Should Pakistan apply the Turkish and Indonesian model of using Latin alphabets for its local languages to assist the poorest of people to learn Urdu and English, simultaneously?
This will be good for children who find it easier to write in English because the letters are separated unlike Urdu where you have to learn to connect everything together (cursive)
Teachers always find that the kids can learn English easily whilst Urdu is always a struggle.
If I was to write "abhi", in English, in block letters, it is very convenient. People already understand it, and it is also very commonly used in movie covers, television, and newspapers.
Conversely, if I wrote it in Urdu, in block letters, like we do in English, it would be unintelligible.
People can see this grave mistake in international airports where Arabic or Farsi is written like this: ا ب ھ ی instead of ابھی
Urdu, right from the beginning, is taught in cursive and cannot be written in any other way while English is taught in cursive much later, in Pakistan. This is unfair for the children. No one who drafts these policies ever bothers to learn from the education systems or policies abroad - they are only concerned with whatever is fashionable or what crosses their mind, one fine morning.
Also, the only other script to be learned would be Arabic, for religious purposes and would be much easier for the kids and less of a burden to understand the true spirit of Islam - this is necessary for the average person so as to not be deceived into being touts in the hands of a few "mullahs".
Tajiki, which is Farsi, is written in the Russian Cyrillic script.
When the Afghan refugees went to Tajikistan, they were learning the same language (their language is also Farsi but called Darri), by Tajiki-speaking teachers, who were speaking the same language and were able to communicate with the students easily as they only had to teach them to put the language, in a different script.
It's like learning Urdu, in the Devanagari script and then, it becomes Hindi. You already know the language but just have to switch it to a different script.
Roman Urdu is already ubiquitous and Ayub also tried implementing it.
Unfortunately, what we see happening now is that the child has Urdu being spoken at his home and when he goes to school, there is a language shock as the teachers speak and teach in English. This hampers the child's performance and confuses him or her.
In America, the early Italian immigrants were told by the teachers to not speak Italian in front of the kids so as to not make them accustomed to that language and thereby, weak in their performance, at school.
Why can't we adopt something good for once?
This new model can be created and applied because about 60% of Pakistanis already do not know how to read so whatever they learn will be new for them, regardless. Whether it is Persian Urdu or Roman Urdu, it won't matter because whatever they learn to read would be their first time learning to read it.
The poorest of people will be able to stand shoulder to shoulder to the same strata of people in the Western world because they would be capable of reading and understanding Latin alphabets, almost overnight, provided that such an awareness or legislative drive truly does take place.
The division between Urdu and English education is already an issue and cannot be solved in any other way. The PTI's education policy is eye-catchy but depressing in that it doesn't solve the problem, overnight, which is the need of the hour in order to make Pakistan competitive, in the world stage.
The only debate right now is to whether go in complete Urdu (China, Iran model) or partial English (India).
I want to add the Turkey model into the debate, where they switched to the Latin alphabet from what they call, Ottoman Turkish.
Not only Turkey, but also the Turkic communities associated with Turkey have become familiar with this language almost immediately.
As a result of this, Turks are able to fit into any European or Western country's education system (where high-level education exists) because they only have to switch the language - the letters are already readable.
Therefore, my only solution to this, was, that it could be a combination of the two, and it is already in practice, in the social media and the ubiquitous SMS jokes.
Almost all Pakistanis own a mobile phone, know the Arabic numerals and can read Roman Urdu as it is the only format through which Urdu messages can be conveyed through SMS.
I mean, these SMSs are so powerful that even Zardari had to ban them when he came in power - this only goes to to show the influence of Roman Urdu (given that the SMS are in that format and not any other)
In closing, I would like to remind the nationalistic nut-jobs that Turks, their related communities in Iran and Central Asia, and Indonesians are all Muslims and will not be going to hell for switching the script - I have also preemptively responded to the "cultural identity" argument by stating that Arabic should be taught.
Some other facts to consider:
Urdu was only recently officiated as it was invented in the 1800's because even until the mid 1900's, Farsi was the main lingua franca for education and taught to children in the recently made Pakistan (where education and schools were not yet made available at the state level).
Urdu was an arbitrary language and we made the script for it ourselves, like with Sindi (a script in which Bhittai didn't even write in, yet, to read Bhittai, the Shakespeare of Sind, you are to use that script, why?)
Urdu was extracted from the Turkic language Chagatai (Uzbek) and Farsi, to reflect the local dialects and pronunciations. We added the following letters, arbitrarily and it wasn't revealed to us from heaven: ڈ ڑ ٹ
These letters do not exist in Farsi or Uzbek (which is in Cyrillic, now) and they can confirm this for us. Turkey and the ex-Soviet republics do have their original language and it is still taught but they either consider it the Arabic script or Persian script.
