Welcome to the Project on Linguistic Resources for Urdu

Overall Goals and Objectives

The study of linguistics in Pakistan has largely been limited to the field of Applied Linguistics, specifically English Language Teaching, and Sociolinguistics. Very little work has been done within descriptive and theoretical linguistics and there is an equally limited capacity in this area (active linguistic researchers number no more than a handful internationally), even though there is significant need of capacity in this area in Pakistan, where more than 66 languages are spoken. The current project aims to collaboratively advance research in Pakistani linguistics, focusing on grammatical and semantics aspects of the national language of Pakistan, Urdu. This collaboration will help train researchers, mature the field of linguistics in Pakistan and develop a sustainable relationship between Pakistani and German universities.

Our specific objectives thus include:

1. Develop the capacity to do grammatical and semantic analyses of languages
2. Develop critical linguistic resources for Urdu to concretely represent such
analyses, for further use in linguistics, psycholinguistic and computational work
3. Develop a formal relationship between German and Pakistani universities for collaborative research
4. Develop a course curriculum in linguistics based on work in Urdu

This will be done through doctoral and post-doctoral students working on Urdu in Pakistan and Germany, including Pakistani students supported through DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) and studying in Germany and/or planning to return to Pakistan after completion of their research.

The project will have a significant impact on teaching and research in linguistics in Pakistan, and thus maturing this Social Science discipline in Pakistan.


Generous funding is provided by the DAAD - German Academic Exchange Service with grants from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.