The Linguistic Landscape of Peshawar: Social Hierarchies of English and its Transliterations 223 UNIVERSITY OF CHITRAL JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE VOL. 6 | ISSUE I | JAN – JUNE | 2022 ISSN (E): 2663-1512, ISSN (P): 2617-3611 https://doi.org/10.33195/jll.v6iI.363 The Linguistic Landscape of Peshawar: Social Hierarchies of English and its Transliterations Riaz Hussain1, Muhammad Iqbal2, Amjad Saleem3 1 Lecturer at the Department of English, Islamia College Peshawar, Pakistan riaz.hussain@icp.edu.pk 2Associate Professor, Department of English, Islamia College Peshawar, Pakistan iqbalkhan@icp.edu.pk 3Assistant Professor, Department of English and Applied Linguistics, University of Peshawar, Pakistan amjad.saleem@uop.edu.pk Abstract This article explores the English and transliterated signs in the linguistic landscape of Peshawar. A total of 900 signs were selected out of 5000 signs collected from 36 different locations across the city. Sign locations were further categorized as rural, urban/semi-urban, and posh. The study also included twenty-one interviews with citizens featuring shopkeepers, students, teachers, waiters, and sign-writers. Informed by the signage, public perceptions, and policy documents, the study provides fresh insights into the study of English in the LL as a marker of socioeconomic status. More importantly, the Urduized transliterations suggest not only a glocalised form of language but a linguistic phenomenon indirectly proportional to the social class of the inhabitants where the signs occur. Keywords: Linguistic Landscape, English signs, transliteration, Urduization, social class, glocalization 1. Introduction In this article we study the public display of English and transliterations as social class markers, the presence of some languages as indicators of modernity and globalization, the signage strategies citizens adopt to cope with the centrifugal forces of globalization and the centripetal forces of modern nationhood. We address these issues in the light of sign specimens from the linguistic landscape of Peshawar, the reports of the latest Census (2017), public perceptions about languages on signs, and language policy. Like most cities around the globe, there is a wide range of issues related to the current linguistic make-up or signage of Peshawar: social, political, linguistic, economic, and educational, to name only a few. This complexity of the LL of the city needs to be studied within the contexts of the language and education policies of Pakistan; the social, political, and economic realities; and the response and attitude of the people towards public signage of the city. The complexity and variety of the LL of Peshawar has a history that commenced with the inception of Pakistan, and can be traced back to the days of the British Raj. mailto:riaz.hussain@icp.edu.pk mailto:iqbalkhan@icp.edu.pk mailto:amjad.saleem@uop.edu.pk The Linguistic Landscape of Peshawar: Social Hierarchies of English and its Transliterations 224 UNIVERSITY OF CHITRAL JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE VOL. 6 | ISSUE I | JAN – JUNE | 2022 ISSN (E): 2663-1512, ISSN (P): 2617-3611 https://doi.org/10.33195/jll.v6iI.363 Linguistic Landscape connects a variety of fields and interests researchers from a vast number of diverse disciplines, ranging “from linguistics to geography, education, sociology, politics, environmental studies, semiotics, communication, architecture, urban planning, literacy, applied linguistics, and economics” (Shohamy & Gorter, 2009, p. 1). Scholars working in this area are interested in unravelling the hidden meanings and messages conveyed by studying the languages and signs displayed in public spaces. Sociolinguists working in this cross-roads discipline envision both the breadth and the complexity of language in the public space. The environment around us is profuse with language. The verbal signs, images, and graffities are simply overwhelming: the language we encounter “in cities, indoor markets and outdoor shopping centers, shops, schools, offices of government and big corporations, moving buses, campuses, beaches and the cyber space” (Shohamy & Gorter, 2009, p. 1) ask for our attention. Researchers are busy studying not only the presence of language(s) but their intriguing absence as well, particularly in multilingual areas with a political, economic and social tug-of-war. The scope of the field is growing with new insights into the study of public signage. Unlike the poststructuralists, researchers of LL do not see linguistic signs as ‘arbitrary’ and ‘random’ in nature. The language on display is reflective of people, identities, representation, class system, social status, policy, economy, multilingualism, multimodalities, and so many other things (Ibid). 