Misplaced Pages

Part of a series on
Punjabis
History Folklore Language Dialects Punjab Punjabis Nationalism
DiasporaAsia Afghanistan Europe United Kingdom North America United States Mexican American Canada Oceania Australia New Zealand Malaysia
Culture Clothing Cuisine Dance Festivals (India • Pakistan) Literature Media Music Religion (Folk religion • Islam • Sikhism • Hinduism • Christianity) Sport Television
Regions Majha Malwa Doaba Puadh Bagar Pothwar Derajat Bhatiore Bhattiana Chhachh Kachhi Doabs (Sindh Sagar • Chaj • Rachna • Bari • Bist) Bars (Sandal • Kirana • Neeli • Ganji • Gondal • Jungle)
Punjab portal
v t e

The Punjabi dialects and languages or Greater Punjabi are the varieties of the Punjabi language, a Northwestern Indo-Aryan language of the Indo-European language family, widely spoken in the Punjab region and neighbouring areas of South Asia, split between Pakistan and India. They constitute a dialect chain of mutual intelligibility and have sometimes been referred to as the Greater Punjabi macrolanguage. Punjabi may also be considered as a pluricentric language with more than one standard variety.

Punjabi is a language spoken primarily in the Punjab region, which is divided between India and Pakistan. It is also spoken by Punjabi diaspora communities around the world. Punjabi itself has several dialects that can vary based on geographical, cultural, and historical factors.

The varieties of the language, or macrolanguage, are commonly grouped into Eastern Punjabi and Western Punjabi; with the Majhi dialect being regarded as Central Punjabi, transitional between the former groups, forming the basis of Standard Punjabi.

The Punjabi varieties have a number of characteristics in common, for example the preservation of the Prakrit double consonants in stressed syllables. Historically, there has been a disagreement on whether they form part of a single language group, with some earlier classifications disagreeing over the assigning of both Eastern Punjabi and Western Punjabi to one group; with some placing Eastern Punjabi in the Western zone and Western Punjabi in the Northwestern zone of Indo-Aryan. In recent past, some linguistic classifications assigned Western varieties to the Northwestern zone while and the eastern ones to the Central zone alongside Hindi. However most linguistic classifications have assigned both Western and Eastern Punjabi to the Northwestern zone, constituting one singular group; and this is the generally accepted classification.

Classifications

Central Punjabi

• Majhi: spoken across Majha, forms basis of Standard Punjabi

Eastern Punjabi

• Doabi: originated in and spoken across Doaba in Punjab, India; also spoken in parts of urban Punjab, Pakistan, specifically Faisalabad
• Malwai: spoken across Malwa
• Puadhi: spoken across Puadh

Western Punjabi

• Dhanni: spoken in Chakwal and Talagang and southern parts of Attock and Jhelum districts
• Jhangvi: spoken across Bar region, from Jhang to Pakpattan; also known as Jhangochi
• Pahari-Pothwari: spoken in Rawalpindi and much of Azad Jammu and Kashmir
• Shahpuri: spoken in Sargodha and Khushab

Saraiki

• Derawali: spoken across Derajat
• Multani: spoken in the region around Multan, forms basis for literary Saraiki
• Riasti: spoken in Rahim Yar Khan and Rajanpur districts
• Thali: spoken in the Thal region; also known as Thalochi

Hindko

• Awankari: spoken in Talagang
• Chachi: spoken in the Chach region
• Ghebi: spoken in Pindi Gheb
• Hazara Hindko: spoken across the Hazara region; also known as Northern Hindko, Hazarewal Hindko or Hazarvi
• Kohati: spoken in Kohat
• Peshawari: spoken in Peshawar, forms basis for literary Hindko

Geographic distribution

The literary languages that have developed on the basis of dialects of this area are Standard Punjabi, based on the Majhi dialect, in eastern, northern and central Punjab; and Saraiki, based on the Multani dialect, in the southwest. "Lahnda" (Western Punjabi) typically subsumes the Saraiki and Hindko varieties, with Dhanni, Jhangvi, Pahari-Pothwari, Shahpuri, Thali being intermediate with Majhi (Central Punjabi).

