Sindhi language

Sindhi
سنڌي सिन्धी Sindhī
Spoken in: Pakistan, India. Also Hong Kong, Oman, Philippines, Singapore, UAE, UK, USA, Afghanistan 
Region: South Asia
Total speakers: 54.3 million 
Ranking: 23
Language family: Indo-European
 Indo-Iranian
  Indo-Aryan
   Northwestern Zone
    Sindhi 
Writing system: Arabic, Devanagari 
Official status
Official language in: Pakistan, India
Regulated by: No official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1: sd
ISO 639-2: snd
ISO 639-3: snd
Indic script
 This page contains Indic text. Without rendering support you may see irregular vowel positioning and a lack of conjuncts. More...

Sindhi (Arabic script: سنڌي, Devanagari script: सिन्धी, Sindhī) is the language of the Sindh region of South Asia, which is a province of Pakistan. It is spoken by approximately 41 million people in Pakistan, and 12 million in India; it is the second most spoken language of Pakistan, a recognized official language in Pakistan and also an official language in India. The Government of Pakistan issues National Identity Cards to its citizens only in two languages, i.e. Sindhi and Urdu. Genealogically it is an Indo-Aryan language, though it also shows signs of heavy Dravidian influence. Most Sindhi speakers in Pakistan are concentrated in the Sindh province. The remaining speakers are found in India and amongst the Sindhi diaspora community which are scattered throughout the world. The Sindhi language has spread as the Hindu Sindhis left Sindh during the Independence of Pakistan in 1947. The language is written in Devanagari script by Sindhi Hindus; however, with the conversion of most Sindhis to Islam, a modified Arabic script was produced.[1] After the independence of both India and Pakistan from British rule, the Government of India introduced Devanagari, alongside the modified Arabic, for writing Sindhi. [1]

Contents

Geographical distribution

Sindhi is taught as a first language in the schools of Sindh and second language in Balochistan in Pakistan. In India, especially in the State of [Maharashtra & Gujarat], many educational institutions managed by Sindhi community and in the schools of such society Sindhi is taught either as the medium of instruction or as a subject.[2] Sindhi has a vast vocabulary; this has made it a favourite of many writers and consequently much literature and poetry have been written in Sindhi. Dialects of Sindhi are spoken in southern Punjab, Balochistan, Northwest province of Pakistan (NWFP), and also Gujarat as well as Rajasthan in India.

See also: States of India by Sindhi speakers

History

The immediate predecessor of Sindhi was an Apabhramsha Prakrit named Vrachada. Arab and Persian travellers, specifically Abu-Rayhan Biruni in his book 'Mal al-Hind', had declared that even before the advent of Islam in Sindh (711 A.D.), the language was prevalent in the region. It was not only widely spoken but written in three different scripts -- Ardhanagari, Saindhu and Malwari, all variations of Devanagari. Biruni has described many Sindhi words leading to the conclusion that the Sindhi language was widely spoken and rich in vocabulary in his time.

Sindhi was a very popular literary language between the 14th and 18th centuries. This is when sufis such as Shah Abdul Latif, Sachal Sarmast,Lal Shahbaz Qalandar (as well as numerous others) narrated their theosophical poetry depicting the relationship between humans and God.

During the British period, traders and common people -- including Khojas and Memons -- were using Devanagari, Modi or Vanika scripts, without any vowels for writing Sindhi, while government employees used some kind of Arabic script.

In 1849 the first English-Sindhi dictionary was written in the Devanagari script.

Basic Phrases

Sounds

Sindhi has a large sound inventory. It has 46 distinctive consonant phonemes (more than all the phonemes of English combined) and a further 16 vowels. All plosives, affricates, nasals, the retroflex flap and the lateral approximant /l/ have aspirated or breathy voiced counterparts. The language also features four separate implosives.