2. A Review of LL Studies According to linguistic landscapists, the public display or presentation of language may have several purposes. Two of these purposes which are of immense import are the ‘informative’ and ‘symbolic’ functions (Landry & Bourhis, 1997) of languages on display. The informative part of a sign serves to give information such as address, destination, direction, availability of items, and facilities. Moreover, “the informative function of the linguistic landscape provides cues to the linguistic make-up of a particular region or area as well as to its national or territorial boundaries” (Ben Said, 2010, p. 23). The symbolic section or function of the linguistic sign in the landscape serves a much wider range of purposes than just the mere informative function and is indexical of status, power relations, prestige, ideology and many other things (Carr, 2017). Furthermore, private language practices may contradict the official or public language policy and practices. Discrepancies between the top-down or official The Linguistic Landscape of Peshawar: Social Hierarchies of English and its Transliterations 225 UNIVERSITY OF CHITRAL JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE VOL. 6 | ISSUE I | JAN – JUNE | 2022 ISSN (E): 2663-1512, ISSN (P): 2617-3611 https://doi.org/10.33195/jll.v6iI.363 signage and bottom-up or private signage may constitute a linguistic landscape where suppression, acceptance, tension, adjustment, representation, and instrumentalism emerge as core issues. A number of researchers of LL have studied the interplay of local and non-local languages with respect to the ‘instrumental’ value of these languages (Ben Said, 2010). Many of these studies inform us that, apart from representing the political and social milieu, languages found in the landscape are economically instrumental, that is, these languages are meant to sell and commodify local and multinational products (Rosenbaum et al., 1977; Ross, 1997; Hornsby, 2008; Carr, 2017). To attract local and lower class customers, native and local languages are used; on the contrary, when the market aims at getting the attention of the middle and upper classes and international customers, or in order to appear ‘fashionable’, the LL tends to use non-local languages, particularly English (Dhongde, 2002). Moreover, language in the public spaces is also used as a tool of expressing and effecting globalization: English tends to be the dominant strategic language for achieving a sense of globalization (Lanza & Woldemariam, 2013; Carr, 2017). In cities around the world, the presence of English in the LL has become “one of the obvious markers of the process of globalization” (Cenoz & Gorter, 2008, p. 57). The vast ‘linguistic capital’ (Bourdieu, 1981) of English allows people to employ it for “its prestige and access to middle-class identities” (Blommaert, 2003, p. 616; Lanza & Woldemariam, 2013), its association with modernity, economic affluence, and a trendy life style. While the globalized form of economy is expressed in language practices that are centrifugal in nature, featuring an increasing use of English in the LL, a number of studies suggest a reversed form of this phenomenon where the multinational products and international chains are advertised and sold in the local languages. Hence this trend of localizing the global has been called glocalization and sometimes McDonaldisation (Kelly-Holmes, 2010). An interesting form of glocalization is the interplay of global and local language forms where the international code of the global language is transcribed in the national script of the local language as argued in the following section. 3. Glocalization of Language in Pakistan The relatively new field of LL research has contributed some promising studies about the multilingual complexities of Pakistani cities. The first study in Pakistan that is related to the The Linguistic Landscape of Peshawar: Social Hierarchies of English and its Transliterations 226 UNIVERSITY OF CHITRAL JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE VOL. 6 | ISSUE I | JAN – JUNE | 2022 ISSN (E): 2663-1512, ISSN (P): 2617-3611 https://doi.org/10.33195/jll.v6iI.363 phenomenon of an LL is Rahman’s (2010) ‘language on wheels’ which explores the languages scribed on trucks in Pakistan. Rahman’s (2010) findings reveal that Urdu is the dominant language (75 %) amongst ‘language on the move,’ followed by Pashto and Punjabi, whereas English is conspicuous by absence. The selection of signs on moving objects which do not belong to a specific place and represent a particular business seems to be the reason behind the absence of English. Manan et al.’s (2017) investigation of language hybridization and glocalization in Pakistani LLs exhibit a greater complexity of language use than previous researchers suggest about the Urduization of English (Baumgardner et al. 1993) and the English Urdu code-mixing in Urdu advertisements (Meraj 1993). It is important to mention that English is a foreign language for most Pakistanis but has the status