There were 76 million Punjabi speakers in Pakistan in 2008. In India, partition led to the abandonment of Hindustani as the national language. Of 213 million Pakistanis, Punjabi is spoken by 48-55% of the population. They are not included in the overall percentage. Dhatki, Haryanvi, Marwari, Wakhi and Burushaski. Also spoken as minority language in: Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand. Help us to inform and educate. It has a rich literature and is taught in schools. Five languages have more than 10 million speakers each in Pakistan – Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi, Saraiki and Urdu. Urdu may only be the mother tongue of a small minority, but it is tied up with Pakistani identity. Urdu Waxes, Punjabi Wanes The official language of Pakistan continues to be Urdu. Four of these are provincial languages – Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi, and Balochi. Although Urdu is not a dialect continuum, it is a major dialect of Hindustani and somewhat differs from Hindi, another dialect of Hindustani which is not spoken in Pakistan. Pakistan's Constitution and laws were written in English and are now being re-written in the local languages. Pakistani Punjabi has influences from Persian, Arabic and Urdu. In 2015, it was announced that there were plans to promote Urdu in official business, but Pakistan's Minister of Planning Ahsan Iqbal stated,"Urdu will be a second medium of language and all official business will be bilingual." Despite the domination of Punjabis, Pakistan has employed Urdu as a medium of instruction since its inception. The script is used in Pakistan today. These cookies track our website’s performance and also help us to continuously improve the experience we provide to you. Some letters that are distinguished in Arabic or Persian are homophones in Sindhi. We need to find clues in the peculiar cultural and political evolution of Punjab. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 4.1-2 (1998): 68-85. [citation needed]. It might no longer be the written language of the state. Unique insights from 2000+ contributors in 80+ countries. These cookies essential for the website to function. No language other than Urdu.”. With 38 letters, the Urdu alphabet is typically written in the calligraphic Nasta'liq script, whereas Arabic is more commonly in the Naskh style. The valleys in which it is spoken include Astore, Chilas, Dareil, Tangeer, Gilgit, Ghizer, and a few parts of Kohistan. English is seen as the language of upward mobility, and its use is becoming more prevalent in upper social circles, where it is often spoken alongside native Pakistani languages. There are three major dialect patterns within which the various individual dialects may be classified; these are Pakhto, which is the Northern (Peshawar) variety, and the softer Pashto spoken in the southern areas such as in Quetta. It is also spoken in the Gurez, Drass, Kargil, Karkit Badgam and Ladakh valleys of Kashmir. Instead, the country’s officialdom increasingly uses a Sanskritized form of Hindi, even as most young people speak a mixture of Hindi and English termed Hinglish. At Dhaka University’s convocation on March 24, 1948, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, gave an iconic speech that is quoted till today: “In my personal opinion, Pakistan’s official language — which will become a source of communication between its different provinces — can only be one and that is Urdu. In the 19th century, the likes of Mian Muhammad Bakhsh and Khawaja Ghulam Farid enriched the Punjabi literary tradition even as they used the vernacular to connect with ordinary people. Yet, in Pakistan, the Punjabi language is sometimes seen as inferior. Eastern Hill Balochi or Northern Balochi is very different from the rest. The religious revivals of the 19th century have to be examined in the wider context of the anti-colonial freedom movement of the 20th century. In Pakistan, almost everything in Urdu is written in the script, concentrating the greater part of Nastaʿlīq usage in the world. Saraiki is the first language of about 20 million people in Pakistan, its territory ranges across southern Punjab, parts of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and some border regions of northern Sindh and eastern Balochistan. Pakistan's national language is Urdu. Your donation is tax-deductible. In fact, Pakistan’s 1973 constitution recognizes Urdu as the country’s only national language. The Indo-Iranian languages derive from a reconstructed common proto-language, called Proto-Indo-Iranian. That tradition was continued by later Sufis such as Shah Hussain, Bahu Shah, Bulleh Shah and Waris Shah. Instead, it chose Urdu. It is worth mentioning that Pakistan is not alone in facing a problem with a national language. Instead, the Muslim League, as it has come to be known, claimed to represent all Indian Muslims. This is a series of maps which shows the distribution of different languages in Pakistan as of the 1998 Pakistan Census. 