User:Annaubco/Languages of Pakistan

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** insert after endangered languages**. '[Anna, you need citations after every sentence or at least after every section in a Wikipedia article. Please see the tutorials on how to improve an article. Also, this is written more in essay style, not in Wikipedia article style - it is too long and needs to be shortened for this section to be presented as facts, not as a review of the article by Rahman]'

Future of the languages in Pakistan

There are 6 major languages and approximately 60 local languages with less than a million speakers. Although Urdu is the national language of the country, statistics from a census in 2001 show that, Punjabi is the most spoken with 44.15% of speakers in the country whereas only 7.57% of the country speaks Urdu. Some of the regional languages are more commonly spoken than the national language, however, at the same time many of those languages are slowly becoming closer and closer to endangerment because of a variety of reasons, one of the main ones being the country's attempt at modernization.

Many of the smaller languages or even the regional languages are considered to be a sign of a lower status; if you were heard speaking a language other than Urdu or English, you would be considered to be from a lower class. Due to this, many people are making the attempt to switch to speaking either Urdu or English which is causing a decline in all other languages found in Pakistan.

Pakistani researcher, Tariq Rahman, conducted a study where he interviewed students across different types of schools in Pakistan and the results show that although many students did not like the idea of being taught English in their own schools, they did not want English-medium schools to be abolished. The majority of people want to see English expand in their country but do not want to burden themselves with learning a new language which is why most students said that they do not want to see higher jobs available in English. Rahman's research also showed that there is concern that, through learning English, Pakistan is losing its ethnic identity while trying to modernize the country.

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