Sindhi language

British India

In 1843, the conquest of Sindh by the British East India Company led the region to become part of the Bombay Presidency. Soon after, in 1848, Governor George Clerk established Sindhi as the official language in the province, removing the literary dominance of Persian. Sir Bartle Frere, the then commissioner of Sindh, issued orders on August 29, 1857, advising civil servants in Sindh to pass an examination in Sindhi. He also ordered the use of Sindhi in official documents.^[29] In 1868, the Bombay Presidency assigned Narayan Jagannath Vaidya to replace the abjad used in Sindhi with the Khudabadi script. The script was decreed a standard script by the Bombay Presidency, thus inciting anarchy in the Muslim majority region. A powerful unrest followed, after which twelve martial laws were imposed by the British authorities. The granting of official status of Sindhi along with script reforms ushered in the development of modern Sindhi literature.

The first printed works in Sindhi were produced at the Muhammadi Press in Bombay beginning in 1867. These included Islamic stories set in verse by Muhammad Hashim Thattvi, one of the renowned religious scholars of Sindh.^[27]

Independent Pakistan and India

The partition of India in 1947 resulted in most Sindhi speakers ending up in the new state of Pakistan, commencing a push to establish a strong sub-national linguistic identity for Sindhi. This manifested in resistance to the imposition of Urdu and eventually Sindhi nationalism in the 1980s.^{[30][31][32][33][34]}

The language and literary style of contemporary Sindhi writings in Pakistan and India were noticeably diverging by the late 20th century; authors from the former country were borrowing extensively from Urdu, while those from the latter were highly influenced by Hindi.^[35]

Pakistan

In Pakistan, Sindhi is the first language of 34.40 million people, or 14.6% of the country's population as of the 2023 census. 33.46 million of these are found in Sindh, where they account for 60% of the total population of the province.^[38] There are 0.55 million speakers in the province of Balochistan, especially in the Kacchi Plain.

More information State, Population ...

2023 Census Statistics^[38]

State	Population
Pakistan	34,401,564
Sindh	33,462,299
Balochistan	555,198
Punjab	352,686
Islamabad	21,362
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa	10,019

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The Sindh Assembly has ordered compulsory teaching of the Sindhi language in all private schools in Sindh.^[39] According to the Sindh Private Educational Institutions Form B (Regulations and Control) 2005 Rules, "All educational institutions are required to teach children the Sindhi language.^[40] Sindh Education and Literacy Minister, Syed Sardar Ali Shah, and Secretary of School Education, Qazi Shahid Pervaiz, have ordered the employment of Sindhi teachers in all private schools in Sindh so that this language can be easily and widely taught.^[41] Sindhi is taught in all provincial private schools that follow the matric system and not the ones that follow the Cambridge system.^[42]

At the occasion of 'Mother Language Day' in 2023, the Sindh Assembly under Culture minister Sardar Ali Shah, passed a unanimous resolution to extend the use of language to the primary level,^[43] and to increase the status of Sindhi as a national language of Pakistan.^[44][45][46]

Many Sindhi-language television channels are broadcasting in Pakistan, such as Time News, KTN, Sindh TV, Awaz Television Network, Mehran TV, and Dharti TV.

India

The Indian government has legislated Sindhi as a scheduled language in India, making it an option for education. Despite lacking any state-level status, Sindhi is still a prominent minority language in the Indian states of Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra.^[47] In India, Sindhi mother tongue speakers were distributed in the following states:

More information State, Population ...

2011 Census Statistics^[48][b]

State	Population
India	2,772,264
Gujarat	1,184,024
Maharashtra	723,748
Rajasthan	386,569
Madhya Pradesh	245,161
Chhattisgarh	93,424
Delhi (NCT)	31,177
Uttar Pradesh	28,952
Assam	19,646
Karnataka	16,954
Andhra Pradesh	11,299
Tamil Nadu	8,448
West Bengal	7,828
Uttarakhand	2,863
Odisha	2,338
Bihar	2,227
Jharkhand	1,701
Haryana	1,658
Kerala	1,251
Punjab	754
Goa	656
Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu	894
Meghalaya	236
Chandigarh	134
Puducherry	94
Nagaland	82
Himachal Pradesh	62
Tripura	30
Jammu and Kashmir	19
Andaman and Nicobar Islands	14
Arunachal Pradesh	12
Lakshadweep	7
Sikkim	2

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Sindhi diaspora

In Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore (where Sindhi has no official status), ethnic Sindhis are largely shifting to English as their first language, excepting some monolingual first-generation immigrants and second-generation speakers who use Sindhi at home. Codeswitching of varying degrees is observed in some speakers, usually with English but also with Malay and Indonesian.^{[49][50][51][52]} Similar shift to English is found in the smaller Hong Kong Sindhi community.^[53]

Sindhi speakers by country

More information Country, Population ...

