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Posts Tagged ‘pakistan’

The Most Multilingual Place

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 7, 2022| 12 Comments »

Photo: Paul Salopek/ National Geographic.
A baby sleeps near a gold prospector’s diggings in northern Pakistan.

I’m not sure how many readers will be interested in today’s rather academic treatment of an exotic part of the world and its many languages. Although I am not fluent in anything but English, I myself like learning about languages, especially those that are spoken by a small number of people and don’t even have a written form.

Language activist Zubair Torwali writes at Aeon about the many languages of ‘Dardistan,’ which includes northern Pakistan, parts of Eastern Tibet in China, eastern Afghanistan and the Kashmir valley on both sides of the Pakistan-India border.

“Dardistan is one of the most diverse linguistic regions in the world. … The region has the large Dardic languages such as Kashmiri, Shina and Khowar on the one hand and, on the other, it is home to the Burushaski language, which could not be placed within any language family because of its unique features. The Nuristani, formerly Kafiri, languages are spoken here, too. There are minor languages such as Kalasha, spoken by the Kalash community of hardly 4,000 people who still follow the ancient animistic religion that was once practiced across Dardistan.

“The name ‘Dardistan’ describes the area comprising the highest mountain ranges of Hindu Kush, Karakoram, western Himalaya and the Pamir mountains. … Dardistan’s enormous linguistic diversity occurs despite the fact that, culturally, the area is fairly homogeneous. [Anthropologist Augusto] Cacopardo says there is no match for this region in terms of linguistic and cultural diversity, except the Caucasus. Though, of course, minor differences exist, the same religious rituals and religious pantheon prevailed among the polyglot peoples of Dardistan.

“The many languages spoken here, though mostly belonging to the Indo-European family, still more narrowly to the Dardic sub-family within the Indo-Aryan group, are so different from each other that the people of one linguistic community have to rely on a third language, Pashto or Urdu, to communicate with members of another community. For instance, the people belonging to the Torwali and Gawri communities of the upper Swat valley in Pakistan need Pashto to converse with each other. This is despite the fact that the Torwali and Gawri languages are ‘sister languages’ and seem to have evolved from one single language a few centuries ago. …

“In 1986, the Summer Institute of Linguistics in collaboration with the National Institute of Folk Heritage, Lok Virsa, and the National Institute of Pakistan Studies at the Quad-e-Azam University in Islamabad, undertook a survey of the languages of northern Pakistan. Published in five volumes, this Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan (1992) documented 25 languages. In fact, there are even more – at least 35 – languages in north Pakistan. …

“In his paper ‘India as a Linguistic Area’ (1956), the linguist M B Emeneau uses the phrase ‘linguistic area’ as a technical term to mean an area that includes languages of more than one family sharing some common traits with one another, but not all the linguistic features are alike among the language families. …

“[Swedish linguist Henrik Liljegren] argues that the Hindu Kush–Karakorum (HK) – also known as Dardistan – is a ‘linguistic area’ in the sense that it is a ‘convergence zone with a core that shares certain linguistic features’ as a result of a prolonged period of contact with other subareas. …

“Writing a century earlier, Morgenstierne was correct to claim that the region is among the most linguistically diverse in the world. Presently, about 50 languages are spoken here. [The] region has maintained this linguistic diversity, but it is under grave threat. Dardistan is at the crossroads of South Asia and Central Asia. It is mountainous and makes for very hard traveling. … It is perhaps thanks to Dardistan’s mountainous geography that we still find such a rich array of languages. …

“Dardistan is home to six language groups: namely Indo-Aryan, Iranian and Nuristani (all branches of the Indo-European language family), as well as Turkic, Sino-Tibetan and Burushaski. The Indo-Aryan phylum is the largest, including about 30 languages that have also been lumped together as ‘Dardic’ (North-Western Indo-Aryan) by linguists. … My work as an ethnographer and linguist has focused on north Pakistan. ….

