With reference to the letter ‘Forgetting our roots’ by Q Qaseem in the Nation of Apr 21, I hope it is a slip of the pen and he does not mean that Urdu is our mother tongue. Yes Urdu did become our national language in 1947, but before that Urdu was the least spoken language in the provinces which constitute the present Pakistan.
Sindhi’s, Balochi’s, Pathan’s and Punjabi’s spoke their mother tongue in their homes (they still do to a greater or lesser extent), went to schools where the medium of instructions was English in the higher classes and Urdu was an optional subject. English of course was the official language.
I was 18 years old when Urdu became the national language. At that point in time, apart from my mother tongue I was fairly fluent in English but not so in Urdu.
Since then it has been a fairly difficult learning process in face of the supercilious attitude of our Urdu speaking brothers.
KHURSHID ANWER,
Lahore, April 21.