Country	Population
Pakistan[38]	34,401,564
India[48]	2,772,264
United Arab Emirates[54]	102,000
United States[55]	6,299
Canada[56]	5,315
Singapore[57]	3,971

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Consonants

The retroflex consonants are apical postalveolar and do not involve curling back of the tip of the tongue,^[79], so they could be transcribed [t̠, t̠ʰ, d̠, d̠ʱ n̠ n̠ʱ ɾ̠ ɾ̠ʱ] in phonetic transcription. The affricates /tɕ, tɕʰ, dʑ, dʑʱ/ are laminal post-alveolars with a relatively short release. It is not clear if /ɲ/ is similar, or truly palatal.^[80] /ʋ/ is realised as labiovelar [w] or labiodental [ʋ] in free variation, but is not common, except before a stop.

Vowels

The vowels are modal length /i e æ ɑ ɔ o u/ and short /ɪ ʊ ə/. Consonants following short vowels are lengthened: /pət̪o/ [pət̪ˑoː] 'leaf' vs. /pɑt̪o/ [pɑːt̪oː] 'worn'.

Nouns

Sindhi nouns distinguish two genders (masculine and feminine), two numbers (singular and plural), and five cases (nominative, vocative, oblique, ablative, and locative). This is a similar paradigm to Punjabi. Almost all Sindhi noun stems end in a vowel, except for some recent loanwords. The declension of a noun in Sindhi is largely determined by its grammatical gender and the final vowel (or if there is no final vowel). Generally, -o stems are masculine and -a stems are feminine, but the other final vowels can belong to either gender.

The different paradigms are listed below with examples.^[81] The ablative and locative cases are used with only some lexemes in the singular number and hence not listed, but predictably take the suffixes -ā̃ / -aū̃ / -ū̃ (ABL) and -i (LOC).

A few nouns representing familial relations take irregular declensions with an extension in -r- in the plural. These are the masculine nouns ڀاءُ भाउ bhāu "brother", پِيءُ पिउ pīu "father", and the feminine nouns ڌِيءَ धीअ dhīa "daughter", نُونھَن नूंहं nū̃hã "daughter-in-law", ڀيڻَ भेण bheṇa "sister", ماءُ माउ māu "mother", and جوءِ जोइ joi "wife".^[81]

Pronouns

Numerals

The word for one has both masculine and feminine forms, هِڪُ/हिकु hiku and هِڪَ/हिक hika respectively, while the other numbers do not decline for gender.^[88]

Postpositions

Most nominal relations (e.g. the semantic role of a nominal as an argument to a verb) are indicated using postpositions, which follow a noun in the oblique case. The subject of the verb takes the bare oblique case, while the object may be in nominative case or in oblique case and followed by the accusative case marker کي खे khe.^[89]

The postpositions are divided into case markers, which directly follow the noun, and complex postpositions, which combine with a case marker (usually the genitive جو जो jo).

Verbs

Adverbs

Adverbs are indeclinable in Sindhi.^[99]

Syntax

Sindhi has subject-object-verb word order.^[100]

Vocabulary

According to historian Nabi Bux Baloch, most Sindhi vocabulary is from ancient Sanskrit. However, owing to the influence of the Persian language over the Indian subcontinent, Sindhi has adapted many words from Persian and Arabic. It has also borrowed from English and Hindustani. Today, Sindhi in Pakistan is slightly influenced by Urdu^{[citation needed]}, with more borrowed Perso-Arabic elements, while Sindhi in India is influenced by Hindi^{[citation needed]}, with more borrowed tatsam Sanskrit elements.^[101]

Perso-Arabic script

During the British Raj, a variant of the Persian alphabet was adopted for Sindhi in the 19th century. The script is used in Pakistan and India today. It has a total of 52 letters, augmenting the Persian with digraphs and eighteen new letters (ڄ ٺ ٽ ٿ ڀ ٻ ڙ ڍ ڊ ڏ ڌ ڇ ڃ ڦ ڻ ڱ ڳ ڪ) for sounds particular to Sindhi and other Indo-Aryan languages. Some letters that are distinguished in Arabic or Persian are homophones in Sindhi.

The table presents the Sindhi Perso-Arabic alphabet. Letters shaded in yellow are solely used in writing of loanwords, and the phonemes they represent are also represented by other letters in the alphabet. Letters and digraphs shaded in green aren't usually considered part of the base alphabet. They are either commonly used digraphs representing aspirated consonants, or are ligatures serving a grammatical function. These ligatures include the ۽, which is pronounced as [ãĩ̯] and represents and, and the ۾, which is pronounced as [mẽ] and creates a locative relationship between words.

