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The ambivalent role of Urdu and English in multilingual Pakistan: a Bourdieusian study

• Original Paper
• Published: 22 March 2022
• Volume 22 , pages 25–48, ( 2023 )

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• Hina Ashraf   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4753-1493 1  

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Pakistan, one of the eight countries comprising South Asia, has more than 212.2 million people, making it the world’s fifth most populous country after China, India, USA, and Indonesia. It has also the world’s second-largest Muslim population. Eberhard et al. (Ethnologue: languages of the world, SIL International, 2020) report 77 languages used by people in Pakistan, although the only two official languages are Urdu and English. After its Independence from the British colonial rule in 1947, it took much deliberation for the country to make a shift from its monolingual Urdu orientation to a multilingual language policy in education in 2009. This entailed a shift from the dominant Urdu language policy for the masses (and English exclusively reserved for elite institutions), to a gradual and promising change that responded to the increasing social demand for English and for including regional languages in the curriculum. Yet English and Urdu dominate the present policy and exclude regional non-dominant languages in education that themselves are dynamic and unstable, and restructured continually due to the de facto multilingual and plurilingual repertoire of the country. Using Bourdieu’s (Outline of a theory of practice Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1977a, The economics of linguistic exchanges. Soc Sci Inform 16:645–668, 1977b, The genesis of the concepts of habitus and field. Sociocriticism 2:11–24 1985, Language and symbolic power Polity Press, Cambridge, 1991) conceptualization of habitus, this study analyzes letters to the editor published between 2002–2009 and 2018–2020 in a leading English daily of Pakistan. The analysis unveils the linguistic dispositions that are discussed in the letters and their restructuring through market forces, demonstrating a continuity between the language policy discourse and public aspirations. The findings also indicate the ambivalences towards Urdu and English in relation to nationalistic ideologies, modernity and identity.

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Introduction

In the multilingual global South, though the dominant languages enjoy a certain hierarchy, the symbolic value of the regional languages remains in constant flux across different domains. This is certainly the case of Pakistan. People in Pakistani society in general are linguistically diverse, and while one language represents their ethnolinguistic identity, others are incorporated in everyday living for business transactions, official matters, religious practices, entertainment, and education, indicating that no one language is sufficient for meeting all the communicative requirements across various social situations. In education, for example, both English and Urdu are important. Parents grant more capital to English for its access to employment, a modern identity, information channels, and the global economy, but for their children Urdu cultivates and nurtures local, cultural, and societal bonds, and for girls it even symbolizes familial values (Ashraf, 2008 ). With 77 living languages, of which only these two (i.e., Urdu and English) are dominant, Pakistan’s language policy has often been presented with ideological conflicts, the most salient of which was the Urdu and Bengali conflict concluding in the separation of East Pakistan from West in 1971 as a sovereign state—now Bangladesh. In order to theorize these multilingual identities, one needs to be conscious of the unique South Asian linguistic practices, where, in the words of Canagarajah, ( 2004 ) “the self is composed of multiple subjectivities that are derived by heterogeneous codes, registers and discourses found in the society, with unequal status and power deriving from differential positioning in socioeconomic terms” (2004, p. 117). There is a conflict and tension within and between these subjectivities, and “in order to attain coherence and empowerment, the subject has to negotiate these competing identities and subject positions in relation to the changing discursive and material contexts” (p. 117). These processes often result in appropriation of top-down institutional policies. Moreover, the need of different languages for gains in different social domains gives rise to a multilinguals’ paradoxical view of nationhood, the assets they may be able to access in Pakistani society (e.g., education, social connections), and the value of multilingualism in education. The present study sets out to examine these tensions and paradoxes as they are captured in published responses to language policy formation in Pakistan in the genre of letter to the editor.

Viewed from the perspective of French sociologist Bourdieu ( 1977a , b , 1985 , 1991 ), people are influenced by a sense of value in determining the rules for their choices within the contexts and constraints of different social spaces or fields . Bourdieu called these dispositions habitus , which he defines as the “subjective but not individual system of internalized structures, schemes of perception, conception and action” ( 1977a , p. 86). The Bourdieusian proviso that habitus is “subjective but not individual” signals a definitional tension between group and agent, macro and micro forces. Sociologist Loïc Wacquant, one of Bourdieu’s contemporary interpreters in the U.S., illuminates this tension by defining habitus as “deposited in persons in the form of lasting dispositions, or trained capacities and structured propensities to think, feel and act in determinant ways, which then guide them” (Wacquant, 2005 , p. 316). Of these internalized systems and deposited lasting dispositions, the linguistic habitus is a subset, acquired in determining the more valued language(s) in a socially defined context or, as Bourdieu calls it, market. The linguistic market defines the social conditions of acceptability, often reflected in accents and discursive resources employed by agents. The dominant language establishes the norm against which the prices of the other modes of expression, and the values of the various competences, are defined (Bourdieu, 1977b ). Accordingly, standardized or legitimized national language(s) lend authority to certain languages that lower the value or market share of other languages, resulting in individuals developing their “linguistic sense of placement” (Salö, 2015 ), and aligning their linguistic practices accordingly. Agents’ development of this linguistic sense of placement, however, is considerably complex in multilingual settings. Bourdieu’s theorization was grounded in his experiences in France and Algeria. Other scholars working in the Global South have debated the applicability of Bourdieu’s theory in these other contexts, which are characterized, as Pakistan is, by much higher linguistic diversity than Bourdieu could have envisioned (see Moraru, 2016 ; Stroud, 2002 ; and Swigart, 2001 ). Among several theoretical extensions of habitus proposed in this discussion, scholars like Benson ( 2013 , 2014 ) have felt the need to use the term multilingual habitus to capture the reality that agents’ linguistic utterances are regularly borrowed from more than one language. Other scholars like Lamb ( 2015 ) prefer the near-synonymous term plurilingual habitus so as to emphasize even more fluid shifts whereby agents borrow from different languages in their repertoire without seemingly drawing clear-cut boundaries between languages (see also Canagarajah, 2009 ). It is helpful for the goals of the present research to consider a multilingual or plurilingual habitus, as it helps envision agents in multilingual markets as adopting different systems of dispositions in their socialization to compete against inequity or for access—a process enhanced with the forces of globalization and digitalization.

In this study, I combine the perspectives of individual multilingual sensibilities and responses to heterogenous market forces to understand the metadiscourses of habitus as encapsulated in letters to the editor published in Dawn , a widely disseminated national newspaper, over the course of the 2000s. This was a critical period in Pakistan’s political history (Ashraf, 2014 ) as well as significant for being the time when Pakistan transitioned to its first multilingual education policy, promulgated in 2009. In past language policy scholarship, letters to the editor have been analyzed for the window they afford into language ideologies (e.g., Hiss, 2013 ). But letters to the editor, I argue, are also revealing of the habitus of those who have produced them: They not only can become data that help to understand how public voices enact the policy discourse, but they also encapsulate metadiscourses of habitus that an analyst can unpack. Therefore, in the present study I hope to show how these enactments of the policy discourse in Pakistani letters to the editor heighten our understanding of the mechanisms through which linguistic habitus functions in relation to language policy. I specifically address three research questions in my analysis: What are the certainties and ambivalences that (re)structure the linguistic habitus of multilingual Pakistani speakers as related to the heterogeneity of the market? What conceptualizations of the standardized national language, Urdu, are endorsed by people in Pakistan? How is education related to the values and forces of the various markets?

Given that habitus is multidimensional and constructed socio-historically, I first present Pakistan’s historical background. This section is followed by an overview of the theoretical orientations on the agency of habitus in multilingual settings. I then present the methodology. The analysis unveils the evolving process through which the writers of Dawn ’s letters to the editor act, think, and make sense of the language policy and practices in relation to market values ascribed to languages. I end with a discussion of the findings and their implications.

Pakistan’s historical background

Forming the southern part of the Silk Road, what now is modern Pakistan has always been a site of connecting the East and the West through transmigration, intercultural contacts and semiotic systems that can be traced back to 500 BCE. From the Indus Valley Civilization of the Bronze Age to the present, the linguistic diversity of this region, with fluid shifts in codes, suggests linguistic dispositions influenced by the market values of different languages. For example, in 500 BCE, Sanskrit, very much like Latin in medieval Europe, was the typical literary and religious language, Prakrit and Pali were essentially the vernaculars and the spoken languages, and Old Iranian influenced Persian, Afghan, Kurdish and Ossetic languages (Lamberg-Karlovsky, 2002 ). In addition to the regional languages, foreign invasions inspired plurilingual practices. For example, Greek edicts, inscriptions, and coins bearing Greek scripts with Indo-Aryan language influences were in use even before Alexander’s advent in 327 BC till as late as the eighth century AD (Khalid et al., 2011 ). Similarly, scripts in Arwi (i.e., Tamil written in the Arabic script) were used in South India and Sri Lanka, reflecting a practice of mixing scripts and languages that continued from the eighth to nineteenth century (Alim, 1993 ). During the Mughal era that coincides with the Renaissance in Europe (1526–1540 and 1556–1857), literacy practices flourished in several local languages. Persian was an influential and official language, Arabic was the lingua franca, while amongst themselves the emperors used Turk (Rahman, 2002 ). This multilingual society dramatically shifted to a monolingual view with the British colonial movement, in just 90 years (1857–1947), creating a hierarchy of languages with English at the top, and introducing later nation-state single language policies which unleashed local reactionary movements and generated chauvinistic, exclusivist ideologies and communal tensions that went against local pluralism (Ashraf, 2018 ; Canagarajah & Ashraf, 2013 ). The onset of the British colonial movement also marked a shift from inclusion, acceptance, and tolerance to exclusion, less acceptance, and less tolerance of multilingualism.

After Independence from Britain in 1947, Pakistan designated Urdu its national language, and the inherited colonial English as official. This went against the grain of local multilingualism but promoted the birth of Pakistan in the nation-state era. The challenges for this two-language policy were not small, however, and they continue to be present to this date. For one, despite its lingua franca status across Pakistan and North India, Urdu is the mother tongue of only about 8% of the total population (Pakistan, 2001). Second, Urdu does not have the same linguistic capital as English (Ashraf, 2008 ; Shamim & Rashid, 2019 ), but dominates English in some fields where it is ritualized, and where it confers unequal values to other languages. Every so often, its users are referred to as desi , i.e., an Urdu word with the pejorative meaning of “the local, lesser developed people,” perhaps a quality similar to what would be characterized as peasant or backward in western English contexts. In the long run, Urdu has been the medium of education in Pakistani elementary and secondary schools since Independence, but it has not replaced English in professional, higher or STEM education. Recently, the National Education Policy ( 2009 ) and the latest National Education Policy Framework ( 2018 ) have proposed a multilingual policy, starting from mother tongue (i.e., L1) as medium of instruction in early grades, and moving to Urdu and English (i.e., L2) at lower or higher secondary levels. This multilingual compartmentalized progression from early grades to higher secondary levels presents a system of regulation which shapes people’s linguistic sensibilities concerning normativity, acceptability, and appropriateness (see also Hanks, 2005 ).

Theoretical framework

Viewing habitus in multilingual practices and education.

Bourdieu’s ( 1977a , 1977b , 1985 , 1991 ) theory of habitus and its relatedness to field and market offer a tool to reconcile external social structures and subjective experiences. Hanks ( 2005 ) and Joseph ( 2020 ) chronicle how influential in his development of the theory was Aristotelian hexis , which combines intention and judgement, Merleau-Ponty’s corporeal habitus and chair , visible in the familiarity and immediacy of dispositions or embodiment, and Panofsky’s habits of mind , which involves the cultural production of what is taken as habitual action or practice, and which is sedimented in an individual’s subjectivity through social interaction. Bourdieu assumes that agents have an individual history which is shaped by education of their social milieu and by their collective history. As such, Bourdieusian theory and the construct of habitus with its two related notions of field and market are useful for the present purposes to investigate top-down and bottom-up language policy dynamics. His conceptualization of habitus functions with a generative principle of deliberate choices within the parameters of a social field forming the rules of the marketplace that render value and an instinctive, corporeal cognition to certain acts. As already mentioned, Bourdieu’s habitus refers to agents’ individual subjectivities and dispositions that are in fact not entirely individual but internalized and shared among members of a group or class when certain features of their habitus overlap ( 1977a ; also Wacquant, 2005 ). He defines field as a social space in which agents take different positions that are determined by the historical process of occupancy, symbolic boundaries of constraints, the trajectories of the agents, and the habitus that is shaped by engagement (Hanks, 2005 ). Accordingly, the economic, educational, and artistic fields each have their own discursive features, rules, and laws, often overlapping in homologous fields. It follows that the linguistic marketplace regulates the value of a language in different fields. A study of habitus thus is an investigation into the processes in which the ingrained, and often unconscious aspects of sociolinguistic behavior and the agency of individuals respond to language policymaking, for example in a complexly multilingual setting such as in Pakistan.

Recent studies have examined how habitus manifests in the relationships and commitments between languages, individuals, and communities, collaboratively subverting monolingual ideals (Lamb, 2015 ), or constructing heterogeneous, alternative, or illegitimate linguistic practices (Moraru, 2020 ). Scholars also draw attention to the functional multilingualism of social agents and their habitus in various contexts of interaction (Moore & Gajo, 2009 ; Salö, 2020 ). For example, Moore and Gajo ( 2009 ) place analytical weight on multilingual agents, who find themselves at various points along a situational continuum; various positionings on this continuum induce alternative choices and social adjustments, particular language modes e.g., the choice of one language or the possibility of code-switching, and endorsing different identities as a speaker e.g., a monolingual, a bilingual or a learner identity, all within the same conversation. Agents’ multilingual sensibility and habitus allow them to negotiate different hierarchies of valuation, and these hierarchies contribute to the creation of social capital i.e., accrued or virtual resources that influence the development of durable networking and social mobility (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992 ), and to the (re)production of identity. Discussing Eastern societies and especially Arabic language and identity, Suleiman ( 2014 ) cautions against a reductive view of national identity, and for the recognition of implicit ethnolinguistic and religious bonds that exist in pluralism. He includes both the symbolic and instrumental roles of languages in the formation of national identity, viewing the former as a construct of group boundary and the latter in its communicative function. The Bourdieusian theory of habitus also offers a profitable vantage point into the study of dynamic language policy in the sociohistorical context of South Asia and Pakistan, where different languages either gain or are granted legitimacy and symbolic capital, e.g., in establishing national identity, cultural capital, or medium of education. Such an investigation into the restructuring of the linguistic and cultural habitus in multilingual settings can illuminate the social phenomena in which the symbolic and instrumental roles of language in a repertoire of identities (Joseph, 2012 ) constantly shift, negotiate, and renegotiate new social identities in the presence of conflicting nationalisms and polarization.

Bourdieu ( 1977b ) regarded the education system as a crucial object of struggle for its authority to legitimize certain language(s) or varieties. Ethnographers of education studying non-Western multilingual contexts extend the conceptualization of habitus to study multilingual contexts, and individuals who embody either monolingual or multilingual dispositions according to the rules of the market (e.g., Benson, 2013 ; Gogolin, 2002 ; L’nyavskiy-Ekelund & Siiner, 2017 ). In her studies about multilingual schooling in Africa and Asia, international and comparative education scholar Carolyn Benson notes that viewing language from the perspective of bounded entities, preserves the dominance of certain languages and “prevents educators from understanding the linguistic, cognitive and cultural resources that learners bring with them to the classroom” ( 2013 , p. 15). In linguistically diverse contexts like Africa, Benson ( 2013 ) reminds us that the very presence of functional multilingualism authenticates an unquestioned linguistic habitus in a place unique to a given market, but pervaded by assumptions of a unifying language. She draws attention to the unrealistic and imperfect ideologies of (a) single or dominant language(s) as the solution, for being “contrary to the nature of multilingual societies” (Milligan et al., 2020 , p. 119). She urges stakeholders at the policy stage to engage in careful and systemic planning at curriculum levels, so as to avoid creating a system that represents a tunnel vision of the education system or neglecting other curricular content in favor of just one language (Benson, 2014 ). In South Asian countries, as Khubchandani’s ( 2008 ) encyclopedic essay informs us, the gap between ideal language and language in function is often quite wide because the educational institutions usually adopt a minimalist approach “with vague commitments and qualifying clauses which are, in turn, a result of negotiating with contradictory agendas of market forces, serving the interests of the elite, and succumbing to the demands of ethnic pressures” (p. 377). Given that an investigation into habitus in itself responds to the social formation of speakers, their dispositions to include language(s) in certain ways, and the embodiment of values granted to the language(s) in different markets, the distinction between monolingual and multilingual dispositions is all the more useful in South Asian and hence Pakistan’s language policy context, where more than one language have had varying degrees of linguistic capital in homologous fields sociohistorically leading to social reproduction of inequality.

Letters to the editor in language policy research

Language policy debates have found an outlet in the letters to the editors’ section in newspapers as some previous studies indicate (e.g., Fitzsimmons-Doolan, 2009 ; Georgiou, 2011 ). Yang’s ( 2017 ) longitudinal analysis of a Korean newspaper corpus sought to understand the discourses of national identity and struggle of language choice between Korean and Japanese. This researcher showed that newspapers serve as public institutions to disseminate facts, but also as a discursive venue to interpret facts. In the United States, Fitzsimmons-Doolan ( 2009 ) analyzed a newspaper corpus in order to evaluate the pluralist narrative in language policies that promoted multilingualism in relation to immigrant discourses in Arizona at the time. As a genre, letters to the editor offer opinions by non-professional writers (Young, 2013 ), and they are published only after attaining the editorial approval for their arguments (Nip, 2006 ). Nevertheless, they also offer a deliberative form of democracy (Wahl-Jorgensen, 2001 ) in its resistant narrative (Ashraf, 2014 ). In this context, worth mentioning is Georgiou’s ( 2011 ) study of newspaper texts from letters, editorials, cartoons, opinion texts, and news texts, all responding to the policy of standardization and transliteration to Cypriot Greek in Cyprus. In her analysis, the policy signified top-down discourse going against the grain of the changing sociolinguistic realities of the society, and she found the responses represented refusal to endorse standardization. Georgiou’s study advocates for consideration of lay ideas in policy decisions to avoid undesired outcomes. Hiss ( 2013 ) analyzed Norwegian letters to the editor and short opinions to examine how language ideologies about Sámi and Norwegian were publicly debated through newspaper texts. Hiss’s corpus analysis reveals how writers of the letters anchored their evaluations and stances on language ideologies, essentially expressing judgements of other people’s behaviors.

