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Pakistani here. While that is true, everyone speaks Urdu. If you have a regional language you can grow up speaking both languages fluently, or just one—dependin
by amingilani 6y ago
Pakistani here. While that is true, everyone speaks Urdu. If you have a regional language you can grow up speaking both languages fluently, or just one—depending on which you're more exposed to—and even English if you were educated in it.
For example, my dad's regional language was Seraiki, and my mom's Punjabi, and they speak both and Urdu fluently. I grew up in an area where the regional language was Punjabi. But, I'm not as fluent in Punjabi or Seraiki as I am in Urdu.
However, I've never had trouble using Urdu with someone in Pakistan, even if their regional language was Sindhi, Pashto or Hindko. Also, I don't know why if it's just me, but most regional languages sound very similar—I've had conversations where I spoke Urdu while the other person spoke in a regional language.
- nayaketo 6y agoI'm from Nepal and Urdu and Hindi sound similar to me. I can understand most Pakistanis pretty well, even though I only know Hindi.
- barry-cotter 6y agoYeah, apart from Brahui all the languages of Pakistan are Indo-Aryan or Baluch, which is closer to Persian (Farsi). Urdu is part of the Hindustani dialect continuum that stretches across the North of the Indian subcontinent. Speaking three of these languages is like speaking Spanish, Italian and Portugese. Standards are different, vocabulary will differ quite a lot. The intelligibility you speak of is in part the product of 70 years of tv, radio and education though. Smoothing out of dialectal differences. Hindi is the same in North India. Not surprising since Urdu and Hindi are pretty much the same language bar the writing system and scientific/technical/legal/formal vocabulary.