Punjabi language
Indo-Aryan language native to the Punjab / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Punjabi (/pʌnˈdʒɑːbi/ pun-JAH-bee;[14] Shahmukhi: پنجابی; Gurmukhi: ਪੰਜਾਬੀ, Punjabi: [pəɲˈdʒab̆.bi] ⓘ[15]), sometimes spelled Panjabi,[lower-alpha 4] is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Punjab region of Pakistan and India. With approximately 148 million native speakers, it is the eighth most spoken native language and twelfth most spoken language by the total number of speakers in the world.[16]
Punjabi | |
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Pronunciation | [pəɲˈdʒab̆.bi] ⓘ |
Native to | Pakistan and India |
Region | |
Ethnicity | Punjabis |
Native speakers | 148 million (2011–2017)[lower-alpha 1] |
Early forms | Prakrit (debated)[lower-alpha 2]
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Standard forms | |
Dialects |
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Historical | |
Official status | |
Official language in |
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Regulated by | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-1 | pa |
ISO 639-2 | pan |
ISO 639-3 | pan |
Glottolog | lahn1241 |
Linguasphere | 59-AAF-e |
Geographic distribution of Punjabi language in Pakistan and India. | |
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Punjabi is the most widely-spoken first language in Pakistan, with 114.5 million native speakers,[lower-alpha 5] according to the 2017 census and the 11th most widely-spoken in India, with 31.1 million native speakers, according to the 2011 census, with official status in the state of Punjab; additional in Haryana and West Bengal, as well as Delhi. It is the third most widely-spoken language in Canada, after the official languages English and French, with approximately a million native speakers (2.6% of the population). Apart from Canada, it is also spoken among other significant overseas diaspora, in the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, and the Gulf states.
Punjabi is a diagraphic language as it uses more than one writing system. In Pakistan, it 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. Other historical scripts and writing systems used for Punjabi include Laṇḍā (Multani and Mahajani), Tākri and Devanāgarī, which are no longer used.
It is most closely related to other Indo-Aryan languages, namely Dogri, Kangri and Sindhi. It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some Dardic and Central Indo-Aryan languages. It is the third-most spoken Indo-Iranian and Indo-Aryan language after Hindi-Urdu and Bengali.
Modern Punjabi gradually developed from Old Punjabi, whose origin is still debated amongst linguists and historians, to Middle Punjabi and Early Modern Punjabi. It came under a degree of influence from Persian and Arabic during the medieval era with classical Punjabi literature. Today, the language has a wide variety of dialect groups which form a dialect continuum with one another. Standardized varieties based on the Majhi dialect (Central Punjabi), with influences from Western Punjabi in Pakistan and Eastern Punjabi in India, are used.
Punjabi is unusual among the Indo-Aryan languages and the broader Indo-European language family in its usage of lexical tone. It has been described as the only major tonal language of South Asia.