The debate about Urdu’s potential to become the official language or not has intensified after the recent Supreme Court order on the subject. Some argue that matters of the state can be discussed in this language easily while others say it cannot replace English and both should be adopted side by side.

There are concerns as well about Urdu not being a language of higher education. But this does not mean that efforts are not being made in this direction. Different institutions, such as the National Language Authority, Urdu Dictionary Board, Urdu Science Board, etc, have been working on this for long. These institutions have contributed to the promotion of Urdu and performed functions, such as formulating quality Urdu dictionary and translating books in Science subject and legal documents into Urdu.

Of late, NLA has been transformed into National Language Promotion Department (NLPD) and put under the Ministry of Culture of Information. It was established on October 4, 1979 under Article 251 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to remove difficulties in the way to adopt Urdu as the official language and make recommendations for its use as the working medium and to promote cooperation among academic, research and educational institutions.

It has also worked on producing the very first thesaurus of Urdu, glossaries of professional terminologies in various disciplines of arts and sciences, and dictionaries.

The Urdu Dictionary Board and Urdu Science Board have also worked on similar lines. The Urdu Dictionary Board has produced 22 volumes of Urdu lughat on historical principles, on the lines of Greater Oxford Dictionary whereas the Urdu Science Board has translated a large number foreign of science books into Urdu. Despite these contributions, there is a perception among independent scholars that the role of these organisations has been limited -- and one reason for this is the lack of clarity about their objectives.

Former Ambassador Toheed Ahmad, who has a special interest in translation studies, believes Urdu is already being used as an official language at different levels. He says in government offices, assistants and superintendents draft a document in Urdu and then give it to their bosses who take a lot of time to translate it into English before approving it.

He says people are making fun of their language by translating English terms word by word even in cases where there is no need to do so. "Why do we need to find Urdu equivalent for words like plate, tv, radio, glass, etc. These words will remain the same as even the illiterate people use them widely."

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Ahmed says English is the language of computer, civil aviation, and international trade, "But it does not mean that countries cannot live without it. They can teach English as a language/subject and focus more on their national languages to excel."

Ahmad suggests that it is better to translate text books that are in German, Japanese, Chinese or Persian into Urdu than to produce text books locally which are full of prejudices, biases and hate material.

But to be able to do that, he says, "There is a need to educate people in these languages and impart them quality translation skills. One is really impressed to see Iran competing with the world with the help of Persian which is the language of their curriculum of science and art subject."

Ahmed was instrumental in introducing translation studies as a subject in the University of Gujrat. He believes the country needs translators in large numbers to benefit from the research carried out in languages other than English. Besides, he says, "there is a need to translate legal documents and laws into Urdu as many lawyers do not have enough understanding of English, nor can they converse in it. If the lawyers are not comfortable with English as legal language, what will be the status of the illiterate litigants," he questions.

Dr Sarmad Hussain, Chairman Center of Language Engineering (CLE) at the University of Engineering and Technology (UET), tells TNS that "there are certain immediate impacts of the SC order which they are looking into. For instance, they will have to come up with terminology in Urdu to make it a language of official communication."

He says there are three options, namely: transliteration, translation and coining up of totally new terms. "By transliteration we mean writing of the same English term in Urdu transcript. But it will have to be decided at all levels as to which option shall be adopted. It is quite likely that some people will use the word "file" and the others "misl" for the same object," he adds.

Another example is that the NLPD has decided that the home page will be translated as ibtidai safah, instead of ghar safah -- the literary translation.

Hussain says his centre is providing computer support to Urdu and other local languages which is a must for their promotion as a modern language. "For example, it has produced Urdu fonts and keyboards that are available free of cost and can be installed from CLE website. Besides, there are options, such as thesaurus, spell check, etc, for those who need support in word processing in Urdu.

He says they have also introduced Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software that can scan Urdu books and convert them into text format. Though the accuracy is not 100 per cent, this function reduces the workload related to drafting to a great extent.

The CLE is also working on promoting dialogue systems that make computers communicate to people, especially those who cannot write or read. "An example is that of the automated weather update system where computers respond to the queries from people spread all over the country. Different accents from 140 districts have been fed into the computers to help the machine understand what the callers are asking. The same technology can be used for service delivery in other sectors as well," he adds.