of an official language which is used extensively on private as well as official signs. However, the use of English for the most part “manifests itself in the environment in typically indigenized, nativitized, and hybridized forms than in the original English or Roman script” (Manan et al., 2017, p. 3). This widespread nativitized form of English in Pakistan’s LLs is what Manan et al. (2017) call an “Englishized Urdu” or “Urduized English” (p. 3). Writing English in the non-Roman scripts is not a unique form of hybridization visible only in Pakistan; in fact, the “use of English in non-Roman scripts is . . . quite a widespread tendency in global advertising” (Bhatia & Ritchie, 2006, p 524). The present study, however, proposes that the Urduization of English in Pakistan is unique and not just an advertising and communicative strategy. It has a sociolinguistic and socioeconomic significance that other studies have scarcely explored. These transliterated uses of English are not just “methods and code-mixing strategies to make it readable and appealing to the needs of the local population” (Manan et al., 2017, p. 3). This improvisation of language has a sociolinguistic value which begs a deeper investigation along the lines of social class and economic opportunities, as the paper demonstrates. There are no studies about the LL in Pakistan that specifically focus on the relationship of language and social class, the presence of English and its transliterations in the local script as socioeconomic indicators, and the peculiarity of these hybrid forms of language as a distinct type of glocalization. We explore not only the signage of Peshawar and the policy documents but the public perceptions of languages to understand the complex relationship between language use and policy, language display in public spaces and its classist implications, and the interplay of local and global dynamics. How the local and the global are blended together The Linguistic Landscape of Peshawar: Social Hierarchies of English and its Transliterations 227 UNIVERSITY OF CHITRAL JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE VOL. 6 | ISSUE I | JAN – JUNE | 2022 ISSN (E): 2663-1512, ISSN (P): 2617-3611 https://doi.org/10.33195/jll.v6iI.363 in the Urduized English, and why, are important questions we attempt to answer. Moreover, we examine how the ‘prestige’ of English is distributed along lines of class and how it helps maintain tight boundaries of socioeconomic status. 4. Methodology This study makes use of three different categories of data: visual and pictorial data collected from 36 locations (See Table 4.1 and Map 4-1) in Peshawar city, input and perceptions of the people via interviews, and policy documents. This triangulation is meant to secure a comprehensive and reliable data and to ensure the validity of the findings. Comparing and contrasting the official, pictorial, and interview data should help us identify and analyze connections between the tripartite data. Apart from collecting data from these multiple sources, the analysis too employs a mixed method, that is, qualitative as well as semi-quantitative analyses of the data. The primary data includes photographs of signs from all the major roads, streets, bazars and buildings. More than five thousand photos were captured of which 900 photos have been selected for analysis. When further sub-divided, 607 signs were found transliterated Urduizations of English and 230 signs were found English monolingual signs. Most of the photos were captured at busy markets and shopping centres since the city provides a more diverse and congested environment for signage in comparison to rural areas. The signs have been divided according to the locations where the photographs were captured: urban/semi-urban, posh, and rural. This will help us understand the tendencies and trends of official signs and the variations in linguistic practices in the public space, if any. Since more than half of Peshawar is rural (Census 2017; Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Government, kp.gov.pk), the differences, if any, in signage in the rural and urban and posh and rural are expected to be significant. This article examines only the English and Transliterated signs out of the 900 signs selected for this study. The twenty one participants whose perceptions and opinions inform this study were either born in Peshawar or had been residing, working, and studying in the city for the past 10 years. A ten-year consistent residential experience at the city of Peshawar was determined as a qualification for a participant. Majority of the participants who had migrated to Peshawar had been living in the city longer than fifteen years. The interviews were conducted in Pashto and Urdu since a large majority of the citizens speak either Pashto or Hindko. The Linguistic Landscape of Peshawar: Social Hierarchies of English and its Transliterations 228 