Punjabi dialects and languages

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Punjabi languages
EthnicityPunjabis
Geographic
distribution		 Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh
Linguistic classification Indo-European
Early form
Glottolog lahn1241
A map of Punjabi dialects and related languages Dialects Of Punjabi.jpg
A map of Punjabi dialects and related languages

The Punjabi dialects and languages or Greater Panjabic are a series of dialects and languages spoken around the Punjab region of Pakistan and India with varying degrees of official recognition. [7] They have sometimes been referred to as the Greater Punjabi macrolanguage. [8] Punjabi may also be considered as a pluricentric language with more than one standard variety. [9]

Contents

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 "Greater Punjabi" have a number of characteristics in common, for example the preservation of the Prakrit double consonants in stressed syllables. [10] Nevertheless, there is disagreement on whether they form part of a single language group, with some proposed classifications placing them all within the Northwestern zone of Indo-Aryan, while others reserving this only for the western varieties, and assigning the eastern ones to the Central zone alongside Hindi. [11]

Geographic distribution

The literary languages that have developed on the basis of dialects of this area are Standard Punjabi in eastern and central Punjab, Saraiki in the southwest, and Pahari-Pothwari in the northwest. [12] A distinction is usually made between Punjabi in the east and the diverse group of "Lahnda" in the west. "Lahnda" typically subsumes the Saraiki and Hindko varieties, with Jhangvi and Shahpuri intermediate between the two groups. Pothwari shares features with both Lahnda and Punjabi. [13]

Commonly recognised Eastern Punjabi dialects include Majhi (the standard), Doabi, Malwai, and Puadhi. The "Lahnda" variety of Khetrani in the far west may be intermediate between Saraiki and Sindhi. [14]

Pakistan

Punjabi, Hindko and Saraiki are listed separately in the census enumerations of Pakistan. [15] 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. [16] Saraiki was added to the census in 1981, and Hindko was added in 2017, prior to which both were represented by Lahnda language. In areas such as Gujar Khan and Rawalpindi where Pothwari is a spoken language, [17] speakers significantly selected 'Punjabi" instead of "Other" in all previous census enumeration. [18]

Azad Kashmir

In a statistical survey carried about by a proxy of the Government of Azad Kashmir, most speakers of Azad Kashmir spoke a variety of Pahari-Pothwari, while Punjabi attained a plurality in the Bhimber district. [19] Some Pothwari speakers in Azad Kashmir and the Pothohar refer to their mother tongue as Punjabi, hence those choosing 'Punjabi' may be referring to 'Pothwari/Pahari'. [20]

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). [21] 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. [22] Gusain (1991) places Bagri as a Rajasthani dialect. [23] Similarly, the identities of Bilaspuri and Bhateali are also split, in their case, between Punjabi and Dogri. [24] [25]

Lahnda languages 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). [26] 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". [27]

Historically, Dogri was considered to be a dialect of Punjabi spoken primarily in Jammu. [28] In the 1941 Census, Dogri was listed under Punjabi. [29] Since 2003, Dogri is listed as an independent language in the constitution of India. [30] 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. [31] 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. [32] [33] Others place Dogri and Kangri within the Western Pahari group. [34] 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. [35]

See also

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Punjabi language</span> Indo-Aryan language native to the Punjab

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hindko</span> Indo-Aryan language spoken in Pakistan

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saraiki language</span> Indo-Aryan language spoken in Pakistan

Saraiki is an Indo-Aryan language of the Lahnda group, spoken by 26 million people primarily in the south-western half of the province of Punjab in Pakistan. It was previously known as Multani, after its main dialect.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pahari-Pothwari</span> Indo-Aryan language variety spoken in Pakistan

Pahari-Pothwari is an Indo-Aryan language variety of Lahnda group, spoken on the Pothohar Plateau in the far north of Punjab, Pakistan, as well as in most of Pakistan-administered Azad Kashmir and in western areas of Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, is known by a variety of names, the most common of which are Pahari, and Pothwari.

The Western Pahari languages are a group of Northern Indo-Aryan languages spoken in Northern India, primarily in the state of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kangri language</span> Language of northern India

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Lahnda, also known as Lahndi or Western Punjabi, is a group of north-western Indo-Aryan language varieties spoken in parts of Pakistan and India. It is defined in the ISO 639 standard as a "macrolanguage" or as a "series of dialects" by other authors. Its validity as a genetic grouping is not certain. The terms "Lahnda" and "Western Punjabi" are exonyms employed by linguists, and are not used by the speakers themselves.

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Bhateali, or Bhattiyali, is a Western Pahari language of northern India. It Is spoken Majorily in the Bhattiyat Division of Chamba,Dalhousie As well As Nurpur Division of Kangra and Hilly Parts of Pathankot Also. The 2011 Indian Census counted 23,970 speakers, of which 15,107 were found in Chamba district of Himachal Pradesh.

