Pakistan is a multinational state. In addition, the peoples living here strive for religious, tribal and territorial isolation, which gives rise to a huge number of dialects, many of which can be considered independent languages. Nevertheless, seven main ones can be distinguished by answering the question about which language is the main one in Pakistan.
Urdu
Urdu is not a native language for most of the peoples of Pakistan. This is considered by no more than 8% of the population. However, it is official in Pakistan and serves as the language of interethnic communication. He is taught in schools throughout the country, and national media broadcast in this language. Therefore, all Pakistanis at least understand it. Sometimes this situation comes to a funny and sad. For example, it is not uncommon for a Pashtun to write in Urdu, but is illiterate in his native language environment.
Urdu is the "twin" official language of Hindi India . Moreover, many linguists consider Urdu and Hindi to be the same language. Just the "language of the High City" (the name "Urdu" is translated, the High City is, by the way, Delhi) once divided according to religious grounds. Muslim native speakers began to use the Arabic alphabet, while Hindus remained in Sanskrit Devanagari (image below).
The separation of the British colonies in this region on a religious basis led to the fact that Urdu and Hindi became even more isolated, becoming the state languages of the conflicting states. More Persian and Arabic words appeared in Urdu, while in Hindi, on the contrary, it decreased. Although the speakers of these two languages understand each other without problems.
Urdu is very famous for his Arabic script Nastalk. This calligraphic style, under Persian influence, turned the Arabic characters into shorter ones, and the word is no longer a purely vertical line. The letters in the nastalka seem to penetrate each other, together forming an outwardly beautiful graphic combination: the word looks like a symbol.
Because of this, books in Pakistan have been partly handwritten for a long time. A typographic set of such words was not possible. The book was written by hand, and then lithographs from handwritten sheets were sent to a printing press. Only the introduction of a computer kit fixed this problem. However, it is not relevant. In official publications, the standard Arabic Naskh is used, and Nastalk is more of a decorative character. The Pakistani public is worried about replacing Arabic letters with Latin ones. This is especially the "sin" of the younger generation. The main reasons: computers and mobile devices are not very adapted for Arabic graphics.
In a linguistic sense, Urdu is a typical Indo-Iranian language. Nevertheless, we call its features: "reverent" attitude towards pronouns - they manage to be divided into nouns, adjectives and numerals, and directly say "This is not me," the language "is prohibited." You have to say something like "Someone." In Urdu, postpositions are not very popular in the whole language world. These are the same prepositions, but after the word.
English
We will not say much about him. He is not native to any of the peoples of Pakistan. However, in the era of English rule, it spread, performing the functions of a language of interethnic communication. It retains this function even now, being the second official language of Pakistan, although it is noticeably inferior in popularity. Therefore, it is quite possible that the country will completely abandon it.
Punjabi (Punjabi)
The most common language of Pakistan. In the eastern part of the country, eight out of ten Pakistanis speak it (this is somewhere around 76 million people). As a percentage, it is 44 percent of all languages in Pakistan. Very similar to Urdu, because it is related to him.
Pashto
A significant part of the population of Pakistan is Pashtuns, which gives their language the second highest prevalence (15%). The trouble with Pashto is that each tribe strives to speak in a special way, emphasizing its "self." A huge number of dialects even makes linguists doubt the existence of a single Pashto language, which, despite the affinity of Urdu, acquired its own special letters in the alphabet. Even in writing, the Pashtuns tried to stand out: they invented the calligraphic style of tahriri. Simplified, but mine.
Sindhi
The language of the Indian people of Sindhi. In Pakistan, there are many of them, which gives the language 14% in terms of prevalence. Sindhi, like Urdu, was divided religiously between India and Pakistan with the same consequences. True, it is called both there and there the same way. Of the "eccentricities" of the Sindhi, we note the absence of the middle gender and direct pronouns of the third person. However, the Sindhi, like all the peoples of the country, are at least bilingual. They speak English too.
Shiraiki
The language of the Shiraik people living in northeast Pakistan. There are also many Syraiks (or southern Punjabis, that is, Muslim Punjabis) - almost 11% of the linguistic share of languages. The language is also divided between India and Pakistan. Shiraiki are written in Arabic, and the northern Punjabis in the Indian Punjab use the Hindu gurmukha alphabet.
Baloch
The last among the popular (4%) languages of Pakistan is the language of the Iranian Baloch people. Distributed in the south-west of the country, naturally, in the province of Balochistan. This language is Iranian and therefore stands apart from other languages of Pakistan. For the rest of the nations, special problems in interethnic communication do not arise due to linguistic affinity. In the end, after all, there is still Urdu and English.