Paper short abstract:

The aim of the paper is to analyse historical, economic, political and cultural reasons for the death of Punjabi - the majority language of Pakistan - as tools of expressing intellectual demands of the speakers and of preserving cultural traditions of the society.

Paper long abstract:

The Punjabi-speaking community constitutes the majority of the population of Pakistan. It consists of influential class of rich Punjabi landlords and the largest - in absolute numbers - educated middle class, which provides most of the personnel for white-collar professions and the pool for recruitment into civil and military service. Punjabi speakers usually identify themselves with their mother tongue and willingly discuss the meaning of 'Punjabiyat'. But the self-identification on the linguistic basis does not mean that the speakers are interested in developing their mother tongue. All cultural, intellectual, professional activity of the community takes place either in Urdu or in English. Punjabi-speaking poets and writers have to write in Urdu for Punjabi speaking readers if they want their books to be sold. The symmetrical type of bilingualism of the 'parents', who were able to express themselves in all cultural domains, is gradually substituted by the recessive bilingualism of the younger generations when the mother tongue is used predominantly in everyday life and when the speakers' vocabulary remains restricted to some 1000-1500 words. The aim of the paper is to analyse historical, economic, political and cultural reasons for the death of the majority language as tools of expressing intellectual demands of the speakers and of preserving cultural traditions of the society.