Urdish

Urdish (or Urglish), a portmanteau of Urdu and English, is the macaronic hybrid use of English and Urdu in Pakistan, involving code-switching between these languages where they are freely interchanged within a sentence or between sentences. The term Urdlish is first recorded in 1989. Other less common colloquial portmanteau words for Urdish include (chronologically): Urglish (recorded from 1995), Urdlish (1997) and Urduish (1998).[1]

Many bilingual or multi-lingual Urdu speakers, being familiar with both Urdu and English, display code-switching in certain localities and between certain social groups.

On 14 August 2015, the Government of Pakistan launched the Ilm Pakistan movement, with a uniform curriculum in Urdish. Ahsan Iqbal, Federal Minister of Pakistan, said, "Now the government is working on a new curriculum to provide a new medium to the students which will be the combination of both Urdu and English and will name it Urdish."[2][3][4]

References[change | change source]

  1. Lambert, James. 2018. A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity. English World-wide, 39(1): 32. DOI: 10.1075/eww.38.3.04lam
  2. "Learning In 'Urdish'". Archived from the original on 17 November 2015. Retrieved 10 October 2015.
  3. Yousafzai, Fawad. "Govt to launch 'Ilm Pakistan' on August 14: Ahsan". Archived from the original on 17 November 2015. Retrieved 10 October 2015.
  4. Mustafa, Zubeida. "Over to 'Urdish'". Archived from the original on 17 October 2015. Retrieved 10 October 2015.