Letter to the Editor

Laura Clark                                                                                                                                     Daily Mail HQ,

Daily Mail                                                                                                                                     Sheikh Zayed Rd

PO Box 112323

14^th October 2016

Dear Editor

After reading your article on the negative influences of “text speak” on younger generation’s language skills, posted on Daily Mail at on the 24^th of March, it has come to my mind that, although you have a very solid argument, this viewpoint is not exclusively true.

Throughout history, the English language has been thoroughly developing, as each generation has molded the tongue to suit their own wants and needs, therefore “text speak” may be the most straightforward style of speech that suits the modern day era. In addition, the influence on abbreviations and misspelled words are strongly emphasized in your article. On the other hand, there are only about 10% of words in most text messages or social media posts that have grammatical errors or spelling mistakes, therefore highlighting the fact that many children are aware of the normal conventions present in English, along with the idea that in order to change a word, they must know its original definition or spelling, as well as having the ability to use the word in practical terms. Abbreviations originally came to mind in the early 1900’s, and have been greatly used since then, even being put to play in educational and formal terms, such as PPC for Production Possibilities Curve, or AAVE for African American Vernacular English. Another point is that texting is mostly carried out by adults by about 80% in contrast to children or teenagers. Social media is another huge topic you have discussed, and I don’t see how it can limit one’s vocabulary. Of the 78% of teens that have a smartphone, 98% of them use social media, most of which are very likely to run into some sort of news report, update or article based on a topic of their interest from any fan base or page they’re following. Many of them will also use social media as a terms of expressing their feelings or perspectives on a specific topic of debate, improving their communicational skills through written command. As you can see this, in turn, increases daily practice of reading and writing, which is a very significant practice when attempting to blossom linguistic abilities.

In conclusion, I hope you can revamp your approach towards this somewhat overstressed subject, which is singlehandedly blamed for the degradation of the English language within the youth, and perhaps look at it as more of a blessing in disguise.

                                                                      Yours sincerely

                                                           Ali Awan

Language and Community: Diary Entry

Salman Ahmed is a Pakistani musician, composer, rock guitarist, as well as a physician and Professor at City University of New York. He is popular for writing and performing two patriotic pieces of music, “Dil Dil Pakistan” and “Jazba-e-Junoon” which are widely renowned throughout the country, and even globally.

25^th April 1996

A month after releasing our new and perhaps first hit single “Jazba-e-Junoon”, I was looking at the music charts and found out that our audience reacted to this song with triumph, hearing rumors that it may become the new national song of Pakistan and is competing with other pieces as the signature song for the upcoming Cricket World Cup this year. Wow! I haven’t seen this much success since the release of “Dil Dil Pakistan” back in 1987, when I was part of Vital Signs. After joining “Junoon” (my new band), I couldn’t see much to relish, but now I guess we’re able to kick start our opening album with what seems to be a truly admired track from the people’s perspectives. The song itself focuses towards the independence of Pakistan, highlighting the great accomplishments of those who risked their lives in the past to provide us with our own land, easing our way of living. We wanted to address the fact that, even though this was quite some time ago (in fact 48 years ago), we should never lose our passion for our country and always look towards it in a positive manner, emphasizing the consequence of this freedom and liberty with lines like “Mehnat apni ho gi, Pehchan kabhi na bhoolo” (Our Hard work will be ours, and our identity, never forget this), and “Apna ghar, Apni sar zameen, Sab kuch hai, Bas yaheen” (Our home, our own land, everything we need is here.).

 Jazba-e-Junoon (with lyrics)

14^th Dec 2002

Dear Diary, as I rose from my bed in the morning, I was enlightened with some pleasing news in the form of an invitation from the BBC, as it called upon me and my former band, Vital Signs, to come and celebrate the top ten songs of the world, which included our hit single “Dil Dil Pakistan”. I couldn’t be much more proud of our contribution to this milestone, as I look back on the first few days of development of “Dil Dil Pakistan”. It was a warm morning in the busy city of Islamabad, where I sat with the rest of the gang, as we pondered onwards, after weeks of planning and searching for inspiration, our main goal being to create some sort of love song to add to our only album Vital Signs 1, when it hit me. I said “Why not forget about love and look towards a more patriotic theme?”, and Junaid replied “that’s a good idea, since we haven’t had any luck with love…”, which is how the song came in. That night I sat with my keyboard, writing what ended up to be the 3^rd most known song worldwide, according to BBC. It just took a couple of practice sessions and we were ready for our first music video shooting in the outskirts of Islamabad, at the gorgeous Murree Hills. It was from that day forward that we became one of the most well-known bands in region, yet I never knew we were this good… We mainly wanted to express our love and passion for our home country during the time, as the words “Dil Dil Pakistan” (literally meaning Heart Heart Pakistan) were able to depict this. Another significant reason for the upbringing of the title was the centered rivalry between president Zia and musicians at the time. He looked to remove all instances of music and dance from the country as he thought Pakistan was influencing too much material from the western world, without realizing that this situation was present worldwide! Anyways, I’m really pumped up after hearing about this achievement and can’t wait to regroup with the guys after some time now. I’m sure they’d be astonished at how we progressed from 15^th place, back in 1995, 8 years after the song released, to 3^rd. What a day its truly been…

