Punjabi phonology

Punjabi (; ; , ), sometimes spelled Panjabi, is an Indo-Aryan language of the Punjab region of Pakistan and India. It has approximately 113 million native speakers.

Punjabi is the most widely-spoken first language in Pakistan, with 80.5 million native speakers as per the 2017 census, and the 11th most widely-spoken in India, with 31.1 million native speakers, as per the 2011 census. The language is spoken among a significant overseas diaspora, particularly in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

In Pakistan, Punjabi is written using the Shahmukhi alphabet, based on the Perso-Arabic script; in India, it is written using the Gurmukhi alphabet, based on the Indic scripts. Punjabi is unusual among the Indo-Aryan languages and the broader Indo-European language family in its usage of lexical tone.

History

Etymology

The word ''Punjabi'' (sometimes spelled ''Panjabi'') has been derived from the word ''Panj-āb'', Persian for 'Five Waters', referring to the five major eastern tributaries of the Indus River. The name of the region was introduced by the Turko-Persian conquerors of South Asia and was a translation of the Sanskrit name for the region, ''Panchanada'', which means 'Land of the Five Rivers'.

''Panj'' is cognate with Sanskrit ' (), Greek ''pénte'' (), and Lithuanian ''Penki'', all of which meaning 'five'; ''āb'' is cognate with Sanskrit ''áp'' () and with the of . The historical Punjab region, now divided between India and Pakistan, is defined physiographically by the Indus River and these five tributaries. One of the five, the Beas River, is a tributary of another, the Sutlej.

Origin

Punjabi developed from Prakrit languages and later (, 'deviated' or 'non-grammatical speech') From 600 BC, Sanskrit developed as the standard literary and administrative language and Prakrit languages evolved into many regional languages in different parts of India. All these languages are called Prakrit languages (Sanskrit: ) collectively. Paishachi Prakrit was one of these Prakrit languages, which was spoken in north and north-western India and Punjabi developed from this Prakrit. Later in northern India Paishachi Prakrit gave rise to Paishachi Aparbhsha, a descendant of Prakrit. Punjabi emerged as an Apabhramsha, a degenerated form of Prakrit, in the 7th century AD and became stable by the 10th century. The earliest writings in Punjabi belong to Nath Yogi era from 9th to 14th century. The language of these compositions is morphologically closer to Shauraseni Apbhramsa, though vocabulary and rhythm is surcharged with extreme colloquialism and folklore.

Arabic and Persian influences

The Arabic and modern Persian influence in the historical Punjab region began with the late first millennium Muslim conquests on the Indian subcontinent. Many Persian and Arabic words were incorporated in Punjabi. So Punjabi relies heavily on Persian and Arabic words which are used with a liberal approach to language. Many important words like , , , etc. are derived from Persian and Arabic. After the fall of the Sikh empire, Urdu was made the official language of Punjab (in Pakistani Punjab, it is still the primary official language), and influenced the language as well.

In fact, the sounds of , and have been borrowed from Persian. Later, it was lexically influenced by Portuguese (words like ), Greek (words like ), Chagatai (words like ), Japanese (words like ), Chinese (words like ) and English (words like ), though these influences have been minor in comparison to Persian and Arabic.

Note: In more formal contexts, hypercorrect Sanskritized versions of these words (ਪ੍ਰਧਾਨ ''pradhān'' for ਪਰਧਾਨ ''pardhān'' and ਪਰਿਵਾਰ ''parivār'' for ਪਰਵਾਰ ''parvār'') may be used.

Modern times

Punjabi is spoken in many dialects in an area from Delhi to Islamabad. The Majhi dialect has been adopted as standard Punjabi in India and Pakistan for education, media etc. The Majhi dialect originated in the Majha region of the Punjab. The Majha region consists of several eastern districts of Pakistani Punjab and in India around Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Pathankot and Tarn Taran districts. The two most important cities in this area are Lahore and Amritsar.

