Sindhi Language Authority


Sindhi Language Authority is an autonomous body under the administrative control of the Culture Tourism and Antiquities Department of the Government of Sindh province in Pakistan. SLA was established under the act Use of Sindhi Language Act 1972, and the Teaching, Promotion and Use of Sindhi Language Act, 1990 of Government of Sindh Provincial Assembly. There is a Board of Governors to frame the policies for achieving the aims and objectives of authority and ensure their implementation. First Board of Governors was constituted under the chairmanship of renowned scholar and writer Dr. Nabi Bux Khan Baloch.
Since the establishment of the Sindhi Language Authority, different scholars and writers were appointed as its chairman, who have contributed to the development and promotion of the Sindhi language. The present chairman is Mr. Akbar Laghari.

Objectives

SLA considers ways and means for the promotion, teaching and use of Sindhi. Moreover, it maintains and reinforce the status of the Sindhi language at all levels in the official and semi-official records. SLA also ensures the correct use of Sindhi language in official records, manuals, publications, text books, newspapers, television and radio, periodic publications and other permanent documents.

Organization

Sindhi Language Authority’s organizational structure consists of seven sections for achieving its objectives which are: Publication & Research Section which deals all kinds of books publication, research journals and magazines, Program Sections which arranges day to day planned programs, dramas linguistic seminars and symposiums, Encyclopedia Sindhiana which has vital team of researchers who collects data from all over the Sindh and compile it in alphabetically order and publish it in series of the Encyclopedia, Dictionary Section deals the etymology and compilation of the Sindhi Language thesaurus, Language Development Project section arranges the helping seminars and add-on sittings with Literary and academics departments under the umbrella of Government of Sindh for development & implementing Sindhi Language in institutions, Muhammad Ibrahim Joyo Audio & Video Studio where multimedia programs, interviews and tradition folk literary people of Sindh shares their creative skills poetry and Sindhi Folk wisdom and Abdul-Majid Bhurgri Institute of Sindhi Computing develops web portals of Sindhi Literature & Sindhi programming of digitization in Sindhi Computing.

Activities

The major thrust of the Authority’s activities has been focused on three fronts, Publication, Programs and Sindhi Computing, in order to achieve its basic aims and objectives and bring Sindhi language at far with other developed languages of the world.
On the publication and research front, Encyclopedia Sindhiana, Dictionaries, Classical Sindhi book, books for children research material on Sindhi language and literature Indus script and Indus civilization etc and other different descriptions have been published.
The Program side arranges seminars, symposiums, lectures, training workshops and conferences on various subjects relating to the promotion, teaching and use of Sindhi language. Similarly, “Ibrahim Joyo AV Studio” has prepared significant AV material regarding preservation of dialects and sub- dialects of Sindhi language.
Institute of Sindhi Computing is the youngest section of the Authority. Yet it has achieved progress in Sindhi Computing. It has launched several Android based mobile applications. Moreover Sindhi language has been registered on Microsoft cloud and added Sindhi language in core programming of google. SLA is also the member of Microsoft Partnership Networks.
On 21 February 2017, SLA launched first Sindhi Optical character recognition by the Team leader Amar Fayaz Buriro who was continuously working on this project and finally launched its first beta version.
The authority established Sindhi Dictionary Board for the compilation of dictionary.
The Authority wrote letters to the private schools of the province to teach Sindhi language subject in their schools and it also demanded to write sign boards on the national highways and road in Sindhi.

Sindhi language

is one of the major languages of Pakistan, spoken in the province of Sindh by approximately forty million people. It is one of the oldest languages of the sub-continent with a rich culture, vast folklore and extensive literature.

