In mainstream Pakistan, the linguistic diversity of the country is still thought to be a threat to the national cohesion despite the fact that Pakistan has lost one of its arms mainly (including other factors as well) due to the denial of linguistic diversity.

The main objective of the convention is to review the steps taken for the promotion of Pashto language, literature and culture and to prepare recommendations to meet the challenges in this regard.

ISLAMABAD: The Department of Linguistics in Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU) organised a seminar on the topic of ‘Linguistics Sans Languages’ on Wednesday at the Seminar Hall of the School of Politics and International Relations. The main objective of the seminar was to raise awareness on the issues of linguistics and to break the misperception that linguistics is part of English literature.

What Pentagon officials fail to understand is that a skilled military linguist in Afghanistan is worth one hundred skilled riflemen. Until Pentagon, State Department and Langley officials begin to grasp that message, the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and their allies in Libya, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan and elsewhere will continue to surge.

They forbade intermarriage with outsiders and were adamant about speaking Pashto. Villagers have texts written in Pashto from their forefathers and still teach their children how to read and write the script. Mr. Khan and others claim that their Pashto is “unadulterated,” unlike the Pashto spoken in Peshawar or Afghanistan, which they say has mixed with other languages.

Jen Shelby uprooted from Texas last year to move to the Bay Area, committed to learning Pashto. It is a language spoken by few Americans, and Shelby hopes it will reunite her with her husband, who works in Afghanistan. Shelby, 28, is taking free, full-time training with Mission Essential Personnel in Pleasanton, the military's largest supplier of translators in Afghanistan, to become a Pashto interpreter.

QUETTA: The British Ministry of Defence has been arranging Pashto language courses for the troops fighting in Afghanistan on a regular basis with special emphasis on Kandahari dialect being spoken in Balochistan and Southern Afghanistan.

IU offers courses in more than 80 foreign languages including 50 being taught in any given semester. Title VI funding supports students and faculty working in areas such as African studies, Central Asian languages, Middle Eastern cultures and international business education and research. In addition, IU faculty members offer language and culture training to Indiana National Guard soldiers being deployed to Afghanistan.

...Ironically, the programs that are now being cut were the same ones that received an increase in funding after the 9/11 terrorist attacks when the government sought more graduates with fluency in languages like Pashto, the predominate language in Afghanistan.

Since January, 64 paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division's 4th Brigade Combat Team have spent their days learning to read, write and speak basic Dari, the most common language among the people of Afghanistan, and delving into the country's culture and history.

Language specialists in Indiana University's College of Arts and Sciences have developed a new application for the iPad that will help people working in strategic areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan to read and write in Pashto, one of the region's primary languages.

On one side of the scale: an app developer that wants to translate Pashto and Dari on your iPhone. On the other: around $50 million in federal money, this year alone, for research into a Cadillac version of the same translation tools. Which sounds like the better deal?