PUBLISHED November 16, 2025
In 2012, Sanya* joined an institute to learn MS Office. When the teacher was giving a lecture, she noticed that the girl sitting next to her was writing furiously. Her pen danced across the page like an Olympic sprinter on the track. “Wow, such fast English shorthand!” she thought. Later, curious to catch up on her missing notes, she borrowed her notepad.
What she saw scribbled on the shocked Sanya quite a bit. The pages were filled with what looked like English words, but none of them made English structural sense. Confused, she asked her classmate: “What is this? What language have you written?” With a relaxed smile the girl replied: “Oh, I write in Roman Urdu.”
That moment struck Sanya as a twist in a drama. What she thought was flawless English turned out to be Urdu with English letters. A practice now so common that even classrooms have become battlegrounds where Nastaliq is quietly losing to Roman script.
Is this where our tragedy begins? Urdu is still alive but its script seems to be on the way out. hardly survive.
Before we bury Urdu under Roman letters, let us remind ourselves what we are losing. Urdu is among the ten most spoken languages in the world with over 230 million speakers in Pakistan, India, the Middle East, Europe and North America. It is the language of Faiz’s poetry, Ghalib’s wit, Iqbal’s philosophy and Manto’s rebellion. It carries the fragrance of Persian, the rhythm of Arabic and the sweetness of Hindi.
Worldwide, Urdu enjoys respect. Foreigners take courses in Urdu literature. European universities have Urdu chairs. Bollywood songs sprinkle in Urdu words because they sound classical, and Indian poets like Gulzar and Javed Akhtar revel in their prowess in Urdu. In fact, sometimes it feels like outsiders value Urdu more than we do. The irony? While a German might recite Iqbal with passion, a Pakistani student struggles to read a newspaper headline in Nastaliq.
Our relationship with Urdu today is like we have the treasure but we don’t know its worth.
What exactly is Roman Urdu?
Roman Urdu is when Urdu stops wearing its elegant Nastaliq attire and slips into casual English jeans. Instead of “انا” we write “ana.” Instead of “अप केसे हैन?” we write “ap kese hain?” Instead of “میرا نام علی هیی” we write “mera naam Ali hai.”
At first glance, Roman Urdu looks harmless. It saves time. No need to switch keyboards, no worries about fonts. Perfect for texting “kya kr rahe ho” at lightning speed. But beneath this convenience lies a dangerous loss. Roman Urdu cannot capture the true sounds, taste or beauty of Urdu.
How Roman Urdu crept in?
Let’s not blame WhatsApp for this mess. Roman Urdu has a long, shady history. In the 19th century, Christian missionaries used Roman letters to translate the Bible in India. Later, the British administration also experimented with Roman Urdu because it was “too difficult” to learn Nastaliq. Colonial laziness planted the first seeds.
However, the actual explosion came in the 1990s and early 2000s. Cell phones entered our lives. SMS was king. But guess what? No urdu keyboards. To save time, people started writing Urdu in English alphabets. “Kya kar rahe ho”, “main theek hoon”, “jaldi ao” and just like that Roman Urdu became the language of love, gossip and friendship.
It jumped onto Orkut, Yahoo Messenger, MSN, Facebook and eventually started WhatsApp when necessity turned to addiction. Today, Roman Urdu is everywhere: in social media comments, YouTube titles, ads, and even student assignments.
Weak links
All over the world, people and especially leaders wear their language like a crown. Indians? Mr. Bachan presses Hindi as if reading holy texts. Chinese? They don’t even bother with English. Their leaders speak Chinese in global forums. Iranians? Farsi flows from their officials like poetry, even in UN meetings.
And then Pakistan, our leaders step onto international platforms and suddenly transform into broken English stand-up comedians. Why? Because deep down they think Urdu is “backward”. Imagine! A language with centuries of literature, poetry and cultural depth, treated like a poor relative not welcome at the dinner table.
Now, let’s get back home. Where does the decline of Urdu really begin? Not in parliaments. Not even in classrooms. It begins in drawing rooms.
A mother tells her child, “Beta, kitab uthao.” The child looks confused. She sighs and says: “Okay fine, book le aao.” English wins. The game is over.
Children today know names of dinosaurs but cannot pronounce “Urdu words”. Why? Because parents themselves don’t care. Correct English? Essentially. Correct Urdu? “Choro yaar, koun si naukri Urdu mein mile gi?”
There was a time when the children slept listening to stories of Umro Ayyar, Tilism-e-Hoshruba and Dastan-e-Amir Hamza. Now they sleep to Peppa Pig and Baby Shark. Parents used to buy Urdu stories, story books or at least Taleem-o-Tarbiat. Today it’s YouTube Kids on auto-play.
Moreover, the teachers confirm the damage and their words sting. “Earlier, students could read Iqbal and Ghalib fluently,” says an Urdu teacher in Islamabad. “Now? They can’t even finish a newspaper headline without stumbling.” Another senior teacher in Karachi shakes his head: “Exams are full of hybrid languages. Students write: Pakistan ka future bright hai. I don’t know whether to laugh, cry or give them an Oxford dictionary.”
