History of Internet

The Internet was the result of some visionary thinking by people in the early 1960s who saw great potential value in allowing computers to share information on research and development in scientific and military fields. J.C.R. Licklider of MIT, first proposed a global network of computers in 1962, and moved over to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in late 1962 to head the work to develop it. Leonard Kleinrock of MIT and later UCLA developed the theory of packet switching, which was to form the basis of Internet connections. Lawrence Roberts of MIT connected a Massachusetts computer with a California computer in 1965 over dial-up telephone lines. It showed the feasibility of wide area networking, but also showed that the telephone line's circuit switching was inadequate. Kleinrock's packet switching theory was confirmed. Roberts moved over to DARPA in 1966 and developed his plan for ARPANET. These visionaries and many more left unnamed here are the real founders of the Internet.
The Internet, then known as ARPANET, was brought online in 1969 under a contract let by the renamed Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) which initially connected four major computers at universities in the southwestern US (UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, UCSB, and the University of Utah). The contract was carried out by BBN of Cambridge, MA under Bob Kahn and went online in December 1969. By June 1970, MIT, Harvard, BBN, and Systems Development Corp (SDC) in Santa Monica, Cal. were added. By January 1971, Stanford, MIT's Lincoln Labs, Carnegie-Mellon, and Case-Western Reserve U were added. In months to come, NASA/Ames, Mitre, Burroughs, RAND, and the U of Illinois plugged in. After that, there were far too many to keep listing here.

The Internet was designed in part to provide a communications network that would work even if some of the sites were destroyed by nuclear attack. If the most direct route was not available, routers would direct traffic around the network via alternate routes.

The early Internet was used by computer experts, engineers, scientists, and librarians. There was nothing friendly about it. There were no home or office personal computers in those days, and anyone who used it, whether a computer professional or an engineer or scientist or librarian, had to learn to use a very complex system.

E-mail was adapted for ARPANET by Ray Tomlinson of BBN in 1972. He picked the @ symbol from the available symbols on his teletype to link the username and address. The telnet protocol, enabling logging on to a remote computer, was published as a Request for Comments (RFC) in 1972. RFC's are a means of sharing developmental work throughout community. The ftp protocol, enabling file transfers between Internet sites, was published as an RFC in 1973, and from then on RFC's were available electronically to anyone who had use of the ftp protocol.

Libraries began automating and networking their catalogs in the late 1960s independent from ARPA. The visionary Frederick G. Kilgour of the Ohio College Library Center (now OCLC, Inc.) led networking of Ohio libraries during the '60s and '70s. In the mid 1970s more regional consortia from New England, the Southwest states, and the Middle Atlantic states, etc., joined with Ohio to form a national, later international, network. Automated catalogs, not very user-friendly at first, became available to the world, first through telnet or the awkward IBM variant TN3270 and only many years later, through the web.

The Internet matured in the 70's as a result of the TCP/IP architecture first proposed by Bob Kahn at BBN and further developed by Kahn and Vint Cerf at Stanford and others throughout the 70's. It was adopted by the Defense Department in 1980 replacing the earlier Network Control Protocol (NCP) and universally adopted by 1983.

The Unix to Unix Copy Protocol (UUCP) was invented in 1978 at Bell Labs. Usenet was started in 1979 based on UUCP. Newsgroups, which are discussion groups focusing on a topic, followed, providing a means of exchanging information throughout the world . While Usenet is not considered as part of the Internet, since it does not share the use of TCP/IP, it linked unix systems around the world, and many Internet sites took advantage of the availability of newsgroups. It was a significant part of the community building that took place on the networks.

Similarly, BITNET (Because It's Time Network) connected IBM mainframes around the educational community and the world to provide mail services beginning in 1981. Listserv software was developed for this network and later others. Gateways were developed to connect BITNET with the Internet and allowed exchange of e-mail, particularly for e-mail discussion lists. These listservs and other forms of e-mail discussion lists formed another major element in the community building that was taking place.

In 1986, the National Science Foundation funded NSFNet as a cross country 56 Kbps backbone for the Internet. They maintained their sponsorship for nearly a decade, setting rules for its non-commercial government and research uses.

As the commands for e-mail, FTP, and telnet were standardized, it became a lot easier for non-technical people to learn to use the nets. It was not easy by today's standards by any means, but it did open up use of the Internet to many more people in universities in particular. Other departments besides the libraries, computer, physics, and engineering departments found ways to make good use of the nets--to communicate with colleagues around the world and to share files and resources.

While the number of sites on the Internet was small, it was fairly easy to keep track of the resources of interest that were available. But as more and more universities and organizations--and their libraries-- connected, the Internet became harder and harder to track. There was more and more need for tools to index the resources that were available.

The first effort, other than library catalogs, to index the Internet was created in 1989, as Peter Deutsch and his crew at McGill University in Montreal, created an archiver for ftp sites, which they named Archie. This software would periodically reach out to all known openly available ftp sites, list their files, and build a searchable index of the software. The commands to search Archie were unix commands, and it took some knowledge of unix to use it to its full capability.

At about the same time, Brewster Kahle, then at Thinking Machines, Corp. developed his Wide Area Information Server (WAIS), which would index the full text of files in a database and allow searches of the files. There were several versions with varying degrees of complexity and capability developed, but the simplest of these were made available to everyone on the nets. At its peak, Thinking Machines maintained pointers to over 600 databases around the world which had been indexed by WAIS. They included such things as the full set of Usenet Frequently Asked Questions files, the full documentation of working papers such as RFC's by those developing the Internet's standards, and much more. Like Archie, its interface was far from intuitive, and it took some effort to learn to use it well.

Peter Scott of the University of Saskatchewan, recognizing the need to bring together information about all the telnet-accessible library catalogs on the web, as well as other telnet resources, brought out his Hytelnet catalog in 1990. It gave a single place to get information about library catalogs and other telnet resources and how to use them. He maintained it for years, and added HyWebCat in 1997 to provide information on web-based catalogs.

In 1991, the first really friendly interface to the Internet was developed at the University of Minnesota. The University wanted to develop a simple menu system to access files and information on campus through their local network. A debate followed between mainframe adherents and those who believed in smaller systems with client-server architecture. The mainframe adherents "won" the debate initially, but since the client-server advocates said they could put up a prototype very quickly, they were given the go-ahead to do a demonstration system. The demonstration system was called a gopher after the U of Minnesota mascot--the golden gopher. The gopher proved to be very prolific, and within a few years there were over 10,000 gophers around the world. It takes no knowledge of unix or computer architecture to use. In a gopher system, you type or click on a number to select the menu selection you want.

Gopher's usability was enhanced much more when the University of Nevada at Reno developed the VERONICA searchable index of gopher menus. It was purported to be an acronym for Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Netwide Index to Computerized Archives. A spider crawled gopher menus around the world, collecting links and retrieving them for the index. It was so popular that it was very hard to connect to, even though a number of other VERONICA sites were developed to ease the load. Similar indexing software was developed for single sites, called JUGHEAD (Jonzy's Universal Gopher Hierarchy Excavation And Display).

In 1989 another significant event took place in making the nets easier to use. Tim Berners-Lee and others at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, more popularly known as CERN, proposed a new protocol for information distribution. This protocol, which became the World Wide Web in 1991, was based on hypertext--a system of embedding links in text to link to other text, which you have been using every time you selected a text link while reading these pages. Although started before gopher, it was slower to develop.

The development in 1993 of the graphical browser Mosaic by Marc Andreessen and his team at the National Center For Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) gave the protocol its big boost. Later, Andreessen moved to become the brains behind Netscape Corp., which produced the most successful graphical type of browser and server until Microsoft declared war and developed its MicroSoft Internet Explorer.

Since the Internet was initially funded by the government, it was originally limited to research, education, and government uses. Commercial uses were prohibited unless they directly served the goals of research and education. This policy continued until the early 90's, when independent commercial networks began to grow. It then became possible to route traffic across the country from one commercial site to another without passing through the government funded NSFNet Internet backbone.

Delphi was the first national commercial online service to offer Internet access to its subscribers. It opened up an email connection in July 1992 and full Internet service in November 1992. All pretenses of limitations on commercial use disappeared in May 1995 when the National Science Foundation ended its sponsorship of the Internet backbone, and all traffic relied on commercial networks. AOL, Prodigy, and CompuServe came online. Since commercial usage was so widespread by this time and educational institutions had been paying their own way for some time, the loss of NSF funding had no appreciable effect on costs.

Today, NSF funding has moved beyond supporting the backbone and higher educational institutions to building the K-12 and local public library accesses on the one hand, and the research on the massive high volume connections on the other.

Microsoft's full scale entry into the browser, server, and Internet Service Provider market completed the major shift over to a commercially based Internet. The release of Windows 98 in June 1998 with the Microsoft browser well integrated into the desktop shows Bill Gates' determination to capitalize on the enormous growth of the Internet. Microsoft's success over the past few years has brought court challenges to their dominance. We'll leave it up to you whether you think these battles should be played out in the courts or the marketplace.

During this period of enormous growth, businesses entering the Internet arena scrambled to find economic models that work. Free services supported by advertising shifted some of the direct costs away from the consumer--temporarily. Services such as Delphi offered free web pages, chat rooms, and message boards for community building. Online sales have grown rapidly for such products as books and music CDs and computers, but the profit margins are slim when price comparisons are so easy, and public trust in online security is still shaky. Business models that have worked well are portal sites, that try to provide everything for everybody, and live auctions. AOL's acquisition of Time-Warner was the largest merger in history when it took place and shows the enormous growth of Internet business! The stock market has had a rocky ride, swooping up and down as the new technology companies, the dot.com's encountered good news and bad. The decline in advertising income spelled doom for many dot.coms, and a major shakeout and search for better business models took place by the survivors.

A current trend with major implications for the future is the growth of high speed connections. 56K modems and the providers who supported them spread widely for a while, but this is the low end now. 56K is not fast enough to carry multimedia, such as sound and video except in low quality. But new technologies many times faster, such as cablemodems and digital subscriber lines (DSL) are predominant now.

Wireless has grown rapidly in the past few years, and travellers search for the wi-fi "hot spots" where they can connect while they are away from the home or office. Many airports, coffee bars, hotels and motels now routinely provide these services, some for a fee and some for free.

A next big growth area is the surge towards universal wireless access, where almost everywhere is a "hot spot". Municipal wi-fi or city-wide access, wiMAX offering broader ranges than wi-fi, EV-DO, 4g, and other formats will joust for dominance in the USA in the years ahead. The battle is both economic and political.

Another trend that is rapidly affecting web designers is the growth of smaller devices to connect to the Internet. Small tablets, pocket PCs, smart phones, ebooks, game machines, and even GPS devices are now capable of tapping into the web on the go, and many web pages are not designed to work on that scale.

As the Internet has become ubiquitous, faster, and increasingly accessible to non-technical communities, social networking and collaborative services have grown rapidly, enabling people to communicate and share interests in many more ways. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, YouTube, Flickr, Second Life, delicious, blogs, wikis, and many more let people of all ages rapidly share their interests of the moment with others everywhere.

History of the Pashtuns

History of the Pakhtuns or Pashtuns/Pathans goes back many thousands of years. Very little is written by Pakhtuns themselves and most of what is written has been from the past century or so. Below you will find articles on the history of Pakhtuns or Pashtuns.

