Hindko Academy expands work to cover more languages

PESHAWAR: The Gandhara Hindko Academy has expanded research and publication work by bringing out more books in other Pakistani languages and associated cultures.

Mohammad Ziauddin, the chief of executive committee, and Dr Muhammad Adil, the director of the academy, said this while speaking to a three-member delegation headed by Dr Nasir Awan, the president of the Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce, England, who hails from the Peshawar city.

The meeting was hosted at Dr Zahoor Ahmad Conference Room of the academy. Other staff members were present there as well.The Hindko Academy staff briefed the delegation members on the work done by the research body thus far.

The officials said the academy was set up in April 2015 under public-private partnership as a joint venture of the Higher Education Department (HED) of the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gandhara Hindko Board, a literary and cultural organisation working for the Hindko language and culture promotion since 1993. The board manages the affairs of the academy with funds received from the HED.

They said initially the academy work was limited to Hindko, the second main language of KP and sixth widely spoken language of the country. But later the scope was extended to other languages, especially the ones in need of support, to promote them alongside Hindko.

Muhammad Ziauddin told the delegation the academy and the board had conducted a host of activities such as conferences, cultural festivals, literary sessions and brought into fine print publications, both regular and occasional, to promote Hindko and other sister languages.

He said the academy and board had jointly hosted seven international conferences and moots for women apart from arranging Gojri, Kohistani and Khowar cultural moots.Giving the details of the books and publications brought out by the academy, the research scholar said the tally had crossed 450 marks. He said these publications were in Hindko, Urdu, English, Pashto, Seraiki, Khowar, Kohistani, Brahui, Pothwari and Pahari languages, etc.

He said aside from Hindko, the academy had also published dictionaries of Punjabi, Pothwari languages. The literatus added that books from Arabic and Persian languages had been translated into Hindko.

Dr Muhammad Adil said the academy had reprinted the old and rare publications through scanning techniques, which cut the cost of publications and gave readers the books which had gone out of print with time. He also talked of the mobile applications developed to promote Hindko.

He said the academy was publishing Hindko journals such as “Hindko Adab,” “The Gandhara Voice,” “Surkheil,” “Taarey,’’ “Fatima” and a research magazine, “Mother” in English. It was helping Seraiki magazine, “Gomal Rang”, Khowar journal, “Khowar Nama”, and Kohistani magazine, “Watan”.

The delegation was told that the academy had overcome the physical hurdles by engaging writers for online literary and cultural research. Dr Nasir Awan appreciated the work of the Hindko Academy and its approach of promoting different languages and cultures.

“It is heartening to note that Hindko Academy is working for not only one but multiple languages. It will strengthen national unity,” he said while pointing out that Pakistanis from different regions of the country lived in the United Kingdom and had love for their native languages and cultures.The officials of the academy gifted a set of books and publications to the delegation members.