# Sindhi or Urdu: Which is more useful in Sindh?



## panjabigator

Seeing that we have a new Sindhi member here, I though I would go ahead and ask my question.  I have never met a Sindhi who could speak Sindhi.  They were either Hindi speakers (and so were their parents who never spoke Sindhi except with elders) or Mohajirs from Karachi (ie, Urdu speakers).  Given this, I was curious as to how necessary it is to know Sindhi in Sindh.  It is the indigenous language there, so it would make sense to know it, however Pakistanis in general tend to be more Urdu centric over the regional language.

Thanks in advance


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## panjabigator

I'd like to resurface this thread now that we have some active Karachites on the forum.  Can you speak at all to the importance of the Sindhi language and culture in Urdu speaking Karachi?


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## BP.

The Sindhi member disappeared after two posts. That's really a shame, because we could've  learnt so much from him. He was here only for his homework assignment it appears.

Mukarrami, here's a non-Sindhi-speaking Sindhi to answer some of your questions.

You haven't been in Sindh so its understandable you've never heard anybody speak Sindhi. Here the majority speaks or understands Sindhi. Knowing Sindhi is definitely an advantage if you ever travel there. If you know Urdu then too things will work out fine because anybody who's ever been to a school speaks fluent Urdu, albeit with the Sindhi accent, obviously.

Notice that I said the majority, not everybody. I'll explain. Sindh isn't populated with Sindhi speakers only. The majority is Sindhi-speaking in rural Sindh, from north-Karachi upwards till the northern tip of the province, LaRkana and Khairpur. In the south east, again staring from Karachi, staying in the belt below Gharo and till the Indian border we find the Memon, Khoja and other assorted Gujaraati communities, speaking languages somewhat similar to, but distinct from Sindhi. (Yeah if you hear Gujaraati after having heard Sindhi spoken fast, you'll notice they're pretty close.) Of course the Kachi Memons' Memoni is still closer to standard Sindhi. Then, spread all over Sindh are Balochi families that had ruled the region for hundreds of years before the British dislodged them. Balochis are profoundly entrenched in Sindh, and are accepted as Sindhis. But they still speak Balochi at home. Even Rajhistani and north/south Sindhis are different dialects. Then there's Karachi, a melting pot of ethnicities and therefore languages. Even that isn't the end of the story. There are local languages spoken by as few as 200 people scattered all over the place. I myself spent 4 years in northern Karachi, practically Thatta, where the people in the villages around had their own language. But they never spoke it outside of their homes. Everybody was trilingual.

As for the place of Sindhi in Karachi, that's a question that has more to do with economics than with linguistics. In the suburbia, specially in the villages around, Sindhi is the everyday language and thus has its place in the city. But in the main commercial centre, its no more than one of the many languages that different people speak in the city. Karachi is a truely cosmopolitan city. In language-homogeneous groups, as among fellow shopkeepers who speak KathiawaaRi or Memeni, one of the languages is very frequently spoken. But then how does a Sindhi converse with a Pukhtun? Obviously in Urdu.

But its the same all over the country when different languages mix. It is proving rather useful to have at least one common language that could bring that cohesive factor. Of course in the process that language is made mincemeat of, which is the story with English at a global level. Ever heard a man in the street in India  trying to offer you his services in English? 'Bhaat I do foR you?' Use leads to abuse but that's the price of pluralism.

I tend to disagree with your statement that Pakistanis in general put the accent on Urdu at the cost of their own regional language. Its only that there's many kinds of us and in a mixed gathering you always tend to hear more Urdu htan anything else, so foreigners may get that impression. Some foreigners don't quiet get the idea of not having one language at the national level, so we tend to simplify things and say our language is Urdu. As a personal example, someone was even unable to get as much, so my friend (a Pukhto speaker) told him our language was Pakistani! And the guy was content. You can obviously understand , being from Hindustan. Its the same linguistic pluralism there, to an even larger scale.

Biradar-e-azeezum, there's much about Sindhi I can and wish to tell you, and I'll try to get back to you on it. Do remind me if I don't over this weekend.

And do try listening to some Sindhi. It sounds ancient, I mean it somehow really sounds ancient, you suddenly feel the Indus Valley civilisation come alive around you. And it sounds melodious, when spoken properly that is.


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## panjabigator

> I tend to disagree with your statement that Pakistanis in general put the accent on Urdu at the cost of their own regional language. Its only that there's many kinds of us and in a mixed gathering you always tend to hear more Urdu htan anything else, so foreigners may get that impression.



