Not quite english, not quite urdu

KARACHI:

Have you noticed that when we speak English with our families and friends, it often sounds like a direct translation of Urdu, and yet everyone understands perfectly. It is quite different from when we speak English with a British or American person, where we subconsciously try to fine tune our accent and select our vocabulary more carefully. After all, they probably wouldn’t understand “time pass” or “chill scene”, would they!

Over decades, English in Pakistan has evolved into a distinct variety known as desi English by blending it with Urdu, Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi, Balochi, and Gujrati, creating a unique hybrid of vocabulary, syntax, and cultural idioms. Urdu, already an amalgam of several languages, is very absorbent and accommodating with words from other languages. This is not only because of some 50 plus alphabets and phonic sounds in Urdu, but also because the people speaking it have a natural flair and flamboyance to pick up words and phrases from other languages.

This evolution includes high rates of code-switching, the adoption of regional cultural nuances, and the creation of new lexical terms influenced by local politics, cuisine, and military jargon, reflecting a shift toward a local "nativised" identity. Some English words are so commonly used in Urdu, these are almost Urdu words, for instance spicy, relax, smart.

This "Pakistanisation" of English is driven by media, social media, and a young generation adopting it as a vibrant, living language rather than a rigid foreign language.

English in Pakistan is more than just a language—it is a lasting imprint of colonial rule that continues to shape who gets ahead. From classrooms to corridors of power, it quietly draws lines between privilege and exclusion. Though rooted in the British era, English remains the gatekeeper of opportunity, dominating official communication and access to education, influence, and upward mobility. In a country where fluency often signals intelligence and social standing, it reinforces a divide between those who possess it and those who do not, carrying forward colonial hierarchies into the present.

According to the Contemporary Journal of Social Science Review Volume 3 No 4 (2025), even though the Pakistani English language has undergone significant linguistic and socio-cultural growth, it remains underestimated as a unique form of English in Pakistani academic, educational and policy-making circles. Existing literature records structural, lexical and phonological changes due to globalisation and local identity; however, these aspects are often discussed as deviations, instead of suggesting that this represents a distinct linguistic form. Research on Pakistani English—especially detailed, systematic studies in both academic and everyday contexts—is still limited. Because of this, we don’t fully understand its dual nature: as a legacy of post-colonial history and as a language with growing global potential.

According to studies, Pakistani English language has systematic features that are affected by the Urdu and local languages, especially in pronunciation, stress patterns and lexical innovation. These repetitive characteristics also show that Pakistani English is forming its own standards but not just imitating the British or American ones. Digital communication has increased the speed of this process by creating linguistic innovation in younger speakers who often combine local phrases with English in the online environment.

English a straight marker of class, noting that people's fluency in English is commonly seen as a sign of intelligence, sophistication or cosmopolitanism, while the Contemporary Journal of Social Science Review Volume 3 No 4 (2025) reveals that those with weaker English are seen as less capable, irrespective of their real knowledge.

Here are some phrases and words that we use in our own way in Pakistan:

We like to make a plural out of everything: beautifuls, summers, winters.

Fresh up for freshen up

Blender mistake instead of blunder

Jeans ki pant for jeans

Jeans ki jacket for denim jacket

Coke ki botal instead of Coke

Dressing instead of style

Style instead of swag

Mitting instead of meeting

More down instead of lower

Full and final instead of final

Chill scene instead of being relaxed

Scene kya hai for what’s the plan

Time pass for mediocre

Outclass for beyond excellent

Very English for super refined

Prepone – to bring forward

Pass out - to graduate

I am knowing – it is in my knowledge

No? – is it not?

Only - just

Biodata – we still use it for CV or resume

Do the needful – follow the instruction

Revert – respond

Call karlo – call me

Send karden send

Half-fry – sunny side up

Next to next week - week after next

Same to same – same

Out of station – out of town

On the backside - behind

God promise – a very true promise!

Do one thing – here’s an idea

First class – super good

Shopper – plastic bag for shopping

Refill karlo - refill

Top up karlo – top up

Recharge karlo - recharge

Kya problem hai? – what’s the problem?

Phone on karo – switch on your phone

Fabrication – fabric

Laugh at it, giggle or turn your nose up, but each phrase carries a world within it—context, culture, shorthand intimacy. They may not pass a grammar test in London or New York, but they pass something more important here: recognition, understandability.

So perhaps the question is no longer whether Pakistani English is “ct.”

The real question is: who gets to decide what correctness even means?

Because in the end, languages don’t stay pure—they stay alive and it is more important that they stay alive, rather than pure. I mean, who even speaks Sumerian, Akkadian, Ancient Egyptian, and Biblical Hebrew anymore? These languages died in purity, unevolved and stagnant. But Pakistani English, in all its hybrid, inventive, and slightly rebellious glory, is very much alive, and kicking!

