State of Pashto Language in Pakistan and how to improve it.

[Traveller]

So I have noticed that there is a concerning lack of literacy in Pashto among Pakistani Pashtuns. This is bad news for the entire Pashtun qawm as Pakistani Pashtuns comprise the majority of Pashtuns and Pakistani Pashtun areas are more developed and less war-torn than those of Afghanistan. While I do not believe that, in the foreseeable future, Pashto will go extinct, even among elite Pashtuns, as Pashtuns have a very strong identity and oral communication is still almost entirely in Pashto, even among Pashtun kids growing up in Islamabad and Lahore, I am concerned that Pashto in Pakistan could degrade into a slang or even a "creole." Also the state of a language reflects the state of a people, and if Pashto does not advance then Pashtuns will not advance. In this thread I want to discuss the situation of Pashto in Pakistan and how we can rectify it. I personally believe the best route would be to make Pashto an official language in KPK and introduce it into schools, but how to achieve this I do not know.
For this I would especially like the thoughts of those living in Pakistan such as: [MENTION=12154]toughpashtun[/MENTION] , [MENTION=18842]Samandri[/MENTION] , and [MENTION=19850]ZarakDurrani606[/MENTION] . It will be nice to hear your thoughts.

[salman47]

There's only one solution!
Change from Presidential State to United States(like USA), so that Urdu can f*** off to the East of Abasin.. And also make Pashto the Official Language of KPK(alongside English but more importance being given to Pashto)!

I hope it happens, otherwise Pashto will be reduced to past.

[Traveller]

There's only one solution!
Change from Presidential State to United States(like USA), so that Urdu can f*** off to the East of Abasin.. And also make Pashto the Official Language of KPK(alongside English but more importance being given to Pashto)!

I hope it happens, otherwise Pashto will be reduced to past.

Yes Pashto must become official language in KPK. Unfortunately pukhtana pa de na poheegee che pukhto da para official status pa kar de. Da khalko khyal de che moong pukhto wayoo no harsa saheeh di. Dase kho na da. Leekal o lwastal hom mohim di.

[kunatawar]

best thing to do would be to replace urdu or english (preferably urdu) with pashto in all the pashtun districts including fata and balochistan but thats never gonna happen though.

[Nekrofrost]

There's only one solution!
Change from Presidential State to United States(like USA), so that Urdu can f*** off to the East of Abasin.. And also make Pashto the Official Language of KPK(alongside English but more importance being given to Pashto)!

I hope it happens, otherwise Pashto will be reduced to past.

That will nevet happen because the pakistani state (like the USA) ,a state of multiple ethnicities and identitiys, has always been the kind that enforces a false "national" indentity on its people to prevent nationalist uprisings(even tho the opposite happenes). Because of that assholry pakistan will never do stuff like this and its actually one of the reason it took so long to turn NWFP into Pakhtunkhwa.

[Samandri]

So I have noticed that there is a concerning lack of literacy in Pashto among Pakistani Pashtuns. This is bad news for the entire Pashtun qawm as Pakistani Pashtuns comprise the majority of Pashtuns and Pakistani Pashtun areas are more developed and less war-torn than those of Afghanistan. While I do not believe that, in the foreseeable future, Pashto will go extinct, even among elite Pashtuns, as Pashtuns have a very strong identity and oral communication is still almost entirely in Pashto, even among Pashtun kids growing up in Islamabad and Lahore, I am concerned that Pashto in Pakistan could degrade into a slang or even a "creole." Also the state of a language reflects the state of a people, and if Pashto does not advance then Pashtuns will not advance. In this thread I want to discuss the situation of Pashto in Pakistan and how we can rectify it. I personally believe the best route would be to make Pashto an official language in KPK and introduce it into schools, but how to achieve this I do not know.
For this I would especially like the thoughts of those living in Pakistan such as: @toughpashtun , @Samandri , and @ZarakDurrani606 . It will be nice to hear your thoughts.

Sindhi is official language of Sindh province and is a compulsory subject up to Matric in all districts of Sindh except Karachi and Hyderabad where population is mostly non-Sindhi. So the state itself has not put any restrictions on Pashto, in this regard Pakistan is better than many countries around the world where there are bans on minority languages (e.g Turkish harshness towards Kurdish language in Turkey). Its Pashtuns themselves who are careless towards their own language. But its an over-reaction to say that Pashto is going to be extinct in Pakistan unless its speakers themselves become extinct or become minority in their own native lands or the state bans their language and impose another language on them. But as i have already mentioned, Pakistan is not a country like that.

