What endangers a language?
Students of the Institute of Management Sciences, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) organized a two-day literary and academic event called Peshawar Literary Festival on February 4 and 5, soon after the January…
Literary losses of Sindh
Being a cornucopia of ethnic and linguistic diversity, Pakistan presents a rich cultural and literary variety. But somehow if you conduct a survey with university students in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and…
Celebrating languages
It is not all doom and gloom in this country as some pundits would like you to believe. Yes, there are challenges, and there are warmongers, but there are also…
Language puzzles: Part – II
The second half of the programme focused on the plight of native languages and asked if they were dying in Pakistan and what might be done to arrest that. There…
The language question
Winter brings its own festivities in Karachi. Last month, the three-day 2nd Sindh Literature Festival (SLF) concluded in the city. The event drew speakers from other parts of the country.…
Literary infanticide
Only in Pakistan does infanticide need a thousand fathers, and honest endeavour is born an orphan. Nowhere has this been more apparent than the Lahore Literary Festival 2017. Five years…
Language and identity
“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his mother language that goes to his heart.”…
War on language
While visiting Balochistan, one becomes aware of just how removed that province is from mainstream Pakistan. And it’s not only the obvious things — such as the dire lack of…
Our language tragedy
There are 69 languages spoken in Pakistan. In addition to Urdu only one language is recognised in each province as the ‘provincial’ language. The non-recognition of the minority languages causes…
Language of learning
The Children’s Literature Festival is the best thing that could have happened to the children of Pakistan. Six festivals have already been organised since November 2011 — the latest having…