Pakistan

Punjabi, Hindko and Saraiki are listed separately in the census enumerations of Pakistan. According to the 2017 Census of Pakistan, there are 80,536,390 Punjabi speakers; 25,324,637 Saraiki speakers and 5,065,879 Hindko speakers. Saraiki was added to the census in 1981, and Hindko was added in 2017, prior to which both were represented by Punjabi. In areas such as Gujar Khan and Rawalpindi where Pothwari is a spoken variety, speakers significantly selected 'Punjabi" instead of "Other" in all previous census enumeration.

Azad Kashmir

In a statistical survey carried about by a proxy of the Government of Azad Kashmir, most speakers of Azad Kashmir spoke a form of Pahari-Pothwari, with the variety being separately enumerated from Punjabi, while Punjabi, mostly spoken in the form of Majhi dialect, attained a plurality in the Bhimber district.

India

In India, Punjabi is listed as a constitutional language and is counted in the census returns. According to the 2011 Census of India, there are 33,124,726 Punjabi speakers which includes the varieties of Bagri (1,656,588 speakers) Bilaspuri (295,805 speakers) and Bhateali (23,970 speakers). Bagri is spoken in parts of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. Bilaspuri and Bhateali are spoken in Himachal Pradesh. The status of Bagri is split between Punjabi and Rajasthani in the census returns with options available under Punjabi and Rajasthani. Gusain (1991) places Bagri as a Rajasthani dialect. Similarly, the identities of Bilaspuri and Bhateali are also split, in their case, between Punjabi and Dogri.

Lahnda varieties are only enumerated in the census returns in India with 108,791 speakers listed in the 2011 census. The varieties listed under Lahnda are Bahawalpuri (29,253 speakers); Multani which is described as Hindi Multani (61,722 speakers) and unclassified (17,816 speakers). Punchi is spoken in Jammu. The language variety is listed under Lahnda as it, together with Bahwalpuri and Multani satisfies the "criterion of 10,000 or more speakers at the all India level".

Historically, Dogri was considered to be a dialect of Punjabi spoken primarily in Jammu. In the 1941 Census, Dogri was listed under Punjabi. Since 2003, Dogri is listed as an independent language in the constitution of India. According to the 2011 Census - India, there are 2,596,767 Dogri speakers. Similar to Dogri, the Kangri language spoken in Himachal Pradesh was regarded as a Punjabi dialect but since 1971, it has been reclassified under Hindi. There were 1,117,342 Kangri speakers listed in the 2011 Census- India. Despite the independent status of Dogri and reclassification of Kangri, both languages are claimed to fall within Punjabi by some writers. Others place Dogri and Kangri within the Western Pahari group. Eberle et al. (2020) believe Dogri and Kangri are related to Eastern Punjabi and place these languages in a group of related languages descended from an intermediate division of Indo-Aryan languages.

Notes

1. ^ Some linguists don't consider it a proper part of Saraiki and see it as a transitional dialect between Multani and Shahpuri.

See also

• Bengali dialects
• Sindhi languages
• Hindi Belt
• Bazigar language
• Baahar di boli, term used to refer to diasporic Punjabis use of the language
• Khalsa bole, coded language of Nihang Sikhs largely based on Punjabic