I am not generally into literature whether its English , Urdu or Pashto but whatever Pashto books i have read, i have noticed that meager Pashto literature of Pakistan is 100 times much better than that of Afghanistan. Its natural, fluid and easy read while that of Afghanistan is cumbersome read and is loaded with newly created/innovated words.

In my opinion the bigger issue is the epidemic of kachra private schools in KP which have deteriorated the situation. These schools are not producing any creative and constructive minds, they are producing kachra.

.

[kunatawar]

Sindhi is official language of Sindh province and is a compulsory subject up to Matric in all districts of Sindh except Karachi and Hyderabad where population is mostly non-Sindhi. So the state itself has not put any restrictions on Pashto, in this regard Pakistan is better than many countries around the world where there are bans on minority languages (e.g Turkish harshness towards Kurdish language in Turkey). Its Pashtuns themselves who are careless towards their own language. But its an over-reaction to say that Pashto is going to be extinct in Pakistan unless its speakers themselves become extinct or become minority in their own native lands or the state bans their language and impose another language on them. But as i have already mentioned, Pakistan is not a country like that.

I am not generally into literature whether its English , Urdu or Pashto but whatever Pashto books i have read, i have noticed that meager Pashto literature of Pakistan is 100 times much better than that of Afghanistan. Its natural, fluid and easy read while that of Afghanistan is cumbersome read and is loaded with newly created/innovated words.

In my opinion the bigger issue is the epidemic of kachra private schools in KP which have deteriorated the situation. These schools are not producing any creative and constructive minds, they are producing kachra.

.

yes the biggest issue is that pashtuns themselves dont care about our language and nothing else can help if we dont even help ourselves first.

and you're right every other decent sized house in peshawar neighborhoods is a private school nowadays lol

[toughpashtun]

So I have noticed that there is a concerning lack of literacy in Pashto among Pakistani Pashtuns. This is bad news for the entire Pashtun qawm as Pakistani Pashtuns comprise the majority of Pashtuns and Pakistani Pashtun areas are more developed and less war-torn than those of Afghanistan. While I do not believe that, in the foreseeable future, Pashto will go extinct, even among elite Pashtuns, as Pashtuns have a very strong identity and oral communication is still almost entirely in Pashto, even among Pashtun kids growing up in Islamabad and Lahore, I am concerned that Pashto in Pakistan could degrade into a slang or even a "creole." Also the state of a language reflects the state of a people, and if Pashto does not advance then Pashtuns will not advance. In this thread I want to discuss the situation of Pashto in Pakistan and how we can rectify it. I personally believe the best route would be to make Pashto an official language in KPK and introduce it into schools, but how to achieve this I do not know.
For this I would especially like the thoughts of those living in Pakistan such as: [MENTION=12154]toughpashtun[/MENTION] , [MENTION=18842]Samandri[/MENTION] , and [MENTION=19850]ZarakDurrani606[/MENTION] . It will be nice to hear your thoughts.

Like Samandri said , the Pashto language is itself not threatened because Pashtuns generally do speak it in spite of living in cities like Karachi or Islamabad.Your fear that it might turn into a slang is also far-fetched and will hopefully not materialize anytime in the near or distant future.
As far as academic / literature work in Pashto is concerned , to be frank I do not have much of an interest in this subject so I am unaware of the developments that may be going on .
What I feel however is , that in Pakistan , a very small portion of the Pashtun population can actually read/write Pashto properly.This needs to be improved by better education etc but again that is duty of the government.It does not seem that they think this is much of an issue.

[Akbar]

i watched a news clip about waziristan and the state of schools in there.
the guy (probably a political agent) was saying until fata gets the same education as other parts of pakistan things wont change. it would mean that fata would be educated in urdu language along with desi history and culture as it is done in places like peshawar.
btw the guys standing behind the agent were wearing PTI caps.
i think Pashtuns should have stucked with ANP instead of electing a Poonjabi like imran khan who doesnt speak Pashto neither knows pukhtunwali.
why expect him to care for Pashto. didnt imran khan ban pashto right after he got elected? also lets not forget that in balochistan and pukntunkhwa they speak urdu with eachother in the assemblies.

they closest you can get to pashto schools are Afghan schools or schools catering to Afghans.