As this literature suggests, letters to the editor are valuable data not only to understand responses to top-down language policy but also because they can expose “a nation’s ideals” (Hart, 2018 , p. 24), thus making multiyear investigations of how discourses are structured and beliefs performed in them worthwhile. In the present study, I treat the genre as gleaning data that help to understand public voices’ metadiscourses of linguistic habitus. The Pakistani letters to the editor I analyze heighten our understanding of the mechanisms through which linguistic habitus functions in relation to language policy.

The present data consist of 64 letters to the editor on the topic of the state of education in Pakistan, published in Dawn , the oldest and largest English-language daily newspaper in Pakistan. Of them, 61 were published between 2002 and 2009. They come from a corpus of 1881 Dawn letters created by Ashraf ( 2014 ). First, a stratified random sampling strategy was applied, whereby all letters to the editor published on the 8th to 15th of the months of April, May, and June from 2002 to 2009 were collected. Next, the topic identification (i.e., deciding which letters discussed themes relevant to the present study) was done via automated corpus analyses followed by manual analyses. Table 1 lists the results of the searches, which took place as follows. In the first stage of automated analyses, the corpus analysis tool SEM-TAG in Wmatrix assigned semantic tags to words after the Parts of Speech (POS) tagging, giving a general-sense field of words from a lexicon of single words and list of multi-word combinations (Rayson, 2008 ). The semantic tag of Education in general included words like education, teachers, students, schools, teaching, universities , etc. The subset of letters that addressed the medium of education and language(s) in function was identified automatically too. After the initial tagging, the automated analyses identified 78 letters. The next step of manual analyses involved reading each letter and excluding the ones which made only a passing reference to education or the language-in-education. This final step left a total of 61 letters, classified manually after inspecting automated semantic tags into three main themes: education and language, culture and language, and civic sense and language. Together the 61 letters contained discussions on medium of instruction, problem with the system, standard of education, teachers, comparison with regional languages, comparison with foreign countries or languages or education systems, culture, civic responsibility and solutions suggested. It is possible that the public opinion expressed by writers of letters to the editor on a given topic in this newspaper have changed since 2009. Therefore, I replicated the same exact methods and collected all letters in the Dawn published on the 8th to 15th of the months of April, May, and June from 2018 to 2020. Most letters (63) from this second dataset belonging to the domain of general education commented on school fees structure and online schooling after the COVID-19 pandemic, and thus were excluded from further analysis. Three letters between 2018 and 2020 were on the topic of the state of education and language in Pakistan and were retained. (They did not, however, show any changes over time and instead converged on the themes uncovered for the main corpus.) This yielded 64 letters in total for analysis in the present study.

In terms of genre, Pakistani letters to the editor have distinct patterns in content and length. They heavily rely on rhetorical questions, emotive language, and evaluative stance (Ashraf, 2014 ). With respect to discourses on education, an initial reading exhibited themes conveyed in linear, bi-directional, or even cyclical patterns employing linguistic features (e.g., modals, adjectives), or discourse styles (e.g., epistemic claims, stance, and indexicality). This subset of 64 letters revealed discourses on language attitudes and common values hinting linguistic dispositions as homogeneous, dynamic, or multilingual. For purpose of uncovering the mechanisms in which these sociolinguistic discourses are produced, this study combines a fine-grained analysis of linguistic and discourse features in interrelationship with the surrounding semiotic structure in the letters. This dual approach is well suited to understand the metadiscourses of theory and practice in the conceptualization of national language and language of education and how the restructuring habitus works in relation to the values and forces that endow them linguistic capital.

Before presenting the analyses and findings, it must be pointed out here that this study has its own limitations and merits. The data source is limited in certain ways. Firstly, the fact that the letters, as all letters to the editor, were edited before published bears on the trustworthiness of their representing the voice of the people. Secondly, the newspaper caters to an English-speaking sector in Pakistani society, despite its equally emphatic promotion of Urdu education and language. Nevertheless, within these constraints, the ensuing analysis is of a conversation between the actors in the center comprising of an English-speaking literate section of the population, who engage in dialogue on language and education, with the bureaucracy and the larger public. Although this English-speaking population is not a homogenous group and is comprised of different linguistic and ethnic groups, it represents Pakistan’s diverse and literate population, who are directly influenced by the languages, and the education policies.

Analysis and findings

The following analysis functions at two levels: (a) it scrutinizes the unequal values ascribed to languages in the letters to the editor (henceforth LEs), and (b) it elucidates the evolving process through which the writers act, think, and make sense of contextualized practices in relation to different market forces in the multilingual ecology of Pakistan. Longer excerpts are numbered, and unnumbered additional excerpted LE language is offered as well, always italicized, to substantiate interpretations. In both cases, I have included the titles of the letter and the date of publication italicized in parenthesis. As can be seen in Table 1 , some letter titles repeat, which were assigned a number by the newspaper Dawn and copied as they appeared in the newspaper. In few cases, I assigned a number to letters with similar title in the corpus in chronological order. The variation in themes and years offers a view into the “polymorphic spaces of unequal values and shifting boundaries” (Moore & Gajo, 2009 , p. 140) in relation to national identity, education, and cultural identities.

Urdu as the national language

National identity is a construct often fashioned out of historical interpretations (Suleiman, 2014 ). In the LEs, internalized rules for the one nation-one state ideology prevail in the market for Urdu. Excerpts 1 through 3 below illustrate this theme.

Urdu has risen out of the work, needs, ties, joys, affections, and tastes of many generations of people spanning centuries and nobody should try to change this reality” (Languages creating a new reality/18-Jun-07)

It is no joke to replace the language of another origin with the language of another land. It only serves the all-powerful vested interests. Things are not the way they have been claimed… Urdu is the federal language of Pakistan. It can play a meaningful role by linking all of us—Sindhis, Punjabis, Baloch and Pathans—in a harmonious blend, keeping intact our cultures and languages. In this way, it becomes the symbol of our national identity, but one should refrain from allotting it the role of dictatorship. We had been victim of that psyche of monolingual imperialism in the recent past, in 1971. (Urdu as Punjab’s mother-tongue i/18-May-04)

We should all strive to make Pakistan a place where all languages can attain equal status, can flourish and grow without the danger of extinction. We hope the day arrives soon when these languages will become the source of earning and status for their respective communities (Urdu as Punjab’s mother-tongue ii/20-May-04)

National identity emerges as a market force that gains strength through Urdu and ‘nationalistic Islam.’ It is ritualized in the historical context of Independence in the fields of both nationhood and education, and at times celebrated in its comparison to Hindi (also in Re: Medium of instruction/20-Apr-03 ). Urdu and Hindi, identified as ‘Khari Boli’ or ‘Hindustani’ till the late nineteenth century, “are mutually understandable in spoken form but are written in very dissimilar style” ( Urdu and Hindi: Different yet similar/14-Apr-07 ). They were standardized as two separate languages representing the Muslim and Hindu majority populations in a struggle for Independence under the British colonial rulers.

Urdu is the sole legitimate language for national identity, as the excerpts above illustrate, but outside the field of nationhood, it exists in harmony with other languages in the multilingual ecology, e.g., Punjabi, Sindhi, or Persian— even Hindi if it is not linked to the past (also in Urdu and Hindi: Different yet similar/14-Apr-07, Language question in education/19-Apr-07, Language question in education?17-May-07) . The use of the perfect tense in relation to national identity in these letters intensifies the tension and contrast, unlike the use of modals in other letters that are open to diversity and homogeneity as way forward. In Examples 4 and 5 below, a marked shift from homogeneity to diversity is called for by the writers, and symbolic capital is structured in subjective judgements and appeals to logical reasoning through expressions like good for Pakistan and something that would lead to uniformity . They build a theme of common values in diversity, taking positions through epistemic claims by referring to actually occurring events, past incidents, and binary opposition (Ashraf, 2014 ).

Pakistan’s future is better served not by homogeneity but by diversity and unity. In future, the Punjabis should be able to speak Punjabi along with Urdu and English, while the Sindhi children should be capable of reading and writing in their own language while using Urdu and English at different levels. This linguistic and mental diversity will do more good for Pakistan than any simple prescriptions that lead to uniformity. (Re: Medium of instruction/20-Apr-03)

What is the Punjab score after 135 years of Urdu teaching? Before the partition the vernacular final examination required one of three languages: Punjabi, Urdu or Hindi, which was also the medium for other subjects (Language question in education i/19-Apr-07).

The social value of a language or languages is in their relationship to all the other linguistic products in the market, and this determines their distinctive value (Bourdieu, 1977b , p. 654). To Bourdieu the effect of any new experience is integrated into the experiences already shaping the habitus in the form of classifying and generating schemes (ibid. p. 661). In this sense, Urdu is viewed by many of the LE writers in relativistic differences with other languages in education, shedding light on how one language may gain both meaning and value through the complex emergence of historical, social, and economic conditions, and yet that same one language in synergy with those conditions may grant that place to another language in a different market thereby viewing languages in a continuum. The writers’ work of positioning the self and others through strategies of alignment, dissociation and confrontation constructs ideological language boundaries as Hiss ( 2013 ) demonstrates in the case of Sámi and Norwegian in Tromsø. In contrast, in the case of Pakistan a look at the process of restructuring habitus that evolved through actions, thought-process, and perceptions of the sociohistorical and economic development over years unveils how LEs deconstruct notions of national unity for diversity. Consequently, the analysis unfolds the shifts in the linguistic capital that Urdu affords the writers, by being embodied in social journeys that are a reflection of the lived trajectories of individuals and societies advancing from the one-nation, one-state ideology to a more emancipated view. Though in the promotion of homogeneity and uniformity, LEs also tap into the untold narrative of the marginalized languages in the national discourse.

The unequal linguistic capital afforded by English vs. Urdu

The unequal linguistic capital accumulation of both English and Urdu in Pakistani education (Haidar, 2019 ; Shamim & Rashid, 2019 ) is delineated in positive and problematic accounts in the LEs. In excerpt 6, the author engages in the public debate through an emotional personal experience.

I had the opportunity to teach physics to a matriculation class in an English-medium school for a few months. To my astonishment, the students were learning every topic, including pure technical and science topics, by rote. … as English was medium of instruction from class 1, the students were not able to develop writing ability and, as a result, took recourse to learning by rote. And both teachers and parents encourage this mode of learning to enable the students to get good marks. (Medium of instruction/17-Apr-03)

The use of emotive words and the personal stance in 6 plays a role in dismantling the popularity of English medium schools but also throws light on the complex interrelationship of both English and Urdu in “learning.” The absence of knowledge itself and an ambivalence towards introducing English from class one is evoked in students’ inability to develop writing skills. This is also a microcosm of practice guided by a set of beliefs and assumptions that undergird success in the field by identifying the stakes at play, as actors engage in a language game in which ends are pursued with certain discursive resources according to established guidelines (Bourdieu, 1985 ). In the LEs, the (re)production of social inequality is strikingly noticeable in the linguistic capital of English, which outweighs that of Urdu. The mechanisms of redressing inequality assume the introduction of English in education should happen at an early age i.e., preferably before the age of 10 , from primary school and up ( The Language Barrier/19-Jun-04 & Teaching in Mother Tongue ii/17-May-07 ) as established in scientific research, lingua franca of the whole world status, a shared legacy of the subcontinent, and used in India as an asset ( The Language Barrier/19-Jun-04 ). On the other hand, the value of Urdu is largely inscribed in expressions of affinity e.g., mother tongue , a federal, national and regional language (Sindhi Translation/19-May-03; Re: Medium of Instruction/20-Apr-03) , leading to better understanding and discouraging rote learning (Our educational standards/20-Jun-03 & Medium of Instruction i/17-Apr-03) . Urdu is also situated in certain boundaries of time and space, where it is taught in government-run schools (Teaching in Mother Tongue i/18-Apr-04) , and was a medium of education before Independence (Language Question in Education i/19-Apr-07) . Some letters discursively express attitudes and sets of beliefs through implicit binaries. For example, in negative contexts of controversy over the medium of education, as an apt choice with which no sane person would disagree, centered in scientific research, and which would lead to better education. Modals like will, need to, should, must be, and have to are emotively supported in clauses that point to the consequences of the other language in schools, are also illustrative of the values that are at stake in LEs, as in excerpts 7 and 8.

If needed, the medium of instruction should be Urdu so that the students can understand better what they are being taught. (Our educational standard/20-Jun-03)

On the controversy about English and Urdu as medium of instruction, no sane person will disagree with having the mother tongue as the medium of instruction (East vs. West/17-Jun-03)

The linguistic and discourse features in the Dawn ’s LEs further shed light on the sets of beliefs and assumptions that underpin the social worlds of the agents. In 7 and 8 readers are invited to share the authors’ stance through attributive adjectives, e.g., over the fees structure as unjust demands of the so-called prestigious English medium schools (Education made too costly/19-Jun-02) , and over the quality of textbooks or teaching of English in these schools (The textbook muddle/14-May-03, Expensive education/20-May-03) . In other instances, predicative adjectives are employed in strategies of persuasion to position English in contexts of development, employment, internationalism, and globalization located around every street corner (Correction!/18-May-02) going to which students take pride in ( East vs. West/17-Jun-03 ), and which are considered the best (East vs. West/17-Jun-03) .

With the unequal linguistic capital endowed to both the dominant languages, agents with the most symbolic power impose their practices as more valuable by making the laws operate to their advantage, thereby rendering them illegitimate in other markets (Bourdieu, 1991 ). We also see that in the market of education, non-dominant languages are largely excluded, which as Benson ( 2013 ) notes serves “to impose monolingualism on multilingual societies, disregarding the cognitive and linguistic experiences and development of learners who speak NDLs [i.e., non-dominant languages]” (p. 288). This heterogeneity of the linguistic marketplace of Pakistan in the LEs uncovers the most generally hidden deep structures of the social worlds, the mechanisms of the production of inequality, and the transformation of local and global identities (Bourdieu, 1989 ).

Linguistic habitus and the socioeconomics of education

Economic capital plays a large role in the individual’s capacity to enter the labor market, but in the LEs national ideologies are also subverted in this market. The description of schools is often framed in the binaries of rich and poor, where the socioeconomic perspective contributes to the flux in the linguistic identities. This is heightened in powerful assertions casting one group as advanced and the other as desi or ‘backward.’ Capital functions in relation to a field (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992 ), and agents’ dispositions are modified in relation to the field (Salö, 2019 ), which LE excerpts 9 through 11 exemplify. Here the writers reconstruct Urdu’s relatively high symbolic value in the field of nationhood to that of a disadvantaged social class, that is not functionally literate and is unable to access private English medium schools. Below the LE depictions of a disadvantaged, functionally illiterate social class are polarized and reflect an explicit, strongly-worded ideology of social and economic stratification.

This system is class-based—one for the well-off people who send their children to high-level English-medium schools and one for the toiling masses whose children go to poorly-organized and poorly-equipped desi schools, where they get no idea how much science has progressed. (Promoting education in Pakistan/18-Apr-03)

A person with an income of Rs10,000 per month and with four school-going children would have to beg, borrow or resort to unfair means to meet the unjust demands of the so-called prestigious English medium schools. (Education made too costly/19-Jun-02)

The public schools are in a pathetic state and it is quite sad to see their dilapidated condition. (Educating people/5-May-07)

The disadvantaged social class theme is also built in linear and bi-directional fashion in many other letters, such as Expensive education/20-May-03; Teaching in mother tongue i/18-Apr-04; A bad experience/16-Apr-02; The language barrier/19-Jun-04, Language question in education/19-Apr-07, Language question in education/17-May-07; Education going nowhere/19-Jun-07, etc . For Urdu-medium students, English-medium schooling implies a foreign or (non)national identity. Consequently, local identities are viewed in these LEs as an undesirable feature of non-progressive Urdu-medium public schools. In a continuity between the so-called prestigious English medium school philosophy and the bourgeoise requirement of the school, exclusion of nondominant languages and cultural values is perceived as desirable in LE (see also Lamb, 2015 ). This sense of relational thinking is activated in the class-based discussion of inclusion and exclusion through different linguistic and discourse strategies. For example, the use of epistemic claims lends a sense of credibility to this narrative of English that divides people in two groups, one that speaks English, and one that doesn’t and that throughout all these years has remained an elite language ( Teaching in Mother Tongue i/18-Apr-04 ); English is a foreign language not understood by 60% uneducated population who cannot be taught in English, as they can’t even speak the national language ( Medium of Instruction ii/18-Apr-03 ). It is claimed that less than 2% [ Pakistanis ] speak English ( Teaching in Mother Tongue i/18-Apr-04 ), while the rural population does not understand a word in English ( PTV’s language/18-Apr-02 ), and many are not able to spell their name in English ( Education going nowhere/19-Jun-07 ). One needs to be conscious of the fact that despite the fees and issues related to the quality of education, the growth of school enrolment in private English medium has increased in both rural and urban areas in Pakistan. It would be incorrect, therefore, to assume that in socioeconomic disadvantage these writers lean towards seeing Urdu as more valuable. Instead, the occurrence of the medium of education debate in these letters as perpetuating socioeconomic asymmetries demands a reading that is a bid for inclusion by what is suggested in a letter: bridging the gap between the rulers and the ruled ( The Language Barrier/19-Jun-04; also Language Question in Education ii/17-May-07 ).

