KARACHI, May 11: Renowned Indian scholar Prof Dr Gopichand Narang said here on Friday night that Urdu is a living language, its future is bright and it is set to spread all over the globe.

In his mesmerizing speech on the topic of ‘Urdu’s future — concerns and hopes’ at a programme held in the Arts Council of Pakistan, Prof Narang likened Urdu to a perennial river.

He said that sometimes the river stream shrinks but when it overflows it washes away all the pollutants.

He said there are many languages that have more adherents than Urdu does but they are confined to the regions they are spoken in whereas Urdu has not only spread from Khyber to Kolkata and beyond in the subcontinent but also, thanks largely to immigrant workers, it has reached all the four corners of the world.

The author of over 60 books on linguistics said Urdu does not treat any word as an untouchable, rather it embraces each and every beautiful word and phrase that comes its way from other languages and in the process enriches itself.

The scholar said Urdu has deep roots. Over the centuries, it has evolved from many languages of the subcontinent. Before it took its present name, the classical Urdu poets had called it Hindvi and Rekhta.

Prof Narang said Urdu does not need official patronage and that governments could help promote languages only to a limited extent.

In this regard, he recalled Prof Sahar Ansari’s remarks that once the Pakistan government had tried to enforce the words ‘Purab and Pachham’ in its news bulletins but the words could not gain currency in this part of the country.

He said that a language cannot be imposed by governments and it is the people who promote it.

He said even the Mughal rulers, some of whom were Urdu poets, had preferred Persian as their court and official language.

He said Urdu was promoted by Sufis, Fakirs, Bhagats, ascetics and divines who took their message of love to towns and villages.

The professor, recipient of many prestigious awards, said Urdu is not a sectarian language either.

He particularly quoted Mir Taqi Mir and Ghalib, who shunned parochial dogmas and preached humanism. He said Urdu is the language of humanism and liberalism and if we see any sectarian references in it, they have been the invention of recent times. He said whether written in the Deonagri or Persian script, Urdu is gaining popularity in India. He said though Shabana Azmi, the daughter of noted Urdu poet Kaifi Azmi, could not read the Urdu script and instead uses Roman English to read her lines, Lata Mangeshkar had learned the Urdu script and sang her songs with immaculate pronunciation.

Talking about the charms of the Urdu language, he enthralled the audience by quoting beautiful verses from poets including Amir Khusrau, Mir, Ghalib, Iqbal and Faiz.

Noted poet Sahar Ansari, in his introductory speech, narrated his concerns and optimism about the future of the language.

Well-known teacher of philosophy Dr Manzoor Ahmed, in his presidential address, described Prof Narang as a romanticist and wished that he could share his romanticism. He said previously he could make speeches both in pure Urdu and pure English, but now the mixture of the two languages had confused him so much that he had to grope for proper words to express his thought whether he spoke in Urdu or English.