1. Over 93% of people who speak Punjabi as their first language live in Pakistan and India. English (previous colonial and co-official language), Arabic (historical official language, religious and minor literary language), Persian (previous colonial and literary language), Bengali (previous regional and immigrant language), Turkic languages (previous colonial and immigrant languages), About eight percent speak it as a first language or only language. The language has been influenced by neighboring Balochi and to a lesser extent by Sindhi and Pashto. Karachi is one of the most Pashto speaking cities in the world. It became the language of middle and lower-middle-class Punjabi intelligentsia. In India, Punjabi is spoken as a native language by 3% of the population. Join our community of more than 2,500 contributors to publish your perspective, share your narrative and shape the global discourse. In multi-language societies, the choice of national or state language is always problematic. 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), although it has no official status there, and both Ur… It is a modification of the Persian alphabet, which is itself a derivative of the Arabic alphabet. Gujari also known as Gojri (ગુજરી, गुजरी, گُوجَری) is a variety of Indo-Aryan spoken by the Gurjars and other tribes including Bakarwals residing in all the provinces of Pakistan, and Azad Kashmir.[7]. In. It is today spoken primarily by the Dari speaking refugees from Afghanistan and a small number of local Balochistani Hazara community, whereas most Pakistani Hazaras speak Hazaragi, which is considered a separate language by some expert and a variety of Farsi language by others. 2 that "The State shall endeavour, as respects the Muslims of Pakistan (a) to make the teaching of the Holy Quran and Islamiat compulsory, to encourage and facilitate the learning of Arabic language ..."[10]. It is the 11th most widely spoken language in India, and the third most-spoken native language in the Indian Subcontinent. Almost all of Pakistan's languages belong to the Indo-Iranian group of the Indo-European language family. Of these, 66 are indigenous and 8 are non-indigenous. The Punjabi language belongs like most others of northern India to the Indo-European family of languages. The Urdu alphabet is the right-to-left alphabet. When Pakistan was formed in 1947, it included two parts: West and East Pakistan. Punjabi is the most popular of the regional languages of Pakistan. They have sometimes been referred to as Greater Punjabi. In the last part of 20th century, Pakhto or Pashto has produced some great poets like Ghani Khan, Khatir Afridi and Amir Hamza Shinwari. In the 1980s, some intellectuals began a daily newspaper in Punjabi. Arabic is taught as a religious language in mosques, schools, colleges, universities and madrassahs. Punjabi elites can reasonably point out that they are not imposing their language on minority nationalities. To know some more, go through these interesting facts about Punjabi Language: Punjabi Language Alphabets. Article 251 of the Constitution of Pakistan declares that these two languages would be the only official languages at the national level, while provincial governments would be allowed to make provisions for the use of other languages. We bring you perspectives from around the world. Arabic is the religious language of Muslims. There is some mutual understanding with Indian Pakistani although interestingly they both use different scripts. 1% of the Pakistani population has Brahui as their first language. There are small pockets of Turkic speakers found throughout the country, notably in the valleys in the countries northern regions which lie adjacent to Central Asia, western Pakistani region of Waziristan principally around Kanigoram where the Burki tribe dwells and in Pakistan's urban centres of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. Punjabi language is not only spoken in Pakistan and India but it is also spoken in the countries like Canada, United Kingdom, United States of America and all other countries wherever Why Making Hagia Sophia a Mosque Again Is Good News, Macron Claims Islam Is in “Crisis.” Erdogan Disagrees, The Challenge With Jinnah’s Vision for Pakistan. Other sub-dialects are Kalati (Qalati), Chagai-Kharani and Panjguri. When the British emerged as the ruling power in India, they decided to adopt Urdu as the language of the state at the lower level, especially in the army. It is the most widely spoken native language in Pakistan. Khushal Khan Khattak (1613–1689) and Rahman Baba (1633–1708) were famous poets in the Pashto language. The All-India Muslim League rejected the INC’s claim to represent all Indians. The two Muslim-majority provinces of Bengal and Punjab were divided between India and Pakistan. Punjabi is spoken as a native language by over 44.15% of Pakistanis. The people of the Punjab today are called Punjabis, and their primary language is Punjabi. This page was last edited on 15 December 2020, at 10:42. A number of Turkic speaking refugees, mostly Uzbeks and Turkmens from Afghanistan and Uyghurs from China have settled in Pakistan. © Hussain Warraich. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language.It is the first language of about 130 million people, and is the 10th most spoken language in the world. Punjabis dominate the Pakistani state and society at all levels from politics, bureaucracy and the ubiquitous military to economics and culture. The total number of speakers make the majority percentage of the population, Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (2005). Languages of Pakistan Languages of Pakistan Punjabi پنجابی, ਪੰਜਾਬੀ (Pañjābī) Spoken in: Pakistan and India. Persian was officially abolished with the arrival of the British: in Sindh in 1843 and in Punjab in 1849. In the history, Arabic (عربي) was the official language when the territory of the modern state Islamic Republic of Pakistan was a part of the Umayyad Caliphate between 651 and 750. In Pakistan’s Punjab province, Punjabi is not the medium for instruction in schools eventhough over 40% of the population speaks the language. Bengali was recognised as the second official language of Pakistan on 29 February 1956, and article 214(1) of the constitution of Pakistan was reworded to "The state language of Pakistan shall be Urdu and Bengali". In Canada, it is the fifth most-spoken native language. On February 21, 1952, less than four years after the Jinnah’s speech, Pakistan brutally cracked down on those demanding the adoption of Bangla as the second national language. Sindhi is spoken by over 53.4 million people in Pakistan and some 5.8 million in India as well as some 2.6 million in other parts of the world. These two parts of the country were approximately 1,600 kilometers apart. The following three languages of Pakistan are not part of the Indo-European language family: All languages of Pakistan, besides English, are written in Nastaʿlīq, a modified Perso-Arabic script. Punjabi is the most widely spoken language in Pakistan and is the provincial language in the Punjab Province of Pakistan. However, the rest of the people converse in Punjabi. In Pakistan, the absence of a convenient written script is a major threat to the survival of the Punjabi language. Become a Fair Observer and help us make sense of the world. ", "CCI defers approval of census results until elections", "Gujari Language and Identity in Jammu and Kashmir", "Pakistan to replace English with Urdu as official language - The Express Tribune", Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training, "Asia Why are Pakistanis keen to learn Chinese language? It is also proposed to be the co-official languages along with English.[2]. Once Bangladesh seceded, Punjabi domination strengthened. Although spoken as a native language by millions in Pakistan, Punjabi has no official legal status there. In literary usage, this language either took the form of Hindi written in the Devanagari script or of Urdu penned in the Persian script. [citation needed], Other languages spoken by linguistic minorities include the languages listed below, with speakers ranging from a few hundred to tens of thousands. Upper-class Punjabis like other upper-class South Asians were educated in English and had little love for vernacular languages or literature. The teaching of Punjabi in schools is prohibited. Rahman, Tariq (2002) Language, Ideology and Power: Language-learning among the Muslims of Pakistan and North India Karachi: Oxford University Press. source: omniglot.com. Of 213 million Pakistanis, Punjabi is spoken by 48-55% of the population. Languages of Pakistan. Urdu (اردو) is the national language (قومی زبان), lingua franca and one of two official languages of Pakistan (the other currently being English). The two parts of Pakistan were divided by more than distance. Later in life, Humayun himself is said to have spoken in Persian verse more often than not. The Chaghatai language, in which Babur had written his memoirs, disappeared almost entirely from the culture of the courtly elite, and Mughal emperor Akbar could not speak it. The views expressed in this article are the author ’ s performance and also help us make sense of time... Was temporarily removed by the Kurds, a people proud of their identity language... Punjabis wielding most levers of power in Pakistan with reference to its,! Was granted status as a religious language in the Middle East has increased. Australia, New Zealand tongue of only 7-8 % of Pakistanis across much the. 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