References

1. "Glottolog 4.8 - Greater Panjabic". glottolog.org. Retrieved 2023-07-13.
2. For the use of the term "Greater Panjabi", see Rensch (1992, p. 87) and Rahman (1996, p. 175).
3. Muhr, Rudoplh (2016) Pluricentric Languages and Non-Dominant Varieties Worldwide. Peter Lang
4. "Glottolog 4.8 - Greater Panjabic". glottolog.org. Archived from the original on 13 July 2023. Retrieved 13 July 2023.
5. Lal, Mohan (1992). Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature. Sahitya Academy. p. 4208.
6. Shackle 2003, p. 591.
7. Masica 1991, pp. 446–63.
8. Singh 1970, p. 142. sfn error: no target: CITEREFSingh1970 (help)
9. Shackle 1979, p. 198.
10. Pothwari has previously been regarded as part of "Lahnda", but Shackle (1979, pp. 201) argues that it shares features with both groups. Jhangvi (Wagha 1997, p. 229) and Shahpuri (Shackle 1979, pp. 201) are transitional between Saraiki and Punjabi.
11. "Pakistan Demographic Survey 2020" (PDF). pbs.gov.pk. Retrieved 20 March 2023.
12. "Table 11. Population by mother tongue, sex and rural/urban" (PDF). pbs.gov.pk. Retrieved 20 March 2023.
13. Singh, Dr Gurmeet (2021-09-11). Information Seeking Behaviour of Users in Punjabi Literature. K.K. Publications. p. 98.
14. "Table 11. Population of Rawalpindi District by mother tongue" (PDF). pbs.gov.pk.
15. Statistical Year Book 2020 (PDF). Muzaffarabad: AJ&K Bureau Of Statistics. pp. 131, 140. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-10-09. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
16. "Pahari and Pothwari: a sociolinguistic survey". SIL International. p. 44. Retrieved 2023-06-17.
17. Census catalog
18. Language (Paper 1 OF 2018)- Census of India2011
19. *Gusain, Lakhan (1999). A Descriptive Grammar of Bagri (PhD). Jawaharlal Nehru University. hdl:10603/16847.
20. Tiwari, Dr Siyaram. Bhartiya Bhashaon Ki Pahchan (in Hindi). Vani Prakashan. ISBN 978-93-5229-677-4.
21. Ralph Lilley Turner (1985), A Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Languages, p. xii, Wikidata Q115652507
22. Census Index
23. Census Tables
24. Kli︠u︡ev, B. I. (1981). India, National and Language Problem. India: Sterling.
25. Census of India, 1941.  (1943). India: Manager of publications
26. Coalition Politics and Hindu Nationalism. (2007). (n.p.): Taylor & Francis
27. Language Sciences.  (1991). Japan: International Christian University Language Sciences Summer Institute.
28. Grewal, J.S. and Banga, Indu (1998) Punjab in prosperity and violence: administration, politics, and social change, 1947-1997. K.K. Publishers for Institute of Punjab Studies, Chandigarh
29. "Pushp & Warikoo: Jammu, Kashmir & Ladakh - Linguistic Predicament". koshur.org. Retrieved 2023-02-11.
30. Jared Klein, Brian Joseph, Matthias Fritz (2017) Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics
31. Eberle, Ulrich J.; Henderson, J. Vernon; Rohner, Dominic; Schmidheiny, Kurt (2020). "Ethnolinguistic diversity and urban agglomeration". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 117 (28): 16250–16257. ISSN 0027-8424.

Sources

• Birmani, Ali H.; Ahmed, Fasih (2017). "Language of the Khetrans of Barkhan of Pakistani Balochistan: A preliminary description". Lingua. 191–192: 3–21. doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2016.12.003. ISSN 0024-3841.
• Burling, Robbins. 1970. Man's many voices. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
• Ethnologue. Indo-Aryan Classification of 219 languages that have been assigned to the Indo-Aryan grouping of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages.
• Ethnologue. Languages of India
• Ethnologue. Languages of Pakistan
• Grierson, George A. (1903–1928). Linguistic Survey of India. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Online database
• Masica, Colin P. (1991). The Indo-Aryan languages. Cambridge language surveys. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-23420-7.
• Rahman, Tariq (1996). Language and politics in Pakistan. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-577692-8.
• Rahman, Tariq. 2006. The role of English in Pakistan with special reference to tolerance and militancy. In Amy Tsui et al., Language, policy, culture and identity in Asian contexts. Routledge. 219–240.
• Rensch, Calvin R. (1992). "The Language Environment of Hindko-Speaking People". In O'Leary, Clare F.; Rensch, Calvin R.; Hallberg, Calinda E. (eds.). Hindko and Gujari. Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan. Islamabad: National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University and Summer Institute of Linguistics. ISBN 969-8023-13-5.
• Shackle, C. 1970. Punjabi in Lahore. Modern Asian Studies, 4 (3):239–267. Available online at JSTOR.
• Shackle, Christopher (1979). "Problems of classification in Pakistan Panjab". Transactions of the Philological Society. 77 (1): 191–210. doi:10.1111/j.1467-968X.1979.tb00857.x. ISSN 0079-1636.
• Shackle, Christopher (2003). "Panjabi". In Cardona, George; Jain, Dhanesh (eds.). The Indo-Aryan languages. Routledge language family series. Y. London: Routledge. pp. 581–621. ISBN 978-0-7007-1130-7.
• Wagha, Muhammad Ahsan (1997). The development of Siraiki language in Pakistan (Ph.D.). School of Oriental and African Studies. (requires registration)

External links

• Map of Punjabi dialects from Grierson's early 20th-century Linguistic Survey of India

• Languages of Punjab, Pakistan
• Languages of India
• Punjabi language
• Punjabi dialects
• Greater Punjabi languages and dialects