The socioeconomic classification also emerged in LEs through commentaries on the relevance of Civil Superior Services (CSS). This is a Pakistani test for bureaucratic jobs that examines the candidates’ English writing skill through an essay ranging between 4000 and 5000 words. These LE writers see the CSS as based on wrong premises, unfairly being a test of their writing speed and wrongly judging the students’ writing skills in presenting relevant, solid and logical developments of ideas in excellent English (CSS Exam 2007/15-Apr-07; CSS Papers / 13-Jun-19) instead of decision-making and leadership qualities (CSS reforms/19-May-02). Excerpt 12 illustrates this negative appraisal of the CSS.

About 95 per cent of students fail either in the English essay or English precis and composition paper. In the latter paper, many candidates fail by just one or two marks. (CSS Papers/13-Jun-19)

Irrespective of the skills demanded in CSS candidacy, excellent literacy practices in English carve membership in this select national policy-making group. The value of English literacy as an elite marker limits the role of Urdu language in the bureaucracy, and also positions it distantly from the larger public for whom policy is designed. By defining what is included and what is excluded, and what is silenced and marginalized, in the CSS candidacy, this theme in the LEs offers a classic example of the kind of elitist education systems that Bourdieu’s theorization of inequality and power centers on. This resonates with the linguistic capital of Urdu, a language that gains value in the constructs of nationhood and national identity but loses in the complex space of education, where LE writers identify Urdu without English with marginalization and socioeconomic disadvantage.

It must be noted that there is consistency in the official policy discourse (e.g., Policy Framework, 2018 , p. 3; Policy, 2009 , p. 27).) and the LE public discourse here. Presenting the vision for the future, the National Education Policy document explains the gap between the Urdu and English schooling: “the rich send their children to private run English medium schools which offer foreign curricula and examination systems; the public schools enrol those who are too poor to do so” (2009, p. 16). Similarly, in parents’ belief that English education will help their children’s prospects, there is harmony in both official and public discourses, as writers argue that Urdu be adopted as medium of instruction and English to be taught as a compulsory subject to improve the quality of education ( Medium of instruction/17-Apr-03) ; and that English should serve as medium of instruction, regional languages as compulsory language subjects, to promote harmony and diversity and match it with international standards (Medium of instruction i/18-Apr-03). This lack of a unified linguistic market reverberates with findings on parents’ choices for both the languages English and Urdu in schooling, as they juggle between the two dominant languages and worldviews (Ashraf, 2008 ).

Hybrid cultural identities in the linguistic habitus of multilingual and plurilingual Pakistan

Bourdieu ( 1998 ) marks the field with constant, permanent relationships of inequality as struggles for either its transformation or preservation. As mentioned in the Introduction, scholars wishing to work with Bourdieu’s insights in the Global South have debated the applicability of his theory in these new contexts (e.g., Moraru, 2016 ; Stroud, 2002 ; Swigart, 2001 ). Can we extend his theorization from his experiences in France and Algeria to high linguistic diversity contexts? Can we rely on notions of multilingual (Benson, 2013 , 2014 ) or plurilingual (Lamb, 2015 ) habitus as are put forth by some scholars working in the vast global South to which most of the world languages belong? I approach this with caution in this analysis section, as I view agents in multilingual markets adopting different systems of dispositions in their socialization to compete against inequity or for access—a process enhanced with the forces of globalization and digitalization, which are more heterogenous and multilingual than France was.

In the LE corpus, outside of education few letters argue for making available the non-dominant and regional languages in signage that signals danger or fosters preservation of culture ( Keenjhar Lake Tragedy/16-Jun-03, Manners of the Well-Bred/16-May-02, East vs. West/17-Jun-03 ). This gives a notion of a rather unified linguistic market. In education, however, in the mind of LE writers the desirability of legitimate or standardized languages precludes the diverse linguistic and cultural resources brought to the school by multilingual students. The LE corpus unveils comments on this aspect of linguistic sensibilities too (e.g., One Language/18-May-07; Ptv’s Languages/18-Apr-02 ), as shown in 13 and 14.

[P]lease speak in one language throughout … do not utter one sentence or word in English and the other sentence or word in Urdu when addressing an event. By mixing the languages we are confusing people and showing our ignorance. (One language/18-May-07)

I had the occasion to watch a programme on psychology on a Pakistan Television … A psychologist was being interviewed by a lady who was putting all her questions to him in English while the replies were being given entirely in Urdu. I could not decide if the programme was in English or in Urdu. (PTV’s language/18-Apr-02)

Some writers regret using English words more frequently whereas Urdu equivalents are available ( Literature and vulgarity/16-Jun-03; East vs. West/17-Jun-03 ), lament the loss of local identities in favour of the West, and show dismay or disapproval over children losing the rich local literature in favor of globalized English as in 15 and 16

[A] social problem in which he lamented the westernization of our society… [T]he new generation greets with a “Hi” instead of “Assalam Alaikum”, […] it takes pride in going to the English-medium schools (East vs. West/17-Jun-03)

The young generation without having read the books like Dastan-i-Amir Hamza and others like it does not even know what great reading pleasure they are missing as compared to the stories from the West which they likely take, as superior to ours, a sad trend set in their minds, of late. (Amir Hamza in the land of Qaf/19-Apr-08)

Assumptions about what is acceptable and appropriate use of language are garnered in recommendations, e.g., to support translations of local literature to maintain ties (see also Suleiman, 2014 ). Such practices on the one hand, create spaces for subversion of the monolingual hegemony and, on the other, they also authenticate agents evaluating their choices with expanded competence or metalinguistic awareness of what needs to be adapted for a given chance of profit. Linking language and social discourses, Bourdieu ( 1977b ) regarded variations of patterns as constitutes of a congruent system of differentiations ascribed to socially distinct modes of acquisition. A metalinguistic evaluation allows multilingual speakers to use two or more languages acquired separately or together without equal or entire fluency in them, for different purposes, in different fields of life, with different people. In doing so, these writers enact monolingual hegemonic ideologies, but also demonstrate that the reality of multilingual practices is profoundly embedded in Pakistani society, however regrettable these voices may find it. It is no wonder then that there has been no widespread acceptance of a state-level attempt in recent years by the ILM Initiative ( 2015 ) to create a modern Urdish curriculum recommending use of English terminology and Urdu explanation for students grappling with the linguistic and cognitive difficulty levels of students.

Summary of findings

As shown in the analyses presented, in LEs people restructure their linguistic habitus to the rules and laws of price formation according to the symbolic and instrumental functions of language. This is demonstrated in ambivalent associations with English that offset locality, and the opposite associations with Urdu as the heritage of the past that did not include English in nationhood and nation-building. Moreover, this cultural conflict is problematized in socioeconomic gaps because huge sections of the population who desire English are either deprived or not affected at all by this international lingua franca. LEs identify perhaps the major dilemma that challenges not just Pakistan but many developing economies, including South Asian economies: erasure of the role of nondominant and regional languages from education as part of a contested investment of governments in promoting English-oriented language policies, guided or misguided by the laudable goal to address issues of poverty and illness.

These findings from the analysis of letters in relation to nationalistic ideologies, the linguistic capital in education, plurilingual practices, and their impact on people’s aspirations characterize the linguistic habitus that is restructured, (re)evaluated and (re)sanctioned by the power dynamics in multiple markets in Pakistan’s society. These processes have transformed from the nation-state era to the globalized world where, as Benson and Elorza ( 2015 ) claim, the lingua franca is more multilingual than ever, as is the need to reassess our “unquestioned assumptions pervading language policy” (Benson, 2013 , p. 290). The complex language and educational choices found in the letters are not exclusive of Pakistan. Scholars have shown that other countries face similar dilemmas for English education and prospects of growth for multilingual people, including Anchimbe ( 2013 ) for Cameroon, Chen ( 2010 ) for Taiwan, Heugh ( 2013 ) for South Africa, Namanya ( 2017 ) for Philippines, and Opoku-Amankwa ( 2009 ) for Ghana. Milligan et al. ( 2020 ) note that often in policy discussions there is a tendency to support English as means of promoting equity to focus on institutional access. This is true of the National Education Policy ( 2009 ) and the latest Education Policy Framework ( 2018 ) in Pakistan, both of which suggest implementation of an action plan to uplift English language teaching. Though the LE writers in the present study raised such questions, one needs to be mindful that even if English is made accessible to students enrolled in the government schools, there are no assurances of equity, or of the quality of education, or that the English language skills of students will improve.

Language policy is often viewed as a matter of supporting target language proficiency in whatever languages are chosen as advantageous for a society (Gorter & Cenoz, 2016 ; Tollefson, 2008 ). This approach, however, risks feeding into discourses of deficit, where individuals and communities are paternalistically viewed as in need of linguistic remediation. The present study has taken an ontological shift away from issues of proficiency and deficit and onto a recognition of de facto multilingual and plurilingual repertoire as characterizing a society such as Pakistan. Instead, it has investigated public voices enacting the policy discourse, thereby centering language policy on metadiscourses that reveal the habitus in non-normative spaces of those who have produced the letters. The metadiscourses of habitus illuminate how writers vacillate between a desire to instill nationalistic ideologies and a wish to emancipate in pursuit of global trends, to use different codes for gains, all the while as they participate in the cultural production of nationalistic ideologies. These metadiscourses identify the educational issues related to the linguistic habitus as embedded in people’s conceptualization of education, unearthing the ambivalences in their affinity to dominant languages as English and Urdu in Pakistan, and the tensions between notions of local and national identities and modernity. Though LE themselves are not practice, they offer logic for the practice. The ontological shift taken recognizes that dominant and non-dominant languages are enmeshed into a de facto multilingual and plurilingual repertoire in the society, and that practices are inherent, robust, and organic. As such this view of policymaking extends beyond the policy document itself, and lends agency to the various actors enabling and interpreting the policy (Liddicoat, 2020 ), or appropriating it in practice (Canagarajah & Ashraf, 2013 ). With LEs, the discourse on language policy thus extends beyond discourse on language and society, and includes reactions to it (Georgiou, 2011 ). In this sense, this study offers new ways of looking into language policy scholarship, and into the ways people conceptualize their linguistic habitus in relation to the market value of education as a means that increases their social capital.

Instead of top-down policies, a multilingual model works best in communities with “shared spaces,” where many language groups accommodate others in the same geographic space (Khubchandani, 1997 ). Having more leverage than monolingual speakers, the multilingual users—as in Pakistan—have the choice of foregrounding their identities with either the national, regional, or dominant languages, drawing from their multilingual sensibility (Kramsch, 2013 ). Their linguistic habitus structures around the framework of market opportunities and constraints, as Bourdieu ( 1991 ) identified. Yet, their multilingual competencies and habitus are skewed in discourses of dominant language ideologies reinforced by official language education policies. The LE corpus enables the narrative of this ambivalent linguistic habitus to be explicated in the discourses of multilingualism, multilingual identities, and the medium of education. It draws attention to the complex construction of multilingual people and the role of education in it. The dilemma in most postcolonial settings is that the monolingual ideologies are more powerful, and multilingualism goes against the grain for those who seek to get ahead. By patronizing a multilingual disposition across the board at all educational levels, this study is a hopeful invitation to future policy initiatives that make space for the non-dominant languages of the majority people by including, recognizing, and appreciating them in different markets for participation within and across diverse democracies.

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Ashraf, H. The ambivalent role of Urdu and English in multilingual Pakistan: a Bourdieusian study. Lang Policy 22 , 25–48 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-022-09623-6

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Received : 19 April 2021

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Published : 22 March 2022

Issue Date : March 2023

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-022-09623-6

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Pakistan National Language: Urdu

Pakistan being a diverse country with many languages and cultures depends on the Pakistan National Language, Urdu, to maintain unity by acting as a bridge between the nation. This one language unites the country and serves as its national language. In this article, we will take an in-depth look at Pakistan’s national language, its history, its importance, and its role in modern Pakistan. We will also answer some common questions about Urdu to provide you with a better understanding of this language.

Urdu is a language of South Asia, spoken primarily in Pakistan and India. It is a member of the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family and is closely related to Hindi. Urdu is written in a modified version of the Persian script and has many loanwords from Arabic and Persian.

In Pakistan, Urdu is the national language and is spoken by a large majority of the population. It is also one of the two official languages of the country, along with English. Urdu serves as a means of communication between people of different regions and cultures in Pakistan and has played a significant role in the country’s development and progress.

Table of Contents

History of Pakistan National Language

The history of Urdu dates back to the 13th century when it began to evolve as a language in the region of Delhi. It was a mixture of Persian, Arabic, and local dialects spoken in the area. Urdu gained prominence during the Mughal Empire (1526-1858) when it became the court language of the empire. It was during this time that Urdu was enriched with many loanwords from Persian and Arabic.

After the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, Urdu was declared the national language of Pakistan. It replaced English, which was the official language of British India. Urdu continued to evolve and absorb words from other languages, including English.

Importance of Urdu in Pakistan

Urdu plays a vital role in Pakistan’s national identity and unity. It is the language that binds the country together and serves as a symbol of the country’s rich cultural heritage. Urdu is used in all aspects of life in Pakistan, including education, government, media, and literature.

Urdu and Education in Pakistan

Urdu is the primary medium of instruction in schools in Pakistan. It is taught as a first language in most schools, while English is taught as a second language. Urdu is also used in higher education, with many universities offering degree programs in Urdu literature and language.

Urdu Literature and Culture

Urdu has a rich literary tradition, with a vast body of literature spanning centuries. It has produced some of the world’s most celebrated poets and writers, including Mirza Ghalib, Allama Iqbal, and Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Urdu literature covers a wide range of topics, including poetry, fiction, drama, and history.

Urdu culture is closely intertwined with the language, with many cultural traditions and customs associated with Urdu. Urdu is also the language of the national anthem of Pakistan.

Urdu and the Media in Pakistan

Urdu is the language of the media in Pakistan, with most newspapers, television channels, and radio stations broadcasting in Urdu. It is also used extensively in advertising and marketing.

The Future of Urdu in Pakistan

Despite the importance of Urdu in Pakistan, the language is facing some challenges. The increasing use of English in education and business is leading to a decline in Urdu’s usage in some sectors. However, there are efforts to promote the language and preserve its rich heritage. The government of Pakistan has taken steps to increase the use of Urdu in official communication, and many organizations are working to promote Urdu education and literature.

Urdu vs. Other Pakistani Languages

Pakistan is a diverse country with many languages spoken by different ethnic groups. Urdu is the national language, but there are also many other regional languages, including Punjabi, Sindhi, Balochi, and Pashto. While Urdu is widely spoken and understood throughout Pakistan, regional languages are also important for maintaining cultural diversity and identity.

Common Misconceptions the Pakistan National Language

There are some misconceptions about Urdu that need to be clarified. One common misconception is that Urdu is the language of Muslims only. While Urdu has many loanwords from Arabic and Persian, it is a language that belongs to all Pakistanis, regardless of their religion.

Another misconception is that Urdu is a difficult language to learn. While learning any new language can be challenging, Urdu is not inherently more difficult than other languages. With dedication and practice, anyone can learn to speak and write Urdu fluently.

• Is Urdu spoken only in Pakistan?

No, Urdu is also spoken in India, where it is one of the official languages.

• What are some of the famous Urdu poets and writers?

Some of the famous Urdu poets and writers include Mirza Ghalib, Allama Iqbal, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, and Ahmed Faraz.

• Can I learn Urdu online?

Yes, there are many online resources available for learning Urdu, including websites, apps, and online courses.

• Is Urdu the most widely spoken language in Pakistan?

No, while Urdu is widely spoken and understood throughout Pakistan, there are many other regional languages spoken by different ethnic groups.

• Is Urdu a difficult language to learn?

While learning any new language can be challenging, Urdu is not inherently more difficult than other languages. With dedication and practice, anyone can learn to speak and write Urdu fluently.

Urdu is an essential language in Pakistan, serving as the national language and a symbol of the country’s cultural heritage. It plays a vital role in education, literature, media, and daily life. While facing some challenges, efforts are being made to promote and preserve the language for future generations. Understanding Urdu and its significance is crucial for anyone interested in Pakistan and its diverse culture.

• “Urdu Language: The War of Words Continues” by The Diplomat – an article discussing the ongoing debate surrounding Urdu’s status as the national language of Pakistan.
• “Urdu’s struggle for official recognition in Pakistan” by Al Jazeera – a report on the efforts to promote Urdu and increase its usage in official communication.
• “The Future of Urdu in Pakistan” by Dawn – an opinion piece on the challenges facing Urdu and the need for its preservation and promotion.
• “Teaching Urdu to Pakistani Children in the US” by Voice of America – a feature on efforts to teach Urdu to children of Pakistani origin living in the United States.

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Urdu as an Official Language: A Constitutional Mandate Compliance and Challenges Prospectives

• Saqib Jawad Civil Judge-Islamabad, Pakistan
• Barkat Ali Assistant Professor, Department of Law, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Pakistan
• Muhammad Assad IPFP Fellow, HEC, Department of Law, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Pakistan
• Muhammad Sohail Civil Judge cum Judicial Magistrate Islamabad, Pakistan

Though Urdu language has no religious background, it is inspired by Arabic a mother-tongue of Islam. However, after its development, Urdu was exclusively attributed to be the language of Muslims of the Sub-continent. They faced many challenges for the survival of Urdu during the Movement of Independence. For the same reason, after independence, Urdu was declared to be the National Language of Pakistan. Afterward, certain bodies were established for its proper implementation as official language of the country. This aspect is recognized as constitutional obligation in term of Article 251 of Constitution, 1973. Though, the government was given sufficient time for the compliance of the same, this task could not have been accomplished despite of lapse of almost fifty years. Even, the judicial verdicts could not make the concerned institutions mindful. Instead, English is the official language of Pakistan since independence. Of course, there is difference of opinion on the matter of Official Language. Among others, the medium of education and legislation including policy papers are the major issues which are on English pattern. However, if these issues are addressed, the constitutional obligation of implementing Urdu as official language may be ensured.

