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FEAATURES OF PAKISTANI ENGLISH

Introduction

The form and function of English have changed as a result of contact with the

languages and cultures of Pakistan. In order to study the changes in the form and

structure of Pakistani English (PE), it is necessary to keep in view the nature of contact that

has taken place over the past centuries between English and Pakistani Languages particularly

Urdu.

Linguistic Profile of Pakistan

Pakistan is a multilingual country with more than sixty languages being spoken. English is

the official language of Pakistan and used in official business, government, and legal contracts,

while Urdu is the national language.

Major ethnic groups in Pakistan ( http://en.wikipedia.org/ )

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Following are the major languages spoken in Pakistan. The percentage of Pakistanis who are

native speakers of that language is also given. Punjabi is the provincial language of Punjab.

Saraiki is also spoken in larger area of Punjab province. Pashto is the provincial language

of Khyber Pakhtoon Khawa Province. Sindhi is the provincial language of Sindh and Balochi is the

provincial language of Balochistan. 

Other languages include Badeshi, Bagri, Balti,

Bhaya, Brahui, Burushaski, Chilisso, Dameli, Dehwari, Dhatki, Domaaki, Persian (Dari), Gawar-

Bati, Ghera, Goaria,Gowro, Gujarati,Gujari, Gurgula, Hazaragi, Hindko (two varieties), Jadgali,

Jandavra, Kabutra, Kachchi (Kutchi),Kalami, Kalasha, Kalkoti, Kamviri, Kashmiri,

Kati, Khetrani, Khowar , Indus Kohistani, Koli (three varieties), Lasi,

Loarki, Marwari, Memoni,Ormuri, Pahari-Potwari, Some of these are endangered languages with

a relatively small number of speakers and others have hundreds of thousands of speakers. Most

of the languages belong to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family. The exceptions

are Burushaski, which is a language isolate; Balti, which is Sino-TIbetan; and Brahui, which

is Dravidian.

Language 1998 census 2008 estimate Main areas spoken

1 Punjabi 58,433,43144.15

%76,367,360 44.17% Punjab

2 Pashto 20,408,62115.42

%26,692,890 15.44% Khybar Pakhtoon Kawa

3 Sindhi 18,661,57114.10

%

24,410,910 14.12% Sindh

4 Saraiki 13,936,59410.53

%18,019,610 10.42% South Punjab

5 Urdu 10,019,576 7.57% 13,120,540 7.59% Karachi

6 Balochi 4,724,871 3.57% 6,204,540 3.59% Balochistan

7 Others 6,167,515 4.66% 8,089,150 3.59%

Total 132,352,279 100% 172,900,000 100% Pakistan

The Second Diaspora and Transportation of English In Sub-Continent

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English was introduced to the sub-continent of south Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh,

Pakistan, Sri Lanka,Nepal and Bhutan ) during the second half of 18 th centuary although some

linguists say that it had had its toehold as back as in1600s when East India Company established

settlements in Madras, Calcutta and Bombay.

English was transplanted in Pakistan, like most African and Asian countries, during the

colonial rule. At the time of independence, indigenous languages could not be made to run the

bureaucratic mode of government inherited from the British. The use of English continued for 

system maintenance. Later it also served as link language between the Bengali speaking Eastern

Wing and the multilingual Western Wing until 1971.

Phases of Language contact

There are three major phases of language contact: The first phase of contact begins from 1835,

the time of Imperial transplant” of English, and ends in 1947 when Pakistan won its

freedom from the British Raj and became an independent state; second phase begins from

1947 and ends with the independence of Bangladesh in 1971 and third The third phase is the

current phase. It began in 1971 with the separation of Bangladesh.

Following are the consequences of language contact which distinguish Pakistani English

from other verities.

(1) Borrowing of vocabulary

(2) Code-Switching

(3) Language Convergence

(4) Pidginization

(5) Creolization

(6) Language Intertwining

Borrowing

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There is lot of Urdu vocabulary which has become part of Pakistani English due to cultural

borrowing because these words have no substitute in native variety of English as they are culture

specifi.

 (1) Borrowings from Urdu and the regional languages: atta flour, tehsi l district, ziarat religious

place.

 (2) Loan Translation from these languages: cousin-brother .

(3) Terms shared with Indian English: crore ten million, lakh one hundred thousand, -wallah a

word element denoting ‘one who does something as an occupation’, as with policewallah.

(4) Hybrids of English and local languages: biradarism favouring one's clan or family, gheraoed 

surrounded by protesters in an office or similar place and unable to leave,goondaism hooliganism,

thuggish behaviour.

(5) English words, especially compounds, adapted for local use: age-barred over the age for 

(particular work),load-shedding intermittently shutting off a supply of electricity.

Pronunciation

 

(1) PakE is rhotic, tends to be syllable-timed, and shares many features with northern Indian 

English.

(2) Some pronunciation features are typical of speakers of regional languages: for example,

speakers of Punjabi have difficulty with such initial consonant clusters as /sk, sp/ (saying ‘səport’

and ‘səkool’ for sport and school); Urdu speakers also have difficulty with initial consonant clusters

(saying ‘isport’ and ‘iskool’ for sport and school); Pashto speakers have no such difficulty, but

use /p/ for /f/ (‘pood’ for food).