Ghani Khan had written a little skittish poem about Pathans, that depicts there temprament given below:

The great potmaker of fate was sitting in heaven.
This great potter of fate was making a donkey,
when the order came to make a Khan.
So the potter cut off its tail and sculpted its ears,
on its forehead he put a spot of temper
and in the donkeys brain he put the disease
of being ahead of everyone, being a leader, and
then he put a beautiful turban on his head and
shooed him towards the world.

ORIGIN OF THE PATHANS

ETHNOLOGY:

Different hypotheses have been suggested about the origin of the Pukhtoons. Khawaja Niamatullah describes them as descendants of Jews, connecting them with the lost ten tribes of Israel. This theory of the Semitic origin of the Pukhtoons has been supported by some Pukhtoon writers, including Hafiz Rahmat Khan, Afzal Khan Khattak and Qazi Attaullah Khan. A number of orientalists like H.W. Bellew, Sir William Jones and Major Raverty have also subscribed to this view on the basis of Pukhtoon physiogonomy, and the striking resemblance of facial features between Pukhtoons and Jews. They believe that the prevalence of biblical names, certain customs and superstitions, especially smearing of the door post and walls of the house with blood of sacrificial animals, further substantiates this theory. But these presumptions do not hold good in view of the fact that resemblance in features and certain characteristics do not provide a scientific criterion for the ethnology of a race or a section of people. This can equally be said about the Kashmiris and certain other tribes who can hardly be distinguished from Pukhtoons in physique, colour and complexion. Similarly a scrutiny of the social institutions of the Arabs of the Middle Ages and present day Pukhtoons would lead one to believe that Pukhtoons are not different from them in their social organisation.

Syed Bahadur Shah Zafar Kaka Khel in his well written book "PUKHTANA" and Sir Olaf Caroe in his book "The Pathans" place little reliance on Niamatullah's theory of the Semitic origin of the Pukhtoons and say that his account of the Pukhtoons suffers from historical inaccuracies. To disprove the assertion that the Pukhtoon tribes had embraced Islam en-bloc after the return of Qais Abdul Rashid from Medina, the accounts of Al-Beruni and Al-Utbi, the contemporary historians of Mahmud of Ghazna, establish "that four centuries later than the time of Qais the Province of Kabul had not been Islamized and this was achieved under the Ghaznavides. The Hindu Shahiya Kingdom of Jaipal extended almost to Kabul, Mahmud had to fight against infidel Afghans of the Sulaiman mountains". Even Prithvi Raj had a cavalry of Afghans in the battle of Tarian against Mohammad Ghori. Other writers, after a careful examination of the physical anthropology of the Pukhtoons say that difference in features of the various Pukhtoons point to the fact that they must have "mingled with races who passed through their territory to conquer Hindustan".

Khawaja Niamatullah's theory has further been put to a serious test by prominent linguists who maintain that Pushto bears no resemblance to Hebrew or other Aramaic languages and the Pukhtoons' language, Pashto, belongs to the family of the Eastern group of Iranian languages. Mr. Ahmad Ali Kohzad and some other Afghan historians, lending support to the Aryan origin of the Pukhtoons, say that the Pakhat of the Rig Veda are the Pukhtoons of today. It is a fact that the North West Frontier of Pakistan has, perhaps been involved with more foreign invasions in the course of history than any other country of Asia. Each horde seems to have left its mark on the Pukhtoons who absorbed the traits of invading forces, "predominantly of Turks, Iranians and Mongols".

According to Khawaja Niamatullah the Pukhtoons embraced Islam in the first quarter of the 7th century when the Holy Prophet (Peace be upon him) sent his emissaries in all directions to invite the people to the fold of Islam. One such messenger is stated to have been sent to Qais Abdur Rashid, who is claimed to be the ancestor of the Pukhtoons, through Khalid bin Walid. In response to Khalid's invitation, Qais hurried to the Holy land and as a result of the sublime teachings of the Holy Prophet (Peace be upon him) embraced Islam in Medina. After his return to Ghore, his whole tribe followed him in the Muslim faith. But due to weak evidence, missing links and wide gaps this theory has aroused suspicion in the minds of scholars.

If the origin of a race can be determined on the basis of customs and traditions then Pukhtoon would be closer to Arabs. The study of Arabian and Pukhtoon society presents a remarkable resemblance particularly in their tribal organisation and social usages. Both possess the same virtues and characteristics. To both hospitality is one of the finest virtues, retribution a sacred duty and bravery an essential pre-requisite for an honourable life. Love of independence, courage, endurance, hospitality and revenge were the supreme virtues of pre-Islamic Arabs. These very attributes also form the basis of the Pukhtoon code of honour and anyone who repudiates them is looked down by the society. A Pukhtoon is nearer to an Arab in his tribal organisation. Like an Arab tent, every Pukhtoon's house represents a family, an encampment of Arab tents forms a hay and a cluster of a few houses constitute a village in tribal areas. Members of one hay form a clan in Arabia and a Khel (which is an Arabic word meaning association or company) is the basis of the Pukhtoon's tribal organisation. A number of kindred clans grouped together make a qabila in Arabia and a tribe in the Pukhtoon borderland. Even the Pashto script resembles the Arabic script in essence. The Arabs held in great esteem four moral virtues, viz Ziyafah or hospitality hamasah or fortitude, muruah or manliness and courage and ird or honour.

The Pathans are brave, courageous, hospitable and generous and these attributes are considered as pillars of the Pukhtoon code of honour or Pukhtoonwali. The Pathans like the Arabs also believe in fire and sword for all their adversaries. This was the reason that they fought tooth and nail against the non-Muslim rulers of the sub-continent whether Sikhs or Feringi as the Britishers were called.

