Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Languages of Pakistan" in English language version.
The modern, regional Indo-Aryan languages developed from Prakrt, an early 'unrefined' (prakrta) form of Sanskrit, around the close of the first millennium A.D.
The Aryans spoke an Indo-European language sometimes called the Vedic language from which have descended Sanskrit and other Indic languages ... Prakrit was a group of variants which developed alongside Sanskrit.
... a number of their morphophonological and lexical features betray the fact that they are not direct continuations of R̥gvedic Sanskrit, the main base of 'Classical' Sanskrit; rather they descend from dialects which, despite many similarities, were different from R̥gvedic and in some regards even more archaic.
English has been the main language of instruction at the elementary and secondary levels since colonial times. It remains the predominant language of instruction in private schools but has been increasingly replaced with Urdu in public schools. Punjab province, for example, recently announced that it will begin to use Urdu as the exclusive medium of instruction in schools beginning in 2020. Depending on the location and predominantly in rural areas, regional languages are used as well, particularly in elementary education. The language of instruction in higher education is mostly English, but some programs and institutions teach in Urdu.
