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Bold textIDEOLOGY OF PUNJABI LANGUAGE LANGUAGE: A language or linguistic ideology is a systematic construct about how particular ways of using languages carry or are invested with certain moral, religious, social, and political values, giving rise to implicit assumptions that people have about a language or about language in general. A common type of language ideology argues Standard Language Ideologies, the belief that language homogeneity is beneficial to society. Invested in the Holy Quran, classical Arabic is a good example of language ideology in which it has been always correlated with Islamic practices. In general, differing social speech styles are judged as aspects of social identity and status. Hence, language ideologies involve interpretations and judgments about vocabulary, grammar, accent, and other vocal features used by speakers. Written language practices are also shaped by language ideologies, as can be seen in the many socialites that develop online. The method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way. (Oxford dictionary) IDEOLOGY: A system of ideas and ideals, the set of beliefs characteristic of a social group or an individual. (Oxford dictionary) 1. A system of ideas and ideals, esp. one that forms the basis of economic or political policy: "the ideology of republicanism". 2. The ideas and manner of thinking of a group, social class, or individual. LANGUAGE IDEOLOGY: A language or linguistic ideology is a systematic construct about how particular ways of using languages carry or are invested with certain moral, religious, social, and political values, giving rise to implicit assumptions that people have about a language or about language in general. Linguistic/language ideologies have been defined as "sets of beliefs about language articulated by users as a rationalization or justification of perceived language structure and use" with a greater social emphasis "self-evident ideas and objectives a group holds concerning roles of language in the social experiences of members as they contribute to the expression of the group" (135:53) and "the cultural system of ideas about social and linguistic Relationships, together with their loading of moral and political interests" and most broadly as "shared bodies of common sensations about the nature of language in the world. PUNJABI LANGUAGE: Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by inhabitants of the historical Punjab region .In Pakistan, Punjabi is the most widely spoken language. Punjabi can be subdivided into two varieties, known as Eastern Punjabi (India) and Western Punjabi (Pakistan). According to the Ethnologue 2005 estimate, there are 88 million native speakers of the Punjabi language, which makes it approximately the 10th most widely spoken language in the world. According to the 2008 Census of Pakistan, there are 76,335,300 native Punjabi speakers in Pakistan and according to the 2001 Census of India, there are 29,102,477 Punjabi speakers in India. The Punjabi language has many different dialects, spoken in the different sub-regions of greater Punjab. The Majhi dialect is Punjabi's prestige dialect and shared by both countries. This dialect is considered as textbook Punjabi and is spoken in the historical region of Majha, centralizing in Lahore and Amritsar. Along with Lahnda and Western Pahari languages, Punjabi is unusual among modern Indo-European languages because it is a tonal language. For Sikhs, the Punjabi language stands as the official language in which all ceremonies take place. 21 February is celebrated as "Mother Tongue Punjabi" Day in Punjabi Diaspora. HISTORY OF PUNJABI LANGUAGE: Punjabi is considered to be an ancient language. The exact date when it started cannot be estimated but the ancestors of the Punjabis have been known to have inhabited the Indus Valley as far back as 2500 BC. The name “Punjabi” comes from the region it is spoken in “The Punjab”. The word Punjab means five rivers, the land of five rivers. Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language like many other modern languages of South Asia. It is a descendant of the Shauraseni language, which was the chief language of medieval northern India. Punjabi emerged as an independent language in the 11th century. The first traces of Punjabi can be found in the works of the Nath yogis Gorakshanath and Charpatnath in the 9th and 10th century. The linguist George Abraham Grierson in his multivolume Linguistic Survey of India (1904–1928) used the word "Punjabi" to refer to several languages spoken in the Punjab region: the term "Western Punjabi" covered dialects (now designated separate languages) spoken to the west of Montgomery and Gujranwala districts, while "Eastern Punjabi" referred to what is now simply called Punjabi After Saraiki, Potwari and Hindko (earlier categorized as "Western Punjabi") started to be counted as separate languages, the percentage of Pakistanis recorded as Punjabi speakers was reduced from 59% to 44%. Although not an official language, Punjabi is still the predominant language of Pakistan. Recent modernization and industrialization has witnessed an English influence in both parts of Punjab, as Punjab has undergone Science and Technology development. In India, Punjabi is one of the 22 languages with official status in India. It is the first official language of Punjab (India). In Pakistan, even though Punjabi has no official status, it is the most spoken language and is the provincial language of Punjab (Pakistan) the second largest and the most populous province of Pakistan. IDEOLOGIES ASSOCIATED WITH PUNJABI LANGUAGE: After the partition of India, the Punjab region was divided between Pakistan and India. Although the Punjabi people formed the 2nd biggest linguistic group in Pakistan after Bengali, Urdu continued as the national language of Pakistan, and Punjabi still did not get any official status, as it got in India. Any reasonable person would assume that today it would be more important for the sake of material benefit to learn English rather than Punjabi. English is the language of the world cognitive elite, the preferred global lingua franca, language of science and technology, both in India and Pakistan and abroad. So any attempt to preserve Punjabi language means that it is threatened to extinction, and any attempt to revive it would mean that there is a resistance by its speakers to prevent that from happening. (By Ejaz Akram) There are certain ideologies associated with Punjabi language. It is a local language and it is spoken in certain areas of Pakistan and India. Since it is not spoken on an international level so that the importance of Punjabi language is falling down. HURDLE IN THE WAY OF EMPLOYMENT: People want to learn English and Urdu because, under the present circumstances, they need these languages to obtain employment i.e. to empower themselves. It also gives ones prestige, influence through informal social contacts and a certain snob value. Besides being part of ideological claims and counter-claims and power struggles between