Siraiki language
Encyclopedia
Saraiki transliterated as Sirāikī and sometimes spelled Seraiki and Saraiki, is a standardized written language of Pakistan
belonging to the Indo-Aryan
(Indic) language
s. It is a language spoken in the heart of Pakistan. Saraiki is based on a group of vernacular, historically unwritten dialects spoken by over 14 million people across the southern most half of Punjab
Province, the adjacent border region of Sindh
Province, and the northwest of Punjab Province, southern districts of Dera Ismail Khan and Tank of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province as well as by nearly 70,000 emigrants and their descendants in India
. The development of the standard written language, a process which began after the founding of Pakistan in 1947, has been driven by a regionalist political movement. It is to be considered that this is the movement for a separate ethnic identity only and Saraikis are considered as Pakistani nationalists due to their geographic position within Pakistan. The national census of Pakistan has tabulated the prevalence of Saraiki speakers since 1981. Saraiki is the fourth most widely spoken language in Pakistan, behind Punjabi, Pashto, and Sindhi; and within Punjab Province it is one of the two major languages.
The standard English language spelling of the name (at least de facto) is "Saraiki". However, into the new millennium, "Saraiki", "Seraiki", and "Siraiki" have all been used in academia and among promoters of Sairaiki ethnic consciousness. The language name (in whichever of these spellings) was adopted in the 1960s by regional social and political leaders. An organization namely "Saraiki Academy" was founded in Multan on 6 April 1962, under the Presidentship of Mir Hassaan-ul-Haidri who was replaced by Makhdoom Sajjad Hussain Qureshi, which gave the name of universal application to the language.
reported that "Sirāiki" (that was the spelling he used) is from a Sindhi word sirō, meaning 'of the north, northern', Shackle asserts that this etymology is unverified.
The standard Roman script spelling of the Saraiki language name (at least de facto) is "Saraiki"; this is the spelling used in universities of Pakistan (the Islamia University of Bahawalpur
, department of Saraiki established in 1989, Bahauddin Zakariya University
, in Multan, department of Saraiki established in 2006, and Allama Iqbal Open University
, in Islamabad, department of Pakistani languages established in 1998), and by the district governments of Bahawalpur and Multan, as well as by the federal institutions of the Government of Pakistan like Population Census Organization and Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation. Two of the native scripts, Gurmukhi and Devanagari, use the 'a' spelling (or rather, its native equivalent), which indicates that the vowel of the first syllable is a short /a/. In the Gurmukhi and Devanagari spellings given above, this is manifested by the lack of any vowel diacritic
. As is standard for native Indo-Aryan orthographies
, the absence of any diacritic over a consonant indicates that a short /a/ is spoken after that consonant.
subdivision of the Indo-Iranian
branch of the Indo-European
language family. Although Punjabi and Saraiki are mutually intelligible, they differ in consonant inventory and in the structure of the verb.
In 1919, Grierson
maintained that the dialects of what is now the southwest of Punjab Province in Pakistan constitute a dialect cluster, which he designated "Southern Lahnda" within a putative "Lahnda language". Subsequent Indo-Aryanist linguists have confirmed the reality of this dialect cluster, even while rejecting the name "Southern Lahnda" along with the entity "Lahnda" itself. However, outside of Indo-Aryanist circles, the concept of "Lahnda" is still found in compilations of the world's languages (e.g., Ethnologue).
There is a tendency for some discussions of the Saraiki dialects and their emerging standard literary language to incorrectly include dialects or languages spoken farther north, in particular Hindko and modern Panjistani. This error is due to confusing Saraiki (Grierson's "Southern Lahnda") with Grierson's larger category of Lahnda, within which Grierson included dialects spoken north of the Salt Range, now called Hindko and modern Panjistani (Potwari, Mirpuri) as stated by Mohammd Afzal of London UK. While the more northern dialects are considerably similar to Saraiki in linguistic structure, starting with Grierson they have been recognised as definitely distinct from the dialect cluster spoken south of the Salt Range.
or Persia. One historical name for Saraiki, Jaṭki, means "of the Jaṭṭs
", a northern South Asia
n ethnic group; but Jaṭṭs speak the Indo-Aryan dialect of whatever region they live in. Only a small minority of Saraiki speakers are Jaṭṭs, and not all Saraiki speaking Jaṭṭs necessarily speak the same dialect of Saraiki. Conversely, several Saraiki dialects have multiple names corresponding to different locales or demographic groups. When consulting sources before 2000, it is important to know that Pakistani administrative boundaries have been altered frequently. Provinces in Pakistan are divided into districts, and sources on "Saraiki" often describe the territory of a dialect or dialect group according to the districts. Since the founding of Pakistan in 1947, several of these districts have been subdivided, some multiple times. Until 2001, the territorial structure of Pakistan included a layer of divisions between a province and it's districts. The name dialect name "Ḍerawali" is used to refer to the local dialects of both Dera Ghazi Khan
and Dera Ismail Khan
, but "Ḍerawali" in the former is the Multani dialect and "Ḍerawali" in the latter is the Thaḷi dialect.
and parts of neighboring districts, is in truth not a kind of Saraiki, but instead a dialect of Punjabi with Saraiki features.) The precise geographical distribution of these dialect groups is unknown. The six are dubbed "Central" (i.e., Multani); "Southern" (i.e., Bahawalpuri, spoken primarily in Rahim Yar Khan district and in Bahawalpur district south of the city of Bahawalpur); Sindhi (spoken in Sindh province by emigrants); "Northern" (Thaḷi); Jhang; and Shahpuri.
A list of names in use at one or another time during the 20th century for Saraiki dialects and dialect groups is compiled in the table below. The dialect names are spelled in the standard Anglicized spelling. 'C' and 'ch' both resemble English 'ch'; 'c' represents an unaspirated sound, 'ch' an aspirated. A macron over a vowel indicates a long vowel.
implosive consonant
s, which makes Sindhi and Saraiki unusual among the Indo-European languages (and not just among the Indo-Aryan languages).
in other languages — are able to read or write their own language in any writing system. The most common Saraiki writing system today is the Persian script, which has also been adapted for use on computers. Saraiki has a 42-letter alphabet including 37 of the Urdu
alphabet and five letters unique to Saraiki. The Saraiki keyboard can also be used for other languages such as Punjabi
& Kashmiri
. The Devanagari
and Gurmukhi scripts, written from left to right, were used by Hindus. Though not used in present-day Pakistan, there are still emigrant speakers in India who know the Devanagari or Gurmukhi scripts for Saraiki. Traders or bookkeepers wrote in a script known as Langdi
, although use of this script has been significantly reduced in recent times. The transliteration from and to Persian and Devanagari scripts for Saraiki language can be made online.