The position of a tribal Malik who plays an important role in tribal politics is similar to that of an Arabian Sheikh. The qualifications of a tribal Malik, such as seniority in age, qualities of head and heart and character as courage, wisdom and sagacity etc. are not different from an Arab Sheikh. Like a Sheikh, a tribal Malik follows the consensus of opinion. He is required to consult the heads of the families or village council while making any decision with regard to future relations with a village or tribe. Darun Nadwa was the centre of activity of the pre-Islamic Arabs and the Pukhtoons' Hujra is also not different from it in its functions. All matters relating to war, peace, future relations with neighbouring tribes and day to day problems used to be discussed in Darun Nadwa. Similarly, all tribal affairs connected with the tribe are discussed in the Hujra.

Hospitality is one of the sublime features of the Pukhtoons and pre-Islamic Arabs were also renowned for their hospitality and for affording asylum to strangers. They would share the last crumb of their bread with a guest and protect him from all harm so long as he was under their roof. Similarly, Pukhtoons regard hospitality as a "sacred duty and safety of the guest as inviolable". It is a serious violation of their established norms to hurt a man who enters their village as a guest. In the pre-independence days they provided asylum to all and sundry, including the proclaimed offenders wanted by the British Government in cases of a criminal nature in the settled districts. Similarly the Arabs the right of asylum considered sacred and was rigidly respected regardless of the crime of the refugee.

The spirit of revenge of the Pukhtoons is not different from that of the Arabs. Blood according to the law of the desert called for blood and no chastisement could satisfy an Arab other than wreaking vengeance on his enemy. Similarly, the hills of the Pukhtoon highlanders vibrate with echoes of retribution till the insult is avenged. As a matter of fact, the society of both the Arabs and the Pukhtoons is inspired by a strong feeling of muruwwa, virility or a quality to defend one's honour (ird). There are several anecdotes of revenge resulting in long blood feuds for generations. The Basus war between Banu Bakr and Banu Taghlib in Arabia lasted for about 40 years whereas tribal disputes between Gar and Samil factions of the Pukhtoons continued for decades. Pukhtoons like Arabs are conscious of their racial superiority. An Arab would boast of being a Quraish and a Pukhtoon would assert his superiority by saying, Am I not a Pukhtoon"?

The customs regarding giving protection to weaker neighbours is also common between Arabs and Pukhtoons. A weaker tribe in Arabia would seek the protection of a powerful tribe by means of Khuwah and a weaker Pukhtoon tribe would ensure its security by offering "Lokhay" to its strong neighbouring tribe. The custom of "Lokhay Warkawal" is still prevalent among Afridi and Orakzai tribes of Tirah. A similarity can also be found in their customs relating to birth, marriage and death etc. Certain superstitions are also common between the Arabs and the Pukhtoons. Both believe in all kinds of invisible beings, wear amulets as a safeguard against the evil eye and believe in sooth sayers and fortune tellers.

Struggle for Freedom

When Sindh and Multan were conquered by the Muslim army under the inspiring leadership of the young General Mohammad bin Qasim, in 711 A.D. this part of the South Asian Sub-Continent was still ruled by a Hindu Shahi dynasty. Subaktagin was the first Muslim ruler who crossed swords with Jaipal, a powerful ruler of the Hindu Shahi dynasty in 997. Later, the Muslims under the command of his illustrious son Mahmud of Ghazna invaded the sub-continent as many as seventeen times and fought fierce battles against Jaipal, his son Anandpal and other Hindu rulers and Rajas of Northern India. He was followed by Shahabud Din Mohammad Ghori, Qutb-ud-Din Aibak and other sultans and finally the great Mughals who ruled the sub-continent for centuries. Things, however, began to change after the death of Aurangzeb Alamgir, the last powerful ruler of the Mughal dynasty. The internal disputes, court intrigues and feuds of rival factions weakened the Mughal Central Government and the centrifugal tendencies of the Mughal Governors sounded the death knell of the mighty Mughal Empire.

The way was thus paved for the rise of Ranjit Singh, who eventually extended his military sway from Lahore upto the foothills of Khyber in the first quarter of the 19th century. The Sikh advance was, however, checked by the tribesmen who did not allow them to encroach upon their independence. The Pukhtoons fought several battles against them and finally measured their strength of arms with the militant Sikhs in a battle fought within the environs of Jamrud in 1837. In this pitched battle the Sikhs sustained heavy casualties. It was here that their famous General Hari Singh Nalwa, was killed.

Twelve years later the superior and disciplined forces of the British defeated the Sikhs in successive battles and annexed the whole of the territory beyond the Indus river and ruled over the North West Frontier for about a century.

The Pukhtoons resisted violently all attempts by the British to subjugate or turn them into docile and obedient members of an enslaved community. They offered stubborn resistance to the British forces and Inspite of their meager means and resources, the Pukhtoons carried on an un-ending war against them for the preservation of their liberty. The British, proud of their glory and might, sent about one hundred expeditions one after the other against the Pukhtoons to subdue them by force but they did not yield to the enemy's military might. According to Col. H.C. Wylly 62 military expeditions were despatched against the tribesmen between 1849-1908, besides every day small skirmishes. These included the famous Ambela campaign 1863, the Black Mountain expedition 1868, the Miranzai expedition 1891, the Hassanzai expedition 1894, the Dir and Chitral expedition 1895, the Tirah campaign 1897, and the Mahsud-Waziri expeditions 1897. As a result of this aggressive policy the whole frontier, from Malakand to Waziristan, flared up in revolt against the British in 1897.

