Punjabi dialects

Dialects of the Punjabi language From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Punjabi language has a variety of dialects (bōlīyāṁ) which form a dialect continuum and are primarily subdivided into two groups: Eastern Punjabi in the east, and Lahnda (Western Punjabi) in the west. The dialects vary based on geographical, cultural, and historical factors.^[7]^[8] Punjabi may also be considered as a pluricentric language with more than one standard variety (mi'ārī bōlī).^[9]

Geographic
distributionPunjab, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Jammu and Kashmir, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Haryana, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh

EthnicityPunjabis

Linguistic classificationIndo-European

Indo-Iranian
- Indo-Aryan
  - Northwestern
    - Punjabi

Early form

Old Punjabi^[a]

Quick facts Geographic distribution, Ethnicity ...

Punjabi
Geographic distribution	Punjab, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Jammu and Kashmir, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Haryana, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh
Ethnicity	Punjabis
Linguistic classification	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Northwestern Punjabi
Early form	Old Punjabi^[a]
Subdivisions	Central Punjabi (Majhi) Eastern Punjabi (Chardha) Western Punjabi (Lahnda)
Language codes
Glottolog	`lahn1241`

There was a historic disagreement on whether they form part of a single language group within the Indo-Aryan language family, with early classifications assigning the western dialects to the Northwestern zone and the eastern ones to the Central zone; but broadly all modern classifications agree on their forming a single group within the Northwestern zone.^[10]^[11]^[12]

Classification

The Punjabi dialects are divided into two broad classifications: Eastern and Western (Lahnda) dialects. The number of dialects is not in agreement and varies by source.^[13]

Standard Punjabi

Modern Standard Punjabi^[14]

Eastern Punjabi

Doabi: originated from and spoken in Doaba region in Punjab, India; also spoken in parts of urban Punjab, Pakistan, specifically Faisalabad
Majhi: spoken in Majha region.^[b]
Malwai: spoken in Malwa region
Puadhi: spoken in Puadh region
Pahari: spoken in Northern parts.
Rai boli: spoken in Fazilka district.

Western Punjabi

Dhanni: spoken in Chakwal, Talagang and southern parts of Attock and Jhelum districts
Jhangochi: spoken in Bar region, from Jhang to Pakpattan
Shahpuri: spoken in Sargodha and Khushab
Thalochi: spoken in the Thal region.
Pahari-Pothwari: spoken in Rawalpindi and much of Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
Hindko
- Southern Hindko:
  - Awankari: spoken in Talagang
  - Chachi: spoken in the Chach
  - Ghebi: spoken in Pindi Gheb
  - Kohati: spoken in Kohat
  - Peshawari: spoken in Peshawar, forms basis for literary Hindko
- Hazara Hindko: spoken in Hazara region, also known as Northern Hindko or Hazarvi
Saraiki
- Derawali: spoken in Derajat region
- Multani: spoken in the region around Multan, forms basis for literary Saraiki
- Riasti: spoken in Rahim Yar Khan and Rajanpur districts^[15]
Khetrani: spoken in Barkhan and Dera Ghazi Khan

History

According to Jagtar Singh Grewal, the Punjabi dialects started emerging between the fall of the empire of Harsha in the 7th century and the rise of the Delhi Sultanate in the 13th century. Amir Khusrau referred to the language spoken in the Lahore region as Lahauri, which later became known as Punjabi. Farid composed works in his Multani dialect.^[16] During the British colonial period, certain districts were made up of speakers of various dialects of Punjabi. Most areas under the control of the princely states of colonial Punjab were located in Malwai-speaking areas (other areas were in Haryanvi-speaking areas, not classified as a Punjabi dialect while Kapurthala had an estate in Awadh, a Hindustani area). However, certain areas of British Punjab contained speakers of other language groups, such as Haryanvi in parts of Ambala division and Pahari (such as Kangri) in Kangra district and other parts of Jalandhar division. After the partition of 1947, refugees speaking various dialects resettled in different dialect areas, leading to influence on the local dialects and the transplantation of dialects. Dialectal Punjabi is now in decline, being surmounted by Standard Punjabi, known as Kendri Punjabi or Markazi Punjabi.^[17]

Characteristics

The varieties of "Greater Punjabi" have a number of characteristics in common, for example the preservation of the Prakrit double consonants in stressed syllables.^[18]

Geographic distribution

The literary standards that have developed on the basis of dialects are: Majhi-based Standard Punjabi in eastern and central Punjab, Saraiki in the southwest, and Pahari-Pothwari and Hindko in the northwest.^[19] A distinction is usually made between Eastern Punjabi in the east and Lahnda (Western Punjabi) in the west. Lahnda typically subsumes the Saraiki and Hindko varieties, with Jhangvi, Shahpuri, and Dhanni being intermediate between other Lahnda varieties and Eastern Punjabi. Pahari-Pothwari shares features with both Lahnda and Central/Eastern Punjabi.^[20]