[ZarakDurrani606]

So I have noticed that there is a concerning lack of literacy in Pashto among Pakistani Pashtuns. This is bad news for the entire Pashtun qawm as Pakistani Pashtuns comprise the majority of Pashtuns and Pakistani Pashtun areas are more developed and less war-torn than those of Afghanistan. While I do not believe that, in the foreseeable future, Pashto will go extinct, even among elite Pashtuns, as Pashtuns have a very strong identity and oral communication is still almost entirely in Pashto, even among Pashtun kids growing up in Islamabad and Lahore, I am concerned that Pashto in Pakistan could degrade into a slang or even a "creole." Also the state of a language reflects the state of a people, and if Pashto does not advance then Pashtuns will not advance. In this thread I want to discuss the situation of Pashto in Pakistan and how we can rectify it. I personally believe the best route would be to make Pashto an official language in KPK and introduce it into schools, but how to achieve this I do not know.
For this I would especially like the thoughts of those living in Pakistan such as: [MENTION=12154]toughpashtun[/MENTION] , [MENTION=18842]Samandri[/MENTION] , and [MENTION=19850]ZarakDurrani606[/MENTION] . It will be nice to hear your thoughts.

Janan, if change is to be encouraged, it must be done so on a paradigmical scale. The way to bring about the revival of Pashto would be to target the Pashtun masses with it. Now, Pashtuns in rural areas of Afghanistan and pakistan speak Pashto with perfect intonation whilst the urbanised ones depend on languages that have to be learnt despite their extraneous nature. This is only because our education systems are skewed or disposed towards other languages (dari and urdo). Moreover, most literature (apart from english) that shall be popular among these Pashtuns (urbanised ones mostly) shall be in either, dari or urdo. This is simply because Pashto literature is virtually non-existent. I propose a more aggressive policy, and that'd be printing-presses. Bombard the Pashtuns (rural and urban) with Pashto literature, articles, newspapers covering literally every aspect of life. Speaking Pashto is fine and the overwhelming majority of Pashtuns can speak it but reading Pashto and writing it is quite another thing. Pashto is our identity and a Pashtun's cloak when exposed to the bevy of ideas that is modern world. The greatest aspectual nuance (and a victory) for me would be when a school-going Pashtu would be enjoying a Pashto novel as if someone would,say, arthur conan doyle's or Scott fitzgerald. We need our own doyle's and fitzgeralds'! Other than that and conforming with the modern world, we need websites that cater to basic Pashto grammar (like phonetics and rudimentary structuring) and that which teach the basics of written Pashto. On a governmental level, incentives should be offered to those students that have chosen Pashto as their course. When the americans invaded Afghanistan, they offered hefty salaries to people willing to work as Pashto-english translators, a motherload of folks from iran, the dari-speaking parts of Afghanistan, basically a whole bunch of NON-PASHTUNS, jumped at the offer. See what i'm getting at.
There's absolutely NO room for ambiguity. I'm not an extremist but it does'nt take to be one to realise that Pashtuns today are a marginalised folk. It saddens me to see that the traditional ones are relegated to menial tasks and the "advanced" ones' forget who they are and where they come from. If anything, and before we point fingers at other ethnic groups, change can be brought from within. Hopefully, my postulates could help. And its extremely heartening to see young fella's such as Traveller to be so interested to see the revival of their culture. Most boys his age don't give a fig and these fellow's live in the supposed "heartland" of Pashtun culture. Tl;dr , literature is the way to go, garner enough interest in a certain aspect that pertains to it and then gradually widen the scope of it. Other nuances of Pashtun culture, identity will follow suit.

[ZarakDurrani606]

P.s. i learnt to read Pashto online. Would love to enjoy some great Pashto literature work. Remember, a paradigmical shift in one's understanding of their culture comes with learning its language.

[Traveller]

Sindhi is official language of Sindh province and is a compulsory subject up to Matric in all districts of Sindh except Karachi and Hyderabad where population is mostly non-Sindhi. So the state itself has not put any restrictions on Pashto, in this regard Pakistan is better than many countries around the world where there are bans on minority languages (e.g Turkish harshness towards Kurdish language in Turkey). Its Pashtuns themselves who are careless towards their own language. But its an over-reaction to say that Pashto is going to be extinct in Pakistan unless its speakers themselves become extinct or become minority in their own native lands or the state bans their language and impose another language on them. But as i have already mentioned, Pakistan is not a country like that.

I am not generally into literature whether its English , Urdu or Pashto but whatever Pashto books i have read, i have noticed that meager Pashto literature of Pakistan is 100 times much better than that of Afghanistan. Its natural, fluid and easy read while that of Afghanistan is cumbersome read and is loaded with newly created/innovated words.

In my opinion the bigger issue is the epidemic of kachra private schools in KP which have deteriorated the situation. These schools are not producing any creative and constructive minds, they are producing kachra.

.

