Urdu should be replaced with Farsi - Interesting Read

[Developereo]

Agree 100% with righteous fire.

Farsi is good, but we don't need to play second fiddle to anyone. We can appreciate the beauty of farsi perfectly well without abandoning our own language and culture.

Urdu is our glue. It is a core part of our national identity.
If anything, we should promote it more to foster national unity.

I always find it sad that many of our government departments, official titles and forms are labelled in English, albeit in Urdu script.

Directorate of XXX, DSP, FIR, etc. etc.

I was watching a show on cable 'Lahore Law' and it says that official legal business in Pakistan is still conducted in English. They showed ordinary people discussing their case with the lawyer who would then turn around and summarize the same to the judge in English. Everybody talked to each other in Urdu, but all the legally binding official statements had to be in English.

WTF? After 60 years why are we still stuck with this colonial baggage?
Why can't we have fully Urdu words for these concepts?

 

[Patriot]

What a horrible idea.Urdu is our national language for almost 62 years..Why change it now?

 

[Rafael]

Agree 100% with righteous fire.

Farsi is good, but we don't need to play second fiddle to anyone. We can appreciate the beauty of farsi perfectly well without abandoning our own language and culture.

Urdu is our glue. It is a core part of our national identity.
If anything, we should promote it more to foster national unity.

I always find it sad that many of our government departments, official titles and forms are labelled in English, albeit in Urdu script.

Directorate of XXX, DSP, FIR, etc. etc.

I was watching a show on cable 'Lahore Law' and it says that official legal business in Pakistan is still conducted in English. They showed ordinary people discussing their case with the lawyer who would then turn around and summarize the same to the judge in English. Everybody talked to each other in Urdu, but all the legally binding official statements had to be in English.

WTF? After 60 years why are we still stuck with this colonial baggage?
Why can't we have fully Urdu words for these concepts?

Well, I think this is because the people make it to such important positions are a product of an English-medium education system and Its is feeded into their minds that anyone who doesnt know/cant speak English is a Paindoo.

Why a English language educational system is prevailing is understandable. Unfortunately we dont have enough modern literature available in urdu, Arabic and Farsi. Thanks again to our scholars and mullahs who had all the time in the world to issue fatwas over playing football and learning English but didnt care to translate it in our own languages for the betterment of their nation.

 

[Khalids]

Original post by Developereo
Agree 100% with righteous fire.

Farsi is good, but we don't need to play second fiddle to anyone. We can appreciate the beauty of farsi perfectly well without abandoning our own language and culture.

Urdu is our glue. It is a core part of our national identity.
If anything, we should promote it more to foster national unity.

I always find it sad that many of our government departments, official titles and forms are labelled in English, albeit in Urdu script.

Directorate of XXX, DSP, FIR, etc. etc.

I was watching a show on cable 'Lahore Law' and it says that official legal business in Pakistan is still conducted in English. They showed ordinary people discussing their case with the lawyer who would then turn around and summarize the same to the judge in English. Everybody talked to each other in Urdu, but all the legally binding official statements had to be in English.

WTF? After 60 years why are we still stuck with this colonial baggage?
Why can't we have fully Urdu words for these concepts?

We actually have almost all the terminology, official, legal, scientific, technical, translated into Urdu. I watched a TV program some years back. Famous Urdu poet Iftikhar Arif was the chairman of Academy Adbiyaat (Academy of Letters, Islamabad) those days and he was invited to this TV show. He told the audience that if they are directed by the government, they can provide all the Urdu translated terminology to the concerned institutions within days.

But, you know, English has become an other status symbol in our society. Our ruling class think it to be disgraced getting education in Urdu. Even we want to learn Urdu in Roman Script, isn't it ridiculous? Our ruling class will never allow same language for Awaam and rulers.

Farsi can be a better alternative as official language, as was the case during Muslim rule in subcontinent.

@righteous_fire, Ghalib considered himself as a Persian poet more than Urdu poet BTW, in fact we are deprived of actual Mir Taqi Mir, Ghalib and most of all Allama Iqbal for not having Persian language. The Iqbal known to the Western world is due to his Persian works not Urdu.

Developereo! you are angry at the official forms being printed in English? I have seen many official forms printed in English having the same typing as was done on the first day, these forms are just photo-copied without even correcting any typo mistakes containing them. Its an other topic.

 

[Khalids]

Unfortunately we dont have enough modern literature available in urdu, Arabic and Farsi

At least Farsi or Persian doesn't have this problem. Iran is giving all the higher education, technical and scientific, in Persian. And they are performing better than Pakistan in many fields of knowledge.

Again the main thing is the need of political will to accomplish a task for the real betterment of the society, which our rulers lack.

 

[Developereo]

Guys,

I don't want us to abandon English. Learning and promoting Urdu doesn't mean we have to stop learning English.

I actually disagree about using Urdu translations of technical materials. We should teach our children excellent English so they can read the original material first hand. The world moves fast, we don't want our people to have to wait for translations.

Also, English is the language of the world. We need to be fluent in English in order to interact with the rest of the world.

 

[Khalids]

^^^^ Then my question would be;

Are China, Japan, Korea lagging behind in scientific and technological advancement? In this age of modern computer programming, translation is never a problem.

As far as giving excellent English to students is concerned, adopting good pedagogical techniques may yield desired results within few months. Why we should have separate so-called English medium schools?

 

[Righteous_Fire]

Guys,

I don't want us to abandon English. Learning and promoting Urdu doesn't mean we have to stop learning English.

I actually disagree about using Urdu translations of technical materials. We should teach our children excellent English so they can read the original material first hand. The world moves fast, we don't want our people to have to wait for translations.

