VYAKARAN: South Asian Languages and Linguistics Net
Editors: Tej K. Bhatia, Syracuse University, New York
John Peterson, University of Osnabrueck, Germany
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<div>In societies like South Asia where many languages abound, it would be interesting to construct, for each region, a pyramid of languages arranged in order of worldly status, with the highest status one being at the apex of the pyramid. </div> <div> </div> <div>Evidently in Pakistan, English has been at the top with Urdu just below it. The base of the pyramid would be the mother tongues/ dialects such as Seraiki, Multani etc with literary mother tongues/ languages such as Punjabi, Sindhi etc occupying intermediate levels. </div> <div> </div> <div>The current trend toward English seems to want to flatten the pyramid somewhat. Is this solely attributable to globalization? What is likely to be the ultimate effect of this flattening trend? </div> <div> </div> <div>Lakshmi Srinivas</div> <div><BR><B><I>"Harold F. Schiffman" <haroldfs@CCAT.SAS.UPENN.EDU></I></B> wrote:</div> <BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">VYAKARAN: South Asian Languages and Linguistics Net<BR>Editors: Tej K. Bhatia, Syracuse University, New York<BR>John Peterson, University of Osnabrueck, Germany<BR>Details: Send email to listserv@listserv.syr.edu and say: INFO VYAKARAN<BR>Subscribe:Send email to listserv@listserv.syr.edu and say:<BR>SUBSCRIBE VYAKARAN FIRST_NAME LAST_NAME<BR>(Substitute your real name for first_name last_name)<BR>Archives: http://listserv.syr.edu<BR><BR>Urdus last stand<BR><BR>Ehsan Masood 9 - 1 - 2007<BR><BR>A new education policy in Pakistan signals a shift from the idea of Urdu<BR>as the country's everyday working language, says Ehsan Masood.<BR><BR>The web may be helping to harmonise English usage around the world, but<BR>especially across the association of former British colonies known as the<BR>Commonwealth - the survival of older words and phrases makes this very<BR>much a work in progress. Nowhere more so
than in Pakistan, where any<BR>interchange with agencies of the state can involve an interesting lesson<BR>in history less the country's history than the history of the English<BR>language. Pakistan's school-leaving exam, for example, is still called<BR>"matriculation". The government office lavatories are labelled "latrines".<BR>A man who wishes to marry may be required to specify whether his spouse is<BR>a "maiden".<BR><BR>Despite much rhetoric and many policies to make the use of the Urdu<BR>language routine across government, education, the professions and trades,<BR>it is English (old and modern) that remains stubbornly embedded as the<BR>favoured medium of communications in Pakistan. So much so, that in<BR>December 2006 the education ministry took many by surprise with a new<BR>policy announcement. From late 2007, the English language will be taught<BR>much earlier in all state schools, and English will take over from Urdu as<BR>the medium of instruction for natural
sciences and mathematics. The<BR>authors of a white paper released to the media on 7 January 2007 rightly<BR>agree that early-years education should be in a child's mother tongue.<BR>They also conclude that the current starting-point for pupils in state<BR>schools to learn in English (age 10) will be significantly reduced (though<BR>disagreement remains within the ministry over the exact age at which<BR>science and maths should begin to be taught in the language).<BR><BR>Some have been taken aback by these developments, seeing them as yet<BR>another sign that the generals who rule Pakistan seem keen on selling<BR>every last item of the family silver to London and Washington. You<BR>couldn't, for example, imagine China announcing that English would be<BR>replacing Chinese in schools, or Iran declaring that she wants to replace<BR>Farsi with French as a medium of instruction. But what is true of China<BR>and Iran is not quite the same for Pakistan. That a development of
such<BR>magnitude seems to have passed off with relatively little opposition<BR>points to an uncomfortable reality that is shared among the countries of<BR>the Commonwealth: what to do about the fact that English is just too well<BR>established to replace with any other language. In recognising this<BR>question, Pakistan's policymakers have begun to understand what the<BR>nation's citizens have known for some time.<BR><BR>Urdu's journey<BR><BR>Urdu is without question one of the world's great literary languages.<BR>Together with Hindi (its equivalent in India, but written in a different<BR>script) it is the world's fifth or sixth most spoken language; at least<BR>350 million people use it daily. Along with the printing press, Urdu has<BR>had a central place in communicating Islam in south Asia, a role that<BR>continues today. Hindi/Urdu is the language of Indian cinema and Urdu<BR>journalism continues to thrive - not least in India where there are some<BR>3,000 daily Urdu
