Languages of Pakistan

File:Pashto-speakers_by_Pakistani_District_-_2017_Census.svg as their mother tongue in each Pakistani District as of the 2017 Pakistan Census

File:Sindhi-speakers_by_Pakistani_District_-_2017_Census.svg as their mother tongue in each Pakistani District as of the 2017 Pakistan Census

File:Saraiki-speakers_by_Pakistani_District_-_2017_Census.svg as their mother tongue in each Pakistani District as of the 2017 Pakistan Census

File:Balochi-speakers_by_Pakistani_District_-_2017_Census.svg as their mother tongue in each Pakistani District as of the 2017 Pakistan Census

File:Hindko-speakers by Pakistani District - 2017 Census.svg as their mother tongue in each Pakistani District as of the 2017 Pakistan Census|left]]

Hindko ({{Nq|ہندکو}})is an Indo-Aryan language group of Lahnda dialects spoken in several discontinuous areas in northwestern Pakistan, primarily in the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab.

Hindko is mutually intelligible with Punjabi and Saraiki,{{sfn|Rahman|1996|p=211}} and has more affinities with the latter than with the former.{{sfn|Shackle|1979|pp=200–1}} Differences with other Punjabi varieties are more pronounced in the morphology and phonology than in the syntax.{{sfn|Shackle|1980|p=486}}

The word Hindko, commonly used to refer to a number of Indo-Aryan dialects spoken in the neighbourhood of Pashto, likely originally meant "the Indian language" (in contrast to Pashto).{{harvnb|Shackle|1980|p=482}}; {{harvnb|Rensch|1992|pp=3–4}}. See there for alternative etymologies. An alternative local name for this language group is Hindki.{{sfn|Rensch|1992|p=4}}{{efn|The term Hindki normally refers to a Hindko speaker and {{harvtxt|Shackle|1980|p=482}} reports that in Pashto the term has slightly pejorative connotations, which are avoided with the recently introduced term Hindkūn.}}

File:Brahui-speakers_by_Pakistani_District_-_2017_Census.svg as their mother tongue in each Pakistani District as of the 2017 Pakistan Census

File:Minor_languages_of_Pakistan_as_of_the_1998_census.png

Other languages spoken by linguistic minorities include the languages listed below, with speakers ranging from a few dozen to tens of thousands. A few are highly endangered languages that may soon have no speakers at all.Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (2005). Languages of Pakistan. In Ethnologue Languages of the World (15th ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL International. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization defines five levels of language endangerment between "safe" (not endangered) and "extinct":{{cite book |url=http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/endangered-languages/atlas-of-languages-in-danger/ |title=Atlas of the World' s Languages in Danger |publisher=UNESCO Publishing |year=2010 |isbn=978-92-3-104096-2 |editor-last=Moseley |editor-first=Christopher |edition=3rd |series=Memory of Peoples |location=Paris |access-date=2015-04-11}}

• Vulnerable - "most children speak the language, but it may be restricted to certain domains (e.g., home)"
• Definitely endangered – "children no longer learn the language as mother tongue in the home"
• Severely endangered – "language is spoken by grandparents and older generations; while the parent generation may understand it, they do not speak it to children or among themselves"
• Critically endangered – "the youngest speakers are grandparents and older, and they speak the language partially and infrequently"
• Extinct – "there are no speakers left; included in the Atlas if presumably extinct since the 1950s"

The list below includes the findings from the third edition of Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (2010; formerly the Red Book of Endangered Languages), as well as the online edition of the aforementioned publication, both published by UNESCO.{{Cite web |title=UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in danger |url=http://www.unesco.org/languages-atlas/index.php?hl=en&page=atlasmap# |website=www.unesco.org}}

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 do not speak Arabic.{{Cite journal |last=Rahman |first=Tariq |date=1997 |title=Language and Ethnicity in Pakistan |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2645700 |journal=Asian Survey |volume=37 |issue=9 |pages=833–839 |doi=10.2307/2645700 |jstor=2645700 |issn=0004-4687|url-access=subscription }}

Arabic is mentioned in the constitution of Pakistan. It declares in article 31 No. 2 that "The State shall endeavour, as respects the Muslims of Pakistan (a) to make the teaching of the Holy Quran and Islamiat compulsory, to encourage and facilitate the learning of Arabic language ..."Constitution of Pakistan: [https://pakistanconstitutionlaw.com/article-31-islamic-way-of-life Constitution of Pakistan, 1973 - Article: 31 Islamic way of life] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180826122333/https://pakistanconstitutionlaw.com/article-31-islamic-way-of-life/ |date=26 August 2018 }}, 1973, retrieved 28 July 2018

