About this programme
Is Urdu dying, or is it quietly winning? Pakistan's national language is the mother tongue of fewer than one in ten Pakistanis. Its young speakers text it in English letters. And Punjabi, spoken at home by more than a third of Pakistan, isn't official even in Punjab.
LIVE on Talk Away: Wednesday 4 November 2026 UK 12:30 PM | Pakistan 5:30 PM | US East 7:30 AM Tap "Notify me" for a reminder.
Host Fakhar Anwar Safeer talks to Zahra Sabri, historian and Urdu scholar, who has translated folk and classical poetry from almost a dozen Pakistani languages for Coke Studio.
We ask: - Is Urdu actually dying, or just changing? - Is Roman Urdu killing the Urdu script? - Why do Pakistani parents push their children towards English? - Does it matter if children abroad can't speak their parents' language? - Why did Pakistan choose Urdu, and what did that mean for Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto, Balochi and Bengali? - Does Pakistan need one national language at all?
Sources and further reading
Sources mentioned in the programme will be listed after they have been checked and attributed.
Transcript
A transcript will be published only when an accurate version is available.
