Hindko and Gujari. c - SIL International

Hindko 35
principal second language and Pashto virtually absent. However,
the Balakot respondents seem to have greater access to Urdu and
less dependence on Hindko than Singo Di Garhi residents. A
higher percentage of the Balakot respondents report using Urdu
with speakers of Pashto and Urdu, and a correspondingly lower
percentage use Hindko with them. Some also report using Urdu
in communicating with speakers of Panjabi, which no one reports
in Singo Di Garhi.
It is interesting to note that the Hindko speakers of Balakot
seem to use Urdu more frequently than do those of Singo Di
Garhi. Usually, more frequent use of a second language is linked
to greater proficiency in it. However, differences between
Balakot and Singo Di Garhi in frequency of use — and perhaps
proficiency — do not seem to be explained in terms of differing
levels of education. The percentages of men who have had some
education in Singo di Garhi (61.4 percent) and Balakot (60.7
percent) are almost the same. The median number of years of
education for both groups is between one and five years, and
about 80 percent of the younger (under 30) men of both localities
have had some education.
More than half the Balakot respondents report having
traveled to the following localities:
Mansehra (98%)
Abbottabad (94%)
Rawalpindi (90%)
Peshawar (52%)
The frequent visits to Mansehra and Abbottabad are not
surprising in view of the fact that Balakot residents normally
pass through those towns en route to the Grand Trunk Road and
on to the cities farther south.
Although many respondents (90 percent) report having
visited Rawalpindi, their visits on the whole have been neither
frequent nor prolonged. Of those who have visited Rawalpindi,
about half have visited fewer than ten times and 70 percent have
never stayed as long as one week.