Languages of Pakistan
Dominant mother tongue in thedistricts of Pakistan as of the2017 Pakistani census
Official	Urdu (nationwide)[a] English (nationwide)[a] Sindhi (inSindh)[b]
National	Urdu[c]
Regional	Over 70 regional languages
Signed	Pakistani Sign Language
Keyboard layout	QWERTY and Urdu keyboard

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Pakistan is amultilingual country with over 70 languages spoken asfirst languages.^[2][3] The majority of Pakistan's languages belong to theIndo-Iranian group of theIndo-European language family.^[4][5]

Urdu is thenational language and thelingua franca of Pakistan, and while sharing official status withEnglish, it is the preferred and dominant language used for inter-communication between different ethnic groups.^[2][3] Numerous regional languages are spoken as first languages by Pakistan's various ethnolinguistic groups.

According to the2023 census, languages with more than a million speakers each includePunjabi,Pashto,Sindhi,Saraiki,Urdu,Balochi,Hindko,Brahui and theKohistani languages.^[6] The census excludes data fromGilgit-Baltistan andAzad Kashmir, thereforeShina andBalti population might not be exact.^[6] There are approximately 60 local languages with fewer than a million speakers.^[7][8]

The 2022 edition ofEthnologue lists 80 established languages in Pakistan. Of these, 68 are indigenous and 12 are non-indigenous. In terms of their vitality, 4 are classified as 'institutional', 24 are 'developing', 30 are 'vigorous', 15 are 'in trouble', and 4 are 'dying'.^[7]

* Saraiki and Hindko were included with Punjabi until the 1981 census.

*Census data for the Pakistani administered territories of Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir not available as of 2024.

Urdu (اردو) is thenational language (قومی زبان) andlingua franca of Pakistan.^[14] According to the2023 census, only about 9.25% of Pakistanis reported it as their first language. However, it is widely spoken and understood as a second language across the country and serves as a symbol of national identity for all the Pakistanis.^[15][16]

Urdu was chosen as a symbol of unity for the new state of Pakistan in 1947, because the linguistic patriotism of Indian Muslims over Urdu played a significant role in the formation of Pakistan, and it also had already served as alingua franca among Muslims in north and northwestBritish India.^[17] It is written, spoken and used in allprovinces/territories of Pakistan, and together with English as the main languages of instruction,^[18] although the people from differing provinces may have different native languages.^[19]

Urdu is taught as a compulsory subject up to higher secondary school in both English and Urdu medium school systems, which has produced millions of second-language Urdu speakers among people whose native language is one of the other languages of Pakistan – which in turn has led to the absorption of vocabulary from various regional Pakistani languages,^[20] while some Urdu vocabularies has also been assimilated by Pakistan's regional languages.^[21][22]

English is a co-official language of Pakistan and is widely used in the executive, legislative and judicial branches as well as to some extent in the officer ranks of Pakistan's armed forces. Pakistan'sConstitution and laws were written in English and are now being re-written in the local languages. It is also widely used inschools,colleges anduniversities as amedium of instruction. English is seen as the language of upward mobility, and its use is becoming more prevalent in upper social circles, where it is often spoken alongside native Pakistani languages. In 2015, it was announced that there were plans to promote Urdu in official business, but Pakistan's Minister of Planning Ahsan Iqbal stated, "Urdu will be a second medium of language and all official business will be bilingual." He also went on to say that English would be taught alongside Urdu in schools.^[23]

Punjabi (پنجابی‎) is anIndo-Aryan language primarily spoken in thePunjab province ofPakistan, with the prominent dialect being theMajhi dialect, written in theShahmukhi script. Punjabi is the most widely spoken language in Pakistan. It is spoken as a first language by 36.98% of Pakistanis.^[6] The language is spoken among a significant overseas diaspora, particularly in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Punjabi is unusual among the Indo-Aryan languages and the broaderIndo-European language family in its usage oflexical tone.^[24] It is also spoken inIndian Punjab but it is official there, unlike inPakistani Punjab.

Pashto (پښتو‎) is anIranian language spoken as a first language by more than 18.15% of Pakistanis, mainly inKhyber Pakhtunkhwa and in northernBalochistan as well as in ethnicPashtun communities in the cities ofIslamabad,Rawalpindi and most notablyKarachi,^{[25][26][27][28]} which may have the largest Pashtun population of any city in the world.^[29] There are three major dialect patterns within which the various individual dialects may be classified; these are the Pakhto variety of Northern (Peshawar) variety, the southern Pashto spoken in the vicinity ofQuetta, and theWanetsi or Tareeno variety of northern Balochistan.