Ali, Raj. (2017, May 11). The case for Urdu as Pakistan's official language. The Herald's.

Amin, Akhtar. (2017, January 18). PHC asks federal, KP govts to explain non-implementation of Urdu as official language. The News.

Bangash, Yaqoob Khan. (2016, October 9). Jinnah, culture and language. The News.

Bughio, M. Qasim. (2020) Linguistic challenges in Pakistan (Part I), Academy for Punjab in North America. Retrieved from http://apnaorg.com/prose-content/english- articles/page-8/article-8/index.html Civil Appeals. N.1476 – 1485, etc, of 2018.

Correspondent. (24 January 2016). Urdu as official language: Supreme Court to hear contempt pleas against PM”, The Express Tribune.

Garcia, Maria Isabel Maldonado. (2015, November 24). Urdu as an Official Language of Pakistan. The News.

Jabeen, Mussarat. Chandio, Amir, Ali and Qazim, Zarina. (2010). Language Controversy: Impacts on National Politics and Secession of East Pakistan. South Asian Studies, Vol. 25, No. 1.99-124.

Kausar, Robina. Sarwar, Muhammad, and Shabbir, Muhammad, (2015).The History of the Urdu Language Together with Its Origin and Geographic Distribution. International Journal of Innovation and Research in Educational Sciences, Volume 2, Issue, 2349-5219.

Khalique, Harris. (2006). The Urdu-English Relationship and Its Impact on Pakistan’s Social Development. The Annual of Urdu Studies, 99-112.

Maneha, Tariq, “Court Orders CSS Exam to Be in Urdu”, Courting the Law, February 2017, Retrieved from http://courtingthelaw.com/2017/02/18/news-events/court-orders-css-exam-to-be-in-urdu/

Muhammad Kowkab Iqbal v. Govt. of Pakistan the Secretary Cabinet Division, Islamabad [1210] PLD 2015 SC.

Rahman, Tariq. (1998). Language-Teaching Policies in Pakistan. Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Research Report Series No. 14, 1-13

Shah, Noorul Hada, (2018, February 18). Urdu should not be the only national language of Pakistan? Daily Times.

Sindh High Court Bar Association v. Federation of Pakistan [2009] PLD SC 876.

Tariq Rahman (2005).Passports to Privilege: The English-Medium Schools in Pakistan.

Torwali, Zubir. (2014, July 24).The national language conundrum. The Express Tribune.

Web Desk. (2019, July 27). Urdu to be medium of instruction in Punjab at Primary level: CM Buzdar. The Nation. Retrieved from https://nation.com.pk/tag/primary%20level

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The ambivalent role of Urdu and English in multilingual Pakistan: a Bourdieusian study

Hina ashraf.

Department of Linguistics, Georgetown University, Washington, DC USA

Pakistan, one of the eight countries comprising South Asia, has more than 212.2 million people, making it the world’s fifth most populous country after China, India, USA, and Indonesia. It has also the world’s second-largest Muslim population. Eberhard et al. (Ethnologue: languages of the world, SIL International, 2020) report 77 languages used by people in Pakistan, although the only two official languages are Urdu and English. After its Independence from the British colonial rule in 1947, it took much deliberation for the country to make a shift from its monolingual Urdu orientation to a multilingual language policy in education in 2009. This entailed a shift from the dominant Urdu language policy for the masses (and English exclusively reserved for elite institutions), to a gradual and promising change that responded to the increasing social demand for English and for including regional languages in the curriculum. Yet English and Urdu dominate the present policy and exclude regional non-dominant languages in education that themselves are dynamic and unstable, and restructured continually due to the de facto multilingual and plurilingual repertoire of the country. Using Bourdieu’s (Outline of a theory of practice Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1977a, The economics of linguistic exchanges. Soc Sci Inform 16:645–668, 1977b, The genesis of the concepts of habitus and field. Sociocriticism 2:11–24 1985, Language and symbolic power Polity Press, Cambridge, 1991) conceptualization of habitus, this study analyzes letters to the editor published between 2002–2009 and 2018–2020 in a leading English daily of Pakistan. The analysis unveils the linguistic dispositions that are discussed in the letters and their restructuring through market forces, demonstrating a continuity between the language policy discourse and public aspirations. The findings also indicate the ambivalences towards Urdu and English in relation to nationalistic ideologies, modernity and identity.

Introduction

In the multilingual global South, though the dominant languages enjoy a certain hierarchy, the symbolic value of the regional languages remains in constant flux across different domains. This is certainly the case of Pakistan. People in Pakistani society in general are linguistically diverse, and while one language represents their ethnolinguistic identity, others are incorporated in everyday living for business transactions, official matters, religious practices, entertainment, and education, indicating that no one language is sufficient for meeting all the communicative requirements across various social situations. In education, for example, both English and Urdu are important. Parents grant more capital to English for its access to employment, a modern identity, information channels, and the global economy, but for their children Urdu cultivates and nurtures local, cultural, and societal bonds, and for girls it even symbolizes familial values (Ashraf, 2008 ). With 77 living languages, of which only these two (i.e., Urdu and English) are dominant, Pakistan’s language policy has often been presented with ideological conflicts, the most salient of which was the Urdu and Bengali conflict concluding in the separation of East Pakistan from West in 1971 as a sovereign state—now Bangladesh. In order to theorize these multilingual identities, one needs to be conscious of the unique South Asian linguistic practices, where, in the words of Canagarajah, ( 2004 ) “the self is composed of multiple subjectivities that are derived by heterogeneous codes, registers and discourses found in the society, with unequal status and power deriving from differential positioning in socioeconomic terms” (2004, p. 117). There is a conflict and tension within and between these subjectivities, and “in order to attain coherence and empowerment, the subject has to negotiate these competing identities and subject positions in relation to the changing discursive and material contexts” (p. 117). These processes often result in appropriation of top-down institutional policies. Moreover, the need of different languages for gains in different social domains gives rise to a multilinguals’ paradoxical view of nationhood, the assets they may be able to access in Pakistani society (e.g., education, social connections), and the value of multilingualism in education. The present study sets out to examine these tensions and paradoxes as they are captured in published responses to language policy formation in Pakistan in the genre of letter to the editor.

Viewed from the perspective of French sociologist Bourdieu ( 1977a , b , 1985 , 1991 ), people are influenced by a sense of value in determining the rules for their choices within the contexts and constraints of different social spaces or fields . Bourdieu called these dispositions habitus , which he defines as the “subjective but not individual system of internalized structures, schemes of perception, conception and action” ( 1977a , p. 86). The Bourdieusian proviso that habitus is “subjective but not individual” signals a definitional tension between group and agent, macro and micro forces. Sociologist Loïc Wacquant, one of Bourdieu’s contemporary interpreters in the U.S., illuminates this tension by defining habitus as “deposited in persons in the form of lasting dispositions, or trained capacities and structured propensities to think, feel and act in determinant ways, which then guide them” (Wacquant, 2005 , p. 316). Of these internalized systems and deposited lasting dispositions, the linguistic habitus is a subset, acquired in determining the more valued language(s) in a socially defined context or, as Bourdieu calls it, market. The linguistic market defines the social conditions of acceptability, often reflected in accents and discursive resources employed by agents. The dominant language establishes the norm against which the prices of the other modes of expression, and the values of the various competences, are defined (Bourdieu, 1977b ). Accordingly, standardized or legitimized national language(s) lend authority to certain languages that lower the value or market share of other languages, resulting in individuals developing their “linguistic sense of placement” (Salö, 2015 ), and aligning their linguistic practices accordingly. Agents’ development of this linguistic sense of placement, however, is considerably complex in multilingual settings. Bourdieu’s theorization was grounded in his experiences in France and Algeria. Other scholars working in the Global South have debated the applicability of Bourdieu’s theory in these other contexts, which are characterized, as Pakistan is, by much higher linguistic diversity than Bourdieu could have envisioned (see Moraru, 2016 ; Stroud, 2002 ; and Swigart, 2001 ). Among several theoretical extensions of habitus proposed in this discussion, scholars like Benson ( 2013 , 2014 ) have felt the need to use the term multilingual habitus to capture the reality that agents’ linguistic utterances are regularly borrowed from more than one language. Other scholars like Lamb ( 2015 ) prefer the near-synonymous term plurilingual habitus so as to emphasize even more fluid shifts whereby agents borrow from different languages in their repertoire without seemingly drawing clear-cut boundaries between languages (see also Canagarajah, 2009 ). It is helpful for the goals of the present research to consider a multilingual or plurilingual habitus, as it helps envision agents in multilingual markets as adopting different systems of dispositions in their socialization to compete against inequity or for access—a process enhanced with the forces of globalization and digitalization.

In this study, I combine the perspectives of individual multilingual sensibilities and responses to heterogenous market forces to understand the metadiscourses of habitus as encapsulated in letters to the editor published in Dawn , a widely disseminated national newspaper, over the course of the 2000s. This was a critical period in Pakistan’s political history (Ashraf, 2014 ) as well as significant for being the time when Pakistan transitioned to its first multilingual education policy, promulgated in 2009. In past language policy scholarship, letters to the editor have been analyzed for the window they afford into language ideologies (e.g., Hiss, 2013 ). But letters to the editor, I argue, are also revealing of the habitus of those who have produced them: They not only can become data that help to understand how public voices enact the policy discourse, but they also encapsulate metadiscourses of habitus that an analyst can unpack. Therefore, in the present study I hope to show how these enactments of the policy discourse in Pakistani letters to the editor heighten our understanding of the mechanisms through which linguistic habitus functions in relation to language policy. I specifically address three research questions in my analysis: What are the certainties and ambivalences that (re)structure the linguistic habitus of multilingual Pakistani speakers as related to the heterogeneity of the market? What conceptualizations of the standardized national language, Urdu, are endorsed by people in Pakistan? How is education related to the values and forces of the various markets?

Given that habitus is multidimensional and constructed socio-historically, I first present Pakistan’s historical background. This section is followed by an overview of the theoretical orientations on the agency of habitus in multilingual settings. I then present the methodology. The analysis unveils the evolving process through which the writers of Dawn ’s letters to the editor act, think, and make sense of the language policy and practices in relation to market values ascribed to languages. I end with a discussion of the findings and their implications.

Pakistan’s historical background

Forming the southern part of the Silk Road, what now is modern Pakistan has always been a site of connecting the East and the West through transmigration, intercultural contacts and semiotic systems that can be traced back to 500 BCE. From the Indus Valley Civilization of the Bronze Age to the present, the linguistic diversity of this region, with fluid shifts in codes, suggests linguistic dispositions influenced by the market values of different languages. For example, in 500 BCE, Sanskrit, very much like Latin in medieval Europe, was the typical literary and religious language, Prakrit and Pali were essentially the vernaculars and the spoken languages, and Old Iranian influenced Persian, Afghan, Kurdish and Ossetic languages (Lamberg-Karlovsky, 2002 ). In addition to the regional languages, foreign invasions inspired plurilingual practices. For example, Greek edicts, inscriptions, and coins bearing Greek scripts with Indo-Aryan language influences were in use even before Alexander’s advent in 327 BC till as late as the eighth century AD (Khalid et al., 2011 ). Similarly, scripts in Arwi (i.e., Tamil written in the Arabic script) were used in South India and Sri Lanka, reflecting a practice of mixing scripts and languages that continued from the eighth to nineteenth century (Alim, 1993 ). During the Mughal era that coincides with the Renaissance in Europe (1526–1540 and 1556–1857), literacy practices flourished in several local languages. Persian was an influential and official language, Arabic was the lingua franca, while amongst themselves the emperors used Turk (Rahman, 2002 ). This multilingual society dramatically shifted to a monolingual view with the British colonial movement, in just 90 years (1857–1947), creating a hierarchy of languages with English at the top, and introducing later nation-state single language policies which unleashed local reactionary movements and generated chauvinistic, exclusivist ideologies and communal tensions that went against local pluralism (Ashraf, 2018 ; Canagarajah & Ashraf, 2013 ). The onset of the British colonial movement also marked a shift from inclusion, acceptance, and tolerance to exclusion, less acceptance, and less tolerance of multilingualism.

After Independence from Britain in 1947, Pakistan designated Urdu its national language, and the inherited colonial English as official. This went against the grain of local multilingualism but promoted the birth of Pakistan in the nation-state era. The challenges for this two-language policy were not small, however, and they continue to be present to this date. For one, despite its lingua franca status across Pakistan and North India, Urdu is the mother tongue of only about 8% of the total population (Pakistan, 2001). Second, Urdu does not have the same linguistic capital as English (Ashraf, 2008 ; Shamim & Rashid, 2019 ), but dominates English in some fields where it is ritualized, and where it confers unequal values to other languages. Every so often, its users are referred to as desi , i.e., an Urdu word with the pejorative meaning of “the local, lesser developed people,” perhaps a quality similar to what would be characterized as peasant or backward in western English contexts. In the long run, Urdu has been the medium of education in Pakistani elementary and secondary schools since Independence, but it has not replaced English in professional, higher or STEM education. Recently, the National Education Policy ( 2009 ) and the latest National Education Policy Framework ( 2018 ) have proposed a multilingual policy, starting from mother tongue (i.e., L1) as medium of instruction in early grades, and moving to Urdu and English (i.e., L2) at lower or higher secondary levels. This multilingual compartmentalized progression from early grades to higher secondary levels presents a system of regulation which shapes people’s linguistic sensibilities concerning normativity, acceptability, and appropriateness (see also Hanks, 2005 ).

Theoretical framework

Viewing habitus in multilingual practices and education.

Bourdieu’s ( 1977a , 1977b , 1985 , 1991 ) theory of habitus and its relatedness to field and market offer a tool to reconcile external social structures and subjective experiences. Hanks ( 2005 ) and Joseph ( 2020 ) chronicle how influential in his development of the theory was Aristotelian hexis , which combines intention and judgement, Merleau-Ponty’s corporeal habitus and chair , visible in the familiarity and immediacy of dispositions or embodiment, and Panofsky’s habits of mind , which involves the cultural production of what is taken as habitual action or practice, and which is sedimented in an individual’s subjectivity through social interaction. Bourdieu assumes that agents have an individual history which is shaped by education of their social milieu and by their collective history. As such, Bourdieusian theory and the construct of habitus with its two related notions of field and market are useful for the present purposes to investigate top-down and bottom-up language policy dynamics. His conceptualization of habitus functions with a generative principle of deliberate choices within the parameters of a social field forming the rules of the marketplace that render value and an instinctive, corporeal cognition to certain acts. As already mentioned, Bourdieu’s habitus refers to agents’ individual subjectivities and dispositions that are in fact not entirely individual but internalized and shared among members of a group or class when certain features of their habitus overlap ( 1977a ; also Wacquant, 2005 ). He defines field as a social space in which agents take different positions that are determined by the historical process of occupancy, symbolic boundaries of constraints, the trajectories of the agents, and the habitus that is shaped by engagement (Hanks, 2005 ). Accordingly, the economic, educational, and artistic fields each have their own discursive features, rules, and laws, often overlapping in homologous fields. It follows that the linguistic marketplace regulates the value of a language in different fields. A study of habitus thus is an investigation into the processes in which the ingrained, and often unconscious aspects of sociolinguistic behavior and the agency of individuals respond to language policymaking, for example in a complexly multilingual setting such as in Pakistan.

Recent studies have examined how habitus manifests in the relationships and commitments between languages, individuals, and communities, collaboratively subverting monolingual ideals (Lamb, 2015 ), or constructing heterogeneous, alternative, or illegitimate linguistic practices (Moraru, 2020 ). Scholars also draw attention to the functional multilingualism of social agents and their habitus in various contexts of interaction (Moore & Gajo, 2009 ; Salö, 2020 ). For example, Moore and Gajo ( 2009 ) place analytical weight on multilingual agents, who find themselves at various points along a situational continuum; various positionings on this continuum induce alternative choices and social adjustments, particular language modes e.g., the choice of one language or the possibility of code-switching, and endorsing different identities as a speaker e.g., a monolingual, a bilingual or a learner identity, all within the same conversation. Agents’ multilingual sensibility and habitus allow them to negotiate different hierarchies of valuation, and these hierarchies contribute to the creation of social capital i.e., accrued or virtual resources that influence the development of durable networking and social mobility (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992 ), and to the (re)production of identity. Discussing Eastern societies and especially Arabic language and identity, Suleiman ( 2014 ) cautions against a reductive view of national identity, and for the recognition of implicit ethnolinguistic and religious bonds that exist in pluralism. He includes both the symbolic and instrumental roles of languages in the formation of national identity, viewing the former as a construct of group boundary and the latter in its communicative function. The Bourdieusian theory of habitus also offers a profitable vantage point into the study of dynamic language policy in the sociohistorical context of South Asia and Pakistan, where different languages either gain or are granted legitimacy and symbolic capital, e.g., in establishing national identity, cultural capital, or medium of education. Such an investigation into the restructuring of the linguistic and cultural habitus in multilingual settings can illuminate the social phenomena in which the symbolic and instrumental roles of language in a repertoire of identities (Joseph, 2012 ) constantly shift, negotiate, and renegotiate new social identities in the presence of conflicting nationalisms and polarization.

