The Dying Language

Stronger the language of a certain nation, the stronger will be their nationalism. Strength of a language can be determined by observing the purity, with which people speak it, the amount and quality of literary work done in that language, and the self sufficiency of that language. English, Turkish, Persian, Arabic are all examples of some ‘strong languages’. Their speakers usually don’t mix words from other languages considerably, although nowadays it’s very common for people to use some words of other languages, but comparatively this practice is quite rare among the speakers of the mentioned languages. These languages also have a huge stockpile of literary work, and most of them are very self sufficient i.e. translations for most of the words that didn't originate in the areas where those languages are spoken can be found in these languages (but of course there are many exceptions as well). Now, about the nationalism of the speakers of these languages, Arabs are known for their staunch sense of nationalism, same goes for Turks, Iranians and Americans.

After observing all these nations, let’s take a look at the Pakistani nation. The founders of Pakistan were smart enough to understand that they can’t lead the Muslims of Indian subcontinent as a nation till they don’t provide them with an ideology to form the basis of their nationalism, and a language which will serve to consolidate their idea of being a single nation. The ‘Two Nation Theory’ was propagated as the ideological foundation of Pakistani nation and Urdu was selected to be their language, because it was mostly spoken by Muslims in the subcontinent. The Hindus also labeled this language as the language of Muslims and refrained from speaking it. This language was supposed to be the official as well as national language of Pakistan, because without a common language it’s very difficult for a group of people who belong to very diverse ethnic backgrounds to feel like a nation. At the start it went very well, but soon Bengalis started demanding their local language (Bengali) to be declared the national language along with Urdu. This was the start of the discord between the people of East and West Pakistan that eventually led to the separation of East Pakistan, which is now known as Bangladesh. Although there were many different factors that had an affect on this separation, but one of the most important factors was language.

Afterwards, the Urdu language constantly weakened, which means that its speakers lost interest in their language. They seized feeling proud of their language, and gradually its literature lost its quality and contributors. English is taught as a secondary language in most of the Pakistani schools, but is considered more important than the first language. A person with poor English will be considered more illiterate than a person who knows English well; no matter how poor he is in Urdu. When such tendencies develop in a nation, it loses the sense of identity and nationalism. This can even result in its annihilation.

The first thing that the Israelites did after building their country was to revive Hebrew, which had been their language in ancient times. It developed a sense of identity for the people of Israel and helped them to feel that now they are a ‘nation’, with a ‘national language’.

In Pakistan some people proudly tell each other, or in some cases they will deliberately make people notice that they don’t know Urdu very well. The question is why a Pakistani would behave like this in the first place. Why have Pakistanis mentally accepted that English is superior to their own language? The simple answer would be that Pakistanis have mentally accepted that English speaking world is superior to them, so their language of course would be considered by them to be superior to their own language, or in other words, although Muslims of subcontinent have got independence from Britain, but mentally they are still enslaved by them. Rather to be more precise, Pakistanis are now enslaved to the Americans, and nowadays American English is more common in Pakistan. This mental slavery has divested the Pakistanis of their national dignity and pride.

So what should the Pakistanis do to revive their nationalism and their sense of pride? As language is one of the most important elements of nationalism, so in order to make the nation strong, the national language has to be strengthened. If weakening of nationalism can weaken the language, then strengthening the language can strengthen the nationalism. People should feel proud to speak their own language, and government should encourage writers and poets to contribute in building and improving the Urdu literature. State media should promote the national language and more emphasis should be put on the national language in the schools instead of foreign languages. Steps should be taken to purify Urdu from words of other languages that can be translated.

A nation can’t be a nation without a national language. So, if Pakistanis really want to survive as a nation they will have to strengthen their national language, otherwise the powers which have mentally enslaved this nation will soon enslave them physically as well.