The frontier rising of 1897 engaged about 98000 trained and well equipped British Indian forces in a grim struggle. According to Col. H.D. Hutchison, the approximate strength of the Tirah expeditionary force alone was "1010 British Officers, 10,882 British troops, 491 native officers, 22,123 native troops, 197 hospital Assistants, 179 clerks, 19,558 followers, 8000 horses, 18,384 mules and ponies and 1440 hospital riding ponies". But to these figures, he says, "must be added an enormous number of camels, carts, ponies etc working on the long line of communication with Kohat and gradually brought into use as needs increased and the roads were improved". The British forces suffered 1150 casualties during the Tirah expedition. Similar was the fate of other expeditions as well. The operations against Mohmand in 1915-16, and Wazirs and Mahsuds between 1917-1920 and 1936 Waziri campaign also deserves special mention. In 1917 an arduous campaign was undertaken against the Mahsuds and an aeroplane was made use of for the first time in Waziristan. In 1936 the dales and mountains of Waziristan resounded with the echoes of Jehad. The main cause of the war was the marriage of Islam Bibi (a Hindu Girl of Bannu who was named Islam Bibi after conversion to Islam) with a Muslim. She was later on returned to her parents in accordance with the decision of the British law court. The Government sent over 30,000 well equipped army to curb the activities of the tribal lashkars in Waziristan but it met with no or little success. "By December 1937", says Authur Swinson, "when the 40,000 British and Indian troops pulled back on Peshawar, the situation was no better than it had been in January, and in 1938 more fighting was to ensue." The expenditure on the Frontier war and "the burden on the Indian tax payer was enormous and between 1924 and 1939 it totalled 11,2000,000 pounds". But the long range heavy guns and air bombardment did not dishearten the tribesmen and they continued their intermittent struggle against an imperialist power till the dawn of Independence. "Throughout the hundred and odd years of the British rule over the North West Frontier, Waziristan was always one of the most heavily garrisoned areas anywhere in the world. Seething with political unrest and ceaseless guerilla warfare, this was the testing place - the crucible of valour and efficiency for generations of British soldiers, statesmen and civil servants". The British invariably deputed their ablest military and civil officers to serve in these areas which had become the best training ground for the British soldiers. In fact, the British soldiers had never before experienced such tough and arduous life as on the Frontier. This is well reflected from a stanza of Mr. Kipling's "Frontier Arithmetic"

A scrimmage in a Border Station
A center down some dark defile,
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten rupee Jezail

As the freedom movement gained momentum in the Sub-Continent, the tribesmen in general and the Pukhtoons of NWFP in particular rallied round the dynamic leadership of the Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah and under the green banner of the Muslim League for the establishment of an independent Muslim State. They resisted the insidious temptations of the Hindu Congress leaders. They gave vent to their feelings of indignation at the time of Pandat Jawahar Lal Nehru's visit to Khyber, Malakand and North Waziristan Agencies in autumn of 1946. They staged violent demonstrations against the visiting Congress dignitary and the then Head of the Interim Government of India and thereby proved to him their feelings of love for a Muslim state and un-shakeable confidence in the able leadership of the Quaid-e-Azam. Their efforts and sacrifices, in common with the rest of the Mussalmans in the Sub-Continent to carve out a sovereign and independent Islamic State for themselves were ultimately crowned with success. Pakistan, their life-long dream, appeared on the map of the world and as dedicated and patriotic citizens of Pakistan, the tribesmen pledged themselves to stand by the rest of their brethren in defending its integrity and the solidarity of its people.

The Pukhtoon's devotion to Pakistan - their homeland, was warmly appreciated by the Quaid-e-Azam, who as the first Governor General of Pakistan ordered a complete immediate withdrawal of all troops from tribal areas hitherto stationed by an alien Government. The so called ferocious warriors turned in no time into peaceful citizens as if by a magic wand, passionately interested in their own progress and the well being of Pakistan. The governance of the tribal belt is no longer a problem for Pakistan; on the contrary the government is actively associating tribesmen in the progress and prosperity of the country. It is one of the cherished goals of the Pakistan Government to work for the socio-economic uplift of the tribesmen who had been deliberately ignored by alien rulers. A number of public utility schemes aiming at socio-economic, educational and industrial uplift have already been completed while many more are being speedily implemented.

The tribal area which was at one time a scene of wild affrays is now completely peaceful. "At present", says Ian Stephens, "the irritant of the infidel British regime having withdrawn itself, the Frontier is remarkably peaceful. During journeys, since the withdrawal, along the Pakistan side of it, in 1948, 1951 and again this year (1961), I have been amazed by the change. Within my extensive zone of travel there were no hostilities, actual or apprehended between the Frontier Corps or the Army or tribal lashkars, as in former days. Nor did I see the least sign of Pukhtoonistan activities". A similar opinion has been expressed by Mr. H.C. Taussig in the `Eastern World'. "There is no doubt" he say "that the situation has vastly improved, at least in some areas which it was unsafe to travel by day and impossible by night, I was able to move freely without escort, at any time".

Appreciating the pace of development in tribal areas in the wake of peaceful conditions the world famous historian, Professor Arnold J. Toynbee says "Pakistan does pursue a forward policy on the frontier and a vigorous one, but its key instruments are not weapons of war, they are dispensaries, schools, sports, and, above all, economic development. This last instrument is supremely important, because it gives the tribesmen opportunities for finding alternate means of livelihood to the raiding which has been their traditional recourse". The improvement in communications has revolutionized the means of transportation as well. THE camels and donkeys are gradually being replaced by motorized conveyances. "In this northern world round Peshawar", says Professor Toynbee, "times are changing. Not so long ago the traveller through the Khyber Pass had to pay tribute to the Afridis, or it would be the worse for him. Passing emperors have defied the Afridis and have lived or sometimes not lived to regret it. Today we can travel through the pass and back by the Afridi Bus Service and the tribute has turned into a fare. In old days a tribe used to measure its strength by the number of its rifles. Today it measures it by the number of its buses and lorries".

Sources of Income

The Pukhtoons are chiefly employed in agriculture but their agricultural pursuits are limited owing to the lack of culturable land. The patches of cultivable land in hilly tracts and some open valleys do not produce sufficient food-grains to meet their food requirements. In addition to tilling the available land, tribesmen tend cattle, including herds of goats and sheep, camels and cows.

