ALTHOUGH discouraged by intellectuals, eminent Urdu writers and academicians, the use of Roman script for writing Urdu language is extremely common among social media and mobile phone users. In fact, it is more popular than the Persian script for writing Urdu language. Advertisers also choose Roman script for their Urdu advertisements because of the wide acceptance of the trend.

One may not like them, but social realities cannot be wished away. One has to live with them and adapt accordingly. One has to concede that it is not possible to stop people from using the Roman script for Urdu language.

Therefore, academicians and linguists must set some rules and patterns for writing Urdu using the Roman script so that people may adopt them and write in a uniform manner.

Ghaffar El-Asad
Lahore

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2021