Languages of Pakistan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pakistan is a multilingual country with over 70 languages spoken as first languages.[3][4] The majority of Pakistan's languages belong to the Indo-Iranian group of the Indo-European language family.[5][6]
Urdu is the national language and the lingua franca of Pakistan, and while sharing official status with English, it is the preferred and dominant language used for inter-communication between different ethnic groups.[3][4] Numerous regional languages are spoken as first languages by Pakistan's various ethnolinguistic groups. Languages with more than a million speakers each include Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi, Saraiki, Urdu, Balochi, Hindko, Pahari-Pothwari[lower-alpha 2] and Brahui.[7] There are approximately 60 local languages with fewer than a million speakers.[8][9]