Daily Times

In an interview, Punjab minister Sardar Mohsin Leghari said to the anchor, “I’m not Saraiki. Saraiki is a language and I am an ethnic Baloch.”

Urdu and Saraiki are those languages which are used by people of various nations to fulfil their communication gap.

The term “Pidgin” is used to define a language that is formed from a mixture of several languages when there is a diversity of nations in a particular area and those people have to communicate with each other. This term was found when Chinese people of south China started business with the English on port and after that a new language was discovered. That Chinese pidgin language consisted of 700 words of English.

We know very well about Urdu which was formed by mixture of words included from Turkish, Sanskrit and Persian languages. Invaders from other areas and tragedies created a new language for communication between people of other languages and Urdu doesn’t have its own native people like Punjabi used to be spoken by Punjabi nation or Sindhi language is used by Sindhi people.

Urdu after adoption by some population of Pakistan didn’t affect their ethnicity although it has old literature and script.

The same can be said about Saraiki which consists of Punjabi and Sindhi.

“A large number are acquainted with both languages and use Jatki or Multani only with strangers and Balochi in their own families. Jatki or Multani as it was called by the late O’ Brien, whose glossary is the best published work on the language was described by him as a purely Sanskritical language containing many Punjabi and Sindhi words,” this was stated by the English in the Gazetter of Dera Ghazi Khan.

When Baloch tribes established cities on the bank of Indus River like DG Khan before Baloch tribes, there was population as mentioned in different books of history because of frequent floods in Indus River. In the book, Dera Ghazi Khan Baloch ya Saraiki by Chacha Allah Buksh Buzdar, it was quoted, “This area was barren land and uninhabited this land was used by tribesmen of Koh-e-Suleiman for animals graze land.”

They used to speak Balochi language with each other as mentioned above. After flood, city demolished, English government developed city again and settled their many Jatki speakers here and created bridges like Ghazi Ghaat on Indus River. Baloch population learned Jatki or Saraiki by interaction between settlers and after business through the bridge.

Saraiki language is used by many ethnical Pashtuns in Dera Ismail Khan, Mianwali and Tank and ethnical Punjabis are also using this language in different areas.

My request is to the government and authorities to avoid the division of Pakistani nations on languages and stop the destruction of cultures. Language has nothing more than script and way of communication. Nations have culture, history and geography. Government has to make institutions for languages and libraries of books to promote love for languages.

The writer is a law student and can be reached at abdullahbaloch3813@gmail.com. He Tweets at @abdullahnutkani

Published in Daily Times, January 6^th 2019.