ISLAMABAD, June 2: The Allama Iqbal Open University will publish literary masterpieces of obscure but living languages of Pakistan, including Brushaski , AIOU vice-chancellor Dr Syed Altaf Hussain said this in his concluding remarks at the national seminar on Brushaski language on Wednesday.

The vice-chancellor also promised to upgrade the Pakistan Languages Department of the university to an autonomous institute and bring hitherto obscure and less known languages into the mainstream of literature and life.

Dr Joan Baart, head of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, who belongs to the Netherlands and is now coalescing with AIOU and Quaid-i-Azam University's Pakistan Studies Department, in their efforts to revive these dormant languages of Pakistan up from dialect to a literary status, also made a presentation.

He spoke of the valuable time lost in documenting these languages, which form the cultural heritage of the country. Dr Baart praised the AIOU for instituting M.Phil study courses a big step forward and said the waiting time for Pakistani scholars had come to an end and they must become speakers of these languages and record them.

Without documenting them one develops a tendency to forget that they exist which leads to neglect of these magnificent languages their knowledge are of inestimable aid in anthropological studies and appreciation of the country's cultural heritage.

The guest scholar has been visiting Pakistan since 1994. He is credited with the discovering of Garvi language, existing as dialect. Dr Baart presented to the vice-chancellor two books, A look at Hunza Culture, and Basic Brushaski Vocabulary, written by Stephen R. William and published by the National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University.

The head of Pakistan Languages Department Dr Inamul Haq Javed said his department was offering course for the study and understanding of 18 languages, including Baluchi, Brahvi, Balti, Brushaski, Wakhi, Chachhee, Dhani, Gani, Hindko, Khuwar, Kashmiri, Pushto, Pahari, Punjabi Tarbali, Seraiki, Sindhi and Ojhri.

He said the new M.Phil course, which will start this month has had a resounding success with admission into it of 45 students. Earlier, renowned mountaineer and conqueror of Mount Everest, Nazir Sabir, urged Pakistani scholars as well as foreign experts to rescue the Brushaski language from obscurity and bring it onto international spotlight.

He said it was one of the world's oldest pre-historic languages as well as one of the principal 18 languages of Pakistan. Mr Sabir appreciated the AIOU for taking initiative in convening the seminar and offering M.Phil courses for the study of Pakistan languages. He stressed the need for promoting Brushaski language.

He suggested that the university should publish literary masterpieces as well as the translation of these languages to join the mainstream of the country's literature so that people of Pakistan might come to discover the enormous treasure to which have had no accesses so far.

Three scholars, Ghulam Abbas, Ghulam Qadir Beg and Shahnaz Saleem presented papers on different aspects of Brushaski language and literature, including its development and structure, the work done by western linguists in rescuing this language from oblivion and mystical streams in its literature.

Dr Parveen Ashraf spoke on the research being done at the Brushaski Institute in Karachi where a Brushaski-Urdu dictionary is in the last stage of printing.

The scholars touched on Brushaski as a pre-historic language found some place with advanced civilization that is clear from such words as ostrich found therein. Now ostriches are nowhere to be found in the valleys of Hunza, Nagar and Yasin where 200,000 people spoke this living language. However it is an isolate language, which means that to-date it is no relation with any established language.