If, on the one hand, the tribesmen were economically dependent on the British, on the other, all kinds of trade in tribal areas had been monopolized by Hindus and Sikhs. They had opened shops in the centrally located places and big villages and every tribesman was their customer. A large number of tribesmen would go to Bombay in search of employment while others would join the Border Military Police (later called the Frontier Constabulary) and the army. Certain sections of the tribesmen would sell firewood and timber to the people of the cities, while others took up some other petty trade. But among the tribesmen, the Adam Khel Afridis of the Kohat Pass had a flare for trade. They were traders and carriers of salt at the time of the advent of the British in the frontier. They used to carry salt from the mines of Kohat District to Swat, Bajaur and other parts of the NWFP.

They also engaged themselves in a thriving and lucrative arms trade and later started manufacturing fire-arms in their factories. Other tribesmen emulated their example and set up arms factories at Illam Gudar (Khyber Agency), Nawagai (Bajaur Agency) and Kaniguram (South Waziristan Agency). The Adam Khel Afridis of the Kohat Pass showed the most extraordinary ingenuity in devising, making and installing different kinds of indigenous machines for turning out various component parts of rifles. In the beginning of the 20th century there were about half a dozen workshops in Darra but later this industry rapidly expanded to every glen and village. They were also famous gun runners and carried on arms trade with the Persian Gulf countries. In this way they supplemented the arms pile of the tribesmen and furnished them with the latest weapons at reasonable rates. At present the Adam Khel Afridis are producing such fine specimen of revolvers, pistols and rifles with their crude implements that they can hardly be distinguished from those of European-make. It can be confidently said that nowhere in the world has a similar feat been performed by un-educated men with no training or experience of mass production methods.

The arms manufacturing industry was the main source of the Afridis' income during the British rule. But conditions have changed considerably since the creation of Pakistan. The increased interest of the national Government in the welfare of the tribesmen and the growing communication and interaction between the tribesmen and the people of other parts of Pakistan, have revolutionized their socio-economic life. Soon after Independence the Pakistan Government launched a number of schemes of public utility in the tribal areas to ameliorate the lot of the people, provide them with amenities of life, increase employment opportunities and make them equal partners in progress and prosperity. The Government provided them with every incentive to take to respectable pursuits. As a result of this encouragement, the tribesmen took to commerce and soon commercial centres sprang up at Sakha Kot, Batkhela (Malakand Agency), Yekka Ghund (Mohmand Agency), Bara, Jamrud and Landi Kotal (Khyber Agency), Parachinar, Sadda (Kurram Agency), Miran Shah (North Waziristan Agency), Wana (South Waziristan Agency) and Darra Adam Khel (Frontier Region Kohat) where business transactions of hundreds and thousands of rupees are made every day.

While millions of rupees were being spent by the British on the highways to subjugate the tribesmen, nothing substantial was spent on the improvement of their social condition. But the Pakistan Government, fully aware of the problems of tribesmen, embarked upon a programme to combat illiteracy, want, misery and disease. The Quaid-d-Azam took a keen interest in the development of the tribal areas. Addressing a historic tribal gathering at Peshawar, the Founder of Pakistan declared "Pakistan wants to help you and make you as far as it lies in our power, self reliant and self sufficient and to help your educational, social and economic uplift and not to be left as you are, depending on annual doles". The Government opened the doors of employment to tribesmen in all spheres of national life. Quotas were allocated for the tribal candidates in the services, and a relaxation of three years was allowed to them in the age limit prescribed for various services. The Frontier Constabulary and Frontier Corps are now almost mainly manned by tribesmen and a respectable share of employment has also been given to them in the regular Armed Forces and other services. This liberal policy has solved their economic problems to a considerable extent. Nowadays scores of tribesmen are engaged in business, trade, commerce, Government and private services and other respectable professions and are serving the country with a spirit of devotion and dedication. In short the tribesmen from Bajaur to Waziristan, with their energy and inherent spirit of enterprise, are forging ahead in every activity of life.

History OF Pashto

According to attainable documents, the Pakhto language has been spoken for the last two thousand five hundred years. As the prominent Afghan researcher Abdul Hai Habibi stated, it is a proven fact that Pakhto was spoken some two thousand five hundred years ago. According to the Pata Khazana adopted from “Larghonai Tariekh” as well as the Tarikh-e Suris and their predecessors spoke Pakhto.

Before and since the rise of Islam, numerous volumes of political, social and ethical literatures were produced in Pakhto. The socio-political poem of Amir Kuror Jehan Pahlawan around 139 Hejira, indicates his maturity of the Pakhto poetry. The background of Pakhto poetry was then some five hundred years old. This shows that people were writing Pakhto poetry in the first century AD. There were many literary works written in Pakhto before the 12th century. It is important to mention that the Islamic conquerors destroyed most of these literary works in the early years. The famous Pata Khazana encyclopedia shows the growth of Pakhto language and culture. The migration of Pakhtana in different directions and their acquaintance with other cultures and societies forced them to learn reading and writing and therefore literacy became part of their daily life.

History Of French Lanuage

French

French, as it is spoken today by a vast Francophone population, began to become standardized with Charlemagne’s conquest of the Gauls and Franks in the 16th Century. The history of the modern French language in France emerged with the combination of Latin and Provençal. Keep reading to learn more.

French Language

French is used as the official language of 22 countries and is the co-official language of several others, including Belgium, Canada, Haiti, Madagascar, and Switzerland. It is spoken as a first language by 51 million people in France and Corsica; in Canada by 7.2 million; in Belgium by 3.3 million; in Switzerland by 1.2 million; in Monaco by 17,000; in Italy by 100,000; and in the United States by nearly 2 million (primarily in Maine and Louisiana). In sub-Saharan Africa, some 5 million people (in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Togo, and Zaire) use French as their principal international language, as do additional millions in Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia). In addition, French continues to be spoken as a second language by many people in countries located along the southern and eastern rim of the Mediterranean that were once French colonies or territories (notably Algeria. Morocco, and Lebanon).

