Saim wrote:Perhaps she is of Konkani background. This year in Hungary I met a Catholic from Mumbai with a Portuguese name whose mother tongue was Konkani (I think his family is originally from Goa).
Yup, I assume so too. We do have some family friends who are Catholics from Goa.
Urdu and English are the only languages of the State, meaning that they are used exclusively in public bureacuracy and education and are dominant in Pakistani media. Urdu is also the language pushed by Pakistani nationalism to "unify" (read: homogenise) the different nationalities of Pakistan. Even before the establishment of Pakistan it had quite a lot of prestige as a major vehicle for North Indian Muslim literature, and it was an official language in British-administered Punjab (having replaced Persian).
In Eastern Punjab on the other hand, Punjabi at least in theory has preferential status as the main official language at the (federated) state level, and public schools often teach subjects through the medium of Punjabi. Although Persian was the language of the Sikh Empire and the Guru Grant Sahib is written in a mixture of Indo-Aryan vernaculars, Punjabi is often seen as the national language of the Sikhs, since Sikhism primarily took root in Punjab.
This is not uncommon in processes of language shift. On the one hand women are traditionally tasked with child-rearing and are often the ones seen as being the guardians of traditional morals and values (including the "correct" language to speak) -- for this reason women that have access to Urdu often chose to pass it down to their children in lieu of Punjabi. Women are also less likely to be educated or literate and thus are not necessarily going to be proficient in Urdu, and poor women are not as likely to get outside of the home and interact with other layers of society as their male counterparts, so they are also some of the most likely to be monolingual in Punjabi. Paradoxically, women are often overrepresented both among the pioneers and those left behind in processes of language shift.
Hmmm. interesting. I figured it would have something to do with the nationalism movement in Pakistan.