parts of Balochistan, Southern Punjab and Balochistan. It has a rich literature and is taught in schools. It is an Indo-Aryan (Indo-European) language, derived from Sanskrit, and Arabic languages;But here it must be noted that some Sindhi scholars such as Dr. Nabi Bux Khan Baloch, Dr. Bheru Mal MehrChandani, Dr. Ghulam Ali Alana, Sirajul Haq Memon, have different notion for the origin of Sindhi language. Nabi Bux Khan Baloch said that Sindhi is derived from Sami languages, Dr. Bheru Mal gave his notion that Sindhi is derived from Sanskrit; whereas other said that Sindhi is sister language of Sanskrit, Pali Language. Siraj Memon said Sindhi is not derived from Sanskrit but Sanskrit is derived from old Sindhi language. The Arabs ruled Sindh province for more than 150 years after Muhammad bin Qasim conquered it in 712 AD, remaining there for three years to set up Arab rule. Consequently, the social fabric of Sindh contains elements of Arabic society. Sindhi is spoken by over 53.4 million people in Pakistan and some 5.8 million in India as well as some 2.6 million in other parts of the world. It is the official language of Sindh province and is one of the scheduled languages officially recognized by the federal government in India. It is widely spoken in the Lasbela District of Balochistan (where the Lasi tribe speaks a dialect of Sindhi), many areas of the Naseerabad, Rahim Yar Khan and Dera Ghazi Khan districts in Sindh and Jafarabad districts of Balochistan, and by the Sindhi diaspora abroad. Sindhi language has six major dialects: Sireli, Vicholi, Lari, Thari, Lasi and Kachhi. It is written in the Arabic script with several additional letters to accommodate special sounds. The largest Sindhi-speaking cities are Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Shikarpur, Dadu, Jacobabad, Larkana and Nawabshah. Sindhi literature is also spiritual in nature. Shah Abdul Latif Bhita'i (1689–1752) is one of its greatest poets, and wrote Sassi Punnun and Umar Marvi, folk stories, in his famous book "Shah Jo Risalo" and the book was written by Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai.

Balochi

Balochi (بلوچی) is spoken as a first language by about 4% of Pakistanis, mostly in Balochistan province. Rakshani is the major dialect group in terms of numbers. Sarhaddi is a sub-dialect of Rakshani. Other sub-dialects are Kalati (Qalati), Chagai-Kharani and Panjguri. Eastern Hill Balochi or Northern Balochi is very different from the rest. The name Balochi or Baluchi is not found before the 10th Century. It is one of the 9 distinguished languages of Pakistan. Since Balochi is a very poetic and rich language and has a certain degree of affinity to Urdu, Balochi poets tend to be very good poets in Urdu as well and Ata Shaad, Gul Khan Nasir and Noon Meem Danish are excellent examples of this.

Brahui

Brahui (براھوی) is a Dravidian language of central and east-central Balochistan. The language has been influenced by neighboring Balochi and to a lesser extent by Sindhi and Pashto. 1–1.5% of the Pakistani population has Brahui as their first language. It is one of the nine distinguished languages of Pakistan. The Brahui people have traditionally been taken as a relict population, suggesting that Dravidian languages were formerly more widespread but were supplanted by the incoming Indo-Aryan languages. However, this idea has fallen out of favor; Brahui appears to have migrated to Balochistan from central India after 1000 CE, as evidenced by the absence of Avestan loanwords. The main Iranian contributor to Brahui vocabulary, Balochi, is a western Iranian language like Kurdish that moved to the area from the west only around 1000 CE.

Shina

Shina (شینا) (also known as Tshina) is a Dardic language spoken by a plurality of people in Gilgit–Baltistan of Pakistan. The valleys in which it is spoken include Astore, Chilas, Dareil, Tangeer, Gilgit, Ghizer, and a few parts of Kohistan. It is also spoken in Gurez, Drass, Kargil, Karkit Badgam and Ladakh valleys of Kashmir. There were 321,000 speakers of Gilgiti Shina in 1981. Current estimate is nearly 600,000 people.

Kashmiri

Kashmiri (كأشُر) is a Dardic language spoken in Azad Kashmir, about 124,000 speakers (or 2% of the Azad Kashmir population).

English (previous colonial and co-official language)

English is a co-official language of Pakistan and is widely used in the executive, legislative and judicial branches as well as to some extent in the officer ranks of Pakistan's armed forces. Pakistan's Constitution and laws were written in English and are now being re-written in the local languages. It is also widely used in schools, colleges and universities as a medium of instruction. Amongst the more educated social circles of Pakistan, English is seen as the language of upward mobility and its use is becoming more prevalent in upper social circles often spoken alongside native Pakistani languages. In 2015, it was announced that there were plans to promote Urdu in official business, but Pakistan's Minister of Planning Ahsan Iqbal stated,"Urdu will be a second medium of language and all official business will be bilingual." He also went on to say that English would be taught alongside Urdu in schools.

Arabic (religious and minor literary language)

Arabic (عربي) is the religious language of Muslims. The Quran, Sunnah, Hadith and Muslim theology is taught in Arabic with Urdu translation. The Pakistani diaspora living in the Middle East has further increased the number of people who can speak Arabic in Pakistan. Arabic is taught as a religious language in mosques, schools, colleges, universities and madrassahs. A majority of Pakistan's Muslim population has had some form of formal or informal education in the reading, writing and pronunciation of the Arabic language as part of their religious education.

