Urdu as Official language
So someone told our govt officials that Urdu is our national language therefore it should be promoted by every mean. According to this source[urdu version], Durrani said:
Despite the fact that Urdu is our national language and it also reflects our national integrity, it is facing prejudices that need to be eliminated
further
He said that Urdu should be used during all national and international diplomatic ceremonies. He said that the NLA’s final recommendations regarding the issue of making Urdu an official language should also include a time frame for adopting Urdu as official language, adding that similar recommendations in the past could not be implemented because they contained no time limit.
Now this is funny, I mean how can you expect such people to speak pure urdu who feel insult to talk in Urdu and consider “uneducated” and “illetrate” to people who communicate in Urdu language.
Durrani suggested that foreign language terminologies being used in subjects of science and mathematics should be adopted in Urdu, as new terminologies could confuse students.
I would agree because once I got chance to read 9th class Chemistry book in Urdu and man I really got headache after reading the urdu translation of few scientific terms. How can you expect a 9th grade student to learn typical Persian or Arabic words.
According to Prof. Ata-ur-Rahman:
more Urdu software was needed to facilitate the adoption of Urdu as the official language.
I agree with him but the point is how can we have more urdu softwares while we don’t even have a standardized urdu keyboard and standardized Urdu fonts? Today if we have Nastaleeq fonts then they are not in good quality and if someone is providing quality fonts then they are windows specific. Pakdata guys has done a great job Windows specific so the only option is left to use Arabic Unicode fonts which don’t give a good result at all for instance BBC Urdu
Today If we see in computing than many countries are promoting IT in their local languages, forget China,Korea etc, the arab countries are doing great job to promote Arabic in Opensource world. Arab eyes is doing a great job to translate popular opensource softwares in Arabic. whether it’s FireFox or KDE, GNome or Ubuntu Linux, everything is being translated into Arabic. On the other hand, Iranians are also promoting Farsi in computing systems. Different Indian languages are also available for computing. When we are not able to do anything for Urdu then there is no chance to promote local languages in software development. I must congratulate young karachiite of SirSyed University of Engineering along with his friends who are sucessfully running Boriat and sincerly willing to promote Urdu content on Internet in unique way. Great work Shariq and I feel proud that you and me have studied in same university.
I don’t know what’s the main issue behind all this, i think it’s lack of intrest nothing else because when we are not even willing to speak Urdu then how can we imagine to promote it? Look not everything will be built by “Angrez”. Gora has no interest to write Urdu softwares for us, we local people have to promote it. On govt level, NADRA can do this task because they already have entire registration system in Urdu. Hope this decision will be taken seriously by govt and concerned people and they will promote Urdu and other local languages properly in Pakistan
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February 3rd, 2007 at 6:46 am
Salamalikum,
Very nice post. I agree, the reason for the lack of Urdu software is that Urdu is not an official language in Pakistan and people don’t want to make it mainstream. Although I admire the Arabeyes project, but it’s more out of necessity than willingness to promote Arabic per se. The necessity being that English is not understood as well there as it’s in Pakistan.
February 3rd, 2007 at 11:22 am
Waslam
Ibrahim arabs don’t need to promote Arabic as Allah already promoted it by revealing Quran in ARabic. They are just translating other stuff in arabic so that they don’t have to go thru english stuff
February 5th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Well congrats to Boriat’s team from me too … the idea and style rox ..!
And yeah I dont think so there is any issue here of fonts or anything else just the inner-inferiority complex every pakistani ( sp. youth) feels when urdu is the language we communicate in … and even I can’t tick myself off from this list :/ But that’s if not the main reason … one of the reasons of not adopting urdu … the feel that’s prevailing in society …!
February 5th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
And yeah I dont think so there is any issue here of fonts or anything else just the inner-inferiority complex every pakistani
How can you claim that?? Today if Urdu is not being promoted in computing then it’s because of lack of intrest which i will not equate with inferiority complex. Several Pakistanis are willing to learn computers but since they are not educated and know urdu, they can’t use it properly. Heck, we don’t have a basic urdu material about “How to use a PC”. There is complex among people but NOT in every Pakistani. Today If I don’t write my blog in urdu then it’s not because I hate urdu or not willing to use it, it’s just I don’t find proper guidance and easiness to use Urdu as easily as english. I don’t have required tools to publish my content in urdu.
Look this is human nature that he wants easiness, today majority of computing work is done in english because people have been given awesome tools which they can use for desired tasks.
Guys at Linuxpakistan.com and few others groups are trying their best to promote urdu but it’s not a one or two men work, it requires extensive efforts like govt pushed NADRA to built an urdu based system.