Bourdieu ( 1977b ) regarded the education system as a crucial object of struggle for its authority to legitimize certain language(s) or varieties. Ethnographers of education studying non-Western multilingual contexts extend the conceptualization of habitus to study multilingual contexts, and individuals who embody either monolingual or multilingual dispositions according to the rules of the market (e.g., Benson, 2013 ; Gogolin, 2002 ; L’nyavskiy-Ekelund & Siiner, 2017 ). In her studies about multilingual schooling in Africa and Asia, international and comparative education scholar Carolyn Benson notes that viewing language from the perspective of bounded entities, preserves the dominance of certain languages and “prevents educators from understanding the linguistic, cognitive and cultural resources that learners bring with them to the classroom” ( 2013 , p. 15). In linguistically diverse contexts like Africa, Benson ( 2013 ) reminds us that the very presence of functional multilingualism authenticates an unquestioned linguistic habitus in a place unique to a given market, but pervaded by assumptions of a unifying language. She draws attention to the unrealistic and imperfect ideologies of (a) single or dominant language(s) as the solution, for being “contrary to the nature of multilingual societies” (Milligan et al., 2020 , p. 119). She urges stakeholders at the policy stage to engage in careful and systemic planning at curriculum levels, so as to avoid creating a system that represents a tunnel vision of the education system or neglecting other curricular content in favor of just one language (Benson, 2014 ). In South Asian countries, as Khubchandani’s ( 2008 ) encyclopedic essay informs us, the gap between ideal language and language in function is often quite wide because the educational institutions usually adopt a minimalist approach “with vague commitments and qualifying clauses which are, in turn, a result of negotiating with contradictory agendas of market forces, serving the interests of the elite, and succumbing to the demands of ethnic pressures” (p. 377). Given that an investigation into habitus in itself responds to the social formation of speakers, their dispositions to include language(s) in certain ways, and the embodiment of values granted to the language(s) in different markets, the distinction between monolingual and multilingual dispositions is all the more useful in South Asian and hence Pakistan’s language policy context, where more than one language have had varying degrees of linguistic capital in homologous fields sociohistorically leading to social reproduction of inequality.

Letters to the editor in language policy research

Language policy debates have found an outlet in the letters to the editors’ section in newspapers as some previous studies indicate (e.g., Fitzsimmons-Doolan, 2009 ; Georgiou, 2011 ). Yang’s ( 2017 ) longitudinal analysis of a Korean newspaper corpus sought to understand the discourses of national identity and struggle of language choice between Korean and Japanese. This researcher showed that newspapers serve as public institutions to disseminate facts, but also as a discursive venue to interpret facts. In the United States, Fitzsimmons-Doolan ( 2009 ) analyzed a newspaper corpus in order to evaluate the pluralist narrative in language policies that promoted multilingualism in relation to immigrant discourses in Arizona at the time. As a genre, letters to the editor offer opinions by non-professional writers (Young, 2013 ), and they are published only after attaining the editorial approval for their arguments (Nip, 2006 ). Nevertheless, they also offer a deliberative form of democracy (Wahl-Jorgensen, 2001 ) in its resistant narrative (Ashraf, 2014 ). In this context, worth mentioning is Georgiou’s ( 2011 ) study of newspaper texts from letters, editorials, cartoons, opinion texts, and news texts, all responding to the policy of standardization and transliteration to Cypriot Greek in Cyprus. In her analysis, the policy signified top-down discourse going against the grain of the changing sociolinguistic realities of the society, and she found the responses represented refusal to endorse standardization. Georgiou’s study advocates for consideration of lay ideas in policy decisions to avoid undesired outcomes. Hiss ( 2013 ) analyzed Norwegian letters to the editor and short opinions to examine how language ideologies about Sámi and Norwegian were publicly debated through newspaper texts. Hiss’s corpus analysis reveals how writers of the letters anchored their evaluations and stances on language ideologies, essentially expressing judgements of other people’s behaviors.

As this literature suggests, letters to the editor are valuable data not only to understand responses to top-down language policy but also because they can expose “a nation’s ideals” (Hart, 2018 , p. 24), thus making multiyear investigations of how discourses are structured and beliefs performed in them worthwhile. In the present study, I treat the genre as gleaning data that help to understand public voices’ metadiscourses of linguistic habitus. The Pakistani letters to the editor I analyze heighten our understanding of the mechanisms through which linguistic habitus functions in relation to language policy.

The present data consist of 64 letters to the editor on the topic of the state of education in Pakistan, published in Dawn , the oldest and largest English-language daily newspaper in Pakistan. Of them, 61 were published between 2002 and 2009. They come from a corpus of 1881 Dawn letters created by Ashraf ( 2014 ). First, a stratified random sampling strategy was applied, whereby all letters to the editor published on the 8th to 15th of the months of April, May, and June from 2002 to 2009 were collected. Next, the topic identification (i.e., deciding which letters discussed themes relevant to the present study) was done via automated corpus analyses followed by manual analyses. Table ​ Table1 1 lists the results of the searches, which took place as follows. In the first stage of automated analyses, the corpus analysis tool SEM-TAG in Wmatrix assigned semantic tags to words after the Parts of Speech (POS) tagging, giving a general-sense field of words from a lexicon of single words and list of multi-word combinations (Rayson, 2008 ). The semantic tag of Education in general included words like education, teachers, students, schools, teaching, universities , etc. The subset of letters that addressed the medium of education and language(s) in function was identified automatically too. After the initial tagging, the automated analyses identified 78 letters. The next step of manual analyses involved reading each letter and excluding the ones which made only a passing reference to education or the language-in-education. This final step left a total of 61 letters, classified manually after inspecting automated semantic tags into three main themes: education and language, culture and language, and civic sense and language. Together the 61 letters contained discussions on medium of instruction, problem with the system, standard of education, teachers, comparison with regional languages, comparison with foreign countries or languages or education systems, culture, civic responsibility and solutions suggested. It is possible that the public opinion expressed by writers of letters to the editor on a given topic in this newspaper have changed since 2009. Therefore, I replicated the same exact methods and collected all letters in the Dawn published on the 8th to 15th of the months of April, May, and June from 2018 to 2020. Most letters (63) from this second dataset belonging to the domain of general education commented on school fees structure and online schooling after the COVID-19 pandemic, and thus were excluded from further analysis. Three letters between 2018 and 2020 were on the topic of the state of education and language in Pakistan and were retained. (They did not, however, show any changes over time and instead converged on the themes uncovered for the main corpus.) This yielded 64 letters in total for analysis in the present study.

Themes, letters, date of publication

In terms of genre, Pakistani letters to the editor have distinct patterns in content and length. They heavily rely on rhetorical questions, emotive language, and evaluative stance (Ashraf, 2014 ). With respect to discourses on education, an initial reading exhibited themes conveyed in linear, bi-directional, or even cyclical patterns employing linguistic features (e.g., modals, adjectives), or discourse styles (e.g., epistemic claims, stance, and indexicality). This subset of 64 letters revealed discourses on language attitudes and common values hinting linguistic dispositions as homogeneous, dynamic, or multilingual. For purpose of uncovering the mechanisms in which these sociolinguistic discourses are produced, this study combines a fine-grained analysis of linguistic and discourse features in interrelationship with the surrounding semiotic structure in the letters. This dual approach is well suited to understand the metadiscourses of theory and practice in the conceptualization of national language and language of education and how the restructuring habitus works in relation to the values and forces that endow them linguistic capital.

Before presenting the analyses and findings, it must be pointed out here that this study has its own limitations and merits. The data source is limited in certain ways. Firstly, the fact that the letters, as all letters to the editor, were edited before published bears on the trustworthiness of their representing the voice of the people. Secondly, the newspaper caters to an English-speaking sector in Pakistani society, despite its equally emphatic promotion of Urdu education and language. Nevertheless, within these constraints, the ensuing analysis is of a conversation between the actors in the center comprising of an English-speaking literate section of the population, who engage in dialogue on language and education, with the bureaucracy and the larger public. Although this English-speaking population is not a homogenous group and is comprised of different linguistic and ethnic groups, it represents Pakistan’s diverse and literate population, who are directly influenced by the languages, and the education policies.

Analysis and findings

The following analysis functions at two levels: (a) it scrutinizes the unequal values ascribed to languages in the letters to the editor (henceforth LEs), and (b) it elucidates the evolving process through which the writers act, think, and make sense of contextualized practices in relation to different market forces in the multilingual ecology of Pakistan. Longer excerpts are numbered, and unnumbered additional excerpted LE language is offered as well, always italicized, to substantiate interpretations. In both cases, I have included the titles of the letter and the date of publication italicized in parenthesis. As can be seen in Table ​ Table1, 1 , some letter titles repeat, which were assigned a number by the newspaper Dawn and copied as they appeared in the newspaper. In few cases, I assigned a number to letters with similar title in the corpus in chronological order. The variation in themes and years offers a view into the “polymorphic spaces of unequal values and shifting boundaries” (Moore & Gajo, 2009 , p. 140) in relation to national identity, education, and cultural identities.

Urdu as the national language

National identity is a construct often fashioned out of historical interpretations (Suleiman, 2014 ). In the LEs, internalized rules for the one nation-one state ideology prevail in the market for Urdu. Excerpts 1 through 3 below illustrate this theme.

• Urdu has risen out of the work, needs, ties, joys, affections, and tastes of many generations of people spanning centuries and nobody should try to change this reality” (Languages creating a new reality/18-Jun-07)
• It is no joke to replace the language of another origin with the language of another land. It only serves the all-powerful vested interests. Things are not the way they have been claimed… Urdu is the federal language of Pakistan. It can play a meaningful role by linking all of us—Sindhis, Punjabis, Baloch and Pathans—in a harmonious blend, keeping intact our cultures and languages. In this way, it becomes the symbol of our national identity, but one should refrain from allotting it the role of dictatorship. We had been victim of that psyche of monolingual imperialism in the recent past, in 1971. (Urdu as Punjab’s mother-tongue i/18-May-04)
• We should all strive to make Pakistan a place where all languages can attain equal status, can flourish and grow without the danger of extinction. We hope the day arrives soon when these languages will become the source of earning and status for their respective communities (Urdu as Punjab’s mother-tongue ii/20-May-04)

National identity emerges as a market force that gains strength through Urdu and ‘nationalistic Islam.’ It is ritualized in the historical context of Independence in the fields of both nationhood and education, and at times celebrated in its comparison to Hindi (also in Re: Medium of instruction/20-Apr-03 ). Urdu and Hindi, identified as ‘Khari Boli’ or ‘Hindustani’ till the late nineteenth century, “are mutually understandable in spoken form but are written in very dissimilar style” ( Urdu and Hindi: Different yet similar/14-Apr-07 ). They were standardized as two separate languages representing the Muslim and Hindu majority populations in a struggle for Independence under the British colonial rulers.

Urdu is the sole legitimate language for national identity, as the excerpts above illustrate, but outside the field of nationhood, it exists in harmony with other languages in the multilingual ecology, e.g., Punjabi, Sindhi, or Persian— even Hindi if it is not linked to the past (also in Urdu and Hindi: Different yet similar/14-Apr-07, Language question in education/19-Apr-07, Language question in education?17-May-07) . The use of the perfect tense in relation to national identity in these letters intensifies the tension and contrast, unlike the use of modals in other letters that are open to diversity and homogeneity as way forward. In Examples 4 and 5 below, a marked shift from homogeneity to diversity is called for by the writers, and symbolic capital is structured in subjective judgements and appeals to logical reasoning through expressions like good for Pakistan and something that would lead to uniformity . They build a theme of common values in diversity, taking positions through epistemic claims by referring to actually occurring events, past incidents, and binary opposition (Ashraf, 2014 ).

• 4. Pakistan’s future is better served not by homogeneity but by diversity and unity. In future, the Punjabis should be able to speak Punjabi along with Urdu and English, while the Sindhi children should be capable of reading and writing in their own language while using Urdu and English at different levels. This linguistic and mental diversity will do more good for Pakistan than any simple prescriptions that lead to uniformity. (Re: Medium of instruction/20-Apr-03)
• 5. What is the Punjab score after 135 years of Urdu teaching? Before the partition the vernacular final examination required one of three languages: Punjabi, Urdu or Hindi, which was also the medium for other subjects (Language question in education i/19-Apr-07).

The social value of a language or languages is in their relationship to all the other linguistic products in the market, and this determines their distinctive value (Bourdieu, 1977b , p. 654). To Bourdieu the effect of any new experience is integrated into the experiences already shaping the habitus in the form of classifying and generating schemes (ibid. p. 661). In this sense, Urdu is viewed by many of the LE writers in relativistic differences with other languages in education, shedding light on how one language may gain both meaning and value through the complex emergence of historical, social, and economic conditions, and yet that same one language in synergy with those conditions may grant that place to another language in a different market thereby viewing languages in a continuum. The writers’ work of positioning the self and others through strategies of alignment, dissociation and confrontation constructs ideological language boundaries as Hiss ( 2013 ) demonstrates in the case of Sámi and Norwegian in Tromsø. In contrast, in the case of Pakistan a look at the process of restructuring habitus that evolved through actions, thought-process, and perceptions of the sociohistorical and economic development over years unveils how LEs deconstruct notions of national unity for diversity. Consequently, the analysis unfolds the shifts in the linguistic capital that Urdu affords the writers, by being embodied in social journeys that are a reflection of the lived trajectories of individuals and societies advancing from the one-nation, one-state ideology to a more emancipated view. Though in the promotion of homogeneity and uniformity, LEs also tap into the untold narrative of the marginalized languages in the national discourse.

The unequal linguistic capital afforded by English vs. Urdu

The unequal linguistic capital accumulation of both English and Urdu in Pakistani education (Haidar, 2019 ; Shamim & Rashid, 2019 ) is delineated in positive and problematic accounts in the LEs. In excerpt 6, the author engages in the public debate through an emotional personal experience.

• 6. I had the opportunity to teach physics to a matriculation class in an English-medium school for a few months. To my astonishment, the students were learning every topic, including pure technical and science topics, by rote. … as English was medium of instruction from class 1, the students were not able to develop writing ability and, as a result, took recourse to learning by rote. And both teachers and parents encourage this mode of learning to enable the students to get good marks. (Medium of instruction/17-Apr-03)

The use of emotive words and the personal stance in 6 plays a role in dismantling the popularity of English medium schools but also throws light on the complex interrelationship of both English and Urdu in “learning.” The absence of knowledge itself and an ambivalence towards introducing English from class one is evoked in students’ inability to develop writing skills. This is also a microcosm of practice guided by a set of beliefs and assumptions that undergird success in the field by identifying the stakes at play, as actors engage in a language game in which ends are pursued with certain discursive resources according to established guidelines (Bourdieu, 1985 ). In the LEs, the (re)production of social inequality is strikingly noticeable in the linguistic capital of English, which outweighs that of Urdu. The mechanisms of redressing inequality assume the introduction of English in education should happen at an early age i.e., preferably before the age of 10 , from primary school and up ( The Language Barrier/19-Jun-04 & Teaching in Mother Tongue ii/17-May-07 ) as established in scientific research, lingua franca of the whole world status, a shared legacy of the subcontinent, and used in India as an asset ( The Language Barrier/19-Jun-04 ). On the other hand, the value of Urdu is largely inscribed in expressions of affinity e.g., mother tongue , a federal, national and regional language (Sindhi Translation/19-May-03; Re: Medium of Instruction/20-Apr-03) , leading to better understanding and discouraging rote learning (Our educational standards/20-Jun-03 & Medium of Instruction i/17-Apr-03) . Urdu is also situated in certain boundaries of time and space, where it is taught in government-run schools (Teaching in Mother Tongue i/18-Apr-04) , and was a medium of education before Independence (Language Question in Education i/19-Apr-07) . Some letters discursively express attitudes and sets of beliefs through implicit binaries. For example, in negative contexts of controversy over the medium of education, as an apt choice with which no sane person would disagree, centered in scientific research, and which would lead to better education. Modals like will, need to, should, must be, and have to are emotively supported in clauses that point to the consequences of the other language in schools, are also illustrative of the values that are at stake in LEs, as in excerpts 7 and 8.

• 7. If needed, the medium of instruction should be Urdu so that the students can understand better what they are being taught. (Our educational standard/20-Jun-03)
• 8. On the controversy about English and Urdu as medium of instruction, no sane person will disagree with having the mother tongue as the medium of instruction (East vs. West/17-Jun-03)

The linguistic and discourse features in the Dawn ’s LEs further shed light on the sets of beliefs and assumptions that underpin the social worlds of the agents. In 7 and 8 readers are invited to share the authors’ stance through attributive adjectives, e.g., over the fees structure as unjust demands of the so-called prestigious English medium schools (Education made too costly/19-Jun-02) , and over the quality of textbooks or teaching of English in these schools (The textbook muddle/14-May-03, Expensive education/20-May-03) . In other instances, predicative adjectives are employed in strategies of persuasion to position English in contexts of development, employment, internationalism, and globalization located around every street corner (Correction!/18-May-02) going to which students take pride in ( East vs. West/17-Jun-03 ), and which are considered the best (East vs. West/17-Jun-03) .

With the unequal linguistic capital endowed to both the dominant languages, agents with the most symbolic power impose their practices as more valuable by making the laws operate to their advantage, thereby rendering them illegitimate in other markets (Bourdieu, 1991 ). We also see that in the market of education, non-dominant languages are largely excluded, which as Benson ( 2013 ) notes serves “to impose monolingualism on multilingual societies, disregarding the cognitive and linguistic experiences and development of learners who speak NDLs [i.e., non-dominant languages]” (p. 288). This heterogeneity of the linguistic marketplace of Pakistan in the LEs uncovers the most generally hidden deep structures of the social worlds, the mechanisms of the production of inequality, and the transformation of local and global identities (Bourdieu, 1989 ).

