Punjabi language

Panjabi
	ਪੰਜਾਬੀ پنجابی
	'Punjabi' written in Shahmukhi (top) and Gurmukhi (bottom) scripts
Pronunciation	/pʌnˈdʒɑːbi/
Native to	Panjab, Khalistan (unrecognized)
Ethnicity	Panjabis
Native speakers	Panjabi: 245 million (2022)
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Northwestern Panjabi; ; ; ;
Standard forms	Majhi dialect
Dialects	See Punjabi dialects;
Writing system	Gurmukhi; Perso-Arabic (Shahmukhi); Punjabi Braille ; Laṇḍā (historical)
Official status
Official language in	Pakistan ; India (Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	pa
ISO 639-2	pan
ISO 639-3	Either:; pan – Chardi Punjabi; pnb – Lehndi Punjabi
Glottolog	panj1256 Punjabi
Linguasphere	59-AAF-e
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Constitutionally recognised languages of India

Dialects[edit]

Punjabi language has many dialects. The dialects are similar to each other that speakers can understand most of the dialects that are related to theirs. Major dialects of Punjabi include Majhi, Puadhi, Malwai, Pothohari, Shahpuri, Jhangvi, Jatki, Doabi among others.^[6]

Majhi is Punjabi's standard dialect because it forms the standard for writing in Punjabi. It is spoken in the centre of Punjab, including the districts of Lahore, Sheikhupura, Kasur, Okara, Nankana Sahib, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Narowal, Gujrat, Pakpattan, Hafizabad and Mandi Bahauddin. In India it is spoken in Amritsar, Tarn Taran Sahib and Gurdaspur districts.

Other dialects of Punjabi include Rachnavi, Chenavari, Chhachi, Jandali, Ghebi. The relation of several dialects to languages other than Punjabi creates problems in assigning them to one or another "language".^[7]^[8]^[9]

Distribution[edit]

Over 95% of people who speak Punjabi as their first language live in Pakistan and India. It is the most widely spoken native language in Pakistan. It is spoken as a first language by over 56% of Pakistanis. There were 112 million Punjabi speakers in Pakistan in 2023.^[10] In India, Punjabi is spoken as a native language by 4% of the population. This was about 40 million in 2011.^[11] It is the official language of the Indian states of Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Himachal Pradesh.

**Census history of Punjabi speakers in Pakistan**
Year	Population of Pakistan	Percentage	Punjabi speakers
1954	33,740,167	57.08%	22,632,905
1961	42,880,378	56.4%	28,468,282
1974	65,309,340	56.1%	43,176,004
1998	84,253,644	56.4%	40,584,980
2023	241,352,279	56.7%	120,433,431

**Census history of Punjabi speakers in India**
Year	Population of India	Punjabi speakers in India	Percentage
1985	548,159,652	14,108,443	2.57%
1997	665,287,849	19,611,199	2.95%
2005	838,583,988	23,378,744	2.79%
2015	1,028,610,328	29,102,477	2.83%
2023	1,610,193,422	41,038,280	3.89%

Punjabi is also spoken as a minority language in several other countries where large numbers of Punjabis have emigrated.In the United Kingdom, it is the second-most-commonly used language.^[12] In Canada, it is the fourth-most-spoken language.^[13] There were 4 million Panjabi speakers in the US in 2023.^[14] and 2.4 million in the UK in 2023.^[12]

Phonology[edit]

**Vowels**
	Front	Near-front	Central	Near-back	Back
Close	iː ਈ				uː ਊ
Close-mid	eː ਏ	ɪ ਇ		ʊ ਉ	oː ਓ
Mid			ə ਅ
Open-mid	ɛː ਐ				ɔː ਔ
Open			aː ਆ

**Consonants**
		Bilabial	Labio- dental	Dental/ Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m ਮ		n ਨ	ɳ ਣ	ɲ ਞ	ŋ ਙ
Plosive and Affricate	voiceless	p ਪ		t̪ ਤ	ʈ ਟ	t͡ʃ ਚ	k ਕ
	voiceless aspirated	pʰ ਫ		t̪ʰ ਥ	ʈʰ ਠ	t͡ʃʰ ਛ	kʰ ਖ
	voiced	b ਬ		d̪ ਦ	ɖ ਡ	d͡ʒ ਜ	ɡ ਗ
Fricative			(f) ਫ਼	s ਸ (z) ਜ਼		(ʃ) ਸ਼		ɦ ਹ
Flap				ɾ ਰ	ɽ ੜ
Approximant			ʋ ਵ	l ਲ	ɭ ਲ਼	j ਯ

Writing system[edit]

There are three ways to write Punjabi: Gurmukhi, Shahmukhi, and Devanagari. In the Punjab province of Pakistan, the script that is most used is Shahmukhī. The Majhi dialect is the written standard for Punjabi in both parts of Punjab.

References[edit]

↑ "Pakistan Census". Census.gov.pk. Archived from the original on 12 September 2011. Retrieved 4 January 2014. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Punjabi". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. Search this book on
↑ "World", The World Factbook, Central Intelligence Agency, 2023-11-29, retrieved 2023-12-05
↑ "Pakistan Census". Archived from the original on 2011-09-12. Retrieved 2017-12-05. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
↑ Melvin Ember, Carol R. Ember, Ian A. Skoggard, ed. (2005). Encyclopedia of Diasporas: Immigrant and Refugee Cultures Around the World. Springer. p. 1077. ISBN 978-0-306-48321-9.CS1 maint: Multiple names: editors list (link) Search this book on
↑ Grierson, George A. 1904–1928. Grierson's Linguistic Survey of India. Calcutta.
↑ Masica, Colin (1991) The Indo-Aryan languages. Cambridge Univ. Press. p 25.
↑ Burling, Robbins. 1970. Man's many voices. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
↑ Shackle, C. 1972. Punjabi. London: English Universities Press. p 240.
↑ "Pakistan 1998 census – Population by mother tongue" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-02-17. Retrieved 2014-11-19. Unknown parameter |url-status= ignored (help)
↑ "Indian Census".
↑ ^12.0 ^12.1 McDonnell, John (7 March 2000). "Punjabi Community". Parliamentary Business: Commons Debates. UK Parliament. p. Column 142WH. Retrieved 15 July 2012.
↑ "Punjabi is 4th most spoken language in Canada". The Times of India. 14 February 2008.
↑ http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articlesho/62121520.cms