UNIVERSITY OF CHITRAL JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE VOL. 6 | ISSUE I | JAN – JUNE | 2022 ISSN (E): 2663-1512, ISSN (P): 2617-3611 https://doi.org/10.33195/jll.v6iI.363 5. Data Analysis The two types of signs we selected for this study—English and Transliterations—provide a revealing window onto the city’s sociolinguistic realities. Table (5.1) compares signs from the urban and semi-urban, posh, and rural localities. The English monolingual signs in the three categories present an interesting case where English monolingualism is directly proportional to the social and economic affluence of the people who inhabit the area. The Posh locations have 50 % English Only signs, almost twice the English signs in the Urban/Semi-urban areas (25.3 %) and above three times higher than English monolingual signs in Rural sites (15 %). This may be interpreted as an index of the socio-economic milieu; that is, upward social mobility, modernity, social status, and globalization are expressed in the greater visibility of English on street signs. Other research scholars have stated similar findings that equate high class and status with the proportion of English streets wear (2010; Carr, 2017; Gorter, 2006; Shohamy & Gorter, 2009). Table 5.1 Urban/Semi-Urban, Posh, and Rural Sign Divisions Sign Location Urban/Semi-Urban (30 Locations) Posh (2 Locations) Rural (4 Locations) Sign Category Number Percentage % Number Percentage % Number Percentage % English Only 190 25.3 25 50 15 15 Transliterated 507 67.6 20 40 80 80 Monocodal Biscriptal 93 12.4 5 10 4 4 Monoscriptal Bicodal 185 24.6 4 8 40 40 Official 70 9.3 14 28 2 2 Private 678 90.4 36 72 98 98 The Linguistic Landscape of Peshawar: Social Hierarchies of English and its Transliterations 229 UNIVERSITY OF CHITRAL JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE VOL. 6 | ISSUE I | JAN – JUNE | 2022 ISSN (E): 2663-1512, ISSN (P): 2617-3611 https://doi.org/10.33195/jll.v6iI.363 In the category of Transliterated signs (See figures 5-1, 5-2, and 5-3) significant differences have been found across the three different types of localities. The Rural areas have the highest number of transliterations (80 %); the Urban/Semi-Urban areas have the second highest proportion of the English-coded and Urdu-scripted signs (67.6 %), whereas the Posh areas have a high number of transliterations but comparatively the lowest proportion of these signs (40 %). The immense number of transliterations in the Urdu script in rural areas suggest that people find the Urdu-scripted signs easy to read since the literacy rate in these areas is lower than the Posh and Urban areas. The variations in proportion of transliterations also suggest that the residents of the Posh areas are relatively less dependent on the Urdu script than people living in the Rural and Urban locations since the former are comparatively more educated and have a better command of English. Hence, there are twice as many transliterations in the rural Peshawar than we find in the Posh areas of the city. But what are the implications of this hybrid language form, the transliterations? What does it suggest about the socioeconomic status of the people? According to Manan et al. (2017), “English mostly manifests itself in the environment in typically indigenized, nativitized, and hybridized forms than in the original English or Roman script” (p. 3). This glocalization promotes an improvised form of language that mixes the English code with the Urdu script which is at the same time an “Urduized English” and an “Englishized Urdu” (Ibid). But this is a different type of glocalization. Here the products that use this ‘Urduized English’ are local and small products as well as a few large-scale businesses. Thus, apart from some exceptions, it is not the industrialized international products that tend to use the medium of Urdu script to ‘befriend’ and persuade the local population; primarily, it is the local industry that advertises itself in a hybrid language. It is important to note that English is a product itself here, not a mere language: English is being commodified. And it is not just the English language that is being treated as a commodity; every foreign language today “has become a commodity itself and acts as a resource to be produced, controlled, distributed and valued” (Kogar, 2014, p. 143). But English is the go-to language for commercial enterprises. In the context of Peshawar, Urdu is wrapped around the body of English. In other words, the international product—English itself—is being localised and familiarised. The market, thus, owns English as well as Urdu by mixing the content of English and the form of Urdu, but alienates the local languages. A real glocalization The Linguistic Landscape of Peshawar: Social Hierarchies of English and its Transliterations 230 UNIVERSITY OF CHITRAL JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE VOL. 6 | ISSUE I | JAN – JUNE | 2022 ISSN (E): 2663-1512, ISSN (P): 2617-3611 https://doi.org/10.33195/jll.v6iI.363 would be the localisation of the multinational mega products, presenting and advertising themselves in Urdu. An even more real glocalization would be the hybridization of English and Pashto or Hindko. Considering the Urdu-English hybridization as an instance of glocalization is complex on so many accounts. First, Urdu is a national but not a local language; it enjoys the status of a lingua franca in Pakistan but very few people speak Urdu in Peshawar according the Census (2017). Second, English is not used as a lingua franca in Pakistan. Presenting an international linguistic code wrapped in the Urdu script is glocalization at the level of language only. Since the products advertised in this hybrid language are local, opting for the English code suggests the globalization of a local product. That is why, we suggest that the linguistic interplay of the English code and the Urdu script is aimed at borrowing the prestige and power of English for a local product. In this process, localization of English through a re-presentation in the Urdu letters is meant to make it readable. It is in this sense that the Urduized English is a unique form of glocalization. The unique diglossic situation of the LL of Peshawar that seems to value the hybrid language—Urduized English—above the vernaculars also expresses a yearning for the English code that is accessible to the people second-hand or in a modified form. We call it a second- hand variety of English because English in the ‘standard’ Romanized form is reserved in Pakistan for the elite class (Rahman, 2010) by virtue of the latter’s distinct and expensive schooling and, of course, their spatial separation from the lower and middle classes. The elite class has perpetuated the language policies of the colonial regime where English was the most prestigious language that only the British could speak ‘correctly.’ The speech and English varieties used by non-British were “often considered as ‘errors’ and ‘deviations’” (Kogar, 2014, p. 144). This second-hand variety of English not only implies innovation of language varieties, it also means a class division since most of these hybrid expressions appear in the rural, and semi-urban/urban spaces as compared to the posh localities (See Table 5.1). The proportion of the Urduized signs is directly indexical of the economic status: the poorer rural areas have more of these signs as compared to the affluent posh spaces and the middle class urbanized locations as the figures in Table 5.1 suggest. The Linguistic Landscape of Peshawar: Social Hierarchies of English and its Transliterations 231 UNIVERSITY OF CHITRAL JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE VOL. 6 | ISSUE I | JAN – JUNE | 2022 ISSN (E): 2663-1512, ISSN (P): 2617-3611 https://doi.org/10.33195/jll.v6iI.363 Figure 5-1 Transliterated Signs from Three Different Locations in Peshawar Perhaps a sociolinguistic reading of the Urdu and Urduized signs and language and education policy may help us decode this puzzle. Language vitality in an LL is dependent not only on the socioeconomic needs a language can fulfil in today’s globalized marketplace or the prestige, status and power a certain language, such as English, enjoys. In addition, while the ‘linguistic capital’ (Bourdieu, 1991) of some languages may account for their public display on signs, a state’s language policy and management can promote or cripple a language. A favourable policy can help restore even an endangered language, and an unfavourable policy can obliterate a majority language (Wright, 2016). The absence of Pashto and Hindko and the omnipresence of Urdu and Urduized English signs in the landscape may be analysed in this context. As the policy documents (See Article 251 Constitution of Pakistan (1973), Clauses 1- 3; Peshawar Development Authority Act 2017; Single National Curriculum) suggest, Urdu is a language declared not only as the national language but is employed as a language of instruction and is taught as a compulsory subject. So an environment has been created through institutional measures that explicitly or implicitly promotes the acceptance, inevitability, understanding, and readability of Urdu. However, it should be noted that this promotion of Urduisation is a conscious move to create the mythical version of an Urdu-speaking nation that transcends above all other ethnolinguistic and sociopolitical affiliations. It is pertinent to mention that this Urduisation and Pakistanization is meant for public consumption, excluding the elite who learn and speak English and who have monopolized English, enabling them to sustain the status-quo. The political need of ‘national cohesion’ paradoxically jeopardizes social cohesion through superimposing Urdu on the regional languages, Pashto and Hindko. 