“Some students don’t even bother with script anymore. They write entire assignments in Roman Urdu and hand them in proudly!” says a lecturer in Karachi. “Imagine a final year thesis where you read: Pakistan ki economy down hai coz corruption zyada hai. It’s not a research paper. It’s a WhatsApp group chat where references are missing.”
Another Urdu teacher in Peshawar adds with frustration: “When we ask them to write an essay, they open Google Translate. When we ask them to recite poetry, they ask if there is an audio version. When we assign Urdu reading, they ask if there is a Roman copy. It’s not weakness anymore, it’s addiction.”
But what shocks the teachers the most is the attitude. Instead of being embarrassed by their weak Urdu, many students flaunt it. “They actually say, ‘Sir, what is the future of Urdu? English hi future hai.’ They wear their ignorance as a badge of honor,” a Peshawar teacher laments. Another addition with bitter humor: “At this rate, the next generation won’t apologize for not knowing Urdu; they’ll celebrate it on their resumes: Skills: Roman writing, emoji fluency, no Urdu required.”
PTV’s Pure Urdu
PTV was like a learning corner for Urdu. Anchors spoke so flawlessly that families would actually force their children to sit at 9 p.m Khabarnama. Not for the news. No one cared about wheat production or ministerial visits. They watched to learn pronunciation, to polish accents, to feel the rhythm of Urdu.
Then there was Neelam Ghar. Tariq Aziz. A man who could make even ordinary things sound poetic. His legendary opening line “देख़ती अगी, संते कानून, अप को तारक आजिस का सलाम” was not just an introduction; it was an urdu masterclass. Every word crisp. Every syllable shone. You didn’t just win a water cooler, you won respect for Urdu.
Kasauti, quiz time, debates, mushairas, were places where Urdu showed its strength. Students from schools and colleges came on stage, gave speeches, recited poetry, competed with wit. Even the dramas learned language.
Today, private channels arrived like noisy relatives. Urdu was pushed aside, replaced by “Breaking News”, live updates and talk shows. Anchors mix English, Urdu and drama, turning news into theatre. “Dekhiye, basically, it’s a political scenario hai na, woh kind of a game changer hai.” Urdu?
And don’t even get me started on the dramas. “Tum more liye coffee laaogi ya main khud order karun?” Urdu is left crying in the corner. Thanks to Bollywood influence, we now hear idioms that don’t even belong here. You think you are watching Pakistani TV, but it sounds like a dubbed Indian serial. “Aisay thorri na hota hai!!”
Finally, big companies reckoned: pure Urdu doesn’t sell. Catchy hybrid slogans do. So they gave us gems like:
Dil Maange More, Mana lo freshness ka maza, Clear hai, zone mein aa, aza Aesa Dil Dance Maray, no more haddi! How will the youngsters learn that haddi begins with hai waali hay and not hallway wali hay and neither does chashmi hay? Urdu alphabet is dying!
The dominance of Roman Urdu has given birth to a generation that finds it easier to type text in the English alphabet, despite the availability of global keyboards, than to read or write in its own script. This change may seem convenient, but it has consequences: students lose their ability to engage with classical literature, understand academic texts, or even write Urdu properly. The beauty of language, expressed through calligraphy, poetry and literature, is watered down into a simple form that lacks depth and accuracy. Roman Urdu dominates because it is fast, largely used digitally and does not require a special keyboard, but this ease comes at the cost of weakening the cultural identity. If the trend continues, the gap between spoken familiarity and written incompetence will only widen, leaving Urdu as a language people can speak but not really read or write.
The emergence of Roman Urdu is not just a harmless shortcut; it is cultural slow poison packaged as convenience. Advertising ensured that the damage was fixed. Brand words have warped our sense of grammar, so when advertisements reduce a national language to hybrid slogans, should we really be surprised that students now struggle to write a single page of Urdu without hesitation? They can swipe emojis and scroll TikTok in seconds, but put a notebook in front of them and suddenly Urdu feels like rocket science.
This is not modernization; it is laziness disguised as progress. Imagine giving Iqbal’s poetry to the next generation, only for them to ask if there is a roman script version on Google. All over the world, nations guard their languages like treasures, while we auction ours off for ratings, slogans, and autocorrect. If we don’t stop now, Urdu’s obituary won’t be in elegant Nastaliq, it will be written in clumsy Roman, probably with a laughing emoji at the end.
The choice is simple but urgent: either reclaim our pride in Urdu through schools, media and homes, or accept that WhatsApp slang will be the cultural legacy we leave behind. Hate to say it, but it looks like Urdu’s funeral will be in Roman script (with LOL at the end)!
Rabia Khan is a writer who covers social issues, literature and cultural values in Pakistan. She can be contacted at [email protected].
All facts and information are solely the responsibility of the author
