Punjabi language

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Punjabi
ਪੰਜਾਬੀ پنجابی Pañjābī
Spoken in: Pakistan (80 million speakers)
India (30 million speakers)
UK, USA, Canada, Burma, Dubai, Philippines and other countries with Punjabi migrants 
Region: Punjab
Total speakers: Western: 61-62 million
Eastern: 99 million
Siraiki: 30 million
 
Ranking: 10-14
Language family: Indo-European
 Indo-Iranian
  Indo-Aryan
   Punjabi 
Writing system: Shahmukhi, Gurmukhi 
Official status
Official language in: Flag of Pakistan Punjab, Flag of India Punjab, Haryana, Delhi
Regulated by: no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1: pa
ISO 639-2: pan
ISO 639-3: variously:
pan – Punjabi (Eastern)
pnb – Punjabi (Western)
pmu – Punjabi (Mirpuri)
lah – Lahndi
Indic script
 This page contains Indic text. Without rendering support you may see irregular vowel positioning and a lack of conjuncts. More...
"Punjabi" redirects here. For other uses, see Punjabi (disambiguation).

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.

It is an Indo-European language within the smaller Indo-Iranian subfamily. Unusually for an Indo-European language, Punjabi is tonal; the tones arose as a reinterpretation of different consonant series in terms of pitch. In terms of linguistic typology it is an inflecting language, and word order is Subject Object Verb.

Contents

[edit] Dialects and geographic distribution

Being one of the most spoken languages in the world,[1] Punjabi is the official language of the Indian state of Punjab and the shared state capital Chandigarh. It is one of the second official languages of Delhi and Haryana.[2] It is also spoken in neighbouring areas such as Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. Punjabi is the predominantly spoken language in the Punjab province of Pakistan (and the most widely spoken language in Pakistan according to the CIA factbook[3]), although it has no official status there, and both Urdu and English are preferred languages of the elite.

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[4]) and Canada (where it is the fifth most commonly used language[5]). In recent times Punjabi has grown fast and has now become the fourth most spoken language in Canada.[6]

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.

There are many dialects of Punjabi and they all form part of a dialect continuum, merging with Sindhi and related languages in Pakistan, and Hindustani in India. The main dialects of Punjabi are Majhi, Doabi, Malwai and Powadhi in India, and Pothohari, Lahndi and Multani in Pakistan. Majhi is the standard written form of Punjabi. Punjabi is the fifth top language. It is spoken mainly in Punjab.

Punjabi University, Patiala, lists the following as dialects of Punjabi:[7]

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:

As classified in SIL Ethnologue:

└Indo-Aryan
 └Northern zone
  └Western Pahari
   └Dogri [dgo]
 └Central zone
  └Eastern Punjabi [pan]
 └Northwestern zone
   └Lahnda [lah]
    ├Jakati [jat]
    ├Mirpur Punjabi [pmu]
    ├Northern Hindko [hno]
    ├Pahari-Potwari [phr]
    ├Siraiki [skr]
    ├Southern Hindko [hnd]
    └Western Punjabi [pnb]

[edit] Western and Eastern Punjabi

Many sources[who?] subdivide the Punjabi language into Western Punjabi or Lahndi (ਲਹਿੰਦੀ), and Eastern Punjabi. They tend to do so based on GA Grierson's Linguistic Survey of India. The decision to divide the language has been controversial. The exact division of the language and even the legitimacy of such a division is disputed.

The dialect spoken in central Punjabi — on both the Indian and Pakistani side — is Majhi or Majhaili. Grierson defined Western Punjabi (which he called "Lahnda") as being west of a line running north-south from Sahiwal and Gujranwala districts. This is 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".[8] Contrary to this, Ethnologue has come to classify Lahndi as the dialect of Punjabi spoken in all of Pakistan.

[edit] Phonology

Vowels
Front Central Back
Close iː uː
Near-close ɪ ʊ
Close-mid eː ə oː
Open ɛː ɑː ɔː
Consonants
Bilabial Labio-
dental		 Dental/
Alveolar		 Retroflex Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ɳ ɲ ŋ
Plosive and
Affricate		 voiceless p t̪ ʈ ʧ k
voiceless aspirated pʰ t̪ʰ ʈʰ ʧʰ kʰ
voiced b d̪ ɖ ʤ g
Fricative (f) s (z) (ʃ) ɦ
Flap ɾ ɽ
Approximant ʋ l ɭ j
Tone

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.[9]

[edit] Grammar

Main article: Punjabi grammar

[edit] 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.

[edit] Role in Education

[edit] Notable authors

See List of Punjabi authors.

[edit] Dictionaries

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ punjabidictionary
  2. ^ The Times of India - "Punjabi, Urdu made official languages in Delhi" 25 June 2003
  3. ^ CIA World Factbook, Pakistan- People
  4. ^ "Punjabi Community". The United Kingdom Parliament.
  5. ^ Canadian Census Data (2001)
  6. ^ Punjabi is 4th most spoken language in Canada-Indians Abroad-The Times of India
  7. ^ Advanced Centre for Technical Development of Punjabi Language, Literature and Culture
  8. ^ Masica, Colin P (1991). The Indo-Aryan Languages8989uuijhygt. Cambridge University Press, pp.18-20. ISBN 0-521-29944-6. 
  9. ^ Harjeet Singh Gill, "The Gurmukhi Script", p. 397. In Daniels and Bright, The World's Writing Systems. 1996.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] External links

Wikipedia
Punjabi language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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