6. Public Perceptions of English and its Urduization Figure 5-2 Figure 5-3 The Linguistic Landscape of Peshawar: Social Hierarchies of English and its Transliterations 232 UNIVERSITY OF CHITRAL JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE VOL. 6 | ISSUE I | JAN – JUNE | 2022 ISSN (E): 2663-1512, ISSN (P): 2617-3611 https://doi.org/10.33195/jll.v6iI.363 The first question we asked the participants was about people’s tendency to write signs in English instead of Pashto and Hindko, languages of majority. The topmost reason for the Anglicized texts in Peshawar is the English medium schooling (33.3 %). This suggests that in Peshawar English literacy is on the rise like other cities around the world. Respondents think that associations of prestige and high class are the next important factors that account for English signage (28.57 %), factors that interest people in different parts of the world to employ English on signs (2010; Carr, 2017). Economic incentives, according to a number of participants (23.8 %), provide a strong rationale for the written-in-English landscape. The motives of economic globalisation and marketability provide an explanation for the rise of English in writing signs. An equal number of participants (23.8 %) attributed the trend of English signs to the colonial history of Pakistan, claiming that English is still a language that people look up to as a prestigious language because it was the language of an erstwhile master, the British. This aspect of the public attitudes, again, corroborates the findings of various studies that relate the popularity of English in some states to their historical colonial milieu where English was the coveted language of the master (Muaka, 2020; Wright, 2016). A good number of participants (19 %) explained Anglicization as a phenomenon occasioned by the inability of the locals to read and write Pashto and Hindko since these vernaculars are not taught in schools. On the other hand, some respondents (14.28 %) stated that the readability of English makes it a desirable candidate to be used for sign-writing since it is taught as a compulsory subject as well as instrumentalised as a medium of instruction (Figure 6-1). These claims make good sense and reinforce the conclusions of other studies (Rahman, 2010). Three of the interviewees rationalised the greater visibility of English as an example of how the growth of a language manifests the investment of a state’s power, patronage, and interest in that particular language. One of the participants, a 28 year-old PhD scholar, explained the monopoly of English by citing a historical example of how Persian was once the most powerful language here in Peshawar due to the power invested in that language by the Mughal Empire. The fact that English as a language is favoured and powered by the state is supported by sociolinguists and landscapists (Wright, 2016, Blommaert, 1999). The Linguistic Landscape of Peshawar: Social Hierarchies of English and its Transliterations 233 UNIVERSITY OF CHITRAL JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE VOL. 6 | ISSUE I | JAN – JUNE | 2022 ISSN (E): 2663-1512, ISSN (P): 2617-3611 https://doi.org/10.33195/jll.v6iI.363 Figure 6-1. Perceptions about the Use of English on Signs A couple of participants (9.5 %) associated the multitude of English signs with education, snobbishness, and science and technology. Education according to these participants by default nurtures behaviours, desires, and practices of English usage; people tend to use English as a sign of superiority and snobbishness. Linguists since the days of the cold war following the Second World War have highlighted the desire for English due to the political, economic, scientific, and technological upper hand of the English-speaking states. Speaking and using English has therefore become a fashion that affords its users a sense of superiority (Rosenbaum et al., 1977). The second question we asked the respondents was about the tendency of citizens to transliterate English words. Twenty informants perceived the glocalised or hybrid language form as a marker of the ease with which people can read Urdu (Figure 6-2). Corollary to this major trope of public literacy and comfort in Urdu are the socioeconomic, pedagogical, and political dimensions of the Urduized English or the Englishized Urdu. Although these reasons are not always obviously stated in the responses of the informants, we can easily deduce the logic behind transliterations to be a more inclusive phenomenon than simply reducing it to public literacy in Urdu. What accounts for a greater public literacy also raises the question of public illiteracy in English. Besides these reasons, the interviewees suggested additional explanations to the Urduization of English such as Urdu’s close affinity with Arabic, a language Pakistanis are expected to have read as a language of the scriptures at homes or religious 9 .5 2 8 .5 7 3 3 .3 2 3 .8 1 9 2 3 .8 1 4 .2 8 4 .7 4 .7 4 .7 9 .5 4 .7 1 4 .2 8 9 .5 Percentage The Linguistic Landscape of Peshawar: Social Hierarchies of English and its Transliterations 234 UNIVERSITY OF CHITRAL JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE VOL. 6 | ISSUE I | JAN – JUNE | 2022 ISSN (E): 2663-1512, ISSN (P): 2617-3611 https://doi.org/10.33195/jll.v6iI.363 institutions. A painter and sign-writer who had a twenty-year experience in his field perceived Urduized scripts as indexical of languages in this region. People cannot read English, most people cannot, so it is easier for them. . . . the pubic eyes are used to these [Urduized] letters. Urdu as well as Pashto and other languages spoken in this region follow the Persian/ Arabic script. So the font is more or less the same, and the sounds and letters are familiar for people. That is why, English is transfused into this [script]. Another answer related to the above response terms this mixed form, transliteration, as a marker of confused identities. This respondent again points at the state’s linguistic engineering that has resulted in romanticizing English on the one hand and making it inaccessible on the other, producing such linguistic ‘confusions.’ A linguistic confusion has overcome these [people]. These English sounds appear to them very romantic. The fusion of English code and Urdu script is what this commentator calls confusion. Born out of this fusion is an emergent form of language that blends the glamour of English and the ease of Urdu in one package. People crave for English but since many of them are unequipped to use it ‘properly’, they retain the English sounds they are familiar with but change the script to one they understand, Urdu. In our discussion of these pictorial signs we interpreted this phenomenon as an effort to blend the prestige of English with the readability of Urdu. This participant also refers to the use of English words as a “marketing strategy” that evinces a global trend in today’s marketplaces and especially in countries like South Africa with a colonial past; further, the local languages are associated with “low quality,” and the products advertised thus become “doubtful” (Muaka, 2020, p. 131). This participant suggests that in Peshawar the desire for English and its power and prestige is manifest even in its altered and transliterated form. A female student, in her early twenties, who had previously attended a religious seminary, had a synonymous response to clothing English in an Urdu dress. She argued that Urdu is similar to Arabic which people read in seminaries and schools that helps readers in articulating Urdu words without much effort. She maintained that “to people English is a symbol of high social status” ( ان ته لګيدوي سټېټس( )هائي حېثيت لوي د داسې ګرېزي ), which persuades people to use such words in their Urdu writing. A lecturer, in his mid-thirties, voiced an almost similar attitude towards this Urduized English. The Linguistic Landscape of Peshawar: Social Hierarchies of English and its Transliterations 235 UNIVERSITY OF CHITRAL JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE VOL. 6 | ISSUE I | JAN – JUNE | 2022 ISSN (E): 2663-1512, ISSN (P): 2617-3611 https://doi.org/10.33195/jll.v6iI.363 I think here [in Pakistan] the state’s policy regarding languages has resulted in creating these hybrid kind of species out of people. Pointing to a transliterated sign “ ٹوئلٹ” (toilet) where we conducted the interview, this informant commented that many people cannot recognize this word if written in the English/Roman script. He names such people derogatively as a ‘hybrid’ and ‘confused’ people. It may be posited that the language and education policies of the state, as this respondent asserts, produce individuals who are not sufficiently skilled in English, hence they localize English. Our interview with a 28 year-old sign-maker revealed other aspects of transliteration. Besides confirming the ease and readability of the Urdu script, he commented on the role of sign-writers in the hybrid English forms on signboards. There are painters, scarcely educated, who are usually inclined towards Urdu or like Urdu since their artistry is expressed in this script. This commentator suggests that sign-makers are usually as ill-equipped in English writing as the general public which results in a linguistic form with an English sound and a local script. In a similar vein, a Hindko-speaking undergraduate and a Hindko-speaking lecturer ascribed the Urduization of English, and their mistakes in spelling words, to their low level of education and their ‘poor’ grasp of English. According to the sign-writer, Urdu scripts are more familiar for the masses and that these scripts are easier to articulate for people even from a moving vehicle. Further, the sign-writer argued that people use many words of English in Urdu such as the word “mobile” for which there is no expression in Urdu. Indeed, in these transliterations