Re: Sorry, I am born to a Pakistani but cannot read Urdu
^may be she thinks spoken is enough to serve that purpose…
Re: Sorry, I am born to a Pakistani but cannot read Urdu
I don’t forget anything. 
They say: With great power comes great responsibility.
Re: Sorry, I am born to a Pakistani but cannot read Urdu
hmm. The avg Muslim-Pakistani learns to read Arabic but not its meaning. Kyon bhala?
Re: Sorry, I am born to a Pakistani but cannot read Urdu
I’d hate to be rude, but that is utterly ridiculous. You don’t have to speak the language spoken in a country in order to be informed about current events in said country or have an understanding of the local people’s opinions about said current events. It is quite possible to read or hear about current events taking place in a certain country in a language other than that country’s official language. For example, you don’t have to speak fluent Arabic to understand that the situation in Syria is appalling and that the average people living there are rather unhappy and troubled about it. Every major news publication in the world has asserted this at one point or another in a variety of languages and thus, it is quite easy for a person to become educated and up to date on this matter.
Similarly, it’s quite possible for Pakistanis living abroad to be informed about what’s going on in Pakistan through the variety of English language news mediums available. If we were to follow your logic, no one would ever be able to comment on any event taking place in any country whose language they didn’t speak and there would be no such concept as “world news.”
Re: Sorry, I am born to a Pakistani but cannot read Urdu
hmmm. because of the same reason, Non-resident Pakistanis pay less attention to Urdu. The matter here is not of right or wrong. Its all about priorities
Re: Sorry, I am born to a Pakistani but cannot read Urdu
ajaz’s point was not about whats happening in the country. He was pointing towards, what an average Pakistani feels and thinks. We may agree or disagree with this view.
Re: Sorry, I am born to a Pakistani but cannot read Urdu
I agree with ajazali. He isn’t talking about people who don’t know urdu or any local language, but pakistani people (who might not be born into Pakistan and for that reason might not consider themselves Pakistani, but have Pakistani parents/roots) who have NO desire to learn to speak urdu or any of the other local languages of Pakistan.
If you don’t want to know and speak any of the local languages, then that means you don’t associate yourself with Pakistan, and thus why bother anyways.
There is a huge difference in not knowing a language and not wanting to know it.
I don’t see how this is hating non-resident Pakistanis. And the example that you don’t need to know arabic to understand the situation in Syria isn’t applicable to what ajazali said.
Re: Sorry, I am born to a Pakistani but cannot read Urdu
Family and heritage is…some people cling to it desperately but I don’t want to emphasize culture over the things I find more worthy of attention. Its how I think and what I believe. Its being downplayed because I don’t think second generation kids here will have the same connection with Pakistan that I did or the stronger bond my parents did. I will not force them to pretend to be a part of a culture they have never lived in or know too well. Why would I do that and have them constantly struggling between two worlds…one they live in and one they’ve only seen vague shadows of?
Their priority is not to learn how to cook handi or how to wear a dupatta, its to learn to be kinder to their neighbors. I don’t care if they don’t know an ounce of Urdu but they better be a part of benefiting the less fortunate. That to me is much more important and yes learning Urdu takes a backseat to that absolutely. 100%. Their religion comes first, their careers second and then their culture. Their religion teaches them to be good human beings, their career ensures their survival in this world as well as their usefulness to others. Their culture can teach them certain things relevant to a region their forefathers belonged to but that’s it.
I live in a practical world…not in ideals. I don’t want to guilt my kids into thinking they need to be a certain way. They are Muslims and in order to identify with another Muslim, that should be more than enough. God did not create people Pakistani or Indian, he created them Muslim. I am not worried about their Urdu skills that can only come in handy when speaking to relatives that all speak perfectly sound English anyway.
Re: Sorry, I am born to a Pakistani but cannot read Urdu
Yes, it grates on my nerves when I see Urdu highlighted as a definition of what good tarbiyat is but nothing else…why hasn’t anyone opened up a thread about kids learning how to read namaz? Or how to respect elders or saying salaam because its a blessing you’re giving to the one you meet? Or teaching kids WHY we read namaz? Where are these ekhlaaq? Why aren’t they a priority over Urdu?
