Saraiki ( سرائیکی Sarā'īkī; also spelt Siraiki, or Seraiki) is an Indo-Aryan language of the Lahnda group, spoken by 26 million people primarily in the south-western half of the province of Punjab in Pakistan. It was previously known as Multani, after its main dialect.
Saraiki appears to be a transitional language between Punjabi and Sindhi. Spoken in Upper Sindh as well as the southern Panjab, it is sometimes considered a dialect of either Sindhi or of Panjabi due to a high degree of mutual intelligibility.[2] Saraiki has partial mutual intelligibility with Standard Punjabi,[3] and it shares with it a large portion of its vocabulary and morphology. At the same time in its phonology it is radically different[4] (particularly in the lack of tones, the preservation of the voiced aspirates and the development of implosive consonants), and has important grammatical features in common with the Sindhi language spoken to the south.[5] Saraiki however, does relate considerably with other Western Punjabi dialects.[citation needed] There is a political movement in Pakistan to declare Saraiki the administrative language of its own region.[2]
The Saraiki language identity arose in the 1960s, encompassing more narrow local earlier identities (like Multani, Derawi or Riasati),[6] and distinguishing itself from broader ones like that of Punjabi.[7] Due to effects of dominant languages in Pakistani media like Urdu, Standard Punjabi and English and religious impact of Arabic and Persian, Saraiki like other regional varieties of Pakistan are continuously expanding its vocabulary base with loan words.[8]
Name
The present extent of the meaning of Sirāikī is a recent development, and the term most probably gained its currency during the nationalist movement of the 1960s.[9] It has been in use for much longer in Sindh to refer to the speech of the immigrants from the north, principally Siraiki-speaking Baloch tribes who settled there between the 16th and the 19th centuries. In this context, the term can most plausibly be explained as originally having had the meaning "the language of the north", from the Sindhi word siro 'up-river, north'.[10] This name can ambiguously refer to the northern dialects of Sindhi, but these are nowadays more commonly known as "Siroli"[11] or "Sireli".[12]
An alternative hypothesis is that Sarākī originated in the word sauvīrā, or Sauvira,[13] an ancient kingdom which was also mentioned in the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata.
Currently, the most common rendering of the name is Saraiki.[a] However, Seraiki and Siraiki have also been used in academia until recently. Precise spelling aside, the name was first adopted in the 1960s by regional social and political leaders.[21]
Classification and related languages
Saraiki is a member of Western Punjabi sub family of the Indo-Aryan subdivision of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family.
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.[22] Grierson also maintained that "Lahnda" was his novel designation for various dialects up to then called "Western Punjabi", spoken north, west, and south of Lahore. The local dialect of Lahore is the Majhi dialect of Punjabi, which has long been the basis of standard literary Punjabi.[23] However, outside of Indo-Aryanist circles, the concept of "Lahnda" is still found in compilations of the world's languages (e.g. Ethnologue).
Dialects
The following dialects have been tentatively proposed for Saraiki:[24]
- Central Saraiki, including Multani: spoken in the districts of Dera Ghazi Khan, Muzaffargarh, Leiah, Multan and Bahawalpur.
- Southern Saraiki: prevalent in the districts of Rajanpur and Rahimyar Khan.
- Sindhi Siraiki: dispersed throughout the province of Sindh and in Kachhi Plain region in Balochistan province.
- Northern Saraiki, or Thali:[25] spoken in the district of Dera Ismail Khan and the northern parts of the Thal region, including Mianwali District and Bhakkar District
The historical inventory of names for the dialects now called Saraiki is a confusion of overlapping or conflicting ethnic, local, and regional designations. One historical name for Saraiki, Jaṭki, means "of the Jaṭṭs", a northern South Asian ethnic group. Only a small minority of Saraiki speakers are Jaṭṭs, and not all Saraiki speaking Jaṭṭs necessarily speak the same dialect of Saraiki. However, these people usually call their traditions as well as language as Jataki. Conversely, several Saraiki dialects have multiple names corresponding to different locales or demographic groups. The name "Derawali" 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 "Derawali" in the latter is the Thaḷi dialect.[26][27]
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.
Status of language or dialect
In the context of South Asia, the choice between the appellations "language" and "dialect" is a difficult one, and any distinction made using these terms is obscured by their ambiguity.[28] In a sense both Saraiki and Standard Panjabi are "dialects" of a "Greater Punjabi" macrolanguage.[29]
Saraiki was considered a dialect of Punjabi by most British colonial administrators,[30] and is still seen as such by many Punjabis.[31] Saraikis, however, consider it a language in its own right[32] and see the use of the term "dialect" as stigmatising.[33] A language movement was started in the 1960s to standardise a script and promote the language.[21][34] The national census of Pakistan has tabulated the prevalence of Saraiki speakers since 1981.[35]
Geographical distribution