Sindhi (سنڌي‎) is anIndo-Aryan language spoken as a first language by almost 14.31% of Pakistanis, mostly in theSindh province ofPakistan. The name "Sindhi" is derived fromSindhu, the original name of theIndus River.^[30]

Like other languages of this family, Sindhi has passed through Old Indo-Aryan (Sanskrit) and Middle Indo-Aryan (Pali, secondary Prakrits, andApabhramsha) stages of growth. 20th century Western scholars such asGeorge Abraham Grierson believed that Sindhi descended specifically from the Vrācaḍa dialect of Apabhramsha (described byMarkandeya as being spoken inSindhu-deśa) but later work has shown this to be unlikely.^[31] It entered the New Indo-Aryan stage around the 10th century CE.^[32][33]

The six major known dialects of the Sindhi language are Siroli, Vicholi, Lari, Thari,Lasi andKutchi.^[34]

Saraiki (سرائیکی) is anIndo Aryan language of theLahnda group spoken in central and southeastern Pakistan, primarily in the southern part of the province of Punjab. Saraiki is to a high degree mutually intelligible withStandard Punjabi^[35] and is coshares with it a large portion of its vocabulary andmorphology. At the same time inits phonology it is radically different.^[36]

Saraiki is spoken by approximately 26 million people inPakistan, ranging across southernPunjab, southernKhyber Pakhtunkhwa, and border regions of northernSindh and easternBalochistan.^[37]

Balochi (بلوچی) is anIranian language spoken as a first language by about 3% of Pakistanis, mostly in theBalochistan province of Pakistan.

Hindko (ہندکو‎) is anIndo-Aryan language group ofLahnda spoken in several discontinuous areas in northwestern Pakistan, primarily in the provinces ofKhyber Pakhtunkhwa andPunjab.Hindko is mutually intelligible withPunjabi andSaraiki,^[38]The wordHindko, commonly used to refer to a number of Indo-Aryan languages spoken in the neighbourhood ofPashto, likely originally meant "the Indian language" (in contrast to Pashto).^[39] An alternative local name for this language group isHindki.^[40][f]

Brahui (براہوئی) is aDravidian language spoken in the central part ofBalochistan province ofPakistan. Brahui is spoken mainly inKalat,Khuzdar,Mastung,Nushki andSurab districts, but also in smaller numbers in neighboring districts, as well as inAfghanistan which borders Balochistan province of Pakistan; however, many members of the ethnic groupno longer speak Brahui.^[41]

Other languages spoken by linguistic minorities include the languages listed below, with speakers ranging from a few dozen to tens of thousands. A few are highlyendangered languages that may soon have no speakers at all.^[42] TheUnited Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization definesfive levels of language endangerment between "safe" (not endangered) and "extinct":^[43]

• Vulnerable - "most children speak the language, but it may be restricted to certain domains (e.g., home)"
• Definitely endangered – "children no longer learn the language as mother tongue in the home"
• Severely endangered – "language is spoken by grandparents and older generations; while the parent generation may understand it, they do not speak it to children or among themselves"
• Critically endangered – "the youngest speakers are grandparents and older, and they speak the language partially and infrequently"
• Extinct – "there are no speakers left; included in the Atlas if presumably extinct since the 1950s"

The list below includes the findings from the third edition ofAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger (2010; formerly theRed Book of Endangered Languages), as well as the online edition of the aforementioned publication, both published by UNESCO.^[44]

Arabic is used as a religious language by Muslims. TheQuran,Sunnah,Hadith andMuslim theology is taught in Arabic withUrdu translation. Arabic is taught as a religious language in mosques, schools, colleges, universities andmadrassahs. A majority of Pakistan's Muslim population has had some form of formal or informal education in the reading, writing and pronunciation of Arabic as part of their religious education. However, Pakistanis do not speak Arabic.^[46]

Arabic is mentioned in theconstitution of Pakistan. It declares in article 31 No. 2 that "The State shall endeavour, as respects the Muslims of Pakistan (a) to make the teaching of the Holy Quran andIslamiat compulsory, to encourage and facilitate the learning of Arabic language ..."^[47]