ethnic groups and classes, languages are also associated with certain ideological biases in Pakistan. Thus, English is seen as the carrier of western, liberal values; Urdu is seen as an Islamic and Pakistani-nationalist language while the indigenous languages of the country are associated with ethnic nationalism and identity. Punjabi is considered a hurdle in the way of employment and success. Language, then, is a coin and what it buys in the market is power. If one cannot write Urdu and English, one cannot get even clerical jobs in Pakistan except in Sindh. If one can write Urdu but not English one can get lower jobs in all the provinces of Pakistan. Higher jobs, however, are reserved for those who can read and write English. This state of affairs is related to the pattern of the distribution of power. PUNJABI IS NOT THE LANGUAGE OF PRINT MEDIA: Since the very creation of Pakistan, Punjabi, the mother tongue of over 50 percent of Pakistanis, has been treated as of an inferior position as compare to Urdu. Significantly, it is the Punjabis themselves who have been instrumental in the undermining of their own language. There is not a single Punjabi newspaper in Pakistan. Punjabi is considered not suitable for print media. None of the advertisements, information boards are written in Punjabi, only few are written in Urdu, rest of all are in English, Almost all people speak Urdu, most speak English but none of them speak Punjabi publicly in urban areas. While In urban areas everything is different people don't take Punjabi seriously. They think Punjabi speakers are generally low class people. Every advertisement is in Urdu/English. I.e. On railway Stations where stops name is written, first preference is given to English followed by Urdu and then Punjabi. INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT: Although Punjabi is spoken by 44.15% people in Pakistan yet there is no Punjabi medium school in Punjab but there are 36,750 Sindhi medium schools in Sindh and 10,731 Pashto medium schools in the northwestern province. Punjabi has little institutional support. On the formal side (mass media, education, government services), it is almost absent. On the informal side, (industry, religion, culture) the situation is more or less the same. In the case of Punjabi, no institution in Pakistan is powerful enough to undermine the Punjabi language. The Punjabis are too powerful to have to ask for their language rights. But they do not language to be given any support anywhere. Thus on the point of institutional support, Punjabi’s vitality is minimal. PUNJABI, AMALGAMATION OF DIFFERENT LANGUAGES: Punjabi language has been intermingled with other languages as many terms and words of different languages have been included in Punjabi language We are becoming less and less Punjabi and more and more English or 'modern'. Secondly, often about Punjabi language one comes across the problem of Asl Punjabi, Thaith Punjabi or Sahih or Khalass Punjabi. LANGUAGE OF LOWER AND ILLITERATE CLASS: As English has got higher status in our society so the importance of Punjabi language is getting worse day by day. Punjabi language is spoken by the people of lower and middle class who are considered inferior in our society. Speaking English is generally a status symbol according to middle class families. Punjabi and different dialects of Punjabi language are the preserve of the peasantry, unskilled laborers and the working class in general. Punjabi is specifically associated with the people of rural areas and who are living in under developing areas because they are devoid of education and modern technologies so they are considered illiterate and ignorant and taken as inferior on the basis of language they speak. NOT SUITABLE FOR GOVERNMENTAL USE: Punjab occupies most of the powerful position in the state and these officials, especially politicians and army officers, oppose the Punjabi even in primary schools. Punjabi is considered unsuitable for governmental use. In October 2002, the newly elected Punjabi assembly was convened for a swearing-in ceremony. It was a matter of routine and all went as planned till Fazal Hussain, a legislator-elect, said that he would take his oath in Punjabi, his mother tongue. The speaker, a fellow Punjabi, did not think much of it and proceeded with the ceremony using Urdu, the usual language of assembly proceedings. But when Fazal Hussain insisted on taking the oath in Punjabi, the speaker had him removed from the assembly through security guards. The speaker‟s reaction was in sharp contrast to his counterparts in other provinces1 where the legislators-elect took the oath in their mother tongues. Thus it was only in the Punjab assembly with hundred percent Punjabi legislators where an extraordinary linguistic situation prevailed. STATUS: Language status is about history prestige and the degree of standardization (and) may be a source of pride and shame. (Giles, et al, 1977:312) Punjabi has little economic social or socio-historical status. Punjabi is used in low jobs like labor and sweepers. This is the language of illiterate employed in low jobs. At the individual level, the necessity of learning a standard, printed language is dictated by pragmatic considerations. People want to learn English and Urdu because, under the present circumstances, they need these languages to obtain employment i.e. to empower themselves. It also gives ones prestige, influence through informal social contacts and a certain snob value. Besides being part of ideological claims and counter-claims and power struggles between ethnic groups and classes, languages are also associated with certain ideological biases in Pakistan. Thus, English is seen as the carrier of western, liberal values; Urdu is seen as an Islamic and Pakistani-nationalist language while the indigenous languages of the country are associated with ethnic nationalism and identity. CONCLUSION: Language is intimately related both to ideology and power in Pakistan. The state has made Urdu a marker of Pakistani identity and an integrative device in a country which has at least five major ethnic groups with their own indigenous language. Besides the level of the national or ethnic groups, there is the level of the social class. Language is very much a marker of the socio-economic class in Pakistan too. English is associated with the upper-middle and upper class; Urdu with the lower middle and middle class while the local, indigenous languages i.e Punjabi and different dialects of Punjabi language are the preserve of the peasantry, unskilled laborers and the working class in general. REFERENCES: • http://www.jpcs.in/upload/1558734889A%20postcolonial%20sociolinguistics%20of%20Punjabi%20in%20Pakistan.pdf • Ejaz Akram “Punjabi Language From A Perennialist Perspective” retrived from: http://static.panjabilok.net/misc/literature/perennialist_perspective.htm • Tariq Rahman “Language and Ethnicity in Pakistan” from jstore She has launched this site, where she can write about her thoughts, research, daily news, society problems and solutions and everything which she want to share.