Linguistic habitus and the socioeconomics of education

Economic capital plays a large role in the individual’s capacity to enter the labor market, but in the LEs national ideologies are also subverted in this market. The description of schools is often framed in the binaries of rich and poor, where the socioeconomic perspective contributes to the flux in the linguistic identities. This is heightened in powerful assertions casting one group as advanced and the other as desi or ‘backward.’ Capital functions in relation to a field (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992 ), and agents’ dispositions are modified in relation to the field (Salö, 2019 ), which LE excerpts 9 through 11 exemplify. Here the writers reconstruct Urdu’s relatively high symbolic value in the field of nationhood to that of a disadvantaged social class, that is not functionally literate and is unable to access private English medium schools. Below the LE depictions of a disadvantaged, functionally illiterate social class are polarized and reflect an explicit, strongly-worded ideology of social and economic stratification.

• 9. This system is class-based—one for the well-off people who send their children to high-level English-medium schools and one for the toiling masses whose children go to poorly-organized and poorly-equipped desi schools, where they get no idea how much science has progressed. (Promoting education in Pakistan/18-Apr-03)
• 10. A person with an income of Rs10,000 per month and with four school-going children would have to beg, borrow or resort to unfair means to meet the unjust demands of the so-called prestigious English medium schools. (Education made too costly/19-Jun-02)
• 11. The public schools are in a pathetic state and it is quite sad to see their dilapidated condition. (Educating people/5-May-07)

The disadvantaged social class theme is also built in linear and bi-directional fashion in many other letters, such as Expensive education/20-May-03; Teaching in mother tongue i/18-Apr-04; A bad experience/16-Apr-02; The language barrier/19-Jun-04, Language question in education/19-Apr-07, Language question in education/17-May-07; Education going nowhere/19-Jun-07, etc . For Urdu-medium students, English-medium schooling implies a foreign or (non)national identity. Consequently, local identities are viewed in these LEs as an undesirable feature of non-progressive Urdu-medium public schools. In a continuity between the so-called prestigious English medium school philosophy and the bourgeoise requirement of the school, exclusion of nondominant languages and cultural values is perceived as desirable in LE (see also Lamb, 2015 ). This sense of relational thinking is activated in the class-based discussion of inclusion and exclusion through different linguistic and discourse strategies. For example, the use of epistemic claims lends a sense of credibility to this narrative of English that divides people in two groups, one that speaks English, and one that doesn’t and that throughout all these years has remained an elite language ( Teaching in Mother Tongue i/18-Apr-04 ); English is a foreign language not understood by 60% uneducated population who cannot be taught in English, as they can’t even speak the national language ( Medium of Instruction ii/18-Apr-03 ). It is claimed that less than 2% [ Pakistanis ] speak English ( Teaching in Mother Tongue i/18-Apr-04 ), while the rural population does not understand a word in English ( PTV’s language/18-Apr-02 ), and many are not able to spell their name in English ( Education going nowhere/19-Jun-07 ). One needs to be conscious of the fact that despite the fees and issues related to the quality of education, the growth of school enrolment in private English medium has increased in both rural and urban areas in Pakistan. It would be incorrect, therefore, to assume that in socioeconomic disadvantage these writers lean towards seeing Urdu as more valuable. Instead, the occurrence of the medium of education debate in these letters as perpetuating socioeconomic asymmetries demands a reading that is a bid for inclusion by what is suggested in a letter: bridging the gap between the rulers and the ruled ( The Language Barrier/19-Jun-04; also Language Question in Education ii/17-May-07 ).

The socioeconomic classification also emerged in LEs through commentaries on the relevance of Civil Superior Services (CSS). This is a Pakistani test for bureaucratic jobs that examines the candidates’ English writing skill through an essay ranging between 4000 and 5000 words. These LE writers see the CSS as based on wrong premises, unfairly being a test of their writing speed and wrongly judging the students’ writing skills in presenting relevant, solid and logical developments of ideas in excellent English (CSS Exam 2007/15-Apr-07; CSS Papers / 13-Jun-19) instead of decision-making and leadership qualities (CSS reforms/19-May-02). Excerpt 12 illustrates this negative appraisal of the CSS.

• 12. About 95 per cent of students fail either in the English essay or English precis and composition paper. In the latter paper, many candidates fail by just one or two marks. (CSS Papers/13-Jun-19)

Irrespective of the skills demanded in CSS candidacy, excellent literacy practices in English carve membership in this select national policy-making group. The value of English literacy as an elite marker limits the role of Urdu language in the bureaucracy, and also positions it distantly from the larger public for whom policy is designed. By defining what is included and what is excluded, and what is silenced and marginalized, in the CSS candidacy, this theme in the LEs offers a classic example of the kind of elitist education systems that Bourdieu’s theorization of inequality and power centers on. This resonates with the linguistic capital of Urdu, a language that gains value in the constructs of nationhood and national identity but loses in the complex space of education, where LE writers identify Urdu without English with marginalization and socioeconomic disadvantage.

It must be noted that there is consistency in the official policy discourse (e.g., Policy Framework, 2018 , p. 3; Policy, 2009 , p. 27).) and the LE public discourse here. Presenting the vision for the future, the National Education Policy document explains the gap between the Urdu and English schooling: “the rich send their children to private run English medium schools which offer foreign curricula and examination systems; the public schools enrol those who are too poor to do so” (2009, p. 16). Similarly, in parents’ belief that English education will help their children’s prospects, there is harmony in both official and public discourses, as writers argue that Urdu be adopted as medium of instruction and English to be taught as a compulsory subject to improve the quality of education ( Medium of instruction/17-Apr-03) ; and that English should serve as medium of instruction, regional languages as compulsory language subjects, to promote harmony and diversity and match it with international standards (Medium of instruction i/18-Apr-03). This lack of a unified linguistic market reverberates with findings on parents’ choices for both the languages English and Urdu in schooling, as they juggle between the two dominant languages and worldviews (Ashraf, 2008 ).

Hybrid cultural identities in the linguistic habitus of multilingual and plurilingual Pakistan

Bourdieu ( 1998 ) marks the field with constant, permanent relationships of inequality as struggles for either its transformation or preservation. As mentioned in the Introduction, scholars wishing to work with Bourdieu’s insights in the Global South have debated the applicability of his theory in these new contexts (e.g., Moraru, 2016 ; Stroud, 2002 ; Swigart, 2001 ). Can we extend his theorization from his experiences in France and Algeria to high linguistic diversity contexts? Can we rely on notions of multilingual (Benson, 2013 , 2014 ) or plurilingual (Lamb, 2015 ) habitus as are put forth by some scholars working in the vast global South to which most of the world languages belong? I approach this with caution in this analysis section, as I view agents in multilingual markets adopting different systems of dispositions in their socialization to compete against inequity or for access—a process enhanced with the forces of globalization and digitalization, which are more heterogenous and multilingual than France was.

In the LE corpus, outside of education few letters argue for making available the non-dominant and regional languages in signage that signals danger or fosters preservation of culture ( Keenjhar Lake Tragedy/16-Jun-03, Manners of the Well-Bred/16-May-02, East vs. West/17-Jun-03 ). This gives a notion of a rather unified linguistic market. In education, however, in the mind of LE writers the desirability of legitimate or standardized languages precludes the diverse linguistic and cultural resources brought to the school by multilingual students. The LE corpus unveils comments on this aspect of linguistic sensibilities too (e.g., One Language/18-May-07; Ptv’s Languages/18-Apr-02 ), as shown in 13 and 14.

• 13. [P]lease speak in one language throughout … do not utter one sentence or word in English and the other sentence or word in Urdu when addressing an event. By mixing the languages we are confusing people and showing our ignorance. (One language/18-May-07)
• 14. I had the occasion to watch a programme on psychology on a Pakistan Television … A psychologist was being interviewed by a lady who was putting all her questions to him in English while the replies were being given entirely in Urdu. I could not decide if the programme was in English or in Urdu. (PTV’s language/18-Apr-02)

Some writers regret using English words more frequently whereas Urdu equivalents are available ( Literature and vulgarity/16-Jun-03; East vs. West/17-Jun-03 ), lament the loss of local identities in favour of the West, and show dismay or disapproval over children losing the rich local literature in favor of globalized English as in 15 and 16

• 15. [A] social problem in which he lamented the westernization of our society… [T]he new generation greets with a “Hi” instead of “Assalam Alaikum”, […] it takes pride in going to the English-medium schools (East vs. West/17-Jun-03)
• 16. The young generation without having read the books like Dastan-i-Amir Hamza and others like it does not even know what great reading pleasure they are missing as compared to the stories from the West which they likely take, as superior to ours, a sad trend set in their minds, of late. (Amir Hamza in the land of Qaf/19-Apr-08)

Assumptions about what is acceptable and appropriate use of language are garnered in recommendations, e.g., to support translations of local literature to maintain ties (see also Suleiman, 2014 ). Such practices on the one hand, create spaces for subversion of the monolingual hegemony and, on the other, they also authenticate agents evaluating their choices with expanded competence or metalinguistic awareness of what needs to be adapted for a given chance of profit. Linking language and social discourses, Bourdieu ( 1977b ) regarded variations of patterns as constitutes of a congruent system of differentiations ascribed to socially distinct modes of acquisition. A metalinguistic evaluation allows multilingual speakers to use two or more languages acquired separately or together without equal or entire fluency in them, for different purposes, in different fields of life, with different people. In doing so, these writers enact monolingual hegemonic ideologies, but also demonstrate that the reality of multilingual practices is profoundly embedded in Pakistani society, however regrettable these voices may find it. It is no wonder then that there has been no widespread acceptance of a state-level attempt in recent years by the ILM Initiative ( 2015 ) to create a modern Urdish curriculum recommending use of English terminology and Urdu explanation for students grappling with the linguistic and cognitive difficulty levels of students.

Summary of findings

As shown in the analyses presented, in LEs people restructure their linguistic habitus to the rules and laws of price formation according to the symbolic and instrumental functions of language. This is demonstrated in ambivalent associations with English that offset locality, and the opposite associations with Urdu as the heritage of the past that did not include English in nationhood and nation-building. Moreover, this cultural conflict is problematized in socioeconomic gaps because huge sections of the population who desire English are either deprived or not affected at all by this international lingua franca. LEs identify perhaps the major dilemma that challenges not just Pakistan but many developing economies, including South Asian economies: erasure of the role of nondominant and regional languages from education as part of a contested investment of governments in promoting English-oriented language policies, guided or misguided by the laudable goal to address issues of poverty and illness.

These findings from the analysis of letters in relation to nationalistic ideologies, the linguistic capital in education, plurilingual practices, and their impact on people’s aspirations characterize the linguistic habitus that is restructured, (re)evaluated and (re)sanctioned by the power dynamics in multiple markets in Pakistan’s society. These processes have transformed from the nation-state era to the globalized world where, as Benson and Elorza ( 2015 ) claim, the lingua franca is more multilingual than ever, as is the need to reassess our “unquestioned assumptions pervading language policy” (Benson, 2013 , p. 290). The complex language and educational choices found in the letters are not exclusive of Pakistan. Scholars have shown that other countries face similar dilemmas for English education and prospects of growth for multilingual people, including Anchimbe ( 2013 ) for Cameroon, Chen ( 2010 ) for Taiwan, Heugh ( 2013 ) for South Africa, Namanya ( 2017 ) for Philippines, and Opoku-Amankwa ( 2009 ) for Ghana. Milligan et al. ( 2020 ) note that often in policy discussions there is a tendency to support English as means of promoting equity to focus on institutional access. This is true of the National Education Policy ( 2009 ) and the latest Education Policy Framework ( 2018 ) in Pakistan, both of which suggest implementation of an action plan to uplift English language teaching. Though the LE writers in the present study raised such questions, one needs to be mindful that even if English is made accessible to students enrolled in the government schools, there are no assurances of equity, or of the quality of education, or that the English language skills of students will improve.

Language policy is often viewed as a matter of supporting target language proficiency in whatever languages are chosen as advantageous for a society (Gorter & Cenoz, 2016 ; Tollefson, 2008 ). This approach, however, risks feeding into discourses of deficit, where individuals and communities are paternalistically viewed as in need of linguistic remediation. The present study has taken an ontological shift away from issues of proficiency and deficit and onto a recognition of de facto multilingual and plurilingual repertoire as characterizing a society such as Pakistan. Instead, it has investigated public voices enacting the policy discourse, thereby centering language policy on metadiscourses that reveal the habitus in non-normative spaces of those who have produced the letters. The metadiscourses of habitus illuminate how writers vacillate between a desire to instill nationalistic ideologies and a wish to emancipate in pursuit of global trends, to use different codes for gains, all the while as they participate in the cultural production of nationalistic ideologies. These metadiscourses identify the educational issues related to the linguistic habitus as embedded in people’s conceptualization of education, unearthing the ambivalences in their affinity to dominant languages as English and Urdu in Pakistan, and the tensions between notions of local and national identities and modernity. Though LE themselves are not practice, they offer logic for the practice. The ontological shift taken recognizes that dominant and non-dominant languages are enmeshed into a de facto multilingual and plurilingual repertoire in the society, and that practices are inherent, robust, and organic. As such this view of policymaking extends beyond the policy document itself, and lends agency to the various actors enabling and interpreting the policy (Liddicoat, 2020 ), or appropriating it in practice (Canagarajah & Ashraf, 2013 ). With LEs, the discourse on language policy thus extends beyond discourse on language and society, and includes reactions to it (Georgiou, 2011 ). In this sense, this study offers new ways of looking into language policy scholarship, and into the ways people conceptualize their linguistic habitus in relation to the market value of education as a means that increases their social capital.

Instead of top-down policies, a multilingual model works best in communities with “shared spaces,” where many language groups accommodate others in the same geographic space (Khubchandani, 1997 ). Having more leverage than monolingual speakers, the multilingual users—as in Pakistan—have the choice of foregrounding their identities with either the national, regional, or dominant languages, drawing from their multilingual sensibility (Kramsch, 2013 ). Their linguistic habitus structures around the framework of market opportunities and constraints, as Bourdieu ( 1991 ) identified. Yet, their multilingual competencies and habitus are skewed in discourses of dominant language ideologies reinforced by official language education policies. The LE corpus enables the narrative of this ambivalent linguistic habitus to be explicated in the discourses of multilingualism, multilingual identities, and the medium of education. It draws attention to the complex construction of multilingual people and the role of education in it. The dilemma in most postcolonial settings is that the monolingual ideologies are more powerful, and multilingualism goes against the grain for those who seek to get ahead. By patronizing a multilingual disposition across the board at all educational levels, this study is a hopeful invitation to future policy initiatives that make space for the non-dominant languages of the majority people by including, recognizing, and appreciating them in different markets for participation within and across diverse democracies.

is an Associate Research Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University. Her research has focused on the negotiation strategies employed by multilingual speakers in various global settings through a sociologically oriented discourse analysis. She has engaged in language policy making by taking up the call to develop and implement innovative and equitable pedagogies that acknowledge and build upon students’ diverse language and educational backgrounds across a range of proficiency levels. As a native speaker of Urdu and Punjabi, with beginner Arabic proficiency, she also has a deep understanding of the linguistic and cultural complexities that arise in multilingual settings.

The original online version of this article was revised: In the original publication of the article, in the Method section, line 4, reference citation Ashraf (2014) incorrecty published as Author (2014).

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A Correction to this paper has been published: 10.1007/s10993-022-09642-3

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Dot & Line Blog

The Importance of Learning Urdu in Today’s World

• May 11, 2023

Table of Contents

Introduction:.

Urdu language, with its rich history and cultural significance, holds a special place in the hearts of millions worldwide. As a language that emerged from the fusion of Persian, Arabic, Turkish, and local dialects, Urdu carries the heritage of a diverse and multicultural past. It serves as a symbol of unity, bringing people together from different regions and backgrounds, and remains an essential component of our cultural heritage.

2. Brief history and significance of Urdu language:

Urdu traces its roots back to the 13th century when it evolved in the Indian subcontinent during the Delhi Sultanate. Its development was deeply influenced by the interaction between Persian-speaking rulers and local populations. Over time, Urdu flourished as the language of poetry, literature, and administration during the Mughal Empire.

2.1 Urdu as a symbol of cultural identity and heritage:

Urdu embodies the essence of South Asian culture, acting as a powerful unifier among people of diverse linguistic and ethnic backgrounds. It serves as a mother tongue to millions in Pakistan and is one of the 22 officially recognized languages in India. The language carries the legacy of our forefathers and connects us to our roots, reminding us of our shared heritage.

Consider the renowned Urdu poet Allama Iqbal, whose poetry remains a profound representation of South Asian cultural values, inspiring generations to embrace their identity and heritage. Here are three beautiful quotes and poetry by Allama Iqbal in Urdu: “خودی کو کر بلند اتنا کہ ہر تقدیر سے پہلے خدا بندے سے خود پوچھے، بتا تیری رضا کیا ہے؟” Translation: “Khudi ko kar buland itna ke har taqdeer se pehle Khuda bande se khud pooche, bata teri raza kya hai?” “ستاروں سے آگے جہاں اور بھی ہیں ابھی اشق کے امتحان اور بھی ہیں” Translation: “Sitaron se aage jahan aur bhi hain, Abhi ishq ke imtihan aur bhi hain” “یہ خوف ہے کہ تو غافل نہ رہ جائے ترکِ راز کبھی تو تجھکو بھی کوئی بنائے گا شاعرِ خدا” Translation: “Yeh khauf hai ki tuu ghafil na rah jaye tark-e-raz, Kabhi to tujhko bhi koi banaega shayar-e-khuda”

Allama Iqbal’s poetry carries profound messages of self-realization, spiritual awakening, and the pursuit of excellence. His verses continue to inspire people to reflect on their identity, connect with their roots, and strive for personal and collective growth.

2.2 Role of Urdu in National Integration:

Urdu plays a crucial role in fostering national integration and promoting harmony among the citizens of Pakistan and India. It serves as a lingua franca, allowing people from different linguistic backgrounds to communicate effectively and engage in cultural exchanges. Urdu serves as a bridge that unites people from diverse regions, religions, and traditions.

