by NADEEM F. PARACHA
In Pakistan, it was once common for many people to either pick up sophisticated British or everyday American accents to exhibit their preferred strand of social distinction.
This practice continues even today, but it has been gradually overshadowed by many Pakistanis now wanting to demonstrate differentiation by punctuating English, Urdu or other Pakistani languages with words and expressions borrowed from Arabic, rather than adopting Western English accents. What’s more, there is an increasing tendency in many Pakistanis to pronounce these words in the archetypal throaty Arabic accent.
For example, the Urdu word shukriya (thank you) is increasingly being replaced by the Arabic jazakallah (may God reward you). Ironically, shukriya is derived from the Arabic word shukran, even though the roots of the Urdu shukriya can also be found in the Turkish word ükrü.
Another example is the replacement of the once traditional Urdu response Allah ka shukar (thank God) with the Arabic Alhamdulillah which means the same.
If one further investigates this, there is every likelihood that one would eventually be directed towards the the now well-known phenomenon of the ‘Arabicisation’ or ‘Arabisation’ of Pakistani culture. Sometimes the rapid replacement of the traditional Urdu goodbye or farewell, Khuda hafiz, with Allah hafiz is also demonstrated as an example of Arabisation.
Could Pakistani culture’s gradual ‘Arabisation’ finally be reaching a point of unexpected and ironic turnaround?
But, interestingly, there is very little that is Arabic about it. Allah hafiz is not used in any Arab region and neither in other non-Arab Muslim-majority countries. The standard Arabic words meaning farewell are “tawdie”, “wadae” or “wadaei”. The Sanskrit scholar Sumit Paul is correct to point out that Allah hafiz is largely used by South Asian Muslims, i.e., Pakistanis, Indians and Bangladeshis.
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