313ghazi
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That depends on how far back you want to go. You are right, before urdu it was farsi, pre 18th century. I think right now if you wanted to go to any corner of Pakistan and start a conversation with someone, your best bet would probably be urdu. People may not be experts in it, but they can understand it. It's this practical reason why I think we should continue to use it as a national language.Actually, Farsi was that language, historically. Not Urdu.
Unfortunately in our country as with everything else, government cannot even do language correctly. local languages are not taught so urdu is seen as a threat in the identity politics game, higher education is not in Urdu so the langauge is not valued as much as English. If we want to see an end to language being an issue;
- local langauges must be taught at schools and be used as the medium of teaching alongside urdu.
- local government must provide documentation in local langauges (councils in the UK translate literature into dozens of foreign languages to assist minorities and immigrants)
- any textbooks used in higher education must also be translated into urdu.