Teaching my kids Urdu, throwing a salan together and halwa for dessert is easy peasy compared to the other stuff that needs a lot more attention. If my son can say salaam and respond to “aap kaise hein” with an Alhumdulillah versus “bass theeeeek thaaaaak…aap sunayein kya haal chaal hein”…I’ll be one PROUD mother.
Re: Sorry, I am born to a Pakistani but cannot read Urdu
^^Agree..
I think putting an emphasis on Urdu or Punjabi is more about nostalgia than anything else..
Re: Sorry, I am born to a Pakistani but cannot read Urdu
There is no need for religion either…why drill that into the poor kids innocent minds???
Re: Sorry, I am born to a Pakistani but cannot read Urdu
I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer to this debate. I tend to agree with Reha on this subject, because that is how I am raising my children, who are now the 2nd generation born and raised outside of India/Pakistan, but I also respect the others who are outside of Pakistan and do make a conscious effort to teach their children to read and write Urdu.
My main focus is raise them to be good Muslims..they know enough Urdu to communicate effectively with their Dadi, who is the only person in our family who is not fluent in English. But reading and writing Urdu? Not a high priority with me, nor my husband.
I was raised by my parents with the tarbiyat that I was first and foremost Muslim…then American…then Hyderabadi/Indian/Pakistani. We never had the thought of ever returning back to India or Pakistan, nor did my family really keep any ties there. My whole immediate naniyal settled in the US by the early 80’s. I grew up speaking Urdu fluently, without even a trace of an accent and fully versed in cultural nuances,which I appreciate and love, but it was never an end all or be all in my family.
Within my cousins, and now my cousin’s children, there are some kids who don’t speak a lick of urdu, and others who can speak, read and write fluently. No one is looked down upon or considered better than the other. Our family stresses deen over anything else.
I agree with Reha that religion trumps culture. I want my children to be confident and strong muslims, not cling to cultural practices that they don’t have any direct link too.
Re: Sorry, I am born to a Pakistani but cannot read Urdu
I don’t care how anyone raises their kids or what they teach them, but you are making it seem like it’s either one or the other. Either they are going to learn urdu and stay ignorant to everything else, or they will learn how to be good humans, but in order to achieve that they must not learn urdu. Learning urdu will not disadvantage on the other skills.
Teaching your kids your mother tongue or teaching them something about your culture is not enforcing anything on them. It will only enrich them and make them aware of other customs.
It comes all naturally. You speak to them in a certain language, or in more than one language and they will pick it up easily and that is it. In the mean time the learning process doesnt stop there: they learn how to be kind to others, how to be good humans, how to eat decently, how to behave, the Qaida/Quran-e-paak, religion, they learn to socialize, at school they learn (and maybe at home aswell) to read, speak and write in english, they learn tons of other skills and subjects. And that goes on till death.
Learning everything overlays eachother. You don’t learn one skill and only move on to the other when you have mastered the previous one. They don’t teach you only maths on school, and move on to geography only when you are good at maths. No, you get to learn all subjects, and each year and semester the level goes up. Nobody gets confused, and nobody gets to compromise on their human and social abilities.
Again, I don’t care if someone doesnt see the need to not learn their child urdu or whatever, but these arguments you used make very little sense.
People know their mother tongue, are bilingual, are good muslims at same time, and have great careers. They don’t lack in one thing because there parents learned them another. Nothing new on the face of earth.
Re: Sorry, I am born to a Pakistani but cannot read Urdu
Because that is the topic of this thread. Only because someone opened this thread, doesn’t mean all the other things are ignored. Nobody stated that knowing urdu is more important than reading namaz.
As for your last comment: Because you can teach them how to throw a salan or a burger or a chai ming koi AND teach them urdu AND how to respect others at the same time?
