Roman Urdu: Convenience or cultural loss? | The Express Tribune

PUBLISHED
November 16, 2025

In 2012, Sanya* joined an institute to learn MS Office. When the teacher was delivering a lecture, she noticed 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 scrawled on it 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? Which language have you written?” With a casual smile, the girl replied, “Oh, I write in Roman Urdu.”

That moment hit Sanya like a twist in a drama. What she thought was flawless English turned out to be Urdu in English letters. A practice now so common that even classrooms have become battlegrounds where Nastaliq is quietly losing to Roman script.

Is that where our tragedy starts? Urdu is still alive, but its script seems to making its way out. barely surviving.

Before we bury Urdu under Roman letters, let’s remind ourselves what we’re losing. Urdu is among the top ten most spoken languages in the world, with over 230 million speakers across 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.

Globally, Urdu enjoys respect. Foreigners take courses in Urdu literature. European universities have Urdu chairs. Bollywood songs sprinkle Urdu words because they sound classy and Indian poets such as Gulzar and Javed Akhtar gloat on 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, in the present day, 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 “آنا,” we write “ana.” Instead of “آپ کیسے ہیں؟” we write “ap kese hain?” Instead of “میرا نام علی ہے,” we scribble “mera naam Ali hai.”

At first glance, Roman Urdu looks harmless. After all, it saves time. No need to switch keyboards, no worrying about fonts. Perfect for texting “kya kr rahe ho” at lightning speed. But beneath this convenience lies a dangerous loss. Roman Urdu cannot capture Urdu’s true sounds, flavours, or beauty.

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 learning Nastaliq was “too difficult.” Colonial laziness planted the first seeds.

However, the actual explosion came in the 1990s and early 2000s. Mobile phones entered our lives. SMS was king. But guess what? No Urdu keyboards. To save time, people started typing 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 WhatsApp then began as necessity turned into addiction. Today, Roman Urdu is everywhere: in social media comments, YouTube titles, advertisements, and even student assignments.

Weak links

Everywhere in the world, people and especially leaders wear their language like a crown. Indians? Mr Bachan pushes Hindi like he is reading sacred 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 on 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 come back home. Where does the decline of Urdu actually 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. Game over.

Children today know names of dinosaurs, but can’t pronounce “Urdu words”. Why? Because parents themselves don’t care. Correct English? Essential. Correct Urdu? “Choro yaar, koun si naukri Urdu mein mile gi?”

There was a time when kids slept listening to tales 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 digests, storybooks, or at least Taleem-o-Tarbiat. Today, it’s YouTube Kids on auto-play.

Moreover, teachers confirm the damage, and their words sting. “Earlier, students could read Iqbal and Ghalib with fluency,” says one Urdu lecturer in Islamabad. “Now? They can’t even finish a newspaper headline without stumbling.” Another senior teacher in Karachi shakes her head: “Exams are filled with hybrid language. Students write: Pakistan ka future bright hai. I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or hand them an Oxford dictionary.”

“Some students don’t even bother with script anymore. They write entire assignments in Roman Urdu and submit them proudly!” says a lecturer in Karachi. “Imagine a final-year thesis where you read: Pakistan ki economy down hai coz corruption zyada hai. That’s not a research paper. That’s a WhatsApp group chat with references 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’s an audio version. When we assign Urdu reading, they ask if there’s a Roman copy. It’s not weakness anymore, it is dependency.”

But what shocks teachers most is the attitude. Instead of being embarrassed about 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 like a badge of honour,” a Peshawar teacher laments. Another add with bitter humor: “At this rate, the next generation won’t apologise for not knowing Urdu; they’ll celebrate it in their CVs: Skills: Roman typing, emoji fluency, zero Urdu required.”

PTV’s pure Urdu

PTV was like a learning corner for Urdu. Anchors spoke so flawlessly that families would actually force their kids to sit for 9 pm Khabarnama. Not for the news. No one cared about wheat production or minister 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 “دیکھتی آنکھوں، سنتے کانوں، آپ کو طارق عزیز کا سلام” was not just an introduction; it was an Urdu master class. Every word crisped. Every syllable shined. You didn’t just win a water cooler, you won respect for Urdu.

Kasauti, Quizz Time, debates, mushairas, were places where Urdu showed its strength. Students from schools and colleges came on stage, delivering speeches, reciting poetry, competing with wit. Even the dramas taught 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, iss waqt jo political scenario hai na, woh a kind of game changer hai.” Urdu?

And don’t even get me started on the dramas. “Tum mere 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’re watching Pakistani TV, but it sounds like a dubbed Indian serial. “Aisay thorri na hota hai!!”

Finally big corporations figured: 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 young ones learn that haddi begins with hai waali hay, and not hallway wali hay, nor do chashmi hay? Urdu alphabet is dying!

The dominance of Roman Urdu has given birth to a generation that finds it easier to text in English alphabet, despite availability of global keyboards, than to read or write in its own script. This change may seem convenient, but it has consequences: students are losing their ability to engage with classical literature, understand academic texts, or even write Urdu properly. The beauty of the language, expressed through calligraphy, poetry, and literature, is being diluted into a simple form that lacks depth and accuracy. Roman Urdu dominates because it is quick, largely used digitally, and requires no special keyboard, but this easiness comes at the cost of weakening cultural identity. If the trend continues, the gap between spoken familiarity and written incompetence will only grow, leaving Urdu as a language people can speak but not truly read or write.

The rise of Roman Urdu isn’t just a harmless shortcut; it is cultural slow poison packaged as convenience. Advertising made sure the damage stuck. Brand taglines have warped our sense of grammar, so when commercials 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 isn’t modernisation; it’s laziness dressed up as progress. Imagine handing Iqbal’s poetry to the next generation, only for them to ask if there’s a Roman-script version on Google. Across the world, nations guard their languages like treasure, while we auction ours off to ratings, slogans, and autocorrect. If we don’t stop now, Urdu’s obituary won’t be in elegant Nastaliq it will be typed 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 seems that 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 of Pakistan. She can be reached at rabiayousufzai26@gmail.com.

All facts and information are the sole responsibility of the writer