A delegation of Palula language speakers in Chitral visited Gomandan, a splintered village of Palula language community in Dir Kohistan to meet with those who share their language and culture. The delegation consisted of the office bearers of one of FLI’s partner organizations in northern Pakistan working for the Palula language in Chitral. Mr. Qazi Israr, Muneer Ahmad (the first poet of Palula language) and Naseem Haider who have long been working for preservation and promotion of their language under the banner of Palula Community Welfare Organization (PCWO) also took books, published in their language along with them to present as gift to those in Gomandan. The purpose of the visit was to enlighten the host Palula community members about the language development work being carried out in Chitral, and also to sensitize them about their identity, language and history and also to activate them for working to revitalize their language. They were welcomed by a gathering of their fellow language speakers where the visitors had the opportunity to sensitize them to be cognizant of how their language was being influenced by predominant languages of the area. Many young people from the Palula community in Gomandan after getting motivation vowed to remain in contact with the visitors so that they could benefit from the language development work in Chitral, from their experience and research abilities. Earlier, the educated youth were pleasantly amazed to receive books in their mother tongue, an inspiring surprise they never thought of.

The Palula speakers from Chitral migrated to Gomandan long ago and now have grown to more than 300 numbers. Many age groups like grandparents, parents and adults within the community have so far maintained and continued speaking their language, however, children are said to have been influenced and driven away by Pashto, the second language of the community. The PCWO officials, taking notice of the looming language shift and on demand of the residents, have started contemplating language revitalization activities for the younger generation of the community. FLI has assured its partner CBO of full cooperation in the struggle of their language’s revival as the executive director of FLI, Mr. Fakhruddin was leading this visit. Fakhruddin encouraged both sides to stay connected through social media and work together in future. The people from both sides have activated themselves, initially by creating a WhatsApp chat group to remain interconnected and started deliberations for future course of actions. We hope they continue meeting each other in days to come and will strive to revive their language in the area through a consistent approach of language revitalization.

“The teacher was furious at me when she saw me last time using my mother tongue to converse with my son. Since then, I communicate with my elder son in English and Urdu, and with the younger one in Pashto as he is yet to start going to school”. This was shared by Tariq Ullah while speaking at a group discussion about the lesser known languages of Pakistan. Tariq is working with BBC Pashto, promoting his mother tongue through this international media house, but, interestingly he is not allowed to speak it at his home, especially with his school going child.

The discussion was about to amplify what the lesser known languages were going through. Lehaz Ali, also from Peshawar who works with AFP, was happy to know about FLI, its services for lesser known languages.

Fazal Hadi, one of the speakers, put his focus on major things; that the indigenous wisdom, knowledge and roots of people’s history will disappear once we lose our indigenous languages. Fakhruddin, the executive director of FLI, said that first we are to come out of this confusion that learning a language, be it the English, can never be an alternative to ‘getting education’. “Let’s let our children get educated first and go to learn the language then” he suggested. He shared that Swedish were the most fluent in English among non-English speaking nations. But in Sweden’s schools, he said that English classes are conducted only twice a week and that’s also from the grade eight.

Earlier, the discussion was started by Zaman Sagar, a senior man in documentation of indigenous languages, who started working on his mother tongue, Gawri in 1993. Gawri is spoken in Upper Swat Kohistan area, including the tourists’ heaven, Kalam. He, in his presentation, showed what the current position of the languages spoken in north Pakistan and how multilingual the region was.

A get together for media persons to discuss the issues the lesser known languages, especially those spoken in the northern part of the country are going through was organized in Islamabad last Monday.  Ten media persons, working with national and international media houses, all belonged to Peshawar participated in the event. Mr. Sagar while referring to the findings of Hywel Coleman, a British author who conducted a survey in Pakistan on why Pakistanis, despite having sixteen years of education in the language are unable to get proficiency in English, said that because we don’t begin our schooling in our native languages.