Have you looked at the status of Panjabi in Western Panjab?  Urban Panjabis have been switching over to Urdu over Panjabi for two generations now, and idea I get from my "hum-umr" friends is that Urdu speaking and Pakistani should be synonymous.  I'll try and ignore any political commentary here, but I get the feeling that the predominant tendency is to favor Urdu over regional idioms.  

Sindhi is in an unusual position in Pakistan; it's officially recognized by the government and I believe it is taught at the primary level.  Is that true also in Karachi?

Thanks for your comments


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## BP.

That's only the case with the Panjabi *urban* population. They think their language is crude and don't use it when others are around. They even talk to their children in Urdu so our hum-'Umr people are almost as Urduphone as they come. Example as usual: I was watching a Sara'iki TV channel where they were interviewing school/college kids, and most of them replied to the questions in Urdu. In our country, Saraiki (a cross between Panjabi and Sindhi) regions are included in the Panjab so the Urduphilia is now showing on them too.

The good news is, some elites (the original culprits of alienating their language) are turning back to Panjabi. But as of all reactionary movements, they are too unbending. You can't speak one Urdu word in their presence without them going totally irate.

BTW, I've met Panjabis of heterogeneous backgrounds and all of them were fluent in Panjabi, even though they spoke Urdu just as comfortably. Most of them felt proud speaking Panjabi, so the new generation is coming out of that mindset. In fact, Panjabi is dominating in the medias and everyday life in Pakistan. Even Urdu in Pakistan is evolving (even in Karachi) to a standard Pakistani version which is pretty Panjabi-centric. Yesterday I saw a video where children in schools in eastern NWFP were being taught Panjabi in the garb of Urdu. Now that's dishonesty!

The problem has been the absence of Panjabi instruction in the province. Even when the Pakistani educational guidelines asks the provinces to teach everything in a child's mother tongue for the early years of schooling.

Normally, none of the provinces teaches one or more of the provincial languages. Kids learn them at home as they learn to talk. Then at school they learn Urdu as the second language and English as the third. That's what happens in public schools. In private ones, they're just taught English and they pick up Urdu from friends.

Sindhi is however taught in Sindh and also in Karachi, to try to convert Urduphones into proper Sindhis OR to keep Sindhi alive and understood in urban centres even in the presence of Urdu, whichever political version you take.

Lets not digress to other languages here. Sindhi deserves at least one thread to its name.


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## Cilquiestsuens

Just a small word here, I was surprized to see that Sindhis can have their ID card written in Sindhi (which is hard to read, quite different from Urdu)...

Then, I don't agree with gator's statement... People in the vast majority of Urban Punjab still speak Punjabi.... And it is the generation which around 20 now (the middle-class) which is shifting to Urdu (the so called 'elite' may have shifted to Urdu two generations ago... anyway, they rather speak English now.)


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## panjabigator

Well perhaps I've over generalized when I stated that urban Panjabis are shifting.  It's not all of them, and I'm sure a great deal of them still esteem their heritage tongue.  But the ones that I've met in the states have for the large part disassociated themselves from their parents tongue and generally give me the feeling that for them, Panjabi is not too important.  

Interestingly, the idea of Panjabiyat remains quite strong.  Attachment to their regional city and its inherent superiority over other locations is very much alive.  I met many Panjabis who would list to me the reasons why Lahore was better than X city, and the vast majority of these seemed to suggest that <panjab kii miTTii alag hai>.  Has anyone else noted that?

Anyway, this thread is supposed to be about Sindhi, so let me return to that topic.  In families where Sindhi and Urdu speakers intermarry, is the Sindhi language generally taught to the next generation?  And is there a tendency for Sindhi speakers to switch over to Urdu?

I believe the Bhutto family hails from Sindh (and Iran), and that they were Sindhi speakers as well.  Did they ever make any comments in support of the Sindhi language?

Thanks for your input.


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## Koozagar

Since this thread is about Sindhi, I will stick with your question about  Bhuttos and the Sindhi language. There are a lot of things said in the  above paragraphs about Panjabi and its place within Pakistani national  identity that I wish to comment on but shall leave it for another time.