Dil Dil Pakistan (with lyrics)

Creative Consolidation of Language and Identity

I was always reminded of how tough and demanding education was like back home, but never really came to believe it, nor had I ever experienced it back then. As a 12-year-old, middle school wasn’t really the greatest factor of excitement on my schedule, especially when it came to the dreadful and weary mornings, on days where you just can’t cope with waking up early, or walking down the stairs for breakfast, as you ponder at your timetable, only to reveal that the first period of the day is the one you detest the most. Although I’d always attempted to avoid these regular hurdles during this era, they soon became the least of my concerns after my family decided to relocate back to Pakistan.

Initially, I wasn’t expecting any disturbances in my academic progress, after spending all my life in the UAE (approximately 9 years), I had grown accustomed to their approach to learning, studying most content in English and enjoying the additional languages we explored, mainly consisting of Arabic and French. Once we had settled in Lahore, where most of my paternal and maternal family was situated, and the summer break had concluded, school was in sight, and unlike most years, I was astonished as well as uneased by the rigorousness of learning, through events like having to study and learn pages from textbooks or preparing for weekly timed assessments which occurred for each and every subjects four times in a year, between a span of every two months. Occasionally, all subjects were lectured and studied in English, nevertheless, the requirement of having to learn Urdu (my native language) as a separate subject at an advanced level, was perhaps the greatest variable that affected, not only my academic result at the time, but also the way I was perceived by others. Fortunately, my parents always spoke (and still speak) the language with me at home, which allowed me to be capable of understanding the tongue in terms of spoken reference, however in situations where I had to speak, read or write in Urdu, I was unable to do so.

Relating back to my first session of Urdu, after a brief 10-minute introduction, we were presented with our new textbooks, which contained a variety of texts, comprehension questions, vocabulary building activities, written and oral tasks. We were asked to open up to the first page and read certain lines from the text aloud one at a time. Sitting at the end of the classroom, I began to panic, aimlessly staring upon the different words, that seemed as if they were derived from Arabic, yet had different pronunciation to them. “If only it was Arabic, then I’d be able to read it…”, I thought, as the voices rapidly shifted, with each change increasing my already tense heartbeat, I looked at my surroundings for any sight of hope, as the clock had suddenly come to my attention. Unwrapping my timetable, I found the lesson we were at, discovering that it would end in around ten minutes (as period only lasted for 40 minutes there), nonetheless now I gazed upon the current reader, who was just one row ahead of me, as a little sweat poured down from the side of my face. I struggled, once again, inflicting myself to read the words, being unable to, until… I was summoned to read. At first I depicted myself as if I was not conscious that my turn had come, up till the point when the teacher said “yes, Ali please read”, in Urdu, then I knew I was in a difficult condition, as the whole class looked back at me, I finally began to utter the words in front of me, “میں ایسا نہیں کروں گا”, with an irregular, very high pitched tone produced by the nervousness, along with the uncertainty of what I spoke. The students burst out with laughter, as the bell rang, marking the beginning of lunch.


Once all the students left, the teacher approached me, this time speaking in English, “I see you are weak in reading Urdu, why is that?”. “I have never learnt the language” I replied, “I have lived all my life overseas and recently moved to Lahore. I can understand most of it but am unable to read, write or even speak clearly”. “I see”, she handed me a blue textbook, which seemed like a simple beginner’s guide to the language, covering its basics. “Tomorrow we shall start with this, come to class like normal and I’ll teach you from the start, now go, enjoy your lunch”. “Thank you”, I said while walking out the door. The next day I was greeted with some more harassment and laughter by the class, as one boy had seen the blue textbook I carefully hid behind my writing copy, in my hand, and shouted “My younger brother reads that book, and he’s only in grade 1!”. I silently sank into a seat, feeling unsettled once more.