• Govt should give national status to languages of all provinces, speakers say
• The drive would continue till Feb 28

HYDERABAD: Inau-gural ceremony of an awareness campaign to declare Sindhi as a national language was organised by the Sindhi Language Authority (SLA) here on Friday evening.

Speaking at the programme, former Sindh culture minister and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Sassui Palejo said the Sindhi language is thousands of years old and people would continue to raise voice for its preservation. She recalled that when she was a senator, she had presented a bill to seek national language status for Sindhi but regrettably, a federal party did not support it, adding that the PPP always strived to grant the Sindhi language a national status.

She mentioned that a high-level committee was formed by the government, led by SLA, to initiate efforts not only for preservation of Sindhi but also for other languages. She also praised SLA for its work on developing software and computer applications for Sindhi language.

Celebrated Sindhi writer Noorulhuda Shah stated that mother tongue was language of motherland and Sindhi was a literary and historical language and it deserves to be recognised as a national language.

SLA’s Ishaq Samejo said that “we do not consider any language inferior or superior as all languages are respectable”. He quoted Sindhi writer Ali Baba, who said, “one’s mother can never be inferior.” Mr Samejo said this movement was not only for granting national language status to Sindhi but for recognising all languages of Pakistan as national languages, including Punjabi and Siraiki.

He added that the purpose of this campaign is to encourage people to speak and write in Sindhi and shared that it’s often observed that almost all documents are increasingly being written in English.

He stressed the need to ensure private schools comply with the law requiring teaching of Sindhi as a subject. “Teaching and learning our language is our fundamental right and schools are obligated to do so”, he said and urged parents to speak to their children in Sindhi language at home.

Writer Jami Chandio noted that indigenous Dravidian communities of Sindh who converted to Christianity or other religions, lost their Sindhi identity because of language.

He said people should work on semantics of language as linguistic research in Sindhi is still in its infancy. He added that 7,000 languages are spoken in the world and linguists predict that by end of the century only 200 languages will survive. “We need to think whether Sindhi can survive in this modern era”, he said.

He stressed that the use of language in multiple domains was crucial for survival and clarified that they are not against Urdu or any other language but against Urdu’s dominance.

He said that in countries like India, Nigeria and others multiple languages were spoken and all were recognised as indigenous languages. Pakistan is the only country in the world where only one language is recognised as national.

He said the case should be presented to federation to also grant national language status to other languages beside Urdu and English.

Dr Aakash Ansari, Sindhi Graduate Association leader Piral Khan Khoso, Noor Chakrani, general secretary Sindhi Adabi Sangat also spoke.

The campaign would continue till Feb 28.

Published in Dawn, February 2nd, 2025