Pakistan

Seminar: ‘Use modern techniques to promote Urdu’

Prominent Urdu scholar stresses need for training teachers and promoting literary interests using new techniques.

June 09, 2011

ISLAMABAD:

Urdu needs to be preserved and promoted through modern techniques so that it can compete on a global forum.

This was said by speakers at a two-day international Urdu seminar titled “Teaching Urdu at Universities: New Dimensions and Methodologies” that started at National University of Modern Languages (NUML) in Islamabad on Tuesday.

Organised by NUML’s Urdu Language Department in collaboration with Higher Education Commission (HEC), the seminar was attended by more than 40 scholars from India, Iran and Pakistan. Prominent Urdu scholar Dr Rasheed Amjad stressed the need for training teachers and promoting literary interests using new techniques.

NUML Rector Professor Dr Aziz Ahmad Khan said Urdu scholars should do more research for finding fresh perspectives on classical Urdu literature. Four sessions of the seminar were held on Tuesday and the fifth session was held on Wednesday.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 9th, 2011.

COMMENTS (4)

Manoj | 13 years ago | Reply Emotional attachement to Urdu is one of the reason of the backwardness of Subcontinent Muslim. Urdu is not a langauge which supports higher technical education and research, hence instead of wasting time in promoting and improving Urdu, people should shift towards English as medium of education. Just like common Hindus in India Chosen English in place of Sanskrit and Hindi, Muslim also need to leave this emotional baggage of URDU for their rapid economic growth and advancement in the field of Science and Technology. Urdu has nothing to do with religion of Muslim. Muslim of Gulf or any other nation does not speak in Urdu, does that mean they are not true muslims. Secondly, Indian hindu and muslim both have history of being pragmatic with regard to language, this is proved by the fact that when persian became language of state, they adopted it leaving behind their native language like Avadhi, Bhojpuri, etc. Similary, when british came we adpted english as our langauge. Why now in 21st Century, we want to be tied with a language which does not promise much in terms of developement.

Saad Durrani | 13 years ago | Reply @Ishtiaq Ahmed: I might sound like a conservative but Roman Urdu is the worst kind of blasphemy in these modern days. Rather than changing the script, just develop better software. Indians did it for all of their languages. Israel did it for Hebrew.

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Maria | 13 years ago | Reply No one in the world cares about any language other than English. What can you do with Urdu? Practically nothing except watch an Indian movie in the similar Hindi language!

Ishtiaq Ahmed | 13 years ago | Reply One way is to change Urdu script. To some extent, internet, text messaging and twiter is already doing that. However, we need to promote Urdu on two levels. Urdu Classical with Arabic script and Urdu Modern with Roman script. This will open floodgates of translations and writing to this beautiful langauge.

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