In India, Punjabi is written in the Gurmukhī script in offices, schools, and media. Gurmukhi is the official standard script for Punjabi, though it is often unofficially written in the Latin scripts due to influence from English, India's two primary official languages at the Union-level.

In Pakistan, Punjabi is generally written using the Shahmukhī script, which in literary standards, is identical to the Urdu alphabet, however various attempts have been made to create certain, distinct characters from a modification of the Persian Nastaʿlīq characters to represent Punjabi phonology, not already found in the Urdu alphabet. In Pakistan, Punjabi loans technical words from Persian and Arabic languages, just like Urdu does.

Geographic distribution

Punjabi is the most widely spoken language in Pakistan, the eleventh-most widely spoken in India, and also present in the Punjabi diaspora in various countries.

Pakistan

Punjabi is the most widely spoken language in Pakistan, being the native language of 80.5 million people, or approximately 39% of the country's population.

Beginning with the 1981 census, speakers of Saraiki and Hindko were no longer included in the total numbers for Punjabi, which explains the apparent decrease.

India

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.

In the 2011 census of India, million reported their language as Punjabi. The census publications group this with speakers of related "mother tongues" like Bagri and Bhateali to arrive at the figure of million.

Punjabi diaspora

Punjabi is also spoken as a minority language in several other countries where Punjabi people have emigrated in large numbers, such as the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

There were 0.67 million native Punjabi speakers in Canada in 2021, 0.3 million in the United Kingdom in 2011, 0.28 million in the United States and smaller numbers in other countries.

Major dialects

Standard Punjabi

''Standard Punjabi'' sometimes referred to as Majhi in India or simply Punjabi, is the most widespread and largest dialect of Punjabi. It first developed in the 12th century and gained prominence when Sufi poets such as Shah Hussain, Bulleh Shah among others began to use the Lahore/Amritsar spoken dialect with infused Persian vocabulary in their works in the Shahmukhi script. Later the Gurmukhi script was developed based on Standard Punjabi by the Sikh Gurus.

Standard Punjabi is spoken by the majority of the people in Faisalabad, Lahore, Gujranwala, Sheikhupura, Kasur, Sialkot, Narowal, Gujrat, Okara, Pakpattan, Sahiwal, Hafizabad, Nankana Sahib and Mandi Bahauddin districts of Pakistan's Punjab Province. It also has a large presence in every district in the rest of Pakistani Punjab, and in all large cities in Pakistan's other provinces.

In India it is spoken in Amritsar, Tarn Taran Sahib, Pathankot and Gurdaspur Districts of the State of Punjab.

In Pakistan, the Standard Punjabi dialect is not referred to as the 'Majhi dialect', which may be considered as 'Indian terminology', rather simply as ' Standard Punjabi'. This dialect is widely used in the TV and entertainment industry, which is mainly produced in Lahore.

Phonology

While a vowel length distinction between short and long vowels exists, reflected in modern Gurmukhi orthographical conventions, it is secondary to the vowel quality contrast between centralised vowels and peripheral vowels in terms of phonetic significance.

The peripheral vowels have nasal analogues.

Note: for the tonal stops, refer to the next section about Tone.

The three retroflex consonants do not occur initially, and the nasals occur only as allophones of in clusters with velars and palatals. The well-established phoneme may be realised allophonically as the voiceless retroflex fricative in learned clusters with retroflexes. The phonemic status of the fricatives varies with familiarity with Hindustani norms, more so with the Gurmukhi script, with the pairs , , , and systematically distinguished in educated speech. The retroflex lateral is most commonly analysed as an approximant as opposed to a flap.