“North Pakistan is a spectacular mountainous land of immense linguistic, ethnic and geographic diversity. It is undoubtedly one of the most multilingual places on planet Earth. Over many centuries, the movement and contact of people at this crossroads of Central and South Asia have left a complex pattern of languages and dialects. …

“None of Pakistan’s governments nor a university has ever taken any initiative in profiling the languages spoken by the people of Pakistan. Only a few – Urdu, Pashto, Punjabi, Balochi, Sindhi and Saraiki – are mentioned in any media, teaching materials and in any kind of national database. It is, therefore, difficult to estimate the exact number of speakers of each language because none of these languages has been counted in the six national censuses so far conducted in Pakistan. The number of speakers of these languages may vary from a few hundred to a million. Many are also spoken in Pakistan’s neighboring countries – Afghanistan, India and China.

“All these languages are categorized as ‘endangered’ in the Routledge Encyclopedia of World’s Endangered Languages (2007) edited by Christopher Moseley. Many of them are ‘severely endangered’ whereas a few are ‘moribund’ or already ‘extinct.’ “

The author details six of the languages at Aeon, here, and posts videos of people singing in them. No firewall.

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Pakistan’s First Female Architect

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 3, 2021| 10 Comments »

Photo: Heritage Foundation of Pakistan.
Pakistani architect Yasmeen Lari says she wants to atone for past contributions to the world of excess by starting to build good homes for the poor.

A woman in a “man’s profession” wanted to prove she was just as good or better, outdoing other architects in creating over-the-top corporate buildings. Now she wants to be more true to herself and contribute to society.

Oliver Wainwright reports at the Guardian, “A mirrored glass ziggurat stands on a corner in central Karachi, flanked by a pair of polished granite towers. Golden bubble elevators glide up and down behind the tinted windows, shuttling oil executives to their offices through the sparkling five-storey atrium. The Pakistan State Oil House is a power-dressed monument to the petroleum-fuelled excesses of the early 1990s, oozing ostentation from every gilded surface – so it comes as a surprise to learn that its architect is now building mud huts for the poor.

‘I feel like I am atoning for some of what I did,’ says Yasmeen Lari with an embarrassed chuckle. ‘I was a “starchitect” for 36 years, but then my egotistical journey had to come to an end. It’s not only the right of the elite to have good design.’

“The 79-year-old architect was awarded the prestigious Jane Drew prize in London in March, a gong that recognises women’s contribution to architecture, for her tireless humanitarian work over the last two decades. …

“She made her name with a number of prestigious state commissions in the 1980s, including Karachi’s finance and trade centre, a vast hotel and a host of military barracks, as well as a low-income housing project that favoured low-rise high-density over the fashion for concrete-slab blocks. Then, in 2000, she retired, primarily to focus on writing books about Pakistan’s architectural history and put her energies into the Heritage Foundation, which she had founded with her husband in 1980. …

“In 2005, an earthquake of 7.6 magnitude on the Richter scale hit northern Pakistan, killing 80,000 people and leaving 400,000 families displaced. ‘I felt I had to go and help,’ says Lari. ‘I had no idea what I could do as an architect. I’d never done any disaster work, or any projects in the mountains. I had no workforce, I’d given up my practice. But I found that, if you do something beyond your usual comfort zone, then help will always come.’

While international aid agencies busied themselves erecting costly prefab housing with concrete and galvanised iron sheets, Lari worked with dispossessed families to rebuild their homes using mud, stone, lime and wood from the surrounding debris. Working with volunteers, she trained local people how to use whatever materials were to hand to rebuild in a better, safer way.

” ‘I think we often misunderstand what kind of help is needed,’ she says. ‘As an outsider, you do things that you think are appropriate, but the reality here is different. The aid mindset is to think of everyone as helpless victims who need things done for them, but we have to help people to do things for themselves. There’s so much that can be done with what’s already there, using 10 times less money.’

“She says that the process of co-creation can also be a crucial part of healing. ‘Disasters can be truly devastating and people easily fall into deep depression. But if you give them something to do, it really helps with recovery. Something people have helped to make is much more valued than something simply given.’

“Since 2005, a sequence of further earthquakes, floods and conflicts have kept Lari and her team at the Heritage Foundation on their toes, developing agile techniques with bamboo, mud and lime, always following the principles of low cost, zero carbon and zero waste. Severe flooding in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh provinces in 2010 saw them develop a design for modular community centres raised on stilts, which safely survived more floods a couple of years later.

“When earthquakes hit Balochistan province in 2013 and Shangla in 2015, Lari designed shelters using a cross-braced bamboo framework, learned from the vernacular dhijji technique. Testing the prototype on a shaking table at NED University in Karachi, they found the structure was capable of withstanding an earthquake more than six times the strength of the 1995 Kobe disaster. If the homes ever did begin to crumble, they could be easily rebuilt using the same organic materials – unlike their concrete and steel counterparts.