Pakistan

Punjabi, Hindko and Saraiki are listed separately in the census enumerations of Pakistan.^[21] 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.^[22] Saraiki was added to the census in 1981, and Hindko was added in 2017, prior to which both were represented by "Punjabi" in general. In areas such as Gujar Khan and Rawalpindi where Pothwari is the spoken variety,^[23] speakers significantly selected "Punjabi" instead of "Other" in all previous census enumeration.^[24]

Azad Jammu and 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 Majhi (represented simply as "Punjabi") attained a plurality in the Bhimber district.^[25] Some Pahari-Pothwari speakers in Azad Kashmir, like the ones in Pothohar, simply refer to their mother tongue as "Punjabi".^[26]

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).^[27] 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.^[28] Gusain (1991) places Bagri as a Rajasthani dialect.^[29] Similarly, the identities of Bilaspuri and Bhateali are also split, in their case, between Punjabi and Dogri.^[30]^[31]

Lahnda (Western Punjabi) varieties are enumerated separately 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).^[32] 'Poonchi' is spoken in Jammu; and 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".^[33]

Historically, Dogri was considered to be a dialect of Punjabi spoken primarily in Jammu.^[34] In the 1941 Census, Dogri was listed under Punjabi.^[35] Since 2003, Dogri is listed as an independent language in the constitution of India.^[36] 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.^[37] 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.^[38]^[39] Others place Dogri and Kangri within the Western Pahari group.^[40] 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.^[41]

Notes

[a]
Sources: ^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]^[6]
[b]
According to Mangat Bhardwaj, Majhi is an Eastern Punjabi dialect.

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]
Masica 1991, pp. 446–63.
[11]
Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2020). Ethnologue: Languages of the World (23rd ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International.
[12]
Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin (eds.). "Indo-Aryan". Glottolog . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
[13]
Bhardwaj, Mangat (25 August 2016). "1.2 The "Panjabi-speaking" areas". Panjabi: A Comprehensive Grammar. Routledge. pp. 6–12. ISBN 9781317643265.
[14]
Bhardwaj, Mangat (25 August 2016). "Preface". Panjabi: A Comprehensive Grammar. Routledge. pp. xxiv. ISBN 9781317643265.
[15]
Punjabi dialects at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023)
[16]
Grewal, Jagtar Singh (1999). The Sikhs of the Punjab (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 5–6. ISBN 8175960701.
[17]
Aujla, Harjap Singh. "A Part of Lahore lives in Amritsar". APNA (Academy of the Punjab in North America). Retrieved 12 August 2026.
[18]
Shackle 2003, p. 591.
[19]
Shackle 1979, p. 198.
[20]
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.
[21]
"Pakistan Demographic Survey 2020" (PDF). pbs.gov.pk. Retrieved 20 March 2023.
[22]
"Table 11. Population by mother tongue, sex and rural/urban" (PDF). pbs.gov.pk. Retrieved 20 March 2023.
[23]
Singh, Dr Gurmeet (2021-09-11). Information Seeking Behaviour of Users in Punjabi Literature. K.K. Publications. p. 98.
[24]
"Table 11. Population of Rawalpindi District by mother tongue" (PDF). pbs.gov.pk.
[25]
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.
[26]
"Pahari and Pothwari: a sociolinguistic survey". SIL International. p. 44. Retrieved 2023-06-17.
[27]
Census catalog
[28]
Language (Paper 1 OF 2018)- Census of India2011
[29]
Gusain, Lakhan (1999). A Descriptive Grammar of Bagri (PhD). Jawaharlal Nehru University. hdl:10603/16847.
[30]
Tiwari, Dr Siyaram. Bhartiya Bhashaon Ki Pahchan (in Hindi). Vani Prakashan. ISBN 978-93-5229-677-4.
[31]
Ralph Lilley Turner (1985), A Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Languages, p. xii, Wikidata Q115652507
[32]
Census Index
[33]
Census Tables
[34]
Kli︠u︡ev, B. I. (1981). India, National and Language Problem. India: Sterling.
[35]
Census of India, 1941. (1943). India: Manager of publications
[36]
Coalition Politics and Hindu Nationalism. (2007). (n.p.): Taylor & Francis
[37]
Language Sciences. (1991). Japan: International Christian University Language Sciences Summer Institute.
[38]
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
[39]
"Pushp & Warikoo: Jammu, Kashmir & Ladakh - Linguistic Predicament". koshur.org. Retrieved 2023-02-11.
[40]
Jared Klein, Brian Joseph, Matthias Fritz (2017) Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics
[41]
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.

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