The National Education Policy 2017 declares in article 3.7.4 that: "Arabic as compulsory part will be integrated in Islamiyat from Middle to Higher Secondary level to enable the students to understand the Holy Quran." Furthermore, it specifies in article 3.7.6: "Arabic as elective subject shall be offered properly at Secondary and Higher Secondary level with Arabic literature and grammar in its course to enable the learners to have command in the language." This law is also valid for private schools as it defines in article 3.7.12: "The curriculum in Islamiyat, Arabic and Moral Education of public sector will be adopted by the private institutions to make uniformity in the society."Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training: [http://www.moent.gov.pk/userfiles1/file/National%20Educaiton%20Policy%202017.pdf National Education Policy 2017] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200110160637/http://www.moent.gov.pk/userfiles1/file/National%20Educaiton%20Policy%202017.pdf |date=10 January 2020 }}, p. 25, retrieved 28 July 2018

{{Main|Persian language in South Asia}}

{{See also|Persian and Urdu}}

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,{{cite book|author1=Clinton Bennett|author2=Charles M. Ramsey|title=South Asian Sufis: Devotion, Deviation, and Destiny|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EQJHAQAAQBAJ&q=ghaznavids+brought+persian+to+south+asia&pg=PA18|date=1 March 2012|publisher=A&C Black|isbn=978-1-4411-5127-8|page=18}} and the patronisation of it by the earlier Turko-Persian Delhi Sultanate. Persian was officially abolished as a language of administration with the arrival of the British: in Sindh in 1843 and in Punjab in 1849.

Today the eastern Dari dialect of Persian is spoken by refugees from Afghanistan and a small number of local Balochistani Hazara community. A larger number of Pakistani Hazaras speak Hazaragi dialect.{{cite web|url=https://omniglot.com/writing/hazaragi.htm|title=Hazaragi (آزرگی)|website=omniglot.com}} In the Madaklasht valley of Chitral, the Madaklashti dialect of Tajik Persian is spoken by the descendants of ironmongers from Badakhshan who settled there in the eighteenth century.

{{As of|2017}} some Pakistanis are learning Mandarin to do business with companies from the People's Republic of China.{{cite web|author=Shah Meer Baloch |url=https://www.dw.com/en/why-are-pakistanis-keen-to-learn-chinese-language/a-41465711|title=Asia Why are Pakistanis keen to learn Chinese language?|publisher=Deutsche Welle|date=2017-11-21}}

Most of the languages of Pakistan belong to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family.Marian Rengel Pakistan: A Primary Source Cultural Guide page 38 {{ISBN|0823940012}}, 9780823940011Mukhtar Ahmed Ancient Pakistan - an Archaeological History pages 6-7 {{ISBN|1495966437}}, 9781495966439 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 as archaic members of the Indo-Aryan branch.Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World (page 283)

Majority of the languages spoken in eastern regions of Pakistan belong to the Indo-Aryan group.

Modern Indo-Aryan languages descend from Old Indo-Aryan languages such as early Vedic Sanskrit, through Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Prakrits).{{cite book |last=Burde |first=Jayant |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xmXclYgJFiIC&pg=PA3 |title=Rituals, Mantras, and Science: An Integral Perspective |date=2004 |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass Publishers |isbn=978-81-208-2053-1 |page=3 |language=en |quote=The Aryans spoke an Indo-European language sometimes called the Vedic language from which have descended Sanskrit and other Indic languages ... Prakrit was a group of variants which developed alongside Sanskrit.}}{{cite book |last1=Jain |first1=Danesh |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OtCPAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA163 |title=The Indo-Aryan Languages |last2=Cardona |first2=George |date=26 July 2007 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-79711-9 |page=163 |language=en |quote=... a number of their morphophonological and lexical features betray the fact that they are not direct continuations of R̥gvedic Sanskrit, the main base of 'Classical' Sanskrit; rather they descend from dialects which, despite many similarities, were different from R̥gvedic and in some regards even more archaic.}}{{cite book |title=Chamber's Encyclopaedia, Volume 7 |date=1968 |publisher=International Learnings Systems |language=en |quote=Most Aryan languages of India and Pakistan belong to the Indo-Aryan family, and are descended from Sanskrit through the intermediate stage of Prakrit. The Indo-Aryan languages are by far the most important numerically and the territory occupied by them extends over the whole of northern and central India and reaches as far south as Goa.}}{{cite book |last1=Donkin |first1=R. A. |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_B4IFMnssyqgC |title=Between East and West: The Moluccas and the Traffic in Spices Up to the Arrival of Europeans |date=2003 |publisher=American Philosophical Society |isbn=9780871692481 |page=60 |language=en |quote=The modern, regional Indo-Aryan languages developed from Prakrt, an early 'unrefined' (prakrta) form of Sanskrit, around the close of the first millennium A.D.}}