Urban  Sindh, mainly Karachi and Hyderabad, were dominated by Hindu Sindhis.  After their departure during the partition, Hyderabad experienced a  general decline; in Karachi, the vacuum left by the Hindus in the  commercial and cultural life was filled by the Mohajirs. Literacy rate  among the Mohajirs was much higher than the rural-Muslim Sindhis. Many  of them who came were already civil servants with positions in Indian  Civil Services. Also among these were writers, poets, radio newscasters,  journalists, etc. The bureaucracy and management of not only Karachi  and Sindh but of the entire state, naturally fell into the hand of the  Urdu-speakers. Jinnah's declaration of Urdu as the national language of  Pakistan, dominance of Urdu-speakers in the government and  then later,  Ayub's one-unit ( declaring the entire Pakistan as a single unit and  eliminating provincial boundaries) lead to a general discouragement in  learning of local languages. 

Rise of ZA Bhutto, A Sindhi, did  strengthen Sindhi identity and lead to a resurgence of Sindhi. Quotas  were introduced to give Sindhis a greater share of government jobs. This  however lead to resentment among the Mohajirs who, generally, were more  qualified for the positions that they were no more eligible for under  the quota system.
Zulfi Bhutto's legacy is certainly visible in the  fact that Sindhi is a much better  state in Pakistan than other local languages. Sindhis did see him as a  son of Sindh and his rise was coincided with Sindhi movement. People  saw Sindhi as a language to embrace and saw pride in embracing it. This  never happened in Panjab. where the general impression of Panjabi among  Panjabis remains that of a language of the village, the uncultured and  the uneducated. Although kids now speak it, you will see them switching  to Urdu as soon as they realize that situation demands them to be  cultured and formal. Panjabi remains the language of crude (yet very  funny, I admit) jokes. We must here keep in mind the inherent dichotomy  in our attitudes towards language too which is very emblematic of our  hypocrisy. Parents speak it to their siblings, but scold children if  they hear them speaking it.

Sindhi has of course been spoken in  the rural areas and in cities as well ( Sindhis are 7% of Karachi's  population); However, it is the role that a language plays in the  spheres of culture, commerce, education and communication (journalism),  that is indicative of the vibrancy of a language and a barometer of its  health.  In these aspects, not only Sindhi, but all local languages  suffered in the quest to forge a Urdu-Muslim Pakistani identity to which  any local linguistic identity was a fissure within, that needed to be  bridged, fused and concealed.


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## Qureshpor

*A number of languages have had another language in their midst which was considered an elitist, polished, civilized..call it what you may. In Europe it was Latin at one time and then later on French took up its mantle. In England it was Geoffrey Chaucer who laid the foundation with his "Canterbury Tales" for English. Similarly Persian held sway until Urdu became the court language in India.

In terms of Pakistan's provinces, it would not be an exaggeration to say that Punjab province has stood by Urdu's cause in its good and bad times. A child can go to a school in Pakhtoonkhwa, Sind and Baluchistan and he would learn Pashto, Sindhi and Balochi respectively along with Urdu. This is not the case in the Punjab. There have not been (to the best of my knowledge) any strong/violent protests against Urdu in the Punjab. As a child when I was learning Urdu at school, there was never (ever) a sentiment that we were learning a foreign language. Urdu (along with Punjabi) was and is our language. It is of course a shame that it is not taught and studied from school level onwards and essentially remains a spoken level.

As to the language being considered "crude", I think one should not think about it in this manner. The Punjabi psyche has accepted, rightly or wrongly, that Urdu is their language for communication with everyone even amongst Punjabis, especially in a formal situation. As for the contribution Punjabis have made to Urdu, one only needs to look at the long list of well known authors, both in poetry and prose.*


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## BP.

Recently somebody introduced me to a new way of thinking on the subject why Pakistani Panjabis have by and large very accepting of speaking Urdu. The argument is that it was the integration of the Panjabi demos into the Pakistan movement, their heraldic poet Iqbal and their embracing his ideas, and post-partition the migration of a very large population from East Punjab bearing a Pakistani rather than a Panjabi identity. So yeah, it's their language too now. This or that being socially considered crude is therefore not the reason - they all swoon listening to Bhullay Shah's and Baba Fareed's kalaam after all.


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## Qureshpor

BelligerentPacifist said:


> Recently somebody introduced me to a new way of thinking on the subject why Pakistani Panjabis have by and large very accepting of speaking Urdu. The argument is that it was the integration of the Panjabi demos into the Pakistan movement, their heraldic poet Iqbal and their embracing his ideas, and post-partition the migration of a very large population from East Punjab bearing a Pakistani rather than a Panjabi identity. So yeah, it's their language too now. This or that being socially considered crude is therefore not the reason - they all swoon listening to Bhullay Shah's and Baba Fareed's kalaam after all.