Example: Urdu language played a pivotal role during the freedom movement of the Indian subcontinent. Renowned leaders like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Maulana Mohammad Ali used Urdu to communicate their vision of a united, independent India, transcending linguistic and cultural barriers.

2.2.1 Preserving the Heritage of Urdu:

The cultural heritage of Urdu lies not only in its history but also in its literature, arts, and symbols.

2.2.2 Urdu Literature and Artistic Expression:

Urdu boasts a treasure trove of literature and poetry that reflects the cultural ethos of the region. Legendary poets such as Mir Taqi Mir, Mirza Ghalib, and Faiz Ahmed Faiz have left an indelible mark on Urdu literature , with their verses evoking emotions and showcasing the beauty of the language.

Example: Mirza Ghalib’s ghazals, filled with profound philosophical insights and captivating metaphors, continue to enchant poetry enthusiasts worldwide, preserving the literary heritage of Urdu.

2.2.3 Urdu in Education and Media:

Preserving Urdu in educational institutions is crucial to nurturing future generations and safeguarding the language’s cultural essence. It ensures that the upcoming youth can access the vast array of knowledge available in Urdu and connect with their heritage.

Example: Incorporating Urdu literature, history, and cultural studies in school curricula fosters a sense of pride in students, helping them appreciate their roots and identity.

Furthermore, the role of Urdu in media is vital in promoting regional diversity and cultural richness. Urdu-language newspapers, television channels, and radio programs contribute significantly to preserving the language and its heritage.

Example: Urdu dramas and films portray the social fabric of South Asian societies, depicting their customs, traditions, and cultural values, thereby preserving the essence of Urdu onscreen.

2.3 Urdu Language in the Digital Era:

In the digital age, it is imperative to adapt Urdu to modern platforms and technology to ensure its continued relevance and accessibility. Digitization of Urdu literature, online news portals, and social media platforms in Urdu contribute to the preservation of the language’s heritage.

Example: Digital libraries and online platforms that offer classic Urdu literature and poetry open doors for people across the globe to connect with Urdu’s cultural heritage.

The Urdu language is an invaluable asset that binds the people of South Asia in a tapestry of shared heritage and values. Preserving and promoting Urdu ensures that future generations continue to embrace their cultural identity while appreciating the cultural diversity that Urdu represents. Embracing Urdu as a symbol of our cultural heritage ensures that its legacy will shine brightly in the hearts of generations to come.

3. Unifying diverse communities through a common language:

The Importance of Urdu Language as a common language cannot be overstated, particularly in a region as diverse as South Asia. With a multitude of languages and dialects spoken across different states and provinces, Urdu serves as a unifying force, bridging the communication gap and fostering mutual understanding among people from various linguistic backgrounds.

3.1 Urdu as a language of communication and understanding:

Urdu acts as a lingua franca, facilitating communication among individuals who speak different native languages. This is particularly evident in urban centers and areas where people from diverse linguistic backgrounds come together for trade, education, or social interactions. Urdu becomes the means of interaction that allows people to express their thoughts, share experiences, and understand each other’s perspectives.

Unlock the beauty of Urdu with our online courses at Dot and Line Learning. Enroll now to embrace your cultural heritage and connect with millions of Urdu speakers. Join us at https://dotandlinelearning.com/ today!

3.2 Urdu Literature and Artistic Expression:

The artistic expression found in Urdu literature further strengthens its role in preserving cultural heritage. Urdu poets, writers, and scholars have contributed immensely to enriching the language with poetic masterpieces, philosophical thoughts, and tales of cultural significance. Their creative works reflect the history, values, and traditions of the region, resonating with people from diverse cultural backgrounds.

Example: The verses of poet Allama Iqbal, often referred to as the “Spiritual Father of Pakistan,” reflect the aspirations and struggles of the South Asian subcontinent. His poetry urges people to embrace unity, self-awareness, and moral values, making it an integral part of Urdu’s literary heritage.

3.3 Urdu’s Cultural Symbols and Heritage:

Urdu language and culture are adorned with symbols that represent the shared heritage of the South Asian region. These symbols hold deep cultural significance and evoke feelings of nostalgia and pride among those who cherish Urdu.

• Nastaliq Calligraphy: The elegant script of Nastaliq, commonly used for writing Urdu, adds a touch of artistic beauty to the language. It is an iconic symbol of Urdu’s rich cultural heritage and has been employed to create stunning artworks, manuscripts, and inscriptions.
• Mehfil-e-Mushaira: Mushaira, a traditional Urdu poetry recital gathering, is a symbol of literary excellence and cultural celebration. These poetic symposiums provide a platform for poets to share their compositions and connect with an appreciative audience, fostering a sense of cultural unity.
• Qawwali: Qawwali, a musical tradition rooted in Sufi poetry, embodies the soulful essence of Urdu’s cultural heritage. It reflects a harmonious fusion of religious devotion and artistic expression, creating an atmosphere of spiritual unity.

The Importance of Urdu Language in cultural heritage are more than just a means of communication; they are the threads that weave together the diverse tapestry of South Asia. As a unifying force, Urdu enables people from various linguistic backgrounds to understand, appreciate, and celebrate the richness of the region’s cultural diversity. The artistic expression found in Urdu literature, along with its cultural symbols, reinforces the language’s significance as a living testament to the heritage of a vibrant and diverse civilization. Preserving Urdu language and its cultural essence ensures that future generations continue to embrace the bond that unites them with their shared past, nourishing the spirit of unity and cultural pride.

4. Rich literary heritage and contributions of Urdu poets and writers:

Urdu boasts a rich literary heritage, with a long tradition of prolific poets and writers who have made profound contributions to the world of literature. From classical poets like Mir Taqi Mir and Mirza Ghalib to modern-day literary giants like Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Ahmad Faraz, Urdu literature has been adorned with masterpieces that reflect the depth of human emotions, philosophical insights, and social commentary.

Example of Urdu Poetry: “اِک دَنیا سے دوسری دَنیا میں سفَر کر رہا ہُوں مَیں، یہ مُلک، یہ دنیا، جاں کا سب کُچھ ہے، تُم ہی تو ہو”  Faiz Ahmed Faiz Translation: “I am traveling from one world to another, This nation, this world, everything is lifeless, you are the only one.”

4.1 Exploring the beauty of Urdu poetry, ghazals, and prose:

Urdu poetry is renowned for its melodious and expressive nature, making it a favorite among poetry enthusiasts worldwide. Ghazal, a popular form of Urdu poetry, is characterized by its rhyming couplets and profound themes of love, pain, and spirituality. The mesmerizing rhythm and soul-stirring verses of Urdu poetry evoke a range of emotions, leaving a lasting impact on the hearts of readers and listeners.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz was a renowned Urdu poet, and one of his most celebrated love ghazals is “Dil-e-Nadaan Tujhe Hua Kya Hai.” دلِ ناداں تجھے ہُوا کیا ہے؟ آخرِ دِل پہ رہنے والے تُجھے ہُوا کیا ہے؟ سَدّیوں کے دُر میں، وادیوں کے سَویرے سُوبھ کے نشیمن، شام کے پہلے پہلے وہ جو تھا خواب سا، کچھ یوں ہی رہ گیا کچھ ہے جو لوٹتا ہے، کچھ چُھُپ گیا تُو لوٹ کر اِنہیں بھی بُلا نہ سکے جو چُپ چُپ کے رہ گئے، کُھلا نہ سکے دِلِ پیدا ہوا، وہ دُکھاں، دلِ ناداں تُجھ سے بُڑھ کر، تیری پاسبانوں کے ہوئے دِل کی راہ دِل کی راہ دِل کی راہ دِل کی راہ آنا جا نہ سکا، وہ جہاں، وہ جہاں آنکھوں میں تو، بسا ہے کِچھ ادا سے چہرے سے زَلفوں تک، کچھ رشتے نِکلتے ہیں نِکلتے ہیں مگر، اونچا علم کہاں جہاں کو دیکھ نہ سکے، وہ جہاں، وہ جہاں ہم کو مالوم ہے، جَنّت کی حقیقت لیکن دِل کے خُوابوں کو، خدا خواہِشِ زَمیں بنا دے دِلِ ناداں تجھے ہُوا کیا ہے؟ آخرِ دِل پہ رہنے والے تُجھے ہُوا کیا ہے؟ Translation: Oh, naive heart, what has happened to you? What is it that has befallen your tender heart? In the midst of silence, in the valleys of twilight, The morning’s abode, the evening’s very beginning, That which was like a dream, remained as such, Some of it is lost, some of it remains concealed. You returned, but couldn’t call those, Who silently left, without revealing themselves. The heart, fragile and innocent, born, After you, it became the guardian of your way. The path of the heart, the path of the heart, I couldn’t reach that world, that world. In your eyes, there lies some charm, From your face to your tresses, some connections emerge. Connections emerge, yet the world of high knowledge, Where the eyes couldn’t reach, that world, that world. We know the reality of paradise, But, O God, make the dreams of the heart, a reality on this earth. Oh, naive heart, what has happened to you? What is it that has befallen your tender heart?

4.2 Urdu in Education and Media:

Urdu language has a significant presence in educational institutions and media platforms, contributing to its preservation and promotion. In schools and universities, Urdu literature, poetry, and prose are an integral part of the curriculum, allowing students to delve into the rich literary world and grasp the cultural depth of the language.

In the media landscape, Urdu plays a crucial role in disseminating information, entertainment, and cultural representation. Urdu newspapers, television channels, and radio programs cater to a vast Urdu-speaking audience, keeping them informed about local and global affairs, and showcasing the artistic expressions of poets and writers.

Example: Television programs like “Zia Mohyeddin Show” and “Khabarnama” have been popular Urdu-language shows, bringing poetry recitals and news to the Urdu-speaking audience, respectively.

Urdu literature, poetry, and prose represent the soul of a culture that thrives on its artistic expressions and deep emotions. The literary heritage of Urdu, enriched by legendary poets and writers, continues to resonate with people across generations. The beauty of Urdu poetry, particularly ghazals, captures the hearts of enthusiasts with its poignant verses and heartfelt emotions. Moreover, Urdu’s presence in education and media platforms ensures its ongoing relevance and widespread popularity. Preserving and celebrating Urdu language and its literary treasures is vital to maintaining the cultural essence and identity of the Urdu-speaking community.

5. Importance of Urdu language in the educational system:

Urdu language plays a pivotal role in the educational system of countries where it is spoken, such as Pakistan and India. It is often used as a medium of instruction in schools, especially at the primary level, to facilitate effective communication with students from diverse linguistic backgrounds. Urdu textbooks cover various subjects, including literature, history, science, and mathematics, enabling students to learn and understand these subjects in their native language.

Furthermore, promoting Urdu in the educational system fosters a sense of cultural pride among students and connects them with their heritage. It allows them to explore the rich literary tradition of Urdu, including the works of famous poets, writers, and scholars. The study of Urdu literature helps in developing critical thinking, empathy, and appreciation for different perspectives.

5.1 Urdu’s role in preserving and promoting regional cultures through media:

Urdu language has a significant presence in the media, be it television, radio, newspapers, or online platforms. The widespread use of Urdu in media ensures that regional cultures and traditions are preserved and promoted. Regional languages, when broadcasted in Urdu, reach a broader audience across different regions, promoting cultural diversity and understanding.

Through Urdu-language newspapers and magazines, regional stories, folktales, and cultural events are showcased, highlighting the unique customs and traditions of various regions. Television and radio programs in Urdu feature cultural shows, dramas, and documentaries that portray the richness of local cultures, further promoting and preserving the unique identities of different communities.

Example: Urdu news channels in Pakistan often broadcast cultural festivals, music performances, and local traditions from different provinces, celebrating the diverse cultural heritage of the nation.

5.2 Urdu Language in the Digital Era:

In the digital age, The Importance of Urdu Language has found a prominent place on various online platforms. With the advent of the internet and social media, the accessibility and reach of Urdu content have increased exponentially. Digital platforms offer opportunities for individuals to create and share content in Urdu, promoting linguistic diversity and cultural exchange.

Moreover, the availability of Urdu content on e-books, websites, and educational platforms has made learning more accessible to Urdu speakers. Language learning apps and websites offer interactive lessons and resources to help learners improve their Urdu skills. The digital era has opened avenues for language enthusiasts to participate in online communities, engage in discussions, and share their love for Urdu language and culture.

Example: Online Urdu poetry forums and social media groups allow poetry enthusiasts to share their favorite verses, discuss literary works, and collaborate with like-minded individuals from around the world.

Urdu language’s significance in the educational system ensures that students have access to education in their mother tongue, connecting them with their cultural heritage. In media, Urdu acts as a bridge between diverse regional cultures, promoting understanding and unity. Furthermore, the digital era has amplified the presence of Urdu online, fostering a global community of Urdu speakers who celebrate and preserve the language’s rich cultural heritage. By recognizing the importance of Urdu language in education, media, and the digital realm, we can ensure its continued growth and relevance in an ever-changing world.

6. Nurturing Urdu language skills in children and youth:

Nurturing Urdu language skills in children and youth is crucial to preserving the language’s cultural heritage and ensuring its continuity for future generations. Emphasizing the importance of Urdu in schools and homes, as well as celebrating the language through festivals and events, plays a vital role in encouraging language learning and appreciation among the young generation.

6.1 Encouraging language learning and appreciation in schools and homes:

In educational institutions, incorporating Urdu language lessons that focus on language proficiency, literature, and cultural significance can foster a sense of pride and attachment to Urdu. Schools can organize language competitions, debates, and storytelling sessions in Urdu, encouraging students to actively engage with the language.

In addition to formal education, The Importance of Urdu Language parents and caregivers at home can create a language-rich environment by using Urdu in daily conversations, reading Urdu books, and exposing children to Urdu poetry and storytelling. This exposure helps children develop a natural affinity for the language and a deeper appreciation of its beauty and cultural value.

Online platforms, like “ Dot and Line Learning ” which provide dedicated resources and courses for learning Urdu, offer a convenient way for children and youth to enhance their Urdu language skills . Such platforms offer interactive lessons, games, and quizzes that make learning Urdu enjoyable and engaging.

The “Dot and Line Learning” website offers an “Online Urdu” course, providing children and youth with access to comprehensive and user-friendly tools to learn Urdu at their own pace.

6.2 Celebrating Urdu Language: Festivals and Events:

Organizing festivals and events dedicated to celebrating Urdu language and culture can create an atmosphere of enthusiasm and pride among Urdu speakers. Events like “Urdu Adabi Mushaira” (Urdu literary symposiums), “Urdu Qawwali Nights,” and “Urdu Drama Festivals” showcase the beauty and diversity of Urdu poetry, music, and performing arts.

The Importance of Urdu Language days and cultural festivals in schools and communities allow students and young individuals to showcase their language skills and artistic expressions through poetry recitations, plays, and cultural performances. Such events not only encourage language learning but also promote a sense of belonging and cultural identity among the participants.

Example: “Urdu Zaban Dey Hain Mela” (Urdu Language Fair) is an annual event held in various cities, bringing together Urdu enthusiasts, poets, writers, and performers to celebrate the language’s literary and cultural heritage.

Nurturing Urdu language skills in children and youth is vital for preserving the cultural heritage and richness of Urdu. Encouraging language learning and appreciation in schools and homes, along with online platforms like “Dot and Line Learning,” ensures that young individuals develop a strong connection with the language. Celebrating Urdu language through festivals and events fosters a sense of cultural pride and encourages young Urdu speakers to take pride in their linguistic identity. By fostering a love for Urdu in the young generation, we can guarantee that the language continues to thrive and flourish in the years to come.

7. Everyday Urdu Conversations for Language Learning

Conversation 1: greetings and introductions.

A: السلام علیکم۔ (Assalamu Alaikum.) B: وعلیکم السلام۔ (Wa Alaikum Assalam.) A: آپ کا نام کیا ہے؟ (Aap ka naam kya hai?) B: میرا نام علی ہے۔ (Mera naam Ali hai.) A: خوش آمدید! (Khush Aamdeed!) B: شکریہ۔ (Shukriya.) Translation: A: Peace be upon you. B: And peace be upon you too. A: What is your name? B: My name is Ali. A: Welcome! B: Thank you.

Conversation 2: Asking for Directions

A: معاف کیجیے، میں اپنے گھر کا راستہ بھول گیا ہوں۔ (Maaf kijiyega, mein apne ghar ka rasta bhool gaya hoon.) B: کوئی بات نہیں۔ میں آپ کو بتا دیتا ہوں۔ (Koi baat nahi. Mein aap ko bata deta hoon.) A: شکریہ۔ (Shukriya.) Translation: A: Excuse me, I have forgotten the way to my house. B: No problem. I will tell you. A: Thank you.

Conversation 3: Ordering Food at a Restaurant

A: میں ایک برگر، فرائز، اور ایک کولڈ ڈرنک لیں گا۔ (Mein ek burger, fries, aur ek cold drink lena ga.) B: کیا آپ کیسے سوس چاہئے؟ (Kya aap kaise sauce chahte hain?) A: ٹماٹو سوس ہوگا۔ (Tomato sauce hoga.) B: آپ کو کیسی چائے چاہئے؟ (Aap ko kaisi chai chaahiye?) A: دودھ والی چائے بنا دیجیے۔ (Doodh wali chai bana dijiye.) Translation: A: I will have a burger, fries, and a cold drink. B: Which sauce would you like? A: Tomato sauce, please. B: What kind of tea would you like? A: Please make a milk tea.

Practice these everyday Urdu conversations to enhance your language learning and feel more confident in your day-to-day interactions. As you engage in these dialogues, you’ll become more comfortable with Urdu expressions and improve your overall language proficiency.

Your Ultimate Guide to Learning Online Urdu Language at Dot and Line Learning

Dot and Line Learning is a comprehensive online platform dedicated to providing top-notch language learning resources. If you aspire to learn Urdu, The Importance of Urdu Language is rich in culture and heritage, this guide will take you through the steps to master it efficiently using the resources offered by Dot and Line Learning .

