Socio-linguistics Aspects Linguistic variations Urdu enjoys the status of being the mother tongue of 80 millions people of the world Urdu language, by its very nature, is an accommodative language Since its emergence, it has assimilated the linguistic features from all languages with which it came into contact They differ only on the bases of script

1. Variations in Urdu
Language
Sociolinguistics Aspects

2. About Urdu
• Urdu enjoys the status of being the mother tongue of 80 millions people of
the world
• Urdu language, by its very nature, is an accommodative language
• Since its emergence, it has assimilated the linguistic features from all
languages with which it came into contact
• They differ only on the bases of script
• According to Dr. Tariq Rehman (1996), these different scripts are used for
political and ideological reasons
• According to the popular myth, Urdu is a ‘camp language’ or ‘lashkari zaban’
• Behind the so-called theory is that Urdu is a mixture of words taken from
different languages
• English, being most ‘open’ of them all, has, according to David Crystal,
borrowed from over 100 languages, but nobody has ever called English a
mixture of different languages

3. Phenomenon of Language
Change
• The phenomenon of language-change is assumed to be a result of the
interplay of various linguistic and non-linguistic factors
• Sociolinguistics deals with linguistic variations such as dialect, idiolect,
genderlect, register etc
• The scholars of Urdu language usually lament the changes in Urdu and deem
it as something corrupt that is a threat to the purity of Urdu
• It is paradoxical that while the changes caused by Oriental languages are
welcomed by the defenders of Urdu
• For instance, in Urdu the plural form of word Ustad is also Ustad but under
the influence of Persian grammar the correct plural form is often considered
as Usatza
• Similarly the rules for making feminine gender are predominantly Persio-
Arabic

4. Englishization of Urdu
• The current direction of changes in Urdu language is towards English
• Social factor behind this linguistic phenomenon was that the Pakistanis who
wanted Urdu as their national language have been surviving through the
English language for the last hundred years
• The following headlines from different Urdu newspapers show the influence
of English language over Urdu
-Chairman NAB ki appointment per hakoomat aur opposition main deadlock
-Corrupt system ko badal kr behtareen health care system lain gay
-Electronic media main 2015 tak 41 million rupaye ki investment
• The text messaging is perhaps causing the most obvious changes in languages
• Young people are not only using telegraphic expressions, they are also
changing the spellings
-Ppr main bzi ho ktnay bje end ho ga ppr?
-Yr koi fit si buks to bta for geography
-css ki registration ka kya procedure ha? Mean kab hoti ha n how?
(Ramzan et al.,2014)

5.  Grammatical categories
• Nouns are borrowed from other languages when people come into contact
with new things and do not have proper vocabulary
• This is not always the matter of unavailability of words in first language
• there is another reason, and that is prestige
• Most of the nouns are related to either modern technology or modern style;
these nouns do not have proper Urdu alternative for example: camera,
Cinema, Mobile phone, biscuit, and sandwich
• Alternative nouns but not used by speakers;
-lawn (Baghicha), warning (ta(m)bih), road (sarrak), flight (parwaz), airport (hawai
adda)
• Many other English words are frequently used at the expense of their Urdu
alternatives;
-class fellow (hum jamaat), class (jamaat), bag (basta), paper (prcha), homework
(ghar ka kam), pen (qalam), break (waqfa)
(Asghar et al., 2013)

6.  Variations
• Urdu is a majorly spoken and national language of Pakistan but it varies
with reference to the geographical changes
• Karachi is known for its Urdu speaking population but the people here
speak Urdu with a special accent which is very distinct
• Secondly, they have their own words that you won’t find in other regions
• Some of them include “Aray Mian” meaning “Oh respected person” and
“Abay” which means “Oh you”
• One of the distinct features of spoken Urdu in Lahore is that people
sometimes omit vowels
• Urdu of the KPK province in particular has most obvious changes; they
often get the gender wrong while speaking Urdu
• The word “weather” is masculine in Urdu but in Peshawari Urdu, weather
is treated as feminine
• The reason of all these variations are because of the influence of the
regional languages on Urdu

7.  Ghalib’s letters to observe the kind of changes Urdu language
has undergone through the decades:
Old Urdu Lexical
Terms
Jharaay
Abr
Kasad
Hoos
Sang
Khak
Dha
Zoja
Khabr Tarashoon
Gustakhi
Bay-adbiyan
New Equivalent
Lexical Terms
khezaan
Barish
Irada
Talaab
Pather
Matti
Gira
Biwi
Sahafi
Battamizi
Bay-adbi
Extinct Words
Ibarat araeyaan
Sehr sazi
Sukhen parwazi
Ruday neel
Shunbay
Azeemat
Sitm paisha.

8. Conclusion
• English vocabulary is increasing in Urdu with the passage of time
• In written language, this code-mixing is observed at word level only, thus it is
not marring the basic structure of Urdu language
• This is not solely due to the non-availability of Urdu correlates; there are
other issues involved, it may be prestige, social influence, phonological ease
• It also shows that language-change is not something negative. It is not
positive either
• Simply it is neutral; a natural process which is adopted by language to adjust
itself according to the linguistic needs of its speech community