*Yes, this is only a small part of a much bigger picture.*


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## James Bates

I wonder what will become of Sindhi now that Nawaz Sharif has decided to sideline English in favor of Urdu. So long as the language of the elite was English, there was not that much of an incentive for non-Urdu speakers to send their children to Urdu-medium schools. A Pathan friend of mine once remarked that Pashto and English were important to him and his family while Urdu was kind of irrelevant. That's probably going to change now.
But the way, does anybody know if Sindhi is used as a medium of instruction beyond high school?


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## amiramir

Qureshpor said:


> As to the language being considered "crude", I think one should not think about it in this manner. The Punjabi psyche has accepted, rightly or wrongly, that Urdu is their language for communication with everyone even amongst Punjabis, especially in a formal situation



There is a parallel here with Hindu Punjabis, in particular the Hindu Punjabis who left Lahore, etc post partition and settled in Delhi. Punjabi is not taught at schools in Delhi of course, and while my parents' generation (born and bred in Delhi post-partition, now mid-60s) speak their Delhi-ized pseudo-Punjabi, in my experience no one has taught punjabi to my generation (mid-30s). Of course there are other drivers here (Arya Samaj, etc), but the basic point still stands that such families implicitly believe Hindi (well, really often English) to be their mother-tongue with Punjabi relegated to jokes and wedding songs.


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## nawaab

James Bates said:


> I wonder what will become of Sindhi now that Nawaz Sharif has decided to sideline English in favor of Urdu. So long as the language of the elite was English, there was not that much of an incentive for non-Urdu speakers to send their children to Urdu-medium schools. A Pathan friend of mine once remarked that Pashto and English were important to him and his family while Urdu was kind of irrelevant. That's probably going to change now.
> But the way, does anybody know if Sindhi is used as a medium of instruction beyond high school?



I don't think it'll have that much of an effect.  The upper and middle classes will still prefer English because it's needed for good jobs and high status.


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## tonyspeed

Qureshpor said:


> *
> As to the language being considered "crude", I think one should not think about it in this manner. The Punjabi psyche has accepted, rightly or wrongly, that Urdu is their language for communication with everyone even amongst Punjabis, especially in a formal situation..*




Excerpts from
Punjabi Language During British Rule - Tariq Rahman (Quaid-E-Azam University)

"The question is why did the British not recognize Punjabi as the vernacular 

of the Punjab? Why did they choose Urdu instead? Punjabi activists, according 

to Mirza assert that this was done for political reasons or because of the 

influence of the lower staff who were mostly from northern India.16 Documents 

of that period, mostly letters of British officers, do not however, corroborate 

these assertions. 

There were, of course, many Hindustanis in the amlah till 1857, at which 

time they were suspected of being sympathetic to the mutineers and were 

consequently dismissed.17 In 1854 Sikhs were not recruited to the army for 

political reasons and there were not many Punjabis in the other services either. 

But whether these Hindustanis actually influenced policy decisions is yet to be

proved and is highly unlikely. It is, however, likely that the British officers, like

their clerks, also knew Urdu and as Leitner, Principal of Government College, 

Lahore, reports,18 they found it more convenient to carry on administration with 

their existing skills. It is also possible that many among them shared the 

prejudices of Hindustanis. As Leitner, who was a supporter of Punjabi, wrote: 

The fact is that the direction of the Education Department has long 

been in the hands of men, both European and Native, connected 

with Delhi.19

But even if this is true, it only confirms that both Englishmen and Indians were 

prejudiced against the Punjabi language. Other letters further confirms this 

prejudice. Letter after letter reveals that most British officers assumed that 

Punjabi was a rural patois of which Urdu was the refined form....


Indeed, some Englishmen even

felt that Punjabi should be allowed to become extinct, Judge A. W. Stogdon, the 

Divisional Judge of Jullundur, wrote in his letter of 3 August 1895 that: 

As for the encouragement of Punjabi. I am of the opinion that it is 

an uncouth dialect not fit to be a permanent language, and the 

sooner it is driven out by Urdu the better.26
....

During the Urdu-Hindi controversy, Urdu had become a symbol of Muslim 

identity while Hindi was the symbol of Hindu identity. Under these 

circumstances it was not surprising that Muslims chose to ignore their mother 

tongue(s). This attitude persisted till the creation of Pakistan and one finds many 

instances of Punjabi Muslims complaining in all forums, including in the 

legislative assembly that adequate arrangements did not exist for the teaching of 

Urdu to their children.35 The main positions were clearly delineated along 

communal lines: Urdu for the Muslims; Hindi for the Hindus; and Punjabi for 

the Sikhs. Thus, when the British did allow the Local Bodies to establish 

Gurmukhi classes in the late 1890s, most of the students were Sikhs.36 Yet, in 

fact, Punjabi was not popular even among the Sikhs, because it was not a bread-
winning language.’37
...