Linguistic boundaries

Sindhi has extended its boundaries beyond the province of Sindh. In northern Sindh it flows over the north-west into Balochistan province, former Bahawalpur state, on the west it is bounded by the mountain range separating Sindh from Balochistan.
This boundary has not been crossed by Sindhi, except in the southern part of the hilly area of Kohistan. Here in general, the language spoken is Balochi but Sindhi is also spoken by a large number of population. It is spoken as mother tongue in some parts of Balochistan. It has spread its influence still further towards the Persian Gulf in the Lasbella area of Balochistan and is spoken as a first language along with Makrani coast by a large number of people in Jadgal, Gwadar, Ormara and Pasni, and has crossed the Gulf and is spoken in Muskat, UAE and generally in the coastal region.
In the east and south-west, Sindhi has crossed the Rann of Kutch and is spoken by a large number of people in Kucch, Gujarat and the peninsula of Kathiawar in India. In the east, it has influenced the speech of the neighbouring parts of Marwar and Jaisalmir states of Rajasthan.
After the independence of Pakistan, numerous Sindhi Hindus migrated from Sindh and settled in the central and western parts of India and they speak Sindhi at home. In 2010, the estimated population of Sindhi Hindus in Ulhasnagar in India was 400,000. It is also spoken by approximately 400,000 people as their first language, in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Congo, South Africa, Madagascar, East Africa, UK, US and Canada by those who have migrated from Sindh and settled there. It is also spoken in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Sri Lanka and in some other countries in Far-East and South East-Asia by those people who have settled there in the first quarter of the 20th century or even earlier.

List of SLA chairpersons

Since the establishment of Sindhi Language Authority below mentioned Scholars were appointed as chairman whereas Mr. Akbar Laghari is the sitting Chairman.
S #NameFromTo
1Nabi Bux Khan Baloch15 Feb 19916 Mar 1994
2Nawaz Ali Shouq6 Mar 19943 Apr 1995
3Nabi Bux G. Qazi3 Apr 199517 Nov 1996
4Mumtaz Mirza 17 Nov 19966 Jan 1997
5Amar Jaleel7 Jan 19975 May 1997
6Abdul Hameed Memon Sindhi6 May 199722 Jul 1997
7Ghulam Ali Allana22 Jul 19981 Aug 2001
8Mohammad Qasim Bughio1 Aug 200115 Feb 2005
9N.D.Jatoi 16 Feb 200515 Sep 2005
10Abdul Qadir Junejo15 Sep 200510 May 2008
11Fahmida Hussain28 May 200813 March 2015
12Aftab Ahmed Memon 15 March 201514 May 2015
13Sarfaraz Rajar 15 May 201514 Oct 2016
14Dr. Abdul Ghafoor Memon14 Oct 201631 Oct 2018
15Mr. Akbar Laghari 26 Dec 2018up to date

List of SLA Secretaries

Incumbency wise list of Secretaries in Sindhi Language Authority following Scholars, authors & literary figures were appointed as Secretary, whereas Ms. Razia Sultana Aka Shabnam Gul is the now at the position.
S #NameFromTo
1Mr. Murad Ali Mirza1 June 199108 Dec 1991
2Mr. Inayatullah Junijo16 Mar 199230 Nov 1993
3Syed Allah Bux Shah Bukhari12 June 199414 Nov 1996
4Mr. Shahzor Ali Tayyabani 14 Nov 199603 Dec 1996
5Mr. Addul Razzaq Chandio 03 Dec 199628 Sep 1998
6Mr. Taj Joyo28 Sep 199803 Sep 2002
7Mr. Akhter Innayat Bhurgri03 Sep 200214 Oct 2003
8Mr. Majid Burfat29 Apr 200402 Apr 2005
9Mr. Ghullam Nabi Buledi2 May 200511 May 2006
10Mr. Taj Joyo10 Nov 200810 Mar 2015
11Mr. Ayoob Jamali 17 Apr 201526 Jan 2016
12Mr. Haroon Inayat Abbasi 27 Jan 201613 Mar 2018
13Mr. Ameen Laghari 14 Mar 201823 May 2018
14Ms. Razia Sultana Aka Shabnam Gul24 May 2018up to date