Panjabi language

Punjabi (also Panjabi; ਪੰਜਾਬੀ in Gurmukhi, پنجابی in Shahmukhi , Pañjābī in transliteration) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Punjabi people in India, Pakistan, and most Sikhs in the diaspora. Under the broadest definition of which dialects constitute "Punjabi", the number of native speakers is estimated at 88 million, which would place it at around 11th place among the world's languages. It belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-Iranian subfamily of the Indo-European language family. Unusually for an Indo-European language, Punjabi is tonal; the tones arose as a reinterpretation of different consonant series in terms of pitch. As for linguistic typology, the default word order is Subject Object Verb. The written standard for Punjabi is based on the Majhi dialect spoken in the Amritsar_District and the Gurdaspur_District of the Indian State of Punjab.^[1]

Dialects: linguistic classification

Punjab is a geographic region with a very long history, presently divided between Pakistan and India. However, the linguistic term "Punjabi" is quite problematic because of unresolved difficulties in the classification of dialects traditionally considered as belonging to Punjabi. Current specialists disagree as to the number of dialects and their genetic relationships.^[2] Some sources^who? do not accept the notion of that all the dialects traditionally assigned to "Punjabi" are actually closely related, let alone constitute a single language.

Hypothesis of Eastern Punjabi and Western Punjabi

In this view, the purportedly Punjabi dialects fall into two groups which do not even belong to the same major branch of Indo-Aryan languages. "Eastern Punjabi" is classified (in this splitting view) in a "Central Zone" of the Indo-Aryan languages, together with Western Hindi (which includes the written standard of Hindi, the Khari Boli dialect), Gujarati, and others, while "Western Punjabi" is assigned to a "Northwestern Zone" along with Dardic (whose most prominent member is Kashmiri, Lahnda (ਲਹਿੰਦੀ), and Sindhi. The justification for this division has been derived from Grierson's Linguistic Survey of India (1904-1928). The very notion of a "Lahnda language" is a proposal by Grierson.^{citation needed} Grierson defined Western Punjabi as being west of a line running north-south from Sahiwal and Gujranwala districts (now part of Pakistani province of The Punjab). This line lies well within present day Pakistan. Masica remarks that "whatever validity Grierson's line may once have had has no doubt been disturbed by the great movements of population associated with partition".^[3] Contrary to this, Ethnologue has come to classify Lahndi as the dialect of Punjabi spoken in all of Pakistan.

Number of speakers

According to the 1991 Indian census there were 27 million speakers of Eastern Punjabi in India, mostly in the State of Punjab (northwest of New Delhi and south of Jammu and Kashmir). According to Ethnologue, there are about 900,000 more outside of India. There were estimated to be over 60 million speakers of Western Punjabi in Pakistan in 2000, nearly all in the province of Punjab. Some scholars consider Siraiki (Seraiki, Siraiki) dialects to be Punjabi dialects. Ethnologue states, "Until recently [Seraiki] was considered to be a dialect of Panjabi"^[4], which indicates they do not share that view. But some uphold the view^[5] As of 2000, there were estimated to be over 13 million speakers of Siraiki dialects in Pakistan, in southern Punjab and northern Sindh. In the broadest definition of "Punjabi", these numbers would be added together to yield 100 million speakers. These figures will be significantly greater in 2008 due to population trends in the two countries.

Some classification lists

Punjabi University, Patiala, State of Punjab, India, taking a very broad definition, lists the following as dialects of Punjabi:^[6]

Some of these dialects, such as Dogri, Siraiki and Hindko are sometimes considered separate languages, and are classified in different zones or divisions of Indo-Aryan:

Geographic distribution

Punjabi is the official language of the Indian state of Punjab and the shared state capital Chandigarh^[7]. It is one of the official second languages of the states of Delhi and Haryana.^[8] Punjabi is the predominant language in the Punjab province of Pakistan (and the most widely spoken language in all Pakistan according to the CIA factbook^[9]), although it has no official status at the national level in Pakistan, where in any case the preferred languages of the elite are Urdu and English.^{citation needed}

Punjabi is also spoken as a minority language in several other countries where Punjabis have emigrated in large numbers, such as the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom (where it is the second most commonly used language^[10]) and Canada (where it is the fifth most commonly used language^[11]). In recent times Punjabi has grown fast and has now become the fourth most spoken language in Canada.^[12]

Punjabi is the preferred language of most Sikhs (most of their religious literature being written in it) and Punjabi Hindus. It is the usual language of Bhangra music, which has recently gained wide popularity both in South Asia and abroad.

Phonology

Panjabi has a three-way tone contrast that developed from the lost murmured series of consonants. These are phonetically rising or rising-falling contours which cover one or two syllables, but can be distinguished phonemically as high, mid, and low.

An initial historically murmured consonant became tenuis and left a low tone on the following couple syllables: ghoṛā [kòːɽɑ̀ː] "horse". A stem-final murmured consonant became voiced and left a high tone on the preceding couple syllables: māgh [mɑ́ːɡ] "October". A stem-medial murmured consonant which appeared after a short vowel and before a long vowel became voiced and left a low tone on the following couple syllables: maghāṇā [məɡɑ̀ːɳɑ̀ː] "to be lit". Other syllables and words have mid tone.^[13]

Grammar

Writing system

There are several different scripts used for writing the Punjabi language, depending on the region and the dialect spoken, as well as the religion of the speaker. In the Punjab province of Pakistan, the script used is Shahmukhi (from the mouth of the Kings), a modified version of Persian-Nasta'liq (Arabic) script. But for all practical purposes the script in implementation is identical to Urdu. In the Indian state of Punjab, Sikhs and others use the Gurmukhī (from the mouth of the Gurus) script. Hindus, and those living in neighbouring Indian states such as Haryana and Himachal Pradesh sometimes use the Devanāgarī script. Gurmukhī and Shahmukhi scripts are the most commonly used for writing Punjabi and are considered the official scripts of the language.

Role in Education

Some Word & Phrases

General greeting - Sat Sri Akaal(Used mostly by Sikhs) or Salam Walykum(used mostly by Muslims)

Notable authors

Dictionaries

Contents