In the process of creating a distinct Saraiki written language, activists have paid attention to creating a standard script and orthographic norms. Orthographic and linguistic standardization of Saraiki seems more connected with the politics of identity. Although Saraiki shares four implosive sounds with Sindhi, care was taken so that the Saraiki script and the representation of these symbols should be different from that of Sindhi so that the Sindhis should not lay any claims over Saraiki literature as theirs.
in Pakistan, south of the Salt Range
of mountains. It is also spoken in India and Afghanistan.
The first national census of Pakistan to gather data on the prevalence of Saraiki was the census of 1981. In that year, the percentage of respondents nationwide reporting Saraiki as their mother tongue was 9.83. In the census of 1998, it was 10.53 out of a national population of 132 million, for a figure of 13.9 million Saraiki speakers resident in Pakistan. Also according to the 1998 census, 12.8 million of those, or 92%, lived in the Province of Punjab.
, Bhakkar
, Khushab
, Layyah
, Muzaffar Garh, Dera Ghazi Khan
, Rajanpur
, Multan
, Vehari
, Lodhran
, Mailsi
, Khanewal
, Sahiwal
, Bahwalpur, Bahawalnagar
, Rahimyar Khan
, Sadiqabad
. Thal
and Cholistan deserts also are homes of Saraiki language. These areas are called as Saraiki Wasaib according to Saraiki literature. More than Saraiki Wasaib, there are native speaskers of Saraiki language in the districts of Mandi Bahuddin, Chakwal, Hafizabad, Faisalabad, Okara, Toba Teksingh and Lahore.
and Tank
.
Saraiki is widely spoken in Kashmore
, Jacobabad
, Shikarpur, Tando Muhammad Khan
, Tando Allahyar
, Sobho Khan Mastoi, Kamal Khan Mastoi, Thatta, Sujawal, Dadu and Ghotki
.
Division of Balochistan. It is also the second language of many in the Sulaiman Mountains
including Loralai, Musa Khel and Barkhan adjoining Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur districts of Punjab.
in Punjab, India
. According to the Indian census of 2001, Saraiki is spoken in urban areas throughout northwest and north central India by a total of about 70,000 people, the descendants of emigrants from western Punjab after the partition of India
in 1947. Out of these total speakers of the language, 56,096 persons report their dialect as Mūltānī and by 11,873 individuals report their dialect as Bahāwalpurī. Other dialects of Saraiki that are spoken by Indian Saraikis include Derawali
Jafri, Saraiki Hindki, Jhangi, Thali, and Jatki. Saraiki is spoken in Faridabad, Ballabhgarh, Palwal,Rewari,Sirsa, Fatehabad, Hisar, Bhiwani, Panipat districts of Haryana, some area of Delhi and Ganganagar district,Hanumangarh and Bikaner districts of Rajasthan
. It is spoken at low scale in Utrakhand and U.P. Romani
and Saraiki share some words and similar grammatical systems. The cause of the Romani diaspora
is unknown. However, the most probable conclusion is that the Romanies were part of the military in Northern India
. When there were repeated raids by Mahmud of Ghazni
and these soldiers were defeated, they were moved west with their families into the Byzantine Empire
. This occurred between AD 1000 and 1030.
Multani, In Afghanistan
, Kandahari, a dialect of Multani Saraiki is a mother tongue of Afghan Hindus
.
Many Saraiki migrants are in Middle East, Europe and America with smaller communities in Australia, South East Asia and China.
Saraiki is second largest language in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with more than 2.5M. In UK Saraiki is spoken by 400 thousads.
Khawaja Ghulam Farid (1845–1901), his famous collection is Deewan-e-Farid, Sultan Bahu
and Sachal Sar Mast (1739–1829) are the most celebrated Sufi poets in Saraiki and their poems known as Kafi are still famous.
Shakir Shujabadi (Kalam-e-Shakir, Khuda Janey, Shakir Diyan Ghazlan, Peelay Patr, Munafqan Tu Khuda Bachaway, Shakir De Dohray are his famous books) is very well recognized modern poet.
Many modern Pakistan Singers like Hadiqa Kiyani
and Ali Zafar
have also sung Saraiki folk songs.
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
belonging to the Indo-Aryan
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages constitutes a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family...
(Indic) language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
s. It is a language spoken in the heart of Pakistan. Saraiki is based on a group of vernacular, historically unwritten dialects spoken by over 14 million people across the southern most half of Punjab
Punjab (Pakistan)
Punjab is the most populous province of Pakistan, with approximately 45% of the country's total population. Forming most of the Punjab region, the province is bordered by Kashmir to the north-east, the Indian states of Punjab and Rajasthan to the east, the Pakistani province of Sindh to the...
Province, the adjacent border region of Sindh
Sindh
Sindh historically referred to as Ba'ab-ul-Islam , is one of the four provinces of Pakistan and historically is home to the Sindhi people. It is also locally known as the "Mehran". Though Muslims form the largest religious group in Sindh, a good number of Christians, Zoroastrians and Hindus can...
Province, and the northwest of Punjab Province, southern districts of Dera Ismail Khan and Tank of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province as well as by nearly 70,000 emigrants and their descendants in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. The development of the standard written language, a process which began after the founding of Pakistan in 1947, has been driven by a regionalist political movement. It is to be considered that this is the movement for a separate ethnic identity only and Saraikis are considered as Pakistani nationalists due to their geographic position within Pakistan. The national census of Pakistan has tabulated the prevalence of Saraiki speakers since 1981. Saraiki is the fourth most widely spoken language in Pakistan, behind Punjabi, Pashto, and Sindhi; and within Punjab Province it is one of the two major languages.
The standard English language spelling of the name (at least de facto) is "Saraiki". However, into the new millennium, "Saraiki", "Seraiki", and "Siraiki" have all been used in academia and among promoters of Sairaiki ethnic consciousness. The language name (in whichever of these spellings) was adopted in the 1960s by regional social and political leaders. An organization namely "Saraiki Academy" was founded in Multan on 6 April 1962, under the Presidentship of Mir Hassaan-ul-Haidri who was replaced by Makhdoom Sajjad Hussain Qureshi, which gave the name of universal application to the language.
