Re: Urdu as our national langauge
No doubt Urdu has become lingua franca of Pakistan and rightly so, as it has ability to adapt vocabulary of all the languages. But the point OP is making here is different. The point which was not understood by founding fathers as well. Before British conquered different parts that formed part of Pakistan, each part has their national languages, which are now sidelined by terming them regional languages. These all languages got strong tradition of literature. British also promoted certain languages. Being Sindhi and having some knowledge of Sindhi literature, I’m aware that no one promoted Sindhi like British. They developed its new alphabets, compiled its folk literature and made that necessary for British officials of Sindh to interact with locals in their mother tongue. They could have imposed English forcibly, but they considered ground realities and made no such efforts.
Why not. In Sindh, we got names of Railway Stations in 3 languages. But Pakistani Punjab did not develop separate alphabet and they use Urdu alphabet for writing Punjabi. I think there are many words in Punjai like Sohniya (as nawan aaya sohniya), which can’t be written properly in Urdu.
Muhandis is the Urdu word derived from Arabic. Did not refer any dictionary. Just a memory from 8th class Arabic.
Agreed. Urdu should have been developed for scientific research and translation. There were efforts in last 2 decades of 20th century, where they introduced various science magazines in Urdu. Also Urdu Science Board was established, but we don’t see any active contribution of this. Now, we have sort of agreed that Science and Technology should be read in English, so stopped making more efforts.
Which state this board from? Punjab? what 3 languages have been used on that board?
You summarised the point as they say ‘darya ko kooze main band karna’. Every nation got different level of attachment with the mother tongue and its their collective right to do what they like. Like I have been listening to comments on these very forums that Sindhis determination to have their language on their CNIC is deRh inch ki masjid and by demanding so they belittle Urdu. Not all people can talk in Urdu in rural parts of Pakistan. Just visit a government hospital in any big city of Pakistan and you will know how difficult it is for people to communicate their problem when they do not find any one who can understand their mother tongue.
Urdu should have been accepted as national language, but other languages which were used as mother tongue in other provinces should have been promoted without creating controversies. This would definitely have avoided linguistic riots, language movements which created bitter memories for various communities.
Bengalis were definitely majority and everyone knows how the language issue was dealt in early years of independence. Though many would claim that the matter was resolved later, but wasn’t that better to avoid such controversies at begging. I don’t think India did so for imposing Hindi on any other language and while there might be history of communal riots in India, I don’t know any of language riots there, while India have obviously more languages than Pakistan.