I was intrigued to find out that there is a non-profit organisation called The English Speaking Union of Pakistan (ESUP), founded in 1961, which has a parent organisation, the ESU, founded in the UK in 1918, by Sir Evelyn Wrench. Over the years, the ESUP has been led by various prominent personalities including Kader Jaffer, Byram Avari (Late), Shahida Jameel, and Hussain Haroon.

Apart from organising national competitions, global connections, and a range of opportunities for students and educators alike, the ESUP has created platforms to bring people together from diverse backgrounds.

“The learning of a foreign language is not an easy, nor a natural phenomenon,” says Zohra Ashraf, a member of the National Executive Council of ESUP, discussing the evolution of 'Urdlish' or 'Paki(E)nglish. “It usually occurs with initially a reluctant realisation of its need to fill in gaps in essential communication. It then moves on to simple ways out by engaging with commonly heard and used vocabulary and gradually to its grammatical adjustments into syntactical formation and finally developing its own peculiar hybrid linguistic structures, culture and characteristics.”

She explains that before fully understanding how a hybrid language is different from a pure, unadulterated, natural language, it is necessary to understand how languages are acquired.

“The normal, natural way of knowing a language intrinsically is being born into it, rather than learning it later in life,” shares Ashraf. “The 'knowing' begins in the womb with every day development of the embryo imbibing it from its symbiotic environs, and further enhanced post birth by the environment, culture and traditions enveloping him. The other way to learn a language is by immersing oneself in its environment.”

The human mind has been designed to also absorb a language via the body's seven sensorial systems. Humans of varied levels of sensitivities, IQ, EQ, intelligence and sensorial skills achieve the new language as per their level of capabilities of absorption and assimilation.

“Those not motivated enough,” points out Ashraf, “need it to get by with its use in day-to-day functionalities of life, and settle for achieving a hybrid level of the language. English, being the only European language that has spread its wings well across the nations of the globe, has naturally become the anchoring medium for the development of hybrid language in the world today. It began with acquiring the status of a colonial language first, and progressed to global language of trade and knowledge sharing, to gradually gaining the status of language of universal, formal, political and agenda driven communication.”

Since the beginning of the new millennium, English has proclaimed itself to become a vehicle for peddling global friendship and world peace. “As it happened, everywhere that English went, it planted its seeds and the possibilities for sprouting of hybrid language, encouraging the incorporation of English vocabulary, linguistic characteristics and cultural symbolisms into the fabric of native national languages,” shares Ashraf. “The natural outcome has been the rise of the mingled languages, namely English with Mandarin Chinese known as 'Mandlish'; with Malay language as 'Minglish'; with Hindi language as 'Hindlish'; with Swahili as 'Swanglish' and soon the world will become comfortable with 'Urdlish' or 'Pakinglish.'

As elsewhere, in Pakistan too, there had been an initial aversion to English, which was pronounced the language of enslavers, hence to be abhorred and shunned. However, over half a century post the great wars, as development and modernisation surfaced and led to visible prosperity of the exclusive class of the "haves all." Realising that, the "have nots" did not take long to join the band wagon of the "want to haves."

Discussing the role of digital media in development of desi English, Ashraf explained that easy and cheap access to technology, the magic wand of today that brought information, and learning skills with a click of a button and created high speed currency with hashtag vocabulary, setting magic into motion. “It got propelled by some wizard who created the art of transliterating Urdu into Romanised form and hey presto 'Urdlish' was born,” she comments.

High currency English words were inducted into Urdu phrases to gain greater and easier access to the less known English language, eg. Woh tau habitually late atay haine/ barri he stormy barish thi/ baby ko stomach ache ho raha hai/ terrorist bhaag gaya/ etc.

The exercise has been moving on shifting gradually towards dominance of English with interpolation of Urdu words retained and adapted into the grammatical and syntactical structures of English or Urdu as per convenience.

Urdulish, is a typically Pakistani form of English with strong evidence of not only the induction of Urdu vocabulary into English but also the tonality and cadence of Urdu along with structural adaptations. Some examples being: I was sick, lekin, I went to the maiyyat/ we had lassi, samosas, laddoos and kachoriyaan.

Are we truly moving towards an accepted, established hybrid Urdu-English language? “Yes, definitely,” Ashraf confirmed. “It is the way of the world and is boldly considered a right to move forward in the simplest and easiest way without a care for proprieties or cultural niceties of the language. Everything is fair in love and war. And this is the struggle of the "have nots" to become the 'have it now to keep forever!"

With a smile, she added, “A political view, though not a very healthy nor a fair one, is that as language is the strongest cohesive force keeping people bound together even across geographical boundaries, perhaps England has created a new world colony based on language ties.” A debate for another time.