History
Historically, the speakers of dialects now recognized as belonging to Saraiki did not hold the belief that they constituted a cohesive language community or a distinct ethnicity. This consciousness developed among local elites in the years after the founding of Pakistan in 1947 in response to the social and political upheaval caused by the mass immigration of Urdu speaking refugee Muslims from India. Traditionally, the dialects were designated by any of a number of areal or demographic names (see table below), e.g. "Multani" for the dialect spoken around Multan, which has been the largest city in the "Saraiki" speaking area for centuries. The name "Saraiki" (or variant spellings) was formally adopted in the 1960s by regional social and political leaders who undertook to promote Saraiki ethnic consciousness and to develop the vernaculars into a standardized written language. The word "Sarāiki" originated from the word "Sauvira", a state name in old India . By adding adjectival suffix "-ki" to the word "Sauvirā" it became "Sauvirāki". The consonant 'v' with its neighboring vowels was dropped for simplification and hence the name became "Sarāiki". Although George Abraham GriersonGeorge Abraham Grierson
Sir George Abraham Grierson OM KCIE was born to a prominent Dublin family in 1851. His father and grandfather, both also named George, were well-known printers and publishers.-Biography:Educated at St...
reported that "Sirāiki" (that was the spelling he used) is from a Sindhi word sirō, meaning 'of the north, northern', Shackle asserts that this etymology is unverified.
The standard Roman script spelling of the Saraiki language name (at least de facto) is "Saraiki"; this is the spelling used in universities of Pakistan (the Islamia University of Bahawalpur
Islamia University
The Islamia University of Bahawalpur , colloquially known as Islamia University, is located in Bahawalpur, Punjab, Pakistan. University has many faculties including Engineering, Pharmacy and Alternative Medicine, Science, Arts, Languages, Social Sciences, Business and Information Technology. The...
, department of Saraiki established in 1989, Bahauddin Zakariya University
Bahauddin Zakariya University
Bahauddin Zakariya University is located in Multan, Punjab, Pakistan. It is the Largest university of South Punjab. Bahauddin Zakariya University was formerly known as Multan University. It was renamed in honor of Hazrat Baha-ud-din Zakariya...
, in Multan, department of Saraiki established in 2006, and Allama Iqbal Open University
Allama Iqbal Open University
Allama Iqbal Open University , founded in 1974, is a university in Islamabad, Pakistan. It is one of the world's largest universities by enrollment, with 1,121,038 students in the year 2010 whereas Course Enrollment of these students are 3,305,948 -History:Allama Iqbal Open University was...
, in Islamabad, department of Pakistani languages established in 1998), and by the district governments of Bahawalpur and Multan, as well as by the federal institutions of the Government of Pakistan like Population Census Organization and Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation. Two of the native scripts, Gurmukhi and Devanagari, use the 'a' spelling (or rather, its native equivalent), which indicates that the vowel of the first syllable is a short /a/. In the Gurmukhi and Devanagari spellings given above, this is manifested by the lack of any vowel diacritic
Diacritic
A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός . Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute and grave are often called accents...
. As is standard for native Indo-Aryan orthographies
Brahmic family of scripts
The Brahmic or Indic scripts are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout South Asia , Southeast Asia, and parts of Central and East Asia, and are descended from the Brāhmī script of the ancient Indian subcontinent...
, the absence of any diacritic over a consonant indicates that a short /a/ is spoken after that consonant.
Classification within Indo-Aryan
Saraiki, Sindhi and Punjabi are all members of the Indo-AryanIndo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages constitutes a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family...
subdivision of the Indo-Iranian
Indo-Iranian languages
The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages. It consists of three language groups: the Indo-Aryan, Iranian and Nuristani...
branch of the Indo-European
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
language family. Although Punjabi and Saraiki are mutually intelligible, they differ in consonant inventory and in the structure of the verb.
In 1919, Grierson
George Abraham Grierson
Sir George Abraham Grierson OM KCIE was born to a prominent Dublin family in 1851. His father and grandfather, both also named George, were well-known printers and publishers.-Biography:Educated at St...
maintained that the dialects of what is now the southwest of Punjab Province in Pakistan constitute a dialect cluster, which he designated "Southern Lahnda" within a putative "Lahnda language". Subsequent Indo-Aryanist linguists have confirmed the reality of this dialect cluster, even while rejecting the name "Southern Lahnda" along with the entity "Lahnda" itself. However, outside of Indo-Aryanist circles, the concept of "Lahnda" is still found in compilations of the world's languages (e.g., Ethnologue).
There is a tendency for some discussions of the Saraiki dialects and their emerging standard literary language to incorrectly include dialects or languages spoken farther north, in particular Hindko and modern Panjistani. This error is due to confusing Saraiki (Grierson's "Southern Lahnda") with Grierson's larger category of Lahnda, within which Grierson included dialects spoken north of the Salt Range, now called Hindko and modern Panjistani (Potwari, Mirpuri) as stated by Mohammd Afzal of London UK. While the more northern dialects are considerably similar to Saraiki in linguistic structure, starting with Grierson they have been recognised as definitely distinct from the dialect cluster spoken south of the Salt Range.
Problems in nomenclature
The historical inventory of names for the dialects now called Saraiki is a confusion of overlapping or conflicting ethnic, local, and regional designations. "Hindki" and "Hindko" -- which means merely "of India" -- refer to various Saraiki and even non-Saraiki dialects in Punjab Province and farther north within the country similar language now called modern Panjistani( ascertained by Mohammed Afzal of London, UK), due to the fact they were applied by arrivals from AfghanistanAfghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
or Persia. One historical name for Saraiki, Jaṭki, means "of the Jaṭṭs
Jat people
The Jat people are a community of traditionally non-elite tillers and herders in Northern India and Pakistan. Originally pastoralists in the lower Indus river-valley of Sindh, Jats migrated north into the Punjab region in late medieval times, and subsequently into the Delhi Territory,...
", a northern South Asia
South Asia
South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...
n ethnic group; but Jaṭṭs speak the Indo-Aryan dialect of whatever region they live in. Only a small minority of Saraiki speakers are Jaṭṭs, and not all Saraiki speaking Jaṭṭs necessarily speak the same dialect of Saraiki. Conversely, several Saraiki dialects have multiple names corresponding to different locales or demographic groups. When consulting sources before 2000, it is important to know that Pakistani administrative boundaries have been altered frequently. Provinces in Pakistan are divided into districts, and sources on "Saraiki" often describe the territory of a dialect or dialect group according to the districts. Since the founding of Pakistan in 1947, several of these districts have been subdivided, some multiple times. Until 2001, the territorial structure of Pakistan included a layer of divisions between a province and it's districts. The name dialect name "Ḍerawali" is used to refer to the local dialects of both Dera Ghazi Khan
Dera Ghazi Khan
Dera Ghazi Khan is a city located in Dera Ghazi Khan District, Punjab, Pakistan. Dera Ghazi Khan is one of the most populous cities in Southern Punjab, and it is the largest district in Punjab in terms of area, being approximately in extent....
and Dera Ismail Khan
Dera Ismail Khan
Dera Ismail Khan is a city in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan. It is situated on the west bank of the Indus River, west of Lahore and northwest of Multan. The city is the capital of the district and tehsil of the same name. In Pakistan, its name is often abbreviated to D. I...
