Sindhi language
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What is the Sindhi language?
Sindhi is an Indo-Aryan language with approximately 23 million speakers in Pakistan, mainly in the Sindh province, where it is the official language. An additional 2.5 million speakers reside in India, where Sindhi is a constitutionally recognized language. There are also smaller populations of Sindhi speakers in North America, the United Kingdom, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.
Historically isolated in the lower Indus Valley, Sindhi has unique linguistic features. It is most closely related to Siraiki and is characterized by implosive consonants and the preservation of old short final vowels. The Sindhi-Arabic script, standardized in 1853, is a source of cultural pride and solidarity for Sindhi speakers. Although there were attempts to promote the Devanagari script in India, the Sindhi-Arabic script remains widely used in both India and Pakistan.
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Where is Sindhi spoken today?
Today, the Sindhi language is spoken by approximately 23 million people in Pakistan, mainly in the Sindh province, where it holds official status, and the adjacent Las Bela district of Balochistan. In India, where Sindhi is recognized by the constitution, there are about 2.5 million speakers, including those who speak the Kachchhi dialect in Kachchh and communities descended from Sindhi-speaking immigrants who left Pakistan in 1947–48. These communities are primarily settled in Gujarat and Maharashtra states. Additionally, smaller groups of Sindhi speakers can be found in North America, the United Kingdom, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.
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To which language family does Sindhi belong?
The Sindhi language belongs to the Indo-Aryan language family and is spoken by approximately 23 million people in Pakistan and 2.5 million in India. The Indo-Aryan language group is a part of the Indo-European language family, the easternmost branch of which is the Indo-Iranian languages. Sindhi's closest relative is Siraiki. Sindh's historically isolated situation in the lower Indus Valley distinguishes Sindhi through its unique linguistic features within Indo-Aryan.
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What scripts are used to write Sindhi?
The Sindhi language uses the Sindhi-Arabic script, which was standardized in 1853 by British colonial authorities. This script has 52 letters, more than the 35 letters in the Urdu script, and is written in the printed naskhī form, setting it apart from the cursive nastaʿlīq used for Urdu.
The Sindhi-Arabic script is a source of cultural pride for Sindhi speakers. Although there were attempts to promote the Devanagari script in India, the Sindhi-Arabic script remains common in both India and Pakistan. Additionally, the Sindhi script is used to write Siraiki in Sindh, where Siraiki is spoken alongside Sindhi.
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What are some features that make Sindhi unique compared to other languages in its region?
The Sindhi language, spoken in the Sindh province of Pakistan and parts of India, possesses unique features compared to other regional languages.
- Implosive Consonants Sindhi shares with Siraiki four distinctive implosive consonants, which are pronounced with indrawn breath.
- Preservation of Old Vowels Sindhi retains old short final vowels lost in most other Indo-Aryan languages.
- Vocabulary and Grammar Sindhi is distinguished by its unique vocabulary and complex grammatical system, including irregular past participles and suffixed pronouns.
- Script The Sindhi-Arabic script, standardized in 1853, has 52 letters, distinctively written in the printed naskhī form. This script is a source of cultural pride for Sindhi speakers.
- Cultural Synthesis Sindhi literature uniquely combines Vedantic thought and Islamic mysticism, showcasing religious liberalism in its poetry.
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How has the history of Sindh influenced the development of the Sindhi language?
The history of Sindh has significantly shaped the development of the Sindhi language. Sindh's historically isolated position in the lower Indus Valley has given Sindhi unique linguistic features within the Indo-Aryan language family.
The partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 disrupted Sindh's cultural homogeneity, as many Hindu Sindhi speakers migrated to India. The settlement of Urdu-speaking immigrants (muhajirs) in Sindh's urban centers led to tensions between indigenous Sindhi speakers and the muhajirs, influencing the promotion and preservation of Sindhi language and culture.
The Muslim majority favored the use of the Arabic script, which was standardized in 1853 by British colonial authorities. This script, with its distinctive appearance, has become a source of cultural pride for Sindhi speakers.
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Sindhi language, Indo-Aryan language spoken by about 23 million people in Pakistan, mostly living in the southeastern province of Sindh, where it has official status, and in the adjacent Las Bela district of Balochistan. In India, where Sindhi is one of the languages recognized by the constitution, there are some 2.5 million speakers, including both speakers of the Kachchhi dialect living in Kachchh, on the Pakistan frontier, and communities descended from Sindhi-speaking immigrants who had left Pakistan in 1947–48 and who are mostly settled in Gujarat and Maharashtra states. There are also smaller overseas groups in North America, the United Kingdom, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.
Characteristics
As a result of the historically isolated situation of Sindh in the lower Indus valley, Sindhi is distinguished within Indo-Aryan by many linguistic features of its own. Its closest relative is Siraiki, with which it shares the four distinctive implosive consonants /b/, /d/, /g/, and /j/, which are pronounced with indrawn breath and contrast phonemically with the usual /b/, /d/, /g/, and /j/. Sindhi also preserves the old short final vowels lost in most other Indo-Aryan languages—e.g., gharu ‘house,’ ghara ‘houses,’ versus Siraiki (and Urdu) ghar ‘house, houses.’ Sindhi is further distinguished by numerous items of vocabulary and by many complexities in its grammatical system, such as a large number of irregular past participles—e.g., ditho ‘saw’ from disanu ‘to see,’ muo ‘died’ from maranu ‘to die’—and the use of suffixed pronouns, as in atha-mi ‘is mine,’ atha-si ‘is his.’
Scripts
Various indigenous scripts were formerly used by Hindu business communities to write Sindhi, but those are all now obsolete. The Muslim majority always favoured the use of the Arabic script with some necessary adaptations to record Sindhi sounds. Finally standardized in 1853 by the British colonial authorities, that Sindhi-Arabic script has since been in general use. Distinctively written in the printed naskhī form as opposed to the cursive nastaʿlīq used for Urdu, the Sindhi script has 52 letters (as against 35 in the Urdu script). They include not only letters with special combinations of dots to write the implosive consonants and the distinctive set of nasal sounds but also numerous other dotted letters to write most of the aspirated consonants, such as bh, dh, th, and so on, that appear in Urdu as combinations of the simple consonants with -h.
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The distinctive appearance of the Sindhi-Arabic script is a matter of great cultural pride to most Sindhi speakers, whose cultural solidarity is reinforced by the universal appeal of the great symbolic figure of classical Sindhi literature, the Sufi poet Shah Abdul Latif of Bhit (1690–1752). Although attempts were made in India to encourage the writing of Sindhi in the national Devanagari script used for Hindi, the Sindhi-Arabic script continues to be generally current in both India and Pakistan.
Sindhi since 1947
The cultural homogeneity of Sindh that embraced both Hindu and Muslim speakers of Sindhi in the colonial period was severely disrupted by the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. Most Hindu Sindhi speakers migrated to India, where they form a minority scattered among speakers of other languages. Their leading position in the urban society of Sindh in Pakistan was assumed by the immigrants known as muhajirs, the Urdu-speaking Muslims who came from the towns of North India to settle in large numbers in Karachi and other cities. The subsequent history of Sindh has been marked by a continuing tension between the indigenous Sindhi speakers, who have often felt marginalized, and the numerically superior muhajirs, whose overwhelming urban presence has allowed them to maintain a separate linguistic identity.