PESHAWAR: Speakers at a workshop held at the Pashto Academy here on Friday urged the linguists and research scholars to make Pashto script easier for common readers.

The two-day workshop on shortcomings of the Pashto script was organised by the Pashto Academy in which around 40 delegates from parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata participated. Poets, writers, teachers and students also attended the event where University of Peshawar vice-chancellor Prof Rasul Jan was the chief guest. Addressing the participants, Prof Jan said that about Rs400 million had been approved by the KP government for Pashto Academy to carry out its various literary and research projects. He said that issues of the academy would be resolved on priority.

Research scholars put forward several recommendations regarding Pashto script and its table of alphabets. A nine-member committee was constituted to take relevant stakeholders into confidence and to further work on removing mistakes from Pashto script to make it easy and comprehensible for readers.

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Prof Nasarullah Wazir, director of Pashto Academy, said that the proposed committee would put up suggestions before participants of another workshop for approval, while decisions of the scholars on Pashto script would be finalised in the national seminar to be held next year. “Our final recommendations would lead us to conduct an international seminar in March in which Afghan scholars would also be invited,” he said.

Octogenarian Pashto scholar, Hamish Khalil, said that scholars should continue debate on research and literary issues in Pashto language. He said that in any case the readers should be the beneficiary to encourage book culture.

Prof Zubair Hasrat said that the scholars shared their suggestions at the workshop, which would be streamlined to reach a consensus on one agreed Pashto script.

Language expert, Prof Khalid Khan Khattak, pointed out that the process of standardisation of Pashto orthography had begun in late 30s. He said that in 1939 an Afghan minister, Gul Mohammad Wazir Mohmand, had suggested important changes in the Pashto script, which unfortunately could not be adopted. He said that in 1942 a group of scholars had gathered at Kabul Pashto Academy and made possible the standardisation of Pashto script. Prof Khattak said that the two-day workshop had ratified about 17 decisions taken by then language experts in 1990 at a seminar on Pashto script.

Dr Yousaf Jazab, a young linguist, in his presentation remarked that Pashto script had many shortcomings. He said that it did not fulfil all requirements of linguistics. He said that there was no place for semivowels in the current Pashto script. He said that such gatherings should be held regularly to pave the way for evolving a consensus on a unified Pashto script.

The participants also passed a few resolutions, calling for establishment of a central language authority, inclusion of a linguistics paper in the master’s level syllabus, training of computer language operators and Pashto language teachers and compilation of a Pashto grammar and language dictionary.

Prof Salma Shaheen, Dr Israr, Rahmat Shah Sail, Prof Bushra Khatoon and Dr Farkhanda Liaquat also spoke at the workshop.

Published in Dawn December 31st, 2016