Western Panjabi
پنجابی
Spoken in	Pakistan
Region	Mainly in the Punjab area of Pakistan. Also spoken in Afghanistan
Total speakers	60,600,000 in Pakistan (2000). Population total all countries: 62,648,000.[1]
Language family	Indo-European family
Writing system	Shahmukhi
Language codes
ISO 639-1	None
ISO 639-2	lah
ISO 639-3	pnb – Western Panjabi
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The Western Panjabi language is an Indo-Aryan language spoken predominantly in Punjab (Pakistan).^[1] SIL Ethnologue classifies it under the Lahnda macrolanguage.^[2]

The Western Panjabi language should not be confused with the Punjabi language spoken in the West Punjab.

[edit] Classification

The linguist George Abraham Grierson in his multivolume Linguistic Survey of India (1904-1928) used the word "Punjabi" to refer to several languages spoken in the Punjab region: the term "Western Panjabi" (ISO 639-3 pnb) covered dialects spoken to the west of Montgomery and Gujranwala districts, while "Eastern Punjabi" referred to what is now simply called Punjabi (ISO 639-3 pan)^[3] While there is a fair degree of mutual intelligibility between the Punjabi language (or "Eastern Punjabi") and Western Punjabi, there are also morphological and phonological differences between the two varieties.

The classification of Western Panjabi language is as follows:

• Indo-European
  • Indo-Iranian
    • Indo-Aryan
      • Northwestern zone
        • Lahnda macrolanguage (ISO 639-3 lah)
          • Hindko Northern (ISO 639-3 hno)
          • Hindko, Southern (ISO 639-3 hnd)
          • Jakati (ISO 639-3 jat)
          • Khetrani (ISO 639-3 xhe)
          • Panjabi, Mirpur (ISO 639-3 pmu)
          • Panjabi, Western (ISO 639-3 pnb)
          • Pahari-Potwari (ISO 639-3 phr)
          • Seraiki (ISO 639-3 skr)

Western Panjabi is influenced by the Urdu language.

[edit] Writing system

Western Panjabi is mainly written in Arabic/Nastaʿlīq script; the Lahnda script is no longer in use.^[1]

[edit] References

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Western Panjabi language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia