Oceans Full of Words…

I am now almost in the final week of my John Speak scholarship. I have been enjoying reading in Urdu a lot of late, perusing literally anything I can get my hands on (discarded flyers, road signs, food packaging…you name it). I find reading in any language a very empowering experience. Often I read something in Urdu that I like; something poetic, grammatically idiosyncratic or eye-catching, and I’ll find an opportunity to slip it into a casual conversation the following day! I sometimes think of a language as an ocean: You can paddle in the shallows, but there’s nothing better to dive in.  It’s vast, it’s rich, it’s bottomless…

Edward Mortimer is spending 10 months in Pakistan studying the Urdu language. Here he recollects his first visit to the commercial capital, the megacity of Karachi.

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