(3) Distinctive grammatical features relate to uses of the verb, article, relative clause,

preposition, and adjective and verb complementation, all shared with IndE. Features of the

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indigenous languages influence use of English andCODE-MIXING AND CODE-SWITCHING are

common, including among the highly educated.

(4) Since the consonants of a language do not change so much from community to community, it

was witnessed in the English pronunciation of the participants also. After the analysis of the

consonant phonemes of the educated PakE pronunciation, however, it was noticed that /p/ , /t /

and /k/ are not realized with their aspirated allophones in the PakE resulting in lenis

voiceless plosives. This shift to lenis, at times, diminishes the distinction between voiced and

voiceless plosives. Additionally, /t/ and /d/ do not exist in the inventor y due to a recur rent

phenomenon of  retroflexion in the South Asian English. retroflexion is a striking aspect of 

articulation in the languages of the Indian subcontinent. Urdu, Hindi, Malayam and Pushto are

some examples of this phenomenon (Dyrud, 1997; Ball, 1999). /t / and /d/ are replaced with

unaspirated voiceless palatal retroflex stop [ ] and unaspirated voiced palatal retroflex stop [  ]

respectively. Similarly,/O/ and /ô/ are replaced with dental plosives [ t] and [d  ] respectively. In

addition, the Engl ish alphabet also interferes in thei r  pronunciation, as they are usually

taught reading and writing as primary language sk ills. For  example, the word thirties is

pronounced with aspirated voiceless plosive. In the two-syllabic word [t ‘ r  i z], the first phoneme

[t ‘] is used in place of  /O/  reflecting the inventory of consonant phonemes of the South Asian

languages where this is normally used as a separate phoneme. Kachru(1992), Rahman(1990) and

Mehboob (2004) have highlighted these features also.

(5) Influence of mother tongue in pronunciation of certain consonants. The major factor 

responsible for the pronunciation of non-native English speaker is influence of mother tongue.

Being a Saraiki speaker, I collected many patterns from the people whose mother tongue is

saraiki. The common most error was putting an additional consonant where there is consonant

cluster.

(6) In the same way saraiki spekers add /i/ sound in initial consonant clusters like /sp../, /sk…./

and /st…./., Most of the languages in Pakistan do not have consonant cluster initially. As a

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result, mono-sy llable words like school, strike or  dril l   is split into two-syl lable. Rural saraiki

speakers, who have less exposure to English, inser t schwa. These speakers are

comfortable with this change in pronunciation, which goes with the fact that Urdu and most

regional la ng uage of Pakis tan have CVCC syllables.

(7) Voiced and voiceless consonants. The most common of PakE speakers is ,whatever 

his/her mother tongue is, that voiceless sounds like /p/, /k/ and /t/ are voiced. it was noticed during

picking pronunciation errors that /p/ ,  /t/ and /k/ are not realized with their aspirated

allophones in the resulting in  lenis voiceless plosives. This shift diminishes the distinction

between voiced and voiceless.

(8) Consonant cluster and addition of /i/ sound.Most of the Sindhi and Punjabi speakers

add an extra vowel /Ι / before the words starting with initial consonant clusters like sp, sk, and st.

for example school.

(9) Forced recognition of a sound to fit it in one’s mother tongue phoneme inventory.

There is a common pattern of recognising a different sound in one’s mother-tongue. There

is a common tendency among pakisatni speaker of english language that they recognize the /t/

as /t/  in their speech. An other such instance is of confusing /w/ and /v/ sound and producing /w/

sound with spread lips instead of rounded lips.

(f) Rhotic /r/. The present day RP is non-rhotic but most the Pakistani speakers of english

retain /r/ when it is preceded by a vowel.

INFLUENCE OF GRAPHEMES

The other feature in PakE is the confusion between voiced and voiceless consonants. The

phonemes /z/ and /d/ are always influenced by the English letters [s] and [d] and pronounced as

[s]. The word /hiz/ is pronounced as [his]. It is worth-mentioning that the last two examples are

more unintelligible as the change in voice has influenced the voiceless bilabial velar and the

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voiced bilabial plosive and made the voiceless voiced, and voiced voiceless as well. Therefore, words

with -s and -ed have greater potential to disturb mutual intelligibility. This is, most probably, due to the

influence of the English orthography, which is learned as the first receptive skill in the primary

education system. In fact, this is writing in Pakistan, which is used as a tool for teaching pronunciation.

This way of teaching seems to be fairly compatible with Urdu language teaching, which uses

diacritics, along with Urdu graphemes, as a necessary pronunciation teaching tool for bridging the

gap left in the Urdu alphabet. In fact, this practice is reinforced as it has historically been used by

instructors for  teaching the Quran, wherein recitation, sacrosanct in Islam, is taught as the first

receptive skill. The same way of  pronunciation learning has brought grapheme-influenced

consonant germination in the PakE as well.

Conclusion.

Although there are certain patterns which are considered as wrong English, yet it is proven fact

PakE has become one of the prominent variety in South Asia.