Hadi added that UNESCO has made it clear, after years’ long research, that ‘children learn quickly when they are taught in their mother tongue’. The discussion ended up reaching the understanding that our lesser known languages deserve much more respect than how we treat them. Early education, especially pre-primary, must be in the mother tongue of children. And also, that our society must accept its linguistic and cultural diversity.

A maiden poetry session specifically in the Shina language, held in Gilgit city in Gilgit-Baltistan has motivated poets of the language to exercise their mother tongue for the lyrical genre. The participants left the venue with the hope and excitement of having laid the foundation of a new era, the beginning of a tradition of the poetry session, specific to their mother tongue. Abdul Saboor, an office bearer of the Sasken Research and Development Foundation (SRDF), a community based organization which works for the Shina language said that the activity opened doors to strengthen the orality of the language on one hand and motivate the poets to produce poetry in their own language on the other.

“Poetry sessions are not new to the region, in fact the poetries are among the activities which take place most frequently in the city”, Mr. Amir Haider, an author and the Shina language researcher who is currently working with the Forum for Language Initiatives (FLI) opined. He added that the unique part of the activity was its medium, the language. Mr. Haider said that poets of Gilgit used to express themselves in Urdu and English and hardly ever have attempted to create poetries in their own language, Shina. The event will help draw the attention of local poets concerning using their language for poetry creation, he hoped.

The momentous literary gathering was attended by the language enthusiasts including poets, writers, students and civil society members as well as academicians. FLI contributed to organizing the historic event collaborating with SRDF. The known linguist, Mr. Shakeel Ahmad and Engineer Arif were among dignitaries who attended the event.     

The 4^th International Hindukush Cultural Conference (IHCC4) has been rescheduled for September 14-16, 2022 to be organized in Chitral. The organizers of the mega event announced that new abstracts were recalled and previous submissions were also being refreshed by contacting the authors whose abstracts were approved against the previous call by May 15, 2022. Now, those authors who showed their interest against the previous call can continue with their earlier submissions or withdraw the previous ones and submit a new paper. The historical literary event in the region remained in holdups for two years due to Covid-19. The first proposal of organizing the event was in 2020.

The Anjuman Taraqqi-e- Khowar and Forum for Language Initiatives are jointly organizing the event. Other details about the event, including how to submit new paper etc. can be obtained from this link  https://fli-online.org/IHCC4/

FLI joined hands with one of its partner organizations in organizing a literary congregation in Gawarbati language. Organized by Al-Qalam, a community based organization, the poetry session took place last week in Arandu Valley of Chitral. The purpose of holding the event in the community was to promote Gawarbati poetry and contribute to peace building by arranging a literary get-together in this border region. More than a dozen poets of Gawarbati language presented their poetries in the event. Around 80 people including young, teachers, community elders, literary people and political activists attended the event.

Belonging to the Indo-Aryan group, the Gawarbati language has been declared ‘severely endangered’ by UNESCO, and the major cause of its endangerment is a prolonged Afghan war in its vicinity. This language is spoken by 4000 people living alongside Kunar River, adjacent to Pak-Afghan border area near the village of Arandu in the Chitral District of Pakistan. The literary activities are being used to hold the community involved in peace building activities and encourage the youth to come out of the harsh past, they went through and get involved in activities of their interest. Such activities are also important to strengthen cultural and linguistic diversity of the country.

The poetry event drew the attention of many Gawarbati youth who showed great curiosity to know how to work for their culture and language, alongside motivating other people to use their own language for expressing their feelings and try the poetry in their own language. A senior Gawarbati writer, Mullah Adina Shah, who has published Gawarbati Dictionary was honored in the event for his literary work in the language. Adina Shah has been producing literature in Gawarbati since long and motivating his fellow people within the community.

As a part of language preservation and promotion, FLI has been encouraging its partners from the ethnolinguistic communities of the north Pakistan to increasingly organize poetry session in their localities, as we find the poetry sessions useful to strengthen the literature development in the lesser known languages. Through poetry, the culture is beautifully expressed motivating the fellow language speakers to follow suit. Therefore, we have started stressing upon our partners in order to increase literary activities, especially poetry sessions in maximum language communities in our target region.