Linguistic Imperialism

#306
Fuzair, It did cross my mind while including Seraiki in the dialects list....I have nor problem if Seraiki is give a separate language status. But one has to doubt when their case comes from people who on one hand argue that Punjabi(all dialects) is not a real language but only dialects of Urdu/Hindi....but then turn around and pitch Seraiki dialect against other Punjabis by calling it (Seraiki) a separate language. Well if Seraiki is language, how come not Punjabi? I have started to believe nothing will strengthen the case of Punjabi in Pakistan more than Seraiki getting a status of separate language.

Khamkhwa,
Please stop this nonsense. Your concern for nics is getting boring, tedious, and very annoying. Please grow up.
Thanks,

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dilliwala admits to being srao...but he will never be banned coz he is a sikh...the only sikh on chowk...and chowk wants to be good to it`s minorities....

here is the admission of his guilt:
#97 by delhiwala on October 27, 2005 9:01am PT
Listen Up you twisted, sicko, whoever you are....
You have no buisness accusing others of what you do best.

Dont` come near my posts if you dont like what I write.

Sau Choohay Kha Ke Billy Haj Ko chalee!!

FROM NOW ONWARDS DO NOT ADDRESS ME IN ANY WAY ON CHOWK AND I PROMISE I WILL DO THE SAME

DO NOT USE MY NAME IN ANY THREAD OR POST
AND I WILL DO THE SAME

I CAN GUARANTEE YOU THAT NEITHER DELHIWALA OR SRAO WILL REFER TO YOU EVER.

PS: QUAIDON AND ROBINHOOD WERE ALREADY BANNED TWO MONTHS AGO, JG/MANNYD CAN CONFIRM THAT. I DO NOT HAVE ANY OTHER NIC.

DullaBhatti Saab,

I know a few Seraiki speakers who would take great umbrage at having their language declared to be a dialect of Punjabi. Similarly, some argue that PahaRi is its own language as well.

Sources...

www.ethnologue.com
CIA World FACtbook
www.wikipedia.com

The information I posted is listed on a number of websites - Most figures have a margin of +- 1Million, Nonthless a thorough cross reference between the three sites would give one some credible figures. Wikipedia has a nice anthology on several languages.

aliG:
oh man, LOL.
that reminded me of one of this uncle of mine. He used to speak arabic, dress arabic, eat arabic food, drive long ass chevys (you kno, arba-dream-car :) )... but he atleast had an excuse, he was trying to dupe Saudi authorities to up his status to a full Saudi national.

#302, aliG {They dress like arabs, wear those checkered scarves like arabs, and worst of all they try to talk URDU in an arabic accent``}

Ali Pai,
It appears that you have already met Khamkhwa. :)

Pakistani Arabists....

Hah. This is hilarious. Your article reminds me of these wierd Sunni people in Pakistan who seem to have some type of an inferiority complex. They dress like arabs, wear those checkered scarves like arabs, and worst of all they try to talk URDU in an arabic accent. That is probably the dumbest thing I have ever experienced.

kulharee: my down to earth, on all fours, very deep apologies to not mention the ``Janglee`` dialect in my list.

Some of the Dialects of Punjabi spoken in India are: Majhi, Dogari, Doabi, Malwai etc.

Some of the Dialects of Punjabi spoken in Pakistan are: Majhi, poThohari, dogari, Seraiki etc. I have heard very authentic Doabi dialect from some Pakistanis from Okara and Gujrat whose parents moved from Jalandhar/Hoshiarpur area.

Scripts used to write Punjabi:

Persian/urdu/naqtaliq based Shahmukhi

lanDay/sanskrit improved Gurmukhi

Devnagri is/can be also used.

In a way both Shahmukhi and Gurmukhi labels are wrong...because they specify ``script`` rather than ``speech``...the ``mukhi`` part is misnomer. There is no way to speak Gurmukhi or Shahmukhi.... It is like someone saying I speak Devnagri or Nastaliq. or my English dialect is ``Bookman Old stle`` or ``Arial Bold 14 point underlined``.

