SPEAKERS AT THE CENTRE, LANGUAGE AT THE MARGINS: MAJORITARIAN MARGINALITY AND PUNJABI IN PAKISTAN
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Punjabi is Pakistan’s largest mother tongue, reported by 36.98 per cent of the population in the 2023 census, yet it carries little weight in the schooling, examination, administrative and legal domains that confer linguistic authority. This article asks why the political centrality of Punjabi-speaking elites has not produced institutional status for their language. It proposes the concept of majoritarian marginality: a configuration in which the language of a large, politically incorporated group remains institutionally weak. The article argues that centrality contributes to this outcome. Punjabi-speaking elites could exercise power through Urdu and English, while promoting the core group’s language risked confirming charges of Punjabi domination. Institutional non-selection then generates unequal linguistic rewards, to which speakers adapt in ways that reproduce the hierarchy. Drawing on constitutional, legislative and educational documents, census data and sociolinguistic research, the article traces this mechanism and compares Punjabi with Bengali, Sindhi, Pashto, Balochi, Brahui, Hindko, Saraiki and Punjabi in Indian Punjab. Language mobilisation tracks speakers’ political position more closely than their numbers, although durable institutional status also depends on provincial capacity. The findings suggest that linguistic power depends less on how many people speak a language than on whether power is exercised through it.
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