The National Education Policy 2017 declares in article 3.7.4 that: "Arabic as compulsory part will be integrated in Islamiyat from Middle to Higher Secondary level to enable the students to understand the Holy Quran." Furthermore, it specifies in article 3.7.6: "Arabic as elective subject shall be offered properly at Secondary and Higher Secondary level with Arabic literature and grammar in its course to enable the learners to have command in the language." This law is also valid for private schools as it defines in article 3.7.12: "The curriculum in Islamiyat, Arabic and Moral Education of public sector will be adopted by the private institutions to make uniformity in the society."^[48]

Persian was the official of the region up until the late 19th century when the English passed several laws to replace it with local languages. Persian had a long history in the lands of Pakistan and was the cultural language of the erstwhileMughal Empire, a continuation since the introduction of the language byCentral AsianTurkic invaders who migrated into the Indian Subcontinent,^[49] and the patronisation of it by the earlier Turko-Persian Delhi Sultanate. Persian was officially abolished as a language of administration with the arrival of the British: inSindh in 1843 and inPunjab in 1849.

Today the easternDari dialect of Persian is spoken by refugees fromAfghanistan and a small number of local BalochistaniHazara community. A larger number of Pakistani Hazaras speakHazaragi dialect.^[50] In theMadaklasht valley of Chitral, theMadaklashti dialect ofTajik Persian is spoken by the descendants of ironmongers fromBadakhshan who settled there in the eighteenth century.

As of 2017^[update] some Pakistanis are learningMandarin to do business with companies from the People's Republic ofChina.^[51]

Most of the languages of Pakistan belong to theIndo-Iranian branch of theIndo-European language family.^[52][53] The common ancestor of all of the languages in this family is calledProto-Indo-Iranian—also known as Common Aryan—which was spoken in approximately the late 3rd millennium BC. The three branches of the modern Indo-Iranian languages areIndo-Aryan,Iranian, andNuristani. A fourth independent branch,Dardic, was previously posited, but recent scholarship in general places Dardic languages as archaic members of the Indo-Aryan branch.^[54]

Majority of the languages spoken in eastern regions of Pakistan belong to the Indo-Aryan group.

Modern Indo-Aryan languages descend from Old Indo-Aryan languages such as earlyVedic Sanskrit, throughMiddle Indo-Aryan languages (orPrakrits).^{[55][56][57][58]}

Some of the important languages in this family aredialect continuums. One of these isLahnda,^[59] and includesSaraiki (spoken mostly in southernPakistani Punjab by about 26 million people), the diverse varieties ofHindko (with almost five million speakers in north-western Punjab and neighbouring regions ofKhyber Pakhtunkhwa, especiallyHazara),Pahari/Pothwari (3.5 million speakers in thePothohar region of Punjab,Azad Kashmir and parts of IndianJammu and Kashmir),Khetrani (20,000 speakers inBalochistan), andInku (a possibly extinct language of Afghanistan).^[7][60][61]

Majority of the languages spoken in western regions of Pakistan belong to the Iranic group. There are several dialects continuums in this family as well:Balochi, which includes Eastern, Western and Southern Balochi;^[62] and Pashto, and includes Northern, Central, and SouthernPashto.^[63]

The following three languages of Pakistan are not part of the Indo-European language family:

• Brahui (spoken in central Balochistan province) is aDravidian language. Its vocabulary has been significantly influenced by Balochi. It is an individual language in the Dravidian language family and does not belong to any subgrouping in that language family.
• TheBalti dialect ofLadakhi (spoken in an area of southernGilgit–Baltistan) is aTibetan language of theTibeto-Burman language family.^[64]
• Burushaski (spoken inHunza, Nagar, Yasin, andIshkoman valleys in Gilgit–Baltistan) is alanguage isolate with no indigenous written script and instead currently uses Urdu script, based on the Perso-Arabic script.

Most languages of Pakistan are written in thePerso-Arabic script. TheMughal Empire adoptedPersian as the courtlanguage during their rule over South Asia as did their predecessors, such as the Ghaznavids. During this time, theNastaʿlīq style of the Perso-Arabic script came into widespread use in South Asia, and the influence remains to this day. In Pakistan, almost everything in Urdu is written in the script, concentrating the greater part of Nastaʿlīq usage in the world.

TheUrdu alphabet is aright-to-leftalphabet. It is a modification of the Persian alphabet, which is itself a derivative of theArabic alphabet. With 38 letters, the Urdu alphabet is typically written in thecalligraphicNasta'liq script.