Some of the important languages in this family are dialect continuums. One of these is Lahnda,ISO 639 code sets. Sil.org. Retrieved on 2011-01-14. and includes Saraiki (spoken mostly in southern Pakistani Punjab by about 26 million people), the diverse varieties of Hindko (with almost five million speakers in north-western Punjab and neighbouring regions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, especially Hazara), Pahari/Pothwari (3.5 million speakers in the Pothohar region of Punjab, Azad Kashmir and parts of Indian Jammu and Kashmir), Khetrani (20,000 speakers in Balochistan), and Inku (a possibly extinct language of Afghanistan).{{sfn|Eberhard|Simons|Fennig|2022}}{{sfn|Shackle|1979|p=198}}{{e18|lah}}

Majority of the languages spoken in western regions of Pakistan belong to the Iranic group. There are several dialects continuums in this family as well: Balochi, which includes Eastern, Western and Southern Balochi;ISO 639 code sets. Sil.org. Retrieved on 2011-01-14. and Pashto, and includes Northern, Central, and Southern Pashto.ISO 639 code sets. Sil.org. Retrieved on 2011-01-14.

The following three languages of Pakistan are not part of the Indo-European language family:

• 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.
• The Balti dialect of Ladakhi (spoken in an area of southern Gilgit–Baltistan) is a Tibetan language of the Tibeto-Burman language family.[http://wals.info/languoid/family/sinotibetan WALS – Sino-Tibetan]. Wals.info. Retrieved on 2011-01-14
• Burushaski (spoken in Hunza, Nagar, Yasin, and Ishkoman valleys in Gilgit–Baltistan) is a language isolate with no indigenous written script and instead currently uses Urdu script, based on the Perso-Arabic script.

{{Main|Nastaliq|Urdu alphabet}}

File:Double-Headed_Eagle_Stupa_at_Sirkap_06.jpg, near Taxila. The Urdu says: (right to left) دو سروں والے عقاب کی شبيہ والا مندر, dō sarōñ wālé u'qāb kī shabīh wāla mandir. "The temple with the image of the eagle with two heads."]]

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 Nastaʿlīq style of the Perso-Arabic script came into widespread use in South Asia, and the influence remains to this day. In Pakistan, almost everything in Urdu is written in the script, concentrating the greater part of Nastaʿlīq usage in the world.

File:Zaban_urdu_mualla.png{{citation |last=Naim |first=C. M. |title=Ambiguities of Heritage: Fictions and Polemics |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OwHhAAAAMAAJ |page=87 |year=1999 |publisher=City Press |isbn=978-969-8380-19-9 |author-link=C. M. Naim}}]]

File:Lashkari_Zaban_calligraphy.png]]

The Urdu alphabet is a right-to-left alphabet. It is a modification of the Persian alphabet, which is itself a derivative of the Arabic alphabet. With 38 letters, the Urdu alphabet is typically written in the calligraphic Nasta'liq script.

Sindhi adopted a variant of the Persian alphabet as well, in the 19th century. The script is used in Pakistan today, albeit unlike most other native languages of Pakistan, the Naskh style is more common for Sindhi writing than the Nasta'liq style. It has a total of 52 letters, augmenting the Urdu with digraphs and eighteen new letters ({{lang|sd|ڄ ٺ ٽ ٿ ڀ ٻ ڙ ڍ ڊ ڏ ڌ ڇ ڃ ڦ ڻ ڱ ڳ ڪ}}) for sounds particular to Sindhi and other Indo-Aryan languages. Some letters that are distinguished in Arabic or Persian are homophones in Sindhi.

Balochi and Pashto are written in Perso-Arabic script. The Shahmukhī script, a variant of the Urdu alphabet, is used to write the Punjabi language in Pakistan.

Usually, bare transliterations of Urdu into Roman letters, Roman Urdu, omit many phonemic elements that have no equivalent in English or other languages commonly written in the Latin script.{{Citation needed|date=September 2009}} The National Language Authority of Pakistan has developed a number of systems with specific notations to signify non-English sounds, but these can only be properly read by someone already familiar with Urdu.{{clear}}

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.

