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Sarāikī (Shahmukhi: سرائیکی, Gurmukhi: ਸਰਾਇਕੀ, Devanagari: सराइकी), sometimes spelled Siraiki and Seraiki, is a standardized written language of Pakistan belonging to the Indo-Aryan (Indic) languages. Sarāikī is based on a group of vernacular, historically unwritten dialects spoken by over 14 million people across the southern half of Punjab Province, the adjacent border region of Sindh Province, and the northwest of Punjab Province, as well as by nearly 70,000 emigrants and their descendants in India.[1] The Sarāikī vernaculars are similar to the core dialects of Punjabi, which are spoken to their northeast. 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.[2][3] The national census of Pakistan has tabulated the prevalence of Sarāikī speakers since 1981.[4]:46 Sarāikī is the fourth most widely spoken language in Pakistan, behind Punjabi, Pushto (Pashto), and Sindhi; and within Punjab Province it is a distant second behind Punjabi. The standard English language spelling of the name (at least de facto) is "Saraiki". However, into the new millennium, "Saraiki", "Siraiki", and "Seraiki" have all been used in academia and among promoters of Saraiki ethnic consciousness. The language name (in whichever of these spellings) was adopted in the 1960s by regional social and political leaders.
[edit] On the origin and spelling of the language nameHistorically, the speakers of dialects now recognized as belonging to Sarāikī 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 "Sarāikī" speaking area for centuries. The name "Sarāikī" (or variant spellings) was adopted in the 1960s by regional social and political leaders who undertook to promote Sarāikī ethnic consciousness and to develop the vernaculars into a standardized written language.[2][3] The word "Saraiki" originated from the word "Sauvira", a state name in old India. By adding adjectival suffix "-ki" to the word "Sauvira" it became "Sauviraki". The consonant 'v' with its neighboring vowels was dropped for simplification and hence the name became "Saraiki". Although Grierson reported that "Siraiki" (that was the spelling he used) is from a Sindhi word meaning 'of the north, northern', Shackle asserts that this etymology is unverified and is merely the most plausible one advanced.[3]:388 According to Grierson, the word for 'north' in Sindhi is sirō,[3]:388. The standard English language spelling of the name (at least de facto) is "Saraiki"; this is the spelling used by two universities with Departments of Saraiki (the Islamia University of Bahawalpur, department established 1989,[5] and Bahauddin Zakariya University, in Multan, department established 2006)[6], and by the district governments of Bahawalpur [7] and Multan [8], as well as by the Census of Pakistan[9]. However, into the new millennium, "Saraiki", "Siraiki", and "Seraiki" have all been used in academia and among promoters of Saraiki ethnic consciousness. Two of the native scripts, Gurmuki 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. [edit] Geographic distribution and number of speakersThe vernacular dialects on which Sarāikī is based are native to what is now the southwestern half of Punjab Province in Pakistan, south of the Salt Range of mountains. Sarāikī is also spoken in the north of the neighboring Sindh Province and by a tiny, recent diaspora in north India. According to the Indian census of 2001, Sarāikī 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.[1] In Afghanistan, Kandahari, a dialect of Multani/Saraiki is a mother tongue of Afghan Hindus.[10] [edit] Classification within Indo-AryanPunjabi, Sarāikī, and Sindhi are all members of the Indo-Aryan subdivision of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. Although Punjabi and Sarāikī 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.[11][12] 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 Sarāikī 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 Sarāikī (Grierson's "Southern Lahnda") with Grierson's larger category of Lahnda, within which Grierson included dialects spoken north of the Salt Range. While the more northerly dialects are considerably similar to Sarāikī in linguistic structure, starting with Grierson they have been recognised as definitely distinct from the dialect cluster spoken south of the Salt Range. [edit] Dialects of Saraiki[edit] Problems in nomenclatureThe historical inventory of names for the dialects now called Sarāikī is a confusion of overlapping or conflicting ethnic, local, and regional designations. "Hindki" and "Hindko" -- which means merely "of India" -- refer to various Sarāikī and even non-Sarāikī dialects in Punjab Province and farther north within the country, due to the fact they were applied by invaders from Afghanistan or Persia. One historical name for Sarāikī, Jaṭki, means "of the Jaṭṭs", a northern South Asian ethnic group; but Jaṭṭs speak the Indo-Aryan dialect of whatever region they live in. Only a small minority of Sarāikī speakers are Jaṭṭs, and not all Sarāikī speaking Jaṭṭs necessarily speak the same dialect of Sarāikī. Conversely, several Sarāikī 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 "Sarāikī" 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 its 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.[13][14] [edit] Tabulation of dialectsShackle 1976 has proposed a tentative classification of Sarāikī 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 District and parts of neighboring districts, is in truth not a kind of Sarāikī, 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 Sarāikī dialects and dialect groups is compiled in the table below.[15][16] 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.
[edit] Number of speakers of Sarāikī LanguageThe first national census of Pakistan to gather data on the prevalence of Sarāikī was the census of 1981.[citation needed] In that year, the percentage of respondents nationwide reporting Sarāikī 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.[18] The next census of Pakistan will be conducted in October 2008.[citation needed] In India, Sarāikī is spoken by 56,096 persons who report their dialect as Mūltānī and by 11,873 individuals who report their dialect as Bahāwalpurī.[1] Other dialects of Saraiki that are spoken by Indian Saraikis include Derawali[19] Jafri, Siraiki Hindki, Thali, and Jatki.[20] [edit] FeaturesSarāikī and Sindhi both have somewhat similar consonant inventories.[21] This inventory includes phonemically distinctive implosive consonants, which makes Sindhi and Saraiki unusual among the Indo-European languages (and not just among the Indo-Aryan languages). [edit] Phonology[edit] VowelsSaraiki has three short vowels, seven long vowels and six nasal vowels. [edit] Consonants
[edit] Writing systemThere are three writing systems for Sarāikī, though very vew Sarāikī speakers—even those literate in other languages—are able to read or write their own language in either writing system. The most common Sarāikī writing system today is the Shahmukhi script, which has also been adapted for use on computers. The Devanagari and Gurmukhi scripts, written from left to right, were used by Hindus. Though not used present day Pakistan, there are still emigrant speakers in India who know the Devanagari or Gurmukhi scripts for Sarāikī.[22][23] Traders or bookkeepers wrote in a script known as Langdi, although use of this script has been significantly reduced in recent times. In the process of creating a distinct Sarāikī written language, activists have paid attention to creating a standard script and orthographic norms. Orthographic and linguistic standardization of Sarāikī seems more connected with the politics of identity. Although Saraiki shares four implosive sounds with Sindhi, care was taken so that the Seraiki 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.[citation needed] [edit] See also
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
[edit] Further reading
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