Persian (previous colonial and literary language)

Persian (فارسی) was the official and cultural language of the Mughal Empire, a continuation since the introduction of the language by Central Asian Turkic invaders who migrated into the Indian Subcontinent, and the patronisation of it by the earlier Turko-Persian Delhi Sultanate. Persian was officially abolished with the arrival of the British: in Sindh in 1843 and in Punjab in 1849. It is today spoken primarily by the Dari speaking refugees from Afghanistan and the Hazara community of Quetta.

Turkic languages (previous colonial and immigrant languages)

Turkic languages were used by the ruling Turco-Mongols such as the Mughals and earlier Sultans of the subcontinent. There are small pockets of Turkic speakers found throughout the country, notably in the valleys in the countries northern regions which lie adjacent to Central Asia, western Pakistani region of Waziristan principally around Kanigoram where the Burki tribe dwells and in Pakistan's urban centres of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. The autobiography of Mughal emperor Babur, Tuzk Babari was also written in Turkish. After returning from exile in Safavid Persia in 1555, Mughal emperor Humayun further introduced Persian language and culture in the court and government. The Chaghatai language, in which Babur had written his memoirs, disappeared almost entirely from the culture of the courtly elite, and Mughal emperor Akbar could not speak it. Later in life, Humayun himself is said to have spoken in Persian verse more often than not.

A number of Turkic speaking refugees, mostly Uzbeks and Turkmens from Afghanistan and Uyghurs from China have settled in Pakistan.

Minor languages

Other languages spoken by linguistic minorities include the languages listed below, with speakers ranging from a few hundred to tens of thousands. A few are highly endangered languages that may soon have no speakers at all.

Classification

The Indo-Iranian languages derive from a reconstructed common proto-language, called Proto-Indo-Iranian.

Indo-Iranian

Most of the languages of Pakistan belong to the Indo-Iranian (more commonly known as Indo-Iranic) branch of the Indo-European language family. They are divided between two or three major groups: Indo-Aryan (the majority, including Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, Hindko, and Saraiki, among others), Iranian (or Iranic) (the major ones being Pashto, Balochi, and Khowar, among others) and Dardic (the major one being Kashmiri). At times Dardic is considered another branch of Indo-Iranian, but many linguists term Dardic as individual Indo-Aryan languages that do not form any subgrouping within Indo-Aryan. The Nuristani language, considered another individual branch of Indo-Iranian, is spoken by the Nuristani minority in Afghanistan near the Afghan-Pakistani border, but not known to be spoken indigenously in Pakistan.

Some of the important languages in the Indo-Aryan group are dialect continuums. One of these is Lahnda, and includes Western Punjabi (but not standard Punjabi), Northern Hindko, Southern Hindko, Khetrani, Saraiki, and Pahari-Potwari, plus two more languages outside of Pakistan. The other is Marwari, and includes Marwari of Pakistan and several languages of India (Dhundari, Marwari, Merwari, Mewari, and Shekhawati). A third is Rajasthani, and consists of Bagri, Gujari in Pakistan and several others in India: Gade Lohar, Harauti (Hadothi), Malvi, and Wagdi.

Although Urdu is not a dialect continuum, it is a major dialect of Hindustani and somewhat differs from Hindi, another dialect of Hindustani which is not spoken in Pakistan.

There are several dialects continuums in the Iranian group as well: Balochi, which includes Eastern, Western and Southern Balochi; and Pashto, and includes Northern, Central, and Southern Pashto.

Other

The following three languages of Pakistan are not part of the Indo-European language family:

Writing systems

All languages of Pakistan are written in Nastaʿlīq, a modified Perso-Arabic script. The Mughal Empire adopted Persian as the court language during their rule over South Asia as did their predecessors, such as the Ghaznavids. During this time, Nastaʿlīq came into widespread use in South Asia. The influence remains to this day. In Pakistan, almost everything in Urdu is written in the script, concentrating the greater part of Nastaʿlīq usage in the world.

The Urdu alphabet is the right-to-left alphabet. It is a modification of the Persian alphabet, which is itself a derivative of the Arabic alphabet. With 38 letters, the Urdu alphabet is typically written in the calligraphic Nasta'liq script, whereas Arabic is more commonly in the Naskh style.

Sindhi adopted a variant of the Persian alphabet as well, in the 19th century. The script is used in Pakistan today. It has a total of 52 letters, augmenting the Urdu with digraphs and eighteen new letters (ڄ ٺ ٽ ٿ ڀ ٻ ڙ ڍ ڊ ڏ ڌ ڇ ڃ ڦ ڻ ڱ ڳ ڪ) for sounds particular to Sindhi and other Indo-Aryan languages. Some letters that are distinguished in Arabic or Persian are homophones in Sindhi.

Balochi and Pashto are written in Perso-Arabic script. The Shahmukhī script, a variant of the Urdu alphabet, is used to write the Punjabi language in Pakistan.

Usually, bare transliterations of Urdu into Roman letters, Roman Urdu, omit many phonemic elements that have no equivalent in English or other languages commonly written in the Latin script. The National Language Authority of Pakistan has developed a number of systems with specific notations to signify non-English sounds, but these can only be properly read by someone already familiar with Urdu.