All above Punjabi dialects are influenced by Hindi, Urdu and even Persian depending upon their proximity/shadow of other languages. Once in a while I browse through Standard Persian to English/Punjabi dictionary published by Punjab University Chandigarh sitting on my table.....every 7th word from this Persian dictionary is found in some way or form in Punjabi. In actuality may be less, because this dictionary is compiled keeping in mind the Punjabi readers of Farsi.


Language of The Granth is not Punjabi...only portions of it are Punjabi like some writings of Nanak, Farid, 2nd to 5th Guru. Rest is mixture of many languages...such speech was called Bhagti language...like Kabir and others wrote in same language.

In most probability, Guru Nanak`s original writing was not in Gurmukhi script...it was probably in Persian script although there is not any conclusive evidence either way. Later Gurus wrote in Gurmukhi along with Persian script(e.g. Guru Gobind Singh).

98% of Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi can be written in either script.

e.g. There are Urdu books published in Gurmukhi script. I just bought Diwan`s of Ghalib, Mir, Dagh, Zauk published in Gurmukhi script. If one is reading it from these books (and properly), listener will not know whether it is written in Gurmukhi or Urdu script.

My Nana ji, my father and maasaR ji(khalu for culturally hijacked ones:-)) used to write letters to each other in Urdu script but speech was usually Punjabi.

Re: # 299

Bhatti Sahib,

What “dialect” of Punjabi do I speak? I have been told that I speak ``Janglee`` (wild) Punjabi. Is that so?

Kadi Kadi san Yaad kar lea Karo.

Gurmukhi is a script - NOT a language. It is best suited for writing Punjabi... Devnagari and Persian script don`t do justice to the language.

Ranjit Singh had his complexes.....like the Russian czar who introduced French to his courts to be on par with his Western (in his eyes civilized) neighbors, he kept Persian.

Language of the Granth is a mixture of Punjabi and some basha with sprinkilin of sanskrit, persian, etc. The Granth also includes works of non Punjabis and thus has other languages - though they are easily understood.......

#291, {``#291 by hamidm2 on October 25, 2005 6:51pm PT
Re: # 289
salim mian,
............ we all aspire to be something better than what we are ........ i, for example, have always wanted to be white because i think it is more civilized to use utensils instead of licking your fingers and it is a lot more comfortable taking a whiz standing up .......... and of course i am a little partial towards blondes (trust me) ................ but what is your excuse for wanting to be an indian?...... arn`t they basically the same as pakis, other than the fact that they worship cows instead of eating them like they should ? ............. and please don`t tell me you actually like heeng ! ``}


Hamidm Sahib,
I am glad that you are aspiring to be something better. Because I am already light-skinned (as if that is so important) and my wife is a blonde (don`t get jealous, now!) and I have always used utensils, I need to aspire to something even better than what you aspire to. My aspirations are to research and understand my Hindu ancestry. I used to worship cows just like you do, except that thanks to the dangers of mad cow disease and cardiovascular concerns, I am trying to limit my cow worship to a spiritual one.

I appreciate all the kind advice that you deflect in my direction. Yes, like you, I too stand up for the occasion. :)

Thanks,
Salim

#293 SyedAhmed

`` did some research on this and I found some interesting numbers – There are about 104 million speakers of Punjabi in the world, About 62 million of which are in West Punjab, 28 million or so speak Gurmukhi dialects, and an additional 14 million speak Saraiki.

Contrasting that with Urdu I found that Urdu is claimed by about 62 million people as their native language, about 48-50 million in India, and about 12-13 million in Pakistan, and if you add the non native speakers primarily in Pakistan – the numbers go up to 104 million. I also looked at Turkish – which has some 60 million Native speakers and some 75 million total speakers of the language and Persian with 57 million native speakers and 110 million total speakers of that language. So Urdu does quite well in commanding a large following of native speakers. ``




Very interesting Figures.......really informative ..!! can you cite a source.....