History of French Language

Modern French belongs to the group of so-called “Romance” languages. Descended from Latin, these languages may be said to represent living shadows of the ancient Roman empire, reflecting the divergent histories of regions formerly unified under Roman rule.

The source of modern French (and of the other Romance languages) was a spoken, popular version of the Latin tongue that was spread abroad by conquering Roman legions – namely, in the case of French, to so-called “Transalpine Gaul” by the armies of Julius Caesar during the century that preceded the birth of Christ.

The invasion of Gaul in the 400’s AD by Germanic tribes (including the so-called “Franks”) fleeing nomadic attackers from central Asia resulted in a loss of military control by Rome and led to the establishment in of a new, Frankish ruling class whose mother tongue was, of course, not Latin. Their adaptation to the speaking of popular Latin by the indigenous population tended to impose, by authoritative example, a pronunciation that retained a marked Germanic flavor – notably in the vowel sounds that can still be heard in the French of the present day (the modern French “u” and “eu”, for instance, remain very close to the modern German “ü” and “ö”– sounds unknown to any other modern language descended from Latin).

The changes in grammar gradually made it harder and harder for speakers of the current language to understand the Latin language still used in Christian religious services and in legal documents. As a result, a written codification of the evolving spoken language was found necessary for current legal and political use. The earliest written documents in a distinctly “French” (“Francien”, from “Frankish”) language are the so-called “Oaths of Strasbourg”, sworn by two of Charlemagne’s grandsons in 842 AD

This “French” language was in fact one of a number of different languages descended from Latin that were spoken in various parts of post-Roman Gaul. Others included notably the so-called “Provençal” language (or “langue d’oc”), spoken in much of the southern half of what is today metropolitan France. However the so-called “French” language gained a special status resulting from its association with the dominant feudal military power – namely the court of Charlemagne and his successors – whose territorial reach and effective control of French life grew over time.

The return of the French court to Paris – after its move to Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) under Charlemagne -- and the ultimate success of its armies against the Anglo-Norman occupiers of major parts of northern and southwestern France, led to a territorial consolidation that guaranteed the future position of “French” as the official language of a centralized monarchy (later nation-state). French was so established by the Edict of Villers-Cotterêts in the year 1539.

The poetic fertility of medieval Provençal, meanwhile, which had far surpassed that of French, in the so-called “Troubadour” period, now gave way to the literary productivity of the language of the central court and central institutions of justice and learning – the language of Paris and the surrounding Ile-de-France region.

The grammar of the French language spoken and written today is in its essentials unchanged from the late 17th century, when official efforts to standardize, stabilize, and clarify French grammatical usage were institutionalized in the French Academy. The purpose of this standardization was political: to facilitate the extension of the court’s influence and to smooth the processes of law, administration, and commerce throughout and even beyond the territory of France, as colonial ventures (as far away as India and Louisiana) opened new theaters of imperial growth.

Even today, after the decline of French imperial influence, post-World War II, French remains the second language of a vast “Francophone” population extending far beyond France’s remaining overseas territories and dependencies (French Guiana, Martinique, Guadeloupe, St.-Pierre and Miquelon, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Tahiti, Seychelles, Mauritius, and Réunion Island).

French in Canada

The French spoken in Canada today, principally in the Province of Quebec,differs from standard modern French as a consequence of Quebec’s political isolation from France after the defeat of French colonial armies by British forces in the Battle of Montreal during the so-called French and Indian War (also called the Seven Years’ War) (1756-1763).

The influence of English on the vocabulary and syntax of Québecquois French has been massive, especially since the introduction of radio and television. Pronunciation differences relative to Parisian French are explained also by the primarily French-Atlantic-coastal origins (largely rural) of many of the 17th-century French colonists of Quebec, whose mother tongue was a non-Parisian dialect of French.

Bilingualism in Canada

Canada is the only country in North America to have two official languages: English and French. Canada is a vast territory that can be divided into two national communities: one a majority accustomed to seeing English as the country’s predominant and usual language, the other, a minority located in Québec and parts of Ontario and New Brunswick that have recently begun to use French as their first language.

The Constitution of Canada has enshrined English and French as Canada’s official languages since 1982, but this declaration is only valid for the federal government and its divisions. The ten provinces and three territories of Canada are free to grant French or English the status of an official language, or not to do so. The only province that has granted equal status to both languages is New Brunswick. Since Canada was created in 1867, the Constitution has made Québec subject to certain obligations regarding bilingualism: it must adopt its laws in French and in English and guarantee parliament, judges, litigants, and parties to a legal proceeding with the use of the two languages. Because of these stipulations in the Constitution, Québec could not become a unilingual French province in 1974 when the Liberal government of Robert Bourassa made French the official language of Québec.

In Canada both languages are not equal and symmetrical. Outside of Québec, French is the language of the minority. It is only in Ontario and New Brunswick that Francophiles (Canadians whose first language is French) form large communities. In these provinces French is the dominant language in social settings including education, health services and culture. There is bilingualism in federal institutions across the country: government services, postal services, airports, etc. -but only 30% of federal public servants are bilingual and most of them work in the Ottawa region, the federal capital. By law all official and advertising documents must be published in both French and English.

There has been a highly publicized language dispute between the English and the French for many centuries. It all began in 1760, when the colony of New France (now known as Québec) was taken over by the British. The final ceding of New France to the British crown in 1763 put an end to two and a half centuries of French dominance in Canada. Over sixty thousand French inhabitants found themselves subject to the British Crown, a foreign language, religion, and a new legal system. At the conclusion of the Seven Years war, tensions between the Francophiles of Quebec, Ontario, and New Brunswick, and the majority Anglophiles periodically lead to conflict in the social arena.

