Will Urdu be forgotten with the 2nd Generation Pakistanians?
Well a while back this topic had come up between a couple of my friends at school.
They started talking about how they all grew up in the states and some aren’t that great in urdu or whichever language their parents speak at home.. While others seem embarrased to be speaking it..
By the way things were sounding, it seemed as if they were going to be speaking in English with their future spouses and later ofcourse their children…
It already looks like most pakistani teens/college students really don’t keep in touch with their religion or culture.. I know there are many exceptions as well but generally speaking it seems like there is going to be a trend to forget urdu and keep english as your mother tongue..
I hope you guys understand what I’m talking about .. So what do yall think??
If you look around at the minority groups that arrived in the country you are in before your parents/grandparent , ie the Italians, the Poles etc.... You'll find that their offspring have stopped talking in those languages after at least two to three generations
I suspect Urdu, Punjabi and others will go the same way.
URDU HAI JIS KA NAAM HAMAY JANTAY HAIN DAGH
SARAY JAHAN MAY DHOOM HAMARY ZUBAN KI HAI
:) Long live URDU .. Its entirely up to us. My younger brother started his education here in Canada, never really learned urdu as I did but still he speaks and understands it with all of our family :) InshaAllah he will not forget it and I will not let my kids forget it.. its a very beautiful language
No matter how hard we try to raise our kids with all the cultural and religious knowledge, it will always be a foreign entity to them. The cultural part especially. Values and views on social interaction, dresses, attitude that they grow up with will remain predominantly western. And once the western culture seeps in then they will eventually lose out on the religion.
As a rule of thumb one loses about 20-30% of all cultural knowledge passed down with every generation. What remains in the end after three or four generations is just a surname and a tanned skin.
For example look up any muslim from trinidad. If you have known any you would notice that at first glance they are no different than black or white canadians. Same taste in clothing, food, music. Same outlook on life, relationships, needs, wants, sex, love etc. Their names will be like Something Ali or Mohammad This or Mohammad That. What they are is the fourth or fifth generation of the indians, mainly muslim and hindu, that were brought to the islands as slaves about a hundred and somewhat years ago. As time passed all cultural and religious knowledge was lost. After about two generations mixed marriages between christians hindus and muslims became an everyday thing. Four people from trinidad (religion undeclared) that i personally know have roots along the following lines: Muslim mother but raised as a catholic. Hindu father who had a sikh mother. And so on.
So if you guys want to know what will happen to your offspring in three to four generations just take a look at these people today. Keep in mind that they didnt have much choice to retain their culture since they were only slaves. We however are free men and women and have a much larger degree of freedom to shape our destiny. I hope we use it wisely.
I might be wrong, but it seems to me that U.K based desis seem more in touch and proud of their heritage where as American based desis aren't to such an extent...Which makes me think that there's a much better chance of Eastern culture and languages prevailing within the next generation of European rather than American desis.
It depends, you want to cut a branch from tree and leave it on ground to dry or you plant it so that it will become tree itself.. Choice is yours.
when it comes to our culture, Language and other things in West. Most of us do not find time to do a simple thing to teach our children about it. and as a result it happens. In most cases the parents do not encourage their children to learn as
They do not have much knowledge about it and are afraid that they can not awnser simple questions.
They do not have time to tech their childrens
They think that When ever their kids need that knowledge they will learn it easily
They are not intrested
They don't want to take pain to take their kids to after school program for urdu language.
The children thinks that since they only have to meet and visit family once in a year why to bother when evry one can understand them.
One of my friends told me that her parents always spoke to them in Urdu and they always spoke in Urdu at home. Then they felt that their little brother was having difficulties making friends because other kids didn't know Urdu too well so they started speaking to him in English so that he would feel comfortable speaking it and before they knew it, that's all he spoke and lost his Urdu.
Urdu will die if people don't learn it. Children will learn English anyway by watching tv and going to school so we should make sure we speak to them in Urdu all the time. We also have to make sure they learn how to read and write it because that's how you keep a language.
Very true. But then look at South Africa. Desis were taken to South Africa as slaves, both hindus and muslims. Yet the situation of Muslims in South Africa is totally different from the situation of Muslims in Trinidad. There are so many scholars and religious school in South Africa, people from all over the world go South Africa to learn. You remember the muslim guy in the South African team recently…?
My argument over here is, Trinidad should not be seen as an excuse for lack of religous awareness, among our younger generation, in United States and Canada. There are mosques everywhere in North America, our MSA’s in the universities are pretty active, organizing lectures. There are so many sheikhs and alims residing in United States. The Imams at our local mosque, are much much more learned in matters of deen and duniya both, than an average Imam anywhere else in anyother Muslim Country. We have private muslim schools with arabic being taught, the Quraan being taught.
So the situation is’nt that alarming when it comes to matters of Deen, its just that the parents have to take an extra step to ensure the children stick to the deen, like making sure they take them to the mosque every day.
Culture on the other hand is a totally different issue, Urdu will almost die out by the third generation. But then you cannot blame them, cause they are American Born, howevey strong religious attachment will help them mantain their true identity. Its religion that should be emphasised instead of culture.
I hope not. It depends on how children are raised and how much importance parents give to the language. Unfortunately I myself a lot of the times find myself speaking English with family, and even my Urdu for the most part consists of English words.
Most first generation Pakistanis can't speak Urdu, let alone second generation, and they shouldn't have to, most of us are bilingual and only speak our own mother tongue and English, Urdu is only the language of 8-9% of Pakistans poulation who immigrated from the Urdu belt in India.
I can speak very basic Urdu but I tend to avoid it because I don't believe in speaking it.
i can speak urdu. my cousins in pak still make fun of me for my bad accent ( then again they also make fun of my eng. accent, n they freakin cant prounounce adobe, toritilla right) i cant read or write urdu. n sadly i dont care about it. i talk in english at home, just cus its easier.
n i HATE people who have a british/desi accent thing n than they talk in english!!
I think thats correct. UK desis had their confusions sorted, they have developed a niche in british culture and unique as british asians and i dont see them changing too much further. slight change always happen in history of cultures.
many still speak urdu, punjabi, pushto, sindhi etc, or atleast understand it well.
other thing is in uk schools u get a chance to opt to study Urdu language too.
if we emphasise to speak own language at home, they will learn to speak english anyway. in that way they will speak both confidently, and thats the way ahead.
