Punjabi Dialects

Due to vast area of land where Punjabi is spoken, different local variations or dialects have developed.

Majhi: Spoken in the heart of Punjab i.e., Lahore , Sialkot, Gujaranwala, Gurdaspur, Amritsar. Most of the population of Punjab lives in this area and linguists also say that Majhi dialect is the “Tixali boli” i.e., it has been influenced by all other dialects.

Malwi: Spoken in the east Punjab area of Ludhiana, Ambala, Bathinda, Ganganagar, Maleerkotla Fazilka, Ferozepur. This area (Malwa) is the southern and central part of present day Indian Punjab. Also includes the Punjabi speaking areas of Haryana, viz. Ambala, Hissar, Sirsa, Kurukhetra etc. (northern parts of Haryana mainly).

Doabi: Land between the rivers of Beas and Satluj is called Doaba. Do Aaba lierally means “the land between two waters” in Persian. It includes Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, and large number of Punjabis from this area have gone out to U.K., USA, Canada or elsewhere.

Pothohari: The area where Pothohari is spoken extends in the north from Kashmir to as far south as Jehlum and Gujar Khan and includes the capital of Pakistan, Islamabad. The whole area (i.e. the north-west of Punjab) is beautiful scenic area. It’s here that the beautiful hilly resorts of Murree, Ayubia, Nathia-Gali lies. This dialect is similar to some extent to the Hindko dialect of Punjabi which is spoken in Peshawar, Nowshehra, Mansehra all these areas lie in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan where majority language is Pashto, but Hindko speakers area also found in sizable numbers.

Jhangvi: The region where Jhangvi is spoken stretches from Khanewal to Jhang and includes the cities of Faisalabad, Chiniot. Jhangvi dialect is also called the “Jangli” dialect of Punjabi. This is the land of Heer/Ranjha. Their tomb is located in Jhang city. Sultan Bahu is an important saint of this area.

Multani: The dialect spoken in Multan, Bahawalpur, Khairpur, Daira Ghazi Khan, Muzafar Garh i.e., southern deserts of Punjab is called Multani (also Lehndi by some) and perhaps differs from Punjabi more than any other dialect. This is the land of Muslim Sufis, perhaps “Shah Shams Sabazwari” who came to Multan in 1165 AD was the first in a long series of Sufis to base themselves in Multan.

Source: http://emuseum.mnsu.edu/cultural/oldworld/middle_east/punjab.html


The eyelids of a Rajputs eyes are lowered only in death.

this is intersting but could someone give us examples of sentences to show waht each dialect sounds like

e.g

lahoris say 'bache theek ne' 'asi ava ge'
faisalabadis say 'bache thheek a' 'asi aoonge'
mirpuris sound differnt etc

Mostly people living in UK are speaking Pothohari (mirpuri accent called in UK).

Some Majhi & some doaba are in UK as well. Mostly sikhs speak in Malwi accent & is rarely spoken in Pakistan (usually Loyalpur/Faisalabad area only).


I speak in typical Lahori accent, usually sikhs like my accent (I dont know why) but 90% people recognize straight away that I am speaking in Lahori accent. Some times I speak in Gujrat/Sailkoat accent as well, if I want to pretend that my background is not from Lahore

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[This message has been edited by Najim (edited May 14, 2002).]

Amritsar and Lahore are both in Majha region. The dialect of Lahore, Kasoor and Amritsar is the same. I remember when Roman and I first got acquainted on the net, one day while chatting he used some Punjabi word(can't rememebr it now what it was)..I knew that word is used no where else by in Lahore and Amritsar area...in fact many of my friends from Patiala and other parts of Punjab used make fun of me when used such words..I knew right away he got to be from my neighourhood..interesingly that was true. You can tell by accent or use of certain words where the person is from.

Channji..Sadi zuban da koi zikar e nahi? Whoever complied this info missed out my dialect.

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ohhhh …now i am concerned…on top of learning urdu..and pashto…now there are more languages to learn…

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There are several languages spoken in PK. Urdu is National language & spoken by 90% people of PK. Other major languages are,

1) Punjabi
2) Sindhi
3) Pushto
4) Brahwi (Brahvi)
5) Balochi

All above mentioned languages have different dialects.

Some of the languages are

Hindko
Sira-iki (intense & extreme dialect of Punjabi)
Kafirstani
Kashmiri

Some others not in my mind right now .. or I dont know.

Regards.

Rajput Jee tusi ik hor dialect miss kar dita jai. I speak Punjabi in Karachiite dialect. Its so easy that ppl in Karachi have no problem in understanding it. Ppl in Karachi use so many urdu words and their accent isnt so much "thait"like Lahories.
Anyways, interesting information.

Mirpuri, Hindko, and Seraiki maybe related to Punjabi but are seperate langauges in there own right. Especially Seraikis do not consider themselves as Punjabis and these days even Mirpuris do not.

You are right Jimmy, Saraikees even want a separate city or lets say unit for themselves. They donot consider themselves Punjabis.