Consonants

Labial (Denti-)
Alveolar		 Retroflex Palatoalveolar
/ Palatal		 Velar Glottal
Nasal m
mʱ		 n
nʱ		 ɳ
ɳʱ		 ɲ ŋ
Plosives and
affricates		 p
pʰ		 b
bʱ		 t̪
t̪ʰ		 d̪
d̪ʱ		 ʈ
ʈʰ		 ɖ
ɖʱ		 t̠ɕ
t̠ɕʰ		 d̠ʑ
d̠ʑʱ		 k
kʰ		 g
gʱ
Implosives ɓ ɗ    ʄ ~ jˀ ɠ
Fricatives f   s z ʂ x ɣ h  
Taps r ɽ
ɽʱ
Approximants ʋ l̪
l̪ʱ		 j

The retroflex consonants are apical postalveolar, as they are throughout northern India, and so could be transcribed /t̠, t̠ʰ, d̠, d̠ʱ n̠ n̠ʱ s̠ ɾ̠ ɾ̠ʱ/. The affricates /t̠ɕ, t̠ɕʰ, d̠ʑ, d̠ʑʱ/ are laminal post-alveolars with a relatively short release. It is not clear if /ɲ/ is similar, or truly palatal.[3] /ʋ/ is realized as labiovelar [w] or labiodental [ʋ] in free variation. /n/ occurs, but is not common, except before a stop (/nd/ etc).

Vowels

The vowel phonemes of Sindhi

The vowels are modal length /i e æ ɑ ɔ o u/ and short /ɪ̆ ʊ̆ ɐ̆/. (Note /æ ɑ ɐ̆/ are imprecisely transcribed as /ɛ a ə/ in the chart.) Consonants following short vowels are lengthened: [pɐ̆tˑo] 'leaf' vs. [pɑto] 'worn'.

Writing system

Arabic

In Pakistan, Sindhi is written in a variant of the Persian alphabet, which was adopted under the encouragement of the British when Sindh fell to them in the 19th century. 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.

جھ ڄ ج پ ث ٺ ٽ ٿ ت ڀ ٻ ب ا
ɟʱ ʄ ɟ p s ʈʰ ʈ tʰ t bʱ ɓ b *
ڙ ر ذ ڍ ڊ ڏ ڌ د خ ح ڇ چ ڃ
ɽ r z ɖʱ ɖ ɗ dʱ d x h cʰ c ɲ
ق ڦ ف غ ع ظ ط ض ص ش س ز ڙھ
k pʰ f ɣ ∅ z t z s ʃ s z ɽʱ
ي ه و ڻ ن م ل ڱ گھ ڳ گ ک ڪ
* h * ɳ n m l ŋ ɡʱ ɠ ɡ kʰ k

Devanagari

In India, the Devanagari script is used. It 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 [2]. Diacritical bars below the letter are used to mark implosive consonants, and dots called nukta are used to form other additional consonants.

अ आ इ ई उ ऊ ए ऐ ओ औ
ə a ɪ i ʊ uː e ɛ o ɔ
क ख ख़ ग ग॒ ग़ घ ङ
k kʰ x ɡ ɠ ɣ ɡʱ ŋ
च छ ज ज॒ ज़ झ ञ
c cʰ ɟ ʄ z ɟʱ ɲ
ट ठ ड ड॒ ड़ ढ ढ़ ण
ʈ ʈʰ ɖ ɗ ɽ ɖʱ ɽʱ ɳ
त थ द ध न
t tʰ d dʱ n
प फ फ़ ब ब॒ भ म
p pʰ f b ɓ bʱ m
य र ल व
j r l ʋ
श ष स ह
ʃ ʂ s h

See also

External links

References

  1. ↑ http://yangtze.cs.uiuc.edu/~jamali/sindh/sammelan/04.html
  2. ↑ The Sindhu World
  3. ↑ The IPA Handbook uses the symbols c, cʰ, ɟ, ɟʱ, but makes it clear this is simply tradition and that these are neither palatal nor stops, but "laminal post-alveolars with a relatively short release". Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996:83) confirm a transcription of [t̠ɕ, t̠ɕʰ, d̠ʑ, d̠ʑʱ] and further remarks that "/ʄ/ is often a slightly creaky voiced palatal approximant" (caption of table 3.19).

Sources

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