Reply HP #116

“Unfortunately I have to disagree with your above assertion. Linguistically – Punjabi is not a distinct language unless you refer to the Gurmukhi script based Punjabi developed by the Sikhs.I think that is a loaded statement and probably reflects your inclination to disparage other Pakistani languages.”

There is nothing disparaging in my statements that demeans any of the Pakistani regional languages. Au contraire, languages bring forth a certain vitality that enriches an entire society. The statement is uncalled for and is based on pure conjecture on your part.

“Linguistically- becomes a vague term when we know that pretty much all north Indian languages are related to each other in many different ways and that is the result of a continued migration within and from outside in India for centuries. “

Linguistics is an actually academic discipline which incidentally was attributed to an Indian named panini. The uses certain classification scheme based on linguistic attributes that it consigns to as languages or dialects. All Pakistani languages , Kashmiri, Sindhi, Baluchi, and Pashto and Urdu are classified as languages. Punjabi ( Western) is classified as a dialect and not a language because it does not have a distinctive alphabet and consequently no prose. It is primarily a colloquial language and is hence labeled a dialect.
You may disagree with this assignment for sentimental reasons but that does not make linguistics a bogus discipline.



“Gurmukhi script is a recent phenomenon. It was there but never really had any patronage until the partition.”

Gurmukhi implies spoken languages of the Gurus – i.e. the Sikhs claim that Guru Nanak compiled his works in the language and that was late 15th early 16th century. Actually the Sikh holy book dating back some 4-5 centuries is written in the same language. Ranjit Singh, whose court language was Persian primarily because the Durrani, Safavid and the remnants of the Mughal kingdoms all had Persian as their official languages. It is highly doubtful that Ranjit Singh would deliberatly alienate his political base ie the khalsa by discouraging the use of Gurmukhi. It is like stating the Arabs accompanying Mohammed bin Qasim adopted the Sindhi language and abandoned Arabic.


“It seems to me that you take fancy in putting a Marxist interpretation of history forward. That to me is not the only way to explore the vagaries of cultures. It is too black and white and often Marxist construct ignores many other factors in favor of purely economics based frames. “

Marxist ideology states that economics enjoys the centrality in all things social, moral and artistic. All I had stated was that economics was the prime motivator for the spread of Urdu in the army cantonments and subsequently in the petty bourgeois. That does not make it a Marxist interpretation.- I think you are confusing economic underpinnings primarily as Marxist ideology. It is precisely for that very same reason that the majority of Punjabi speaking people are adopting Urdu as their first language and not their love for Ghalib or Faiz. If you take it a bit further the very same reason applies to the rampant adoption of English in the urban settings of Pakistan not the popularity of the bard in the subcontinent.

“Coming back to Urdu, It developed in the urban center of Northern India and I have no beef with that. But it was never the language of people at large like Hindi is in India and Punjabi is in Pakistan. “

I did some research on this and I found some interesting numbers – There are about 104 million speakers of Punjabi in the world, About 62 million of which are in West Punjab, 28 million or so speak Gurmukhi dialects, and an additional 14 million speak Saraiki.

Contrasting that with Urdu I found that Urdu is claimed by about 62 million people as their native language, about 48-50 million in India, and about 12-13 million in Pakistan, and if you add the non native speakers primarily in Pakistan – the numbers go up to 104 million. I also looked at Turkish – which has some 60 million Native speakers and some 75 million total speakers of the language and Persian with 57 million native speakers and 110 million total speakers of that language. So Urdu does quite well in commanding a large following of native speakers.

Hindi language on the other hand claims to have 180 Million Native speakers and numbers swell to 480 million speakers when adding non-native speakers - almost 50% of the population of India.