One night, while watching a Pakistani cooking video on YouTube, I noticed something odd. The chef was speaking in Urdu, but everything else—the subtitles, the hashtags, the thumbnails, and even the comments—was in English. One of the top comments read, “Your accent is amazing! You sound British.” I smiled, then stopped. Why is it that speaking like a foreigner still equals success? That moment made something click for me: English isn’t just prevalent in Pakistan’s digital spaces. It dominates. And that dominance carries deep, complicated consequences.
What Is Digital Linguistic Colonization?
Digital linguistic colonization refers to the dominance of English in digital spaces at the cost of native languages. Whether we’re talking about Google search results, academic research databases, YouTube, or Instagram, English is often seen as the default.
It’s not just a matter of convenience. It’s a continuation of colonial patterns—this time not through empires but through code, algorithms, and the global internet economy. From Latin America to East Africa, similar trends are visible: local voices are being buried under algorithmic preference for English.
English as Soft Power in Pakistan
In Pakistan, English isn’t just another language. It’s a status symbol. It’s the language of academia, government bureaucracy, and elite private schools. From parliamentary speeches to court verdicts to corporate meetings—English dominates where power lives. But the digital world makes this even more extreme. English language content from Pakistan is more likely to trend, go viral, and get monetized. Influencers who post in Urdu or Punjabi often feel pressure to switch for “reach.”
Even our AI tools reflect this imbalance. ChatGPT, for example, is vastly more responsive in English than it is in Urdu. That’s not because of bias by intent but because it’s trained on data that reflects global linguistic inequality. Meanwhile, tourists from Europe, North America, and East Asia visit Pakistan in growing numbers to see our centuries-old architecture, Sufi shrines, Mughal gardens, and vibrant truck art. They marvel at our heritage, while we continue to measure intelligence by how “native” our English sounds. It’s a contradiction we haven’t reconciled.
Whose Voice Gets Heard?
Language isn’t just communication—it’s power, it’s culture, it’s memory. When English becomes the price of entry into the digital economy, it sidelines Pakistan’s rich linguistic diversity.
Pakistan is home to more than 70 languages and yet, when you scroll through Twitter (now X), you’ll find English dominating political discourse. On LinkedIn, job seekers often write in English to seem “more professional.” A Pashto-speaking student from Swat told me, “I always feel like I have to apologize for my accent in Zoom classes.” That’s the real cost of digital linguistic colonization—when fluency in English becomes a requirement for legitimacy.
Resistance: Pakistanis Reclaiming Their Tongues
But the story isn’t all bleak. In Pakistan, too, resistance is brewing. Punjabi YouTubers like Nadir Ali and TikTok comedians like Ali Gul Pir proudly use Punjabi and Urdu without apology. Pashto and Balochi content creators are growing a niche but loyal audience by staying true to their voice. Urdu-language Twitter accounts are organizing around social issues. Hashtags like #UrduZabanZindabad trend occasionally, pushing back against English hegemony.
Local initiatives like the “Digital Dictionary Project” by the National Language Promotion Department are working to digitize and preserve regional languages. There is also a growing movement in Lahore and Karachi for bilingual signage in public spaces.
The Pakistani Languages Left Behind
While Urdu and Punjabi are still surviving online, many smaller languages in Pakistan are on the brink of digital extinction. Siraiki, Shina, Brahui, and Burushaski barely have an online footprint. There are few search results, almost no YouTube tutorials, and very little keyboard or app support. If you speak these languages, you exist—but only offline.
This erasure is not just cultural. It’s economic. Without a digital presence, these communities are excluded from digital education, ecommerce, and political visibility. And yet, these are the very languages that hold the soul of Pakistan’s heritage. From the poetry of Khwaja Ghulam Farid in Siraiki to the oral folklore of the Kalash people in Chitral, our indigenous tongues are full of wisdom, beauty, and identity. International visitors often come here not just for the landscapes but for the depth of this culture, for the qawwalis, the multilingual street chatter, and the fusion of Persian, Turkic, and South Asian traditions that make up who we are.
What Needs to Change?
We cannot allow Pakistan’s digital future to mirror its colonial past. Here’s what can help:
- Tech companies must invest in Pakistani languages, not just in translation but in natural language processing, keyboard integration, and search optimization.
- Educational policies should promote mother-tongue digital literacy, not just English-based coding boot camps.
- Content creators must be valued for their voice, not their accent.
- Users like us must stop judging intelligence or value based on English fluency.
Final Thoughts
We often say that colonialism ended in 1947. But in some ways, it just changed shape. Today, it shows up in comment sections, hashtags, and the silent pressure to “sound global.” If we want a Pakistan that reflects all of its people, we must resist the quiet colonization of our digital spaces. We must stop equating English with credibility and start embracing linguistic diversity as a strength. Because when only one language is allowed to be spoken, the rest become silent. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen—not again.
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The views and opinions expressed in this article/paper are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Paradigm Shift.
Amna Zia is currently pursuing a bachelor's degree in international relations at the National Defence University, Islamabad. Her academic and writing interests lie in geopolitics, international relations, and socio-political issues. She has previously written for The Reviving Pakistan on topics such as CPEC’s impact and youth political engagement through social media. She strives to combine rigorous research with an engaging narrative style that promotes awareness and critical thinking.