“ ‘There’s so much money in disaster relief,’ says Lari, ‘but we need to put much more effort into disaster preparedness.’ She is critical of the ‘universal solutions’ offered by aid agencies and the siloed ways in which they work, as well as the urbanised mindset imposed on rural communities, insisting instead that responses should follow ‘forms based on age-old wisdom.’ “

More at the Guardian, here.

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Squash-Playing Girl in Pakistan

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 17, 2017| 4 Comments »

Maria Toorpakai is the top-ranked female squash player in Pakistan. Toorpakai is coached by retired Canadian squash star Jonathon Power, pictured here.

WBUR’s Only a Game is great at searching out fascinating sports stories that few media channels cover. Here is one about a female squash player bucking the odds in a conservative part of Pakistan, where girls just don’t do this kind of thing.

Karen Given reports, “There are places in this world where games aren’t just games and where sports heroes have the power to be more than just pixels on a television screen.

“One of those places is Waziristan, part of Pakistan’s tribal region. That’s where Maria Toorpakai grew up. Her sport was squash, and her hero was Jonathan Power — a Canadian who, in 1999, became the first North American squash player to become No. 1 in the world.

“From an early age, Toorpakai wasn’t like the other girls.

” ‘When I was two years old, I could see the happiness in boys’ faces and more glow. But most of the women are just no one, you know? …

” ‘I thought maybe it’s the differences because boys have different clothes than girls. So then I took all my girly dresses and I took it to the backyard and I burnt them, and I was four-and-a-half. I saw my father and he didn’t say anything but when I looked at him he just smiled and said, “Well, I guess I have a fifth son now.” ‘

“Toorpakai’s father allowed her to masquerade as a boy and play sports. But when she discovered squash at the age of 12, the family’s secret began to unravel.

” ‘There’s a proper squash academy and he took me there. And he asked what we should do for squash, and my son wants to play squash. The director of the squash academy, he said definitely we will give membership to this kid. You have to bring the birth certificate first. My father got a little nervous.’

“Maria Toorpakai tells her story In Her Own Words. To hear the full story, click [this page] the play button below the headline at the top of the page. Toorpakai’s book is called ‘A Different Kind of Daughter.’ ”

I really recommend becoming familiar with WBUR’s Only a Game, here. It’s syndicated nationally, and non-sports fans love it as much as sports fans.

Longtime host Bill Littlefield is an unusual sports maven. An English professor, he covers football but especially how it hurts athletes, and he has instituted an approach to interviews (like Toorpakai’s) in which a talented interviewer (like Karen Givens) asks probing questions that enable interviewees to tell their own story. The interviewer’s voice doesn’t appear. I love this idea. It sounds so natural.

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Superhero in a Burka

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 30, 2013| 2 Comments »

She’s a mild-mannered school teacher in Pakistan — unless education for girls is threatened, and then, watch out! She’s the Burka Avenger!

Salman Masood and Declan Walsh have the story at the NY Times: “Cartoon fans in Pakistan have been excited by the arrival of the country’s first caped crusader, in the form of a female superhero who flies through the air, battling villains using pens and books.

“The heroine, Burka Avenger, is certainly an unusual role model for female empowerment in Pakistan: a woman who uses martial arts to battle colorful villains …

“But the cartoon, in which a demure schoolteacher, Jiya, transforms into the action heroine by donning a burqa, or traditional cloak, has also triggered an awkward debate about her costume.

“ ‘Is it right to take the burqa and make it look “cool” for children, to brainwash girls into thinking that a burqa gives you power instead of taking it away from you?” asked the novelist and commentator Bina Shah in a blog post.

“The criticism has not overshadowed the broader welcome that Burka Avenger, which aired [in Islamabad] for the first time on Sunday evening, has received. With slick computer animation, fast-paced action and flashes of humor that even adults can appreciate, the character could offer Pakistanis a new cultural icon akin to Wonder Woman in the United States.”

And she is generating some thoughtful discussions about the role of girls and women and the importance of education for girls.  The show’s maker, pop star Aaron Haroon Rashid, points out that the burka is merely the heroine’s disguise.

