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You may need rendering support to display the Urdu text in this article correctly. Pakistan, [e] officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, [f] is a country in South Asia. It is the fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the second-largest Muslim population as of 2023. [8]
For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. Urdu ( / ˈʊərduː /; اردو, [ʊɾduː] ⓘ; ALA-LC: Urdū) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. [10] [11] It is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan, where it is also an official language alongside English. [12]
- List of Languages
- Official Languages
- Major Regional Languages
- Endangered Languages
- Other Languages
- Classification
- Writing Systems
- Maps
- See Also
- Bibliography
The 2022 edition of Ethnologuelists 77 established languages in Pakistan. Of these, 68 are indigenous and 9 are non-indigenous. In terms of their vitality, 4 are classified as 'institutional', 24 are 'developing', 30 are 'vigorous', 15 are 'in trouble', and 4 are 'dying'.
Urdu
Urdu (اردو) is the national language (قومی زبان) and lingua franca of Pakistan. Although only about 7% of Pakistanisspeak it as their first language, it is widely spoken and understood as a second language by the vast majority of Pakistanis. Urdu was chosen as a symbol of unity for the new state of Pakistan in 1947, because it had already served as a lingua franca among Muslims in north and northwest British India. It is written, spoken and used in all provinces/territories of Pakistan, and t...
English
English is a co-official language of Pakistan and is widely used in the executive, legislative and judicial branches as well as to some extent in the officer ranks of Pakistan's armed forces. Pakistan's Constitution and laws were written in English and are now being re-written in the local languages. It is also widely used in schools, colleges and universities as a medium of instruction. English is seen as the language of upward mobility, and its use is becoming more prevalent in upper social...
Punjabi
Punjabi (پنجابی) is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken in the Punjab province of Pakistan, with the prominent dialect being the Majha dialect, written in the Shahmukhi script. Punjabi is the most widely spoken language in Pakistan. It is spoken as a first language by 38.78% of Pakistanis. The language is spoken among a significant overseas diaspora, particularly in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Punjabi is unusual among the Indo-Aryan languages and the broader Indo-Eu...
Pashto
Pashto (پښتو) is an Iranian language spoken as a first language by more than 18.24% of Pakistanis, mainly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and in northern Balochistan as well as in ethnic Pashtun communities in the cities of Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, and most notably Karachi, which may have the largest Pashtun population of any city in the world. There are three major dialect patterns within which the various individual dialects may be classified; these are the Pakhto variety of Northern (Peshawar)...
Sindhi
Sindhi (سنڌي) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken as a first language by almost 15% of Pakistanis, mostly in the Sindh province of Pakistan. The name "Sindhi" is derived from Sindhu, the original name of the Indus River. Like other languages of this family, Sindhi has passed through Old Indo-Aryan (Sanskrit) and Middle Indo-Aryan (Pali, secondary Prakrits, and Apabhramsha) stages of growth. 20th century Western scholars such as George Abraham Grierson believed that Sindhi descended specifically...
Other languages spoken by linguistic minorities include the languages listed below, with speakers ranging from a few hundred to tens of thousands. A few are highly endangered languages that may soon have no speakers at all. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization defines five levels of language endangermentbetween "safe...
Arabic
Arabic is used as a religious language by Muslims. The Quran, Sunnah, Hadith and Muslim theology is taught in Arabic with Urdu translation. Arabic is taught as a religious language in mosques, schools, colleges, universities and madrassahs. A majority of Pakistan's Muslim population has had some form of formal or informal education in the reading, writing and pronunciation of Arabic as part of their religious education. However, Pakistanis are not Arabs and do not speak Arabic. Arabic is ment...
Persian
Persian was the official of the region up until the late 19th century when the English passed several laws to replace it with local languages. Persian had a long history in the lands of Pakistan and was the cultural language of the erstwhile Mughal Empire, a continuation since the introduction of the language by Central Asian Turkic invaders who migrated into the Indian Subcontinent, and the patronisation of it by the earlier Turko-Persian Delhi Sultanate. Persian was officially abolished as...
Foreign languages
As of 2017[update] some Pakistanis are learning Mandarin to do business with companies from the People's Republic of China.
Indo-Iranian
Most of the languages of Pakistan belong to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this family is called Proto-Indo-Iranian—also known as Common Aryan—which was spoken in approximately the late 3rd millennium BC. The three branches of the modern Indo-Iranian languages are Indo-Aryan, Iranian, and Nuristani. A fourth independent branch, Dardic, was previously posited, but recent scholarship in general places Dardic languages...
Other
The following three languages of Pakistan are not part of the Indo-European language family: 1. Brahui (spoken in central Balochistan province) is a Dravidian language. Its vocabulary has been significantly influenced by Balochi. It is an individual language in the Dravidian language family and does not belong to any subgrouping in that language family. 2. The Balti dialect of Ladakhi (spoken in an area of southern Gilgit–Baltistan) is a Tibetan language of the Tibeto-Burmanlanguage family. 3...
Most languages of Pakistan are written in the Perso-Arabic script. The Mughal Empire adopted Persian as the court language during their rule over South Asia as did their predecessors, such as the Ghaznavids. During this time, the Nastaʿlīqstyle of the Perso-Arabic script came into widespread use in South Asia, and the influence remains to this day....
This is a series of maps which shows the distribution of different languages in Pakistan as of the 2017 Pakistan Census. These all refer to the mother tongues of individuals only. 1. Percent speaking Punjabinatively 2. Percent speaking Pashtonatively 3. Percent speaking Sindhinatively 4. Percent speaking Saraikinatively 5. Percent speaking Urdunati...
Baart, Joan L. G. (2003). Sustainable Development and the Maintenance of Pakistan's Indigenous Languages. Islamabad.Eberhard, David M; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2022). "Pakistan". Ethnologue: Languages of the World(25 ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International.Lothers, Michael; Lothers, Laura (2010). Pahari and Pothwari: A Sociolinguistic Survey(Report). SIL Electronic Survey Reports. Vol. 2010–012.Rahman, Tariq (1996) Language and Politics of Pakistan Karachi: Oxford University Press. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2007.Name in Urdu:اوخنوتخپ ربیخ Khyber Pakhtunkhwā Number of ADM2s: 7 Website: http://kp.gov.pk/ ISO 3166-2 code PK-KP 4. Punjab (30°51’37”N 72°19’11”E) Centre: Lahore (31°32′59″N 74°20′37″E) Name in Urdu: باجنپ Punjāb Number of ADM2s: 11 Website: https://www.punjab.gov.pk/ ISO 3166-2 code PK-PB 5.
Official name Islamic Republic of Pakistan; Form of government federal republic with two legislative houses (Senate [100]; National Assembly [336]) Head of state President: Asif Ali Zardari; Head of government Prime Minister: Shehbaz Sharif; Capital Islamabad; Official languages English; Urdu; Official religion Islam; Monetary unit Pakistani ...
May 21, 2024 · Pakistan. A country in South Asia. Official name: Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Capital: Islamabad. Derived terms [edit] East Pakistan; Hazara Pakistan; Pakistan Zindabad; Pakistani; Porkistan; West Pakistan; Translations [edit]
The people of Pakistan are a mixture of different groups that have come to the region over thousands of years. The five major groups are the Punjabis, the Pashtuns, the Sindhis, the Balochis, and the muhajirs. Punjabis make up about half of the population. Their language, called Punjabi, is the most commonly spoken one.