Yeah Pakistan doesn't practice linguistic genocide or forced assimilation like many other countries you mentioned. And we need a movement in the Pashtun belt to improve education like you mentioned. It is up to us to improve the situation of our language.

[Traveller]

I studied in Urdu Medium up to 9th grade and it was a painful switch for me to read Maths and Science subjects in English.....In Urdu medium they had translated every science and maths terminology to Urdu e.g "Nizam-i-Inhizam" for digestive system, "maya" for liquid, "tikon" for triangle and so on. Its entirely useless exercise as Science subjects and maths are compulsorily in English in higher secondary education and afterwards. Science can be taught in Urdu or Pashto but there is no need to translate words like "protein".

Urdu subject should not be in higher secondary education at all .... while in Matric it should be an optional subject along with Pashto. Islamiyat and Pakistan studies should not be compulsory subjects in colleges.

That's impressive. You say you studied in Urdu medium until 9th grade yet your English is better than that of Pakistanis I know who studied in English medium they whole way through.

[Traveller]

Like Samandri said , the Pashto language is itself not threatened because Pashtuns generally do speak it in spite of living in cities like Karachi or Islamabad.Your fear that it might turn into a slang is also far-fetched and will hopefully not materialize anytime in the near or distant future.
As far as academic / literature work in Pashto is concerned , to be frank I do not have much of an interest in this subject so I am unaware of the developments that may be going on .
What I feel however is , that in Pakistan , a very small portion of the Pashtun population can actually read/write Pashto properly.This needs to be improved by better education etc but again that is duty of the government.It does not seem that they think this is much of an issue.

The government won't do it by itself. There has to be a movement to put pressure on the government to make Pashto an official language.

[Traveller]

Janan, if change is to be encouraged, it must be done so on a paradigmical scale. The way to bring about the revival of Pashto would be to target the Pashtun masses with it. Now, Pashtuns in rural areas of Afghanistan and pakistan speak Pashto with perfect intonation whilst the urbanised ones depend on languages that have to be learnt despite their extraneous nature. This is only because our education systems are skewed or disposed towards other languages (dari and urdo). Moreover, most literature (apart from english) that shall be popular among these Pashtuns (urbanised ones mostly) shall be in either, dari or urdo. This is simply because Pashto literature is virtually non-existent. I propose a more aggressive policy, and that'd be printing-presses. Bombard the Pashtuns (rural and urban) with Pashto literature, articles, newspapers covering literally every aspect of life. Speaking Pashto is fine and the overwhelming majority of Pashtuns can speak it but reading Pashto and writing it is quite another thing. Pashto is our identity and a Pashtun's cloak when exposed to the bevy of ideas that is modern world. The greatest aspectual nuance (and a victory) for me would be when a school-going Pashtu would be enjoying a Pashto novel as if someone would,say, arthur conan doyle's or Scott fitzgerald. We need our own doyle's and fitzgeralds'! Other than that and conforming with the modern world, we need websites that cater to basic Pashto grammar (like phonetics and rudimentary structuring) and that which teach the basics of written Pashto. On a governmental level, incentives should be offered to those students that have chosen Pashto as their course. When the americans invaded Afghanistan, they offered hefty salaries to people willing to work as Pashto-english translators, a motherload of folks from iran, the dari-speaking parts of Afghanistan, basically a whole bunch of NON-PASHTUNS, jumped at the offer. See what i'm getting at.
There's absolutely NO room for ambiguity. I'm not an extremist but it does'nt take to be one to realise that Pashtuns today are a marginalised folk. It saddens me to see that the traditional ones are relegated to menial tasks and the "advanced" ones' forget who they are and where they come from. If anything, and before we point fingers at other ethnic groups, change can be brought from within. Hopefully, my postulates could help. And its extremely heartening to see young fella's such as Traveller to be so interested to see the revival of their culture. Most boys his age don't give a fig and these fellow's live in the supposed "heartland" of Pashtun culture. Tl;dr , literature is the way to go, garner enough interest in a certain aspect that pertains to it and then gradually widen the scope of it. Other nuances of Pashtun culture, identity will follow suit.

Yes, I agree with you. We have to "Pashtoize" the entire environment. We should start with road and shop signs. How to do that I don't know yet but I think if people come together it can happen. And if we develop Pashto like you said Pashtun society will advance.
As for websites thePashto.com - Pashto Online Dictionary has been doing some great work. It was made by a software engineer from Peshawar by the name of Moxet(Abdul Muqsit) Khan who is the founder of a network of projects for Pashto and Pashtuns by the name of Pashto and Pashtuns called Pukhtoogle. Go check it out.