, but "Ḍerawali" in the former is the Multani dialect and "Ḍerawali" in the latter is the Thaḷi dialect.
Tabulation of dialects
Shackle 1976 has proposed a tentative classification of Saraiki dialects into six "varieties", wherein variety is defined as a group of dialects. (Shackle's scheme really involves just five "varieties", since he himself observes that Shahpuri, spoken in Sargodha DistrictSargodha District
Sargodha District is a district of Punjab province, Pakistan, the capital of the district is Sargodha. It is an agricultural district, wheat, rice, and sugarcane being its main crops. The Sargodha district and region are also famous for citrus fruit; kino is a newly developed variety...
and parts of neighboring districts, is in truth not a kind of Saraiki, but instead a dialect of Punjabi with Saraiki features.) The precise geographical distribution of these dialect groups is unknown. The six are dubbed "Central" (i.e., Multani); "Southern" (i.e., Bahawalpuri, spoken primarily in Rahim Yar Khan district and in Bahawalpur district south of the city of Bahawalpur); Sindhi (spoken in Sindh province by emigrants); "Northern" (Thaḷi); Jhang; and Shahpuri.
A list of names in use at one or another time during the 20th century for Saraiki dialects and dialect groups is compiled in the table below. The dialect names are spelled in the standard Anglicized spelling. 'C' and 'ch' both resemble English 'ch'; 'c' represents an unaspirated sound, 'ch' an aspirated. A macron over a vowel indicates a long vowel.
| Dialect group | Subdialect | Where spoken | Alternate names | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saraiki | Saraiki | Multan, Lodhran, Vehari, Bahawalpur, Muzaffargaṛh, Rahim Yar Khan Districts | Bahāwalpurī/Riyāsatī, both names in use in Bahawalpur District. | According to Masica, the two names Bahāwalpurī and Riyāsatī are locally specific names for the Mūltānī dialect group, possibly specific dialects within the group. According to Shackle, they instead denote a distinct dialect group. Also according to Shackle, the Bahawalpur District of Punjab Province (i.e., within its 1976 boundaries) is split between Multani in the north and Bahawalpuri in the south, with the dialect of Bahawalpur city being of blend of these two. |
| Ḍerāwālī Derawali Derawali is a dialect of Seraiki spoken in Dera Ismail Khan District Dera Ghazi Khan District and Rajanpur District of Pakistani Punjab areas and Khyber Pukhtunkhawa.... |
Dera Ismail Khan District, Dera Ghazi Khan District, Rajanpur District, Derawal Nagar (Delhi) | According to Masica, this use of the name Ḍerāwāl is to be distinguished from its use as an alternate name for a different dialect group (see following row). | ||
| Thaḷī Saraiki | Jhang, Sargodha, Layyah, Muzaffargarh, Mianwali Districts (Punjab Province); Bannu Districts (Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa) | Thaḷochṛi in Jhang District; Jaṭkī; Hindkō, Hindkī, Ḍerāwāl west of the Indus River, the last referring to the vicinity of Dera Ismail Khan | Named after the Thaḷ Thal Thal may refer to:* Thal, Styria, a town near Graz, Styria, Austria* Thal, Lower Austria, a town in the Dunkelsteinerwald, Lower Austria, Austria* Thal Desert, a large sand desert in Punjab, Pakistan... , a region bordered by the Indus River to the west and the Jhelum and Chenab Rivers to the east. |
|
| Sindhī Saraiki | northern part of Sindh Province | Sirāikī dialect which has some features of the Sindhī language. Sindhi Saraiki is widely spoken in Kashmore, Jacobabad Jacobabad Jacobabad or Yaqubabad is the capital city of Jacobabad District, Sindh, Pakistan. The city is also the administrative centre of Jacobabad Taluka, an administrative subdivision of the district, the city is subdivided into 8 Union Councils... , Shikarpur Shikarpur Shikarpur or Shakkarpur may refer to:*Shikarpur, Pakistan, the capital of Shikarpur District in Sindh province, Pakistan*Shikarpur District, in Pakistan*Shikarpur, Muzaffarnagar, town in Uttar Pradesh, India... , Tando Muhammad Khan, Tando Allahyar, Sobho Khan Mastoi, Kamal Khan Mastoi, Thatta Thatta Thatta is a historic town of 220,000 inhabitants in the Sindh province of Pakistan, near Lake Keenjhar, the largest freshwater lake in the country. Thatta's major monuments especially its necropolis at Makli are listed among the World Heritage Sites. The Shah Jahan Mosque is also listed... , Sujawal, Dadu and Ghotki. Initerier sindh 40% of papulation speak sindhi Saraiki. |
||
| Jhangvī Saraiki Local Saraiki | Local Saraiki | Jhang, Faisalabad, Gujrat, Gujranwala Districts | Cināwaṛī, Cinhāwaṛī (from the name of an area on the right bank of the Chenab River Chenab River The Chenab River چنRiver' آب) is a major river of Jammu and Kashmir and the Punjab in Pakistan. It forms in the upper Himalayas in the Lahaul and Spiti district of Himachal Pradesh, India, and flows through the Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir into the plains of the Punjab, Pakistan... ) |
Jhangī may actually be closer to the Punjabi language. Gujrat District is not to be confused with Gujarat State in India. |
| Jāng(a)lī Jangli Jangli or Jhangvi or Bar di Boli is a dialect of Punjabi and it is spoken in areas around the rivers of Ravi Chenab in central Punjab, which is mostly in Jhang, Khanewal, Chistian and Bhawalnagar along with adjoining areas, and includes the cities of Faisalabad and Chiniot. It is considered to be a... , Rachnavi Rachnavi Rachnavi or Jhangochi dialect is spoken in Pakistani Punjab. Rachnavi or Jhangochi is the oldest and most idiosyncratic dialect of the Punjabi. It is spoken throughout a widespread area, starting from Khanewal and Jhang at both ends of Ravi and Chenab to Gujranwala district. It then runs down to... |
Jangal Bar tract of Faisalabad District and all regions encompassing the former Montgomery District Montgomery District Montgomery District was an administrative district of the former Punjab Province of British India, in what is now Pakistan. Named after Sir Robert Montgomery, it lay in the Bari Doab, or the tract between the Sutlej and the Ravi rivers, extending also across the Ravi into the Rechna Doab, which... |
Dialect of Jhangochi spoken by the pastoral tribes of the mentioned areas, such as the Kharal Kharal -History:Kharal are Panwar Rajputs. Panwar is Sub division of Paramara Rajputs.The Paramara belongs to the Agnivansha of Rajputs.... s, Wattu Wattu The Wattoo or Wattu are Muslim Rajput tribe found in Punjab, Pakistan.-History and origin:Accoding to some traditions, the Wattoo are descended from a Rajah Junhar, a descendant of the famous Raja Salvahan of Sialkot. This Raja Junhar settled in Bhatner, where he had two sons, Jaipal and Rajpal... s, Johiya Johiya Johiya , also known as Joia, Joiya, Joyia, Joya, Joyea, and Joeya, is a Chandravanshi Rajput clan in Northern India and Pakistan. The Johiyas are one of the twenty-four undivided Rajput clans or eka. In ancient chronicles, they are described as "Lords of Jangladesh", a region that included Haryana,... s, who used to rear cattle and sheep in the jungles, before irrigation of the region. |