French in Haiti

French is used in Haiti as one of its official languages and as the language of higher education. The popular language spoken in Haiti is a so-called “creole” (a term derived from the Spanish word criolla denoting a person “born in the colonies”). The creole of Haiti is a 17th-century derivative of the language of the French planters who imported captives purchased as slaves from African tribal leaders to work the sugar plantations of France’s then-colony on the island of Hispaniola. The creole represents a grammatically simplified “practical” version of French that arose to fill a need for communication among Afro-Haitians of differing tribal origins whose mother tongues were mutually unintelligible. The pronunciation differences relative to standard French reflect the sounds foreign to French that were present among the African tongues of the original speakers. Haitian creole is today also a written language, and is used as the country�s other official language.

History of the English Language

The history of the English language really started with the arrival of three Germanic tribes who invaded Britain during the 5th century AD. These tribes, the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes, crossed the North Sea from what today is Denmark and northern Germany. At that time the inhabitants of Britain spoke a Celtic language. But most of the Celtic speakers were pushed west and north by the invaders - mainly into what is now Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The Angles came from Englaland and their language was called Englisc - from which the words England and English are derived.

Germanic invaders entered Britain on the east and south coasts in the 5th century.

Old English

The invaders dominated the original Celtic-speaking inhabitants, whose languages survived largely in Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall. The dialects spoken by the invaders formed what is now called Old English. Later, it was strongly influenced by the North Germanic language Norse, spoken by the Vikings who settled mainly in the north-east. The new and the earlier settlers spoke languages from different branches of the Germanic family; many of their lexical roots were the same or similar, although their grammars were more distant, including the prefixes, suffixes and inflections of many of their words. The Germanic language of these Old English inhabitants of Britain was influenced by the contact with Norse invaders, which may have been responsible for some of the morphological simplification of Old English, including loss of grammatical gender and explicitly marked case (with the notable exception of the pronouns). The most famous work from the Old English period is the epic poem "Beowulf", by an unknown poet.

The introduction of Christianity added the first wave of Latin and Greek words to the language.

It has been argued that the Danish contribution continued into the early Middle Ages.

The Old English period ended with the Norman conquest, when the language was influenced, to an even greater extent, by the Norman French-speaking Normans.

The use of Anglo-Saxon to describe a merging of Anglian and Saxon languages and cultures is a relatively modern development. According to Lois Fundis, (Stumpers-L, Fri, 14 Dec 2001) "The first citation for the second definition of 'Anglo-Saxon', referring to early English language or a certain dialect thereof, comes during the reign of Elizabeth I, from a historian named Camden, who seems to be the person most responsible for the term becoming well-known in modern times."

Middle English

For the 300 years following the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Norman kings and the high nobility spoke only a variety of French called Anglo-Norman. English continued to be the language of the common people. While the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle continued until AD 1154, most other literature from this period was in Old French or Latin. A large number of Norman words were assimilated into Old English, with some words doubling for Old English words (for instance, ox/beef, sheep/mutton). The Norman influence reinforced the continual evolution of the language over the following centuries, resulting in what is now referred to as Middle English. Among the changes was a broadening in the use of a unique aspect of English grammar, the "continuous" tenses, with the suffix "-ing". English spelling was also influenced by French in this period, with the /θ/ and /ð/ sounds being spelled th rather than with the letters þ and ð, which did not exist in French. During the 15th century, Middle English was transformed by the Great Vowel Shift, the spread of a standardised London-based dialect in government and administration, and the standardising effect of printing. Modern English can be traced back to around the time of William Shakespeare. The most well-known work from the Middle English period is Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.

Various contemporary sources suggest that within fifty years most of the Normans outside the royal court had switched to English, with French remaining the prestige language largely out of social inertia. For example, Orderic Vitalis, a historian born in 1075 and the son of a Norman knight, said that he only learned French as a second language.

English literature starts to reappear circa AD 1200, when a changing political climate, and the decline in Anglo-Norman, made it more respectable. By the end of that century, even the royal court had switched back to English. Anglo-Norman remained in use in specialised circles for a while longer, but it had ceased to be a living language.

Modern English

From the late 15th century, the language changed into Modern English, often dated from the Great Vowel Shift.

English is continuously assimilating foreign words, especially Latin and Greek, causing English to have the largest vocabulary of any language in the world. As there are many words from different languages the risk of mispronunciation is high, but remnants of the older forms remain in a few regional dialects, notably in the West Country.

In 1755 Samuel Johnson published the first significant English dictionary.

American English and other varieties

Also significant beginning around 1600 AD was the English colonization of North America and the subsequent creation of American English. Some pronunciations and usages "froze" when they reached the American shore. In certain respects, some varieties of American English are closer to the English of Shakespeare than modern Standard English ('English English' or as it is often incorrectly termed 'British English') is. Some "Americanisms" are actually originally English English expressions that were preserved in the colonies while lost at home (e.g., fall as a synonym for autumn, trash for rubbish, and loan as a verb instead of lend).

The American dialect also served as the route of introduction for many native American words into the English language. Most often, these were place names like Mississippi, Roanoke, and Iowa. Indian-sounding names like Idaho were sometimes created that had no native-American roots. But, names for other things besides places were also common. Raccoon, tomato, canoe, barbecue, savanna, and hickory have native American roots, although in many cases the original Indian words were mangled almost beyond recognition.

Spanish has also been great influence on American English. Mustang, canyon, ranch, stampede, and vigilante are all examples of Spanish words that made their way into English through the settlement of the American West.

A lesser number of words have entered American English from French and West African languages.

Likewise dialects of English have developed in many of the former colonies of the British Empire. There are distinct forms of the English language spoken in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India and many other parts of the world.