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Concept
Saraiki language
Summary
Saraiki ( ; also spelt Siraiki, or Seraiki) is an Indo-Aryan language of the Lahnda group, spoken by 26 million people primarily in the south-western half of the province of Punjab in Pakistan. It was previously known as Multani, after its main dialect.
Saraiki has partial mutual intelligibility with Standard Punjabi, and it shares with it a large portion of its vocabulary and morphology. At the same time in its phonology it is radically different (particularly in the lack of tones, the preservation of the voiced aspirates and the development of implosive consonants), and has important grammatical features in common with the Sindhi language spoken to the south.
The Saraiki language identity arose in the 1960s, encompassing more narrow local earlier identities (like Multani, Derawi or Riasati), and distinguishing itself from broader ones like that of Punjabi.
The present extent of the meaning of is a recent development, and the term most probably gained its currency during the nationalist movement of the 1960s. It has been in use for much longer in Sindh to refer to the speech of the immigrants from the north, principally Siraiki-speaking Baloch tribes who settled there between the 16th and the 19th centuries. In this context, the term can most plausibly be explained as originally having had the meaning "the language of the north", from the Sindhi word siro 'up-river, north'. This name can ambiguously refer to the northern dialects of Sindhi, but these are nowadays more commonly known as "Siroli" or "Sireli".
An alternative hypothesis is that Sarākī originated in the word sauvīrā, or Sauvira, an ancient kingdom which was also mentioned in the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata.
Currently, the most common rendering of the name is Saraiki. However, Seraiki and Siraiki have also been used in academia until recently. Precise spelling aside, the name was first adopted in the 1960s by regional social and political leaders.
Saraiki is a member of the Indo-Aryan subdivision of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family.
Official source
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