is pakistan near east or far east

[Shah-Jehan]

Indeed. Urdu was never widely used as the name of a language until the 20th century. There are only a handful of references to 'Urdu' as a language in Amir Khusro's writings. Hindi was always the preferred term, Dehlawi being another. Ironically, "Urdu" is not even the most widely spoken language in Pakistan. That honor goes to Punjabi. Placing Arabic and Persian vocabulary over an Indo-Aryan grammar does not make it Persian.

It was not even used in Pakistan until the late 19th to early 20th century when Urdu was used by the British to replace the traditional lingua franca of the region which was the Dari dialect of Farsi/Persian to disassociate any political and cultural associations with Iran and Afghanistan.

[asingh]

Indeed. Urdu was never widely used as the name of a language until the 20th century. There are only a handful of references to 'Urdu' as a language in Amir Khusro's writings. Hindi was always the preferred term, Dehlawi being another. Ironically, "Urdu" is not even the most widely spoken language in Pakistan. That honor goes to Punjabi. Placing Arabic and Persian vocabulary over an Indo-Aryan grammar does not make it Persian.

Ya, they are replacing a lot of the vocabulary. Some Pakistani serials are shown here in India. The forcefulness can be seen: to avoid Hindi / Sanskrit based words, and replace them with Farsi / Arabic misconstructions.

[RaDsTeR]

Ya, they are replacing a lot of the vocabulary. Some Pakistani serials are shown here in India. The forcefulness can be seen: to avoid Hindi / Sanskrit based words, and replace them with Farsi / Arabic misconstructions.

Pakistanis do this to strengthen the national narrative, that the people are inherently different and belong to a different "civilization" than Indians. Not very much you can do about this, language evolves over time anyway, and so this is just a way of popularizing it in a certain aspect I suppose.

[asingh]

Pakistanis do this to strengthen the national narrative, that the people are inherently different and belong to a different "civilization" than Indians. Not very much you can do about this, language evolves over time anyway, and so this is just a way of popularizing it in a certain aspect I suppose.

Oh, I see.

[Goujian]

i believe rather near east

You're not wrong about that. But I would say south Asia as well.

[StonyArabia]

culturally closer to the near east, genetically south asian

[Kaushika]

Western half is Iranic and belongs to ME while Eastern Part is Indic and belongs to North Western region of South Asia.

[Ziveth]

Near East countries:
https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qim...b918e54c8c8773
Far East countries:
http://www.atlasofpluckedinstruments...mapfareast.gif
South Asia countries:
http://www.euroradialyouth2016.com/s...hern-Asia1.gif
Conclusion: Pakistan is a south Asia country, i think.

[zarzian]

but it doesnt matter gigolo

not that it is important but i told you that you dont look indian . you only have a small indian touch

you would fit in iran ....not in south asia

To be honest he would fit more in Turkey then Iran

[Swarthy_Syndicate]

Geographically it’s closer to the Near East than the Far East (because Islam). Not fully South Asian because of the western half which is Iranic culturally (closer to Afghanistan).