File:Mother_Tongue_by_Pakistani_District_-_2017_Census.svg in each Pakistani District as of the 2017 Pakistan Census

• Demographics of Pakistan
• Ethnic groups in Pakistan
• Pakistani People
• Romanisation of Urdu
• National Language Promotion Department
• List of districts of Pakistan by number of households

{{Notelist}}

{{reflist|group=note}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{Cite conference| last = Baart| first = Joan L. G.| date = 2003| title = Sustainable Development and the Maintenance of Pakistan's Indigenous Languages| location = Islamabad| url = https://www.sil.org/resources/publications/entry/38917}}
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• {{Cite report| last1 = Lothers| first1 = Michael| last2 = Lothers| first2 = Laura| date = 2010| title = Pahari and Pothwari: A Sociolinguistic Survey| series = SIL Electronic Survey Reports| volume = 2010-012| url = https://www.sil.org/resources/publications/entry/9130}}
• Rahman, Tariq (1996) Language and Politics of Pakistan Karachi: Oxford University Press. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2007.
• Rahman, Tariq (2002) Language, Ideology and Power: Language-learning among the Muslims of Pakistan and North India Karachi: Oxford University Press. Rev.ed. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2008.
• Rahman, Tariq (2011) From Hindi to Urdu: A Social and Political History Karachi: Oxford University Press.
• {{Cite web| website = Ethnologue| year = 2017| title = Pahari-Potwari| url = http://www.ethnologue.com/language/phr| editor-last1 = Simons| editor-first1 = Gary F.| editor-last2 = Fennig| editor-first2 = Charles D.| edition = 20| ref = {{harvid|Ethnologue|2017}} }} (access limited).
• {{Cite journal| last = Rahman| first = Tariq| author-link = Tariq Rahman| title = The Siraiki Movement in Pakistan| journal = Language Problems & Language Planning| date = 1995| volume = 19| issue = 1| doi = 10.1075/lplp.19.1.01rah| pages = 1–25}}
• {{Cite encyclopedia| last = Shackle| first = Christopher| author-link = Christopher Shackle| author-mask = 2| date = 2014b| title = Siraiki language| encyclopedia = Encyclopædia Britannica| access-date = 2016-10-18| url = https://www.britannica.com/topic/Siraiki-language}}
• {{Cite journal| last = Shackle| first = Christopher| author-link = Christopher Shackle| date = 1977| author-mask = 2| title = Siraiki: A Language Movement in Pakistan| journal = Modern Asian Studies| issn = 0026-749X| volume = 11| issue = 3| pages = 379–403| jstor = 311504| doi=10.1017/s0026749x00014190| s2cid = 144829301}}
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• {{Cite journal| last = Shackle| first = Christopher| author-link = Christopher Shackle| date = 1980| doi = 10.1017/S0041977X00137401| issn = 0041-977X| volume = 43| issue = 3| pages = 482–510| title = Hindko in Kohat and Peshawar| journal = Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies| s2cid = 129436200}}
• {{Cite book| last1 = Rensch| first1 = Calvin R.| editor-last1 = O'Leary| editor-first1 = Clare F.| editor-last2 = Rensch| editor-first2 = Calvin R.| editor-last3 = Hallberg| editor-first3 = Calinda E.| date = 1992| title = Hindko and Gujari| chapter = The Language Environment of Hindko-Speaking People| isbn = 969-8023-13-5| publisher = National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University and Summer Institute of Linguistics| location = Islamabad| series = Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan| chapter-url = http://www.sil.org/resources/archives/38573}}
• {{Cite journal|first=Robert|last=Parkin|journal=Indo-Iranian Journal|doi=10.1163/000000089790082944|pages=37–43|title=Some comments on Brahui kinship terminology|volume=32|issue=1|year=1989|url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00182435|jstor=24654607 |s2cid=161638780|url-access=subscription}}

• [http://www.muturzikin.com/cartesasie/4.htm Linguistic map of Pakistan] at Muturzikin.com
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060217220529/http://www.statpak.gov.pk/depts/pco/statistics/other_tables/pop_by_mother_tongue.pdf Pakistan census statistics by population]
• [https://www.ethnologue.com/country/PK/languages List of Pakistani Languages] at Ethnologue

{{Languages of Pakistan}}

{{Pakistan topics}}

{{Asia topic|Languages of}}

{{Languages of South Asia}}