Since the Urdu-Hindi controversy was part of Hindu-Muslim antagonism, any 

attempt at supporting the cause of Punjabi was interpreted by the Muslims as an 

attack upon them. Thus, when Dr P. C. Chatterjee, a Bengali Hindu 

educationalist proposed in his convocation address at the Punjab University in 

1908 that Punjabi should replace Urdu, the Muslims opposed him vehemently. 

On 29 December 1908 a meeting was held in Amritsar to condemn Chatterjee’s 

proposals. 

Sir Muhammad Shafi, a prominent Muslim leader from the Punjab, 

condemned Chatterjee’s views and called him an enemy of the Muslims. It was 

especially pointed out that Chattérjee was a Bengali and not a Punjabi and thus, 

it was reasoned, his real interest lay not in promoting Punjabi but in opposing 

Urdu, which was now symbolic of Muslim identity and separatism.44

...


In general, however, educated Muslims associated

themselves with Urdu rather than Punjabi. But this, as we have noted before, 

was because of political expediency. The Muslim intelligentsia had formed a 

pressure group against Hindus and Sikhs, and Urdu was part of this Muslim 

identity. Meanwhile, the common people of the Punjab, less conscious of the 

exigencies of modernity, continued to enjoy oral Punjabi literature. The mosque 

schools taught moral stories in Punjabi and Punjabi stories were sold in the 

bazaars. 

Although the Muslims in general showed little enthusiasm for owning 

Punjabi, some of their representatives did not oppose it either. Indeed, Nawab 

Abdul Majid Khan and Fakir Sayad Kamar ud Din, both members of the senate 

of the Punjab University College, submitted memorandums recommending that 

the vernacular languages, including Punjabi, should not be excluded from the 

examination list nor should they be completely neglected.58

Punjabi Muslims spoke Punjabi at home and in informal domains - among 

friends, in the bazaar etc - but they wrote in Urdu (or English) and they used 

Urdu for political speech-making, in serious discussions and in other formal 

domains. Mohammad Iqbal, the national poet of Pakistan, is said to have spoken 

the Sialkoti variety of Punjabi but he wrote only in Urdu, Persian and English 

all his life. In the only interview he gave in Punjabi in December 1930 to the 

editor of the Punjabi magazine Sarang, Iqbal made it clear that he did not write 

in Punjabi because his intellectual training had not opened up that option for 

him.
"


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## tarkshya

My personal observation is that only Sikhs truly "own" Punjabi, and have an emotional attachment to it that can come close to a feeling of attachment to a "mother tongue". Muslim Punjabis abandoned Punjabi long before partition, when they banded together under an acquired Urdu identity. Hindu Punjabis did the same when they move out of Punjab post Partition and spread all over north India.

Of late I have noticed a trend among Hindu Punjabis, especially Delhi Punjabis, to emphasize their Punjabi roots by speaking a "bollywood  Punjabi" in odd settings. It all sounds so artificial and cheap...

I remember a delightful episode from one of the Ved Mehta's biographical books. He describes a scene in which a Hindu Punjabi, a doctor by profession, visits his erstwhile house in Lahore immediately after Partition. The doctor has abandoned his house in Lahore and moved to India. He is there only to retrieve some personal belongings. The house is now occupied by a Punjabi Muslim family, refugees from east Punjab.

The doctor repeatedly attempts to talk to the Punjabi Muslim family in Punjabi, just to ease the atmosphere. However, the Punjabi Muslim family adamantly answer him back in Urdu every time. For them, Urdu identity was paramount now.

Btw, the thinking that one's mother tongue is an uncouth, rustic language is not unique to Punjabi. In fact almost all speakers of a local language living under the cultural sphere of a major literary language feel the same. In Rajasthan, Hindi has practically wiped out the local dialects because their native speakers have abandoned them. I remember passages from the novel "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy. He describes the Russian nobility during the time of Napoleon's invasion of Russia. The Russian aristocrats of those times were actually a French speaking population, because Russian was of course an uncouth tongue fit only for peasants!


