A language is not just a collection of phonetics, phonology, words, syntax and grammar
Though many people didn't expect ANP to be a major victor in province they did not anticipate ANP losing elections with such a high margin
Representational image. — UnsplashA language dies when nobody speaks it anymore. Why a language dies is a pertinent question asked by linguists...
As temperatures in the densely populated urban cities increase, many people from these areas wish to spend a few days away from the hustle and...
Recently, a person from the village that one of the writers of this piece comes from approached him about applying to the Prime Minister’s Youth...
In the Dardic Belt and Gujari areas of Swat, people did not have access to modernity and modernization some 50 or 60 years ago.The area was closed...
Students of the Institute of Management Sciences, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa organized a two-day literary and academic event called Peshawar Literary...
The traditional council, or ‘jirga’, is known by different names in different languages in Pakistan – ‘faislo’ in Sindh and...
Form No 2 of the upcoming Digital Census 2023 includes basic questions about gender, age, religion, marital life, nationality and ‘mother...
Get together a group of young girls and boys, sit with them, and shed your cloak of narcissism for a while. Establish a long association with them,...
Being on the periphery, these communities are marginalized, left behind and forgotten
On September 5, 2021, an article titled ‘Language beyond Politics’ written by an experienced teacher Syed Nomanul Haq appeared in Dawn. Though...
The eastern one comprises the upper Swat valley – from Pia Madyan to Ghizer pass via Bahrain, Kalam, Utror and Mahodand.
Speech predates writing. Oral language is the essential language. Technically, the writing of a language is just a graphic representation of said...
Since the Single National Curriculum was made public by the incumbent government a rigorous debate has emerged, involving prominent experts in...
The writer heads an independent organisation dealing with education and development in Swat.When a pandemic, conflict or natural disaster happens,...
Pakistan is often seen as, and rightly so, a hard country for campaigns. Campaigns, whether on human rights, education, civil liberty,...
An Italian researcher and scholar has deconstructed the myths around the Kalasha community living in the Kalash valley for centuries.In his work, he...
Efforts towards revitalising endangered languages have gained global significance. There are now hundreds of endangered languages. Though languages...
In our collective and individual mindset, there still exists a colonial legacy that manifests itself well in various situations – from a classroom...
The PTI government has thankfully completed its first 100 days in office amid the commotion of lofty claims, the search for a way out of the woods,...
When we look at the stark gender disparity in our cultural milieu, a number of barriers to girls’ education visibly stand out. Most of these...
Kohistan, the land of mountains, is a congregation of valleys surrounded and hidden by rugged mountains along River Indus from its big bend in...
“Owing to the depth and extreme narrowness of the valley in which the Indus has cut its bed through the mountains, it was not possible from our...
Diversity is a complex phenomenon and the term itself connotes many things. It could be either perceptive or objective. Although it appears to have...
The term ‘linguicism’ was coined in the 1980s by Finnish linguist and educator Tove Skutnabb-Kangas. She defined linguicism as the “ideologies...
Looking for conspiracies and foreign hands in almost every social or political act has become a norm in Pakistan. Facts are only facts when they get...
When passing through a village a few kilometres below the famous Shandur Pass in Chitral, I saw a brownish two-storeyed building standing in the...
The Swat Valley in northern Pakistan is usually referred to as the Switzerland of Asia but a learned friend, who paid a visit to Swat recently, put...
The government of Gilgit-Baltistan has been trying to chalk out a mechanism for the preservation and promotion of the languages spoken in the...
Passu is a beautiful village about 150 kilometres on the Karakorum Highway from the town of Gilgit. It is at the mouth of the 57 kilometre-long...
“One does not inhabit a country; one inhabits a language.” —Emil Cioran A day before the International Mother Language Day on...
Ours has unfortunately become a terribly exclusionist society. But it is extremely abhorrent when the state applies this doctrine either out of...
A couple of smart cops greeted me and led me to a big room with multiple screens on the wall inside a Victorian gothic style building – the...
According to a recent report by the United Nations Development Program, Pakistan has 5.36 percent forest cover of its total land mass. This is the...
In his recent book, ‘Education Policies in Pakistan’, Shahid Siddiqui states that the major challenge before policymakers in Pakistan...
The peripheries in Pakistan do not get their due share of attention, national activity or social development. Of course, some mega development...
Few in Pakistan are unaware of the beauty and bounty of Swat and its idyllic heavens like Kalam. Kalam is a name in Gawri, the native language of...
The writer heads an independent organisation dealing with education and development in Swat. It is hard to estimate the population of a country...
Shahbaz Shaheen’s daughter, Fatima, asked him: “Papa, where do I go to continue my education, as I have now passed my 5th grade...
When we look at the cultural diversity of Pakistan we see a beautiful bouquet of diverse cultures and languages, embedded in the rich history of the...
A cursory look at the development of the writing system shows that human beings are, by nature, fond of leaving their footprints in history. They...
Zubair Torwali It was a young crowd, in the thousands. These college students were thrilled at each song the organisers played. Their happiness...
By our correspondent LAHORE: The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Wednesday paid rich tributes and expressed solidarity with the martyrs...
Swat is wonderfully diverse in its culture as well as landscape as it has been a significant part of ancient civilisations such as the Gandhara and...
“Punjabi families no longer speak Punjabi with their children”. This generalisation we usually hear whenever we talk about the long-standing...
The cabinet division recently issued a letter to other federal departments directing them to use Urdu in their public and official correspondence....
For the last four months I have been closely engaged with the communities living in faraway villages over the hills of Swat-Kohistan on a campaign...
The authorities were unable to initiate an effective action plan against the cases reported, says a report of the Independent Monitoring Unit in...
For the last six years I have been consistently, but vainly, highlighting the plight of the locals of the tourist heaven, Kalam and its valleys. But...