Also, English is the language of the world. We need to be fluent in English in order to interact with the rest of the world.

I agree with Developereo, as much as I would like only Urdu, it is not practical to leave English. The ability of Pakistanis to understand, read and have knowledge of English has been responsible for the many of the achievement of Pakistanis. It gives us a competitive edge that we could surely use to our advantage. Realistically speaking, Pakistanis ave neglected Urdu, why would the world give Urdu importance? But English is the language of the world, we need it for our development.

 

[Developereo]

Are China, Japan, Korea lagging behind in scientific and technological advancement? In this age of modern computer programming, translation is never a problem.

Good point!
We can certainly progress without knowing English.
But English will speed up our technological progress and make it easier to collaborate with other countries since English is the world language.

After we become as powerful as China or Japan, then foreigners will learn Urdu to talk to us but, until then, we will have to learn their language.

As far as giving excellent English to students is concerned, adopting good pedagogical techniques may yield desired results within few months. Why we should have separate so-called English medium schools?

I would like nothing better than the Urdu medium public schools to improve and become equal to the private schools.

But as long as the public schools are so horrible, people will always send their kids to better schools to get a good education.

English is necessary because
- Pakistan has so few universities and no world class university, so people have to go abroad to get good further education
- Pakistani economy is so bad that people have to find jobs in other countries, and knowing English helps you get a better job

 

[U-571]

Guys,

I don't want us to abandon English. Learning and promoting Urdu doesn't mean we have to stop learning English.

I actually disagree about using Urdu translations of technical materials. We should teach our children excellent English so they can read the original material first hand. The world moves fast, we don't want our people to have to wait for translations.

Also, English is the language of the world. We need to be fluent in English in order to interact with the rest of the world.

let me ask you one thing, are all big progressing nations like, japan, korea germany, france, china lagging in science and technological advancements.proud nations dont adopt foreign tongues.

our secular minded friends, talk so much about turkey, that we have to follow this and that, copy all the things they do, but just like turks we have to fully abandon english and learn every thing in our national language. urdu is a symbol of integrity, english is a language of those people who have a very different culture than us, in a real sense english is something completely foreign to a nation like us. english has become more a fashion then a necessity in our society, to give prove of a high burger standard living, one can only speak english and he's considered of a high status.

and second, it is much easier to learn in one's language than to learn some thing in foreign language. if we are speaking urdu in our homes, but we learn every thing like science, geography, pakistan studies, arts in a foreign tongue.

 

[s90]

Sorry im happy with my Urdu,Urdu should be converted to roman script like what Turkey did and Urdu should be the only official language in the country and it should be developed more including new words and English should go now.

 

[Developereo]

let me ask you one thing, are all big progressing nations like, japan, korea germany, france, china lagging in science and technological advancements.proud nations dont adopt foreign tongues.

our secular minded friends, talk so much about turkey, that we have to follow this and that, copy all the things they do, but just like turks we have to fully abandon english and learn every thing in our national language. urdu is a symbol of integrity, english is a language of those people who have a very different culture than us, in a real sense english is something completely foreign to a nation like us. english has become more a fashion then a necessity in our society, to give prove of a high burger standard living, one can only speak english and he's considered of a high status.

and second, it is much easier to learn in one's language than to learn some thing in foreign language. if we are speaking urdu in our homes, but we learn every thing like science, geography, pakistan studies, arts in a foreign tongue.

Yes, these are also good points.
Teach everything in Urdu, plus teach English and one more language.

Many Western European countries require kids to learn three languages before graduation: one home language + two foreign. We can have a similar system: Urdu required + 2 other. Then some people can chose to learn English or Chinese or Arabic or ...

---------- Post added at 11:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:32 PM ----------

Sorry im happy with my Urdu,Urdu should be converted to roman script like what Turkey did and Urdu should be the only official language in the country and it should be developed more including new words and English should go now.

Why convert to roman script? What advantage does that provide?

 

[Righteous_Fire]

Why convert to roman script? What advantage does that provide?

Not only that it will deprive us of the centuries of our rich and fascinating heritage, would you want to let go of these gems just for the sake of the Roman Script:



^ our children and folk wont be able to read the Quran ^ even though many of the best know Islamic Calligraphy fonts have been developed by Indians and Pakistanis



or will deprive us of the Poetic styles and meanings that cannot be translated even with a different script like Sadquain's classics here of Iqbal's poetry:



here's Qasim Malik's masterpiece:

Below are Gulgee's (Marhoom) masterpieces:



no one could replicate such grand art works in the Roman form! These are truly unique pieces and art forms:

Just imagine how much we would be losing!

 

[Developereo]

Converting to roman script might have made sense for Turkey in the old days when computers and typewriters couldn't handle non-roman characters.

But now electronic media can handle them very well so there is no need to abandon our Urdu script.

 

[ANDUBYLL]

One thing Urdu in Pakistan and Hindi in India replacing English can do is give the common man a reasonable chance to be successful in this world.

English is the language of the elite in India/Pakistan and miles removed from mr common man.

Maybe if we take our blinkers aside for the moment, we can see whilst English has provided for us , gave us education and a passport to better life, the same English has denied 95% of South Asians , a decent standard of living that they might have got, if the language of instruction and commerce was Hindi or Urdu !

Secondly, I dont think , Pakistanis should be ashamed of Urdu. Farsi and English are also foreign languages. Urdu and Hindi are similar because of a shared South asian space that exists between India and Pakistan. Until 1947 , they were a similar nation. History cannot be changed. Keep history in mind but work towards the future. The world does not wait for the stragglers.