Any contradictions and fruitful input, is welcome
This will be good for children who find it easier to write in English because the letters are separated unlike Urdu where you have to learn to connect everything together (cursive)
Teachers always find that the kids can learn English easily whilst Urdu is always a struggle.
If I was to write "abhi", in English, in block letters, it is very convenient. People already understand it, and it is also very commonly used in movie covers, television, and newspapers.
Conversely, if I wrote it in Urdu, in block letters, like we do in English, it would be unintelligible.
People can see this grave mistake in international airports where Arabic or Farsi is written like this: ا ب ھ ی instead of ابھی
Urdu, right from the beginning, is taught in cursive and cannot be written in any other way while English is taught in cursive much later, in Pakistan. This is unfair for the children. No one who drafts these policies ever bothers to learn from the education systems or policies abroad - they are only concerned with whatever is fashionable or what crosses their mind, one fine morning.
Also, the only other script to be learned would be Arabic, for religious purposes and would be much easier for the kids and less of a burden to understand the true spirit of Islam - this is necessary for the average person so as to not be deceived into being touts in the hands of a few "mullahs".
Tajiki, which is Farsi, is written in the Russian Cyrillic script.
When the Afghan refugees went to Tajikistan, they were learning the same language (their language is also Farsi but called Darri), by Tajiki-speaking teachers, who were speaking the same language and were able to communicate with the students easily as they only had to teach them to put the language, in a different script.
It's like learning Urdu, in the Devanagari script and then, it becomes Hindi. You already know the language but just have to switch it to a different script.
Roman Urdu is already ubiquitous and Ayub also tried implementing it.
Unfortunately, what we see happening now is that the child has Urdu being spoken at his home and when he goes to school, there is a language shock as the teachers speak and teach in English. This hampers the child's performance and confuses him or her.
In America, the early Italian immigrants were told by the teachers to not speak Italian in front of the kids so as to not make them accustomed to that language and thereby, weak in their performance, at school.
Why can't we adopt something good for once?
This new model can be created and applied because about 60% of Pakistanis already do not know how to read so whatever they learn will be new for them, regardless. Whether it is Persian Urdu or Roman Urdu, it won't matter because whatever they learn to read would be their first time learning to read it.
The poorest of people will be able to stand shoulder to shoulder to the same strata of people in the Western world because they would be capable of reading and understanding Latin alphabets, almost overnight, provided that such an awareness or legislative drive truly does take place.
The division between Urdu and English education is already an issue and cannot be solved in any other way. The PTI's education policy is eye-catchy but depressing in that it doesn't solve the problem, overnight, which is the need of the hour in order to make Pakistan competitive, in the world stage.
The only debate right now is to whether go in complete Urdu (China, Iran model) or partial English (India).
I want to add the Turkey model into the debate, where they switched to the Latin alphabet from what they call, Ottoman Turkish.
Not only Turkey, but also the Turkic communities associated with Turkey have become familiar with this language almost immediately.
As a result of this, Turks are able to fit into any European or Western country's education system (where high-level education exists) because they only have to switch the language - the letters are already readable.
Therefore, my only solution to this, was, that it could be a combination of the two, and it is already in practice, in the social media and the ubiquitous SMS jokes.
Almost all Pakistanis own a mobile phone, know the Arabic numerals and can read Roman Urdu as it is the only format through which Urdu messages can be conveyed through SMS.
I mean, these SMSs are so powerful that even Zardari had to ban them when he came in power - this only goes to to show the influence of Roman Urdu (given that the SMS are in that format and not any other)
In closing, I would like to remind the nationalistic nut-jobs that Turks, their related communities in Iran and Central Asia, and Indonesians are all Muslims and will not be going to hell for switching the script - I have also preemptively responded to the "cultural identity" argument by stating that Arabic should be taught.
Some other facts to consider:
Urdu was only recently officiated as it was invented in the 1800's because even until the mid 1900's, Farsi was the main lingua franca for education and taught to children in the recently made Pakistan (where education and schools were not yet made available at the state level).
Urdu was an arbitrary language and we made the script for it ourselves, like with Sindi (a script in which Bhittai didn't even write in, yet, to read Bhittai, the Shakespeare of Sind, you are to use that script, why?)
Urdu was extracted from the Turkic language Chagatai (Uzbek) and Farsi, to reflect the local dialects and pronunciations. We added the following letters, arbitrarily and it wasn't revealed to us from heaven: ڈ ڑ ٹ
These letters do not exist in Farsi or Uzbek (which is in Cyrillic, now) and they can confirm this for us. Turkey and the ex-Soviet republics do have their original language and it is still taught but they either consider it the Arabic script or Persian script.
Any contradictions and fruitful input, is welcome