we did come across several examples where the English words rendered in Urdu script are technical and scientific expressions for which there no ready Urdu equivalents. A twenty-eight year-old student placed Urduization in the historical context, explaining the role of the state in promoting Urduization. Like other participants, he referred to the lexical limitations of Urdu which forces Urdu speakers and writers to use English diction, such as the use of an English expression “family hall” in Urdu writings. While responding to the hybridity of Urdu transliterations, an assistant professor of English contended that English words bring “authenticity” to the products advertised. She had also commented this way about the use of English instead of the local vernaculars. Moreover, she perceived the Urduized English as a technical issue since these transliterated expressions The Linguistic Landscape of Peshawar: Social Hierarchies of English and its Transliterations 236 UNIVERSITY OF CHITRAL JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE VOL. 6 | ISSUE I | JAN – JUNE | 2022 ISSN (E): 2663-1512, ISSN (P): 2617-3611 https://doi.org/10.33195/jll.v6iI.363 have no equivalents in Urdu; this makes it easier for sign-readers to grasp the intended message and adds the “falvour of English as well” ( هغې هغه خوند هم پکښې وي د ). These technical words are more familiar to the public in English than their Urdu versions if any. Two other participants, a Hindko-speaking male lecturer and a Pashto-speaking female undergraduate, attributed the blend of English and Urdu to a mindset in Pakistan that believes in English as a ‘standard’ language; so English stamps a good impression on readers, and Urdu makes the reading easier. It is pertinent to mention that both the respondents had referred to the use of English on signs in place of Pashto and Hindko as a matter of “standard” for people. Figure 6-2. Perceptions about Transliterations in Urdu Script The number of transliterated Urdu signs and an enormous range of participants (95.23 %) who think about Urduization of English as a normal practice suggest that English is a language accessed and experienced ‘secondhand’ or in a coated form by most Pakistanis. The power of English in the social and economic sectors on the one hand, and the insufficient resources and funds allocated for the teaching of English in public schools, on the other hand, produce a breed of people who express their desire for English in its Urduized form. Figure 6- 2 sums up public perceptions about transliterations of English. 7. Conclusion This article examines the Englishization and Urduization in the Linguistic Landscape of Peshawar in the light of signage and public perceptions. The LL indicates a city segregated into various classes. The English words and scripts abound in the posh Peshawar, suggesting a high correlation between socioeconomic affluence and the English language. This confirms other research findings (Rahman, 2010) which are not based on the study of LL but a critical survey of the language policies and practices in Pakistan. The amount of English on the walls of a 95.23 95.23 14.28 9.5 9.5 4.7 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Ease and Readability of Urdu Literacy in Urdu Low Educated Sign-Makers English as a Standard Prestige and Status of English English as a Mark of Authenticity P e rc e ta g e Perception about Transliterations in Urdu The Linguistic Landscape of Peshawar: Social Hierarchies of English and its Transliterations 237 UNIVERSITY OF CHITRAL JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE VOL. 6 | ISSUE I | JAN – JUNE | 2022 ISSN (E): 2663-1512, ISSN (P): 2617-3611 https://doi.org/10.33195/jll.v6iI.363 locality suggests the social class of the residents. There are marked differences in the percentage of English signs and the social status of the residents of posh, urban/semi-urban, and rural Peshawar. Urduizations increase as we move from posh to urban and suburban zones, inversely proportional to the social and economic class of the citizens who inhabit those areas: the higher the status, the lower the Urduization and vice versa. The Urduized variety of English has a symbolic as well as a communicative significance. People have a perception that English sells better than other languages due to its status and prestige as a language of the international and national socio-political elite, science and technology, media and entertainment industries, education, business, and advertisement. But since the lower social classes have a limited access to English, their ability to employ its ‘linguistic capital’ seems to be challenged. In order to make up for their lack of command of English, people have a recourse to a ‘second hand’ variety of English: this hybrid form is a localised English written in a script of the lower and middle classes. 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