Languages of Pakistan
| Languages of Pakistan | |
|---|---|
Dominant mother tongue in the districts of Pakistan as of the 2017 Pakistani census | |
| Official | |
| National | Urdu |
| Regional | Over 70 regional languages |
| Signed | Pakistani Sign Language |
| Keyboard layout | |
| Part of a series on the |
| Culture of Pakistan |
|---|
| Traditions |
| folklore |
| Sport |
Pakistan is a multilingual country with over 70 languages spoken as first languages. The majority of Pakistan's languages belong to the Indo-Iranian group of the Indo-European language family.
Urdu is the national language and the lingua franca of Pakistan, and while sharing official status with English, it is the preferred and dominant language used for inter-communication between different ethnic groups. Numerous regional languages are spoken as first languages by Pakistan's various ethnolinguistic groups.
According to the 2023 census, languages with more than a million speakers each include Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi, Saraiki, Urdu, Balochi, Hindko, Brahui and the Kohistani languages. The census excludes data from Gilgit Baltistan and Azad Kashmir, therefore Shina and Balti population might not be exact. There are approximately 60 local languages with fewer than a million speakers.