Tone

Unusually for an Indo-Aryan language, Punjabi distinguishes lexical tones. In many words there is a choice of up to three tones, high-falling, low-rising, and level (neutral):Bailey, T.Grahame (1919), ''English-Punjabi Dictionary'', introduction.Bowden, A.L. (2012)
"Punjabi Tonemics and the Gurmukhi Script: A Preliminary Study"

Level tone is found in about 75% of words and is described by some as absence of tone. There are also some words which are said to have rising tone in the first syllable and falling in the second. (Some writers describe this as a fourth tone.) However, a recent acoustic study of six Punjabi speakers in the United States found no evidence of a separate falling tone following a medial consonant.
* / , ''móḍà'' (rising-falling), "shoulder"

It is considered that these tones arose when voiced aspirated consonants () lost their aspiration. At the beginning of a word, they became voiceless unaspirated consonants () followed by a high-falling tone; medially or finally they became voiced unaspirated consonants (), preceded by a low-rising tone. (The development of a high-falling tone apparently did not take place in every word, but only in those which historically had a long vowel.)

The presence of an (although the is now silent or very weakly pronounced except word-initially) word-finally (and sometimes medially) also often causes a rising tone before it, for example ' "tea".

The Gurmukhi script which was developed in the 16th century has separate letters for voiced aspirated sounds, so it is thought that the change in pronunciation of the consonants and development of tones may have taken place since that time.

Some other languages in Pakistan have also been found to have tonal distinctions, including Burushaski, Gujari, Hindko, Kalami, Shina, and Torwali.

Grammar

Punjabi has a canonical word order of SOV (subject–object–verb). It has postpositions rather than prepositions.

Punjabi distinguishes two genders, two numbers, and five cases of direct, oblique, vocative, ablative, and locative/ instrumental. The ablative occurs only in the singular, in free variation with oblique case plus ablative postposition, and the locative/instrumental is usually confined to set adverbial expressions.

Adjectives, when declinable, are marked for the gender, number, and case of the nouns they qualify. There is also a T-V distinction.
Upon the inflectional case is built a system of particles known as postpositions, which parallel English's prepositions. It is their use with a noun or verb that is what necessitates the noun or verb taking the oblique case, and it is with them that the locus of grammatical function or "case-marking" then lies.
The Punjabi verbal system is largely structured around a combination of aspect and tense/ mood. Like the nominal system, the Punjabi verb takes a single inflectional suffix, and is often followed by successive layers of elements like auxiliary verbs and postpositions to the right of the lexical base.

Vocabulary

Being an Indo-Aryan language, the core vocabulary of Punjabi consists of tadbhav words inherited from Sanskrit. It contains many loanwords from Persian and Arabic.

Writing systems

The Punjabi language is written in multiple scripts (a phenomenon known as synchronic digraphia). Each of the major scripts currently in use is typically associated with a particular religious group, although the association is not absolute or exclusive.
In India, Punjabi Sikhs use Gurmukhi, a script of the Brahmic family, which has official status in the state of Punjab. In Pakistan, Punjabi Muslims use Shahmukhi, a variant of the Perso-Arabic script and closely related to the Urdu alphabet. The Punjabi Hindus in India had a preference for Devanagari, another Brahmic script also used for Hindi, and in the first decades since independence raised objections to the uniform adoption of Gurmukhi in the state of Punjab, but most have now switched to Gurmukhi and so the use of Devanagari is rare. Often in literature, Pakistani Punjabi (written in Shahmukhi) is referred as Western-Punjabi (or West-Punjabi) and Indian Punjabi (written in Gurmukhi) is referred as Eastern-Punjabi (or East-Punjabi), although the underlying language is the same with a very slight shift in vocabulary towards Islamic and Sikh words respectively.

Historically, various local Brahmic scripts including Laṇḍā and its descendants were also in use.

The Punjabi Braille is used by the visually impaired.

Sample text

This sample text was taken from the Punjabi Wikipedia article on Lahore.