..random thoughts


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## WannaBFluent

tarkshya said:


> My personal observation is that *only Sikhs truly "own" Punjabi*, and have an emotional attachment to it that can come close to a feeling of attachment to a "mother tongue". *Muslim Punjabis abandoned Punjabi long before partition*, when they banded together *under an acquired Urdu identity*. Hindu Punjabis did the same when they move out of Punjab post Partition and spread all over north India.


I know some families from Pakistani Penjab and they speak with each other not in Urdu but in Penjabi, so I personally think this is not true.


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## James Bates

A friend of mine from Lahore once disagreed with my assertion that Punjabis were gradually shifting to Urdu. He tried to prove his point by citing the example of a mutual friend of ours who spoke Punjabi at home. I almost burst into laughter for the simple reason that 

"_exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis_"

The fact that somebody is saying he knows some Punjabi families that speak Punjabi proves my point. After all, how many people who lived in Russia would say they knew some Russian families that spoke Russian?


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## marrish

Sindhi has been enjoying all good chances to thrive as a language that is spoken, written, read, taught in Sindh. As far as the Sindhi population is concerned, the very nature of the former capital city of Pakistan and home to some 23 million people forming a huge melting pot of ethnicities, languages and cultures, they have no problem at all as Sindhi is being taught all over and it is a part and parcel of Karachi's multi-identity. The city is Urdu speaking in general so it is the normal mode of communication. Urdu is obviously also being taught and I believe there are even curricula without Urdu as a subject.

Punjabi is a different story and it is not relevant to Sindhi's characteristics so I won't comment on that language, nevertheless I will only mention something which is related to Urdu. Only small minorities in the Punjab would not know Punjabi. It is used as much as Sindhi is used in the Sindhi populated areas of Sindh. The difference is that Punjabi is normally not written, however it is more read. It remains a spoken language with Urdu as the written language. There is of course English too, but Punjabi is not the medium of written communication. After Persian, it was Urdu that became the written language. Therefore there is a great number of people in the Punjab who speak Urdu, Urdu being their mothertongue and Punjabi remaining known as a second language or they have only the passive ability to speak Punjabi. Within urban population it's quite a norm.

Now if we consider the recent Supreme Court order, not Nawaz Sharif's decision, the government is the one to be ordered to introduce Urdu at the official level and give it the status of the official language of whole of Pakistan, I think this is not the place to discuss it but in the context of the Sindh province. My opinion is that there will not be a widespread impact on Sindhi's status and popularity. As to the usefulness of Urdu in Sindh, it may make Urdu more known through education. If education turns more to Urdu or Sindhi, it will benefit people as the literacy rate and school experience will rise.


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## James Bates

Even in the cities of Sindh a knowledge of Sindhi is perfunctory at best, since almost everybody knows Urdu in urban Sindh. Rural Sindh is a different matter though. You will encounter many people in the villages of Sindh who can only understand Urdu and are not proficient in it at all.


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## marrish

You can say the same and be right too if you speak about any city in Pakistan. Any province performs equally well in Urdu and the local language, the cities of every province do use Urdu in speech and writing, with Urdu native speakers amongst them. People living in the countryside far from urban centres, read: education, literacy, living resources, contact with the cities, need of Urdu, don't speak Urdu. They are still as far conversant with the language as to understand it. Some perhaps not. It's the same story in every Pakistani province.

Rural populations still more often than not are multilingual and apart from their mothertongue they do speak other languages. Families intermarry across different languages or dialects. A Brahui from Sindh would be a second-mothertongue-speaker of Sindhi, may speak Pashto as their third mother tongue. Sometimes there are communities living together or next to each other and they are equally easy with the other language. It's often their (second) mothertongue.

Rural areas are still in some kind of contact with Urdu because they need paperwork or go somewhere. Anybody who went to school can speak and understand Urdu in the villages too; Urdu is present on the TV, radio, newspapers, mobile and internet. Of course there has been a large proportion of villagers who are deprived of opportunities to attend a primary school or to finish it, otherwise they would be able to speak Urdu. What now if the language is accepted as the official language of the country while it has been always the national language of it. This is not much of a change in its rank, rather an extra honour to Urdu. The administration is instructed to issue and use documents in Urdu, public communication from the government has to be in Urdu (as opposed to their English - and both Urdu and their English are nothing to be proud of). While the need to switch to Urdu is justifiable because Urdu is the official and national language and many more people can speak or understand Urdu than English, the regional languages wherever needed would keep on being spoken and used. People speaking the regional languages are better off with Urdu than English.


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