Question: Why are protestor posters in Pakistan written in English? Who

is supposed to be the audience for these posters being carried by Pakistanis?

For several nights, National TV News has shown these protests waving placards written in English. I also thought it odd that interviews/statements being given by Pakistanis were delivered in English. I guess the American audience is being targeted? But who benefits?

NoFederales

n/t

languages spoken in that part of the world, with English being the most common one. Pakistan was part of the British Raj, so English is a common tongue shared by many .

It's not uncommon to see traffic signs, etc. in English in those parts.

edit from wiki -

"Primary mother tongue language usage largely corresponds to ethnic groups. Despite being a native language of a relatively small minority, Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan, while English is the official language, used in the Constitution and widely used by corporate businesses, the educated urban elite, and most universities. Punjabi is spoken by over 60 million people, but has no official recognition in the country."

If you want to know what those languages are, here's a list from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Pakistan

It was once part of India. India was once ruled by the Brits. I couldn't give you a percentage, but off the top of my head, I would guess that at least 50% of the people in Pakistan and India speak English. Probably more.

Pakistan is mainly made up of 3 tribes (iirc) Pashtun, Afgan??? and Ksomething or another. They may speak different languages.

India also has english as a lingua franco. Both Pakistan and India were colonized by Britain during the Raj.

than there are eggs impregnated by Kevin Federline.

:spray:

1. Pakistan has a lot of different languages. A sure way to reach a lot of people, there and abroad, is to choose a widely-spoken language.

2. If US television picks up the protests, then they get shown worldwide.

It's for an international audience

Oh. Wait......

Languages of Pakistan

Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Islam-i Jamhuriya-e Pakistan. 159,196,336. National or official languages: Urdu, Sindhi, English. Literacy rate: 26%. Also includes Indian Sign Language, Parsi (20,000), Southern Uzbek (50,000), Turkmen, Uyghur, Arabic (122,000), Chinese (6,000). Information mainly from R. F. Strand 1973; G. Morgenstierne 1974; C. Shackle 1979, 1980; J. C. Sharma 1982; J. S. Addleton 1986; J. R. Payne 1987; C. P. Masica 1991; C. O'Leary 1992. Blind population: 1,500,000. Deaf population: 7,398,329. Deaf institutions: 31. The number of languages listed for Pakistan is 72. Of those, all are living languages.

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=pk

of the fundamentalist Islamics...this is about the EDUCATED AND THE OPPOSITON to Mushariff being arrested and contained...THEY SPEAK ENGLISH

Some of their speeches are in very elegant--so I'm told--Arabic.

I would bet there are almost as many English speakers on the Subcontinent as there are in the UK and Ireland and North America.

The madrassas in Peshwar and the rest of the NWF and Tribal Areas are notorious for only teaching boys the memorization of the Koran and no real knowledge of the Classical Arabic within it. So they can read it, but have to have it explained to them in a local language in order to know what they just pronounced! Rather like priests in the early middle ages who could memorize/read the Latin but had not an iota of what the grammar or structure of the Latin was. Hence: "Hoc est corpus meum" to "hocus pocus" for those lacking the occult knowlege of the mysterious Latin language. . . at least the homolies were in the vernacular!

Plus signs written in Urdu look too suspiciously like Arabic which equals terrorist on the sound-and-vision box in Europe and the Americas!

as part of India. From what I was told by an Indian co-worker is that there are significant differences in dialect/language in India and that most courses at universities are in English. (Take with a grain of salt - India is not Pakistan, I could have remembered wrong or her experience could have been in a specific area).