||
| Kacchṛī | Kacchṛī is named for alluvial desert plain of Kacchī, SW of Jhang town | |||
| Niswānī | North Jhang District | Subdialect or local name of Jhangī as spoken by a tribe, the Niswānā, as of 1919. | ||
Features
Saraiki and Sindhi both have somewhat similar consonant inventories. This inventory includes phonemically distinctivePhoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
implosive consonant
Implosive consonant
Implosive consonants are stops with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism. That is, the airstream is controlled by moving the glottis downward in addition to expelling air from the lungs. Therefore, unlike the purely glottalic ejective consonants, implosives can...
s, which makes Sindhi and Saraiki unusual among the Indo-European languages (and not just among the Indo-Aryan languages).
Consonants
| Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Labiodental Labiodental consonant In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.-Labiodental consonant in IPA:The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Dental | Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Retroflex Retroflex consonant A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stops Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &... and affricates |
Voiceless | p pʰ | t̪ t̪ʰ | t tʰ | t͡ʃ t͡ʃʰ | k kʰ | ʔ | ||
| Voiced | b bʱ | d̪ d̪ʱ | d dʱ | d͡ʒ d͡ʒʱ | ɡ ɡʱ | ||||
| Implosives Implosive consonant Implosive consonants are stops with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism. That is, the airstream is controlled by moving the glottis downward in addition to expelling air from the lungs. Therefore, unlike the purely glottalic ejective consonants, implosives can... |
ɓ | ɗ | ʄ | ɠ | |||||
| Nasals Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m mʱ | n nʱ | ɳ | ɲ | ŋ | ||||
| Fricatives Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
Voiceless | f | s | ʃ | x | h | |||
| Voiced | v | z | ʒ | ɣ | |||||
| Trills Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular.... |
r rʱ | ||||||||
| Flaps Flap consonant In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.-Contrast with stops and trills:... |
ɽ ɽʱ | ||||||||
| Laterals Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth.... |
l lʱ | ||||||||
| Semivowel Semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel is a sound, such as English or , that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary rather than as the nucleus of a syllable.-Classification:... |
j | ||||||||
Writing system
There are three writing systems for Saraiki, though very few Saraiki speakers—even those literateLiteracy
Literacy has traditionally been described as the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently and think critically about printed material.Literacy represents the lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from print...
in other languages — are able to read or write their own language in any writing system. The most common Saraiki writing system today is the Persian script, which has also been adapted for use on computers. Saraiki has a 42-letter alphabet including 37 of the Urdu
Urdu
Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
alphabet and five letters unique to Saraiki. The Saraiki keyboard can also be used for other languages such as Punjabi
Punjabi language
Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by inhabitants of the historical Punjab region . For Sikhs, the Punjabi language stands as the official language in which all ceremonies take place. In Pakistan, Punjabi is the most widely spoken language...
& Kashmiri
Kashmiri language
Kashmiri is a language from the Dardic sub-group and it is spoken primarily in the Kashmir Valley, in Jammu and Kashmir. There are approximately 5,554,496 speakers in Jammu and Kashmir, according to the Census of 2001. Most of the 105,000 speakers or so in Pakistan are émigrés from the Kashmir...
. The Devanagari
Devanagari
Devanagari |deva]]" and "nāgarī" ), also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal...
and Gurmukhi scripts, written from left to right, were used by Hindus. Though not used in present-day Pakistan, there are still emigrant speakers in India who know the Devanagari or Gurmukhi scripts for Saraiki. Traders or bookkeepers wrote in a script known as Langdi
Langdi
Langdi was a script commonly used by traders used to write Hindi, Punjabi, or Saraiki. Bookkeepers, known as munīm , would also keep records in this script....
, although use of this script has been significantly reduced in recent times. The transliteration from and to Persian and Devanagari scripts for Saraiki language can be made online.
In the process of creating a distinct Saraiki written language, activists have paid attention to creating a standard script and orthographic norms. Orthographic and linguistic standardization of Saraiki seems more connected with the politics of identity. Although Saraiki shares four implosive sounds with Sindhi, care was taken so that the Saraiki script and the representation of these symbols should be different from that of Sindhi so that the Sindhis should not lay any claims over Saraiki literature as theirs.
Geographic distribution and number of speakers
Saraiki is a language of great antiquity in Pakistan. It served as "Lingua Franca" among the people living around i.e. the Bloch and Sindhis, the Pashtoons and Punjabis etc. for centuries. It also remained the language of commerce and trade until recent times. Today over forty million people of South Punjab and Dera Ismail Khan region of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa province speak Saraiki as their first language. It is widely spoken and understood as a second language in other areas of Punjab, Northern and Western Sindh down to the suburbs of Karachi, and in Kachhi plain of Baluchistan. The vernacular dialects on which Saraiki is based are native to what is now the southwestern half of Punjab ProvincePunjab (Pakistan)
Punjab is the most populous province of Pakistan, with approximately 45% of the country's total population. Forming most of the Punjab region, the province is bordered by Kashmir to the north-east, the Indian states of Punjab and Rajasthan to the east, the Pakistani province of Sindh to the...
in Pakistan, south of the Salt Range
Salt Range
The Salt Range is a hill system in the Punjab province of Pakistan, deriving its name from its extensive deposits of rock salt. The range extends from the Jhelum River to the Indus, across the northern portion of the Punjab province. The Salt Range contains the great mines of Mayo, Khewra, Warcha...
of mountains. It is also spoken in India and Afghanistan.