newspapers. But there are many things that Urdu is not.<BR>It is not, for example, the language of the upper reaches of Pakistan's<BR>legal system, nor is it the language used in written communication in<BR>government offices in the capital city, the stock exchange, modern<BR>medicine, higher education and research. Pakistan's Urdu-language cinema<BR>industry, meanwhile, produces fewer than fifty films a year.<BR><BR>Urdu's failure to become a working language is recognised by parents who<BR>increasingly demand an education with English at its core (alongside Urdu<BR>and other national languages) - except that they have to pay for it<BR>privately as it is not available to them from the state. They know that<BR>fluency in English is among the tightest guarantees of a higher quality of<BR>life for the children from families who are not born into wealth, or<BR>privilege. English may be popular, but many still ask if it is right for a<BR>country to reduce the reach of its
national language. There are probably<BR>two answers to this. The first is that not teaching science and maths in<BR>Urdu is unlikely to have much of an impact on Urdu as a language of<BR>letters, on the numbers who buy newspapers, or on those who read Urdu on<BR>the web. Nor will it affect people's ability to follow Urdu on radio or<BR>television.<BR><BR>A second answer is that what we are seeing today is a result of the fact<BR>that the project to create a national working language out of Urdu was at<BR>best poorly executed from the beginning; at worst it was misconceived. How<BR>so? Urdu is a younger language than its relatives Arabic and Farsi:<BR>written Urdu is little more than four centuries old, and the first records<BR>of the use of "Urdu" as a name for the language only appear after 1780. At<BR>the same time, spoken Urdu - according to the historian Shamsur Rahman<BR>Faruqi - could be up to 900 years old. Urdu's earliest years in prose and<BR>print coincide with
the arrival of Britain in India. In later years, Farsi<BR>would be phased out as the language of public administration to be<BR>replaced with Hindi, Urdu and English. Philologists such as George<BR>Grierson (1851-1941), employed by the government to advise on language<BR>policies, recognised that Urdu and Hindi together had the curious feature<BR>of being understood by a majority in India, even though they were the<BR>principal language for a much smaller minority in Delhi and neighbouring<BR>cities. But even Grierson knew that it was unrealistic to expect Urdu and<BR>Hindi to dominate all of India and advised his superiors against pursuing<BR>such grandiose ambitions.<BR><BR>Pakistan's independence-era leaders seemed to brush all such reservations<BR>aside when they sought to make Urdu the principal language for their new<BR>country (rather than allowing a variety of languages to have equal<BR>status). This decision contributed to the secession of
predominantly<BR>Bengali-speaking East Pakistan (and its transformation into the new nation<BR>of Bangladesh) in 1971. Much has been done to mainstream Urdu into the<BR>life of Pakistan. But these efforts have had a self-defeating quality.<BR>Why? A primary reason is that Pakistan's leaders from the earliest times<BR>were themselves no advertisement for Urdu. In addition, the country's<BR>elites and communities of professionals such as lawyers, doctors and<BR>scientists never themselves stopped using English. Public and private<BR>correspondence between members of the country's founding Muslim League<BR>shows that day-to-day communications were conducted exclusively in English<BR>(see Roger D Long, ed., Dear Mr Jinnah: Selected Correspondence and<BR>Speeches of Liaquat Ali Khan, 1937-1947).<BR><BR>The same could also be said for the current generation of politicians<BR>including Benazir Bhutto and Pervez Musharraf, neither of whom are at all<BR>comfortable in Urdu. For the
Daughter of the East that she claims to be,<BR>Bhutto penned her autobiography in English; as more recently did the<BR>general In the Line of Fire. (The Urdu edition of Musharraf's memoir is in<BR>fact a translation from the English original, though it uses a different<BR>title). The long-term consequence of the new language policy is that, at<BR>last, parents from all income groups will be able to get a better<BR>English-language education for their children than at present. This, with<BR>due recognition of the losses as well as gains that may be involved, can<BR>be no bad thing. A world-class command of Urdu with an ability to<BR>appreciate the skill of its writers and poets is undoubtedly good for the<BR>soul. But what seems to count for more in 21st-century Pakistan is that<BR>fluency in English is good for the
CV.<BR><BR>http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization/urdu_4231.jsp#<BR><BR>***********************************************************************************<BR><BR>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<BR>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of<BR>the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a<BR>message are encouraged to post a rebuttal.<BR><BR>***********************************************************************************<BR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><p>
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