Karachi has observed a decline in the percentage of Urdu-speaking population with the influx of people speaking other languages, shared The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) in its final result on 2017 census.
The report shared the data that the decrease in Urdu-speaking population is due to the increase in Pashto, Sindhi and Saraiki-speaking people in Karachi.
Karachi, being the Cosmopolitan is the home of people from different languages which include Urdu, Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi, Balochi, Kashmiri, Saraiki, Hindko, and Brahvi. It also has Gujarati, Marwari and Bengali speakers. However, it was regarded as the majority of Urdu-speaking people which turned out to be less in recent years.
With a total population of 16,024,894, it is the largest city of Sindh and Pakistan. The statistics show the addition of over 6 million people in the city since 1998.
According to 2017 census report, here are some key-findings on the mother-tongue of the resident of Karachi.
Urdu Speakers
The city is considered the majority of Urdu-speakers. However, there has been observed a decline in the population of Urdu-speaking people in the past four decades, shared the census report.
The period between the 1981 and 1998 censuses indicates a substantial decline in the proportion of Urdu speakers from 54.34 to 48.52 per cent. From 1998 till 2017, that ratio has further declined to 42.30 per cent.
Sindhis
Sindhi population has increased in the city in recent years, showed in the census report of 2017. The Sindhi-speaking population ascended to 10.67 percent with a population of 1,709,877 which was only 6.29% in 1981 and 7% in 1998 in the metropolis.
Baloch population
There is a decline in the Baloch population, Balochi speakers in the city were 4.39% in 1981 and 4.34% in 1998. However, in 2017, it declined to 4.04 per cent with a population of 648,964.
The Balochi category in the 2017 census was split into the two categories of Balochi and Brahvi. The census data reveals that as many as 96,120 people in Karachi are Brahvi-speaking.
Pashtuns
According to 2017 census report, Pashto speakers with a total population of 2,406,011, have increased to 15% which were 11% in 1998.
In Karachi, the Hindko-speaking population is 679,539 forms 4.24 per cent of the metropolis’s total population.
Punjabis
The population has decreased to 10.73 per cent with a population of 1,719,636, which was 13% in 1981.
Seraikis
The 2017 census shows that the population of Saraikis has increased in the city to 798,031, constituting 4.97 per cent of the city’s populace.
Others
The ratio of the population of those who speak other languages has significantly decreased as it was 12.27 per cent in 1981 and 12.44 per cent in 1998.
According to the 2017 census results, who call Kashmiri as their mother tongue. The Kashmiri-speaking people comprise 0.39 per cent of the total population of the city.
Whereas, the census also shows that 1,123,790 people, who are 7.02 per cent of Karachi’s population, speak languages other than those mentioned above.