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Duggar is a cultural and historical region in the northern part of Indian subcontinent, comprising the Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir, northern Punjab, India, north-eastern part of Punjab, Pakistan and western Himachal Pradesh. It is the historical homeland of the Dogra people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thali dialect</span> Dialect of Lahnda

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pangwali</span> Western Pahari language of India

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The Pahari people or Pahari-speaking people is a cover term for a number of heterogeneous communities inhabiting in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir and also some parts of Pakistan-administered Azad Kashmir who speak Pahari languages/dialects.

References

  1. ↑ Haldar, Gopal (2000). Languages of India. New Delhi: National Book Trust, India. p. 149. ISBN   9788123729367. The age of Old Punjabi: up to 1600 A.D. […] It is said that evidence of Old Punjabi can be found in the Granth Sahib.
  2. ↑ Bhatia, Tej K. (2013). Punjabi: A Cognitive-Descriptive Grammar (Reprint ed.). London: Routledge. p. XXV. ISBN   9781136894602. As an independent language Punjabi has gone through the following three stages of development: Old Punjabi (10th to 16th century). Medieval Punjabi (16th to 19th century), and Modern Punjabi (19th century to Present).
  3. ↑ Christopher Shackle; Arvind Mandair (2013). "0.2.1 – Form". Teachings of the Sikh Gurus : selections from the Scriptures (First ed.). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. ISBN   9781136451089. Surpassing them all in the frequent subtlety of his linguistic choices, including the use of dialect forms as well as of frequent loanwords from Sanskrit and Persian, Guru Nanak combined this poetic language of the Sants with his native Old Punjabi. It is this mixture of Old Punjabi and old Hindi which constitutes the core idiom of all the earlier Gurus.
  4. ↑ Frawley, William (2003). International encyclopedia of linguistics (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 423. ISBN   9780195139778.
  5. ↑ Austin, Peter (2008). One thousand languages : living, endangered, and lost. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 115. ISBN   9780520255609.
  6. ↑ Braj B. Kachru; Yamuna Kachru; S. N. Sridhar (2008). Language in South Asia. Cambridge University Press. p. 411. ISBN   9781139465502.
  7. ↑ "Glottolog 4.8 - Greater Panjabic". glottolog.org. Retrieved 2023-07-13.
  8. ↑ For the use of the term "Greater Panjabi", see Rensch (1992 , p. 87) and Rahman (1996 , p. 175).
  9. ↑ Muhr, Rudoplh (2016) Pluricentric Languages and Non-Dominant Varieties Worldwide. Peter Lang
  10. ↑ Shackle 2003, p. 591.
  11. ↑ Masica 1991, pp. 446–63.
  12. ↑ Shackle 1979, p. 198.
  13. ↑ 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.
  14. ↑ Birmani & Ahmed 2017.
  15. ↑ "Pakistan Demographic Survey 2020" (PDF). pbs.gov.pk. Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  16. ↑ "Table 11. Population by mother tongue, sex and rural/urban" (PDF). pbs.gov.pk. Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  17. ↑ Singh, Dr Gurmeet (2021-09-11). Information Seeking Behaviour of Users in Punjabi Literature. K.K. Publications. p. 98.
  18. ↑ "Table 11. Population of Rawalpindi District by mother tongue" (PDF). pbs.gov.pk.
  19. ↑ 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.
  20. ↑ "Pahari and Pothwari: a sociolinguistic survey". SIL International. p. 44. Retrieved 2023-06-17.
  21. ↑ Census catalog
  22. ↑ Language (Paper 1 OF 2018)- Census of India2011
  23. ↑
    • Gusain, Lakhan (1999). A Descriptive Grammar of Bagri (PhD). Jawaharlal Nehru University. hdl:10603/16847.
  24. ↑ Tiwari, Dr Siyaram. Bhartiya Bhashaon Ki Pahchan (in Hindi). Vani Prakashan. ISBN   978-93-5229-677-4.
  25. ↑ Ralph Lilley Turner (1985), A Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Languages, p. xii, Wikidata   Q115652507
  26. ↑ Census Index
  27. ↑ Census Tables
  28. ↑ Kli︠u︡ev, B. I. (1981). India, National and Language Problem. India: Sterling.
  29. ↑ Census of India, 1941. (1943). India: Manager of publications
  30. ↑ Coalition Politics and Hindu Nationalism.(2007). (n.p.): Taylor & Francis
  31. ↑ Language Sciences. (1991). Japan: International Christian University Language Sciences Summer Institute.
  32. ↑ 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
  33. ↑ "Pushp & Warikoo: Jammu, Kashmir & Ladakh - Linguistic Predicament". koshur.org. Retrieved 2023-02-11.
  34. ↑ Jared Klein, Brian Joseph, Matthias Fritz (2017) Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics
  35. ↑ Eberle, Ulrich J., et al. “Ethnolinguistic Diversity and Urban Agglomeration.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 117, no. 28, 2020, pp. 16250–57. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26935214. Accessed 12 Feb. 2023.

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