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Punjabi is the official language of the Indian state of Punjab, and has the status of an additional official language in Haryana and Delhi. Some of its major urban centres in northern India are Amritsar, Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Jalandhar, Ambala, Patiala, Bathinda, Hoshiarpur, Firozpur and Delhi. Punjabi in India.
- 113 million (2011–2017)
- Overview
- Scripts
- Standardization
- Punjabi in India
- Punjabi in Pakistan
Punjabi language, one of the most widely spoken Indo-Aryan languages. The old British spelling “Punjabi” remains in more common general usage than the academically precise “Panjabi.” In the early 21st century there were about 30 million speakers of Punjabi in India. It is the official language of the Indian state of Punjab and is one of the languag...
In India, Punjabi is written in the distinctive Gurmukhi script, which is particularly associated with the Sikhs. That script is a member of the Indic family of scripts, written from left to right, but in its organization it differs significantly from the Devanagari used to write Hindi. The Urdu script, written from right to left, is used for writing Punjabi in Pakistan, where it is nowadays often given the imitative name Shahmukhi. Punjabi is thus today one of the very few languages in the world to be written in two quite different and mutually unintelligible scripts.
Britannica Quiz
In spite of Punjabi’s very large numbers of speakers and rich traditions of popular poetry, the standardization of the language was historically inhibited by lack of official recognition as well as by the different cultural preferences of the three main local religious communities of Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs. Other languages were cultivated for m...
The partition of the subcontinent in 1947 along religious lines was marked by particular violence in Punjab, where ethnic cleansing and exchange of populations resulted in the expulsion of most Punjabi-speaking Muslims from India and of Sikhs and Hindus from Pakistan. Whereas the Muslims had strongly identified with Urdu and the Hindus with Hindi, it was the Sikhs who had particularly identified with the Punjabi cause. The Gurmukhi script was first used to record the Sikh scriptures, the Adi Granth, in 1604. Furthermore, Sikh writers were mainly responsible for developing Punjabi as a modern standard language, and the Sikh political leadership in 1966 finally achieved the goal of an albeit truncated state with Punjabi as its official language.
This officially recognized Indian Punjabi is generally taken as standard in descriptions of the language. There is a significant degree of mutual intelligibility with Hindi and Urdu, although the three languages are sharply differentiated by their scripts, and Punjabi is historically distinguished by its retention of Middle Indo-Aryan (MIA) doubled consonants following a short vowel, so that Sanskrit akshi ‘eye’ becomes MIA akkhi and Punjabi akkh, versus Hindi-Urdu aankh. Phonetically, the most prominent distinctive feature of standard Punjabi is the realization of historical voiced aspiration as tones, so that, for example, Hindi-Urdu ghora ‘horse’ appears in Punjabi as k’òra (with glottal constriction and low-rising tone) and Hindi-Urdu rah ‘way’ as Punjabi rá (with high-falling tone).
In Pakistan the general maintenance of the historical preference for Urdu has stood in the way of those who looked to achieve an increased status for Punjabi, albeit in a form more obviously influenced in its script and vocabulary by Urdu and so itself somewhat different from standard Indian Punjabi. Since Pakistan’s Punjab is much larger and less homogeneous than its Indian counterpart, its internal linguistic variety has also encouraged opposition to the Punjabi activists based in the provincial capital of Lahore by rival groups based in the less prosperous outlying areas of the province, notably by the proponents of Siraiki in the southwestern districts, whose claims to separate linguistic status are vigorously disputed by adherents to the Punjabi cause. There are the usual conflicting claims to the great writers of the past, but all devotees of the Punjabi literary tradition, in both India and Pakistan, find the supreme expression of their shared cultural identity in the rich expression of the Muslim poet Waris (or Varis) Shah’s great romance Hir (1766; also spelled Heer).
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Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language. It is native to Punjab region of Indian Subcontinent, which includes Pakistani province of Punjab and Indian state of Punjab. It is the first language of about 113 million people in the world and is the 9th most spoken language in the world.
- Panjabi: 120 million (2021), Chardi Punjabi: 140 million (2021)
- Panjab
Learn about Punjabi, an Indo-Aryan language spoken mainly in India and Pakistan, and its two writing systems: Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi. Compare the features, symbols and examples of both alphabets and their diacritics.
Mar 7, 2024 · Discover the history, scripts, and grammar of Punjabi, a language spoken by millions in India and Pakistan. Find out how to learn Punjabi fast, easy, and best with resources, tips, and guides.
Punjabi ( / pʌnˈdʒɑːbi / pun-JAH-bee; Shahmukhi: پنجابی; Gurmukhi: ਪੰਜਾਬੀ, Punjabi: [ pəɲˈdʒab̆.bi] ⓘ ), sometimes spelled Panjabi, is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Punjab region of Pakistan and India. It is one of the most widely spoken native languages in the world with approximately 113 million native ...
Dec 9, 2021 · Learn about the history, geography, dialects, and scripts of Punjabi, one of the ancient Indo-Aryan languages spoken by millions of people in India, Pakistan, and other countries. Find out how Punjabi is related to the Sikh and Muslim cultures and the Prakrit language.
