Pakistan tries to proscribe text messages with offensive content
The surprise is that list of proscribed words is longer in English than in Urdu, but containing much Punjabiisms, & even Kashmiri tidbits.
By ET Bureau | Updated:
It takes a lot of work to be a good puritan. It is even harder work to try to be a puritan state, where citizens utter nary a bad word. Which, as South Asians will aver, is a tad difficult given the rich, variegated expressions and phrases readily available and continually invented in our part of the world to express scorn and, well, abuse.
But, like its other grandiloquent projects, Pakistan is going to take a shot at it. Hence the recent news that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has banned a total of 1,795 expletives on SMS, decreeing telecom companies to weed out SMSes using these words.
The somewhat Orwellian decree goes by the title ‘Protection from Spam, Unsolicited, Fraudulent and Obnoxious Communication Regulations’.
The surprise is that the list of proscribed words is longer in English than in the other list, officially called Urdu, but containing much Punjabiisms, and even a few choice Kashmiri tidbits. Thus, the English list has 1,109 entries while the ‘Urdu’ list has a mere 586.
Certain sections, particularly in some selected geographical locations, for obvious reasons unnamed here, justly proud of their lexical prowess, the languid ease with which their supple local languages can accommodate stunning abuses, might take that privileging of English as an insult.
More so, considering that the English list, beginning with ‘A.S.S’ and ending, inexplicably, with ‘Yellowman’ contains such bland, if not downright puzzling, concoctions like ‘Athletes Foot’, ‘Barf’, ‘Bite Me’, ‘Damn’, ‘Femme’, ‘Got Jesus’, all the way down to the last, with something called ‘Wuutang’ in between.
The ‘Urdu’ list, though not without a few plain ones and oddballs like ‘Bewa-koof’ and ‘Nimbusharbat’, is much harder to be puzzled about. The English bias is at work again, it seems.
But, like its other grandiloquent projects, Pakistan is going to take a shot at it. Hence the recent news that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has banned a total of 1,795 expletives on SMS, decreeing telecom companies to weed out SMSes using these words.
The somewhat Orwellian decree goes by the title ‘Protection from Spam, Unsolicited, Fraudulent and Obnoxious Communication Regulations’.
The surprise is that the list of proscribed words is longer in English than in the other list, officially called Urdu, but containing much Punjabiisms, and even a few choice Kashmiri tidbits. Thus, the English list has 1,109 entries while the ‘Urdu’ list has a mere 586.
Certain sections, particularly in some selected geographical locations, for obvious reasons unnamed here, justly proud of their lexical prowess, the languid ease with which their supple local languages can accommodate stunning abuses, might take that privileging of English as an insult.
More so, considering that the English list, beginning with ‘A.S.S’ and ending, inexplicably, with ‘Yellowman’ contains such bland, if not downright puzzling, concoctions like ‘Athletes Foot’, ‘Barf’, ‘Bite Me’, ‘Damn’, ‘Femme’, ‘Got Jesus’, all the way down to the last, with something called ‘Wuutang’ in between.
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The ‘Urdu’ list, though not without a few plain ones and oddballs like ‘Bewa-koof’ and ‘Nimbusharbat’, is much harder to be puzzled about. The English bias is at work again, it seems.
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