The first national census of Pakistan to gather data on the prevalence of Saraiki was the census of 1981. In that year, the percentage of respondents nationwide reporting Saraiki as their mother tongue was 9.83. In the census of 1998, it was 10.53 out of a national population of 132 million, for a figure of 13.9 million Saraiki speakers resident in Pakistan. Also according to the 1998 census, 12.8 million of those, or 92%, lived in the Province of Punjab.
Punjab
Saraiki is home to the districts of, but not limited to, MianwaliMianwali
Mianwali is the capital city of Mianwali District and situated in the north-west of Punjab province, Pakistan. The city is located on the eastern bank of the Indus River...
, Bhakkar
Bhakkar
Bhakkar is the principal city of Bhakkar District, Punjab, Pakistan. It lies on the left bank of the Indus river. It has a population of almost 300,000 and was given status of district in 1981.-Administration:...
, Khushab
Khushab
Khushab is a city of Khushab District in the Punjab province of Pakistan. The city serves as the headquarters of Khushab Tehsil an administrative subdivision of the district....
, Layyah
Layyah
Layyah, also spelt Leiah , is the capital city of the Layyah District in the Punjab province of Pakistan. It is located at 30°58'0N 70°56'0E with an altitude of 143 metres .-Old History:...
, Muzaffar Garh, Dera Ghazi Khan
Dera Ghazi Khan
Dera Ghazi Khan is a city located in Dera Ghazi Khan District, Punjab, Pakistan. Dera Ghazi Khan is one of the most populous cities in Southern Punjab, and it is the largest district in Punjab in terms of area, being approximately in extent....
, Rajanpur
Rajanpur
Rajanpur is a city and the headquarters of Rajanpur District in the far southwestern part of Punjab, Pakistan. The district lies entirely west of the Indus River. it is a narrow, to wide strip of land sandwiched between the Indus River on the east and the Sulaiman Mountains on the west. The...
, Multan
Multan
Multan , is a city in the Punjab Province of Pakistan and capital of Multan District. It is located in the southern part of the province on the east bank of the Chenab River, more or less in the geographic centre of the country and about from Islamabad, from Lahore and from Karachi...
, Vehari
Vehari
Vehari is a city in the Punjab province in Pakistan. The city, which is the capital of the district and tehsil of the same name, is located at 30°1'0N 72°21'0E at an altitude of 135m , lies about from the regional metropolis of Multan and about north of the river Sutlej - the southernmost of...
, Lodhran
Lodhran
Lodhran is the chief city of Lodhran District in the Punjab province of Pakistan. It is located on the northern side of River Sutlej.-Administration:...
, Mailsi
Mailsi
Mailsi is a city in Multan region,Pakistan. It is located at 29°48'1N 72°10'33E at an altitude of 126 m .It was the biggest tehsil of Multan District and two districts Lodhran and Vehari were carved out by taking land of Mailsi in 19th and 20th centuries. Vehari which is now district was...
, Khanewal
Khanewal
Khanewal is the capital city of Khanewal District in the Punjab province of Pakistan. It is notable for being the host city to the second largest train station in Pakistan. Khanewal is located at 30°18'0N 71°56'0E with an altitude of 128 metres and is named after the earliest settlers here who...
, Sahiwal
Sahiwal
Sahiwal is a city in Punjab, Pakistan. It is the administrative centre of Sahiwal District and Sahiwal Division. Sahiwal is approximately 180 km from the major city Lahore and is the city between Lahore and Multan...
, Bahwalpur, Bahawalnagar
Bahawalnagar
Bahawalnagar is the capital city of Bahawalnagar District in the Punjab province of Pakistan. As well as being district capital it also the administrative headquarters of the tehsil.-Administration:...
, Rahimyar Khan
Rahimyar Khan
Rahim Yar Khan is a city in South Punjab, Pakistan. Rahim Yar Khan is the capital city of Rahim Yar Khan District as well as the tehsil of the same name. The city itself is administratively subdivided into 9 Union councils. According to the 1998 census, the city population was 233,537 with an...
, Sadiqabad
Sadiqabad
Sadiqabad or Sadiq Abad or Sadik Abad or Sadikabad is a city in Punjab, Pakistan. Sadiqabad is also the administrative centre of Sadiqabad Tehsil, which is a sub-division of Rahim Yar Khan District....
. Thal
Thal
Thal may refer to:* Thal, Styria, a town near Graz, Styria, Austria* Thal, Lower Austria, a town in the Dunkelsteinerwald, Lower Austria, Austria* Thal Desert, a large sand desert in Punjab, Pakistan...
and Cholistan deserts also are homes of Saraiki language. These areas are called as Saraiki Wasaib according to Saraiki literature. More than Saraiki Wasaib, there are native speaskers of Saraiki language in the districts of Mandi Bahuddin, Chakwal, Hafizabad, Faisalabad, Okara, Toba Teksingh and Lahore.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Saraiki is native language in the districts of Dera Ismail KhanDera Ismail Khan
Dera Ismail Khan is a city in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan. It is situated on the west bank of the Indus River, west of Lahore and northwest of Multan. The city is the capital of the district and tehsil of the same name. In Pakistan, its name is often abbreviated to D. I...
and Tank
Tank District
Tank , is the southern district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, the city of Tank is the capital of the district, which consists Union Council City I and Union Council City II. There are totally sixteen Union councils of district Tank. Tank was formerly part of district Dera Ismail...
.
Sindh
In SindhSindh
Sindh historically referred to as Ba'ab-ul-Islam , is one of the four provinces of Pakistan and historically is home to the Sindhi people. It is also locally known as the "Mehran". Though Muslims form the largest religious group in Sindh, a good number of Christians, Zoroastrians and Hindus can...
Saraiki is widely spoken in Kashmore
Kashmore
Kashmore is a town in and administrative centre for Kashmore District in the Sindh Province of Pakistan....
, Jacobabad
Jacobabad
Jacobabad or Yaqubabad is the capital city of Jacobabad District, Sindh, Pakistan. The city is also the administrative centre of Jacobabad Taluka, an administrative subdivision of the district, the city is subdivided into 8 Union Councils...