Sindhi adopted a variant of thePersian alphabet as well, in the 19th century. The script is used in Pakistan today, albeit unlike most other native languages of Pakistan, the Naskh style is more common for Sindhi writing than the Nasta'liq style. It has a total of 52 letters, augmenting the Urdu withdigraphs and eighteen new letters (ڄ ٺ ٽ ٿ ڀ ٻ ڙ ڍ ڊ ڏ ڌ ڇ ڃ ڦ ڻ ڱ ڳ ڪ) for sounds particular to Sindhi and other Indo-Aryan languages. Some letters that are distinguished in Arabic or Persian arehomophones in Sindhi.

Balochi andPashto are written inPerso-Arabic script.

TheShahmukhī script, a variant of theUrdu alphabet, is used to write thePunjabi language in Pakistan though it is not in common use these days.

Usually, bare transliterations of Urdu into Roman letters,Roman Urdu, omit manyphonemic elements that have no equivalent in English or other languages commonly written in theLatin script.^{[citation needed]} TheNational Language Authority ofPakistan has developed a number of systems with specific notations to signify non-English sounds, but these can only be properly read by someone already familiar with Urdu.

This is a series of maps which shows the distribution of different languages in Pakistan as of the2017 Pakistan Census. These all refer to the mother tongues of individuals only.

• 
  Percent speakingPunjabi natively
• 
  Percent speakingPashto natively
• 
  Percent speakingSindhi natively
• 
  Percent speakingSaraiki natively
• 
  Percent speakingUrdu natively
• 
  Percent speakingBalochi natively
• 
  Percent speakingHindko natively
• 
  Percent speakingBrahui natively
• 
  Percent speaking a minor language (not collected on the census) natively in 1998.

• Demographics of Pakistan
• Ethnic groups in Pakistan
• Pakistani People
• Romanisation of Urdu
• National Language Promotion Department
• List of districts of Pakistan by number of households

• Baart, Joan L. G. (2003).Sustainable Development and the Maintenance of Pakistan's Indigenous Languages. Islamabad.
• Eberhard, David M; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2022)."Pakistan".Ethnologue: Languages of the World (25 ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International.
• Lothers, Michael; Lothers, Laura (2010).Pahari and Pothwari: A Sociolinguistic Survey (Report). SIL Electronic Survey Reports. Vol. 2010–012.
• Rahman, Tariq (1996) Language and Politics of Pakistan Karachi: Oxford University Press. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2007.
• Rahman, Tariq (2002) Language, Ideology and Power: Language-learning among the Muslims of Pakistan and North India Karachi: Oxford University Press. Rev.ed. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2008.
• Rahman, Tariq (2011) From Hindi to Urdu: A Social and Political History Karachi: Oxford University Press.
• Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2017)."Pahari-Potwari".Ethnologue (20 ed.). (access limited).
• Rahman, Tariq (1995). "The Siraiki Movement in Pakistan".Language Problems & Language Planning.19 (1):1–25.doi:10.1075/lplp.19.1.01rah.
• —— (2014b)."Siraiki language".Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved18 October 2016.
• —— (1977). "Siraiki: A Language Movement in Pakistan".Modern Asian Studies.11 (3):379–403.doi:10.1017/s0026749x00014190.ISSN 0026-749X.JSTOR 311504.S2CID 144829301.
• Rahman, Tariq (1996).Language and politics in Pakistan. Oxford University Press.ISBN 978-0-19-577692-8.
• Shackle, Christopher (1979). "Problems of classification in Pakistan Panjab".Transactions of the Philological Society.77 (1):191–210.doi:10.1111/j.1467-968X.1979.tb00857.x.ISSN 0079-1636.
• Shackle, Christopher (1980). "Hindko in Kohat and Peshawar".Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies.43 (3):482–510.doi:10.1017/S0041977X00137401.ISSN 0041-977X.S2CID 129436200.
• Rensch, Calvin R. (1992)."The Language Environment of Hindko-Speaking People". In O'Leary, Clare F.; Rensch, Calvin R.; Hallberg, Calinda E. (eds.).Hindko and Gujari. Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan. Islamabad: National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University and Summer Institute of Linguistics.ISBN 969-8023-13-5.
• Parkin, Robert (1989)."Some comments on Brahui kinship terminology".Indo-Iranian Journal.32 (1):37–43.doi:10.1163/000000089790082944.JSTOR 24654607.S2CID 161638780.

• Linguistic map of Pakistan at Muturzikin.com
• Pakistan census statistics by population
• List of Pakistani Languages at Ethnologue

• Languages of Pakistan

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