The orthography of the letter hāʾ in Sindhi, especially as it comes to typing as opposed to handwriting, has been a source of confusion for many. Especially because whereas in Arabic and Persian, there exists one single letter for hāʾ, in Urdu, the letter has diverged into two distinct variants: gol he ("round he") and do-cašmi he ("two-eyed he"). The former is written is written round and zigzagged as "ہـ ـہـ ـہ ہ", and can impart the "h" (/ɦ/) sound anywhere in a word, or the long "a" or the "e" vowels (/ɑː/ or /eː/) at the end of a word. The latter is written in Arabic Naskh style (as a loop) (ھ), in order to be used in digraphs and to create aspirated consonants.

For most aspirated consonants, Sindhi relies on unique letters as opposed to the Urdu practice of digraphs. However, this doesn't apply to all aspirated consonants. Some are still written as digraphs. The letter hāʾ is also used in Sindhi to represent the sound [h] in native Sindhi words, in Arabic and Persian loanwords, and to represent vowels (/ə/ or /əʰ/) at the end of the word. The notations and conventions in Sindhi are different from those of either Persian or Arabic and from those of Urdu. Given the variety of types of hāʾ across these languages for which Unicode characters have been designed, for the letters to be displayed correctly when typing, a correct and consistent convention needs to be followed. The following table will present these in detail.^[107][108]

The punctuation of Sindhi Perso-Arabic script differs slightly from that of Urdu, Persian, and Arabic. Namely, instead of using the typical inverted comma (، [U+060C]) common in these mentioned alphabet, a reversed comma (⹁ [U+2E41]) is used, although many documents do indeed incorrectly use Urdu punctuations.^[109]

Devanagari script

In India, the Devanagari script is also used to write Sindhi.^[110] A modern version was introduced by the government of India in 1948; however, it did not gain full acceptance, so both the Sindhi-Arabic and Devanagari scripts are used. In India, a person may write a Sindhi language paper for a Civil Services Examination in either script.^[111] Devanagari was seen as the most practical option for the Sindhi language in India.^[1] Diacritical bars below the letter are used to mark implosive consonants, and dots called nukta are used to form other additional consonants.

Laṇḍā scripts

Laṇḍā-based scripts, such as Gurmukhi, Khojki, and the Khudabadi script, were used historically to write Sindhi.

Roman Sindhi

Romanised Sindhi is usually used by Sindhis when texting messages on their mobile phones.^[114][115]

Perso-Arabic Script

Devanagari

दफ़अ १: समूरा इंसान आज़ाद ऐं इज़्ज़त ऐं हक़न जी हवाले खां बराबर पैदा थिया आहिन। इन्हन खे अक़्ल ऐं ज़मीर हासिल थियो आहे, इन करे इन्हन खे हिक ॿिए सां भाईचारे वारो सुलूक इख़्तियार करण घुरजे॥

Romanisation

Dafa 1. Samūrā insān āzād aĩ 'izzat aĩ haqan jī havālē khā̃ barābar paidā thiyā āhin. Inhan khē aqul aĩ zamīr hāsil thiyō āhē, in karē inhan khē hik ɓiē sā̃ bhāīchārē vārō sulūk ikhtiyār karaṇ ghurjē.

IPA Transliteration

d̪əfə eːk. səmuːɾaː ɪnsaːn aːzaːd̪ ɛ̃ ɪzːət̪ ɛ̃ həqən d͡ʒiː həʋaːleː kʰãː bəɾaːbəɾ pɛːd̪aː tʰɪjaː aːhɪn. ɪnʱən kʰeː əqʊl ɛ̃ zəmiːɾ haːsɪl tʰɪjoː aːheː, ɪn kəɾeː ɪnʱən kʰeː hɪk ɓɪ.eː sãː bʱaːiːt͡ʃaːɾeː ʋaːɾoː sʊluːk ɪxt̪ɪjaːɾ kəɾəɳ gʱʊɾd͡ʒeː

Translation

Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Software

By 2001, Abdul-Majid Bhurgri^{[failed verification]} had coordinated with Microsoft to develop Unicode-based Software in the form of the Perso-Arabic Sindhi script, which afterwards became the basis for the communicated use by Sindhi speakers around the world.^[117] In 2016, Google introduced the first automated translator for the Sindhi language.^[118][119] Later on in 2023 an offline support was introduced by Google Translate.^[120][121] Which was followed by Microsoft Translator strengthening support in May of same year.^[122][123]

In June 2014, the Khudabadi script of the Sindhi language was added to Unicode, However as of now the script currently has no proper rendering support to view it in unsupported devices.

Lists

• List of Sindhi films
• List of Sindhi singers
• List of Sindhi poets

Languages

• Languages of India
• Languages of Pakistan
• Languages with official status in India
• Kholosi language
• Luwati language