, Shikarpur, Tando Muhammad Khan
Tando Muhammad Khan
Tando Muhammad Khan is a town in Sindh, Pakistan. It is the headquarters of Tando Muhammad Khan District. It has a railway station on the Badin - Hyderabad section of the railways.- History :...
, Tando Allahyar
Tando Allahyar
Tando Allahyar is a town in Sindh, Pakistan. It is the capital of Tando Allahyar District.- History :...
, Sobho Khan Mastoi, Kamal Khan Mastoi, Thatta, Sujawal, Dadu and Ghotki
Ghotki
Ghotki Ghotki is the capital of Ghotki District in northern Sindh, Pakistan. It was the site of the July 13, 2005, Ghotki rail crash. The town is located at 28°1'0N 69°19'0E with an altitude of 72 metres ....
.
Balochistan
Saraiki is widely spoken in NaseerabadNaseerabad
Naseerabad is one of the neighborhoods of Gulberg Town in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.There are several ethnic groups in Naseerabad including Muhajirs, Punjabis, Sindhis, Kashmiris, Seraikis, Pakhtuns, Balochis, Memons, Bohras, Ismailis, etc. Over 99% of the population is Muslim...
Division of Balochistan. It is also the second language of many in the Sulaiman Mountains
Sulaiman Mountains
The Sulaiman Mountains are a major geological feature of southeastern Afghanistan and northern Balochistan province of Pakistan. In Pakistan, it forms the eastern edge of the Iranian plateau where the Indus River separates it from the Asian Subcontient...
including Loralai, Musa Khel and Barkhan adjoining Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur districts of Punjab.
Saraiki in the World
Saraiki is also spoken by a tiny, recent diasporaDiaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
in Punjab, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. According to the Indian census of 2001, Saraiki is spoken in urban areas throughout northwest and north central India by a total of about 70,000 people, the descendants of emigrants from western Punjab after the partition of India
Partition of India
The Partition of India was the partition of British India on the basis of religious demographics that led to the creation of the sovereign states of the Dominion of Pakistan and the Union of India on 14 and 15...
in 1947. Out of these total speakers of the language, 56,096 persons report their dialect as Mūltānī and by 11,873 individuals report their dialect as Bahāwalpurī. Other dialects of Saraiki that are spoken by Indian Saraikis include Derawali
Derawali
Derawali is a dialect of Seraiki spoken in Dera Ismail Khan District Dera Ghazi Khan District and Rajanpur District of Pakistani Punjab areas and Khyber Pukhtunkhawa....
Jafri, Saraiki Hindki, Jhangi, Thali, and Jatki. Saraiki is spoken in Faridabad, Ballabhgarh, Palwal,Rewari,Sirsa, Fatehabad, Hisar, Bhiwani, Panipat districts of Haryana, some area of Delhi and Ganganagar district,Hanumangarh and Bikaner districts of Rajasthan
Rajasthan
Rājasthān the land of Rajasthanis, , is the largest state of the Republic of India by area. It is located in the northwest of India. It encompasses most of the area of the large, inhospitable Great Indian Desert , which has an edge paralleling the Sutlej-Indus river valley along its border with...
. It is spoken at low scale in Utrakhand and U.P. Romani
Romani
Romani relates or may refer to:- Nationality :*The Romani people**their Romani language*The Latin term for the ancient Romans, see Roman citizenship*The Italian term for inhabitants of Rome...
and Saraiki share some words and similar grammatical systems. The cause of the Romani diaspora
Diaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
is unknown. However, the most probable conclusion is that the Romanies were part of the military in Northern India
North India
North India, known natively as Uttar Bhārat or Shumālī Hindustān , is a loosely defined region in the northern part of India. The exact meaning of the term varies by usage...
. When there were repeated raids by Mahmud of Ghazni
Mahmud of Ghazni
Mahmud of Ghazni , actually ', was the most prominent ruler of the Ghaznavid dynasty who ruled from 997 until his death in 1030 in the eastern Iranian lands. Mahmud turned the former provincial city of Ghazni into the wealthy capital of an extensive empire which covered most of today's Iran,...
and these soldiers were defeated, they were moved west with their families into the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
. This occurred between AD 1000 and 1030.
Multani, In Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, Kandahari, a dialect of Multani Saraiki is a mother tongue of Afghan Hindus
Hindki
Hindki is the name given to an ethnic group who inhabit Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan. They are of the Khatri, Arora, and Brahmin caste, and are found all over the country. H. W. Bellew, in his Races of Afghanistan, estimated their number at about 300,000...
.
Many Saraiki migrants are in Middle East, Europe and America with smaller communities in Australia, South East Asia and China.
Saraiki is second largest language in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with more than 2.5M. In UK Saraiki is spoken by 400 thousads.
Literature
Sultan Bahu
Sultan Bahu was a Muslim Sufi and saint, who founded the Sarwari Qadiri Sufi order.Sultan Bahu belonged to the Awan tribe, and was born in Anga, Soon Valley, Sakesar . Like many other Sufi saints of South Asia, Sultan Bahu was a prolific writer, with more than forty books on Sufism attributed to...
and Sachal Sar Mast (1739–1829) are the most celebrated Sufi poets in Saraiki and their poems known as Kafi are still famous.
- The beloved's intense glances call for blood
- The dark hair wildly flows The Kohl of the eyes is fiercely black
- And slays the lovers with no excuse
- My appearance in ruins, I sit and wait
- While the beloved has settled in Malheer I feel the sting of the cruel dart
- My heart the, abode of pain and grief A life of tears, I have led Farid
-
- -one of Khwaja Ghulam Farid's poems (translated)
-
Shakir Shujabadi (Kalam-e-Shakir, Khuda Janey, Shakir Diyan Ghazlan, Peelay Patr, Munafqan Tu Khuda Bachaway, Shakir De Dohray are his famous books) is very well recognized modern poet.
Music and Arts
- Attaullah Khan Essa KhailwiAttaullah Khan Essa KhailwiAttaullah Khan Niazi Esakhelvi is a Pakistani Pride of Performance award-winning musician from Isakhel, Mianwali, Punjab. He is traditionally considered a Seraiki artist, but most of his music albums are in either Punjabi or Urdu...
- Pathanay KhanPathanay KhanPathanay Khan was a great Seraiki folk singer from Pakistan. He sang mostly Kafis or Ghazals , which were largely based on the Sufi poetry of Khwaja Ghulam Farid and Shah Hussain...
- Abida ParveenAbida ParveenAbida Parveen , is a Pakistani singer of Sindhi descent and one of the foremost exponents of Sufi music . She sings mainly ghazals, Urdu love songs, and her forte, Kafis, a solo genre accompanied by percussion and harmonium, using a repertoire of songs by Sufi poets...