Gurmukhi

ਲਹੌਰ ਪਾਕਿਸਤਾਨੀ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਦੀ ਰਾਜਧਾਨੀ ਹੈ। ਲੋਕ ਗਿਣਤੀ ਦੇ ਨਾਲ ਕਰਾਚੀ ਤੋਂ ਬਾਅਦ ਲਹੌਰ ਦੂਜਾ ਸਭ ਤੋਂ ਵੱਡਾ ਸ਼ਹਿਰ ਹੈ। ਲਹੌਰ ਪਾਕਿਸਤਾਨ ਦਾ ਸਿਆਸੀ, ਰਹਤਲੀ ਅਤੇ ਪੜ੍ਹਾਈ ਦਾ ਗੜ੍ਹ ਹੈ ਅਤੇ ਇਸੇ ਲਈ ਇਹਨੂੰ ਪਾਕਿਸਤਾਨ ਦਾ ਦਿਲ ਵੀ ਕਿਹਾ ਜਾਂਦਾ ਹੈ। ਲਹੌਰ ਰਾਵੀ ਦਰਿਆ ਦੇ ਕੰਢੇ 'ਤੇ ਵਸਦਾ ਹੈ। ਇਸਦੀ ਲੋਕ ਗਿਣਤੀ ਇੱਕ ਕਰੋੜ ਦੇ ਨੇੜੇ ਹੈ।

Shahmukhi

Transliteration

''Lahaur Pākistānī Panjāb dī rājtā̀ni/dā dārul hakūmat ài. Lok giṇtī de nāḷ Karācī tõ bāad Lahaur dūjā sáb tõ vaḍḍā šáir ài. Lahaur Pākistān dā siāsī, rátalī ate paṛā̀ī dā gáṛ ài te ise laī ínū̃ Pākistān dā dil vī kihā jāndā ài. Lahaur Rāvī dariā de káṇḍè te vasdā ài. Isdī lok giṇtī ikk karoṛ de neṛe ài''.

IPA

Translation

Lahore is the capital city of Pakistani Punjab. After Karachi, Lahore is the second largest city. Lahore is Pakistan's political, cultural, and educational hub, and so it is also said to be the heart of Pakistan. Lahore lies on the bank of the Ravi River. Its population is close to ten million people.

Literature development

Medieval period

*Fariduddin Ganjshakar (1179–1266) is generally recognised as the first major poet of the Punjabi language.Shiv Kumar Batalvi
sikh-heritage.co.uk. Roughly from the 12th century to the 19th century, many great Sufi saints and poets preached in the Punjabi language, the most prominent being Bulleh Shah. Punjabi Sufi poetry also developed under Shah Hussain (1538–1599), Sultan Bahu (1630–1691), Shah Sharaf (1640–1724), Ali Haider (1690–1785), Waris Shah (1722–1798), Saleh Muhammad Safoori (1747–1826), Mian Muhammad Baksh (1830–1907) and Khwaja Ghulam Farid (1845–1901).
*The Sikh religion originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region and Punjabi is the predominant language spoken by Sikhs. Most portions of the Guru Granth Sahib use the Punjabi language written in Gurmukhi, though Punjabi is not the only language used in Sikh scriptures.

The '' Janamsakhis'', stories on the life and legend of Guru Nanak (1469–1539), are early examples of Punjabi prose literature.

*The Punjabi language is famous for its rich literature of ''qisse'', most of which are about love, passion, betrayal, sacrifice, social values and a common man's revolt against a larger system. The qissa of Heer Ranjha by Waris Shah (1706–1798) is among the most popular of Punjabi qissas. Other popular stories include ''Sohni Mahiwal'' by Fazal Shah, '' Mirza Sahiban'' by Hafiz Barkhudar (1658–1707), ''Sassui Punnhun'' by Hashim Shah (c. 1735–c. 1843), and ''Qissa Puran Bhagat'' by Qadaryar (1802–1892).
*Heroic ballads known as ''Vaar'' enjoy a rich oral tradition in Punjabi. Famous ''Vaars'' are ''Chandi di Var'' (1666–1708), ''Nadir Shah Di Vaar'' by Najabat and the ''Jangnama'' of Shah Mohammad (1780–1862).

Modern period

The Victorian novel, Elizabethan drama, free verse and Modernism entered Punjabi literature through the introduction of British education during the Raj. Nanak Singh (1897–1971), Vir Singh, Ishwar Nanda, Amrita Pritam (1919–2005), Puran Singh (1881–1931), Dhani Ram Chatrik (1876–1957), Diwan Singh (1897–1944) and Ustad Daman

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