Re: Sorry, I am born to a Pakistani but cannot read Urdu
Actually, that is exactly what he implied. If you don’t speak Urdu, you don’t have the right to comment on anything that’s happening in Pakistan. Read below:
I’d also like to add that his comment is rather presumptuous. Speaking Urdu does not mean that you understand what an average Pakistani feels any more than a person who doesn’t. Do you suppose that a wealthy politician, living in Pakistan and who speaks Urdu, understands what the “average” Pakistani feels and thinks?
Re: Sorry, I am born to a Pakistani but cannot read Urdu
but its connected with feelings of people who live in Pakistan. If one doesn’t care of culture, language, roots of Pakistanis, how can they understand feelings of Pakistanis. We don’t live in vacuum, these all things are integral part of us. Our happiness, our sadness, our problems, our solutions are linked with these things.
As I said above and confirmed by other posters, 2nd generation of Pakistanis living abroad (not 100% of them) do follow this proposition for Pakistan and Pakistanis ‘jis gaon jana nahin, uska pata kiyun poochna’. This is the indication of detachment, which lead to comments given by ajaz.
I agree that religion should be taught first and it truly does teach you to be a kinder human being. There are people in my family who have made a conscious effort of teaching their how to speak urdu but not read urdu. They feel like they have done their part and I respect it. I know how to read and write urdu but honestly, in the past 25 years that I have been here, I don’t think I have ever even felt the need to write urdu. I can read urdu and yes I have a grand old time reading a Novel here and there but that is the extent of the usefulness of urdu that has benefitted me. Knowing any language is useful. However, I can understand someone who might have property, or any other legal ties might want to learn urdu as a form of insurance against fraud or if someone has a love for language and sees the beauty in it and wants to delve into literature or simply to gain knowledge. I would go it as far as to say they are a better Pakistani. It was never intentional on my part to not teach my kids urdu but I have met plenty of Pakistanis in Pakistan who are more comfortable with speaking English and I really wonder will their parents be blamed for having children who cannot even reply back in urdu. There is no right or wrong answer and the statement made is one big blanket one that disregards the tiny little details that makes a person Pakistani. Not everyone can and will know urdu and knowing it shouldn’t be the one lucky qualification. My grandmother knew how to read and write Hindi but my father doesn’t even know the letters and it’s mainly because they were in Pakistan by the time he was in school and life got in the way. Just because a language isn’t passed down, doesn’t mean everything has been lost in vain.
Re: Sorry, I am born to a Pakistani but cannot read Urdu
Where did this comparison between teaching Asian kids their mother tongue v/s religion begin? It makes no sense, these are two very different dimensions and both can and should be achieved , whats so difficult about it?
If one can strive to go learn Spanish or french, then why not urdu? Knowing this language can only strengthen one’s confidence on their origin and not cut them off from their roots. Why so much animosity against a language?
Re: Sorry, I am born to a Pakistani but cannot read Urdu
Don’t want to teach kids urdu? Great… perfectly alright…but please don’t give lame arguments…
Sincerely,
Buttsb
Re: Sorry, I am born to a Pakistani but cannot read Urdu
I don’t think their is any animosity, at least for me personally. My kids speak and understand enough Urdu to communicate effectively with an elder that doesn’t know English and that is enough for me and our family to be satisfied with. I purposefully enrolled them in a school where they would learn to read, understand and speak classic Arabic, as I found that more useful for them as being Muslim. I don’t see them having the need to read or wrote Urdu, and as I cannot either, who would teach them?
I think I mentioned somewhere in this thread that my father, as a born, raised and educated Indian from Andhra Pradesh was fluent in Telegu, along with Urdu & Hindi…those were his mother tongues…I don’t know a lick of Telegu or how to read and write Hindi…my father recognized that I would have no use for either language, so it was never introduced to me or my siblings…is that wrong or shameful or denying my Indian roots/heritage?
What constitutes a lame argument? It’s pretty rude and presumptuous of you to write off someone’s opinions as lame and inconsequential because they differ from your own.