KOOZEY BICH DARYA…proverbs and usages compiled by Sultan Sakoon; pp 124; Price Rs.160 (hb); Publishers Misal Publishers, Raheem Centre, Press Market; Aminpur Bazaar, Faisalabad.

PAHARRI KAHAVATAIN…Aakhan by Dr Muhammad Sagheer Khan; pp 120; Price Rs.75 (pb); Published by compiler himself from Gaeon Potthi Balla, Rawalakot, Azad Kashmir.

ALL the areas which came under the Mughal rule, Sikh rule and the British rule usually turned a blind eye to their languages or dialects and their literatures. They included the whole of Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, the former Frontier and Balochistan. They were first under the influence of Persian followed by Urdu, which turned into a political and religious dispute after the British governor of the UP on the demand of the overwhelming majority of the Hindu population replaced Urdu in Persian script by Hindustani or Hindi in Devangari script in the first decade of the last century.

During the British Raj more attention was given to Urdu in the areas mentioned above because it was made the medium of instruction by the British. Only Pushto was given some importance because of the borders of Afghanistan. Because of the political aspects of the languages the overwhelming majority of the Muslims of this region wholeheartedly accepted Urdu as the language of Muslims. This total identification damaged the cultural aspects of the different local languages and dialects in which literature at people’s level was still produced and published. But these were not taught anywhere. It was in East Bengal and Sindh where mother languages were made the medium of instruction up to secondary level. Sindhis were deeply attached with their language because it helped them establish their linguistic identity separate to rest of the province of Bombay of which Sindh was an integral part. Sindhi was also supported by the majority of the Hindus to get it separated from Bombay.

Bengali from the extreme eastern province of the United India was introduced as medium of instruction and the second official language in place of Persian, the official language of the pre-British period. Muslim Bengalis had more vested interests in Persian, therefore they were not happy with language policy of the British and at the first stage they rejected Bengali language as medium of instruction as well as the second official language. On the contrary, Hindu Bengalis enthusiastically embraced their mother tongue in both capacities and through this language they entered in all government services, while the Muslims were deprived of their due rights. This material and power loss forced the Muslim Bengalis to accept their mother tongue as medium of instruction as well as the second official language of the province. Here one may mention that like Punjabi and Sindhi major and early contribution to Bengali literature was made by the Muslims. Now when they lagged behind they realized their fault and associated more closely with the language and to them superiority or superior status to any other language was not acceptable. It was not taken as the background therefore after creation of Pakistan they challenged the status given to Urdu. West Pakistanis, through their bureaucracy and political force, fully support Urdu. It was after the fall of Bengal that the intellectuals and nationalists of different provinces raised their voice in support of their languages and with that started the move to divide the languages not taught for one century, on the basis of dialects. For instance Punjabi language was not introduced as medium of instruction for centuries therefore internal well-knit linguistic aspects were ignored and the dialect used by all major poets of Punjab and neighbouring areas was not taken as the standard dialect.

Consequently, political vested interests mainly of the feudal class demanded that the province should be divided on a dialect basis.

These two books of proverbs and usages are mutually inter-related. Many of the Paharri protagonists claimed that Potohari, Paharri and Hindko are one language and we see most of the proverbs under Paharri are commonly found in Hindko and the next step is that these two books share 80 per cent proverbs with Punjabi and Seraiki proverbs published recently from Lahore and Multan or Bahawalpur. It may be pointed out that the British for their administrative purpose conducted deep research in the local languages and dialects which during the days of Raj were not taken seriously by the speakers of the respective areas. I intended to compare these Paharri and Hindko proverbs to see the commonality and for that purpose we take an old Book Mahbubul Imsal…English Proverbs, in Persian, Arabic and Punjabi…popular sayings compiled by Maulvi Haji Mahbub Alam, editor of the Paisa Akhbar, Lahore. This is the third edition of the book published in 1936. Here we give the version of same equivalent proverb compiled in Koozey Bich Darya, Paharri Kahavtain and Mahbubul Imsal.

Either dance or hold the candle.

An elevated situation to the knave.

No man is hero to his valet de chamber.

What is the difference except some changing sounds which are in every living language’s fate. What is needed that concerned governments should no more ignore the development of the provincial language and all its literature be collected and published in the new born style or form.

One is bound to pay tribute to Sultan Sakoon and Dr Sagheer Khan that they have contributed a great share to their respective fields and one hopes that in future more attention will be paid to find out the commonalities between all those languages which have been ignored for many centuries. — STM