• Explore the Urdu Language Course:

Start your journey by exploring the Urdu language course available at Dot and Line Learning. This course is designed for beginners, and it covers all the essential aspects of Urdu, including pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and writing. Each lesson is thoughtfully crafted to ensure gradual progress and a solid foundation in the language.

• Engaging Interactive Lessons:

Dot and Line Learning offers engaging and interactive lessons that make learning Urdu enjoyable and effective. The lessons include audio clips, visual aids, and quizzes to reinforce your understanding and improve language retention. Interactive exercises allow you to practice speaking and writing in Urdu, building your confidence in using the language.

• Personalized Learning Experience:

One of the key advantages of learning Urdu at Dot and Line Learning is the personalized learning experience. The platform adapts to your pace and proficiency, providing recommendations on areas that need improvement. You can track your progress, set learning goals, and revisit lessons to reinforce your knowledge.

• Access to Urdu Culture and Traditions:

Learning a language is not just about mastering grammar and vocabulary; it’s about understanding the culture and traditions behind it. Dot and Line Learning offers insights into Urdu literature, poetry, music, and cultural practices, enriching your overall language learning experience.

• One-on-One Tutor Support:

Dot and Line Learning offers the option of one-on-one tutor support to further enhance your learning journey. Interact with experienced Urdu tutors who provide personalized guidance, answer your questions, and offer valuable feedback to accelerate your language learning progress.

• Flexibility and Convenience:

Learning Urdu online at Dot and Line Learning offers flexibility and convenience. You can access the platform from anywhere and at any time that suits your schedule. Whether you’re a student, a working professional, or a language enthusiast, you can fit language learning into your busy life.

Are you ready to embark on a journey of discovering the beauty and richness of Urdu language? Join our online Urdu classes at Dot and Line Learning and unlock the world of Urdu poetry, literature, and culture. Whether you are a complete beginner or want to enhance your existing Urdu skills, our interactive and engaging lessons will cater to your needs. Our personalized learning experience ensures that you progress at your own pace, while our one-on-one tutor support provides expert guidance. Don’t miss this opportunity to embrace your cultural heritage and connect with millions of Urdu speakers worldwide. Enroll now and let Urdu language open new doors of opportunity and knowledge for you. Visit https://dotandlinelearning.com/ and begin your Urdu language journey today!

Conclusion:

Dot and Line Learning provides an excellent platform to embark on your journey of learning Urdu. From interactive lessons and personalized learning experiences to insights into Urdu culture, the platform offers a holistic approach to language learning. Whether you are a beginner or seeking to improve your Urdu proficiency, Dot and Line Learning has the resources and support you need to master the beautiful Urdu language. Embrace this opportunity to connect with a rich cultural heritage and communicate with millions of Urdu speakers worldwide through the power of language.

1: Why should I learn Urdu with Dot and Line Learning instead of other language learning platforms?

Dot and Line Learning offers a unique and comprehensive Urdu language course designed by language experts. Our interactive and engaging lessons, personalized learning experience, and one-on-one tutor support ensure that you progress effectively. Moreover, we provide insights into Urdu culture and traditions, making your language learning journey more enriching and meaningful.

2: Can I learn Urdu at my own pace?

Absolutely! At Dot and Line Learning , we understand that everyone has different learning styles and schedules. Our platform allows you to learn Urdu at your own pace. You can revisit lessons, set learning goals, and track your progress, ensuring that you feel comfortable and confident as you advance through the course.

3: I am a complete beginner with no prior knowledge of Urdu. Is this course suitable for me?

Yes, our Urdu language course is specifically designed for beginners. We start with the basics, including pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, to build a strong foundation. You will find our lessons easy to follow and our interactive exercises will help you practice and reinforce your learning.

4: In today’s globalized world, The Importance of Urdu Language?

Learning Urdu is essential in today’s world for several reasons. Firstly, Urdu is one of the most widely spoken languages, with millions of speakers in countries like Pakistan, India, and several other South Asian regions. By learning Urdu, you can effectively communicate and connect with a diverse and vast population.

5: How does knowing Urdu benefit me professionally?

Knowing Urdu can provide significant professional advantages. Urdu is not only an official language in Pakistan but also holds cultural significance in many international communities. For business and diplomatic purposes, being proficient in Urdu can open doors to new opportunities and foster strong relationships with Urdu-speaking clients and partners. Additionally, having a command of Urdu media and literature can give you a competitive edge in various industries where knowledge of the language is valued.

Urdu proficiency can enhance your professional profile and broaden your career prospects in an increasingly interconnected world.

6. What is the importance of Urdu language in Pakistan?

Urdu holds immense importance in Pakistan as it serves as the national language, unifying people from diverse linguistic backgrounds. It plays a vital role in fostering national identity, cultural cohesion, and effective communication among citizens across the country. Additionally, Urdu serves as a medium of instruction in schools and official documentation, making it essential for education and governance. Embracing Urdu in Pakistan preserves the country’s cultural heritage and ensures that citizens can connect with their roots and express themselves in a language that holds historical and emotional significance.

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Essay On Urdu Language

This essay sample essay on Essay On Urdu Language offers an extensive list of facts and arguments related to it. The essay’s introduction, body paragraphs and the conclusion are provided below.

The term ‘Urdu’ and its origin The term Urdu derives from a Turkish word ordu meaning camp or army. The Urdu language developed between the Muslim soldiers of the Mughals armies who belonged to various ethnicities like Turks, Arabs, Persians, Pathans, Balochis, Rajputs, Jats and Afghans. These soldiers lived in close contact with each other and communicated in different dialects, which slowly and gradually evolved into present day Urdu.

It is for this reason that Urdu is also referred to as Lashkari Zaban or language of the army. During its development Urdu language also assumed various names like the term

Urdu-e-Maullah meaning the exalted army which was given by Emperor Shah Jahan and the term Rekhta meaning scattered (with Persian words) which was coined by the scholars for Urdu poetry.

History and Evolution of Urdu Language Urdu arose in the contact situation which developed from the invasions of the Indian subcontinent by Turkic dynasties from the 11th century onwards, first as Sultan Mahmud of the Ghaznavid empire conqueredPunjab in the early 11th century, then when the Ghurids invaded northern India in the 12th century, and most ecisively with the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate. The official language of the Ghurids, Delhi Sultanate, the Mughal Empire, and their successor states, as well as the cultured language of poetry and literature, was Persian, while the language of religion was Arabic.

Proficient in: Culture

“ Ok, let me say I’m extremely satisfy with the result while it was a last minute thing. I really enjoy the effort put in. ”

Most of the Sultans and nobility in the Sultanate period were Turks from Central Asia who spoke Turkic as their mother tongue. The Mughals were also Chagatai, but later adopted Persian. Muzaffar Alam asserts that Persian became the lingua franca of the empire under Akbar for various political and ocial factors due to its non-sectarian and fluid nature. However, the armies, merchants, preachers, Sufis, and later the court, also incorporated the local people and the medieval Hindu literary language, Braj Bhasha. This new contact language soon incorporated other dialects, such as Haryanvi, Panjabi, and in the 17th century Khariboli, the dialect of the new capital at Delhi. By 1800, Khariboli had become dominant. The language went by several names over the years: Hindawi or Hindi, “[language] of India”; Dehlavi “of Delhi”;Hindustani, “of Hindustan”; and Zaban-e-Urdu, “the language of he [army] camp”, from which came the current name of Urdu around the year 1800. When Wali Mohammed Wali arrived in Delhi, he established Hindustani with a light smattering of Persian words, a register called Rekhta, for poetry; previously the language of poetry had been Persian. When the Delhi Sultanate expanded south to the Deccan Plateau, they carried their literary language with them, and it was influenced there by more southerly languages, producing the Dakhini dialect of Urdu. During this time Hindustani was the language of both Hindus and Muslims.

Word Urdu Is From Which Language

The communal nature of the language lasted until it replaced Persian as the official language in 1837 and was made coofficial along with English in the British Raj. This triggered a Hindu backlash in northwestern India, which argued that the language should be written in the native Devanagari script. This “Hindi” replaced traditional Urdu as the official register of Bihar in 1881, establishing a sectarian divide of “Urdu” for Muslims and “Hindi” for Hindus, a divide that was formalized with the division of India and Pakistan after independence from the British, though there are Hindu poets who ontinue to write in Urdu to this day. Although there have been attempts to purge Urdu and Hindi, respectively, of their Sanskrit and Persian words, and new vocabulary draws primarily from Persian and Arabic for Urdu and Sanskrit for Hindi, this has primarily affected academic and literary vocabulary, and both national standards remain heavily influenced by both Persian and Sanskrit. English has exerted a heavy influence on both as a co official language. Official status Urdu is the national and one of the two official languages of Pakistan, the other eing English, and is spoken and understood throughout the country, while the state-by-state languages (languages spoken throughout various regions) are the provincial languages. It is used in education, literature, office and court business. It holds in itself a repository of the cultural and social heritage of the country. Although English is used in most elite circles, andPunjabi has a plurality of native speakers, Urdu is the lingua franca and national language in Pakistan. Urdu is also one of the officially recognised languages in India and has official language tatus in the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar,[32] Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir and the national capital, New Delhi. In Jammu and Kashmir, section 145 of the Kashmir Constitution provides: “The official language of the State shall be Urdu but the English language shall unless the Legislature by law otherwise provides, continue to be used for all the official purposes of the State for which it was being used immediately before the commencement of the Constitution. ” As of 2010, the English language continues to be used as an official language for more than 90% of fficial work in Kashmir. There are ongoing efforts to make Kashmiri and Dogri, spoken as mother tongues by nearly 80% of the population of Indian-administered Kashmir, as official languages alongside English. The importance of Urdu in the Muslim world is visible in the Holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, where most informational signage is written in Arabic, English and Urdu, and sometimes in other languages. Importance: Urdu is one of the most popular languages which are having a history of hundreds of years back. Urdu language got lots of preferences in various historical aspects.

Urdu is considered as the language used by many ancient kings and it was the only language for communication in certain regions of ancient kingdoms. Ancient regions of Persian kingdom were the main areas of Urdu language. Years after Urdu language have been spread to India as one of the language in certain regions of India. In India Urdu language has been mostly used by the Muslim community. After that Pakistan has been divided from India and declared as an independent country for the Muslim community. As a result Urdu became the national language of Pakistan. Pakistan s considered as the birth place of Urdu poetry as Urdu is the main language of the common people in Pakistan. Urdu poetries are written in different forms by various experienced Urdu poets. Among the various forms of Urdu poetries Ghazal plays an important role which is a popular art form around all over the world. Ghazal has certain rules in its writing and one of the main rules is that Ghazal should end with the same words used for its starting and this rule is called ‘Radeef’. Gair Muraddaf Ghazals are a variety of Ghazals which doesn’t have a radeef. Ham Radeef Ghazals are those Ghazals with same radeef.

Urdu Ghazal is an important form of Ghazal which is very much popular all over the world. Importance of urdu in pakistan Urdu holds the status of the national language of Pakistan. It is also the official language of the country and the post is also shared by English. It is understood all over the country and is the best medium of communication anywhere in the country. Urdu has been in the region since the 11th century. The rulers of that time urged the population to learn how to read and write Urdu. It is an Indo-Aryan language and is derived from three different languages which are Arabic, Turkish and Persian.

The letters used in Urdu language are similar to the ones used in Arabic and Persian (Farsi) language. Though the letters are the same but the dialect and accent differs a lot. The word Urdu means ‘army’. In old times the armies in this region comprised of people from different nationalities. All had different languages and could not understand each other. A language was required which could be understood by all. Urdu emerged as the medium that linked all and was understood by all. According to different researches carried out, Urdu is not only spoken in Pakistan but also in many other parts of the world.

It is one of the 23 official languages of India. It is widely spoken in Bangladesh and also in many gulf countries. There are also hundreds and thousands of Urdu speakers in the European countries and Americas. In Pakistan not more than 8% people have their first language as Urdu but the rest of the population speaks and understands Urdu as the second language. The estimated number of native Urdu speakers in Pakistan is 10. 5 million and all over the world the figure is 50 million approximately. In Pakistan alone the people who understand and speak Urdu as the first or econd language is 104 million approximately. Urdu is included as a compulsory subject in the schools and colleges of Pakistan. Urdu poetry and literature is taught and given prime importance alongside English in the institutions. The Urdu literature has a rich history and it has seen very eminent and world renowned poets like Allama Muhammad Iqbal and Mirza Ghalib. It is not only poetry but also a lot of Islamic literature and Sharia literature has also been written Urdu. It was even before many other languages that Sharia and Islamic literature was written and also translated in this language.

Urdu has emerged as a binding force which has kept the people of Pakistan close to each other. National language A national language is a language (or language variant, i. e. dialect) which has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a people and perhaps by extension the territory they occupy. The term is used variously. A national language may for instance represent the national identity of a nation or country. National language may alternatively be a designation given to one or more languages spoken as first languages in the territory of a country. C. M. B.

Brann, with particular reference to Africa, suggests that there are “four quite distinctive meanings” for national language in a polity:[1] ?”Territorial language” (chthonolect, sometimes known as chtonolect[2]) of a particular people ?”Regional language” (choralect) ?”Language-in-common or community language” (demolect) used throughout a country ?”Central language” (politolect) used by government and perhaps having a symbolic value. http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Urdu http://www. theurdulanguage. com/Downfall. htm http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/National_language

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Urdu Essays List 3

Essay on discipline in urdu, essay on city life in urdu, essay on good citizen in urdu, essay on doctor profession in urdu, essay on co-education in urdu, essay on zindagi in urdu, essay on juma in urdu, essay on first aid in urdu, essay on doctor in urdu, mera yadgar safar essay in urdu, essay on fashion in urdu, essay on water pollution in urdu, essay on my family in urdu, essay on women’s rights in urdu, essay on vegetables in urdu, essay on democracy in urdu, essay on uswa hasana in urdu, essay on father in urdu, essay on four seasons in urdu, dehati zindagi essay in urdu, تغیر کے موضوع پر ایک مضمون, اولمپک کھیل پر مختصر نوٹ, “چوری ایک بری عادت ہے” مضمون, عورتوں کی حالت پر ایک مختصر مضمون, benefits of knowledge urdu | تعلیم کے فوائد پر ایک مضمون, عمل سے زندگی بنتی ہے جنت بھی جہنم بھی مضمون, ہمت مرداں مدد خدا مضمون, علم روشنی ہے مضمون, sohanjana plant benefits in urdu | سوہانجنا کے فوائد, essay on sword in urdu | تلوار پر مضمون, essay on badshahi mosque in urdu, essay on anti corruption in urdu, essay on fateh makkah in urdu, essay on ramzan in urdu, essay on police in urdu, meri pasandeeda kitab mazmoon , essay on subah ki sair in urdu, essay on seerat-e-nabvi in urdu, essay on childhood in urdu, essay on tree plantation in urdu, how to become a successful person essay in urdu, essay on bijli in urdu, essay on cleanliness in urdu, essay on bulb in urdu, essay on indian army in urdu, essay on beauty of j&k in urdu, essay on qur’an in urdu, essay on patriotism in urdu, essay on parents in urdu, essay on drugs in urdu, essay on badminton in urdu, meri maa essay in urdu, my father my hero essay in urdu, essay on eidain in urdu, essay on election in urdu, essay on eid milad un nabi in urdu, essay on agriculture in pakistan in urdu, essay on electricity in urdu, essay on hajj in urdu, essay on alodgi in urdu, essay on qutub minar in urdu, essay on quran in urdu, aab e zam zam essay in urdu, my hobby essay in urdu, kitab insan ki behtreen dost hai essay, lalach buri bala hai essay in urdu, mobile phone essay in urdu, dehshat gardi essay in urdu, urdu essay allah ki naimat, ajaib ghar essay in urdu, tandrusti hazar naimat hai | تندرستی ہزار نعمت ہے, minar e pakistan essay in urdu | مینار پاکستان پر مضمون, national river of pakistan in urdu | پاکستان کا قومی دریا, qaumi parchan mazmoon | پاکستان کا قومی پرچم, جوانی زندگی کا بہترین وقت مضمون, essay on shahadat in urdu, waqia karbala in urdu, essay on shaheed in urdu, pollution essay in urdu, qaumi ittehad essay in urdu, hubul watni mazmoon in urdu, benefits of banana in urdu, great wall of china history in urdu, essay on ramzan ki barkatain in urdu, role of media essay in urdu, role of media in pakistan in urdu, taleem essay in urdu, benefits of strawberry in urdu, benefits of pomegranate in urdu, essay on lahore in urdu, essay on karachi in urdu, barsat ka mausam essay in urdu, adab e zindagi essay in urdu, superstition essay in urdu, short essay on population problem in india, berozgari essay in urdu, media ki azadi essay in urdu, how to achieve world peace essay, masla e kashmir essay in urdu, mera school essay in urdu, essay on jahez in urdu, essay on school uniform in urdu, essay on forest in urdu, what is global warming in urdu, causes of global warming in urdu, کامیابی کے اصول, ٹک ٹاک ایپلیکیشن کی حقیقت, khush ikhlaqi essay in urdu, essay on insaaf in urdu, essay on respect of teacher in urdu, essay on insaniyat in urdu, essay on zil hajj in urdu, akhbar bini essay in urdu, language of jammu and kashmir, essay on dengue in urdu, ilm e deen ki ahmiyat essay, غزوۂ بدر پر مضمون, اگر میں وزیر تعلیم ہوتا, میری پسندیدہ شخصیت حضرت محمد ﷺ, اسلام زندہ ہوتا ہے ہر کربلا کے بعد مضمون, عزم کامرانی کی کنجی ہے, انسداد گداگری مضمون, کرونا وائرس اور ہماری ذمہ داریاں, ماں پر مضمون.

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