Hindko

Hindko (ہندکو, romanised:Hindko, IPA:) is a polyphyletic label for a diverse group of Lahnda dialects spoken by several million people of various ethnic backgrounds in several areas in northwestern Pakistan, primarily in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and northwestern regions of Punjab.

The name "Hindko" is a Pashtoexonym meaning "the Indian language" or "language of Hind", and refers to the Indo-Aryan speech forms spoken in the northern Indian subcontinent, in contrast to Pashto itself, a neighbouring Iranic language spoken by the Pashtun people. An alternative local name for this language group is Hindki. A speaker of Hindko may be referred to as Hindki, Hindkun, or Hindkowan (Hindkuwan).

Like other Lahnda varieties, Hindko is derived from the Shauraseni Prakrit. Hindko to some extent is mutually intelligible with Punjabi and Saraiki, and has more affinities with the latter than with the former.

There is a nascent language movement, and in recent decades Hindko-speaking intellectuals have started promoting the view of Hindko as a separate language. There is a literary tradition based on Peshawari, the urban variety of Peshawar in the northwest, and another one based on the language of Abbottabad in the northeast. In the 2023 census of Pakistan, 5.6 million people declared their language to be Hindko, while a 2020 estimate placed the number of speakers at 7 million.