Languages of Pakistan: Official, National and Regional

Pakistan has two official languages, Urdu and English, both used in government and administration. Urdu is also the national language, chosen after independence in 1947 as a unifying, neutral language for a new state made up of many ethnic and linguistic groups.

English, a legacy of British colonial rule, remains the language of much of higher education, law and business.

Neither, though, is the first language of most Pakistanis, which is what makes the country's linguistic map so distinctive.

Urdu is the national language and a lingua franca understood by around 80 per cent of the population, though it is the mother tongue of fewer than one in ten Pakistanis, mainly in the big cities such as Karachi, Islamabad and Hyderabad.

It was promoted after independence partly because it was the language of the Muslim elite who migrated from India, including the country's founder and first Governor-General, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and partly because, belonging to no single province, it could serve as neutral ground between groups.

Urdu is written in a Perso-Arabic script and is closely related to Hindi: the two share much of their everyday grammar and vocabulary, but Urdu draws more on Persian and Arabic and uses a different script, while Hindi uses Devanagari.

Urdu also has more speakers in India, where it is one of the officially recognised scheduled languages.

A small aside: the name Urdu comes from a Turkic word for "army" or "camp", the same root that gives English the word "horde".

English arrived with British colonial rule and, uniquely for a former colony, was kept as an official language after independence, originally as a temporary measure while Urdu established itself. That transition never fully happened, and English remains firmly embedded at the top of Pakistani life: it is widely used in government, the courts, business and higher education, where many prestigious degree courses are taught entirely in English, and fluency is often a marker of education and status among the urban middle and upper classes. For anyone hoping to study or work in Pakistan, strong English is a real asset.

In everyday life, most Pakistanis speak one of the large regional languages rather than Urdu or English.

The approximate shares below are of first-language speakers.

Punjabi is by far the largest, yet it was never made the official language, precisely so as not to favour the country's biggest ethnic group over the others, which is part of why the neutral Urdu was chosen instead.

Beyond these, Pakistan has many smaller languages. Hindko (spoken by around 2 per cent, in parts of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) is a Lahnda variety close to Punjabi, and Brahui (around 1 per cent, in Balochistan) is a Dravidian language, unusual for the region. In the northern mountains of Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir you will find Balti, Shina, Burushaski (a language isolate, related to no other) and Kashmiri, each spoken by well under one per cent of the population, alongside a small number of Persian speakers.

The languages of Pakistan centre on two official languages, Urdu and English, with Urdu also the national language, understood by most but the mother tongue of relatively few.

In daily life the major regional languages dominate: Punjabi (the largest), Pashto, Sindhi, Saraiki and Balochi, with many smaller languages in the mountainous north.

It is a rich reflection of the country's history, and for Pakistani learners, strong English opens doors, which is exactly what a course abroad with SPRACHCAFFE is built to develop.