Lahnda

Western Punjabi (Punjabi: لہندا پنجابی )^[4] or Lahnda, are the western dialects of Punjabi in Pakistani Punjab, and parts of Azad Kashmir, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.^[5] Some consider them to be transitional between Eastern Punjabi and Sindhi. The literary language of the speakers of Lahnda dialects has traditionally been Standard Punjabi.^[6]: 2

Western Punjabi
Lahnda
لہندا پنجابی
Region	Western Punjab region
Ethnicity	Punjabis
Native speakers	ca. 117 million (2014?)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Northwestern[2] Punjabi[3] Western Punjabi
Standard forms	Majhi Hindko
Writing system	Perso-Arabic (Shahmukhi alphabet)
Official status
Official language in	Pakistan Punjab (Provincial)
Recognised minority language in	Pakistan Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (as Hindko)
Language codes
ISO 639-2	lah
ISO 639-3	lah – inclusive code Individual codes: hnd – Southern Hindko hno – Northern Hindko (Kagani) jat – Inku (Jakati) phr – Pahari-Potwari (Pothohari) pnb – Western Punjabi proper (Majhi) skr – Saraiki xhe – Khetrani
Glottolog	lahn1241

Lahnda means "western" in Punjabi. It was coined by William St. Clair Tisdall (in the form Lahindā) probably around 1890 and later adopted by a number of linguists—notably George Abraham Grierson—for a dialect group that had no general local name.^[7]: 883 The southern varieties are locally called Saraiki, and northwestern varieties Hindko or Panjistani. The main identifier of Lahnda is use of 'ahā' in the past instead of the Standard Punjabi "sì sì'gē and sàn,"

Below is a list of Western Punjabi's dialects as well as the number of speakers:^[1][3]

• Hindko; 2 million

Northern Hindko (Kagani)

Southern Hindko

• Inku (Jakati)
• Khetrani
• Pahari-Potwari (Pothohari); 4 million
• Saraiki; 20 million

Because Punjabi is spoken in a region that has witnessed significant ethnic and identity conflict, it has been exposed to the dialect-versus-language debate. Recently, Saraiki and Hindko are being cultivated as literary languages.^[8] The development of the standard written language began after the founding of Pakistan in 1947, driven by a regionalist political movements.^{[9]: 838 [10]} The national census of Pakistan has counted Saraiki and Hindko speakers since 1981.^[11]: 46

Khetrani is commonly included, but may be a remnant Dardic language.^[12] Some of the northern dialects of what has for geographical reasons been considered Gujarati are actually closer to Lahnda. There is also a Lahnda language in Afghanistan and Ukraine in the form of Jakati.

Lahnda has several traits that distinguish it from Punjabi, such as a future tense in -s-. Like Sindhi, Siraiki retains breathy-voiced consonants, has developed implosives, and lacks tone. Hindko, also called Panjistani or (ambiguously) Pahari, is more like Punjabi in this regard, though the equivalent of the low-rising tone of Punjabi is a high-falling tone in Peshawar Hindko.^[8]

Sindhi, Lahnda, Punjabi, and Western Pahari form a dialect continuum with no clear-cut boundaries. Ethnologue classifies the western dialects of Punjabi as Lahnda, so that the Lahnda–Punjabi isogloss approximates the Pakistani–Indian border.^[13]

• Sandesh Rasak