Languages of Pakistan | |
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![]() Dominant mother tongue in the districts of Pakistan as of the 2017 Pakistani census | |
Official | |
National | Urdu[c] |
Regional | Several |
Signed | Pakistani Sign Language |
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Pakistan is a multilingual country with over 70 languages spoken as first languages.[2][3] The majority of Pakistan's languages belong to the Indo-Iranian group of the Indo-European language family.[4][5]
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.[2][3] Numerous regional languages are spoken as first languages by Pakistan's various ethnolinguistic groups.
According to the 2023 census, languages with more than a million speakers each include Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi, Saraiki, Urdu, Balochi, Hindko, Brahui and the Kohistani languages.[6] The census excludes data from Gilgit Baltistan and Azad Kashmir, therefore Shina and Balti population might not be exact.[6] There are approximately 60 local languages with fewer than a million speakers.[7][8]
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