(An excellent disguise indeed, used effectively by the playwright Tony Kushner in Homebody/Kabul, about a Western woman who leaves home and disappears in Afghanistan.)

Read more about the cartoon show here.

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Ups and Downs in Cultural Exchange

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 19, 2011| 2 Comments »

Originally, I was just going to write about a new State Department program that brings foreign cultural acts to the United States. There had been a story in the Boston Globe.

“The US State Department, which has long sent American artists abroad as part of its cultural diplomacy efforts, is for the first time launching a sizable program to bring foreign performers here — an initiative administered by the New England Foundation for the Arts. Comedians, puppeteers, musicians, and dancers from Pakistan, Haiti, and Indonesia will tour to small and midsize cities across America next year as part of the nearly $2 million Center Stage program. ‘Since the early ’50s, we’ve basically sent groups overseas to do people-to-people exchange for mutual understanding,’ said Ann Stock, assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs. ‘This is the first time we’re bringing 10 groups to Main Street America.’ ”

It sounded like a nice experience for foreign visitors and audiences alike.

But not all summer visitors who come in under the auspices of the State Department get what they expect. J-1 visas, for example, are given out for young people to work here and enjoy cultural interactions. But according to Monica Lopossay in Thursday’s New York Times, things cans go wrong, especially if job placements are contracted out to contractors who also contract them out.

In Palmyra, near Hersey (PA), “Hundreds of foreign students, waving their fists and shouting defiantly in many languages, walked off their jobs on Wednesday at a plant here that packs Hershey’s chocolates, saying a summer program that was supposed to be a cultural exchange had instead turned them into underpaid labor.

“The students, from countries including China, Nigeria, Romania and Ukraine, came to the United States through a long-established State Department summer visa program that allows them to work for two months and then travel. The students said they were expecting to practice their English, make money and learn what life is like in the United States.

“In a way, they did. About 400 foreign students were put to work lifting heavy boxes and packing Reese’s candies, Kit-Kats and Almond Joys on a fast-moving production line, many of them on a night shift. After paycheck deductions for fees associated with the program and for their rent, students said at a rally in front of the huge packing plant that many of them were not earning nearly enough to recover what they had spent in their home countries to obtain their visas.” Read more here.

In Rhode Island, our family often meets up with young adults on J-1 visas. They staff the grocery store and the restaurants in summer. For us, it is a nice cultural exchange to talk to people from Ukraine, Moldova, or Serbia, but it’s hard to know if the visitors are having a valuable experience. Often their housing is not great, but the location is beautiful and many make good friends.

If you know more about this, do weigh in.

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International Feasts

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 4, 2011|

On the Tuesday after Memorial Day I ran into a woman I know who works in another department. She grew up in New York City, where her father worked at the United Nations. Her family is from Pakistan. After inquiring about her weekend, I learned that she had cooked for 80 by herself, serving everyone in her backyard! The meal sounded amazing, so I asked her to e-mail the menu to me.

hi, here was my menu, enjoy!

mixed vegetable pilaf, BBQ chicken with various spices, beef kabobs, fenugreek and potatoes, samosas filled with ground chicken, corn, cow’s feet, naan, yogurt, Pakistani bread pudding

Cow’s feet/trotters are considered a delicacy in Pakistan.  Mine took 7 hours to make of which 6 hours were cooked on the regular stove and one hour was in the pressure cooker.  Ideally, you should be able to cook them for about 75 minutes in the pressure cooker.  However, since I was making such a large quantity I decided to cook them on the stove.  After six hours, I gave up and cooked a few batches separately in the pressure cooker 🙂

So I got to thinking, I wonder how many different kinds of banquets prepared by people from different countries of origin are being cooked for backyard parties on Memorial Day. Or July 4. What a recipe book that would make!

Do you publish cookbooks? You may take the idea and run with it. This book will surely be too heavy to carry, given all the different groups that make up America. You may have to make it an online e-book.

 

Reader Asakiyune writes, “The woman who cooked for 80 TOTALLY INTIMIDATES ME. Cooking for 10 is about all I want to ever try managing! … maybe 15 or 20. 80? 80?? Yowza. And I liked your earlier entry, on the group doing mild ecumenicism for Jews, Christians, and Muslims. I hope you can interest your religious ed director in hosting a lecture by the organizing woman.

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