The existence of Pakistan as an Islamic state since the 1956 constitution has led to the large-scale injection of Islam into most aspects of Pakistani culture and everyday life, which has accordingly impacted the historical values and traditions of the Muslim-majority population. Marriages and other major events are significantly impacted by regional differences in culture but generally follow Islamic jurisprudence where required. The national dress of Pakistan is the shalwar kameez, a unisex garment widely-worn,[40][41] and national dress,[42] of Pakistan. When women wear the shalwar-kameez in some regions, they usually wear a long scarf or shawl called a dupatta around the head or neck.[43] The dupatta is also employed as a form of modesty—although it is made of delicate material, it obscures the upper body's contours by passing over the shoulders. For Muslim women, the dupatta is a less stringent alternative to the chador or burqa.
Urdu, or Lashkari (لشکری ),[44] an Indo-Aryan language, is the lingua franca of Pakistan, and while it shares official status with English, it is the preferred and dominant language used for inter-communication between different ethnic groups. It is not believed to be a language affiliated with any ethnicity and its speakers come from various backgrounds.[45][46] Although Indo-Aryan in classification, its exact origins as a language are disputed by scholars.[47] However, despite serving as the country's lingua franca, most Pakistanis speak their ethnic languages and the lingua franca as second. Numerous regional and provincial languages are spoken as native languages by Pakistan's various ethnolinguistic groups, with the Punjabi language having a national plurality as the first language of approximately 45 percent of the total population. Languages with more than a million speakers each include Pashto, Sindhi, Saraiki, Balochi, Brahui, and Hindko. The Pakistani dialect of English is also widely spoken throughout the country, albeit mostly in urban centres such as Islamabad and Karachi.
^"Pakistan - People | Britannica". britannica.com. Retrieved 13 April 2023. With the exception of this educated elite, English is spoken fluently by only a small percentage of the population.
^Singh, Shashank, and Shailendra Singh. "Systematic review of spell-checkers for highly inflectional languages." Artificial Intelligence Review 53.6 (2020): 4051-4092.
^Marsden, Magnus (2005). Living Islam: Muslim Religious Experience in Pakistan's North-West Frontier. Cambridge University Press. p. 37. ISBN978-1-139-44837-6. The village's men and boys largely dress in sombre colours in the loose trousers and long shirt (shalwar kameez) worn across Pakistan. Older men often wear woollen Chitrali caps (pakol), waistcoats and long coats (chugha), made by Chitrali tailors (darzi) who skills are renowned across Pakistan.
^Rait, Satwant Kaur (14 April 2005). Sikh Women In England: Religious, Social and Cultural Beliefs. Trent and Sterling: Trentham Book. p. 68. ISBN978-1-85856-353-4.
^Singh, Shashank, and Shailendra Singh. "Systematic review of spell-checkers for highly inflectional languages". Artificial Intelligence Review 53 (2020): 4051-4092.
^"Year Book 2017-18"(PDF). Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development. Archived from the original(PDF) on 29 August 2019. Retrieved 18 March 2020.
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