- Ustad Muhammad JumanMuhammad JumanUstad Muhammad Juman was a modern Sindhi musician and classical singer. He was born in the village of Sorra, Balochistan, Pakistan.He was fond of music and went to Radio Pakistan in Karachi to start a career as a fiddler...
- Suraiya Multanikar
- Mansoor MalangiMansoor MalangiMansoor Malangi is a notable Pakistani singer. He is known for singing Punjabi and Saraiki folk/sufi songs.Mansoor Malangi was born in Garh More in Jhang District....
- Ahmed Nawaz Cheena
- Sarai SalehSarai SalehSarai Saleh is one of the 44 union councils, administrative subdivions, of Haripur District in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan.Sarai Saleh is located about 5 kilometer away in the north east of Haripur City. It is 597 m high from mean sea level. Sarai Saleh is a beautiful green valley...
- Talib Hussain DardTalib Hussain DardTalib Hussain Dard is a Pakistani folk singer of Punjabi and Saraiki languages in Jhang, Punjab. Talib Dard had released many albums of His singing songs...
- The Sketches (band)The Sketches (band)The Sketches is a Pioneer of Sufi Folk Rock from Jamshoro, Sindh, Pakistan, comprising of two young musicians, lead vocalist Saif Samejo and guitarist Naeem Shah....
Many modern Pakistan Singers like Hadiqa Kiyani
Hadiqa Kiyani
Hadiqa Kiani is a Pakistani singer-songwriter, and philanthropist.Kiani rose to fame in 1995 with her debut album Raaz. Kiani received instant fame and was nominated and won numerous awards in Pakistan as well as International awards. Since her debut, she has released five albums, all receiving...
and Ali Zafar
Ali Zafar
Ali Zafar is a Pakistani musician, composer, song writer, singer, actor, painter and model, popular in Pakistan for his music, including his hit songs like "Channo", "Rangeen", "Chal Dil Merey", "Dekha", "Masty" and "Sajania"...
have also sung Saraiki folk songs.
Related languages
- PunjabiPunjabi languagePunjabi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by inhabitants of the historical Punjab region . For Sikhs, the Punjabi language stands as the official language in which all ceremonies take place. In Pakistan, Punjabi is the most widely spoken language...
- PothohariPothohariPotwari or Pothohari can refer to:*Pothohari people, inhabitants of Pothohar , a plateau in northern Pakistan*Pothohari language , a dialect spoken widely by the population of the Potohar Plateau and Mirpur in neighbouring Azad Kashmir...
- Hindko
- SindhiSindhi languageSindhi is the language of the Sindh region of Pakistan that is spoken by the Sindhi people. In India, it is among 22 constitutionally recognized languages, where Sindhis are a sizeable minority. It is spoken by 53,410,910 people in Pakistan, according to the national government's Statistics Division...
- PersianPersian languagePersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
- BalochiBalochi languageBalochi is a Northwestern Iranian language. It is the principal language of the Baloch of Balochistan, Pakistan, eastern Iran and southern Afghanistan. It is also spoken as a second language by some Brahui. It is designated as one of nine official languages of Pakistan.-Vowels:The Balochi vowel...
- Thari
- UrduUrduUrdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
See also
- Saraiki peopleSaraiki peopleThe Saraiki people or Multani people are an ethnic group from the central and south-eastern areas of Pakistan, especially the former princely state of Bahawalpur and the districts of Multan, Lodhran, Vehari, Khanewal, Rahim Yar Khan, Rajanpur, Dera Ghazi Khan, Muzaffargarh,...
- Saraiki literature
- Saraiki cultureSaraiki cultureSaraiki culture is the culture of the Saraiki speaking people residing in Pakistan and outside Pakistan. The region where Saraiki is spoken in Pakistan is part of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization and has been centre of culture and trade in Indian Sub-continent...
- Saraiki nationalismSaraiki nationalismSaraiki nationalist movement refers to the efforts to establish a collective identity for the Saraiki linguistic group in the Punjab province of Pakistan and to secure an official status for the language...
- Sauvira KingdomSauvira KingdomSauvira was a kingdom mentioned in the epic Mahabharata. According to the epic, Jayadratha was the king of Sindhus, Sauviras and Sivis. Probably Sauvira and Sivi were two kingdoms close to the Sindhu kingdom and Jayadratha conquered them. Jayadratha was an ally of Duryodhana and husband of...
- SaraikistanSaraikistan'South Punjab is the southernmost region of Pakistan's Punjab province. The districts of Bahawalpur, Multan, Rahim Yar Khan and D. G. Khan are geographically regarded as components of the region...
- Bahawalpur (princely state)
- MultanMultanMultan , is a city in the Punjab Province of Pakistan and capital of Multan District. It is located in the southern part of the province on the east bank of the Chenab River, more or less in the geographic centre of the country and about from Islamabad, from Lahore and from Karachi...
- Indus Valley CivilizationIndus Valley CivilizationThe Indus Valley Civilization was a Bronze Age civilization that was located in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, consisting of what is now mainly modern-day Pakistan and northwest India...
- Cholistan
- ThalThalThal may refer to:* Thal, Styria, a town near Graz, Styria, Austria* Thal, Lower Austria, a town in the Dunkelsteinerwald, Lower Austria, Austria* Thal Desert, a large sand desert in Punjab, Pakistan...
- Sulaiman MountainsSulaiman MountainsThe Sulaiman Mountains are a major geological feature of southeastern Afghanistan and northern Balochistan province of Pakistan. In Pakistan, it forms the eastern edge of the Iranian plateau where the Indus River separates it from the Asian Subcontient...
- Salt RangeSalt RangeThe Salt Range is a hill system in the Punjab province of Pakistan, deriving its name from its extensive deposits of rock salt. The range extends from the Jhelum River to the Indus, across the northern portion of the Punjab province. The Salt Range contains the great mines of Mayo, Khewra, Warcha...
Further reading
- Saraiki Language Culture and Society
- Latif, Amna. Phonemic Inventory of Saraiki Language and Acoustic Analysis of Voiced Implosives (PDF). Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing, CRULP Annual Student Report, 2002-2003.
- Rahman, Tariq. 1999. Language, education, and culture. Islamabad : Sustainable Development Policy Institute ; Karachi : Oxford University Press.
- Rahman, Tariq. No date. People and Languages in the Pre-Islamic Indus Valley. Hosted by the Asian Studies Network Information Center, University of Texas.
- Saraiki Alphabet with Gurmukhi equivalents